Free You're So Sweet by Charis Marsh

back down over the barre to stretch it out, watching the dancers around her as she did so. Two barres down, Kaitlyn was laughing with one of the girls from her old school. Alexandra frowned. She really hoped that Kaitlyn wouldn’t get Swanhilda for June show. Otherwise she would just be even more insufferable. This morning she had been telling Michael and Chloe about the time that she had played Clara at only ten years old. Alexandra had wanted to interrupt to point out that the reason she had played Clara was that she had danced at a recreational school and was pretty much the only good dancer at the school.
    Theresa walked in, setting her many bags at the front of the classroom. Alexandra saw her look over and smile at Julian and Taylor. She frowned: what was that about? Did they know Theresa already somehow? She took out her Thera-Band and began to stretch her leg extensions with it.
    Theresa walked to the front of the room and clapped her hands together for class to start. “Good morning everyone!” she said excitedly. “Shall we begin?” She began to give them a plie exercise, but it was obvious that her attention was elsewhere. She stopped in front of Taylor and ran her finger along her leg as Taylor tendued to the side. “There. This is simply beautiful. Gorgeous, my darling, this is a lovely line.”
    The pianist seemed to be hitting the keys a little harder than usual and Alexandra could feel herself snapping all her movements in response, making them jerky and awkward instead of fluid and elastic. “Let’s do something a little different today with the music,” Theresa said suddenly, wincing at the closing notes of the tendue exercise. “Mary, do you think you could play some Christmas music?”
    â€œIt’s April,” Alexandra whispered to Tristan.
    Tristan shrugged. “That is irrelevant,” he whispered back. “I want some Christmas music.”
    Theresa walked over to the piano and began humming “Deck the Halls.”
    â€œOh!” Theresa gave a start of surprise as some of the ladies of the Vancouver Ballet Society came in to watch. She hadn’t yet gotten used to them dropping in to view classes. “We are just about to listen to some lovely Christmas music!”
    They smiled politely as Mary began to play, hitting the keys even harder. Theresa began to choreograph a frappe exercise to the carol, and the class marked along with her. Alexandra smiled: there was something about the discordant combination of sun pouring through the windows and Christmas music being thumped out of a piano that made her very happy. Theresa came over to her and grabbed her leg, jerking it in and out while holding her knee at a solidly turned-out angle. She let go and Alexandra attempted to mimic what Theresa’s hand had forced her to do, but she couldn’t quite manage it.
    â€œAlmost,” Theresa assured her. Alexandra smiled at her, grateful to receive some positive corrections, but almost immediately Theresa moved on to work with Julian. “Much better,” she gushed. Alexandra frowned and her smile dropped as she began to work harder.
    As she worked, she looked in the mirror in front of her, shooting glances throughout the exercise with her eyes as her head moved with her arm the way it was supposed to. Nothing was good enough yet. Not for competition, not for getting a position with a company. Her arches weren’t strong enough yet; she couldn’t consistently roll through smoothly; her arms were awkward when she was nervous; and her legs, although flexible, were nowhere near strong enough. Let alone the right size. Her thighs still looked huge. She looked across at Taylor, and bit her lip. It didn’t matter that Taylor was messing up the exercise every few seconds, or that she had sloppy technique, Theresa would still correct her because she had a good body type. Leonie Camden had had a good body type. What is wrong with