Bright Burning Stars

by A. K. Small

  “Oh, sweetie.” He sounded far away, his voice muffled by background noise.

  “Is someone with you?” I said, remembering the time difference, that over there it was two a.m.

  “Just a few friends.”

  In the dark lab, I suddenly wished I were there. Not because of the company. My father’s friends were professors of vague subjects like ethics or political science. They didn’t care about dance. They sat around for hours, discussing American affairs over bottles of wine. What I missed was the language, the drawl. French was so full of consonants. Always spoken from a pout. What I missed was home. Or what home used to be.

  “Did you get my latest package?” my dad asked. “The beaded and colored hairnets? I found them while I was looking for shampoo.”

  He beamed but then the screen turned fuzzy and he leaned in, slipping off his glasses. His hair was gray and his lips were chapped.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and said, “Dad, I gotta go.”

  “Everyone on this side of the pond says hi, pumpkin.”

  In that moment, I changed my mind about The Demigod. Pumpkin. Beaded hairnets. I didn’t have a choice. Unlike Ugly Bessy and Isabelle, who came from snobby Parisian families who lived in the sixteenth arrondissement and knew about velvet and Repetto leotards with spaghetti straps and low backs, I had nothing. I needed The Demigod’s glow to shine on me more than any other girl here.

  I marched out of the lab and hustled back to the dorms. Some of the First Division girls—Bessy, Isabelle, and Colombe—were in the common room doing stage makeovers, and M was helping paint a mural in the Division Five and Six hallway. One girl in Third Division and a boy in Second, someone said, had been dismissed and picked up by family. I kept my head bowed and made a sharp turn to the back door stairwell.

  I ran all the way up. I’d just made it to the fifth floor when Cyrille emerged from the lounge area, said “Welcome back,” and started down the hallway. Stunned, I followed. Had he been waiting for me? Cyrille didn’t go toward his room the way I expected. Instead, he took me past the conference room and pushed open a black door that led outside. We climbed an iron stairwell protected by an awning and found ourselves on the roof of the dormitories.

  I refrained from running to him.

  We stood on a terrace the size of two large ballet studios. Shrubs were planted all along the edges of the railing. If I looked straight ahead, I could see Paris glittering in the distance.

  “Do you come here a lot?” I asked.

  Cyrille said, “When I need to think.”

  I felt abruptly special and marveled at the fact that I’d never even known about a dorm terrace until now.

  “Look.” Cyrille pointed to a spot near the edge.

  When I got closer I saw rows of initials knifed into the ground.

  Cyrille put a foot on one of the letters. “The Division One boys who didn’t make it to the top. It’s a tradition. They come here on their last day and engrave their names into Nanterre.”

  I hugged myself. Did girls do that somewhere too? There were rows and rows here, some dating back to 1983, the first year rats moved to Nanterre from the Palais Garnier. I took a step back, as if being too close to the letters might contaminate me.

  Cyrille said, “I don’t ever want my name on this rooftop.”

  He walked away and stood at the center of the terrace. When I met him there and told him that he had nothing to worry about, that The Prize belonged to him, that when he danced he became magic, he linked his fingers through mine. Then he bent down and kissed me.

  I was unprepared for the heat of our entwined hands and his lips on mine. I thought we might combust then coalesce into one of the stars above our heads, burn in space together forever. I decided right then and there that Paris wasn’t half as bad as I’d made it out to be and that kissing The Demigod was better than ranking Number 1 on The Boards. It was the way he held me, palms on my cheeks, thumbs beneath my chin. Then, as if this wasn’t delicious enough, it started to rain. Drops of water fell on us and Cyrille yanked me tighter. We stood chest-to-chest. Yes. Me and The Demigod. The scent of his wet leather jacket was bitter, animal-like. I could have kept on kissing him for a century. But eventually the drops turned to a downpour and Cyrille broke away, running back inside the stairwell, finding cover under the awning.

  I caught up to him and laughed. Water dripped from my ponytail and my clothes were drenched.

  “Do you have a smoke?” I said.

  Cyrille scowled at me. “Isn’t your body your temple?” he asked.

