Bea sighs. “I was really nervous, and he was, too. The whole time I couldn’t stop thinking about how awkward and embarrassing everything was. Like, there would be these long silences—and then we’d both start talking at the same time.”
“Wait, start over. Who asked who?”
“I asked him to a movie.”
I applaud. “Good for you!”
“So I thought. I asked him on Sunday after the matinee. I was still in my stage makeup, and so I pretended I was someone else. Someone braver.”
“Like Zoe?” I ask.
Bea laughs. “I said braver, not sluttier.”
“Well, I don’t care what you say. I’m proud of you. That took guts.”
She pokes at a piece of pineapple with her fork. “I don’t want to be the last person on earth who’s never had a boyfriend.”
“First of all, who cares, and second, you’re not. Think of the corps: Jordan has never had a girlfriend.”
“He’s totally bizarre—he rides a Segway, for one thing—so please don’t compare me to him.”
I grin. “Right, sorry.”
Bea puts some pineapple in her mouth, chews, and then sighs. “I guess I wonder what the point of it is.”
“The point of what?”
She looks at me as if I’m a little on the dumb side. “Trying to be with another person when it’s so much simpler to be alone,” she says.
“Bea, you don’t have to have a boyfriend,” I say. “You can do whatever you want.” I blow on the coffee and then take a sip. It’s strong, but not nearly strong enough.
“Yeah, I know.” She sighs. “How are you and Jacob?”
“Great. Or it would be great if not for this.” I wave my arm around.
“Your apartment?”
Now it’s my turn to shoot her that are you stupid? look. “No, my life. The company. The ballet world. Like you said—it complicates things.”
Bea stands up and goes into the kitchen. “Don’t you have any clean glasses?” she calls. “Oh, here they are.” I hear the faucet running as she fills a water glass. “Yeah, it’s hard for all of us. But we knew what we signed up for, when we were, like, nine.”
“I know, Bea, but people change in a decade,” I say. “I’m different now than I was even a few years ago.”
“Eh, thank God. We were such dorks,” she says, laughing.
“Remember how we were dying to be shrubbery, just to be onstage with the company?”
She cringes. “So we grew up, and now we have a better understanding and appreciation for what we do.”
“Yeah, of course, but—”
“You’re just a little burned out,” she says confidently. “Give it a week and you’ll feel better again. Feelings come in waves.”
I really hope she’s right.
Bea looks at me closely with her pretty blue eyes. I can’t read her expression. Finally she says, “Are you going to eat your pineapple?”
I push the bowl toward her. “All yours.”
“Thanks,” she says. “Now go get ready. Class starts in an hour.”
It’s not an easy morning. Lack of sleep, combined with fatigue from weeks and weeks of dancing without a break, means that by the second rehearsal of the day, I’m beginning to feel spent, even though I still have three more hours of rehearsal and then A Night Piece, Concerto in C, and Foresight to dance tonight before I can eat a proper meal and take a bath.
“Pull up, Hannah,” Annabelle Hayes barks. “It looks like you’re sweeping the floor!”
Obediently, I pull up my abdominals and try to stay alert, but my back aches and my thighs are blown out, so it’s nearly impossible to engage my legs. Blown-out muscles feel like someone punched you in the leg as hard as they possibly could; even a light touch is excruciating.
Annabelle claps her hands to pause the rehearsal. “Is everything all right?” she asks me. “Are you ill?”
I shake my head. We’re taught from a young age never to speak in class or rehearsals unless absolutely necessary, and not to ever complain. So I’d never tell her that I’m utterly exhausted, my shoes are completely dead, and my thigh is blown again.
“From the top, then,” Annabelle says, frowning. The girls all groan, and Zoe looks at me with blatant annoyance.
The pianist begins again, and there’s nothing to do but try to pull myself together and ignore my discomfort.
I remember that when I was a younger dancer, there were days it hurt to roll over in bed, or to breathe, or to do anything but lie motionless on the floor. Back then I found something satisfying in the soreness, because I knew that I was alive and that my discomfort was the product of something great.
