Hidden Worthiness

by Susan Fanetti

  All dancers had their own tools and methods. Ari used a small hammer, its ball wrapped with gauze. First, she ripped the lining out and bent the shoe in half, back and forth, until the satin softened. Then she took her hammer and smashed the toe box. When she had the box right, she painted its inside with floor wax to firm it up again. While the wax dried, she darned the platform of the toe for extra durability, sewed a small strip of elastic to the inside of the heel, and then sewed the ribbons to the shoe in the exact place she wanted them. She used dental floss as thread. Real thread broke, and a broken ribbon was a disaster. Dental floss held.

  Inside her shoes, before she put on her costume tights, Ari would prepare her feet: bandages around her pinky toes, tape binding her second and third toes together, gauze around all five. Kinesio tape across the backs of her heels and around her arches. Even with so much preparation and protection, Ari’s feet were like every other dancer’s: veiny, full of corns, calluses, and blisters, and freakishly muscular. Both big toenails were thick and yellowed from falling off and growing back in so often. There was a whole lot of work, a whole lot of strength, a whole lot of pain, and a whole lot of ugly packed into those dainty little satin slippers.

  She did all this for all her pointe shoes, practice and performance alike, but on premiere day, she sat in this spot, in these legwarmers, the other dancers all around her, all engaged in their own preparations, and let the bustle around her create a cushioning quiet in her mind, where all her focus could go to an imaging of the ballet. There was nowhere else she would be, nowhere else she could be.

  Never moving from her spot, never stirring at all, Ari danced in her head and prepared four pairs of new shoes. She hoped she’d wear only one pair all night, but she was ready if a problem arose.

  When she was finished, and looked around, hours had passed. She had just enough time for a glass of water and a protein bar before she went to put on her makeup get into her first costume. The one Baxter thought she looked fat in. He’d finally thrown up his hands in defeated disgust and given up trying to get the costume, and Ari, to conform to his expectations.

  His constant belittling had begun to worm itself into her head, but today, infused with the energy of the art, Baxter could get fucked. The costumes were beautiful, and she was beautiful in them. Her makeup would be beautiful, camouflaging her flaws and accenting her best features. Tonight was her night, and no one would poison her confidence. She was good. She was ready.

  She was Arianna, dancing.

  ~oOo~

  The Hannibal costume was the first, and the easiest to dance in—a fitted bodice, striped in jewel tones and seemingly strapless, and strips of the same colored ribbons for the skirt. Ari’s hardly noteworthy cleavage was still apparent, but she stayed in the bodice and could breathe. Her hair was mostly loose, only the front part pinned back in a firm coil of braid. She didn’t like to dance with her hair down, but it was right for the costume.

  The next costume would change out the ribbon skirt for a dark, ombre-dyed, princess-length tutu. And then a filmy cover of a dressing gown over that. That dressing gown was the most complicated costume, long sleeves always felt like they were in the way, but the steps of that scene were fairly simple. A full change at the first intermission, with a strapless-illusion leotard, three different tutus, and a small velvet shrug, would accommodate the next three costumes. In the final act, the Don Juan dress would become the wedding gown.

  It was all very complicated and took almost as much rehearsal as the dancing, but Ari could hardly wait.

  She stood now in the wings, just at the edge of the curtain, and watched the audience roll in. Behind her, a soft chime sounded, and one of the office staff announced over the PA, “Fifteen minutes to curtain. All Act One dancers should prepare to head to the stage.”

  Already where she belonged, and alone there, Ari scanned the house. This was part of her performance ritual as well. There were a few different types of people who came to the ballet, and for the most part they clustered together in different places of the theatre. First, there were the season-ticket holders, a few subgroups of those. Season tickets were sold first, and the best seats of each section were reserved for people who laid down anywhere from several hundred dollars for a single season ticket in the rafters to many thousands for a private box. In this theatre, the premium seats were either the boxes or straight up the center.

