Dancing on a Moonbeam (Bedford Falls Book 1) Read Free Page A

hurts."
    "Give me a break. You look fabulous, but bodies change regardless. Deal with it. Now let's go put the damn shoes on so we can figure out what you're going to do with the rest of your life."
    Fear spiked her breathing. Torn, she picked up the wheatgrass and downed it to distract herself.
    It tasted like forest going down. Mental note: next time, add tequila .
    Making a face, she set the glass in the sink. "Okay, I can do this."
    "Yes, you can."
    "Let's go do it." She tromped up the stairs to her room, but when she saw the ballet slippers on the dresser she faltered a little.
    "I'm holding your hand, Ellie," her sister said. "The way you always held mine when I was scared."
    Okay. "Okay," she said, exhaling as she picked up the shoes. She sat on the floor, gripping them in her hand.
    Tears prickled behind her nose. God—she'd loved to dance. She closed her eyes and thought about the last time she was on stage, the exhilaration of the movement, the deep connection with her partner, the rush of emotion when the audience gave her a standing ovation… And the music! The music transported her to a place filled with magic.
    She gave that up when she met Charles.  
    What a fool she'd been. Now she was just an aged, retired ballerina. It didn't matter if she put the shoes on—she'd lost who she'd been before.
    The hope withered in her, and she set the shoes aside. "I'm deluding myself. There's no physical way I can train myself to be a ballerina again, not the way I was. My shelf life has expired."  
    "Then teach ballet," Eliza suggested.
    She made a face. "Teaching ballet isn't dancing."  
    "No, but it might be rewarding," her sister said. "It'd be better than puttering around the house, trying to find ways to keep busy. And it's definitely better than moping like you've been doing the past year."
    "I haven't been moping." She frowned. "Much."  
    "Ellie, you're the sort of person who needs to be in motion. Besides, Lily is going to be graduating from high school in a year or two, right? Then what are you going to do?"
    "But teach dance?" She wrinkled her nose. "I'd have to get a space, and that's expensive in Bedford Falls. Charles didn't leave me with very much beyond this house and a little each month for alimony."
    "The house is huge. Isn't there a space you can convert for a dance studio?"
    The shed.
    Leaving the ballet shoes on her dresser, she rushed downstairs to the back door, not bothering with a coat even though it was brisk out.  
    Eliza must have read her mind, because she said, "What about the carriage house in the back?"
    "I'm going out there right now." Eleanor had always called it a shed because it was in such disrepair. Charles hadn't cared about its state; he'd used it as his man cave, going out there to do whatever men did when they didn't want to be around their family.
    Personally, she'd always hated the thing. Hugging herself against the chill, she stood in front of it and stared at it critically. Charles had been too cheap to fix it up, but it wouldn't take much. "With a coat of paint, it'd probably look decent enough."
    "Paint is a great way to make something brighter," her sister enthused.
    She opened the door and peeked inside. Kind of dingy. "The floors need to be sanded and polished too, but there's space."
    "Space is good, and I bet you can find a handyman who'll do the floors inexpensively. Ask Debra."
    "Hmm." Their aunt had a bookstore in town and knew everyone.  
    "Think about it, Ellie. I want you to be happy," Eliza said before she got off the line to attend to her son.
    She wanted to be happy too, she decided as she slipped the phone in her pocket.
    Teach.  
    Did she dare?
    She looked around the shed. Charles would be upset if she touched this space. Not that he could claim it any longer—the house was part of her settlement. But neither Charles nor his mother had ever seen her dancing as important. It was just some little thing she'd done before he'd come along.
    Fuck Charles, and