It Ain't Over (7 page)

But her self-consciousness about the way she looked held her back.

“I was passionate about performing, but I still felt that I looked too different to make anything of it,” she says. “After my surgeries, I figured I had gone from ‘the elephant man’ to ‘somewhat normal,’ but I still had some underlying issues with the bone structure of my face. I knew I wasn’t beautiful, so as much as I wanted to be back up on that stage, I kept trying to squash that dream.”

So she stayed away from theater, and tried to find other activities that engaged her. After high school, she studied Japanese at a small private college near her home, earning scholarships to pay her way. After graduation she held a series of jobs, at one point teaching English in Japan, a job that allowed her to save up the money she needed for what she hoped would be a final, life-changing surgery.

“I had heard about a bone-grafting procedure that could fill in the places in my face where the bone had never grown in properly,” she says. So she sought out the surgeon who created it; and in 1990, at age 24, Tina flew to Texas by herself for the ten-hour procedure.

“When I woke up, I felt like my face was covered in Silly Putty. It took awhile for the implants to settle and feel normal. There were so many screws in there that if you took an X-ray of my face it would have looked like a hardware store. But when I looked in the mirror afterward, I couldn’t believe it! It was the first time in my life I felt that I looked not just normal, but even attractive.”

Still, it took awhile for Tina’s self-image to catch up with her outer image. “I did feel more self-confident, but only up to a point,” she says. “Those years of bullying and name-calling were still inside me—they weren’t so easy to erase.” But her transformation did give her the courage to try to tackle her longtime dream: moving to New York City, the world capital of theater.

“Like most hopefuls, I got a job as a waitress and started taking dance classes,” Tina says. “Musical theater, jazz, Bob Fosse–style, you name it.” She also entered into a serious relationship for the first time, and eventually married (though the marriage ended amicably a few years later). “I had met him right after the surgery, and he encouraged me to believe in myself. He played a huge part in helping me catch up to my new looks.”

Before long, Tina found herself with enough confidence, and dance ability, to begin auditioning.

“My goal was to try out for a Broadway show,” she says. “Not even to get the job, just to audition.” And she surpassed that goal, landing dance roles in a few off-Broadway productions and even a stage show in Las Vegas.

But dance and waitressing weren’t paying the bills in an expensive city like New York. So, taking advantage of her time spent in Japan and her knowledge of the language, Tina started a business exporting American designer clothes and jewelry to Tokyo.

“I knew there was a lot of demand there for American brand names and designer goods,” she says, “and the exchange rate was great, so I could make a nice profit.”

Inspired by her business success, Tina applied to Columbia University, with the goal of becoming a Wall Street trader. “I knew I had a head for numbers and the ADD-type brain that could follow the constantly changing market dynamics.” And after graduation, she did find her niche on Wall Street, as a carbon trader. “I still loved the performing arts and always made time to take a class or see a show,” she says, “but it was exciting being in a field in which I was thriving.”

But all of the good fortune came to an end in 2009, when the financial markets crashed. Tina knew it was time to make yet another change.

“I had loved living in New York for 18 years,” she says, “but I was a huge wimp about the cold winters. I wanted to be somewhere warm, near the beach.” So she convinced one of her JP Morgan clients, a company based in Palm Springs, Florida, to create a position for her there as a carbon trader.

“I was all set to move,” she says, “and decided I’d treat myself to one last show in New York. I never imagined that buying that one ticket would change my life.”

The production Tina chose was the Cirque du Soleil, the world-renowned stage extravaganza that features high-flying acrobats, including aerialists
suspended on ribbons of silk. Tina had never seen anything like it before, and she was mesmerized.

“It was so elegant, like dancing on air,” she says. “And you could tell it took so much skill. But what really struck me was how breathtakingly beautiful the dancers were.”

Even after she got to Florida, Tina could not get the Cirque aerialists out of her head, and she wasted no time searching for a school that could teach her how to perform on silks. Amazingly, she found a weekend class in Miami—a 90-minute drive away—and she immediately signed up.

“It was like I was leading this double life,” she says. “Monday through Friday I was working hard at the new trading job, but as exhausted as I was by the end of the week, I’d also be pinging with excitement about taking the silk class.”

At age 43, Tina was nearly two decades older than everyone else in the class, which required a level of physical fitness she had never encountered before. “The amount of strength it takes just to pull yourself up on a silk is crazy,” she says. “Still, I was so happy to touch the fabric, to learn how to wrap my feet around it, that the energy just exploded out of me. And it’s so rewarding when you finally get that first move down, and then another, and then another.

“Imagine being 35 feet up in the air,” Tina explains, “then twisting yourself up in the fabric and suddenly unrolling your body in a dramatic drop. The first time I learned how to drop, I screamed all the way down!”

Tina’s training was grueling, and after only a few weeks, other students in her class began dropping out, one by one. But that only pushed Tina to become more dedicated—and she threw herself into learning arabesques and swings, splits, and twirls.

“I took every bit of it seriously,” she recalls. “My single driving thought was: I’ve got to get good at this so I can perform!”

Six months into her training, Tina’s teacher asked her to join a small group of students who were performing at a city street festival. “I instantly said yes,” Tina recalls, “even though I was really nervous. But once I got up and started doing the tricks, I was in a complete state of bliss.”

