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.
I am a student. The semester ended about two weeks ago, and, as every year, on the last day there is the annual diner-and-dance night.
That was where I met Angela. She was 18. She'd just arrived three weeks before. As a courtesy, I offered to take her around and lend her any needed assistance.
Last Friday night she called me and gave the excuse that she couldn't make it back to her place because it was too far away (a good 45 minutes' drive), and asked if she could stay over my place. I readily agreed, and about ten minutes later she arrived. She said she was hungry so we drove out to a nearby take-away place and grabbed a couple of hamburgers We got back to my room and ate while watching telly, but since there was nothing much on, we switched it off and talked, making some tentative plans to visit some attractions.