Bunheads

by Flack, Sophie

  “He’s the one in the front row who always shouts ‘Whoo!’ during bows. He’s a total balletomane,” I say.

  “Doesn’t ring a bell,” she says.

  “He’s got the Patek Philippe?”

  She bends down and smells one of the golden blooms. “Oh, right. The hot one who sends girls balloons and flowers. He dated Serena and Olivia last year.”

  I shrug; I can tell she’s trying to bug me. “I guess. That’s what Daisy says.”

  Zoe squints at the card. “ ‘One remembers an atmosphere because girls were smiling in it,’ ” she reads, and then looks up at me with a baffled expression. “What in the world does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, snatching it out of her hand. “It says here that it’s a quote from Proust.”

  “Who?”

  “A French writer. Matt’s a Francophile, too.”

  “A man of passions. I like that,” Zoe says, smirking.

  “You probably would like him,” I say.

  She nudges me with her foot. “Are you guys dating?”

  I sigh as I struggle out of my soaked tights. “It’s complicated.”

  “He says these flowers match a present that’s coming later.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know what that means,” I say.

  “Oh, look at you,” she says, nudging me harder. “Nineteen years without a kiss, and now two boys after you at the same time. You’re practically like me now.”

  I just shrug. But I think to myself: I’m nothing like you.

  Eventually I get the tights off and then rummage in my theater case for another pair. “I don’t think Jacob is after me at the moment.”

  “Because you blew him off again.”

  I groan. “We sort of had a fight. It’s hard enough just trying to get through the day here without bursting into tears or tearing a major muscle group. I don’t know how to date on top of that. I mean, it’s incredible that some of the older dancers are married. How do they find the time and energy?”

  Zoe sits down on her chair and starts running her fingers through her glossy blond hair. “Duh, Hannah! They all married dancers.”

  “Well then, how do you have time to date and still maintain your career?”

  “We all have time, it’s just about prioritizing. If you really wanted to see Jacob, you would.” Zoe takes the lid from a Chanel lipstick and eyes the color thoughtfully before dabbing it on the back of her hand.

  “You make it sound so easy,” I moan.

  Zoe shrugs, then carefully applies the lipstick in the mirror. “Will you do that smudgy purple eye on me that you sometimes do? It’ll go great with this color.”

  I sigh. “Fine.”

  Zoe claps with glee and carefully lays out her NARS eye shadows in a neat row.

  “Close your eyes,” I say. I straddle a chair, facing her and leaning forward so that our faces are very close. Zoe is quiet and still. I dab lavender powder on her lids with my index finger.

  “Hey, Han?” she asks.

  “Yeah?”

  “Remember when we used to snoop around my mom’s vanity and try on her makeup?”

  I smile, thinking of Dolly’s beautiful mirrored vanity and her collection of perfume bottles and silk scarves. I gently smudge on a darker purple in the outer creases of Zoe’s eyes.

  “And remember when you tried on her leopard Dior boots and you couldn’t get them off for, like, forty-five minutes?” She giggles.

  “Oh my God, they were so tight!”

  “And you started to panic because we thought Mom was coming down the hall, but it was just Gladys!”

  “And you almost peed your pants laughing!” I cry. “But hold still, you’re making me mess up!”

  Zoe sits still and tries to suppress a giggle. I sweep on a little shimmer with a brush.

  “There,” I say. I lean back and admire my handiwork. “You can open.”

  She turns to look in the mirror and turns her face from side to side. “I love it.”

  “You look beautiful,” I say. And she does.

  She smiles. “Thank you. Just what I needed—a makeover in time to sweat it all off in rehearsal. Do you want me to do your face real fast, just for fun?”

  Instead of answering, I plop down in the chair in front of my mirror. I open my eyes really wide and puff out my cheeks.

  “What in the world are you doing?” Zoe asks.

  I grin. “It’s my chimpanzee impression. It’s my new face.”

  Zoe shakes her eyeliner at me. “Promise me that you will never, ever do that again,” she says.