I wish I could capture that feeling again.
That night, before the performance, I shellac my face with pancake makeup and follow it with layers of powder. My entire face is white, and I look like a ghost of myself.
I decide to get a Diet Coke from the vending machine, and then a little bit of air, so I leave the eye shadows, liners, lashes, and lipstick for later. I run up the stairs and plop my quarters into the slot. While I’m waiting for the soda can to fall, I spot Otto and Mai at the other end of the corridor. Mai’s normally pale cheeks are flushed pink, and her tiny chest rises and falls visibly; she must have just been rehearsing. Otto moves his hands animatedly and appears to be almost smiling as he speaks. Mai listens, nodding, and then responds. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I hardly need to—it’s enough to see that they are having an actual conversation. I wasn’t aware anyone did that with Otto. In my experience, he barks something out, a command or a complaint, and everyone just keeps quiet and does what he or she is told.
My Diet Coke clunks down the chute and crashes into the open mouth of the soda machine. I flinch at the noise, and Otto turns his head toward me. His face is blank at first, and then a look steals over it—disdain, I’d say, or maybe even disgust.
A tiny shiver travels up my spine, and I wonder if he’s looking at me like that because my makeup is only half done or because he hasn’t forgotten the rehearsal in which I couldn’t do the brisé volé. I flash a weak smile, but he continues to gaze at me as if I am wholly unwelcome in this hallway, or in this theater, or on this planet.
In the next excruciating moments, every dark, disloyal thought I have ever had swirls into my mind. Wishing that they’d just put me out of my misery. Dreaming that Otto wanted to cut off my breasts. I feel my heart thudding in my chest. I clutch the soda against me as if it were some kind of shield.
After what feels like an eternity, Otto looks away. I duck my head and coax my legs to move. Then I flee to the safety of the dressing room.
Later that night, I’m almost late for my entrance in Jason Pite’s ballet. But when I step onstage, I feel strangely relaxed—almost detached. I leap high into the air and kick my legs up for a rond de jambe. As I move across the stage, my mind is clear and calm. Even my breath seems to come easier, lighter, and I hear the music as if it is coming from far, far away.
I just dance as if in a dream until the final notes of the orchestra swell and then fade.
I guess this is what it feels like not to care.
Annabelle Hayes stands beneath the exit sign, its red light reflecting on the crown of her head. Her tiny arms are folded across her chest; she looks like a sparrow. She motions to me. Then she opens her mouth and says something, but she’s too far away for me to hear her.
“Sorry?” I say, inching closer. Unconsciously I touch my bun and adjust my costume.
Annabelle blinks at me. “That was much better, Hannah,” she says.
I stammer out a weak “thanks,” and Annabelle nods in acknowledgment. I can’t remember the last time she said anything nice to me. How strange: Today she was riding my butt in rehearsal, and now she’s actually giving me a compliment.
I walk back to the Green Room, where everyone is in various stages of readiness for the final ballet. It’s a big corps ballet, and all of us are in it.
>
“How did the Pite go?” Bea asks.
“Apparently, good,” I say, reaching for my bottle of water. I drink half of it in what seems like two gulps. “I got a compliment from Annabelle, God knows why.”
Daisy’s dark head pops up over Bea’s shoulder. “No way,” she says.
Zoe has just come in, still a little out of breath from the performance. “A compliment? I wonder what got into her,” she says.
I finish the rest of my water and then check my makeup in the mirror. I need to retouch my lipstick and change my bun to a low chignon. “I mean, I totally relaxed for once. It was kind of freeing.”
Zoe lifts an eyebrow. “Whatever works for you,” she says, sounding unconvinced. “But his ballet is hardly a real ballet, you know—I mean, all that rolling around on the floor stuff! Ugh.”
“I’m sure you looked great, Hannah,” Bea says.
Zoe snorts under her breath and turns away. And I can’t help smiling to myself.
