Page 20 of Embraced at Seaside
“What are the three or four things you like doing the most?” Leanna asked. “I mean, I had eight jobs in four years before I settled on my jam business. You can’t be half as crazed as I was.”
“What do I like to do? That’s easy. Dance, act, box, and…” She wrinkled her nose, knowing the girls would laugh, and said, “Have sex.”
Jenna and Bella threw their heads back in laughter, earning a loud wail from Bea. Amy and Jessica covered their mouths and giggled as Jenna tried to soothe Bea.
Leanna’s eyes went serious. “Well, we can’t let you become a boxing, pole-dancing call girl, now, can we?” Which only made the girls laugh harder.
Amy reached out and touched Jana’s hand. “You arenotgoing to pole dance or be a call girl. Jana, if you don’t want your boss to keep taking advantage of you, then don’t let him. Can’t you teach dance somewhere else?”
“Not on the Cape. There are only a few studios, and they each only offer certain types of dance. I don’t want to give up teaching different styles. I don’t want to settle and miss out on teaching the classes I enjoy, so I’m staying, but what I really want…one day…” She focused on a spot on the table, trying to gather the courage to voice what she’d been thinking about recently.
“What?” Jenna pushed.
“What I really want is to open my own dance studio, but I can’t seem to make the numbers, or the time, work.” She nibbled her lower lip, waiting for them to tell her she was right. There was no way she could do it.
“You should do it,” Leanna said with wide eyes. She kissed Sloan’s forehead and said, “Why not do it?”
“What’s involved? Why don’t you have the time?” Amy asked. “We’re really good at figuring things like this out. We helped Bella with her work-study program at the high school, and—”
“We were right there in the thick of it getting Leanna’s business started,” Bella said. “Well, we didn’t know Jessica then, but Jess is incredibly organized. She rivals Jenna, so I know she can help, too.”
“Help? Wait…” Jana saw the gears churning in their minds as they began talking among themselves.
“We can totally do this,” Jenna said. “Ames, get your notebook and let’s figure this out.”
Amy dug around in her baby bag and pulled out a notebook and pen.
“Wait, you guys.” Jana looked around the table in shock. “You don’t even know the situation yet. I only have a few thousand tucked away, maybe four or five. And my time? Well that’s a whole other story. I’m not a big boxer or anything, but Brock is training me, and I love it, and I help Colton when I can for extra money, and I have all this responsibility at Marco’s studio. Time is one thing I don’t have.”
Amy waved a dismissive hand. “Goodness, sweetie. We’ve heard it all before. You want your own dance studio? We can make it happen. A little grassroots marketing goes a long way.”
“You just gave me an idea. What about using the community center for the classes?” Jessica suggested.
Bella’s eyes widened. “Yes! Perfect! But we’ll need Theresa’s approval.” She turned to Jana and explained. “Blue renovated the laundry building over the winter, so now we have the laundry area separate from the storage, which was really like a big empty barn since we hardly store anything now that we all live down here and have other houses. He made the storage area smaller, and now we have a recreation area for the community. It’s gorgeous, of course, because Blue made it with hardwood floors and everything.”
“We renovated it so when it rains the babies don’t have to be out under umbrellas,” Leanna explained. “It’s one thing to get together as adults under umbrellas in the rain, because, you know, we never mind that stuff.”
“But with the babies,” Amy said as she touched Hannah’s cheek, “we don’t want them to catch colds. So now we have this amazing space. It’s definitely big enough for dance classes.”
“Theresa’s approval.” Jenna narrowed her eyes at Bella. “We should have asked over the winter, when the threat of another one of Bella’s pranks wasn’t hovering.”
“Sky told me about your pranks,” Jana said. “They sound hilarious.” Every summer Bella pulled a prank on Theresa, who was the property manager, and fairly straitlaced.
“Theresa and I came to an agreement at the end of last summer. No more pranks. I’m done,” Bella insisted. She wiped Summer’s mouth and said, “I think she’d love to help you out. She might have to charge a nominal fee because of the association rules or something, but we can ask her.”
“No more pranks?” Amy shook her head. “I don’t believe it. You’ll have withdrawals.”
Bella laughed. “I think Summer will keep my mind occupied enough to take care of that. Besides, we have a dance business to plan.”
They spent the next hour planning and strategizing every aspect of Jana starting her own dance studio. Midway through their planning session, with Jana feeling like she’d just been scooped up by the most amazing team of planners she’d ever met, she called Brock and explained what she was thinking about doing and that for the first time ever she’d have to miss their training session. Brock started to give her a brief lecture on commitment, then, being the incredibly supportive big brother that he was, told her he was proud of her.
“I think we have a solid plan.” Amy flipped through the pages of notes she’d taken and read off their to-do list. “Bella, you’re going to help Jana design flyers. Leanna, you’re going to start getting contacts together that you used for your business to help spread the word, like that woman at theCape Coddernewspaper and the other media outlets we talked about.”
“Yup. I’m excited,” Leanna said. “You should have seen how happy they were when I brought them each a case of Strawberry Spice jam.” Strawberry Spice was Leanna’s newest flavor, and all the girls agreed it was the best yet.
Amy continued doling out assignments. “Jenna, you’re on list duty. You get to make lists of places for Jana to hang up flyers. And Jessica and I will work with Jamie to develop a website with online registration forms, directions, class descriptions, which Jana will need to help us with.” She set down the notebook and grinned. “I’m so excited I feel like I could burst!”
“You guys, my boss would have a fit if he saw flyers going up in town.” Jana tried to quell the worry in her stomach, but everything was happening so fast.
