Bright Burning Stars

by A. K. Small

  But when I peered down and saw what looked like the brown bear stuck inside a gutter, when I inhaled one sharp breath, thinking that I should jump now, that this was it for me, and that maybe Benjamin would be the one to find me prostrate on the sidewalk, my face-lace still intact, I couldn’t jump. Instead, I froze, imagining the nothingness of it all. The giant black hole, the place without sensations, not even pain. I tried to imagine leaving Nijinsky’s Space forever. I gasped and took another breath.

  “Kate?”

  My body tensed. I felt the moment get away, sliding right through my fingertips.

  “Back up,” Marine said. “I know what it’s like. I understand.”

  I said, “I can’t even do it, M. I can’t even be the best at dying.”

  And I began to cry.

  I heard Marine stepping her way across the tiles, her warm fingers eventually taking hold of mine. Very slowly, we both moved away from the edge of the roof. When I turned around, the spotlights and the moon illuminated my best friend’s face. M was looking at me with the same expression she used to give me when we were little, her eyebrows arched but her dark eyes soft and loving. She wore a pair of loose jeans and her favorite cardigan. Her hair was down. M pulled the famous envelope from her sweater pocket, making me momentarily devastated again.

  “How did you know to find me here?” I said.

  “A hunch,” Marine replied, then added, “The thing is, Kate, you need to stay. I don’t want The Prize. I don’t want to live in a place with constant competition and pressure. It’s just not me. Maybe I’ll join a flamenco troupe, learn how to play guitar, or go away with Luc. Travel. Audition different places. It’s time for me to take care of myself and to see the world beyond Nanterre. Honestly, I can’t wait.” She handed me the envelope, her gaze so dark and sincere I knew she was telling me the truth. “Plus, I don’t have your light, Kate, the way you illuminate everything. The stage is home for you. I already spoke to Louvet and if a Number One declines, they offer The Prize to the next rat in line. The envelope is addressed to you now.”

  Under the moon, the wax on the seal looked not red but gray. I ran my thumb over the tear and said, “Won’t people say I’m cheating? That I didn’t win on my own?”

  I wasn’t sure if it was the open roof, the sudden wind, or what Marine was doing for me, but I started to shudder.

  Marine shook her head. “Madame Brunelle herself won Number Two and when the Number One stepped down due to a shoulder dislocation, she took over. Look where she is now.”

  “How will I do it without you?” I said.

  “First, promise you’ll never swallow these again.” M pointed to my bag, to J-P’s drugs. “That you’ll go to the company doctor and ask for help when things get tough.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Not good enough.”

  “Okay. I will.”

  M wrapped her arms around me. She said, “You’ll have Cyrille. He told me that he’d help you out with tempo and with your choice of men. He swears it.”

  I inhaled her rosewater scent. In English, I said, my nerves calming down a little, my shakes decreasing, “Thank you.”

  “I don’t know about you,” Marine said, still hugging me. “But I’ve never been on this roof before and I don’t think I ever will again. I think we owe each other one last dance, don’t you?”

  That’s when I decided to stay, to live, because weren’t patterns, especially fraught ones, meant to be broken? I thought of Benjamin one last time and decided that maybe we hadn’t been fair to each other, that I’d heard only what I’d wanted to, not what he’d said, that maybe he truly had warned me, but standing on this roof after everything I now also understood that as a grown man he should have known better than to seduce a young rat like me. From now on, I would listen more carefully, and then risk forging ahead, trusting in my friendships and passions. I would try to commit to the difficulty and excruciating beauty of it all of my own volition, one last dance at a time, even when my chest grew hollow, the way my mother, I presume, never could. But the way Marine did, had, and always would.

  We twirled beneath the moon, with the music and poetry muses and Apollo as our witnesses—me in my face-lace and graffitied pointe shoes, M in her jeans and cardigan, our hair blowing in the breeze.

  thirty-five

  Marine

  It was past midnight when Luc and I snuck into his parents’ spare room on the attic floor of their apartment building on Avenue Trudaine.

  “We’ll tell them tomorrow,” Luc had said. “I bet they’ll let us stay here anyway.”

  Earlier, Kate and I had hugged a final time inside the palace, where Kate and Cyrille were to stay for a late-night congratulatory dinner with faculty and the company. Kate still looked pale but she’d washed her face and put on new makeup and dangly earrings. Even though her lips didn’t quite smile yet, her eyes did.

