A/N: I hope you liked this so far! Here's the next chapter!
"It's a boarding school?" Vera jerked with surprise and the top scoop of her ice cream cone teetered dangerously. She poked it securely back in place, licked her finger, then wiped her hand on the bright green sod surrounding Sneaky Pete's parking lot. On a far corner of the lawn the sprinklers made a slow swooshing noise, and drops of water fell to the ground glistening like jewels in the afternoon sun. Vera and Rosalie had headed directly from the dance class to San Lorenzo's popular hangout to celebrate Rosalie's big news.
Rosalie rolled her eyes at Vera's question. "Dumb, Morely. You're really dumb!" Rosalie paused to lick the edge of her frozen fruit bar, then let out a patient sigh. Sometimes her best friend's ignorance of dance matters was astounding. "For someone who's been studying ballet almost as long as I have, you don't know a thing."
"Tell my mother that!" Vera groaned, brushing crumbs from her cone off her white shorts. "Maybe she'll finally let me stop dancing. I've been studying nearly eight years, just like you, and I'm still not graceful. And I still hate ballet with a passion. Give dogs, horses, cats, cows, the great outdoors," she said with an empathetic toss of her red braid. "I'm just not the indoor, cultured type. You know that. My problem is my mother doesn't."
Rosalie tilted her head back and laughed. The sun was bright in her eyes and she pulled down the sunglasses perched on top of her head and looked at her old friend with affection. "I'm really going to miss you, Vera!" she blurted out. She and Vera had been best friends since they were in first grade and had walked home together every day after school. Sometimes Rosalie was amazed they were still friends because they were so incredibly different. Vera was large-boned and clumsy. She wore thick glasses was very knowledgeable about snakes, lizards, turtles, and other assorted wildlife. She was also a straight-A student. Rosalie wasn't any of those things and had always been glad to have Vera around to help her with homework and to explain exactly what made grass green and what caused rain. Rosalie helped Vera, too, with her dance classes and art projects and all the things Vera never had a knack for.
Rosalie could barely remember a time in her life when Vera hadn't been around to confide in. Vera was the one person who knew how awful Rosalie had felt when Jessica had been chosen to audition two years ago and she hadn't. That's why Rosalie wished Vera looked a little more excited about her news. She leaned back on one arm and repeated thoughtfully, "Yes, I really am going to miss you."
"Oh, you'll be too busy dancing and becoming a star to remember your old friends," Vera said with an exaggerated sniff. "I can see the headlines in the San Lorenzo Banner now-HOMETOWN GIRL MAKES GOOD: DEBUTS WITH BARYSHINIKOV AT WAR MEMORIAL OPERA HOUSE."
Rosalie tossed a handful of grass at Vera. "Don't be such a jerk! Things like that don't happen in real life," she chided, but her heart skipped a beat. Could something so wild and wonderful actually happen to her in the not-too-distant future?
Vera tossed some of the grass back at Rosalie and shrugged. "Well, even if you don't run off and become an overnight dance phenomenon, I know how things are in boarding school." Vera kicked off her sandals and wriggled her pale toes in the grass. She stared sullenly at her feet and continued. "Everyone gets really tight with each other. You'll have a million new friends in a week. Just you watch. You'll forget all about your poor buddies back home in no time."
Rosalie knit her brow and stared out across the highway into the horizon. The fog was rolling in from the coast and the sky over the western hills was pale and hazy. "I'm not going to forget my friends," Rosalie stated empathetically. "Besides, it's not exactly a boarding school. We don't live on the grounds of the place. Academy students are placed with host families or in approved boarding houses."
Vera sat up straight and looked right into Rosalie's eyes. "You know what this all means, don't you?" she said in an ominous tone.
Rosalie shook her head, not quite sure she wanted to hear Vera's revelation.
"You're really leaving San Lorenzo." Vera paused for effect. She twirled one loose strand of red hair around her finger and continued slowly, emphasizing every word. "You are going to leave and never come back again."
"Come off it!" Rosalie dismissed Vera's prediction with a wave of her hand. "I haven't even gotten into the school yet. Don't forget, I've got to go up against a hundred other girls in an audition."
Vera laughed off Rosalie's fears. "You'll get in. You're the best student Miss Young's ever had. And don't start talking about Jessica Stanley." Vera cut off Rosalie's protest before Rosalie had a chance to open her mouth. "She didn't hold a candle to you and she got into a school. So you will too. But the point is, you're going to go to San Francisco, study there a couple of years, try out for a company, and be whisked away to who knows where. New York, Montreal, maybe even London or Paris. After this week I'll never see you again." Vera concluded in a tragic voice. She sighed, and flopped over on her stomach and stared forlornly at the ground.
Rosalie was speechless. So far Vera's reaction to her news hadn't been at all what she'd expected. Vera was supposed to be happy for her and here she was looking positively glum.
"Vera," Rosalie said, "I get the impression you don't think my going to the Academy is such a great thing."
Vera gulped. "Oh, I do, I do. I mean, it's great." She paused, then added dramatically. "For you! But what about me? What about high school? Leaving San Lorenzo means we won't be in high school together."
"You? High School?" Rosalie started to laugh, but the deepening gloom on Vera's face stopped her and made her feel uncomfortable. Rosalie hopped to her feet and aimed the remains of her fruit bar toward the trash can. It fell woefully short. She jogged over to pick it up and toss it in. She quickly counted to ten before heading back to Vera. Sometimes her best friend was really exasperating. Rosalie hoisted the straps of her purple overalls back up on her shoulders and looked down at Vera.
