First Position Read Online Free PDF

her own as a successful interior designer.  She owned every room she entered.  Business was her primary focus, and she pushed her boys to do the same.  It wasn’t as if Kathleen looked forward to seeing Emory during the trip; she simply liked appointments kept.
    Over dinner, Kathleen, Mason, and Emory discussed college life, and highlights from Mason’s senior season on the field, then speculated about what round Mason might be drafted in, and by which NFL team.  It could be a team in the Northeast -- where they would need to get used to cold weather -- or a team out in California -- where they would need to learn about earthquake insurance and surfing.  Or it could be some place in between.  The future was unknown and exciting, Mason and Emory dreaming about the endless possibilities.
    Then Kathleen put a stop to it.  “Emory, have you considere d no t auditioning for that New York dance company?”
    Emory stopped her dreams cold, Kathleen turning them into a nightmare.  “Did you sa y no t audition?”
    “Yes, dear.”  Kathleen said.
    Emory looked over at Mason, slumped in his chair.  A few weeks earlier, she’d told him she was invited to audition with the American Ballet Theatre in New York, the premier dance company in the United States, if not the world, during their final semester.  It had been her dream to dance professionally, and she planned to shoot for the top.  Only a few applicants each year were even selected.  She didn’t mind that Mason told his mother but couldn’t believe Kathleen would suggest she give up the opportunity.   She wondered if he’d expressed some concern to his mother.
    “I plan to audition,” Emory said boldly.  “It was quite an honor to be asked.”
    “Well, dear, it would just be so much easier on Mason if you were not in New York, and you moved wherever he is drafted and just danced there.”  Mason slumped further in his chair.  “Unless, of course, a New York team drafts him, but as we all know, we can’t be sure of that.”   Emory glared at Mason, urging him with her eyes to confront his mother.  She believed he always had supported her passion for dance -- that it was what first attracted him to her in the dark theater.
    But Kathleen had her and her son on the defensive.  She wouldn’t have his NFL career jeopardized by ballet and quickly went in for the kill.  “Don’t you think so, Mason?”
    Mason squirmed to sit up in his chair, then cleared his throat, looking down while fidgeting with his fork, with obviously no idea how to respond.  The question lingered while he delayed.  Emory turned to him, her eyes begging that he stick up for her, but he could only grimace under the glare of his mother.  “Em, I guess that’s something we can talk about?”
    Hell no !   But sick and in hostile territory, Emory took a deep breath and gently reminded Mason, as they’d discussed before, the career of a dancer is short -- like an NFL player -- and her time was now or never.  She then tossed her napkin down and excused herself from the table.
    Over the following weeks, Mason dropped hints that he hoped they could live together wherever he played, and that a long-distance relationship would be difficult.  Emory chalked it up to an overbearing potential mother-in-law and the pressures of the draft, figuring Mason eventually would come around.  Regardless, she wasn’t going to let him or Kathleen get in the way of her dance career.  In mid-February, two months before the draft, she traveled alone to the American Ballet Theatre in New York.  She gave a flawless audition and received encouraging feedback from the instructors but knew it was still a long shot.  She was competing against the best dancers in the world. 
    To her surprise, after a few weeks, she received an invitation in the mail to join the company.  She jumped up and down, her heart bursting out of her chest.  The years and years of practice and late nights had paid off.   Is