It’s a relief to go to ballet and not have to run through the recital piece time and time again. But then Miss Jessica throws some trickier combinations at us in class. Even at the barre I’m completely inept at the double frappes that she wants us to do. I just stand there throwing out random frappes, embarrassed.

Later when we come center the adagio baffles even Miss Jessica. Another combination with changements and something new to me, contretemps, leaves me completely defeated. But it’s fun and I’m able to laugh at myself.

By the end of class we’re all leaping across the studio, first with a pique combination and then with grand jetes. Jill is easily the best leaper of us all, although she sounds like she lands hard, loud, without enough plie.

On the walk home we walk a ways with Renee, who invites us to a wine tasting. But it’s on an evening that we’re seeing the Royal Ballet at the Kennedy Center. It’s a shame, because it sounds like great fun. Renee also gives us a flyer for an almost month-long season of the Washington Early Music Festival.

I’m not even sure what early music is, but I’m intrigued. I think of it as something like the version of Handel’s Messiah that I have, the version that Dawn owned too when we met, with Christopher Hogwood leading the Academy of Ancient Music. Period instruments and things like that maybe.