  I hadn’t cried until Monsieur Chevalier kissed my cheek on the steps of the Grand Foyer and said, “I will miss you, ma chérie.”

  Then, Luc and I had cabbed back to Nanterre. We’d packed his room and The Shoe. We’d said goodbye to everyone, including Little Alice, who’d been allowed to stay up past curfew to say farewell.

  Now, we lay on a full-sized mattress in a room with slanted walls and a window trimmed with lace curtains that overlooked a little terrace, where we planned to have coffee tomorrow before heading downstairs to surprise Luc’s parents, and then my mother at her boulangerie.

  I turned to face him.

  “What now?” I said.

  I didn’t know which was a dream: leaving Nanterre for good, or being here in this attic room with the boy I loved. It was so strange to not be in a dormitory, to not hear people in Hall 3 chatting, to not listen for the surveillants. It was even stranger to not have rankings, weekly générales, or giant competitions looming. My future felt as wide as the Atlantic Ocean.

  Luc pulled me to him and said, “I can think of something.”

  Our lips brushed. The scintillant dome of the Sacré-Coeur illuminated our faces and the mattress sank beneath our weight. Luc ran his hand under my shirt, his soapy scent wrapping around me.

  “What will you miss most?” I said.

  “Tough question since I have you with me.”

  “Seriously,” I said.

  “Nailing a perfect jump. You?”

  “Everything.”

  “Well that narrows it down.”

  We laughed.

  “Feels like we’re on a sailboat,” I said.

  “Want to float to Cape Town?” Luc replied. “Think Oli would approve of our voyage?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Besides, it wouldn’t be any of his business.”

  Luc kissed me again, but this time more urgently. He removed my clothing, then his. He gently touched my hair and I fell into the green of his eyes. For a while, everything rocked. Then, we shivered. Luc wrapped me in his arms and told me he loved me. A warm breeze blew in, making the lace curtains flutter, and I grew sleepy.

  I let go of Nanterre and its three annexes, of the roof of the palace where only hours ago Kate had nearly become a ghost, where I had been so scared at the sight of my friend hovering eerily close to the abyss that I’d almost fainted a second time. I let go of the stage with its vermillion curtain, of all the challenges I’d once faced. I thought of the boulangerie, of how I would teach Luc how to whip a mean meringue. And, all at once, I was thankful not only for him as a new kind of partner but also for my own body and soul, for where I came from, for Oli, whom I would miss eternally but whose tragedy had made me grow into a better version of myself, and for this tiny room with its slanted walls, and for being right here on earth, performing la danse de la vie, the human dance.

  Author’s Note

  I spent nearly fifteen years in the ballet world, both in the United States and France. Like m
any other elite sports, ballet made me acutely aware of my body and mind and of my capabilities and limitations. The studio was a place where I challenged myself many hours a day and even though doubt lived within me, I learned to cope with the daily battles of this rigorous craft. And as I got stronger and better, I came to crave the physical rush and rigor. In the end, it was more important for me to dance through the hardships than not to dance at all.

  In Bright Burning Stars, I chose to write about ballet for its beauty and to show the strength of these young women, but I also wanted to highlight eating disorders and depression. As a teen dancer, I watched others around me struggle with their mental health. And later as an adult, I supported two teen girls through depression. Both Marine and Kate live with mental illness—not weaknesses or something that can be overcome with willpower, but conditions that are treatable with psychological counseling and medication.

  Today in the United States, at least 30 million people of all ages and genders suffer from eating disorders, which have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. Depression affects how teenagers think, feel, and behave, and it can cause emotional and physical problems. Ups and downs are common for teens, but for some, the lows are more than just temporary feelings. Suicidal thoughts can often be a symptom of depression.

  If you believe you are suffering from an eating disorder or from depression, here are resources to help you find care. Please remember, you are not alone and it is not your fault.

  Eating Disorders

  National Eating Disorders Association (NationalEatingDisorders.org): 1-800-931-2237, or text NEDA to 741741

  The Recovery Village: 1-855-751-6550

  Eating Disorder Hope (EatingDisorderHope.com): 1-888-274-7732

  Depression

  National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (SuicidePreventionLifeline.org): 1-800-273-TALK

  CrisisTextLine.org: Text HOME to 741741

  Acknowledgments

  I owe my biggest thank-you to the Algonquin Young Readers team—in particular my editor, Krestyna Lypen. I am still amazed at your fierce love for this story. Thank you also to Sarah Alpert, Elise Howard, Ashley Mason, Brittani Hilles, and Caitlin Rubinstein, and to art director Laura Williams, who found Ruben Ireland, the illustrator of this gorgeous cover. Thank you, Ruben.