  In the most of the boxes were the people everybody recognized: the dignitaries of Providence. Politicians, cultural figures, high-powered businesspeople, what passed for celebrity in their town. They dressed formally, in tuxedos and gowns, and sometimes used opera glasses. In the main sections, the people in seats near the stage were also dressed up, but more ‘cocktail’ level than ‘meet the Queen’—lovely dresses, expensive suits. As the seats stretched farther from the stage, the dress became generally more casual, and the farther out to the sides, the people were less likely to be devotees of the art.

  Not to say that all the box-holders loved the ballet. Some had tickets because it was expected of people in their elevated circumstances. Those boxes were status symbols. Sometimes, the glow of a phone screen emanated from high on the side of the theatre as some bored CEO played on his phone during a performance.

  She’d asked Bernard about Mr. Donato Goretti, dangerous Mafioso and benefactor of the arts, and knew he had one of the private boxes, and which one, and that his tickets to that box were for opening night. Acting on instinct and not allowing herself to think too much about it, she’d asked Bernard to include a note from her with the gift from the company that would be waiting for him.

  She’d spent more than an hour figuring out what to write, and ended up with, If you’re free, will you have a drink with me tonight? If so, meet me under the big tit in the main hall. Seventy minutes to come up with two sentences. The ‘big tit’ was what they all called the obnoxiously enormous crystal chandelier that greeted everyone who came through the front doors of the theatre. Ten feet across and six feet deep, an inverted dome made of strands of crystals, with an ornate round medallion in the center. A big tit.

  Seventy minutes for those two sentences. At first, she’d tried to be classier about the way she described it, but that took too many words and was awkward as hell, and anyway, everybody called it the big tit. Also, casual and coarse was probably not such a bad idea, since she wasn’t entirely sure why she wanted to see him. She just wanted to. He’d not left her head much since the night of the gala. She wanted to see him as himself.

  Also, he had a private box, six seats, which very strongly suggested that he would be with a date, and probably a small group, so she’d been audacious to ask him for a drink in that way.

  Oh well. He could simply ignore the note. No harm done.

  “Five minutes to curtain. Dancers, please come to the stage.”

  It looked like her invitation, written on one of her favorite lavender—scent and color—notecards, would go unread. Donnie Goretti’s private box was empty.

  Strong arms came around her waist, and she turned and smiled up at Julian.

  “Merde, darling,” he murmured and kissed her cheek.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and returned the ballet world’s traditional wish for good luck. “Merde.”

  ~oOo~

  At the end of the first intermission, dressed in her Rooftop costume, Ari stood in her usual place and watched the crowd return to their seats. The box she was most interested in was empty. During the first act, she’d been too busy, and the stage lights had been too bright, for her to be aware of an audience at all, much less a particular seat in a particular box. But she had no reason to believe it had been anything but empty the whole time. Donnie Goretti had decided to skip the ballet tonight. Oh well.

  Hearing Julian and Sergei talking behind her, Ari took one more look around the house—all those people here to see her do the thing she was best at, the one thing she was truly good at—and turned around.

  A fla
sh of movement caught her eye, and she looked back. Donnie Goretti had come into his box. The movement had been the door opening. He closed it now and stood for a moment looking over the house.

  He was alone.

  While it possibly made her note less awkward, seeing him standing alone in that box was almost as sad as learning why he’d worn such an elaborate mask to the gala.

  He saw her. Freezing in the act of taking his seat, he stared down at her, and then stood straight again. For a moment, they stayed just like that, a tableau vivant. Then Ari smiled and curtsied. He smiled back and gave her a courtly nod.

  A ruffle of applause in the house surprised her, drawing her attention. Without realizing she’d done so, she’d walked closer, onto the stage, beyond the shield of the curtain.

  “What are you doing?!” Julian hooked his arm around her waist and walked her backstage.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.“ She glanced over her shoulder. Donnie was sitting now, no longer smiling, but he was still staring.

