Free Waltz This Way (v1.1) by Dakota Cassidy

Maxine must have spent hours and hours thinking up. It was only right she honor the effort and the job Maxine had found for her.
    “And yes, before you say it, it took a long time to come up with some of those witty words of wisdom. A writer, I ain’t.” Max gave her a knowing look and a raise of her eyebrows.
    “You’re like a mind reader at a carnival. Spooky.”
    “I have to be. If I don’t anticipate the cruel jokes you’ll make about my divorce advice, I can’t be prepared to fire back, now can I? So, how do you feel today? Did you get a good night’s sleep? Eat something nutritionally balanced and not slathered in chocolate?”
    “All while I memorized your pamphlet as if it were the new Bible.”
    Max pulled into a parking space and patted Mel on the back. “I’m glad you have a sense of humor. You’ll need it with a bunch of preteen boys who’d rather have lobotomies than learn how to dance.”
    Mel looked down at her hands, clutched together in a ball. “I don’t want to dance. How can I expect them to want to?”
    “You’ll find it again, honey. I know you will. Someone who danced like you did can’t have lost all of that joy. It’s just buried under a pile of shit that’s become more important— like survival. But dancing was once your life, and the pleasure you took from it isn’t stupid or insignificant. It’s not trivial.”
    Mel’s head shot up. That was exactly how she felt. Dancing seemed superficial and a ridiculous skill to have when she could have been a shop teacher or a garbage man. “How did you know?”
    “I know because being a housewife was to me like dancing is to you. Okay, maybe that’s a shitty analogy, but you get the meaning, right? You think to yourself, ‘Jesus, what good does it do me to love to dance when I don’t want to get out of bed. Who cares that I was, at my peak, once a champion in the sport?’ ”
    Mel nodded her consent, the deep regret for her lost youth stung like vinegar on a fresh wound these days. “I knew the hazards going in. I knew making a living as a dancer was at best a huge risk and at worst a pipe dream. But back then when I met Stan and he was full of so much praise for my work, I thought nothing could stop me. Youth, right? But then his work took precedence. I became more of an assistant to him, and I stopped pursuing auditions because his work always took us all over the globe. When I think about how glad I was that he decided to do the show because it meant we’d stay in one place for an extended period of time, it makes me want to drive to Hollywood and choke him.” But only after she cut out his heart.
    Max clapped her thigh. “Good! Angry is good. It beats indifference. That’s death. Trust me. Look, everything you once loved looks very dull and drab to you right now, but I promise, it gets shinier once you dust it off and give it a good buffing. This is your opportunity, Mel. No one who danced like you did can stay dormant forever. No one.”
    Nervous anxiety skittered along Mel’s spine. “Suddenly, I’m a nervous wreck.” Since she’d snared this job yesterday, her attitude had been one of unsettling indifference. It didn’t feel like the coup of the century. It didn’t feel lucky. Maybe she just couldn’t feel anymore?
    Though, it certainly should feel lucky, considering her complete lack of marketable skills. She was going to make a semi-decent salary and she had benefits. In a few months, she and Weez could stop leeching off her father.
    Max had told her how Frankie and Jasmine had struggled. That her struggle was a far shorter journey should be a reason to be grateful. She’d only been broke a few months instead of close to a year like Maxine.
    Instead, last night, after her boring dinner and only a half of a spoonful of some refrigerator-hard frosting, she’d gone to bed without a single worry about her new employment.
    She was too caught up in how much she missed her other students, students who weren’t