  Wendi Gu, my agent at Janklow & Nesbit Associates, you are the sparkles in my tutu! Your enthusiasm and belief in my dancers galvanized me at a moment when I thought all might be lost.

  A big thank-you to Laura Chasen for understanding my aesthetic, for deepening this idea of light in the gifted, for pushing me to better see or perhaps explain Cyrille’s technical brilliance.

  Ann Hood, my rats and I wouldn’t be here without you. You are my literary godmother. Your genius, unwavering support, and honest criticism—something akin to what Monsieur Chevalier might have said to Marine—have kept me grounded, clear, and driven all these years.

  Cheers to Caroline Leavitt, my mentor and exceptional writer. I aspire to be more like you every day. Thank you for saying, “This is not an if but a when.”

  My gratitude goes out to Aspen Summer Words 2016—to the students, administration, faculty (Adrienne Brodeur!), to my beloved fellows who are all incredibly gifted, and, last but not least, to Antonya Nelson’s insight on the art of story.

  Thank you to everyone at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Thank you to the Stonecoast faculty (Brad Barkley and Elizabeth Searle, for believing in me early on), to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference (Helen Schulman, you taught me about blood on the page), to the One Story Workshop (Will Allison, you have inspired me for years), and to Writers in Paradise. Without the help of Stewart O’Nan, Les Standiford, Ellen Sussman, and David Yoo, my dancers would still be twirling in the dark today.

  To Nancy Schoenberger, you were the highlight of my years at the College of William and Mary. Thank you for unearthing my love for fiction.

  Thank you to authors such as Robin Black, Dylan Landis, Shannon Cain, Vu Tran, David Jauss, Sue Silverman, Xu Xi, Clint McCown, and Lucy Ferriss. You each taught me something about the craft.

  I am grateful to dear friends of mine who have read Bright Burning Stars in its various stages—Christine Byl, Becky Tuch, Laura Sibson, Diana Holquist, Sue Henderson, Laura Spence-Ash, and Jonathan Durbin—and to my various writers’ groups along the way—the Silk Spinning Sisters, We Write, and W3.

  To Caryn Karmatz Rudy, whom I will always be indebted to, and to other beautiful women such as Amy Mackinnon, Marina Pruna, Dot Bendel, Shelley Blanton-Stroud, Holly Pekowski, Sue Montgomery, Robin MacArthur, Lenore Myka, Jeanne Gassman, and Deborah Stoll, your support has uplifted me for years.

  Many thanks to Pif Magazine for publishing my story “The Art of Jealousy,” the precursor to this novel.

  On to the ballet world! First and foremost, un grand merci to Ariane Bavelier, for lending me her quote and allowing me to translate it; to the real school of Nanterre, for developing young dancers into bright burning stars; and to L’Opéra National de Paris, for dedicating centuries to the most beautiful art form in the world. Thank you to dancers such as Sylvie Guillem, Noëlla Pontois, Aurélie Dupont, Marie-Agnès Gillot, Isabelle Guérin, Manuel Legris, Laurent Hilaire, Patrick Dupond, and many others, for your passion, for the years when I observed you from the stage and later emulated you in the studio. Thank you to L’Académie Chaptal—Daniel Franck and Monique Arabian—and later to Ms. P (Ruth C. Petrinovic) for your tutelage. Thanks to Pacific Northwest Ballet and to the Richmond Ballet Company, for my time spent there.

  Frederick Wiseman, thank you for making La Danse. I must have watched the documentary a thousand times.

  Merci, merci, merci to Papa, for teaching me about hard work, hope, perseverance, and a passion for music, and to Maman, for reading me millions of stories at bedtime and for showing me how to live in the moment, to relish the senses.

  Kayla, Annabelle, and Emma, you are my world, and anything I know about resilience and courage comes from you. Always follow your dreams.

  Kurt, you are my Luc, my everything.

  And, to Stéph, thank you for our long-ago friendship. I wish our story had ended with dancing.

  Published by Algonquin Young Readers

  an imprint of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

  Post Office Box 2225

  Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

  a division of Workman Publishing

  225 Varick Street

  New York, New York 10014

  © 2019 by A. K. Small.

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2010 by Typemade (hi@typemade.mx). All rights reserved.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.

  Design by Carla Weise.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.

  eISBN 9781616209315