She danced with beauty and grace. Her 18-year-old body was at its bloom of womanhood, and was the envy of all the others in her class. She was dancing in what would be her final recital with this dance company, as the following Autumn would bring her to a distant state and university.
Her 20-year-old brother sat in the audience, enjoying the show. He had laughed at the 4 and 5-years-olds doing their cute dances in their cute outfits, some taking center stage, still others crying for their mommy, afraid of being in front of so many strangers. He sat patiently through all the "grades" of the evening... beginners tap, beginners ballet, beginners jazz, all the way up to just before the final-. The last dance was with the graduating Seniors and the head dance instructor, the owner of the studio. Many of the girls going off to college had been with the instructor since they, themselves, were the cute 4 and 5-year-olds, a few of them accepting assistant roles with the nearly three dozen different dance classes.
Collette was one of them. She had started dancing almost as soon as she could walk, and her parents had enrolled her into classes as soon as it was feasible. After that, there was no turning back for her. She had a passion for dance and felt the need to make it her life's work. That's why she had decided to go so far away to the Big City for college.