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Slow Satisfaction

Page 17

by Cecilia Tan


  Eleven

  Leading Us On and On

  We would have two days of rehearsal on the main stage in the theater before the actual audition. I was soon very grateful for the rehearsal time. I knew I was going to want to get used to performing in the space, but it hadn’t occurred to me that the stage would be raked. It had a tilt down toward the audience so that people in the orchestra seats could still see the whole stage. It took some getting used to.

  The other thing that took some getting used to was the fact that there were two dancers who looked like James, at least at a glance. The only reason I didn’t think he’d arrived early himself was that when I caught sight of them they were talking to each other, so I knew at least one of them couldn’t be the real thing… and on closer inspection it was obvious neither of them was. I wondered if he used stunt doubles at various times in the show. That seemed likely.

  Chandra introduced us first thing to the choreographer, an Asian-looking woman named Alicia Bogovich. I was expecting a Russian with a name like that, but Annika told me later it was her ex-husband’s last name, and she kept using it professionally after they split up. She was American, from California, and she ran us through some warm-ups before giving us the schedule for the rest of the day. She was in tights and a sports bra with a chic-looking knee-length knit cardigan over it, a clipboard tucked in one arm as she paced the edge of the stage, looking over the rest of us sitting scattered across the stage.

  “Nice to see you all again.” She was answered with a smattering of claps and “you too” from the dancers. “You all know Barnaby, the house manager.” She pointed to a guy walking through the auditorium. His T-shirt was untucked, his hair grown over his eyes, and his pot belly protruding over the edge of his jeans. He waved without looking back. “And of course Ramon, my assistant.” A young-looking guy with a thin mustache waved from the sound board, which was placed among the curved tiers of tables. The whole main floor was made up of tables, while the upper level was regular theater seats, and there were opera-style balcony boxes on the sides.

  “Now. Jasper’s not here yet, but he’ll be conducting a review for a partner role the day after tomorrow. Female partner, I should specify.” She walked along the footlights as she talked. “You ladies who are working on solo pieces for that, I’ve blocked the four hours at the end of the day today for you to have a half hour each on the stage. Tomorrow, same thing. I’ve got you in alphabetical order today, the reverse tomorrow. Right now, I want us to get started on an ensemble piece. Any questions?”

  One of the male dancers from Las Vegas I hadn’t met yet raised his hand. “Are we doing Bride of the Blue? I’ve heard we were, but I’ve also heard we weren’t.”

  Alicia nodded at him. “There’s a reason for that confusion.” She looked at the clipboard and touched it with her finger, making me realize it was actually a tablet computer, not a clipboard after all. “Let me play you something. This is the brand-new overture to a show that incorporates a few elements of Bride of the Blue, but which also pulls in songs from several other Lightning albums. The title is still to be determined.” Music came from the sound system then, the sound of synthesizers and violins soft at first, but then growing louder. Then the drums came in. It reminded me of the music from a Cirque du Soleil show, only not so French-sounding. I liked it.

  A voice from the wings made everyone look up. Ferrara pushed a curtain aside and strode onto the stage. She was dressed in skintight jeans with lace-up boots. Her heels were loud on the hollow stage. “What the bloody hell is this?”

  Alicia faded the music out. “Ferrara, I was wondering when you were going to grace us with y—”

  “I asked you a question, Bogovich.”

  Alicia pursed her lips. “As I was just telling the group, it’s an entirely new overture.”

  “I didn’t approve this.”

  “I wasn’t under the impression that your approval was necessary.”

  Ferrara laughed and gave Alicia a feral smile. “I’m the executive producer. I’m financing Bride of the Blue.”

  “Jasper told me he calls the shots.”

  “Jasper likes to feel like he’s in control. You know that.” She glanced around as if she were expecting that line to get a laugh. No one moved. “And this whole principal dancer shite? Totally unnecessary.”

  Alicia looked like she was trying hard not to roll her eyes. I liked her already. Her attitude made me feel less afraid of Ferrara, too. “Jasper intends for the principal to do a lot more in this show than the bride did in Bride of the Blue.”

