“Well, good for you. It’s like you’ve got it all figured out.” It must be nice to be so together.
“I wish. Right now, I feel like I don’t know a thing.” He shook his head as he chuckled. “How about you and dancing?”
“My mom is from Brazil and used to dance. She put me in classes when I was little, and it’s what I’ve always done. I love it, but I’m a little disappointed with how things have turned out,” I said, surprised at my frankness. “I’m good, but not as good as I’d hoped.”
“What are your hopes now?”
“I don’t know,” I lied. The last time I told a guy I wanted to dance at the Met, he’d thought I was joking.
“I don’t know a thing either.” I giggled and then we had both laughed.
BATTERY LOW.
The iPod warning didn’t hurt my head—the headache was gone. But my ears hurt. I removed the earphones.
Clap-clap-shhhh.
The coffee was cold and the table was in full shade.
I checked my phone. Two thirty. Just enough time to take a shower and go. “Good.” The sooner I could put this weekend behind me, the sooner I could go get my man back.
I was the first one to get to the stage area. I moved the shortest barre to a spot near the curtains and leaned against the end to stretch my calf muscles. A big group of corps girls entered together, chatting and giggling, and as soon as the door slammed behind them, it opened again. Claus. Blue warm-up pants. Pale blue top accenting his eyes.
Could I resist him?
He walked across the stage toward the water cooler.
Absolutely. I looked away and sat to warm up. Holding my feet, I let my upper body rest on my legs, the hamstring stretch painful but gratifying.
Would it be a terrible idea to drive to Pine Mountain after the performance? Peter hadn’t called back and that hurt. He wouldn’t be able to ignore me if I showed up at the house, right?
No, that would be terrible. I bent one leg under me and leaned back for a quad stretch. He needed time and space.
I’d made my life complicated enough by crossing a line that shouldn’t have been crossed. Untangling the mess would take time. Let’s get through the weekend first—the whole weekend. I switched legs.
Professional dancers spend hours breaking in a new pair of pointe shoes, often going through dozens of pairs as we develop our routines. The shoes need to be soft for jumping, strong for balances and turns, and beautiful on the foot.
To achieve that goal, many dancers would cut the sole of the pointe shoe to pull nails out, step on the shoe, hammer the shoe, rub alcohol onto anything they want shaped to their feet fast, and so on. Each dancer has her own technique.
But whether you bend, bind, dam, cut, shave, or strip, breaking in a new shoe is an art that involves destruction.
Maybe that’s what Peter and I were going through. A period of destruction in a process meant to make things better.
We’d never been through any kind of fire. If we could get through this, we would be stronger than before.
Brian arrived and walked to the front, indicating our warm-up would begin soon.
I patted the stage floor, then stood. This is it.
Claus took a spot opposite mine at the barre, and my stomach was roller-coaster light for a moment. He’d been keeping his distance during classes—just coming near me for rehearsals. It seemed our kiss changed things a bit.
Gallastegui’s “Promenade” filled the theater. Exercise music I’d heard a million times before. A simple plié. Dozens of bodies moving in harmony with little to no guidance. Poetry in motion.
My eyes filled with tears, and despite my efforts to keep them from falling, they trickled down my cheeks. Claus moved his hand closer to mine and acknowledged my moment with a gentle touch and a knowing smile.
As the class progressed and movements became bigger, I struggled to get my legs up high with every développé. Trying to get the working leg to unfold and extend higher than one-hundred-twenty degrees, I felt my supporting leg shift. Ugh.
“Ana, watch your turnout,” Brian said as he walked past me. “Higher demi-pointe.”
I looked at Lorie Allen, who was on the other side of the stage. The prima ballerina of the Allen Ballet, she epitomized beauty—tall and leggy, blonde and blue-eyed. Everything I was not. Yeah, her mom founded the company and was still around, but Lorie was indeed the best we had—no favoritism.
But none of it mattered. I was Juliet. For a change, I was dancing the lead role. My Romeo was one of the world’s best dancers. This was the coronation of twenty years of my effort.
Could I leave the security of the Allen Ballet? Part of me felt old and lacking to audition in Atlanta, but the Atlanta Ballet had danced at the Met a couple of times.
