Chapter Fifteen
Winter break passed by way too quickly for Rachael’s liking and in what seemed like mere days after she’d left San Francisco, she was back in the city, trying to balance two jobs, classes, homework, and dance rehearsals again. This particular day, only the second day into the semester, the balancing act wasn’t going too well and she was running through the Performing Arts building trying desperately to get to her first ballet class of the semester on time. She had exactly thirty seconds and if she could just run a little faster she could probably get there on time.
“Oh, crap! I’m sorry!” she exclaimed as she ran straight into a man who had been walking down the hall towards her, knocking the books he was carrying to the ground.
“That’s okay,” he replied with a laugh as she bent to help him pick them up. “In a hurry?”
“Yeah, I’m late for class. I’m so sorry, I should have been paying attention to where I was going.”
“Nah, it’s okay. Hey, don’t worry about helping me out if you’re late for class. I don’t want you to miss anything important.” Rachael waved a hand dismissively.
“It’s ballet, I’ll only miss a little bit of the barre.”
“Dance major?” her victim questioned, sounding intrigued.
“Yeah,” she replied with a nod, glancing at the folders she was handing to him and realizing they were choir folders. “Music major?” He laughed as they both stood up.
“Yeah. Hey, wait, I recognize you! You’re that girl who used to dance for N Sync, aren’t you?”
“Oh, god. Yeah, that’s me!” Rachael’s face turned slightly red, as she always got embarrassed when people recognized her. Mostly because said recognition was usually followed with, “Didn’t you make out with Justin Timberlake?” Of course she wasn’t the only person in the world who’d ever made the mistake of making out with her best friend, but she was one of the few who’d had some random person take pictures of the mistake and sell them to at least a dozen tabloids. That had been a long time ago, almost a year, but strangers still asked her about it every now and then. Not that she was bitter.
“Yeah, I took my little sister to their concert in Oakland last year and then I heard later on that you went here. You were really good!”
“Thanks,” Rachael replied with a grateful smile.
“I’m Sam, by the way,” he told her, sticking his hand out for her to shake.
“Rachael,” she replied, shaking his hand. “And I really need to go to class. Sorry again for running into you.”
“Hey, no problem! Nice meeting you. Maybe I’ll you see you around.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Rachael agreed with a nod before walking off down the hall. Getting to class on time was now impossible so she didn’t see the point in running. When she finally burst into one of the dance studios on the second floor, she saw that the students were all sitting on the floor as a woman she didn’t know stood in the front, going over the syllabus. Rachael frowned. The same woman had taught this class for the entire time she’d been at SFSU, and it was not the woman who was standing at the front now. Rachael quietly sat down next to Brian, mouthing a hello to him and hoping she wouldn’t be noticed. No such luck.
“And you are?” the instructor questioned, looking straight at Rachael.
“Late,” she replied without thinking. Her classmates laughed, but the woman did not look amused. “And Rachael. Rachael Jacques. I’m really sorry I’m late. It won’t happen again.”
“Oh, yes. I’ve heard of you. And it better not happen again.” Rachael did not like the way she’d said, “I’ve heard of you.” It was the sort of “I’ve heard of you” that implied whatever she’d heard hadn’t been nice. She handed Rachael a syllabus. “My name is Anita McPherson. We’re going through the syllabus now and then we’ll start barre.” Rachael nodded and glanced at Brian as Anita began addressing the whole class again.
“What is this, grade school?” she whispered to him and Brian suppressed a snort.
“You have no idea. I’ve already been yelled at twice.”
“Where’s Maria?” Rachael asked, referring to their former ballet teacher.
“I guess she’s on sabbatical. Would have been nice if she’d bothered to tell us beforehand.”
“No kidding.”
“Excuse me, Miss Jacques, do you have something to share with the whole class?” Anita raised her voice to ask. Rachael looked up to realize that everyone was staring at her.
“No. Sorry, I’ll shut up,” Rachael apologized, prompting laughter from her fellow dancers once again.
