Katya tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “I suck at everything the first thousand times I do it, and I swear Nik would be great at cat-eyeliner on his first go-around. He’s better than average at everything.”
It’s why we never let her brothers try to win Marvin for us. They would’ve succeeded in less than half the time, and the point wasn’t just to get the stuffed dinosaur. It was to prove that we didn’t need a boy to validate what we always believed: that we had the power to do anything we wanted ourselves.
I hope she never lost that after she lost me.
I bend to the laptop and click into another makeup tutorial. “Yeah, well, we don’t need Nik.”
“We?” She’s skeptical.
I glance over my shoulder at Kat.
Thick, blocky eyeliner shrinks her usually big eyes, doing the inverse of what she probably wants. Dark-red, blunt lip-liner makes her mouth look cartoonish, and pink blush streaks her cheekbones, very over-drawn like stage makeup.
I can’t tell if I’d be able to do any better. “I’m still Sporty Spice,” I say, noting how we used to both be the same Spice Girl together. We liked sharing the title. We liked sharing a lot of our things, actually. “But if you want to be Posh, I can try to help.”
“Why?” she asks, eyes watering.
I shrug, searching for words that I’m allowed to say. “Because I…” miss you. “…because we’re suitemates and roommates.”
“Right…” She nods to herself and tucks another piece of hair behind her ear.
I click into a smoky eye and bold lip tutorial. We watch the video together, not all of the tension has been expunged. Our past still stretches uncomfortably between us.
“You can sit down,” Katya offers a minute later. She scoots and gives me room on the same chair.
I take a seat next to her, and she plucks out a makeup wipe to clean her face.
“Why are there so many steps?” I mutter and rewind thirty seconds.
“It’s like they’re setting us up to fail.”
“Conspiracies I can get behind.” I rewind again, and midway through the video, I peek at Kat out of the corner of my eye.
She peeks at me.
In New York, I became close to Katya around the time that my parents passed away. She was a girl who grew up without a mother figure, and I’d just lost mine. We bonded, not because of Luka, but because we needed someone who understood what we missed.
I’m not her mom. She’s not mine. We just fill this warm place of empathy that no one else can touch or reach, and I want to be allowed to return. I want to laugh about how awful we are at makeup and try hard to make my friend the best Posh Spice she can be.
I vacillate between cans and cants—then suddenly I hear music from the living room. My thoughts torpedo, and I stiffen and look at the closed door.
It’s not just any music.
I shut my eyes, soaking in my favorite music and my current favorite singer. Nori Amada’s “Losing It” plays and floods me with raw energy and vigor. Even on my bluest days, her music can stir something deep inside of me.
Most soca can, the contemporary Caribbean genre affectionately known as the soul of calypso. Really, it’s an evolution of calypso, invented by Garfield Blackman (a.k.a Lord Shorty) who feared the disappearance of the genre as reggae was rising. Soca was a way of popularizing calypso again.
I like thinking of soca as lively with energetic tempos and melodies, creating this upbeat rhythm with steel drums, horns and trumpets, keyboards and synths. It’s music that immediately makes people want to stand up and dance.
It originated in Trinidad and Tobago, but soca has since spread throughout the Caribbean. My mom had so much fondness for it. On Sunday mornings, Joyce Wright would put Winston Soso’s “I Don’t Mind” on her record player. She’d push the kitchen table aside, and she’d dance with her son and daughter.
With Brenden and me.
At the stove, Neal Wright would whip up grilled cheese and watch us. Love behind his black-rimmed glasses.
“He saw your Nori Amada poster,” Katya suddenly says.
My eyes snap open. “Who?” But I know. I think I knew from the start.
“Luka,” Kat says. “You should go. He’s trying to draw you out.” She shakes her head. “He’s so obvious. He’s such a dork.”
I’m smiling. I can’t stop smiling. I agree; he’s way too thoughtful. Too ridiculous. Too much of everything I love. Oh God. My stomach overturns, nervous.
