Barsa Ballet.
It wasn’t a forced cuteness. Something in the ramble down Las Ramblas brought back her dance classes. Unlike the girls who skip mechanically when they know they’re being watched, Abbi could have been anywhere with anyone. Instead she was in Barcelona with Jacky. Six AM sun streamed past the statue silhouette at the bottom of the pedestrianised parade. A calm walk followed a brutish night. Abbi and Jacky were walking to the beach following Columbus’ direction. She rolled and released into the sun a remembered routine. Eyes closed she could feel the sun that painted the inside of her orange eyelids, and hear the voice of Madame De Marco in ballet class, “…three, four” she whispered. Jack followed a few steps behind, watching her teasing tumble towards the shore. “One, two…” The waft of the early morning shellfish delivery from St Joseph’s market wasn’t enough to distract them. Passers by heading in the opposite direction and upwards toward Plaza de Espana were ghoulishly gawping at blissful ballet. Tired white faces. Jack thrived on their stares because he was the lucky fella escorting her for a post bender smoke on the beach. Arabesque then a roll her floating skirt kicked in the air above her, the growing yellow sunlight filtered through it onto the flyer-strewn concrete. She dipped and curled as they crossed towards the harbour. Slovenly sand sweeps high and cleanly in strips of golden dance steps. They sat with their feet in the water at the edge of the city away from the clubs and the PR’s and the hostel and the other boys and girls and they sighed and smoked together. “Thank you Jacky, aren’t you a lovely boy.” She said, as though he was even somehow responsible for the most beautiful morning the east of Spain had ever seen. “I owe for La Paz remember?” He squeaked, passing the joint. They both lay back on comforting concrete watching single cloud by single cloud go by and by as the clunks and revs of the city grew behind them.
