Bright Burning Stars

by A. K. Small

  “Did you forget about our practice time?” I said, feeling my heart race.

  Luc barely looked in my direction. “Change of plans,” he said.

  His tone was so prickly that Sebastian got up and left.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  Luc hopped off the couch and kept his distance from me.

  He said, “Cyrille, or should I call him your boyfriend, filled me in on your clever little plan before dinner. He told me all about his visit to the infirmary, how you were The One. He asked if we could switch on Saturday. You and him versus Kate and me? He said that you both understood that it was against the rules but that you and he had decided to go to The Witch right before taking the stage and that he would take one hundred percent of the blame. That he was sorry but that you two were madly in love and that Kate would be an excellent partner for me.” He yanked off his cap, turned it backward then forward again, jamming it so low on his head I could barely see his eyes. Then he said, “Did Cyrille also fill you in on his codes? About trying on girls in order to win The Prize?”

  “Luc, I didn’t discuss anything with Cyrille at length.”

  I longed to grab his hands but I didn’t dare. I sat down. His cheeks were redder than my leotard and now that he was glaring at me I could see that his eyes were stormy green.

  “Please tell me that none of it is true,” he said. “Tell me he didn’t go to Fabienne’s room when you were ill. That you guys didn’t kiss that day.”

  My ears warmed. “He did. We did. But it wasn’t—”

  “You kissed Cyrille?”

  “No. He kissed me.”

  “Great.”

  Luc’s whole body tightened and all I could do was look down at my feet, the knot in my throat so large I couldn’t swallow.

  “Never mind,” he said. “I guess I really thought that you and I had something. What was I to you anyway? A side dish? Oops. A bad joke for someone who has trouble eating.”

  I winced. And before I could beg him to listen and tell him that Cyrille had caught me off guard that day, that I’d pushed him away, Luc left the common room and made his way to the dance annex, me rushing after him. He closed the door to the studio in my face. His fingers pounded the piano keys, the pedal making rippling echoes. I stood by the door for what felt like forever. He played and played and played. Then Little Alice showed up in the hallway.

  “What did you do to him?” she asked.

  I didn’t know how to answer. “You’d better get back to the dorms,” I suggested.

  Little Alice curtsied but then she took my hand and led me away.

  For the next two days, Luc didn’t look me in the eyes. He didn’t come by The Shoe and when I asked him once to please rehearse with me and let me explain, he shook his head. In the cafeteria, he sat with Guillaume and Sebastian and laughed as if nothing was the matter, and during class he danced with more brazenness. He kicked his legs harder and used more room. During a manège, he leaped so high off the ground that Monsieur Chevalier complimented him.

  “I like your newly found fire, Bouvier,” he said.

  Thursday night around eleven p.m., I found Cyrille in the circular studio, rehearsing alone, wearing a blue bandana and black tights.

  At the sight of me, he smiled. “I knew you’d change your mind,” he said.

  He clicked on the Firebird tape and violins blared from the speakers.

  “This variation fits you perfectly.” He slid into a temps lié, hands out, did a few quadruple changements, and added, “The tempo is tricky. You’re the only one who can do it right. Want to give it a try?”

  He looked so genuine that a few months ago I might have shed my overalls and sweater. But tonight I knew better and had only one goal in mind. Luc had turned his back to me earlier in the hallway and my appetite had been plummeting because of our awful silences. Like back in the days when Oli and I fought, I couldn’t do anything but obsess over it until we were reunited.

  I said, “Why did you tell Luc about your visit to Fabienne’s?”

  Cyrille looked up at the skylight and sighed.

  “Marinette,” he said. “We’re very short on time.”

  “I’ve told you not to call me that,” I replied. “This was Oli’s nickname for me. Let me remember him saying it.”

  Cyrille turned off the music. He walked over to the edge of the room and grabbed his leather jacket from the floor. For a second, I thought he was about to leave, maybe even slam the door shut, but instead he approached me and draped his jacket over my shoulders. His hair fell on his face and if my mind hadn’t been as clear as it was, I might have lost myself in the leather’s familiar soft and buttery scent.

  “I want you to have this,” he said. “I love you. I mean, I’m in love with you.” He stilled, averting his gaze, which told me how vulnerable he was. “And please, please partner with me, Marine.”

  Oh, la, la. “Wait,” I said, unsure for a moment as to what to do and say. But then I handed him back his jacket. “You, in love?” I said. “How is that possible? I hear you romance girls. You even check out our bodies and quiz us? Is that true? Someone posted your colorful codes in the bathroom back in the fall. What happened?”

  Those days seemed to be nothing but a long-ago dream.

  Cyrille said, “This is the truth, Marine. At the conservatory, my mentor told me that my career was riding on the right fit.” He sighed. “I guess,” he added, looking at his feet. “I guess I took it to heart. I wanted to make sure that the rat-girl I found was The One. Then I met you and fell. Hard. I think that my mentor was wrong. You have to fall in love for the girl to become the right partner. Not vice versa.”

  He took my hands in his.

  “Look, I’m not proud of some of my actions. But I was always honest with you.”

