last song and dance

Sometimes when I'm up on stage, I flash back to a different time in my mind. My friend Candle tells me flashbacks are like time travelling. If that's the truth, then I'm a real vagabond type.

It's mostly when things around here hit cruise control that I slip out of the current moment. When things are going well, I tend to tune in just fine with whatever's going on. Good times make me nervous. I'm better at bad.

I realized it meant I was comfortable enough on that stage to trip the wires and go back in time. I knew it was a bad sign. This wasn't what I came here for. That made it bad, and I snapped out of it pretty quick. I don't even think anyone noticed. The song ended and I plucked my top from the edge of the stage as I flew off, my eyes hot and blurry.

In the dressing room, I could hardly recognize myself. Compared to the club, the lighting was harsh, but still dim. I told myself that was it as I turned away from my glimmering reflection in the gold flaked glass.

"You off?" called my coworker, Petal, from inside one of the stalls.

"Almost," I yelled back. "...why?"

"We're going to Waffle House. Seeing if you wanted to join." they replied.

That sounded incredible right now. Not necessarily the food, I had lost my appetite somewhere between the third trip to the coffee machine and the uniquely branded scent of the bar. Although indoor smoking had been banned years ago, they had never done a deep clean so the perfume of stale cigarette and every other vice of our patrons and staff still clung to every surface and molecule of air in a nauseating fashion. No, what I needed right now was the company of my peers. I needed to unwind and laugh. But...

"No, I'm on a double. Rent week." I replied.

"Aight, next time then." Petal slipped out of the stall in head to toe black velour, like a cat burglar, loudly jangling a ring of keys and hefting her studded duffel over her shoulder.

I sunk into one of the peeling purple leather salon chairs defeatedly. I'd been working here at Skins for six months now and this was the first time any of the other dancers had attempted to hang outside of work. Of course, it was partially my fault.

I spent the first few months with my head so far up I could not even see what was happening. I truly thought I was better than the others, this was beneath me, it was only temporary, make some cash and get on to what I was really born to do: write and perform my music.

I had left my small home town after a year of community college and working at Bonanza Freeze, nineteen years old and clueless. I had a grand plan to drive all the way to Nashville, where I would get a job at an adorable coffee shop and soon be discovered at a humble acoustic gig.

Obviously, things did not go my way. One after another, my plans crumbled through to disaster: the jobs were harder to come by and keep than I anticipated, the cost of living was much higher. Before I knew it, I had no time or energy to dedicate to my passion.

One of my room mates suggested I try dancing when I came up short for the rent one month. "It's easy, honestly. Just get a cute outfit and take it off partway. They'll throw money at you just for kicks, you don't even have to know how to dance."

But I did know how. I flashed back to the flash back that had just taken me by the heart out there: innocent hours spent being instructed in ballet, jazz, even tap back home. All funded by my beautiful, hardworking mother who sacrificed her dreams to hold down two or more jobs to pour her potential into mine.

It was a heavy burden for a quiet kid who preferred to have her nose stuck in a book. I wanted to please her, so I stuck with whatever she thought would help my "career" at the moment, donning itchy dresses to be paraded in front of pageantry judges, practicing choreography until my feet cracked and bled.

When she got sick, I turned down the full ride Ivy League scholarship I was offered despite her protests. It was the one thing I never felt forced to do for her. As she began to make her journey from this world into the next, I purchased a diary at the suggestion of my school counselor. Finding it unbearable to document what was actually happening in my life, I used it to write poetry that became lyrics for songs. I spent many hours at her bedside trying them out on her, she loved every single one.

When she took her last breath, I swore I would never end up like her: dying with dreams unfulfilled. I sold our trailer, packed up our truck, and headed for the Music City.

I didn't last a year before I ended up heading to Memphis for a better paying job dancing and cheaper rent. What would mama think of all this, I wondered, or rather- tried not to wonder. Reaching into my bag, I pulled out the notebook and nearly threw it in the trash.

"Lavender. You up. Private room." called the bouncer from outside the dressing room. Wearily, I slipped the book back in my locker and fixed my face. Show time.

The customer was slouched and disheveled. I sighed and began to shake my hips a bit, smiling and asking him how he was tonight.

"Terrible." he growled.

"Oh no, baby, what's the matter?" I pouted in a way I had prepared for the past several months. I was used to playing therapist with these men.

"I've got writer's block. Came here to try to get my mind off. So tell me about yours. Sit down, I don't even like women." he spat.

I was taken aback, but as he said it he slapped more cash on the small cocktail table between us than I had seen in weeks, which considering my line of work was saying a lot. I perched on the opposite stool, anxiously looking out for the bartender whose job depended on us keeping the customers entertained.

"So what do you do outside of here?" he asked, leaning forward and yelling over the nu metal blasting from the PA overhead. Alarm bells went off in my head and I thought of all the advice my coworkers had dispensed since I began this career. Never tell them about yourself, they would urge. They are dangerous, there are predators. Never fraternize and never even tell them your name.

But I was feeling reckless. Memories of my childhood and the notebook in my hand had me vulnerable, on top of being on my eighteenth hour at the club. My defenses were way down, and sinking like the Titanic. I looked hard at the customer, into his eyes, which were a flat slate blue and emotionless.

I didn't think I could trust him, I didn't think I was having a moment of instinct or some kind of spiritual connection. In that instant, I simply was exhausted and lonely and I did not care.

"I'm a writer too." I confessed, tears filling my eyes again. I pursed my lips and blinked in this doll-like fashion which I had practiced just for moments like this.

"Well aren't we a pair." he roared, slamming backwards so hard he nearly fell over. "What do you write?"

I told him everything, starting with the failed trip to Nashville and ending with the moment before of nearly throwing my notebook into the garbage. He ate it up like a starving dog, interrupting me once or twice to ask me to repeat things because the music was so loud.

"So you're ready to give up too huh?" he hollered once I was finished.

"Pretty much." I confessed, staring down at my long silver holographic acrylic fingernails in a way that was decidedly unattractive, I knew.

His stare was acidic. I squirmed.

"Sell me your notebook." he commanded. My jaw dropped. I couldn't even respond. "How much?"

I was speechless. I had never even, would never even consider...

"I'll give you ten thousand for it. Cash."

The sound that came out of my body in that instant was inhuman. Fortunately, the music was still far too loud for it to have been heard.

"Fine. Twenty grand, final offer unless you wanna give me your contact info. That's all the cash I have and I'm not coming back here any time soon."

My head spun like sugar with all the moments that led up to this one. The sweat, the tears, the heartache. I could just leave it all behind and go home, or...?

Twenty grand was a lot of money, to me, in that moment. I thought of the mounting bills and debts waiting for me outside these walls, all standing between me and my fading hopes.

"Ok, let me go get it." I whispered defeatedly.

He looks surprised, and a little disgusted. I still didn't care.

As I spin the blue dial on my lock, a song my mother loved pops into my head, a song about saving the last dance. You probably know the one.

I remember reading about the man who wrote it because he had to watch his wife dance at their wedding while he sat on the sidelines, paralyzed.

I think, in that instant, I knew what he felt.

Later, I spread the cash on the counter of my dingy studio apartment wondering what to do next and something my old counselor at community college told me rang in between my ears like a bell:

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again expecting different results, he had said. It irritated me at the time, I thought, because it seemed insulting to me as a performer.

Everybody knows practice makes perfect.