"Move it, just move!" I spoke without even realizing how I sounded.
Heidi, who was always surprised at how I managed to stay so calm in traffic, widened her eyes and said, "You're unbelievable." Was that a compliment? "Actually, you're perfect, girl!"
She loved pampering me. Our mutual praise came from one thing: female solidarity! Yes, most of the time, that's enough for girls.
Checking the rearview mirror, I crossed to the opposite lane from the crossroads where the trees were fenced off. After turning on her favorite music on the radio, Heidi ate her chocolate. Her hands were covered in cocoa.
"Watch the seats!" I said, keeping in mind they had just been cleaned.
"Alright, alright, we didn't eat your car," she said, leaning back and folding her arms. "Yesterday was so busy."
She didn't say it to complain, because in her own words, like other strong women, she didn't like complaining.
"You're right," I said, thinning my voice.
But she found my attitude fake and burst into laughter. "How your voice thins out when you're around certain people!"
It was unbelievable that this girl—my best friend—had actually paid money specifically to have the gap between her teeth widened.
"Why aren't you answering?"
Catching only the last word, I said, "I don't like that last ponytail girl who came in either."
Did I roll the dice right? My God.
Heidi let out a laugh. "Is that what I said?" She examined her nails. "We get it, you weren't listening. I'm saying... Oh man, girl. The girl can't coordinate between her hips and her arms. Plus, her family is clearly forcing her to take the course!"
I laughed through my nose. "Because she's the precious princess of the Lutten family!"
When you mentioned the Lutten family, owners of one of the country's largest coffee companies, you couldn't help but think of golden faucets.
"Let me have a say," Heidi said. "After all, I'm not a servant to the Lutten family. What about you?"
Heidi didn't like the whims of the rich. She found them crappy and would slap a poop emoji on every rich person's business.
"I'd want to be," I said indifferently.
She rolled her eyes. "Even being a dance instructor is better. No way!"
Unlike me, Heidi didn't enjoy the dance instructor job. But still, I had never caught her doing her job wrong or incompletely. She was loyal to her word and her work.
Turning the steering wheel, I parked my car in the courtyard of the dance education center, which was surrounded by long blue glass.
"Get out."
When we got out of the car, Heidi slapped the ground under her feet and linked her arm with mine after waiting for me to toss the key into my pocket. As soon as we stepped inside, a heavy scent of perfume filled my lungs. This perfume... Damn it! It was my ex-boyfriend's cologne. I'd recognize it anywhere.
But just as every bearded man isn't your grandfather, not everyone who used this perfume was going to be my boyfriend.
I'd had a total of two boyfriends. Both relationships had fallen apart just when I thought they couldn't get any worse.
Case file number one: Heigh Keller. A successful athlete, long legs, good muscle structure, ice-blue eyes. Literally one of a kind.
Case file number two: Bill Morter. One of the background dancers for the Bright Stars group. Also, a live bomb ticking in the background of my life. His curly hair comes to mind every time I eat spaghetti. Especially the way he called purple orange. The curve of his lips.
"Jennie," Joseph tugged at me.
How long had I been staring at Joseph in front of me?
I came to my senses like pulling your head out of the water after being breathless. "Hih!"
Feeling his long fingers all of a sudden surprised me. He fixed his wavy hair in the front and handed me my morning coffee. I used to think he looked like Bill Morter. "When is your first study session? I thought maybe we could have coffee."
Joseph wasn't exactly shy, but he wasn't very talkative either. Medium sugar coffee.
I reached for the coffee cup in his hand and focused on the dimples his lips made as they curved. "Thanks for the coffee, but I'm afraid we can't drink it together."
The smile on Joseph's face suddenly faded. "Wh-why?"
I knew why I had to answer this question this way every time. I couldn't give him hope.
Egoistic, selfish, and spoiled people like Heigh Keller or Bill Morter always continued their lives with ease. But for ordinary people like Joseph, a tiny moment to be lived was more precious.
In this world, time didn't have the same value for everyone. After all!
