The Rhythm of Our Feelings novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Cut From the List
Margo's name is struck from the company list in front of everyone; she storms the director's office and wins a probation spot, then learns her mother married a donor and she now lives in Sutton's house. Sutton: "I know exactly what you did."
My name was not on the list.
I read the company sheet pinned outside Studio A three times.
There were twenty-two names in alphabetical order.
Fenner should have sat in the middle of the list, and the line went straight past where it belonged.
Behind me, the hallway had gone quiet.
"Maybe it fell off," Lydia Maddox said.
She leaned against the doorframe with her copper hair pulled flat and her arms crossed.
"Scholarship girls fall off a lot of things."
Someone laughed into a water bottle.
At the top of the sheet, in bold, it said Tidewater, spring premiere, and under it: Sutton Rennard, lead.
Sutton stood at the far end of the hall with her bag on one shoulder.
She had a face like a blade laid flat on a table.
She did not look at me.
She had not looked at me in two years, not since the night she broke her ankle on a stage and I stopped existing.
I had stopped asking why.
"Margo," Lydia said, soft and sweet. "Go home and rest. It's kinder."
I took the pin out of the corkboard.
I took the whole sheet down and folded it into my pocket.
"Hey," somebody said.
"It's Philippa's list," I said. "I'm going to ask her to read it to my face."
I walked down the hall with twenty trainees watching my back.
I knocked once on the director's door and opened it before she answered.
Philippa Lowrie sat behind her desk in black cashmere with her silver bob perfectly set.
A cane leaned on the chair beside her, though I had never seen her use it.
"Miss Fenner," she said. "I was going to send an email."
"You can say it now."
"The company has no place for you this season."
"I've been top three in every evaluation for two years."
"And no lead has gone to you."
"Because every lead went to her."
I did not say which her.
Philippa's mouth tightened a little at the corner.
"Take the summer," she said. "Teach children's classes. Come back in September."
"No."
"It was not a question."
"My scholarship runs through June," I said. "Under the academy's own terms, I keep my place until it ends."
She looked at me for a long moment.
I did not blink.
My heart was going so hard I thought she could see it through my sweater.
"Understudy," she said at last. "Tidewater, second cast. On probation. You earn the contract by dancing, in front of me, every day, or you are gone in June."
"Done."
"You are very stubborn."
"I'm very tired," I said. "It's the same thing."
I left before she could take it back.
My phone buzzed in the hall.
Mom: Come home tonight. I have news. Good news. Please come.
My mother was an ER nurse who ended every twelve-hour shift looking like she'd been dragged through a hedge.
She did not text the word please.
I took the train to the apartment with the company sheet crushed in my fist and my pulse still running.
She was at our kitchen table when I let myself in.
There was a man across from her, tall, silver at the temples, in a grey suit that had never met a bus.
He stood when I came in.
"Margo," my mother said. She was glowing. "This is Wallace."
"We've heard so much," the man said. He held out a hand. "Wallace Rennard."
I knew that name.
It was on the donor wall in the academy lobby, in brass, over the new wing.
"We got married this morning," my mother said. "At the courthouse. I know it's fast."
She held up her left hand.
There was a thin gold ring on it.
"I didn't want to scare you off by telling you ahead," she said. "I wanted you to meet him first."
The room tilted a little.
"You married him," I said.
"Five months, honey. Five months, and I've never been so sure of anything."
Wallace smiled at her.
"Eunice and I would like you both under one roof," he said. "My house has plenty of room. The car is downstairs."
I looked at my mother's happy face.
I swallowed everything I wanted to say.
It was her good news.
Two hours later I stood in the front hall of a limestone house in Lincoln Park with a duffel bag and a garment bag of leotards.
A staircase climbed up out of the marble.
Someone was standing at the top of it.
She wore a grey practice sweater, her blonde hair down for once, and she held the banister with one hand.
Sutton Rennard looked down at me.
Wallace's voice said cheerfully behind me, "Sutton, come meet your new sister."
She came down three steps.
She stopped.
She was close enough that I could smell rosin and cold air on her.
"Welcome home," she said, low enough that only I could hear. "I know exactly what you did."
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