  “Yeah, sure. Whatever.” Embarrassed, I plopped down on a step, then added, trying to change the subject, “Tell me about the cafeteria pas de deux. It wasn’t symbolic, was it?”

  At that, Cyrille smiled. The pang deep inside my heart returned, making me shudder. But once more, I ignored it. I twisted my damp ponytail, then stood up. He reached for the tops of my jeans and slipped his fingers inside the hem.

  “I admire your audacity,” he said.

  We were kissing again, this time with my back pushed against the concrete wall of the stairwell. Cyrille, I was 99 percent sure, was not thinking about that dull pas de deux now. All I really knew was that I was passing the test because the heat between us was dragon-flame scorching and because Cyrille was running his thumbs down my rib cage, over my hips, and murmuring how sun-hot I was. This, whatever this was, falling deep in love on a narrow staircase in a cold iron stairwell, back rubbing against the concrete, was better than anything. If The Demigod and I made these kinds of sparks inside the dorms, then what would we be like onstage?

  One afternoon after the stairwell night, I met Cyrille by the wall behind the oak trees. For days, my back had a cut from the bark and my lips were swollen. In the library, behind rows of slender yearbooks called Les brochures Nanterre, I let Cyrille run his fingers beneath the hem of my leotard. I trusted him. I believed in him and in us the way I believed in my ability to dance. Something about The Demigod’s touch was different from the other boys I’d kissed. Cyrille ran his fingers on my skin the way I imagined Tasha the seamstress skimmed her fingers over tulle in the costume room. “Don’t move,” he sometimes said. Other times, he asked questions: “There? Or there?” “Yes? Or no?” If I answered him or did as he asked, I’d have to grab onto his arms because I’d feel an electrical current ripping through me so strong I thought I might burst into a million pieces.

  I danced better, with more freedom and more confidence. My pirouettes were windlike. I spun and spun, never dizzy. I tried new steps and refined old ones. Out of the studio, I laughed a lot. My body tingled and felt deeply tethered to the earth. I didn’t once dream of my mother’s absence, of the afternoon when the waves of hollowness had begun inside my chest and I’d hung on to my birthday balloons, feeling as if I might float away. I slipped sandalwood-scented red hearts into Cyrille’s pockets with Would You questions written on them—Would you have dinner with me on the terrace? Would you betray your best friend? Would you ever dance for another ballet school? And an extra special one in English, Would you tell me if you loved me?—but Cyrille never answered them. I was so busy discovering his godlike body that I didn’t even ask myself why.

  On the last day of September, when we met inside the small ground-floor studio after rehearsal, I brought up M. She and I still chatted and did homework across the room from each other. We sat together in history and danced one in front of the other during barre as always, but ever since I’d begun to sneak more time with Cyrille, a worrisome current seemed to drift between us.

  “M and I,” I said, leaning against the barre while Cyrille slid his thumbs beneath my straps and pulled at my leotard. “We have this thing.”

  That night, he wore a red bandana and I yanked it off, wanting to run my fingers through his hair and to pull his face to my chest.

  “But now that there is you and me, je m’inqui�
�te. I worry,” I offered, wishing I could explain the weight of the Moon Pact in English, how some things would always be difficult for me to say in French.

  “About?”

  “Her. Her ranking. M is my best friend. My family.”

  Cyrille took the bandana from my hand and knotted it back onto his head. He didn’t run a finger from my bare shoulder down the side of my rib cage the way I anticipated. He stared at me, his eyes the color of a turbulent sea.

  “That’s your flaw, Kate,” he said. “You’re too highly aware of your peers, of who gets what.”

  I pushed him away and readjusted my leotard straps.

  “What’s with the meanness?” I said.

  Cyrille sighed, apologized, then pulled me to him again.

  When he grabbed my wrist and brought me back to his room, inside his closet (for maximum privacy), I did not let myself think suspect or askew. The high I felt swelling inside me obliterated everything else. I only paid attention to my chest, how full it was, drowning in Shirley Temples, the sensation so sweet I could nearly taste it. I decided that maybe he was right, that maybe I was too worried about other girls. That my worrying was getting in my way. I decided not to bring up M or any other rat-girl again and to give myself to him completely. Once more, his thumbs slipped beneath my straps but this time he didn’t tug. He lowered them down and down until my ivory leotard fell to the floor. Then he ran his palms over my tights, and like a bee drawn to nectar, I looped my arms around his neck and drank in his scent.