  Ferrara waved her hand like she was dispelling cigarette smoke. “Oh, does he? Well. Jasper knows best.” She snorted dismissively.

  “Could I ask you to clear the stage?” Alicia cleared her throat. “We’ve got a lot to learn in a little amount of time.”

  “You’re wasting your time. We’re doing Bride of the Blue and that’s final. Anyone who participates in this audition nonsense can put their names on my shit list right now.” Ferrara stalked toward Alicia, but turned before reaching her, going down the hidden steps at the front of the stage and up the side aisle to the back of the theater. The sound of the door opening and shutting echoed loudly in the empty auditorium.

  The moment she was gone people began talking. “Is she serious?” Annika said to Roland.

  “Yeah, is she going to arm wrestle Jasper for control of the troupe or what?” he said back, before Alicia demanded everyone quiet down and get to work.

  We worked on learning the first part of the overture, and before I knew it, it was time to break. Alicia called us all in close.

  “Okay, people,” she said, looking around to see if Ferrara was about to pop out of the curtains again. “I guess I need to know who’s still planning to audition for Jasper.”

  I raised my hand.

  “Okay, Karina, that’s one. Are you the only one?”

  I looked around. They were all looking at me. “Annika, weren’t you planning to try out, too?” I asked.

  “What if she blacklists me?” Annika answered. “Jasper’s getting out of the business.”

  “Yeah, that’s what he said last time,” someone I couldn’t see in the back of the group said, causing laughter.

  “No, seriously, you guys, it’s not worth it. Karina, don’t make an enemy.”

  What Annika didn’t know, of course, was that Ferrara was already my enemy. “I’m still going to do it. Jasper’s my boss. It’s going to be up to him.”

  A girl with a black bun and part of a tattoo visible along her collarbone raised her hand then. “I’ll try out. Ferrara doesn’t scare me.”

  Alicia nodded. “All right. Change of plans, then, people. Let’s break for lunch, except Karina and Natalie. You do your rehearsal runs with Ramon. Everyone else take thirty. When we come back, we’ll continue blocking this piece and let Jasper and Ferrara duke it out later.”

  Ramon climbed onto the stage and came toward me while the others drifted away. “Are you Karina? You’re the one I haven’t met yet.”

  “Yes, nice to meet you.” We shook hands. I introduced myself to Natalie, too, and she exchanged fist bumps with Ramon.

  “What are you guys planning to use for music?”

  Natalie shrugged. “I haven’t prepped anything. This was a spur-of-the-minute decision. What have you got in your iPod?”

  “Here.” He dug a music player out of his pocket and handed it to her. I got the feeling they had a bit of a history together. “Go in the back where it’ll be quiet and come back when you’ve picked something.”

  “Thanks.” She slipped easily off the edge of the stage and disappeared.

  “I have my song in my phone.” I dug it out of my bag and pulled up the track. “Here it is. And I need a stool for a prop. I saw one in back?”

  “Okay, cool. I saw it, too. Hang out here while I go get it.” He came back with a chrome-legged stool with a round black seat and set it down. He spun the seat with his hand, which gave me an idea.
“Now, let me go set the music up.” He held out his hand for the phone and I gave it to him with a little pang of worry. He loped up the aisle to the sound control board, though, never leaving my sight, and a moment later the sound of the drums echoed through the huge sound system.

  Fortunately for me, Ramon didn’t care how many times I needed him to start it again at the beginning, because I had to have him try it many times. But the rake of the stage didn’t bother me too much, and the moves I had been working on in the living room of the apartment seemed like they translated well enough to the big stage. At first I had put the stool at center stage, but then decided it worked better downstage and off to one side.

  Then my time was up, and I grabbed a sandwich from the green room where everyone else was getting ready to continue. I didn’t have much time, but I checked my phone for messages: none. I texted James:

  Ms. Trouble is here, scaring off everyone else from auditioning. She insists we’re doing Bride of the Blue and she doesn’t like the new music you sent. Is that why things are taking so long in London?

