Pas-De-Deux - Chapter One

Looking back, I have a hard time figuring out how we got here. It was so crazy back then… I don’t know how we didn’t all kill each other before the year was out, but we managed. I’m sure you’re all wondering what I’m talking about, and I suppose I did get ahead of myself. I’m Ana. It’s short for Analise. I love my name, but it’s too… formal, I guess would be the word. So Josh – the best person a girl could have for a friend – decided to shorten it back in 3rd grade. That was before. Before high school, before love, and, most importantly, before the auditions.

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“Josh! Put me down!” Ana screeched as Josh tossed her over his shoulder and carried her into the house. “This is not funny, Josh! I swear if you don’t put me down right now, in rehearsals tonight, my knee is going to slip after one of the lifts… Oof!”
Ana hit the couch, unceremoniously being plopped down. The others snickered their way into the room. “Yeah, laugh it up. Madame Reynolds owes me a favor – we’ll see who’s laughing after class tonight.”

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Madame Reynolds. She was a professional dancer, once. Now, she teaches ballet at the Andrews School of Dance. Yeah – some cities have schools for art, drama, technology. Ours has one for dance. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great school – really exclusive, nationally ranked… to figure out the valedictorian, they have to carry GPAs out to 5 decimal places. But the competition is fierce. It’s… well, you’ll see.
Basically, the way the school works is during the day we have classes like any other school, but if we have a free period, we can pick up extra dance classes. In PE, we typically have workouts – the whole sit ups, push ups, stretching routine – or we have mini competitions – ballroom dancing, hip hop, krumping, anything really. Then we have 2-3 hours to go home, shopping, appointments, and do homework. After our breaks, we go back to the school and have dance classes until 9 or 10 PM – and that’s if we don’t have rehearsals for a performance or competition. It’s exhausting, but I love it. I really do. It’s not like a regular specialized school since we have classes at night – you might say it’s a cross between a boarding school and a dance studio.

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Everyone backed away with their hands in the air.
“Ana… you wouldn’t. Even you’re not that cruel,” a raven-haired girl with blue streaks stuttered.
“Oh, but I would,” Ana grinned evily.
Josh reluctantly nodded. “Yeah. She would.” He paused. “A bit of advice for everyone? Run.” He dashed out of the room and up the stairs.
“Stay out of my room!” Ana yelled up the stairs.

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I guess this would make more sense if I introduced everyone. I’ve got a group of friends; six of us.

-° Analise Rose Sanders (AKA me). 17. 5’4”. Dark brown hair with blonde highlights and red lowlights. Fairly pale skin.
-° Joshua Paul Samuels (AKA Josh). 17. 6’. Black hair – the shade of black that seems to absorb light. Lightly tan. My best friend in the world. And I’m his.
-° Emma Marie Natchez (AKA Emmy, AKA Natz). 16. 5’2”. Black hair – the shiny, blue tinted kind – streaked with blue at the moment, but it’ll be out by the next performance. Pale – very pale.
-° Daniel Simmons (AKA Daniel, AKA Danny). No middle name; no relation to Richard Simmons. 17. 5’10”. Blonde hair – all shaggy and messy. Tan.
-° Rachel Lane Marshals (AKA Raech). 16. 5’6”. Reddish-brown hair. Light skin.
-° Marcus Eliot Natchez (AKA Marc). 16. 6’2”. Emmy’s twin brother. Same hair – without the blue, of course. Slightly more tan than Emmy though.

Josh and I are partners in our dance class, as are Emmy and Danny, and Rachel and Marc. We’re all juniors at Andrews. And we all have the same horrendous schedules. It became the six of us after the dance class in 6th grade. Josh and I have always known each other, and we were friends with Danny, who had been in our dance classes for as long as we could remember. He had been partnered with Emmy that class, which brought her into the group, obviously bringing along Marc and his partner Rachel. We’ve been pretty much inseparable ever since.

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Emmy snickered. “Has he ever listened to that particular rule?”
“Nope,” Ana sighed. “That’s okay. One of these days I’m going to rig up some prank on my door. We’ll see who’s laughing then.”
“Dude, Josh, get back down here! We’ve got to get this worksheet done by Wednesday!” Danny threw his bag down on the floor, yelling up the stairs.
Ana plugged her iPod into the family room’s speaker system. “Ok, everyone gets to pick five songs, then we put it on shuffle. Then, when a new song comes on, we can try to guess who put it on there. Good idea?”
“Sounds good to me,” Josh walked back into the room. “And when someone (read: Raech) picks a good song, who gets dibs on it for our hip-hop project?”
“Umm…” Rachel pondered the question. “Whoever picked the song gets it for their group. If both people in the group pick wanted songs, they pick one and the rejected one is up for grabs. That good?” The rest of the group agreed and pulled out their homework.
“So… who understands our physics homework?” Marc grumbled. “’Cause I sure as hell don’t.”
As the others mumbled that they didn’t understand it, Emmy threw a pillow at her twin. “Marc, language!”
“Yeah, Emmy, like you’ve never cussed,” Marc looked at her disbelievingly
“I sure as hell haven’t!” She countered with such vehemence that the rest of the group was in hysterics. “What? What’d I say?”
Danny reached over and patted her shoulder, managing to speak through his laughter, “Emmy, one day we’re going to put a tape recorder in your purse, and record you all day. Then you’re going to listen to yourself.”
This statement caused the rest of the group to dissolve into laughter again, excluding Emmy, who was sitting and repeating, “What’s so funny?”

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We actually did that a few weeks later. I don’t think she completely got the point, though.
We never got that physics homework done, either.