“Thank you. Now if you will all take your places at the barre please, we’ll get started.”
***
On the other side of the country, Justin was having a bad week. Naturally, he’d had worse weeks; such as the ones he spent in the hospital after a car accident the previous year, or the first week of the five months Rachael had refused to speak with him, the time when N Sync was going through their legal battle with Transcon, and that time Rachael had accidentally murdered his goldfish and, rather insensitively, left it on his bed for him to find. But this week, while arguably better than any of those weeks, still definitely qualified as a bad week. He’d been touring all week and while he normally loved touring, he was finding it unusually difficult to get back into the swing of things. It wasn’t that he disliked performing, but he was finding that he had to convince himself he was having fun onstage and that was not a good feeling. This shouldn’t have surprised him of course. It was his first tour since the car accident and as his mother told him practically every day since said accident, it’s hard to get back into your normal routine after something like that. But that didn’t change the fact that it was entirely annoying and had put him in a chronically bad mood.
And then there was the Rachael issue. After New Year’s and his talk with Trace about her, he’d finally come to the realization that he, Justin Timberlake, was crazily and stupidly in love with Rachael Jacques. Well, actually he’d come to that realization a while ago, and Rachael was fully aware of it, but he had since done his best to suppress it and convince himself he’d been mistaken, and he was pretty sure she’d just blocked it out from her memory altogether. He’d never mastered the selective memory thing, but Rachael was damn good at it. But then she had to go kiss him and remind him of everything she made him feel, thus making it impossible for him to keep up his “I’m not in love with Rachael, what are you talking about?” act. So he’d admitted it. To himself and to Trace. He was in love with Rachael.
Justin had always thought that being honest with himself and others was the best way to lead a happy and fulfilling life. However, this week he was doing a pretty good job of proving himself wrong. He’d picked a pretty bad time to be honest with himself. After admitting his feelings, all he wanted to do was hunt Rachael down and tell her what they were. But he couldn’t. One, he left Tennessee only a day later and had no chance to speak with her, and “I’m in love with you and I want you to have my babies” didn’t seem like the best thing to tell a person over the phone. Two, if he were to be so blatant about it, she would undoubtedly go into shut down mode. Rachael didn’t do well with love confessions, as he’d discovered the last time he’d tried to convince her that they should take their relationship to the romantic level, and she would probably want to know what had prompted this realization and since he hadn’t told her that she’d tried to seduce him he was imagining that would be another very awkward, not for the phone type of conversation.
The thing was that he was pretty sure she knew how he felt, even if she didn’t want to admit it. Even after they’d both started pretending the make out sessions and arguments of the previous year hadn’t happened, there were still moments when he knew it was obvious. Like Christmas Eve, for instance. That moment in the snow when he’d almost kissed her. What had she said? “Please don’t do this to me.” He still wasn’t entirely sure what “this” was, but he knew that after moments like that there was no way she couldn’t know, somewhere deep inside, how he really felt about her. And sometimes he still thought she felt the same way. This week was not one of those times.
He’d found time almost every day of the week to give Rachael a call and see how she was doing, and he was getting the distinct feeling that she was doing really well. Not that he was upset about her doing well, of course. But when Rachael was contemplating something, like, say, a secret desire for her best friend, she was quiet and reserved and gave monosyllable responses to anything he said. The few minutes he’d talked to her each day, she seemed her usual bright, talkative self, telling him about the last couple of days she’d spent hanging out with Hallie and Gaby in Tennessee and then how glad she was to be back in San Francisco and of course throwing in the occasional, “You’re a dork, Justin,” for good measure. The fact that this upset him slightly made him feel like a terrible friend. What sort of person begrudges his best friend peace of mind and would rather she be stressing out over him? He tried to imagine what Rachael would say if he asked her that question. He could picture her shrugging and saying something like, “Stop worrying so much. You feel what you feel, loser.” So maybe he should take Imaginary Rachael’s advice. Maybe he should just stop worrying so much.