  “Get your head back in the dance, darling. It’s time to make love for the masses.” Their most complicated pas de deux, when Raoul and Christine declare their love for each other, opened the second act.

  “I’m good. I’m in it. Just had a moment, that’s all.”

  ~oOo~

  When the final curtain came down and the house lights went up, Julian grabbed Ari and spun around with her.

  “You were splendid! Oh, so beautiful! I’m in awe of you!”

  Ari laughed and hugged him. “You didn’t suck, either.” The crowd’s cheering was like a wave lifting her high off the stage. She hadn’t missed a single step. The best performance of her life, probably ever, had just happened.

  “Me? I was a Frankenstein lurching around the stage compared to you!” He set her down and did a few soubresauts of pure joy. Sergei came up with a grin.

  “You were wonderful, Ari. But ...” he gestured toward the curtain. It was time to take their bows.

  Ari took the hands of her leading men, and they walked to the curtain together as it rose again. The crowd’s cheering redoubled, and Ari heard calls of Brava! Brava! meant for her.

  As Julian stepped downstage for his solo bow, a stagehand ran in from the side with a bouquet of white roses, and the crowd got even louder. Julian took the flowers and dropped to one knee, offering them to her as if in supplication. Ari curtsied and took the offering, then came downstage and gave the audience a full curtsey, folding to the floor and rising up again.

  Brava! Brava! Bellisima! her audience cried. A Niagara of emotion thundered through her blood. She had been her best at the thing she was best at, and all these people had seen it. It had really happened. Even Baxter Berrault was grinning and clapping at the side of the stage.

  When she stepped up and Sergei, playing the Phantom himself, came down, the crowd went even wilder. Ari didn’t mind. Julian and Sergei had both been perfect as well. They three had been absolutely in sync from the first step to the last. She had actually become Christine, felt that elusive transcendence, without losing her sense of immanence. She’d even been in love with Raoul for a little while, and felt a little afraid of and sorry for Erik.

  As the stars stepped aside and made their bows with the corps, Ari looked up to Donnie Goretti’s box, but it was empty.

  ~oOo~

  Backstage, Baxter came up to her, still smiling. He spread his arms—he wanted a hug. Ari was too high on her accolades to care that he’d done nothing but berate her for weeks. She let him swallow her up, crushing her flowers against her chest.

  “You did okay, kid,” he said at her ear. “Not too shabby.”

  From Baxter, that was as good as a Brava! and she hugged him a bit harder with the one arm she had around him. “Thank you!”

  As he let her go, his hand took full position of one of her rear cheeks and squeezed.

  She jumped back with a little squeak and looked around, but no one was paying them any mind.

  Baxter was still smiling the same proud-papa smile. Had it maybe been unintentional? Baxter wasn’t into her—he thought she was fat and ugly, an opinion he made known at every chance. Besides which, he was with Devonny. They were a Thing and had been for as long as Ari had been with the company.

  As she chased her confusing thoughts through the chill fog of revulsion his fingers at the cleft between her cheeks had brought on, he stepped closer and leaned down to her ear. “Let me take you to dinner tonight.”

  Normally, she went out with the other dancers for a drink and then home to soak her feet, but tonight she’d made an exception for the possibility of a date with a mobster. She didn’t know if that was a go or not, but it didn’t matter. She was glad to be able to tell Baxter with the emphasis of honesty, “No, sorry, I have plans.”

  A sneering frown passed over his face like the shadow of a fast-moving cloud. When it was gone, the smile didn’t come back. “Rehearsal tomorrow, ten a.m. Don’t you dare be hung over when you get there.” He stalked away.

  “What’d you say to Bax?” Sergei asked, coming up beside her.

  “Nothing. I don’t know.” She shook off the whole weird scene and smiled up at him. “Whatever. He’s Bax. I’m going to get changed!” She had a date to at least loiter under a big crystal boob for a while.