One of Joseph's wavy hairs had slipped to the side. When I reached out to fix it, I felt his eyes close, and I pulled my finger back. When he automatically opened his eyes again, I saw his cheeks flush slightly.
Did he like me, as Heidi thought, or was he just being kind enough to treat everyone like that? I didn't know, but I thanked him for the coffee one more time.
Two sugars!
Wait, where did my friend disappear to?
I looked around with searching eyes. Heidi must have already gone into her session. Her studio was 10.2. I imagined her pressing the elevator button with her thick finger despite her slim body. Moreover, with her long nails practically stabbing the buttons.
I was lucky because my dance room was on the ground floor. Here, I could focus on my work, on dancing. Maybe it was because I was teaching in the same place where I had been trained.
When I saw the young girls walking with their bags in their hands, clearly there for dance, they smiled at me. One even said, "Good morning, Ms. Jennie," with her eyes smiling. Yes, I wanted them to be idols whose eyes sparkled when they took the stage. And yes again, women who were the lead roles of their own stage without needing a man. Another one waved. I wasn't sure if they loved me or if it was just out of politeness, but I mimicked them anyway.
At that moment, someone passed right behind me.
I unintentionally squeezed the coffee cup between my fingers, feeling like I was getting burned, and blowing on it, I immediately left the coffee on the long dark brown table at the entrance of the classroom. Ugh! My finger really hurt. I checked the time on my phone. I had two minutes left before class started and I still wasn't ready.
I opened the door to the dressing room next to the long white chandeliers and went inside. I reached for the locker for my things I had prepared yesterday. Putting on a mint-colored legging and sports bra set, I tied my hair tightly from the top. I pulled out my pocket mirror, stuck out my tongue, and checked myself. Then I leaned down and tied the laces of my sneakers.
Comfortable clothes were ideal for dancing. This wasn't a hard idea to come up with.
A minute late, I entered the dance room. There were four students inside.
Scarlet, probably the most beautiful of them, was fixing her blonde hair, which she had tied into pigtails, and moving her feet back and forth. This movement of hers reminded me of being anxious about something. Or should I call it impatience? Even though I said good morning to them, my thoughts were spinning in my head.
I had tasted this feeling of impatience many times while I was in a relationship. I would go to work, and after work, it felt good to get ready and throw myself straight to my boyfriend's side. Then all the tiredness of the day would fall off me like carpet dust. But these were loves I believed to be the "right" ones at the time. I had loved twice, and both times I saw that the person I knew at the beginning was not the same person I knew at the end.
After going over yesterday's moves, I warmed up my body with light movements and tried to show the basic body positions. While trying to show the parallelism of the arms in their final state, I thought for the first time that I wasn't being explanatory enough. When even my best student, Kelin, had trouble understanding, I decided to be a bit more careful and repeated the moves.
You wouldn't want to be a bad advertising face for the Nebula Dance Center.
"We can take a five-minute break." After checking the smart watch on my arm, I took a deep breath.
Everyone was okay with the idea. But the voices inside my head wouldn't stop. I had a completely different kind of restlessness inside me today.
Checking the clock again from the door, when I went outside, I noticed that the coffee cup I had left on the side table was still standing there. Oh! I had forgotten it here. Naturally, I should probably throw it away because it had already turned ice cold. When I gripped the cup tightly with my fingers, I felt that it was empty, not full. I lifted the lid, pulled the straw, and while doing all this, I acted as sneaky as a detective's meticulousness.
Like I'd watched that detective in the movie Ghost shouting "Don't leave fingerprints!" or something!
The cup rustled, and when I touched the straw inside, I noticed a piece of paper. Huh? Those very funny (!) jokes Joseph sometimes made! Who else (rarely) drinks decent coffee in this workplace besides him and me anyway? Most people hated coffee in a way I didn't understand. This wasn't the time. I took out the paper to not spoil the little game of the person I assumed was Joseph and held it up to my eye level.
Damn astigmatism!
I brought the writing very close to my eye. A phone number was written here, along with a note underneath. I narrowed my eyes completely:
"For the first and last time, I chose you."