Pas de Deux

by M. J. Duncan

  “True, but for the same calories I could have my oatmeal and toast, plus a hard-boiled egg or two.”

  Mallory had to admit that Addison had a point. And, given how much she exercised during the day, the more wholesome calories were a much wiser choice, but… “Yes, but none of that is as delicious as this.”

  “You have a point there.” Addison conceded with a little laugh.

  “Another bite?” Mallory offered.

  “I’m good.” Addison shook her head. Her phone buzzed with an alert, and she sighed when she checked the message.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. It was from Serena. I guess everything is ready to go on stage now and Nina would like to start early if possible,” Addison explained. “I imagine you’ll be getting a similar message soon.”

  “Tell her we’re on our way now.” Mallory pulled the napkin from beneath her plate and moved what remained of her croissant into the center of it. “I can finish this while we walk.”

  “Are you sure? Because if I tell her I’m still at home, that would buy you enough time to at least finish your breakfast here.”

  “It’s fine,” Mallory assured her as she stood and began collecting her things.

  “Okay.” Addison nodded and typed out a quick reply to Serena. “Right. Done.” She bounced to her feet and slung the strap of her duffle bag over her head so the strap cut across her chest. “Ready when you are, my dear.”

  Once Mallory had shouldered her violin and briefcase, she picked up her coffee and croissant and smiled at Addison. “Lead the way, darling.”

  “There you are,” Collette, the assistant wig mistress for the ballet, declared as she smiled warmly at Mallory in the lighted mirror. “What do you think?”

  Mallory bit the inside of her cheek as she studied her reflection. “I think I’m going to come to you lot the next time I have an event to attend,” she murmured as she turned her head from one side to the other to take it all in. Peter, the makeup artist who’d had his way with her, had gone for a smoky, dramatic look—a neutral foundation with just the faintest hint of color on her cheeks, warm, dark lids, and deep red lips—that could have been too much for her to carry off, but was softened by the loose bun Collette had twisted her hair up into. The combined effect was both elegant and romantic, and she smiled as she met Collette’s gaze in the mirror. “It’s lovely. Thank you.”

  “My pleasure.” Collette pointed toward a rack of costumes and a small, curtained-off area a few meters away. “Now, it’s off to Ginny for you, and then you are ready to go.”

  Mallory nodded and slipped obediently from her chair. She had expected to be overwhelmed by the preparation process, but everyone involved was so experienced with the whole thing that she was able to turn off her brain and just follow their directions.

  “Ah, there you are. Come, come,” Ginny greeted her with a smile and a beckoning wave, and Mallory ducked her head in apology as she picked up her pace. “Addy is already out there doing her solo shots,” Ginny explained as she held out Mallory’s dress. “So you’ll be up next.”

  Mallory nodded as she took the dress and stepped between the flaps of the privacy curtain. “I’m impressed you finished the costumes already,” she said as she unzipped the hoodie she had changed before Peter had started on her. She shivered at the rush of cool air that swept over her bare chest and hurried to shuck her sweats so she could step into her dress.

  “Yes, well, Nina had told me at your last fitting that she wanted them ready for today, so I let the rest of my team worry about the costumes for the first half of this one and the corps while I finished these off. And, given that the first half and the corps are pretty traditional with the white tutus and corsets and what have you, it wasn’t too difficult. Plus, this way we can focus on the final preparations for The Nutcracker as we’ve got a few new soloists stepping into roles for that one.”

  “It’s gorgeous,” Mallory assured her as she worked the dress from its hanger, taking a moment despite the less than ideal temperature of the theatre to appreciate her handiwork. Small beads just a shade lighter than the fabric of the dress had been added to the bodice, giving the dress a sense of depth and motion even on the hanger. “Honestly, Gin. It’s incredible.”

  “I’m glad you like it,” Ginny replied, sounding pleased. “But if you don’t hurry and put it on, I won’t be able to make any last-minute changes it might need. And if you’re not perfect when you go out there, Nina will have my head.”

