Chapter 3
1169 Words
Florence felt her chest tighten all at once.
Timothy lifted his head and looked at her, his brow drawing into a frown. He asked, "Leaving? Where are you taking Nancy?"
In a heartbeat, Florence smoothed her face back into calm. She said, "Did you forget? My mom hasn't seen Nancy in forever. She asked me to bring her back home on her birthday."
She spun the excuse out of nothing, yet not a flicker of nerves crossed her face. What she knew for certain was that Timothy would never bother to remember small things like these.
Sure enough, Timothy showed not the slightest suspicion. He only said, "Got it. Just come back early."
Florence gave a soft murmur of agreement, and as she turned away, all that lingered at the corner of her mouth was a trace of bitterness. Four years of marriage had always played out exactly like this.
At noon, Florence had just finished making lunch when Timothy, the same man who had promised to spend the entire day with their daughter, took a phone call and abruptly announced that he had to leave.
He said, "Stay home with Nancy. Something came up, so I need to head out first."
Florence had grown used to his broken promises long ago, so the words did not catch her off guard at all. She answered him with a small nod.
Just before he reached the door, though, Timothy turned back to look at her. He asked, "Do you know where I can get a really well-made pair of ballet shoes? A friend of mine studies ballet, and her birthday is coming up soon. I want to give her a pair."
He had no idea how tender his own voice had turned.
Florence went still for a moment. A memory rose up without warning. The day before, she had caught sight of Timothy's first love backstage, and a corner of a nude ballet skirt had slipped into view beneath the woman's coat.
In that instant, she understood exactly who this so-called "friend" really was.
Florence let a faint smile touch her lips and pretended she knew nothing. She said, easily, "I happen to know an old craftsman who makes ballet shoes by hand. Do you want me to send you his number?"
Timothy didn't hesitate for even a second. He said politely, "Thank you. I really appreciate you taking care of this."
Florence told him there was no need to thank her, and the moment she sent the number over, she watched him dial it as if he couldn't wait a second longer.
He said, "Hello, is this the shop that makes ballet shoes? I'll pay extra. Could you move my order up the line? Her shoe size is..."
Florence simply stood there and watched Timothy handle every last detail with painstaking care. He could recite that woman's shoe size without a moment's pause.
And yet, back when she had asked Timothy to bring her home a dress from overseas, the man who had shared four years of marriage with her still had to ask what size she wore.
She had always assumed a moment like this would break her heart. Now that it had finally come, though, she found that nothing stirred inside her beyond a faint thread of bitterness.
She only lowered her head, and the motion hid the rim of red gathering at the corners of her eyes just in time.
Two days later, Shining Star rolled into its second round of taping.
Florence was on her way to the dressing room when she crossed paths in the hallway with Timothy's first love. The name badge pinned to the woman's chest read Amelia Coleman. Sure enough, she was the same "Amy" who sat pinned at the very top of Timothy's phone.
Florence let her gaze drift down until it settled on Amelia's ballet flats, where a logo she knew far too well sat stitched into the side. That the shoes had come from Timothy needed no spelling out.
'So he's already handed them over,' she thought. Florence pulled her eyes back and walked on without letting a thing show on her face.
When the cameras finally rolled, the production team laid out the rules. The twenty-four dancers who had survived into the second round would pair off two by two, and those pairs would settle into six head-to-head matchups. In each matchup, one side would advance while the other was cut.
Onstage, Florence stood inside the spotlight, where the glare smeared Timothy's face into something she couldn't quite read. What still reached her through that haze was the smile threaded under his even voice. Timothy said, "The order for choosing opponents follows your first-round rankings. Which means the first dancer to choose is—Amelia."
Amelia took the microphone, turned to face the room, and spoke in a slow, unhurried voice. She said, "Before I ever made my debut, I'd already heard about a certain woman on this stage. Everyone called her the rising star of the dance world."
She let the words hang, and in that pause, Florence felt Amelia's eyes swing straight to her.
Amelia went on, "These last few years, some of the press has liked to pin that same title on me. And the way I see it, no dance world can hold two rising stars at once."
The remark landed loaded and impossible to read, and Florence's heart gave a hard jolt. Amelia's voice rang out across the studio with a dare buried somewhere inside it, "So, Florence, are you willing to take my challenge, and let everyone find out which of us is the real star?"
That Amelia would single her out had caught Florence off guard, and yet a challenge had never once made her flinch. She took the microphone and said, every word clean and deliberate, "Of course. I couldn't have asked for anything better."
Filming wrapped, and the second Florence walked off set, her phone lit up with a message from Timothy.
Timothy: Come to my dressing room.
The words were short and stripped of anything resembling emotion.
That Timothy had ever reached out to her on a job was a first, and she didn't have to guess at the reason, because it could only be Amelia.
Yet when she reached the dressing room, all he said was, "Nancy just called. She says she misses you. Ride home with me, and skip the cab."
Florence pushed her faint confusion down, murmured her agreement, and fell into step behind him.
Once they were in the car, silence settled over the back seat.
Then Florence spoke up. "Amelia is that friend of yours, isn't she."
No answer came from the man beside her.
What rose in her throat had no name, and still she pressed the question. "You really have nothing to say? If she loses..."
"She won't."
Timothy, who had held his silence for so long, finally broke it.
His voice carried no trace of doubt. "She won't lose."
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