  “Do you think there is a real chance that we’ll partner?” I whispered in the darkness. “That faculty notices us? Our electricity?”

  Cyrille didn’t answer. He kissed me instead. I knew his kiss meant yes. Yes to us, to our love, and to our futures as principal dancers. All that mattered was the exceptional heat between us, how palpable it felt. The pull to be his, to belong to him on and off the stage, was as strong as the James River’s currents behind my house. When he lifted me up, naked, like in pas de deux class, and slipped himself inside me, I cried out, and hung on to him as tightly as possible.

  The next day I sat on my bed watching M brush her hair up into a fresh ponytail when a Fifth Division boy came knocking. He said, “A gift from Monsieur Terrant.” He handed me black warm-ups, bowed, then bolted down the hall. For a second, I forgot that Marine was in the room and brought the delivery to my face. I inhaled, hoping that the wool would be soaked with his scent. I missed being near Cyrille the way I imagined a drunk missed his wine. By now the high had vanished. Without The Demigod’s glow radiating down on me, I was dangerously close to the dip, the washed-out feeling that followed. My body yearned for darkness, for the warm cocoon of my comforter.

  “For God’s sake,” M said. “You’re smelling rompers.”

  She too wore overalls over her ivory leotard and tights but hers were burgundy, a unique, standout color.

  I kept Cyrille’s gift close to my face, thought of the gray polyester ones my father had given me, how I’d never have to wear them again.

  “I think he loves me,” I said.

  Marine sighed. “How do you know? Short-Claire has been walking around heartbroken. She’s not the only one. Look at Isabelle. He obviously has got only one thing on his mind.”

  I shook my head. What do you know about love? I thought. But then I felt bad. M knew a lot about love, but a different kind of love. Oli-love. Not long ago, Marine had told me that she’d cried when her mother had explained that in the womb she and Oli had swum in two separate amniotic sacs, making them fraternal, not identical. “I’d always thought of us as conjoined somehow, not divided, even by a membrane.” Back then I hadn’t understood M’s grief. Instead, I’d thought of my own mother, carrying me, how warm and safe I must have been inside her belly, all tucked away. But now for some reason at the image of these two babies unable to touch, I blinked back tears.

  “I love him,” I said, remembering not just Cyrille’s fingers but the terrace, the initials on the ground, our clothes wet from rain.

  “Love is a waste of time,” M replied.

  She sprayed hairspray around the crown of her head, then generously down the length of her ponytail. I resisted the urge to lower our blinds and slide into bed. Instead, I laid the warm-ups on my comforter, unfolding them just so. I tried to admire the loose pant legs that would cover my pointe shoes and the wide shoulder straps that would make my torso look extra skinny.

  “I’m sorry,” M suddenly said. “Hunger makes me crazy. I’m being a jerk. Can you help me?” She pointed to her hair.

  I smiled and maybe because of her apology, the shadows pressing at the edges of me lessened.

  “How about a yogurt?” I asked.

  “Hair first,” she answered.

  Doing each other’s buns was a ritual. I loved M’s thick chocolate-colored hair. As I braided it, its silkiness beneath my fingertips soothed me. I loved everything about Marine—her fierce loyalty, sunny outlook, willingness to share all she had, even her family, what was left of it. Marine was my bridge, the person who made France and Nanterre turn into something besides a war zone. Like I’d said to Cyrille, Marine was family.

  “I told him that you and I were moon-sisters and that I wanted you to rise up on The Boards too.”

  “What did he say?”

  The worst part was that I couldn’t remember. As I twisted M’s braid into a high bun, all I did recall was the heat of our bodies against the barre, the melted fog that came along with that. How if I kept on belonging to Cyrille I would be happy, not just because of The Boards—those too—but because of the way he made me feel, invincible and shimmery, when I was with him.

  “He wants to help you too,” I offered.