  “Sorry,” Mallory apologized as she hustled into the dress. It fit like a second skin, and she wished there was a mirror in the changing room so she could see what it looked like on. “Here I am,” she announced as she exited the dressing area, still fiddling with the zipper on her side.

  “Here you are, indeed, dear,” Ginny murmured as a wholly pleased smile tugged at her lips. She made a twirling motion with her right hand. “Look at yourself,” she instructed as she pointed at the mirror set off to the side.

  “Oh, wow…” Mallory breathed as she turned to the mirror. The intricate embroidery and beadwork Ginny had added to her dress were even more spectacular when she was wearing it, the lines of beads acting as embellishments to the costume as a whole while also highlighting the curves and planes of her body. If she did not know that she hadn’t even laid eyes on the gown since her last fitting, she would have sworn that all of the finishing work had been done while she’d been wearing it. “Gin…”

  Ginny hummed her thanks as she began tugging at the dress, getting it to fit just the way she wanted, and after a moment stepped back with a happy sigh. “Lovely. Just lovely. You are, without a doubt, the best-looking partner Addy has ever been paired with.” She tilted her head toward the stage and grinned as she continued in a mock-conspiratorial whisper, “And the two of you are going to knock the ballet world on its ass.”

  Mallory laughed. “You’re too much.”

  “I’m precisely the right amount of everything,” Ginny sassed with a wink as she handed Mallory a pair of slippers that had been dyed to match her dress. Once Mallory had slipped them on, she clapped her hands twice and said, “Now go out there and knock ‘em dead. I’ll be right here so that if any problems arise when you start moving in it, we’ll be able to make some quick changes on the fly so you can get through the day and I’ll take care of the rest upstairs later.”

  Mallory smiled and nodded. “Cheers, Gin,” she murmured, pausing to give Ginny’s shoulder a light squeeze before she made her way toward the table just off the stage where she had dropped her things when they had arrived at the theatre.

  Once she had her violin and was out of excuses to put this off any longer, she took a deep breath and made her way past the wide black curtains that hung from the catwalks overhead to shield the wings from the audience’s view, and onto the stage. She held her breath as she took in the sheer grandeur of the auditorium, which was so very different from the stage than as a member of the audience. From this angle, the opulence of the amphitheater—the rich velvet seats and gilded fixtures, the ornate woodwork and breathtaking craftsmanship displayed in every nook and cranny of the building—was but a footnote to the absolute feeling of claustrophobia she felt as she stood center stage and looked out onto the seats.

  There was nowhere to hide.

  It was going to be her and Addison out here on their own, and every single set of eyes in the place was going to have a perfect view of their performance.

  “Not a bad view, huh?” Nina drawled, interrupting Mallory’s impending panic. “I’ve danced on more stages than I can remember, and this is still the one that I am the proudest of performing on.” She took a deep breath and let it go slowly. “When the lights go down, and the audience quiets and stills, this stage becomes electric. You can barely make out anything beyond the conductor in the pit”—she motioned toward the empty pit tucked beneath the front of the stage—“and it’s just…god, it’s everything. Absolutely everything.” Nina turned to her with a
smile. “And you’re going to become one of the special few who gets to experience it.”

  Mallory nodded. She knew the feeling Nina was describing, had felt it herself when she was younger and had done a fair bit of soloist work with symphonies throughout Europe, though never from this particular stage. “I can imagine. And I’m honored that you have so much faith in me to let me do this. I just hope I don’t let you down.”

  “So don’t.” Nina smirked and then glanced over her shoulder to the side of the stage where the photographer was working with Addison for some individual shots. “It looks like Pierce is almost done with Addy and will be ready for you soon. Have you worked with him before?”

  Mallory shook her head as she looked toward the photographer in question. She couldn’t see much from this angle—his side was to them, and he had his camera up blocking his face—but the photographer who had done her photos for the LSO had been a petite redheaded woman and Pierce was neither petite, ginger, or a woman. He was, however, standing perfectly in the way to block her view of Addison, and for that, she was rather annoyed. “I don’t reckon I have, no.”

