Chapter One: Callie

 

Chapter One:

 

Callie

 

“This message is for all first-class passengers flying to New York City at 12:25 this afternoon. We are going to begin boarding the gate now,” one of the airport workers said over the intercom at the San Francisco Airport.

I turned and looked at my four best friends who were getting ready to leave for boarding school today on later flights. It saddened me to know that I was the first one to depart and that the other four had at least an hour together before someone else left.

“Well, this is it for now you guys,” I said somewhat solemnly. “I don’t get to see you all again until Thanksgiving. But I’ll email you all every day.”

“Yeah,” they replied.

I hugged each and every one of them and then I walked toward the gate. I didn’t say goodbye, because as cliché as this sounds, to me goodbye is too, well, permanent. I reached the gate and I gave the airport worker my ticket. He ran the ticket through a machine and handed it back to me. I turned around and looked back at my friends, who were glumly waving. As I waved back to them, and saw them for the last time until Thanksgiving break, a tear fell down my cheek. Before I could do anything that I would later regret, I turned and walked onto the plane and I didn’t stop until I was seated.

As the plane took off I was watching the city of San Francisco through the window. It got smaller and smaller, and it wasn’t until then that I realized I had just left my life-long home of Bartlett Beach, a town south of San Francisco, for a huge city where I had only been once. I was leaving all of my friends, and my family, too, and people that I had known my entire life for people that I had never met. It was that moment that I began to sob.

“Excuse me miss, are you okay?” a young woman asked me. I turned and looked at the woman. She was tall, thin and probably in her late twenties. I felt as if I recognized her from somewhere, but I couldn’t recall exactly where.

“I’ll be better once we’re in New York,” I told her. “Thank you.”

“We’ll be on the plane for another five hours or so if you want to tell me, I’ll gladly listen.”

I told the woman the whole story, explaining every detail and why this was so upsetting for me. By the time I finished explaining, I had stopped crying. It felt so much better to tell my story to someone who could quite possibly sympathize in some way or another.

“I know exactly how you’re feeling right now. I’ve been in a slightly similar situation. It’s hard at first, but you’ll meet new people, and you’ll still see your best friends on breaks and you can go see them on long weekends too, and I’m sure you’ll talk all the time. It will take time but you’ll adjust. You’re attending New York Dance Academy, huh?” she commented.

“Yeah, dancing in Bartlett Beach isn’t really going to get me farther than it already has.”

“But you just told me that you’ve won four solo national championships and you’re only fourteen years old! Tons of dancers go their entire career without a group title, not to mention a solo title. You’re extremely lucky,” she replied.

“I guess I am. I never thought about it like that,” I began. “Do you mind me asking how you know so much about dance?”

“Well, you could say that I’m especially familiar with the sport,” she began. “I danced for years and, and I won two national solo championships. Then I went on to become a professional ballerina at the New York Dance Academy after college. Then I hurt myself and I had to give up dancing, well pointe at least.”

That’s where I remembered her from! I went on a trip with my dance class and we had gone to a performance of the NYDC. Then after the show we got to meet some of the dancers. I only vaguely remember talking to her, but I remembered that she had danced beautifully as Sleeping Beauty.

“That’s so sad!” I exclaimed. “What do you do now?”

“I do whatever I’m wanted to do,” she started. “I float for the most part. I freelance perform on occasion, I teach, I write, I make appearances, I work backstage. It all depends on where I’m needed.”

I spent a good portion of the flight talking to this woman. She was so interesting and I loved hearing about what I was doing, dance, and what I needed to do to get the most out of it. It sounds so cliché to say this, but she was a miracle to me.

We finally landed in New York, and I got off the plane. That was the easy part. Navigating myself through one of the New York airports, alone, was not so easy. Originally I had planned to follow the woman from the plane, but I lost her in a crowd.

I finally found my way to the luggage belt, collected all my luggage (including my three Westies that I had brought with me) and got a cab to take me to my new apartment that I would be sharing with another girl from NYDA. I was proud of myself for completing New York City mission number one in less than forty-five minutes.

CCCC

“Thanks,” I said to the taxi driver as he took my luggage out from the trunk of the yellow car. I handed him some cash and then I headed inside with all of my luggage. I stopped at the front desk where a man was sitting, staring aimlessly at the computer.

“Excuse me sir, but I’m staying here this year. I think my roommate was going to be here already,” I said.

“Name, please?” he asked me sharply.

“Calista. Calista Pierce.”

He typed something into his computer slowly; make a few clicks, then disappeared to get my key, I think. When he returned, he handed me both an old-fashioned key and one of those keys that I’ve always thought looked like a credit card.

“You’re in apartment 2404,” he told me. “James, our bellhop, will take your things up to your room. He’s bringing someone else’s right now and should be back in a minute or two. Let me explain things a little. You’re on the twenty-fourth floor of the building, and the second room down on the right. The metal key is the main key, but sometimes they don’t work or get stuck so we’re giving you the plastic one as well. As you obviously know, pets are allowed, speaking as this is where all of the freshmen at NYDA with pets live. The walls are fully sound proof so no worries about barking. If you need anything, call down to the front desk. Someone will be working at all times, and they will do their best to help you with whatever you need. Oh, and there’s room service for those at NYDA so you don’t always have to go to the campus to eat. I think that’s all. James is back.”