  31

  Backstage it’s pitch-black, except for these heavenly pink rays of light streaming in from the stage. I’m giving myself a barre before I have to dress for my ballet. A pianist plays Debussy on a glossy grand in the front corner of the stage, and I sneak glimpses of Julie as she passes by in her furious piqués manèges stage left. Her body casts long shadows across the linoleum. When she comes off for a brief moment, she leans over with her hands on her knees, breathing heavily. Then she takes a hurried sip of water and adjusts her costume before returning to the stage for the coda. She transitions from woman to ballerina the moment she steps back into the light.

  I take a break from my barre work and stand in the second wing, behind a boom, to watch. Holding on to the boom for support, I do plié relevés to keep my legs warm. Julie is mesmerizing. She seems to eat up the space as she moves from one side of the stage to the next in about three piqués. After a few minutes I return to the barre to continue my warm-up, but I keep stealing glimpses at Julie as she passes by the wings.

  When the ballet concludes, the audience erupts into applause. Some people shout and call out to her, and I think I recognize Matt’s familiar “Whoo!” But I might be mistaken; it could be another balletomane.

  I sit on the floor to go through my gyrotonics and Pilates mat exercises just as Julie exits the stage from her bow. She collapses next to me, flat on her back with her legs sprawled out. She’s gasping for air and dripping with sweat, and her curly hair is working itself free of her bun. This is the person who only moments before brought tears to my eyes. She rolls onto her side and sits with her back slumped over. There’s a pool of sweat on the floor.

  “Well, that’s a doozy,” she says, smiling.

  “You were great,” I tell her.

  “You couldn’t hear me cursing the whole time, then,” she says, smiling broadly. Her dark eyes flash with humor.

  I shake my head.

  “Good,” she says. “Because that would sort of take some of the magic out of it.”

  I smile. “Yeah, I guess it would.”

  Then Otto appears, looming over us in the dim light. “A word?” he says to Julie.

  She peels herself off the floor with a grunt, and he helps her to her feet. Before they leave, Otto turns to me and gives me the slightest nod.

  My heart seizes up as I watch the two of them disappear into the dusky shadows. That was almost friendly, wasn’t it?

  Later, as I step into my costume, I try to mentally prepare myself for the coming ballet. The fourth movement has nonstop jumps that make my legs cramp up like crazy, and I can never get enough air. Just thinking about it makes me lose my breath. As Julie would say, it’s a doozy.

  Don’t think, I remind myself. Just do. And then I hurry down the hall to the wings.

  Normally I don’t look at the casting sheet before performing, but tonight for some reason I do. I stand under the dim blue bulb, squinting as I search for my name. And when I find it, I literally gasp aloud. I’m called to learn the lead of Rubies! It’s the second section of Jewels, which is one of my absolute favorite ballets.

  I hold my breath, and then let it out in a long, slow, measured exhale. This is the kind of part I’ve been working so hard for—the kind of part that, if I dance it well, can lead to a lot of attention. Which would mean getting other great parts and, eventually, a promotion.

  Might I finally be on my way? />
  The answer is yes, I might be—but I’m not the only one.

  Because right below my name on the rehearsal call sheet is another name: Zoe Mortimer. She, too, will be rehearsing the role, but only one of us will perform it.

  After all our ballets are done for the night, Zoe, Daisy, Bea, and I, along with the rest of the corps, tiredly peel off our costumes in the Green Room and clutch our sweatshirts to our chests. We’re still breathing heavily as we swarm toward the elevator, pushing up against each other, urging the doors to close. As usual, there are discussions of missteps and miscounting, of girls out of line. “Emma was late on her entrance,” someone whispers. “I danced like a cow tonight,” someone else complains.

  The adrenaline still courses through us, even though we’ve been in constant motion for twelve hours.

  Upstairs, Zoe kicks the dressing room door open, and it ricochets off the wall. The hinges need to be repaired again; they get screwed up because we’re always smashing our pointe shoes in the door to break them in.