But back at home in my apartment, my mood shifts again. The bath has filled—Epsom salts, a little lavender essential oil—and I’ve sunk into it. I lean back and close my eyes so I don’t have to look at the hideous turquoise paint on the walls. In the warm water, I can feel my spine lengthening, my quads releasing some of their tension. I hum to myself, some melody my mother used to sing to me.
The Epsom salts hiss as they dissolve, and I sink deeper into the water.
The phone rings, but I don’t answer it.
I’ve placed one of my oldest pairs of ballet slippers on the bathroom shelf so I can stare at them. The leather is cracked and faded, and what used to be a lovely pink is now the color of Silly Putty. But I don’t throw them away, because they remind me of when I first fell in love with dance. I was nine years old, and I took classes three times a week at the Boston Ballet School.
One day when we were practicing tendus at the barre, I began to imagine that I was a robot, and danced with very sharp, precise movements. I have no idea where this idea came from; I only know that as I danced, I pictured a robot in my mind and tried to move exactly as it did. I imagined my arms being made out of aluminum, my torso out of steel. When I moved, I pretended I was slicing through the air like a knife.
The teacher stopped the class and pointed to me with her impossibly long finger. I felt my cheeks flush—I was in trouble, for sure. But then she turned back to the rest of the class. “Everyone watch Hannah,” she said to the other little girls. “I want you to move just like her.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. After that day, my teacher started paying extra attention to me, and the following year the artistic director of the Boston Ballet offered to give me private lessons. That was unheard of: Imagine, the director of a premier ballet company taking the time to teach a ten-year-old girl variations from Giselle and Raymonda.
When I took them from their box, the slippers smelled like the cedar sachet I keep in there with them. They seemed tiny.
What happened to that girl who dreamed only of dancing? I wish I could talk to that girl right now. I wonder if she’d tell me not to lose hope. Because a single compliment from Annabelle can’t erase the built-up frustration—not by a long shot.
I sit up in the bath and look down at my breasts. They’re pretty much the same size they always were—which is to say, they’re bigger than Otto would like them to be.
“It’s not your fault,” I say to them, and then sink even deeper into the bath.
26
“Did you hear?” Zoe asks, trying to sound calm even though she’s obviously upset. “Eliza and Olivia got promoted to soloist.” She slams a new pointe shoe in the door to break it in, which is also a good way to take out frustration. “Soloist!”
“What, are you serious?” I practically yell, forgetting for a moment that I’m supposed to be happy for my peers. These are girls like me—ones who have been toiling in what we all thought was perpetual frustration. It’s a monumentally huge deal and, for Olivia and Eliza, the accomplishment of a lifetime. “Just out of the blue like that?” I ask. “Olivia hasn’t had a solo in months.”
“Actually, she has,” Bea points out, but I ignore her. I’m in shock, as is everyone else. Daisy gathers up a handful of quarters and then vanishes. Zoe brushes her hair furiously for a few moments before going out for a cigarette.
“I mean, that’s great for them, it really is,” I say, trying hard to feel it. I close the lid of my theater case and then open it again agitatedly.
“It is,” Bea insists.
Olivia and Eliza peer in the door to our dressing room. Olivia’s little pixie face is glowing with pleasure, and though Eliza is smiling, she still looks dumfounded. “I can’t believe it,” she keeps saying. Her voice is almost a whisper. “I thought I’d be in the corps forever. I can’t believe it.”
And in a way, neither can I. We were Swans in Swan Lake together, and Snowflakes in The Nutcracker, and now they’re getting the recognition each one of us deserves.
“Congratulations, you guys,” I say. “That’s so amazing.” I do my best to sound sincere.
“And no more dancing Snow!” Bea cries. “You guys are so lucky.”
But even Bea sounds like she’s faking it.
Eliza and Olivia smile, thank us, and accept quick hugs. Then they go down the hall to their own dressing room.
I am happy for them—but I’m also disappointed for myself. Bea and I sit at our spots, quietly digesting the news, both of us lost in our own thoughts. After a while I feel restless, and I collect all my makeup brushes and take them into the bathroom. One by one, I wash them against my palm with some hand soap.
