It was going to be perfect. She was going to see to it. Every step, every stage, every detail would be done precisely as she wanted, as she envisioned, until her dream became her reality.
Settling for less than what was exactly right was a waste of time, after all.
And Kate Kimball was not a woman to waste anything.
At twenty-five, she had seen and experienced more than a great many people did in a lifetime. When other young girls had been giggling over boys or worrying about fashion, sheâd been traveling to Paris or Bonne, wearing glamorous costumes and doing extraordinary things.
She had danced for queens, and dined with princes.
She had sipped champagne at the White House, and wept with triumph and fatigue at the Bolshoi.
She would always be grateful to her parents, to the big, sprawling family whoâd given her the opportunities to do so. Everything she had she owed to them.
Now it was time to start earning it herself.
Dance had been her dream for as long as she could remember. Her obsession, her brother Brandon would have said. And not, Kate acknowledged, inaccurately. There was nothing wrong with an obsessionâas long as it was the right obsession and you worked for it.
God knew sheâd worked for the dance.
Twenty years of practice, of study, of joy and pain. Of sweat and toe shoes. Of sacrifices, she thought. Hers, and her parents. She understood how difficult it had been for them to let her, the baby of the family, go to New York to study when sheâd been only seventeen. But theyâd never offered her anything but support and encouragement.
Of course, theyâd known that though she was leaving the pretty little town in West Virginia for the big city, sheâd be surroundedâwatched overâby family. Just as she knew they had loved and trustedâbelieved in her enoughâto let her go in any case.
Sheâd practiced and worked, and had danced, as much for them as for herself. And when sheâd joined the Company and had appeared on stage the first time, theyâd been there. When sheâd earned a spot as principal dancer, theyâd been there.
Sheâd danced professionally for six years, had known the spotlight, and the thrill of feeling the music inside her body. Sheâd traveled all over the world, had become Giselle, Aurora, Juliet, dozens of characters both tragic and triumphant. She had prized every moment of it.
No one was more surprised than Kate herself when sheâd decided to step out of that spotlight and walk off that stage. There was only one way to explain it.
Sheâd wanted to come home.
She wanted a life, a real one. As much as she loved the dance, sheâd begun to realize it had nearly absorbed and devoured every other aspect of her. Classes, rehearsals, performances, travel, media. The dancerâs career was far more than slipping on toe shoes and gliding into the spotlightâor it certainly had been for Kate.
So she wanted a life, and she wanted home. And, sheâd discovered, she wanted to give something back for all the joy sheâd reaped. She could accomplish all of that with her school.
They would come, she told herself. They would come because her name was Kimball, and that meant something solid in the area. They would come because her name was Kate Kimball, and that meant something in the world of dance.
Before long, she promised herself, they would come because the school itself meant something.
Time for a new dream, she reminded herself as she turned around the huge, echoing room. The Kimball School of Dance was her new obsession. She intended it to be just as fulfilling, just as intricate, and just as perfect as her old one.
And it would, no doubt, entail as much work, effort, skill and determination to bring to life.
With her hands fisted on her hips, she studied the grime-gray walls that had once been white. Theyâd be white again. A clean surface for displaying framed posters of the greats. Nuryev, Fontayne, Baryshnikov, Davidov, Bannion.
And the two long side walls would be mirrored behind their barres. This professional vanity was as necessary as breathing. A dancer must see each tiny movement, each arch, each flex, even as the body felt it, to perfect the positioning.