  I shook my head. I remembered the night in the costume room, how he’d brought me a picnic, how he hadn’t been afraid to ask me some tough questions I would have otherwise never asked myself. But then I also thought of everything else that happened and of the afternoon when Oli had passed away, how I’d chosen to follow Pierre, my bad boy crush back then, the dazzling rebel with the hamster in his army shirt pocket. Look where following the bad boy had gotten me. Look where it had gotten Kate. I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

  “I can’t believe Kate and I used to call you The Demigod,” I said.

  Cyrille laughed.

  Now I was the one to look up at the skylight. I thought of Kate, of our Moon Pact. I thought of Oli again. For one blessed moment, I saw him pirouetting in the studio and nearly heard his laughter. I wondered if he would have done the same thing had he been here at our age, if under all this pressure he might have tried on girls, too, in order to win The Prize. Or, if he even would have made it through Sixth Division.

  Suddenly, I realized that I would never know and that I was done making deals for other people in the circular studio, that I could only control my fate. This new understanding shocked me. Was that what it meant to grow up? I wondered. De mieux se comprendre? To better understand your needs? To self-advocate?

  “I love Luc,” I said, breaking hold of Cyrille’s hands, then exhaling, my body relieved at those long-overdue words. “I’m sorry. And I’m dancing with him Saturday. So you’d better go get Kate and rehearse the hell out of your variation because you’re right, she’ll have trouble with the tempo.” I was about to leave when Cyrille shot me one last smile, albeit a sad one, then said, “You’re breaking my heart, but Luc’s a good guy.”

  I blew him a kiss then ran out of the studio, flew down the stairs to the dorms, and up the back stairwell to Hall 5. It took me a few minutes to get my bearings. Everything was reversed here and the boys even had a minibar. I found Luc’s room, knocked, and waited. Bare-chested and in a pair of sweatpants, Luc squinted at the hallway light.

  “What are
you doing here?” he said.

  I sucked in my breath. I wanted to rush back down the stairs and pretend this awkward moment wasn’t happening.

  “I know you might be mad at me for life. I know I should have told you about Cyrille and his visit. But tonight I went to see him and I told him that I only wanted to partner with you, that you were The One for me. If you still don’t want me as a partner, I’ll sit this last générale out and maybe Kate can dance with the two of you separately. This isn’t about The Prize for me anymore. This is about us pulling through. Together.”

  Luc was the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the light, they were as green as apples.

  “Marine Duval,” he said.

  And as if saying my name made him dog-tired, he leaned his body against the doorframe.

  I braced myself for rejection but Luc placed his thumb on my lips. He leaned down and pressed his mouth first to my forehead, then to my cheeks, and then to my mouth.

  Later, we fell asleep on my twin bed in The Shoe. When I woke, I found myself on top of my quilt, curled up into Luc the way I used to curl up with Kate. Me inside the spoon, him out, his arm wrapped around me, his knees behind mine, and son pied blessé, his wounded foot, sockless, slipped between my shins.

  thirty-two

  Kate

  On the morning of coed générales, after D1 class, Cyrille asked me if I’d rehearse Firebird.

  “We only have a couple of hours to make this work,” he said.

  Stunned, I slipped my warm-ups off. I didn’t tell him that I’d been going on hardly any sleep and that ever since Marine had left our room and no longer breathed next to me at night, my chest was full of static. I was having insomnia. I didn’t bring up the codes because I was too ashamed for myself and for him. Instead, in my ivory leotard and new pointe shoes, I began to mark our variation. I tried to nail the steps, focusing on my body, on every muscle, every tendon, and on my reflection.

  In his gray tights and white T-shirt, Cyrille danced next to me. Not as close as he’d danced with M but close enough. At first, I kept on stumbling on the unusual five-count beat but every once in a while, Cyrille shook his head, said, “Not like that,” and paused the music so we could rehearse tempo. Cyrille demonstrated it over and over until I finally got the last quick counterintuitive sissonne.

  After a solid hour of rehearsal, Cyrille sat and said, “It’s different to partner with you. Marine dances for music. What do you dance for? Show me.”

  He gestured for me to begin again.

  Before everything, I might have refused. I might have felt too seasoned, but the night before, I’d gotten word from The Witch that Maude’s ankle was better and that my understudy days were over. All I had left now was Nanterre, and if I was lucky, this final evening pas de deux in the palace with Cyrille.

  As I mulled over his question, I realized that I’d forgotten the essential: the why I danced. My heart had been so busy beating only for boys that little by little, even ballet, what I loved most in the world, had gone by the wayside.

  “Talk,” Cyrille said.

  Unsure how to answer, I was quiet for a moment. Then I recited something Nijinsky once said.

  “Classical dance is about space.”

  I reached my right hand up into the air.

  “It’s about claiming it.”

  I moved into a sharp arabesque and balanced.

  “Yes!” Cyrille said.

  “It’s about owning it.”

  I cut the air with my arm.

  “Yes!” he said, again.

  “Slicing it. Traveling through it.”

  I curled into myself, and said, “It’s also about leaving it.”

  “Hallelujah!” Cyrille said.

  I sailed through a series of diagonal piqués into back attitudes and when I was done, I said, “It’s about the relationship between my body and molecules around it, how I move them and how the rippling effect touches others.”