  I throw my leg warmers at my theater case and watch as they fall to the floor. I consider retrieving them, but the thought of bending down to get them makes me reconsider. Even before the performance, my quads were already blown out, so I leave my leg warmers where they are and slouch in my chair in front of the mirror to free my throbbing feet from the confines of my pointe shoes. I can feel my heartbeat in my bunions. I watch a bead of sweat roll down my cheek as my chest rises and falls.

  Daisy collapses on the carpeted floor, her pointe shoes still tethered to her feet. She sticks her legs into the air and rests them against the concrete wall. “That was terrible. I’m so embarrassed.” She sighs.

  I had thought we were together, but I don’t feel like arguing. I’m too excited about Rubies.

  Bea carefully steps over Daisy to get to her own spot. “Take your shoes off, Daze. My feet hurt just looking at you.”

  Daisy flares her nostrils as she stares at the ceiling. Then she rolls onto her side and squats as she slides a pair of scissors through each stitch attaching the ribbons of her shoe to her ankle. The strands of pink satin are released, and they lie wrinkled on the floor. She carefully slips out of each heel and then sticks her legs up against the concrete wall again. “Better?” she asks.

  Zoe returns from the bathroom bound in a peach towel, her flip-flops smacking against the floor. Dark makeup pools in the recesses of her eyes. “So we’re learning Rubies, Han,” she says, as if she’s just read a casting sheet in the shower.

  “Yup,” I say. “It’s you and me, together again.” I flash her a smile.

  Daisy sits up, leaning on her elbows. “Ech! And I’m still stuck in the back line of the corps. That is so unfair.”

  Zoe flops down in her chair. “Oh, go eat a Twinkie.”

  “Be nice for once, Z,” I say. I uncoil the acrylic twist of fake blond hair from around my stumpy ponytail and hang it across the wire-caged bulbs of my mirror, just as Zoe reaches over and flips the light switch.

  “Watch out! You’ll burn my hair!” I yelp, and yank my fake hair away.

  But Zoe doesn’t apologize. She slips on a pair of black tights and then pulls on a leopard-print sheath that probably cost a month’s salary.

  I take off my eyelashes one by one and pick at the glue that held them on. It comes off in little black balls that I roll between my fingers and flick toward the garbage. Many of them land in Zoe’s theater case, and inwardly I smile.

  32

  A few days later, at the end of my hour-long lunch break—which I actually spend outside, soaking up some of the spring sun’s rays—I come across a bright red shopping bag by the stage door. Taped to it is a note with my name on it. I look around, as if I might catch the person who left it, but I’m alone.

  If my overprotective father were here, he’d tell me not to touch it: It’s New York City; who knows what it could be? he’d say. My mother, on the other hand, would assume that it’s a present from an admirer. She’s always the romantic.

  Inside the bag is a package wrapped in brown paper—it’s very light—and I hurry to the dressing room to open it. Though I want to tear the box open, I force myself to read the note first. See you next door at the Met, next Saturday 8 PM, the note reads. It’s gala night.—M

  I feel a shiver of excitement: Matt wants to take me to the opera gala! And balletomane that he is, he must know that I’m free; that night is a special program with no corps ballets. As usual, his assumption is that I’ll agree to his plan. (When, after all, have I refused him? Not since the night I met him, when I wouldn’t go to Chloë Sevigny’s party.) My only conflict is the extra class I’d planned on taking at the gym.

  I remove the brown paper. Underneath is a cream-colored box that says Zac Posen in a plain but elegant font. I take off the lid, push aside layers of tissue, and gasp as I see yellow. I lift it up: a buttercup-colored strapless gown made from some kind of incredible fabric that slides like air through my fingers.

  Oh my God, I think. For me?

  Quickly I strip down and pull the dress on; it’s a princess-cut sheath that falls all the way to the floor. It fits perfectly.

  Just then the door comes flying open, and I hear laughter that abruptly stops.

  “What are you wearing?” Zoe squeals, running up to me. “Where did you get that? Don’t tell me you bought that with your crappy corps salary.” She touches the fabric reverently.

  Daisy, too, comes over to inspect me. “Wow,” she says.

  Zoe flings herself into her chair. “Some people might tell you that you look like a banana in that,” she says, “but not me. You look great. Seriously, where did you get that dress?”