  It took her five more minutes to get to her dressing room, wending through the backstage crowd, accepting hugs of congratulations from the other dancers and the crew, and those friends and family of the company who had easy backstage access.

  As one of the stars of this ballet, she had her own dressing room, such as it was. The Rhode Island Ballet was a small regional company with resources commensurate to their reputation. Though the historic old building they called home was beautiful and the public areas were grand and stately, the parts the public couldn’t see were ... less so. The ancient pipes leaked, so the ceilings leaked even on the lowest floors. The linoleum was cracked and pitted. The private dressing rooms—there were three—were eight-by-eight boxes that barely fit the one person assigned to each with their gear and costumes.

  Also, they smelled like maple syrup, strangely, which probably meant mold lurking somewhere.

  Still, it was her first time with a private dressing room, and it could have had a dirt floor and its own resident rat—they had rats, too, in the subbasement—and she still would have loved it.

  When she opened the door, there were two vased floral arrangements taking up the whole of her dressing table, and a long white box resting across the arms of her chair.

  See? The room was beautiful. She skipped in and set her stage flowers aside to read the cards.

  The first vased arrangement, a typical commercial assortment of colorful flowers, were from the Mayor McCauley—he’d been in the audience, and he usually came backstage after, but she hadn’t seen him. He made it a tradition to send flowers to the star ballerina of a performance he attended. The card had been printed off at the florist. Probably an online order. Best wishes, Mayor McCauley and the City of Providence, it read.

  The second, larger arrangement, of purple calla lilies in a wide, simple, clear glass vase, was from her father. Merde, cara mia! Love you, Daddy, the card, also printed, read. Ari laughed—three different languages in six words.

  The box—obviously one that long-stemmed roses came in—offered no outward clue as to their sender. She lifted the lid and folded back the emerald green tissue.

  At least two dozen long-stemmed roses, in identical bloom, each one the same vivid shade of orange, rested neatly in the box. A small ivory envelope lay across the stems. She picked it up and pulled a small ivory card from it.

  Handwritten. Bold strokes of black ink: Only if you are truly free. ‘Erik.’

  ‘Erik.’ In quotation marks. Ari smiled. Donnie Goretti had gotten her note, and didn’t seem horrified by her audacity. But how had he accomplished this? He was at the theatre. He was responding to her note, obviously. So how had he managed to get two dozen
perfectly matched orange roses to her dressing room with a handwritten note?

  Orange roses. One of her ballet instructors when she was a girl had insisted that dancers needed to be more than simply graceful and good on their feet. They needed to ‘live the dance’—in her exaggerated, indeterminately European accent the words ‘live’ and ‘dance’ had been stuffed with miles-long vowel sounds—which meant they needed to know a whole bunch of Victorian nonsense. Including the meanings of flowers.

  She couldn’t brew a pot of tea from loose leaves, and she couldn’t use a fountain pen without making an unholy mess of herself, but she remembered the meanings of the flowers.

  Orange roses meant desire.

  Did he know that? Probably not. But any florist most certainly would.

  A shiver bounced through her at the sudden image of Donnie Goretti reading her note, making a call during the first intermission and ordering two dozen roses that meant ‘desire,’ then arranging to write and include a personal note before they were delivered by the final curtain.

  Oh, this guy was interesting. Oh yes, he was.

  ~ 7 ~

  Donnie stood in the main hall of the theatre, where the masquerade gala had been held, and waited. As the crowd thinned and then trickled until only a handful of guests lingered with him, he felt more and more ridiculous.

  She’d known who he was, he told himself. She must have done some research. She knew what he looked like. Even if she hadn’t looked up photos when she’d learned his name, she’d seen him tonight, looked straight at him, and smiled. He’d felt a softly magnetic thrum between them, for just a moment. She knew what she was getting into.

  But what if the distance between his box and the stage was too great for her to see clearly? What if she hadn’t seen photos?