 “Thank you,” I told him.

The bellhop came and put all of my luggage and my three dog carriers on his golden cart. I took my three dogs, Belle, Daisy and Lola, in my arms and we went up to the twenty-forth floor and down to the second room on the left. I pulled out my skeleton key, slid it into the key hole and turned it. I pulled the door open and let James walk in with my luggage, I followed.

As I walked in I was thoroughly amazed. The apartment was exceptionally decorated and without seeing most of it I knew that it had to be pretty darn big. The thing that caught my eye the most though, was the humongous picture window with a gorgeous view of the city and all of its twinkling lights and below it was a window seat. I was it in absolute heaven!!!

“You can leave everything there. Thanks a bunch, James,” I told the bellhop as I handed him a couple bucks. I didn’t really know if I was supposed tip him or not, but in hotels they were always tipped, so I figured why not?

He took all of my luggage off the cart, as well as my three dog carriers and my apartment. I freed my dogs from my arms and let them run free in the apartment. I picked up one of my many suitcases and wheeled it from the entry way, where it was left, and into the living room.

“Hello!” I called out. I waited a minute until I got any reply. A girl came running down a flight of stairs that I hadn’t seen yet. Wait, why did we have stairs?

The girl was probably my height, average, and thin. She had long, straight blonde hair and brown eyes. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she was wearing a tee-shirt with Audrey Hepburn on it and jean shorts

“Hi!” she exclaimed in a Texan accent. “I’m Savannah Smalley, and you must be my roommate!”

“I’m Calista Pierce, call me Callie though. I’m from California, where are you from?” I asked her, even though by her accent I already knew.

“Texas, but I’m sure you knew that. My accent’s pretty bad,” she started. “Can I help you with your stuff? Our rooms upstairs.”

“Why do we have multiple floors?” I asked, hoping she would know the answer to my question.

“Oh, because with pets we had the option to stay in either an apartment or a penthouse, and our parents are paying for us to stay in a penthouse because the apartments here are tiny! My sister graduated from NYDA and she stayed in an apartment her first year, said it was horrible. Then again, she said that the dorm she stayed in her sophomore year even worse.”

Savannah grabbed one of my suitcases and I grabbed another one and she led me up the stairs and down a hallway into what would be my new room. The room was large, painted light blue with white carpeting, and had a bay window. There were two king sized beds, both with light green gingham printed duvet covers and an assortment of light blue and light green pillows. Everything seemed too good to be true.

“This is so cool,” I began. “I never in a million years imagined that our apartment would be like this.”

“Neither did I, by any means. Especially after hearing my sister talk about the housing. I had no idea that I had a penthouse, until I called my parents this afternoon when I got here. I wondered if they had given me the right apartment.”

We put my suitcases on the unclaimed bed and went down for a second round, followed by a final third round. When all of my luggage was upstairs, she helped me unpack and put my clothes and everything else away.

As we put everything away in my own walk-in closet (yeah, I know, way too cool for a boarding school), she told me about the parts of the penthouse that I hadn’t seen yet, due to my urgency to unpack, including a kitchen, access to the rooftop terrace, and a balcony. I was so excited. She told me about her three dogs, a pocket beagle named Chloe, a Pomeranian named Ginger, and a Japanese chin named Koi, and her life back in Texas. I told her about my dogs and my life and, of course, my best friends.

That night, pulled out my laptop and sat on my to send an email to my friends. I had promised that I would email them every day, and there was no way in this world that I was going to break my promise on the first night. Then I was planning on following Savannah’s path of going to bed because I was absolutely exhausted, but a promise is a promise…and I wanted to tell them how amazing New York was, and how much I missed them.

 

To: Haley <[email protected]>, Rose <[email protected]>, Lia <[email protected]>, Lexi <[email protected]>

From: Callie <C[email protected]>

Subject: New York

 

Hey everybody! I miss you all a ton and it hasn’t even been all that long since I left you guys. That’s kind of depressing, now isn’t it?

      On the plane I met this woman who was a professional dancer; she helped me out with everything, because I had a really hard time right after the plane took off. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t been sitting next to her.

Things in New York are unbelievable! I’m staying in this penthouse in Upper East Manhattan with a girl named Savannah from Texas. The apartment is on the twenty-fourth and fifth floor of the building and it’s absolutely huge! In the living room there’s this huge picture window with a phenomenal view of the city. We also have a balcony and access to the rooftop terrace and each have walk-in closets! How cool is that?

Well, as I said before, my roommates name is Savannah and she’s from Texas. So far she seems really cool and down to earth. Savannah and I have the same clothes size and shoe size so we’re sharing clothes, which is awesome because the size of my wardrobe (dance and street) totally just doubled!! She has three adorable dogs that get along well with Daisy, Lola and Belle, so that should keep them occupied.

I’m pretty tired, and I have to be up early for orientation, and I have my first dance classes tomorrow evening so I’m ending the email now. I hope you all are happy, because you know I wouldn’t want you to be anything but that. I miss you tons!!!!!!!!!!!!

      Love,

      Callie XX