An Exercise in Futility

If anyone walked by the car and happened to glance in, hopefully all they would see is her body slumped over the wheel as though she was taking a nap. Probably they wouldn’t notice the way she grasped it for support while she shook with sobs. They wouldn’t be able to hear her howling and gasping for breath like a two year old throwing a temper tantrum, nor would they see the way her eyelashes had clumped together into choppy sections as the tears liquefied her mascara, sticking together rather than running down her face in long dramatic black streaks like it did in movies. They would just see a girl, sitting in her car outside a strip mall. Maybe she was waiting for someone inside.

But Devin wasn’t waiting for anyone, because she had hardly any friends in the city, despite having lived there for a year now. She had put all her focus into her work, teaching dance at the little studio in the strip mall, telling herself that she could devote more time to a social life once she was established in her career. It was a decision she was bitterly regretting now that she had just been fired and may not have a career at all.

***

She had taught the ballet class for intermediate level teenagers just like she did every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, except this Thursday, after the class, she had checked her phone and seen the unfamiliar icon for a voice message at the top. No one sent voice messages anymore, who could it be? How strange. Intrigued, she pressed play and listened. 

“Hey Devin, it’s Andrea. So listen, I’ve been looking at the schedule and thinking about how I want to adjust some things for the summer, and I’ve decided to really cut back and streamline a lot of the classes for the next 3 months, and so, we’re actually not going to be continuing with your classes on the schedule. Starting with this Saturday’s class. Maybe we’ll change it up again when the new school year starts, but for now, this is the schedule. I’m posting it tomorrow. So, I’m sorry but we just won’t be seeing you for the summer.”

When she first listened, she had been too dumbfounded to react at all. She pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it like an archaeologist pulling an artifact from the dirt-what was this thing? Surely she had misheard. There must be some explanation. She listened again.

“We’re actually not going to be continuing with your classes on the schedule.”

The ‘not’ was emphasized heavily as though she was afraid that Devin would be too slow and wouldn’t understand. It’s a no, okay? Do you understand? We don’t want you and you’re really no good, I just want to be sure you understand okay? We’re NOT continuing with you.

Slowly, the realization of what this meant had begun to wash over her in progressive waves of panic. Between the Tuesday/Thursday ballet classes and the back to back ballet and modern class intensives on Saturday and Sunday mornings, she had made her rent payments for the shitty two bedroom apartment that she shared with two other people she barely knew despite their close living arrangements. One roommate just slept on the couch which made the already cramped apartment feel even smaller, but it was necessary to provide the extra income that made the place affordable for any of them. The rest of her income came from her morning job waitressing at the breakfast cafe, flinging mediocre coffees and dusty white beignets at the tourists. 

How will I pay rent now? I might have to borrow money from mom and dad again.

The cafe couldn’t give her any more hours, they were struggling as it was, and there was nothing else she could cut from her budget; she was already eating rice and beans for every meal and had runs in all her tights.

What will my parents say? My life is already a joke to them.

Her dad would say very little, but be sure to give an exaggerated sigh, just to be sure she understood what he was saying without words: I told you so. Her mom, on the other hand, would actually be delighted. She was always trying to pull her only daughter back to their Midwestern town where nothing ever happened and everyone just worked in factory jobs and cultivated an opioid addiction after work. Devin could already hear her mother gushing about her new plans. Oh sweetie, this is great, now you can just move back home and be sensible like I’ve been saying, come on, what are you even doing down there? 

Neither of them would have enough emotional intelligence to discern how badly this had blown her ego. To be fired was bad enough, but to be fired from a job that you actually loved, and that was supposed to be the starting point of your career in the arts? 

I’m a failure.

That’s what her parents had always thought of her career in dance anyway. They had thought it ridiculous from the beginning, despite the fact that they had always paid for her dance classes after school ever since she was a little girl. They thought it was good for her to have a healthy hobby growing up, but certainly it wasn’t something anyone made a career out of. When she graduated high school and decided on her own to go to college-something no one in her family had done before-they were so proud, despite it being a third-tier school that she was able to commute to from their house where she still lived in her childhood bedroom.  Then when she told them that she was getting a BFA in dance, they were dismayed and confused. What on earth would she do with that? How did anyone even make any money by dancing?

