"Sherlock!" I called out from behind the refrigerator door. "We need more milk!"
Sherlock didn't even look up from his newspaper. He just sat there and continued to flip through the thin pages. I shut the door and strode over to stand in front of him with my hands on my hips. "Sherlock, did you hear me?" I said a bit louder.
He glanced up and said, "I'll get it later." Sherlock went back to his reading.
John snorted as he put on his coat, "No you won't." She turned to me and said, "I'll make a run to the store after my shift."
I nodded and caught the coat she tossed to me. John worked at some clinic and I ran the dance department at the trade school a few blocks away. Sherlock worked with the police and John and I usually got dragged into whatever case he took on.
I took a cab down to the school. It was a fairly large place filled with all sorts of people aspiring to be artists, writers, athletes, actors and actresses. My main classes were held in the practice studio off to the side of the Taney Dance Hall. The students' favorite lessons were always the practice runs we did in the hall before a performance. By the time I arrived to it, all 22 of them had arrived and most were dressed in costumes. Their chatter echoed slightly in the vast hall. The focus for tonight's performance was the world so the student's had sectioned themselves off in to groups to preform dances from India, Japan, Russia, and Mexico who would each take a turn preforming before finishing the night with a contra dance from America.
….
"Mari, Mari, calm down! It's just the seam, kiddo." I pulled a little silver sewing kit out of my purse. "Nick, get her some tissues and fix her make up while I patch up this seam." Nick did as he told and I worked on re-hemming the sleeve of the shirt that went under Mari's red sari. There wasn't enough time to reattach the little beads though.
I glanced up at the clock above the entrance to the dressing room. Five minutes until show time. Five minutes and I had no idea where Eliot was. Eliot was my co-director and for every performance since we both could remember we had had to dance this odd sort of combination of a waltz and foxtrot as the school's signature opening. We didn't just do it for the dance department performances. We did it for theater, and music, and just about everything else they taught at this place, too. With two minutes to go, my mobile buzzed. It was Eliot.
"You! Where are you? Two minutes, Eliot!" I all but shouted in the phone.
I heard a laugh on the other end. "Calm down, Henrietta. I'm sick. Perfect timing right?" he joked.
"What am I supposed to do for the opening? Twirl about like a giddy school girl?"
"Well-"
"Don't say yes to that."
Eliot laughed again, "Just have one of the other kids do it with you. I'm sure Jack or David would be able to dance it just fine."
"Eliot, you have terrible timing and you owe me tea." I snapped the phone shut.
"Aren't I usually the one who needs your help getting out of trouble?" a calm voice came from a figure leaning up against the door frame.
"Sherlock? You've never been to one of these performances, much less seen the dance before. You help might end up a disaster," I said as he stepped out of the shadows.
"Oh contraire, I've been to every last one; hiding in the back shadows. Besides you don't even have a choice; it's show time." Sherlock pulled me through the side door and out into the bright lights of Taney Dance hall's chandeliers. He led me into the school's dance and I mentally counted out steps and directed my feet decorated in Dance Master's newest tan dancing heels.
Left back. Right back. Side. Side. Forward. Forward. Side again. Twirl. Repeat.