  “You’ll love him. He handles all our print work. We’ll do a few solo shots for you, some stills of the two of you together, and then hopefully the video team will be ready to go, and we’ll clear all this off and get cracking on that. Sound good?”

  Mallory shrugged. “Yes?”

  Nina grinned. “Brilliant.” She turned on her heel and made her way back toward the umbrella flashes and black backdrop, so certain that Mallory would follow that she didn’t bother to look back and check. “Pierce, this is Mallory Collingswood,” she announced as she stopped at the photographer’s side. “Mallory, Pierce Welker.”

  Pierce turned at the sound of his name, and Mallory gasped when she was finally, finally able to see Addison. She knew that she should have been making polite pleased to meet you type noises, but she was utterly transfixed by Addison’s appearance. Where her hair had been pulled up into a somewhat traditional ballet style, Addison’s was left down, leaving her natural curls free to curve around her jawline and swing with her movement. Addison’s dress had similar detailing as her own, but where her beading was a shade darker than the fabric of her dress, Addison’s looked to be done with thousands of tiny crystals that were less about accentuating the lines of the dress and more about demanding the attention of everyone who looked at it.

  Mallory hadn’t even realized she had started toward Addison until she was standing right in front of her, and dared to reach out with her free hand and touch the soft fabric at Addison’s hip as she murmured, “You look stunning.”

  “Me? Have you seen you?” Addison shook her head. “My god, Mal…”

  “Yes, yes,” Nina interrupted, her tone playfully begrudged and tinged with amusement as she drew everyone’s attention, “you both look beautiful. So why don’t we take some pictures, yes?”

  Pierce, who was watching them with a knowing twinkle in his gray eyes, nodded. “I’m done with Addy. Mallory, you’re up. I’m Pierce, by the way.”

  “Sorry about that,” Mallory apologized as she let go of Addison’s side, feeling genuinely embarrassed for her behavior. “Pleased to meet you.”

  He grinned and waved his hand as if to brush Addy out of the way. “Ms. Leigh, could you maybe find it in yourself to move out of my frame so I can knock these out and we can get to the ones of you two together?”

  Addison replied with her best aggrieved groan, and shook her head as she muttered, “Ugh. Fine. You’re always ruining my fun, Pierce.”

  Pierce laughed and ran a hand through his dirty blond hair, making the front of it stand on end. “Whatever.” He shook his head and it fell back into place. “Just move. Don’t go far, though.”

  “If he thinks I’m going any further than I absolutely have to, he’s out of his goddamn mind,” Addison muttered under her breath as she gave Mallory’s wrist a quick squeeze. She winked as her hand fell away and, with one last smoldering smile, finally did as she’d been asked and moved out of the way.

  Mallory licked her lips as she forced herself to look away from Addison and focus on the photographer who was waiting for her. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “Let’s start with a headshot type thing and go from there. You can leave the violin at your side for now, and just look this way…” He smiled when she complied and lifted his camera. “Beautiful. Maybe give me a little smirk? Something between a serious face and an all-out smile. You’re beautiful and talented, and you know it, so let it show…”

  Mallory huffed a laugh and did her best to do as he asked, and was rewarded with a flurry of flashes as he took a quick string of shots. Photos of her holding the violin were next, first looking directly at the camera as it rested on her shoulder and then playing, and once he was happy with what he’d gotten, he waved Addison back in.

  “Now, let’s have some fun, shall we?”

  “What do you have in mind?” Addison asked as she made her way back under the lights.

  “That depends…” He looked at Nina. “You’ve said this ballet of yours is going to throw convention out the window and, looking at them together I can see you’ve done just that, but how risqué do you want us to go here?”

  “It’s the ballet,” Nina sighed, shaking her head, “so not very, I’m afraid. We can’t have the mailing for this production sending our conservative ticket holders into cardiac arrest.”