Despite the four years of her parents trying, lovingly but persistently, to change her mind, she graduated with the degree. Most of her peers wanted to go to New York City, where they could live with all the other starving artists waiting for their big break. Devin was more realistic than that at least, which was something her parents never gave her credit for. She knew she’d never make it in New York, but she thought a simple career as a dance teacher would be perfectly practical and attainable. She could go somewhere interesting, but not as overcrowded or obvious as NYC or LA. 

After a spring break Mardi Gras trip in university, she had chosen New Orleans as her future new abode almost instantly. She didn’t care much for the party lifestyle, but she fell in love with the spirit of the city nonetheless; the French architecture, jazz playing in the streets, the seafood gumbo and jambalaya that were so different from the bland, nondescript,  Midwestern food she’d eaten all her life. Outside of the flamboyant parades with the glittery, cheap plastic beads flying through the air, and the streets sticky with liquor thanks to the city’s open-container laws, she’d found the place fascinating. It hinted at a depth she wanted to explore in a way only possible by living there.

She had moved as quickly as possible after graduation, starting out with various waitressing and bartending jobs to support herself, just the same as she had during college, while using her free time to scour for dance teaching jobs. Teaching wasn’t just a safe bet because she lacked the skill or talent to be a performer either; she loved dance, but she didn’t love the spotlight. Unassuming and shy, she had never wanted to be the star of any show, but she loved the way the movements made her feel.

The hug of the canvas ballet slippers around the arches of her feet, bobby pins poking into her scalp in a desperate attempt to keep her mass of hair in place, and the elastic band of her tights cutting into the flesh of her waist were such familiar sensations that she wasn’t even sure who she would be without them. If she heard classical piano playing, even outside of the studio, it sparked a shift in her body; from the first few notes she would stand up straighter and feel the muscles in her legs engage as though they were preparing themselves for the tendu combination. In the Louisiana heat, she would often find herself wet with sweat creeping into her armpits or trickling down her chest when she wasn’t even doing anything, and she would cringe, using paper napkins to dry herself. But in the studio, when the sweat poured after a full out rehearsal, she basked in the shower of a job well done. Sweat was praise for muscles working hard, for all the things her body was able to do for her.

Her only desire in life was to never have to leave those sensations behind, but instead to live and breathe in the studio, helping to instill the same love in a new generation of students. So she didn’t need the stage, but she did need the studio. It didn’t take long for her to find her teaching job after moving. Only a few months. It wasn’t a prestigious school churning out future stars, but that didn’t matter to her. She had a studio to love and students to teach. 

Outside of the classes, her life was small. After  evening classes she would come back home, satisfied from her work despite its lack of grandeur. She would walk into her tiny apartment and drop her duffel bag clattering with shoes, hair pins, water bottles, toe tape, and deodorant onto her bedroom floor. She would go to the kitchen to get her rice and beans, and to filch whatever fresh vegetables she thought would go unmissed by her roommates. Invariably, there would be dishes in the sink. She seemed to be the only one capable of cleaning up. Every day she would clean the dishes, splashing warm water and soap suds on the counter, shuddering whenever she accidentally touched the wet food scraps.

 About once a week or so, she would remind her roommates not to leave dishes lying around, as they had problems with the palmetto bugs as it was and didn’t need to keep sending extra food-based invitations to invade the house. They would say yeah, yeah of course, sorry, and provide their various  work-related excuses about not having time, as though she herself were not also working multiple jobs. They might clean up their act for a couple days, and then things would go back to how they were before. Invariably, the palmetto bugs would find their way in, creeping over the counter tops and disappearing into crevices in the baseboards, only visible for their antennas peaking out and twitching. It was an exercise in futility.