  Cyrille joined me in the center of the studio.

  “Where has this vibrant Kate been?” he said.

  Without music, he performed the most beautiful big jumps series I had ever seen. His body, even more sinewy than before, leaped around me, across the air, defying gravity. His feet, thighs, and arms sliced the space around him like swords.

  “It’s about letting your personality fly wild,” he said, breathless. “You and I are like purebred horses, we dance for energy. We burst from the stables and illuminate. So let’s do that together tonight.” He looked me in the eyes and added, “I’m sorry for what happened this fall. For everything. I hope someday you’re able to forgive me but if you can’t, I’ll understand.” He bowed, then reached for my hand and gently squeezed it. “See you onstage?”

  Though late, his apology helped. Once I was alone in the studio, I knelt down and kissed the ground I’d danced on, promising the universe that if I won The Prize, I would not only stop taking drugs but I would tap into that space and let my personality fly wild. For good. I would. I swore it.

  thirty-three

  Marine

  Forty-five minutes before curtain call, Kate and I were the last ones to get ready in the palace’s First Division dressing rooms. Maybe because of where we were—the significance of the setting—our interaction felt friendly, familiar, almost like old times.

  “My dad’s supposed to be here today,” Kate said. “Or so Louvet tells me. I hope he brings me roses and not something strange like a tub of maple syrup.”

  “He might,” I said.

  I chuckled, remembering the many odd gifts Kate had received over the years—the beaded hairnets as opposed to plain ones; a long-sleeved leotard with a cameo design instead of the satiny Repetto, low-back maillots girls coveted; lambswool to put in her pointe shoes when rats taped their feet. The ballet tights covered in teeny American flags, which Kate had hung above her landscape posters like a garland. Her awful gray polyester overalls. Of course, the turquoise pointe shoes. In Fifth Division, girls graduated from socks to demi pointes to pink pointe shoes. Never turquoise. But, I thought, in Mr. Sanders’ defense, how could he have possibly known?

  As Kate told me about her surprise rehearsal with Cyrille, how he’d apologized to her about The Closet, I slipped on my Firebird leotard, the color of a sunset, then my burnt-orange tutu and headpiece. The truth was that I kept thinking about Luc, about his earlier confession and offer. Half awake on my bed that morning, he’d revealed that he was the one who’d hung Cyrille’s codes in the girls’ bathroom back in the fall to warn me and others, and that he wasn’t the least bit sorry about it. Delivering a soft kiss on my lips, he’d said that if he didn’t win, he’d fly to a place like New Orleans or Cape Town and join a jazz band, and asked me to consider coming along, maybe, if I was ready. I hadn’t told him yet but I was pretty sure I’d traverse the earth and entire constellations to be with Luc.

  I pulled two beautiful feathers from my headpiece, then placed them each on a separate vanity.

  “What are those for?” Kate said.

  “One is in Yaëlle’s honor,” I replied. “And the other is for Rose in the laundry room. It’s good luck to give ghosts gifts.”

  Kate pulled two feathers from her own crown and placed them beside mine.

  “If you say so,” she said.

  She fished a cigarette out of a pack on her desk, lit it, took a few puffs, put it out. She busied herself with her blush.

  “What?” I said. “You okay?”

  “Nerves,” Kate replied.

  I looked at the dressing rooms one final time, at the oval mirrors and the vanity desks. Hundreds of rats had sat in this same place, had put on their makeup and pointe shoes. They must have been as nervous as Kate and I were now.

  “I’ll miss it here if I don’t win,” I said. “What about you?”

&nb
sp; “Ditto,” Kate answered, but she’d already swung open the door and rushed down the hallway.

  Onstage, behind the heavy curtain, Luc wore the male version of my Firebird costume: sky-blue pants and a burnt-orange shirt. His hair was slicked back with brilliantine, which gave him a Clark Gable 1950s look. I had to refrain from snuggling up to him.

  “Are you as terrified as I am?” I asked him.

  Luc placed a palm on my lower back. “No. I feel fantastic.”

  Around us, Division One warmed up. Gia worked on her fouettés a final time with her usual concentration and grace but I noticed that she was only doing singles and doubles and that her left ankle was wrapped in extra tape. Bessy sat in the splits, head bowed. Before Luc and I could share anything or rehearse one last step, the bell rang and The Witch called Cyrille and Kate to the stage.

  As the curtain rose, applause from the audience exploded and my gut squeezed. When Kate and Cyrille took their positions, Luc placed his hand on my shoulder and said, “Close your eyes. Conjure up our variation. We’re last. Winners are always last.”

  I obeyed. I didn’t watch Kate smile as the music began. I didn’t watch her sway into a lovely glissade or let go of Cyrille’s hand after her complicated set of arabesque turns. I didn’t watch her jump into two full-blown splits in the air. I didn’t watch her stay on the music, on the sticky five-count beat, the way a solid musician might. Nor did I watch her spin and dip with elegance and pizzazz. I didn’t watch her take one last gorgeous back-attitude turn and a deep trembling bow at the end, or see tears of relief roll down her face as she received a standing ovation.