“Honestly,” I say over the running water, “how did Olivia manage to get noticed?” The water runs pink, then brown, then purplish brown. “She’s not exactly a standout.”
“Yeah, she is kind of dull,” Bea allows.
I lay the brushes delicately on a pile of paper towels and then carry them back to my spot.
“But she’s consistent. And she’s, like, always around,” Bea says as she inspects her fingernails.
“And what about Eliza?” I ask as I squeeze each brush with a paper towel and place it on my counter.
“Well, she’s been getting demi and soloist roles on and off for years,” Bea offers as Zoe comes in, smelling like smoke.
“I’ll bet it’s her new, blonder hair, courtesy of Oscar Blandi. That and the fact that she started dating Sam,” Zoe says confidently.
“God, you’re cynical,” Bea says as she picks at the label on her water bottle.
“I like to think of myself as a realist.” Zoe purses her lips in the mirror and turns her face from side to side.
Leni comes in, smiling, with her yoga mat rolled under her arm. “Hey, ladies!” Then her voice drops. “Oh… I see you’ve heard the news.”
“Is it that obvious?” I say. I look over at Bea, who’s opening and closing her water bottle again and again, as if in a daze. Even Zoe looks defeated.
With a jerk of her wrist, Leni unfurls her yoga mat, and pretty soon she’s balanced on her hands, with one leg sticking straight out behind her and the other resting on the backs of her bent arms.
“Side crow variation,” she grunts, before anyone can ask her. “Nothing clears the mind like a partial inversion. Except a full inversion, of course.”
Daisy enters the dressing room, her eyes slightly red and swollen, and drops a bag of Cheetos onto the floor. She’s wearing Caleb’s faded Mets T-shirt over her leotard. “I can’t believe it! Olivia? What did she do to deserve a promotion?”
Zoe turns on her, green eyes flashing. “Why, do you think you should have gotten it? Because let me remind you that we were all busting our asses here while you were still in diapers. Don’t act so entitled—you’re sixteen years old.”
“It’s obvious that you’re just jealous because Otto pays attention to me. And for your information, I’ll be seventeen in two months, and Mai was promoted when she was seventeen!” Dai
sy says hotly, stamping her little foot.
Leni falls out of her pose onto her mat. “Honey, can you lower your voice? My chakras are all off kilter.”
“Screw your chakras!” Daisy yells as she waves her fist in the air.
Leni stares up at Daisy with a look of concern, and then she breaks into a wide, beautiful smile. Daisy scowls at Leni, but eventually she begins to chuckle, and pretty soon she throws her head back and makes this weird choking, guffawing sound. I’m not sure if she’s laughing or crying; it’s probably a combination of both.
After a few moments she stops, gasping a little. “I can’t believe I just ate all those Cheetos!” she cries. “I’m going to have to skip dinner for the next four days.”
“Cut off an arm,” Zoe suggests. “That’ll knock off seven pounds, easy.” She snickers, trying to stifle a laugh, and I snort under my breath.
Daisy starts to pace the room. “Or should I try South Beach again?”
Even Bea is laughing now as Daisy goes on and on about cleanses, fasts, and crazy diets. After a while, Daisy looks up, sees that we’re laughing, and starts laughing again herself. “Oh, listen to me!” she cries. “I sound like a crazy person! Tell me to shut up!” By now even Leni is howling with laughter.
I look around the room—at the drying leotards and tights hung on every available hook and bar, at the pictures of celebrities’ fashion mistakes, at the theater cases spilling onto the floor, and at my friends’ faces. There’s something kind of amazing about being able to laugh together like this when we are all so utterly disappointed and frustrated. Finding humor in the situation binds us.
But to be honest, it’s not only that I feel a sudden wave of affection for these people that I’ve grown up with and struggle with daily. I realize that if Olivia and Eliza can be promoted, there is hope for me, too, and for all of us older girls. After all, Annabelle just told me that I was doing better. All I have to do is choose to focus. To give everything to dance again.
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