And my lips falter at the thought of being caught by Marc’s two company spies. Even if it seems unlikely.
I say, “I can’t…”
Katya elbows me.
I elbow back.
“Stand up,” she tells me. “Remember how much you really liked him.” That’s not hard. “And if you can find it in your heart, try to be friends with him again?” She smiles morosely at that idea, not believing it’ll ever happen either. “He’s not bad. I promise. He’s the best ever.”
I know.
“If you can’t be friends with me, at least…for Luka.” She has to look away from me, her eyes glassing.
I want that more than she can ever know.
So I stand up.
I follow my instinct which travels towards the music. Towards Luka.
And the consequences fade to the background.
Act Fourteen
Baylee Wright
I open my bedroom door to the unknown.
Music grows louder, and Luka—I see him instantly. He rummages through cupboards in the kitchenette while dancing to Nori Amada’s song.
Luka’s body absorbs the beat like he’s a visceral extension of the music, his rhythm natural and the kind most would envy.
It’s mesmerizing and tempts me to join. To dance right alongside him.
If we didn’t have those contracts over our heads, I’d already be in his arms.
Luka flips a glass in his hand, and I near the bar counter. As soon as I put my knee to the stool and elbows to the counter, he sees me fully. And his drop-dead gorgeous smile stretches across his angelic face.
I smile off of his smile and try to suppress the giddy-factor, which is way too high. “You shouldn’t look at me like that.”
“Why not?” He sets the glass aside and edges close. Placing his palms on the counter, his hands are right beside my forearms. An inch or so away, and the hairs on my neck rise, apprehensive but eager. So eager.
His chest rises in a deep inhale.
My lungs expand just as much. “What would your girlfriend think?” Yeah, I just threw that out there, and I have no regrets. My curiosity is winning out.
Luka searches my gaze for more. Answers to why I’d ask this. Wondering if I care about him completely, entirely, wholeheartedly.
I do. I wish I didn’t.
I wish I could let go. Because an underlying pain sits beneath every word. Every glance. The pain of knowing nothing can truly happen.
Knowing there is no us at the end of the desire and the longing.
Luka leans closer to whisper, “I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Friends-with-benefits,” I add.
“None of those either.”
I nod a few times, my eyes burning as I restrain so many sentiments at once. “I should go.” I step off the stool and head towards…well, nowhere yet.
Luka sprints over and blocks my path. “Wait, Bay.”
I’m rigid. Uncertain.
He reaches a hand out to me but wavers too. His arm drops. “We’re allowed to be friends.”
“At work.” We’re not exactly at work right now.
Luka runs his fingers through his hair, and then we both go completely still. Not because someone entered the suite. But because the song changes to the score of Infini.
My mom’s music.
Luka licks his lips. “It’s on shuffle. That wasn’t intentional, I promise.”
I believe him, and I listen to the one drop drum beat and snares that hark back to ro
cksteady, a genre that originated in Jamaica, the predecessor of reggae. I even pick out a little bit of soca. Infini’s score isn’t exclusively Caribbean—there’s some American jazz and Latin influences—but I think the soul is Jamaican.
Just like my mom.
I shift my weight, and I try to shake off every sentimental and emotional feeling that wrings the air. Stay professional. “Do you know why AE cast you in Infini?” Why would they ever give us room to move towards one another?
It’s dangerous.
Luka shakes his head. “No clue.”
Our eyes graze each other again. Head-to-toe. We unconsciously inch closer. Our fingers toy with the idea of actually touching. Outside of work. We’re outside of work.
He dips his head, really looking at me. Into me. And as he opens his mouth to speak, the suite door blows open.
And we blow apart.
I act like I’m headed to the fridge.
Luka acknowledges his older brother who enters. “Hey, Nik…I needed to ask you about dinner.”
I avoid Nikolai, grab a protein bar, and I aim for my bedroom. All the while, I sense the heat of Nik’s gaze scouring me up and down.