  “Shame.” He smirked as he looked at Addison and Mallory. “You’re doing a video after this, yeah? Can you maybe do the bit you’ve rehearsed for that so I can get an idea of what we’re working with and we can decide on some staged shots from there?”

  “Can we move some of these lights back a bit?” Addison asked. “Maybe…six feet or so?”

  “Sure.” Once the last light stand was moved, he asked, “Good?”

  “We can work with this,” Addison assured him confidently. “Mal?”

  “From the top of the video section?” Mallory asked as she lifted her violin into position.

  “May as well,” Nina agreed.

  Mallory took a deep breath and, with one last glance at Addison, looked back at Nina who was standing beside Pierce and his camera and waited for her to count them in. Nerves, faint but distinct fluttered in her stomach as she waited for her cue to begin. It was one thing to work on a piece with members of the production team, but it was quite another to perform it for an outsider, and while Addison and Nina had both expressed confidence in her, she was painfully aware that this was the first moment that she might not live up to expectations.

  Nina nodded and smiled at her. “Light and easy now.” And then, in an even cadence that was a match to the notes Mallory would soon be playing, called, “Here…we…go…two…three…four…”

  It was only a few heartbeats after she put bow to strings that Mallory felt Addison’s fingers against the small of her back, the touch everything that she needed to center herself in the moment as she sank into it, her stance softening and her shoulders rocking back toward Addison as her body instinctively began to move with her.

  Her eyes fluttered shut at the tickle of Addison’s hair against the back of her neck as they leaned into one of the swooping turns that had taken her so long to get right, and she blinked them back open as they came out of it and Addison’s right hand landed lightly on her hip. She planted her feet and shifted her weight to her back leg to help lead Addison into the two pirouettes that preceded the final arabesque, and as soon as Addison’s right hand left her hip, she leaned back the other way, tensing her left arm in preparation for the moment Addison’s left hand would come to rest on the scroll of her violin as she leaned into the arabesque, lifting her right leg well past ninety degrees as she extended her right arm in a graceful, accentuating line above it.

  Mallory pulled her bow through the final note as Addison settled into that final position. It was only years of practiced stoicism on stage that kept her from grinning in triumph as
she extended her right arm behind herself so that it was parallel with her extended leg, leaving the audience with the image of them staring into each other’s eyes, their body positions a mirror to the other.

  The air had only just begun to quiet when Nina clapped and declared, “Very nicely done. Excellent.”

  “Nicely done?” Pierce scoffed as he turned on her. “Bloody hell, Devereaux, you honestly expect me to do something with that that won’t give the stuffy pensioners a coronary?”

  Addison laughed as she dropped to two feet and pulled Mallory into a one-armed, celebratory embrace. “You mean that in a good way though, right?”

  “I think I need a fucking cigarette after watching that,” Pierce replied with a grin, shaking his head wryly. “You lot aren’t just throwing convention out the window, you’re absolutely destroying it. That was fantastic!”

  Nina laughed, clearly pleased by his reaction. “Yes, well. Better to save that reveal for the first performance, but your reaction is exactly what I was hoping for.”

  “If you lot want to save the surprise, your video team is going to have to work some magic in the editing room,” Pierce told her seriously. “Because if your little clip shows what I just saw, the cat will be well and truly out of the bag.”

  “I’m sure we’ll figure out something,” Nina murmured confidently.

  “I’ll tell you what, though, the shot you’re looking for to anchor your mailer is what they did there at the end.” He turned to Mallory and Addison. “Can you get back into that one without the lead-in?”

  “Sure,” Addison answered as she moved away from Mallory’s side.

  Mallory lifted her violin so Addison would know where to position herself. “Do you want the bow on the strings as well? So it looks like I’m playing? Or would you prefer the finish?”

  “Both.” He lifted his camera and fiddled with the focus ring. “We’ll start with the pretend playing, though. Addison, I’ll start shooting when you’re in position. Hold as long as you can, and I’ll move around you, yeah? Fall out of it when you need a break, and we’ll just hit it again when you’re ready.”