  It occurs to me to point out that Zoe basically did tell me I look like a banana, but I can see myself in the mirror, and I know she’s wrong. I look fantastic.

  “It’s a present,” I say, turning to admire the way the V of the back hits right at the base of my spine.

  Says Zoe, “The balletomane! Because I know your college guy can’t afford Zac Posen. Tell me why in the world he gave you that dress.”

  “He bought it for me to wear to the Met Opera gala.” I can’t keep the surprise from my voice. Or, it seems, the pride: I can’t help feeling proud to receive such an extravagant gift.

  At this, Zoe shrieks and bangs her fist on the counter. “I want to go to that!”

  “Get one of your boyfriends to take you,” I say.

  “I’m unattached at the moment, Hannah Banana,” Zoe says.

  “See?” I say. “You do think I look like a banana.”

  “No, I don’t,” Zoe says, grinning.

  Daisy shoves Zoe in the shoulder. “You know Hannah looks beautiful.”

  “Of course she does,” Zoe says. “Beautiful… and ripe.”

  “Seriously, I’m going to kill you,” I tell her.

  She giggles. “I’ll stop, I’ll stop. I’m sorry.”

  I slip the dress over my head and lay it gently on my chair. Zoe hands me my leotard. “If you need to borrow shoes…” she says. Her voice is kinder now.

  “Thanks.”

  She smiles. “Anytime.”

  “Dr. Shapiro says yellow means optimism and happiness,” Daisy chirps.

  “Really?” I muse. “I hope he’s right.”

  33

  A week later, the tulips have exploded in the Broadway medians, and I have the almost unheard-of Saturday night off. As I slip on the outrageously beautiful Zac Posen gown for the Metropolitan Opera gala, I vow to be a good little ballet dancer. I gaze at myself in my bedroom mirror. I’ll be home by midnight, I tell myself. I’ll still hit the gym in the morning.

  Matt’s eyes grow wide when he sees me walking across the plaza to meet him. “You look stunning,” he says.

  He’s wearing a tuxedo, and his hair is slicked back from his face. I have to admit that he looks pretty great himself.

  I don’t say anything right away—I just smile and let him take my hand. I borrowed
a pair of Zoe’s shoes: strappy Louboutins that make me three inches taller.

  “Shall we go in?” He leads me through the huge glass doors into the magnificent gilded lobby. Coiffed women in feathered concoctions, sequined gowns, and fur stoles seem to float up the curved staircase, their necks and earlobes shimmering with diamonds.

  I turn to him before we go any farther. “Thank you,” I say. “Thank you for this.” I gesture to the dress.

  He reaches out and touches my arm. “The way you look? I should be thanking you.”

  And I smile again. Matt might be a little cheesy, but he does know how to make a girl feel special.

  Even though it’s next door to the theater, I’ve never been to the opera because our performances coincide. And as we settle into our red velvet seats, the curtain parts, and the singing begins, I can see that I’ve been missing something profound. The sets are ornate, like a moving piece of art, and the music… I’ve never heard anything like it.

  “Well?” Matt whispers, his hand brushing my thigh. “What do you think of Don Giovanni?”

  I don’t respond; I’m entranced by the costumes and the sets, struck in speechless awe.

  I’d thought that the Manhattan Ballet was glamorous, but the opera is a whole other matter entirely. The singers coax their voices to incredible heights, into mind-boggling trills. It seems as though their voices are their bodies, and they’re making them dance. The women clutch their hearts as they sing—as if, if they didn’t, they’d burst from their chests, still beating.

  Once in a while I hear myself gasp at some new vocal feat. Matt smiles indulgently at me; he finds my naïveté charming, I guess.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” he asks as the curtain closes for intermission.

  I nod enthusiastically. “It’s incredible.”

  He gently kneads the fabric of my dress between his fingers. “Come on, I want you to meet some friends: Charles, Will, and Madison. I know them from Trinity.”

  “Oh, okay,” I say, standing up and wobbling just a tiny bit in my heels. I hadn’t realized that tonight was going to be a group activity, but I’m curious to meet them.