“You couldn’t text me?” Nikolai questions.
“No,” Luka says firmly. “Don’t spin this into something it’s not, please.”
At this, I disappear into my bedroom, shutting the door closed. Not flooded with relief. If anything, my stomach hurts. My heart hurts.
And I’m more conflicted than before.
Act Fifteen
Luka Kotova
50 Days to Infini’s Premiere
“Stop making this personal,” I say calmly on my way out of the gym, showered and bag slung over my shoulder. I just had a brutal twelve-hour practice with Sergei on the Wheel of Death, and the last thing I want to do is start a pointless fight.
Sergei keeps my stride as I push through a set of blue double doors. “You’re the one who made it personal.”
I wish the doors would hit him in the face, but I spin around, just as the doors shut and enclose us in the long hallway.
“How?” I question with a shrug. “I did everything you asked me to do.”
I’m abnormally agreeable when it comes to work. I don’t roll my eyes. I don’t sigh heavily or pull passive aggressive bullshit. I just do my job and I leave.
Since Sergei has been performing on the Wheel of Death for the past ten years—and it’s a fairly new discipline for me—he has more experience. So he has to order me around, and I put up with his know-it-all attitude and constant reminder that “if you’re not concentrating, you’re going to get hurt. And that’s on you.”
(Thanks for the tip.)
Sergei blocks me from walking. “Seven practices in, I give you instructions and you only reply okay.”
“And?” That’s not me being personal.
“And if I were anyone else, you’d be more vocal. I’m tired of the one-word responses.”
I almost feel bad for him. “Yeah, no.” I shake my head and adjust my grip on my gym bag. “I don’t do the whole let’s-chat-about-every-little-thought-we’ve-ever-had bit.”
Sergei crosses his arms, disbelieving.
“You don’t know me, dude.” Something raw enflames at the cold fact. “You could be Nik or Dimitri and I’d respond the same way at practice.” He’s asking me to be someone else, and I’m not playing that game to appease him or anyone.
He gets me.
Whether he likes me or not, I couldn’t care less.
“I’d appreciate more enthusiasm then.”
Off his harsh expression, I can tell that he’s testing me. Silently, he’s saying, if this isn’t personal, then you’ll be happy like you would be with anyone else.
I force a genuine-looking smile and push past him. I don’t turn back.
Not even as he yells at me in Russian, and I don’t care to listen. He’s already ruined the allure of an apparatus for me.
Before he showed up, I was honestly excited about Wheel of Death. The forty-foot apparatus is one of the biggest in Aerial Ethereal. Two large hoops are connected together by a space frame beam, and with momentum, the structure rotates like a pendulum.
During the act, I run on the inside of a hoop, sometimes on the outside, while Sergei stays in sync with me on the other.
I first saw the Wheel of Death when I was about four or five, and I always thought it resembled two humongous hamster wheels. Men sprinted in the hoops, and once they started doing flips inside and outside, the wheel growing in speed, I thought it looked awesome. And later, dangerous.
Years went by and Sergei was chosen for the act. At one point, so was Timo, and I never thought I’d get the chance.
Of course, once I finally do, I’m paired with the only artist in the company that I literally can’t stand. His voice is like balling up aluminum foil next to my eardrum. If I could, I’d tune him out every practice.
Barely five feet down the hallway, I run into commotion that looks more fun than hanging around Sergei.
Artists linger outside the glass door of a Corporate office. Show posters hang on the plastered walls, and the artists press up against them, spying into the glass.
No one stands in direct view of the office.
I sidle next to Dimitri from the right side, and he cranes his neck towards the door.
“What’s up?” I ask him, but he’s too consumed by the drama. Laughter is caught in about fourteen throats.
I’m curious.
And unafraid.
It makes for a bad combination. I step in front of the glass door on impulse. Now in direct view of…Geoffrey Lesage. I eye him while he fixates on the new items at his desk.