Nope, there was no way in hell that was going to happen.
***
It seemed like hours before Rachael’s ballet class finally ended. The new teacher had an entirely different teaching method than the old one and it involved a lot of talking down to students and the like. Rachael, having a big mouth, had commented on this to Brian in what she thought was a whisper, but had been overheard by Miss Anita McPherson. She had not been very happy about it and had been very cold towards Rachael for the rest of the class period. Finally, it was over and Rachael and Brian happily gathered their things and made a beeline for the door.
“Miss Jacques, may I have a word with you?” Anita’s voice stopped them. The two friends looked at each other apprehensively.
“I’ll meet you outside,” Brian told her before walking away quickly and Rachael turned around to face her instructor.
“Sure thing!” she replied, plastering on the most convincing smile she could muster.
“I understand that you have had a bit of experience in the commercial dance world, dear.” She spoke the word “commercial” as though she found it thoroughly revolting and the word “dear” couldn’t have seemed more out of place. Rachael nodded.
“That’s right.”
“Well it seems to have given you a big head and I must tell you that will not be tolerated in this class. Just because you’ve had professional jobs doesn’t mean that you don’t still have more to learn. And I’m sorry to tell you, dear, but your ballet technique is not exactly stellar.” As she finished her mini-lecture, Rachael couldn’t help but let her shock show on her face a bit. She’d never been told she had a big head before, and the way Anita had said that last sentence it didn’t seem that she was at all sorry to tell her. Plus, she was well aware that ballet wasn’t her strong point. Wasn’t that the whole reason she was in the class in the first place?
“Thank you, I’ll try to remember that,” Rachael replied as politely as should before turned and bolting out the door. Brian was waiting in the hall. “Oh my god,” Rachael greeted him as they fell in step together.
“Oh your god what?” he replied, curious to know what had happened.
“Apparently I have a big head and by ballet technique sucks,” she told him, fuming inwardly.
“Do you? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Funny, neither had I. Good thing we have Anita McPherson here to tell us these things. I think she just doesn’t like me because I’ve done commercial work. She seems to think commercial dance is the devil.” Brian shrugged.
“Don’t let it get to you. Who cares what she thinks?”
“I do. She’s the one who’s grading me.”
“How was your break?” Brian asked in an attempt to take his friend’s mind off of what had just happened. Rachael waved a hand dismissively.
“Oh, it was fine. I just can’t believe she has the nerve to say those things to me. Ugh, seriously? I am not big-headed! I’m not! And of course my ballet technique sucks, I’m not a freakin’ ballerina!” Her first few days back in San Francisco had been pretty nice, but this was putting a damper on things.
“Rachael?”
“Yes?”
“Stop thinking about it. Focus on something else. Um…what are you doing this weekend?” Rachael stopped walking and turned to look at him.
“Oh! Hey, I just remembered, Justin’s birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks and I want to plan a surprise party for him because I still haven’t gotten him back for that stun he pulled on my 21st,” she said, referring to the fact that Justin had pretended to forget her birthday so she’d be good and pissed off at him and not realize he was planning a surprise party.
“Woo,” Brian replied lacking a certain amount of enthusiasm.
“No, I actually have a reason for telling you this.”
“Good. I was worried.”
“I’m sure. Anyway, so I wanted to get started planning this weekend because it’ll be here before I know it and I’m trying to get Laura to help me out, but she says she can’t because she has plans with you.”
“Yeah, we’re going to the movies.”
“Right, which isn’t that big of deal, so I need you to talk her into staying home with me and helping me plan.” Brian shrugged.
“Okay, fine with me. I’ll come over and crash on your couch.”
“Great! But bring your own popcorn. We’re out.” They started walking again and Rachael’s mind drifted back to Anita McPherson. She frowned. “Brino, you don’t think I have a big head do you?” Brian just groaned.
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