  I was surprised a reply came back right away. No, that’s not why. You have inspired me. Must go. Love you.

  He said nothing about Ferrara, but I figured I’d ask him later. Love you, too! Get here soon!

  I failed to reach James for the next two days, other than to receive text messages from him so brief they were almost cryptic. I gathered that he was working until the last possible moment and then he would hop on a plane, arriving only shortly before the audition was to be held.

  He wasn’t there yet when Chandra and I got in the van with some others to head to the theater. One of them was a black man with some of the most impressive biceps I had ever seen. He took off his suit jacket to keep it from getting wrinkled as he got into the van. Under it, his chest and arm muscles stretched a plain black T-shirt to its limit. Chandra introduced him as Ty, head of entourage security. He gave me a professional smile and a nod as he shook my hand. I got the impression he was ex-military.

  Once in the green room, I changed into dancing clothes, black tights and bodysuit with a wisp of a light blue gossamer skirt around my hips.

  When I got to the stage I found Ferrara terrorizing Alicia, or trying to.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. You hate my guts, Bogovich.” Ferrara was wearing a black leather jacket over a catsuit studded with rhinestones. “You think I’ll accept you as an impartial judge?”

  “Ferrara, contrary to your self-centered fantasies, I don’t give a fuck about you,” Alicia shot back. “All I care about is how the show looks. If Jasper wants my opinion, he’s going to get it, no matter what you think.”

  “I want all of your opinions,” came a voice from the balcony box immediately to the right of the stage. James stood at the railing, looking down at us all. “Chandra. Give everyone a score sheet.”

  Ferrara looked like she was shooting laser beams out her eyes at him. “This is not a democracy!”

  “No, it isn’t. Because my decision will be the final one.” His voice, and the authority in it, carried easily through the auditorium. He turned on his heel, then disappeared through the archway. A moment later he reappeared at the foot of the stage in the orchestra. “Now, let’s get this under way.”

  But for Ferrara, the argument wasn’t over. She loomed over him from the edge of the stage. “I’m the producer. You need my input.”

  He looked up with a mild expression on his face. “No, I don’t. A producer might have some say if she threatened to pull her financial backing, perhaps, but I don’t need your money, Ferrara.”

  “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “I’m not the one who insisted on a ridiculously strict interpretation of our recording contract.” He lifted himself onto the stage with his arms and swung his legs like a gymnast onto a vault horse, then stood close enough to kiss her. She refused to back away. “Why don’t you try reading the production and performance agreements I signed? Auteur clause. I get complete creative control of all sight and sound in the production. Every detail.”

  “You—”

  “Right down to the length of the false eyelashes on your face.” He knew exactly how to push her buttons.

  She snapped. “You’re a monster! You put the freak in control freak!”

  “Of course I do,” he said mildly. “Now, come on, people. Everyone into the seats.” He looked up into the catwalks overhead. “Hey, Barnaby.”

  “Yeah?” came a voice from above.

  “You know anything about dancing?”

  “A little.”

  “Can you even tell my dancers apart?”

  “Not really.”

  “Excellent. Get down here and serve as an impartial judge.”

  “A’right.”

  Everyone but me, Natalie, and Ferrara took seats in the VIP section of the orchestra, the posh tables closest to the stage, James included. Ramon went back to the sound board. Ferrara looked at me, then, examining me. I think until that moment she couldn’t have picked me out of the group of dancers. Now she was looking at me with an expression of hate and disgust, like she couldn’t believe she was even bothering to scrape me off the bottom of her shoe.

  I tried to keep my chin up. But the sheer force of her disdain for me brought all my worries to the surface. What if I really was about to make a fool of myself in front of everyone? What if I was kidding myself and James was just besotted with me, he was no judge of whether I could do this, and everyone was going to see how pathetic a dancer I was?