That one festival energized Tina’s ambition, and she soon began choreographing her own routines to pop and classical music. She even did a full-length solo performance (five to seven minutes—“but it feels way longer
when you’re doing it!”) at the famed Art Basel venue in Miami. “That was the crowning achievement,” she says.

Although she continues to work in finance to pay the bills, Tina still performs regularly at clubs or corporate and charity events—anyplace that will allow her to once again experience the unchecked joy of dancing on the air.

“I’ve performed on golf courses, with my silks hanging from trees, and in art museums suspended from the ceiling—you name it,” says Tina, who also designs her own costumes. “On silks, I feel like I’m doing something so unique, so transfixing, that people are just blown away. And when I tell them I didn’t start learning until I was in my forties, they’re blown away even more. I feel like I’m an inspiration to people my own age.”

The most rewarding part, Tina says, is teaching kids. “It’s touching to watch a student master a move, and then see her feel so proud. I think about everything I went through as a kid and I know that there’s incredible value in teaching young girls to be strong emotionally, and in helping them believe in themselves. I want them to learn to persevere, in the studio and in life, just as I have.”

Heather Femia, 48

Great Falls, Virginia

H
eather Femia was excited as she headed to her first deejay gig—and she looked fabulous. The stay-at-home mom of three spent most of her days in the kind of casual clothes you’d wear to the supermarket, but as the former corporate fashion director of Nordstrom, she still had what it took to rock a great look: on this night, the baggy jeans then being shown on the runways, a spaghetti strap tank, and, thrown over her shoulders, a leopard-print shrug with “a beautiful lavender silk lining.”

As great as Heather looked on the outside, inside she was torn. Her youngest, four-year-old Joey, hadn’t felt well all day and she worried about leaving him at home. But she’d promised a friend she’d deejay her fortieth birthday bash. “She was counting on me. I
was
the music for her party.” With her husband assuring her they’d be fine, she picked up Joey to kiss him good night—and he promptly got sick all over her. Not
exactly
how she’d pictured launching her glamorous new career.

As outlandish as it might seem for a 40-year-old minivan-driving mom from suburban D.C., becoming a deejay was not some kind of weird midlife crisis for Heather. It was a leap that she had finally, after years, gotten up the nerve to take.

Heather had collected music for as long as she could remember. As an only child in the seventies in Virginia Beach, Virginia, she says, “Music was like the sibling I never had.” As young as six, she’d tag along with her dad to Woolworth’s to pick out a record from the 99-cent rack: Sonny and Cher, Three Dog Night, Rod Stewart. “I remember my mom and grandma cooking and I’d be by myself with my grandfather’s very old record player, dancing around the living room and looking at album covers. I can still tell you what those record labels looked like.”

By high school, she’d developed a passion for fashion as well. Voted “Best Dressed” her senior year, she’d wait eagerly each month for the next issue of
Vogue
. Saturday mornings, she was glued to CNN’s
Style with Elsa Klensch,
which not only gave her a peek at high-end fashions from around the world but also introduced her to the chic electronic European dance club music playing in the background, so different from the songs—Hall & Oates, Lionel Richie—she was used to hearing. “It was the coolest thing ever,” she says.

After earning a two-year degree in art and design, Heather spent more than a decade working her way up to become head style guru for Nordstrom, where she coordinated the company’s high-profile fashion shows, including the music. Heather was fascinated by what the deejays did after she gave them a song list—editing and mixing the music, then adding a light show to create a mood for an event. “Someday I’m going to have
your
job,” she’d tell them.

“I wanted to be the one pushing the buttons,” she says. “I wanted a more intimate relationship with the music.”

But other things came first. By 1998, Heather was married with a four-year-old daughter, Natalie, and was traveling a lot: heading to New York City every season to pick the latest trends, presenting her findings at Nordstrom’s Seattle headquarters, going to store openings across the country, and, during the holidays, heading back to New York to be interviewed on air about the hottest styles for the upcoming year.

“It was super flattering and exciting. But it got to the point where Natalie would throw herself on the floor when I pulled out my suitcase. She would cry, ‘I don’t want you to go!’ ”

And Heather and her husband, who has a construction management and real estate development company, wanted more kids. “I knew I couldn’t handle any more on my plate,” Heather says. “Looking back on it, I feel like that whole ‘you can have it all’ thing is a misrepresentation. Something had to give, and as much as I loved my job, that something ended up being my career.” In 1998, she resigned.

After what Heather dubbed her “detox” year (“I took yoga, did projects around my house, cooked healthy meals”), she felt ready to try for another baby—then promptly had two, a daughter and a son, exactly 12 months apart.

So, suddenly, the former glitzy fashionista was spending her days buried under laundry, diapers, and doctors’ appointments.

“I was always lugging a double-stroller, snacks, drinks, wipes, and tissues. The basement looked like a preschool that had exploded—trains, books, and dolls everywhere. And try grocery shopping with two kids under three. I could barely keep my head above water.”

Heather’s savior was music. Whenever she could catch a break, she’d stop into a CD store, slip on headphones, and listen to the latest tracks. Or she’d wait until her husband got home and the kids were tucked into bed and go out
to clubs with former coworkers, not only to dance but to watch the deejays in action. “I had so much admiration for how they created that sweeping, uplifting mood through music,” she says.

Her husband was totally supportive. “He knew I felt like I was losing a sense of self.” So in 2005, she and a girlfriend celebrated her fortieth birthday by going to Ibiza, whose nightlife draws world-famous deejays and music enthusiasts.