The Daddy Dance by Mindy Klasky Page B

completely surrounded by an ideal that she couldn’t achieve.
    “I want to hear all about it!” she said, and she almost sounded enthusiastic for her friend.
    “Every word,” Haley vowed. They promised to talk later in the week, and Kat cradled the phone.
    Her conversation with Haley had left her restless, painfully aware of everything she was missing back home. She wanted to dance. Or at least stretch out at the barre.
    But there was other work to complete first. She sighed and sat at the desk, which was still overflowing with coffee-stained papers. Even if Rachel had maintained perfect records, they’d be impossible to locate in this blizzard. Tightening her core muscles, Kat got to work.
    Two hours later, she could see clear physical evidence of her hard labor. Raising her chin, Kat clutched the last pile of sorted papers, tapping the edges against the glass surface of the newly cleaned desk. Pens stood at attention in a plastic cylinder. Paper clips were corralled in a circular dish. A stapler and a tape dispenser toed the line, ready to do service. The entire office smelled of lemon and ammonia—sharp, clean smells that spurred Kat toward accomplishing even more of her goals.
    Next up: the computer. She had to find out if any of the files could be salvaged, if there was any way to access the hard drive and its list of classes, of students.
    She frowned as she glanced at her watch. She could call Amanda and ask for a ride to the tiny computer shop on Main Street. But she was pretty sure Amanda was taking an accounting class over at the community college, taking advantage of her flexible teaching schedule. There was Susan, of course, but Kat wasn’t certain that she could deflect her mother again. Susan would almost definitely insist on coming into the studio, and then she’d discover the water damage, the plumbing problems, the utter chaos that Rachel had left behind.
    Not to mention the bank account. Kat still dreaded stopping by the bank on Water Street, finding out just how short the studio’s account really was.
    She sighed. She’d been cleaning up after her sister for twenty-four years. It never got any easier.
    Well, there was another option for dealing with the computer. There was an able-bodied man working just down the hall. An able-bodied man with a shining silver pickup truck. Firming her resolve, Kat marched down to the bathroom.
    She found Rye in the second stall, wedged into an awkward position between the toilet and the wall. He was shaking his head as she entered, and she was pretty sure that the words he was muttering would not be fit for little Jenny’s ears—or the ears of any Morehouse Dance Academy students, either. He scowled down at the water cutoff with a ferocity that should have shocked the chrome into immediate obedience.
    “Oh!” Kat said in surprise. “I’ll come back later.”
    Rye pushed himself up into a sitting position. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t usually sound like a sailor while I work.”
    “Some jobs require strong language,” Kat said, quoting one of the stagehands at the National. “Seriously, I’ll let you get back to that. It was nothing important. I’m sorry I interrupted.”
    “I’ll always welcome an interruption from you.”
    There was that blush again. Rye could honestly say that he hadn’t been trying to sweet-talk Kat; he had just spoken the truth, the first thing that came to mind.
    That rosy tint on her cheeks, though, made her look like she was a kid. The ice princess ballerina melted away so quickly, leaving behind the girl who had been such an eager dancer, such an enthusiastic artist. He wondered what they had taught her at that fancy high school in New York City. How had they channeled her spirit, cutting off her sense of humor, her spirit of adventure? Because the Kat Morehouse he had known had been quiet, determined, focused. But she had known how to laugh.
    This Kat Morehouse looked like she had all the cares of the world balanced on