Karen

Second Chances – Chapter 9 October 23, 2009

In the third week of filming, Beth was told that she had to report for her dance lessons. Part of her deal was included with her ballroom dancing and she wanted to receive ballet lessons instead of a personal trainer. Beth had been dancing ballet on and off for most of her life. This was her chance to have some time with a really good instructor and not from the instructor at the adult night school back home.

After shooting most of the morning, Beth climbed into the car and it was about to pull away when someone knocked on the window. A bit annoyed, she rolled the window down and saw Rob’s assistant, Jason, standing there.

“I’m sorry to detain you, Ms. Edwards, but Mr. Cobb was wondering if he could share a ride with you to the dance studio?” Jason asked.

Surprised, Beth responded, “Sure, I guess.” Jason quickly ran to Rob’s trailer and Rob quickly emerged from his trailer.

Once inside the car, Rob said, “Thank you Beth. My car is in the shop today and I figured since we were both going for rehearsal…”

“It’s okay Rob. But you do know that I have another lesson before our rehearsal?”

“It’s okay. What kind of lesson?”

“Ballet, but they haven’t told me who the teacher is. All I know is its some Russian guy. That’s like saying that my opera teacher is some Italian lady.”

Rob laughed. “You are funny. Would you mind if I sat in on your lesson?”

“Honestly, yes, I would,” she said a bit embarrassed.

“That’s okay, I understand the need for privacy.”

“Thanks, I hope you don’t get too board waiting for me.”

“No, actually I have some reading that I should get to anyway. I don’t know my lines nearly as well you do.”

“The fact that I wrote the lines might have something to do with my tendency to do most scenes in one take.”

The car pulled up in front of the studio and Beth went off to change into her dance clothes. She had already pulled her hair into a tight bun and wore pink tights and a black leotard. Carrying her pink, broken in ballet slippers that she had worn for years, she saw Rob had found a chair not far from her rehearsal room. He wore a sly smile like he had just heard a joke.

“Have a good lesson, Beth,” he said as she walked past him and into the rehearsal room. It didn’t take her long to figure out why Rob had looked at her the way he did. Warming up at the bare was Mikile Balinchiff, one of the best ballet dancers in the world. Mikile had defected from the Soviet Union during the cold war and his career had skyrocketed since. Beth was astonished that the studio had gotten probably the best dancer in the world to teach her.

Mikle saw Beth enter and began to walk over to her. “Ah, Elizabeth, it is so nice to meet you,” he said in his thick Russian accent.

“It is a true honor to meet you, sir,” she said, still in shock.

“Please, please, call me Misha. Shall we begin, no?”

“Yes, and please call me Beth.”

“Oh, no, I much rather call you Elizabeth. The name suits you some much more.”

“Thank you, Misha.” She was truly flattered by the master dancer,

Micha introduced Beth to the pianist and they began to warm up. She was amazed that her teacher was so incredibly flexible even though he had to be at least her father’s age if not older.

“So, Elizabeth, how much have you studied?”

“Most of my experience has been in small ensembles or solo, never partnered.”

“Ah, very good. Let’s see what you can do.” Micha rattled off a laundry list of moves but told her to just try her best to keep up, and then they would slowly break it all down, piece by piece. Beth did try her hardest to keep up with her teacher as he moved gracefully to the music, but she felt so gawky next to him. After running it twice, Micha broke it down to twelve bars at a time.

Chapter 10