  I hooked a hairnet to M’s bun, then inserted bobby pins until everything was fastened, tight, and round.

  Marine said, “Did you have sex?”

  The closet surged immense in my mind. “Would you be jealous?”

  Marine placed her hands on my shoulders. “I’m scared he’ll break your heart, Kate. He will. Boys have this way of getting into you too deep. Remember Saar? How blue you were after he left?” She paused, then said, “It’s hard to explain but sometimes I feel like tu as plus que le cafard. Like something’s really wrong.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said, momentarily puzzled by the French expression—it literally translated to “having the cockroach,” but meant being down in the dumps.

  I grabbed my ballet bag and tried not to think back on those days, how M was right, how the hollowness had descended upon me like a heavy curtain after Saar left, and how one afternoon when everyone was outside sunbathing in the courtyard, I’d felt so lonely, so numb and unloved that I’d nicked my wrist with a paper clip inside the language lab. Later, I’d begged Bruno, the soft-in-the-middle rat, for the opened bottle of wine I’d seen him sipping from a few days before. “Sure,” he’d said, handing it to me in the common room, wrapped in a pair of leg warmers. “Believe it or not,” he’d added, “faculty leaves unfinished bottles in the fridge.” I’d thanked him for the tip, chugged the wine as quickly as I’d downed the cough syrup back in the winter, and finally zonked out.

  Now, as M frowned at me, I added, “Nothing’s wrong. Let’s go.”

  Midway to the academic annex, I realized that I’d never answered her question about sleeping with Cyrille.

  The following Friday night, I crushed my générale. When I walked into the Board Room very late, wearing my beloved overalls, my heart lifted. Most of the dancers had already come and gone. A string of young rat-girls were left looking at Fourth Division results. In their lavender leotards, they ran up to me and curtsied.

  “You are Number One,” one of them said.

  I could have hugged her, the small rat, but instead I found my name, 1. Kate Sanders, then kneeled in front of the pages and bowed my head, thanking the universe
.

  seven

  Marine

  No matter how much I practiced, I vacillated between Number 3 and 4. But on a Monday afternoon, after center work was over and before pas de deux rehearsal, Monsieur Chevalier beckoned me over in his wizardlike way.

  He sat on the edge of his stool, perplexed. “It’s unlike the two of you to clown around.”

  He spoke of Kate, how not a half hour ago, during glissades, she’d run out of the studio. I had chased her and found her sitting, knees to chest, in a bathroom stall.

  I said, “Kate is under the weather.”

  That was the understatement of the year. In a mere two weeks, Kate had slipped from Number 1 to 5—the biggest drop any of us had ever seen in all our years as rats—and she hadn’t ascended since.

  Monsieur Chevalier sighed, then glanced around the room the way he always did when he was about to make serious decisions. “You know the saying: one day off, a dancer notices it. Two days, the audience does too.” He pointed in the boys’ direction and added, “Stand next to Cyrille.”

  My breaths shortened and my hands were moist against my tights. I hadn’t spoken to Cyrille in weeks. Actually, I never spoke to Cyrille and I hadn’t looked at him since minutes before the cafeteria pas de deux. The Oli resemblance had continued to haunt me. Oli was Oli. No one could ever replace him. Even momentarily. Every night, I went to sleep forming Oli’s features in my brain, desperate to remember what he’d looked like and what he might look like now. Then, there were the fresh rumors. The ones about Kate.

  Monsieur Chevalier didn’t seem to notice that I was uncomfortable, that I didn’t run to Cyrille. Luc got Short-Claire. Before I could give him the thumbs-up—Claire wasn’t on probation—he shot me a sidelong glance, shook his head, then turned back to her and ever so graciously offered her his hand. Ugly Bessy ran to Thierry. Colombe, the daughter of a famous film producer, and who was way too nice to be here, stood by Fred. Marie-Sandrine, who wore pearl earrings, paired up with Guillaume. Isabelle stomped over to Bruno. Gia curtsied in front of Jean-Paul. Sebastian was called with Kate but because Kate wasn’t there, he ran up to Isabelle and pinched her butt, which got a laugh out of everyone except for me.