"I don't see what my going to San Francisco has to do with you," she said, stuffing her hands into her pockets and rocking back and forth on her heels. If getting into a school connected with a major company was the first step on the ladder to success, nothing else should matter. This was the best thing that had ever happened to Rosalie, and Vera didn't seem to be the least bit excited for her. If something equally good happened to Vera, Rosalie was certain she'd be overjoyed.
"I said I was going to miss you. And no matter what, we'll still be best friends," Rosalie asserted testily. "Why should the school I go to change that?"
Vera crossed her legs in an awkward lotus position and propped her chin on her hands. She stared at Rosalie skeptically for a minute. "I guess I was really looking forward to going to San Lorenzo High together. You know, the dances, the ball games, the parties. Meeting guys, all that normal everyday high school stuff."
Rosalie didn't know how to respond. Of course going off to the San Francisco Ballet Academy wasn't something every high school kid would do. But Rosalie wasn't every high school kid. She was a dancer and all she had ever wanted was to dance. When she danced she felt as if she were part of something bigger than herself, something very special that had existed for a long, long time. Just hearing the opening strains of any of the famous classical ballet pas de duex sent chills down her spine. Someday she'd be standing backstage in the wings listening to the overture, nervous, frightened, waiting for the curtain to rise and the ballet to begin. That was the world Rosalie dreamed of. If she could someday dance in Sleeping Beauty- even in the corps-missing out on normal high school life would be worth it.
But Vera didn't seem to understand that. No one Rosalie knew in San Lorenzo did, except Miss Young, and Miss Young was sending her away to the world where she belonged.
Rosalie looked at Vera and suddenly felt let down. "I didn't think being best friends meant we had a contract to go to high school together," she said irritably. "We could have been assigned to different school districts. Everyone two blocks south of us is going to Gilroy Central High." She stopped and kicked her pink Reeboks against the trunk of a low, sprawling oak tree. She reached up and dangled from one of its dark branches. "Friendship has to survive lots of ups and downs," she said more to herself than Vera.
Vera looked at her coldly and said, "I'm not sure you know anything about being friends, Rosalie."
Rosalie let go of the branch and dropped to the ground.
"What are you talking about?"
Vera shrugged and began gathering up her things. "I think all you care about is dancing. No, not just dancing-your dancing."
"I don't believe you, Vera. Just because I'm not going to the same high school as you, you're telling me I'm self-centered, that I don't know how to be a friend. Well, I've always wanted to dance. You know that. I don't know why my going away should make me any less of a friend." She had to control herself to keep from shouting. How could her best friend in the world not understand that she was being given the chance of a lifetime? She couldn't stick around just so they could experience high school together.
Vera was right. All that mattered was her dancing. She looked at her friend, and wondered if she could ever understand that.
"Well, dancing isn't the only thing in the world, you know," Vera went on. "People are important too. People-like your friends, like me." She thumped her chest for emphasis.
"I know that." Rosalie paced over to the curb and back again. She was beginning to wish she didn't have to wait for Vera's mother to give them a ride home.
"But you act like all that matter is your dancing." Vera pursued the argument. "You've always been that way, I guess," she added sadly. "I just never realized it bothered me until now." Vera looked from Rosalie in the parking lot to Sneaky Pete's takeout stand. She let out a loud sigh and said in a shrill voice, "What if you don't get in, Rosalie? What are you going to do then? Have you thought about that? What if you don't make it as a dancer, what happens next? What if you come back here after a year or two, and have no friends left?"
"I thought you said you believed in me," Rosalie said with a gasp.
"I do. I believe in you as a dancer." Vera shook her head in disgust. "But I'm not sure I believe in you as a friend anymore."
"Just because I'm going away to school?" Rosalie cried. She picked up her dance bag and slung it over her shoulder. Her voice trembled as she went on, "I know what's wrong with you, Vera. You're jealous." Rosalie accused suddenly. "I bet you-and half the other kids I know-would give their right arm to have a chance to go off and make a dream come true the way I do." Rosalie's voice rose a decibel with every word. Slowly an idea took shape in her mind. "You know what else?" she said in a low voice, and tapped Vera's finger.
Vera took a couple of steps backward, out of arm's reach.
"I think," Rosalie fumed, her eyes flashing fire, "that you wish you half the dancer I am, that you wish you were in my shoes right now. Maybe I'll really get the chance to study with some guy as great as Baryshnikov someday. All you can do is dream about it." Rosalie planted her hands on her hips and stared at her friend. Vera shrank back farther. "And you say I'm the one who's not a good friend. A good friend cheers her friend on when something good happens."
"That's not fair!" Vera cried, shocked at Rosalie's outburst. Her usually pale face was beet-red now, and her eyes brimmed with tears. "That's just not fair. But if that's how you feel about, then I guess this is one friendship I'm glad is over."
The honk of a horn cut Vera off.
With her head held high Rosalie marched toward the Morelys' rusty station wagon. As she approached the car she quickly rubbed her arm across her face, wiping away the tears that were beginning to spill out of her eyes. She put on what Miss Young had always called her best ballerina smile. "Hi, Mrs. Morely. I really appreciate the ride," she said, climbing into the back seat. She pushed down the door lock with an empathetic gesture as Vera hurried up behind her.
Vera flung open the front door and slipped in beside her mother. She pulled off her glasses and cleaned them on the front of her T-shirt, never once turning around to look back at her friend.
A/N: So what do you think? Like it? Review please! Next Chapter up soon!