***

Sitting upright in the car, she pulled down the sun visor and slid open the mirror. Large teardrops still clung to her lashes, framing her reddened eyes. Her skin looked blotchy and her hair was a frazzled mess. Everything felt wet, tears and sweat mingling together. She wiped the tears from the bags beneath her eyes and tucked her hair behind her ears, trying in vain to smooth it back. Turning the key in the ignition, she felt the cool blast of air conditioning start to dry out the dampness. The radio was playing an overly happy pop song that contrasted her mood with defiance. She let it play anyway and started to drive.

As she made her way through the city back to her apartment, fresh doubts creeped in to replace the initial shock and sadness of losing her job and the fear of telling her parents and not being able to pay her bills. What if this meant she wasn’t cut out, not just to be a dancer, but even to be a teacher? Maybe she wasn’t capable of retaining the high attendance and re-enrollment numbers that that studio needed to keep up with the tuition payments to sustain it. 

Maybe I’m really not good enough for this. Too unlikeable. I care so much about my students, but what does that matter if they don’t like me at all; am I even helping them?

Her lack of natural charisma had always been a slight concern, but until now, she had thought that her genuine care for her students was enough to compensate for the way she didn’t exactly light up a room. 

It’s not enough. I’m not enough.

Maybe she did need to go back to her parents’ house, back to cornfields and people without any vision who never left their hometown. The realization that she wasn’t good enough even for her relatively modest dreams cut so much more harshly than the initial fears about money. 

***

On Friday, the new schedule was published. She used her break during her shift at the cafe to  look at it on the studio’s Facebook page, scrutinizing the brand new teacher’s name who had been placed next to her classes. She clicked the blue text: Joslyn. Joslyn’s profile picture was a candid shot of her smiling, probably laughing, with her arms held aloft in fifth position. Probably she was just so charming that photographers were drawn to her, capturing her levity in a perfectly timed image to showcase her talents in whatever class or workshop this had been taken in for marketing or whatever the hell it was. 

No such pictures existed of Devin. Headshots and carefully posed performance photos only. Joslyn was fresh out of college, barely any experience at all. But then, Devin herself was also only about a year out of college, barely any experience at all either, she realized.

After her shift, she checked her phone again. Several of her students had seen the post and messaged her. Why wasn’t she on the schedule any more, they asked? One was frantic with concern, and wanted to know why she hadn’t told them, or let them say goodbye. Andrea, the studio manager, hadn’t given her enough notice to do so. She had just told her after her last class, unbeknownst at the time, with the new schedule going live the next day and the new teacher starting that weekend. While she had been so busy feeling sad, afraid, and insecure, she missed out on the fact that she should also be feeling angry and indignant. 

Who fires someone over voicemail? Who makes a teacher leave without getting to say goodbye to their students?

 It was absurdly inconsiderate, both personally and professionally. 

She considered carefully how to respond to the students without appearing bitter or angry. Truth, in part, worked best. Simply put, she didn’t know why she had been fired or not allowed to say goodbye, and she was sad not to be with them anymore, so she told them. Their concern over her absence helped to soothe some of her fears away, making her a little more hopeful as she drove back home. Maybe she didn’t have what it took to be a bubbly, high energy teacher that students would flock to, but she did make a difference in some students’ lives at least.

Maybe that is enough.

In the apartment, she was the first one home again. A palmetto bug was sitting boldly atop the dishes in the sink, nibbling away at the savory sweet combo of bacon grease, corn syrup masquerading as maple syrup, and soggy waffle scraps left on her roommates’ morning breakfast plates. She grabbed the can of raid always left on the counter for its frequent use, and sprayed a cloud of chemical poison way larger than was necessary. The roach scurried away under the dishes, cooking pans, and utensils, but with some careful shifting, she saw it curling up and dying of slow suffocation at the bottom of the sink. She got a perverse pleasure out of watching its slow death. She washed the dishes. She ate her leftover dinner scraps and tried to ignore the smell of pesticide hanging in the air. Then she got out her laptop and started searching for a new studio. 

Time to try again.