  Then I remembered that was the point of this audition. To find out. To prove to myself that I could hold my own, or to find out that I had no business there. That was why James wanted everyone to see it. Because if I really, truly sucked, he would know from the reactions of the others.

  He cleared his throat. “Karina, why don’t you go first? Natalie, take a seat.”

  “I’m happy to go first,” I said.

  “Fine. Ramon?” James called as Ferrara went into the wings.

  “Almost ready, boss. Karina, don’t forget your stool.”

  “Ah! Right!” I ran into the wings where it was stored.

  Of course, when I found the stool, Ferrara was sitting on it. I decided to try the polite approach. “Excuse me, but I need that.”

  She had a compact in one hand and was putting on a fresh coat of lipstick, focusing on herself in the tiny mirror. She looked up at me slowly, her gaze taking a leisurely path up my body, her nostril flare increasing the longer she looked. “Who. Are. You? I don’t recognize you.”

  “I really need the stool now.”

  “What are you? Are you his latest fuck toy? Is that it? Am I being tossed aside for a new piece of trash?”

  I’m sure I blushed.

  “Ahh, I’m right, aren’t I?” She brightened suddenly. “He is a master of manipulation, isn’t he? So that’s why he insisted on this charade. I know what he’s doing now. This is all some kinky humiliation game, isn’t it? He’s going to make you go out there and make a spectacle of yourself, and then what, spank you for doing a terrible job? Or just fuck you raw in the restroom? Fuck you until you’re so sore you come out bowlegged and everyone knows what you’ve been doing?”

  The longer she talked the more desperate I got, my face redder and my breath shorter. “Please,” I begged. “I need the stool.”

  She uncrossed her legs and stood with deliberate slowness. “You’re not the first little chickadee he’s ravaged,” she said. “I know you think you like it. I know you think you love the attention. Maybe you even like pain. But just you wait until the day you say no to him.”

  She stepped aside and I grabbed the stool.

  “It’ll happen. He’ll keep pushing you until you say no, and then he’ll get what he really wants. Then he gets to rape you.”

  I clamped my mouth shut tight and wished I could do the same with my ears.

  “He’ll rape you and then leave you by the side of the road, and his money will shu
t you up…”

  I hurried back onto the stage, banging my shin on the leg of the stool as I did. I put it down where I wanted it, panting and trying to keep from crying. She was full of it. She had to be. She was saying any outrageous thing she could to mess me up.

  I remembered Stefan telling me once that he’d seen James do that, fuck a woman and then leave her.

  But that had been a lame attempt to scare me off. And you know what? Ferrara was trying to do the same thing. Had to be. Had to be.

  I heard Ramon’s voice through the PA. “Whenever you’re ready. Take your mark.”

  Right. The performance. I took a deep breath. I had to put everything out of my mind. Remember what the dance in London had been like. The whole audience had been rapt. And the audience of one I’d intended it for had reacted just as I’d hoped, cracking his shell and giving in to his lust for me.

  I could do this.

  I went to the back corner of the stage, opposite the stool, and nodded to Ramon. The music began, and I crossed the stage almost in a ballet-like pass, coming to the stool, dancing in front of it and around it as if James were sitting there. As the drums kicked in, my moves became more sensual, as if I were teasing the man sitting there. I flowed across the stool with two kicks in the air as if I had taken a quick pass on his lap, and then straddled it with my back to the audience for a circular hip grind that Sabine would have called “stirring the cake batter.” I’d made an edit of the music so that it was exactly two minutes long, and the ending slipped into another minor mode, almost a mournful one. Here’s where I had to sell the idea that the stool wasn’t only empty; it was permanently so. Maybe I relied on too much mime, but I hugged myself and wiped a tear, then danced away from the stool, and back, away, and back, until finally running off the stage entirely as if too grief-stricken to even look at the stool anymore.

  They clapped. Hard. A few of them even whistled! I tiptoed back onto the stage and they got louder. I took a small bow, then ran down into the audience to sit next to Annika, who hugged me.

 

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