He picks up a leather ball gag and glares at a neon-pink dildo. My lips pull upward at the blonde blowup sex doll sitting on his office chair.
Dimitri grins and whispers, “And here I was about to call today miserable. Little did I know we’d be given such a precious gift.”
I laugh as Geoffrey drops the ball gag and snags a piece of paper from a cardboard box. The big bold letters read: RELAX.
“Priceless,” Brenden says into a bright smile.
I just notice Baylee’s brother pressed to the wall beneath a Celeste poster. Zhen and Baylee are huddled with him, all three unable to contain their laughter.
I can’t stop watching Baylee.
Cheeks big and dimpling, eyes lit up, she laughs through her body. Arms shaking, limbs quaking. She always used to do this thing in a laughing fit—she’d cover her face with two hands, not because she wanted it to stop. Because it was so overwhelming.
Because the emotion was almost too personal for anyone to see.
On stage, she’ll give her all, but real life isn’t a performance. She doesn’t have to be an open book to everyone. Just like I don’t.
I wait for her hands to fly upwards.
“Shit, he’s coming!” someone shouts and rips into the moment.
It’s a mad dash.
People zip back into the gym, sprinting through sets of blue double doors, and just as I turn, I hear Geoffrey.
“Don’t move! You seven!”
Slowly, I rotate to meet his flushed face, cross. Full of indignation. He waves an accusatory finger at the seven of us closest to the office. “Names. Each of you. Now.”
He met us ten days ago, and I know he memorized our names. He’s just dramatic.
His pinched glare lands on me first. (Let’s just say he’s not shocked that I’m here.)
“Luka Kotova,” I announce easily.
“Dimitri Kotova,” my older cousin says, still grinning. Unable to mask his joy.
Geoffrey jabs a finger towards another artist.
“Baylee Wright.”
My stomach drops, and her brown eyes flit to me, cautious. Features tight. In the past few years, I’ve been in trouble with Corporate a lot (for stealing), but not with her attached. This’ll be the first time since we signed our contracts, and I have no i
dea what to expect.
Maybe they won’t even bat an eye. Maybe they’re opening the door to our prison cells.
Maybe they’re waiting for us to walk through, just to slug us in the face.
I do something I probably shouldn’t.
I nod to her like it’s okay. I’m here for you. I wish I could hug her. I wish I could just hold her hand. Something.
Anything.
“Brenden Wright.” He shifts warily as he says his name.
“Zhen Li.”
This—the blow-up doll, ball gag, dildo joke—it’s not something those two would ever construct. Zhen and Brenden are like the unofficial welcoming committee of Aerial Ethereal. Corporate has even sent them on luxury trips, just to convince patrons to shill out thousands of dollars to AE.
I don’t pull my gaze off Baylee, and she lifts hers to the ceiling, collarbones jutted out like she’s caging a pained breath.
I adjust my gym bag which feels like a million pounds now.
“Sergei Kotov.”
My head swerves to my older brother, but he’s only the sixth person in the hallway. The seventh is blocked by Geoffrey’s wiry body.
He sidesteps and my face falls further.
No.
“Thora James.”
Muscular shoulders and a short stature, Nik’s twenty-two-year-old girlfriend stands at five-foot-two, her dirty-blonde hair wet from a shower. She’s dressed down in a baggy Ohio State shirt, a college that she dropped out of to pursue her aerialist dreams.
It’s not like she was given a job at AE for talent alone. She worked hard, and as a lead in Amour, she doesn’t need to get in any kind of trouble.
Thora looks around uneasily, stapled papers in hand. “I’m not really sure what’s going on. I was just stopping by to drop off some forms…” Her almost black eyes dart around the hallway. “I mean, I can come back later…” She starts stepping backwards.
“Don’t,” Geoffrey snaps, finger aimed at her forehead.
Thora tries to freeze, but papers fall out of her hand, and nervously, she trips over her own feet to collect them.
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