Blackhawks & Ballerinas

My phone rings and without looking at the screen, I answer it. I’m sitting in the backseat of a limo hired to take me from the airport in Paris to Harley’s apartment. My dad had practice and had to change flights last minute, but he promised me he would be in Paris as soon as he could. He didn’t need to promise me, I knew he would kill himself trying to get here. All so he and Harley can pretend they aren’t madly in love with each other for the first 32 hours, then cave and fall into each other’s arms.

“Hello?”

“Cat?” I recognize the voice immediately as my boyfriend, Connor.

“Yeah. Hi.”

“Catherine,” he always does a shitty job of pronouncing my name, “You’re answering your phone. That means you’re in Paris, which means you didn’t call me when you got to Paris.”

I roll my eyes even though he can’t see, and the car stops in front of the apartment building. The driver offers to carry my bags and I nod my head and mouth ‘thank you,’ taking in my first breaths of Paris air.

“Cat are you even listening?” he whines.

“Not really.”

“Oh, nice, that’s just great Cat. Really classy. Really matu…”

I cut him off, “Listen, I’d love to sit here and listen to my girlfriend whine, bitch and moan about how I haven’t called her in the past eight hours, but I’m at Harley’s now so I gotta go.”

“Alright, call me when you can. Don’t get yourself into any trouble,” he says with a warning tone.

“Yeah, thanks mother. Bye.”

I can hear him saying ‘I love you’ as I bring my phone down from my ear and hit the end button. On second thought, better turn it off altogether. Connor gets really annoying whenever I go away. He’s super paranoid I’m going to find someone else. Keep acting that way and I just might, I think to myself.

I walk into the studio under the apartment where Harley is teaching a jazz class for what looks like the 15-16 year olds. The bell above her door rings but no one could hear it over the music. 30 year old Harley looks pretty much the same as 20 year old Harley did. She still has long blonde hair and has been able to maintain her kick ass dancer’s body. The music stops and I take that as my cue to draw some attention to myself.

“OH DAYUMM GURL!” I catcall, and Harley looks up, eyes like daggers, ready to attack the person who interrupted her class. Her expression softens as I reveal myself and she practically jumps on top of me.

“CATHERINE!” Harley is the only one who can ever pronounce my name right, “How are you? How was your flight? Are you hungry? What do you need? How’s Chicago? How’s school? How’s Connor?”

Her questions come at me a mile a minute, but I’m able to answer all of them like the champ that I am. “Good! Bad. No. Nothing. The same. It’s summer so who cares. Annoying ever since I left.”

She remembers she has a dance class going on and turns back to the gossiping teenagers. “Les filles c'est la fille que je n'ai jamais eu, Catherine. (Girls, this is the daughter I never had, Catherine.)”

“Bonjour Catherine,” they say in unison.

“Nice, de vous rencontrer tous, je vais probablement vous enseigner à un certain point cet été. (Nice to meet you all, I will probably be teaching you at some point this summer.)”

“Aller sur la combinaison à nouveau pendant que je parle à Catherine. (Go over the combination again while I talk to Catherine.)” she instructs her class and then turns back to me.

“So, how’s Jake?” I ask, referring to Harley’s most recent boyfriend.

“I broke up with him.”

“Just in time for my dad to get here,” I say, rolling my eyes.

“Coincidence,” she replies sharply.

“Harley, it’s not a coincidence if you dump your boyfriend every year right before my dad comes.”

She ignores me. “How is Patrick?” she asks, not looking at me while doing so.

“Still in love with you.”

She gives me a warning glance, but seems content with my answer. “So Connor’s being annoying huh? I don’t understand you, Catherine. You got a team full of gorgeous hockey players and you choose him.” She makes a disgusted face at the mention of my boyfriend. She’s never liked Connor for some reason or another.

“What is your problem with him?”

“I’m just afraid if we’re not careful he might go into a relationship with your dad,” she jokes, but it was true, Connor tried really hard to impress my dad. I guess he assumes that since my dad is a pro hockey player, he could crush Connor’s skull in if he wanted to, which is pretty much true.

I laugh, “Je serai à l'étage, dormir jusqu'à ma mort. (I'll be upstairs, sleeping until I die.)”

“Si vous besoin de quelque chose, n'hésitez pas à demander (If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask,)” she replies and goes back to teaching her class.