Shattered Dreams - A short story!
In my spare time, I like to write short stories. Thought of this one today. Please tell me what you guys think!
My mother used to tell me to find a good husband while I was still young and beautiful.
Perhaps, I should have taken her advice. I was a girl from a small town in Rhode Island, with dreams of moving to the “Big Apple”.
I loved to dance and sing, and I wanted to prove to my mother that a woman didn’t need a man to be worth something. I worked as a secretary for a few years until I had enough money to pursue my dream of becoming a dancer in New York City.
I was so enthusiastic to leave my hometown for the first time. I told my mother snobbishly to “Look for me in the newspapers”.
I was so confident that my passion would turn me into an instant success. From the moment I arrived in the city for the first time, my excitement turned into reluctance.
Smog filled the air, people pushed and shoved you as if you didn’t even exist, and I became acutely aware of the fact that I was one woman in a city of millions.
I auditioned at several ballrooms, but I always performed worse than the other girls, they had training at esteemed ballet schools, and I had practiced alone in between working and cleaning around the house. I broke down in tears, I knew I couldn’t go back home, I had already worked too hard and promised too much to go back now. I knew that I couldn’t survive for long off failed auditions.
So I turned to my one redeeming quality, my beauty. The local coffee shop by my apartment always had men, some who were lonely coming back from the war, escaping their wives, or blowing off steam after a late-night heist. I became the woman that they could go to for emotional support, a shoulder to cry on, or a plaything for their erotic curiosities. A temporary side-job that was intended to last a month or two turned into a year, a year turned into five, five years turned into ten. My “clients” used to be frequent, always wanting to consort with the beautiful “bombshell with the red hair”. But I knew now that my face would never appear in the newspapers.
Time has worn on my beauty and the clients have grown less and less. I never wanted to accept that my mother was right, but I can’t help but think what life would have been like if I hadn’t tried to prove her wrong.
Thanks for taking the time to read!