I would be lucky to make the corps, but that would be fine. I didn’t have to be a soloist there as long as I got to the Met. Some of my favorite memories of life on stage were not from solos but from group pieces. I just wanted to perform on that storied New York stage where the stars of today and legends like Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Natalia Makarova, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and hundreds of other fantastic dancers had enchanted generations of ballet enthusiasts.
“Finish stretching on your own.” Brian turned away from us and faced the empty audience. “We’ll do grand battements in the center.”
I hated doing grand battements in the center. At the barre, I could kick my leg really high, but if I tried to do the same in the center, my support leg would slip out from under me, and I would land on my bottom.
Claus removed our barre from the stage and took a spot next to me, where he stayed for the duration of the warm-up—not in one spot, but next to me.
“Beautiful, Ana,” Brian said as Claus and I approached the end of an intricate diagonal. “Nice sky-high jumps, and you look like you actually care to be here. Gorgeous.”
When I finished the next exercise, Brian stopped the class and asked me to do it again, alone.
“Watch what she’s doing. I want to see more of that from everybody.” I blushed, knowing all eyes, including Claus’s, were on me. “Before the music even starts, her face, her arms, her épaulement was already saying ‘look at me.’ Isn’t this wonderful?”
I’m not sure if Brian was trying to massage my ego before showtime or if he really meant all he said. Either way, it was working beautifully.
“Don’t be afraid to perform.” He walked back to his notes. “Let’s just do a révérence and be done. I don’t want you guys to be too tired.”
I wasn’t afraid of feeling tired, but ending on a high note was a good idea. My brain was turning into mush as the evening approached.
We followed Brian’s arm movements, then the men bowed and the women curtsied, to Brian first and then to the pianist.
Once in the dressing room, I put on my fake lashes and dressed in Juliet’s soft green and gold gown. The night would be special, but it wasn’t going to be complete without Peter in the audience. If only I hadn’t kissed Claus.
I was also worried. In theory, my plan was great: be Juliet, get Peter back, dance in Atlanta, and make my dreams come true. But I was not convinced reality would be that simple. I finished the eye shadow and approved the image in the mirror.
“Knock knock.” Claus drummed on my door, the accent slight but obviously his.
“Hi.” I let him in. Why am I not surprised? What does he want? He was dressed for the opening scene, ready to be my Romeo. His thick gray tights and beautiful red and grayish-blue vest did wonders for his fair complexion.
“How are you feeling?” He stood so close that the heat of his body touched mine. His moist lips in front of my eyes and the slight inclination of his head were an invitation—an invitation to bridge the gap, to give in, and to enjoy the moment.
My eye caught a glimpse of my engagement ring, carefully placed on the top shelf of my makeup box. An invitation to trouble—that’s all this is. I took a step back. “Just because we kissed la
st night doesn’t mean it’ll happen again.”
“Actually, darling, I can guarantee it will happen again.” He looked at his cell phone with a smirk. “In about ten minutes the doors will open and people will start sitting, Lady Juliet. We will kiss. We will kiss many times tonight.”
Oh, this accent—this man. A swarm of out-of-control butterflies exploded in my chest. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes. I know.” He pointed to my dress, which was loose and in obvious need of fastening.
I turned around. “Can you—”
He got to work without a word, his fingers moving from hook to hook slowly.
We will kiss. We will kiss many times tonight. Bad butterflies. Stop.
“Ana, I want to talk to you when all this is over.” He continued fastening the long row of hooks on the back of Juliet’s gown. “I want you to understand what happened ten years ago.”
“Why now?” It’s too late for us.
“I—”
“Actually, no.” I lifted my hand, interrupting his attempt to answer. “Let’s just dance. I need to get through this weekend.”
“Okay. I can wait.”
Good luck with that. The end of our performances together had to be the end of our whole history together—that was the right thing to do. But I didn’t want him to perform with a broken heart or disappointed. This was our time to dance.
It was about Romeo and about Juliet. It was also about a faithful audience that deserved a great performance from all of us. And it was about the Met— there were artistic directors from Atlanta in the audience too.
He fastened the last hook and turned me around slowly. “Beautiful,” he whispered, touching my cheek with the back of his fingers.
“Thank you.” I took a step back.
“I’m supposed to fly back to Germany in two weeks, but I can stay longer.” He reached for my hands.
“We’ll talk, Claus.” But we wouldn’t. There was so much I wanted to say to him. The truth about the status of my relationship with Peter, for starters. The trouble I was in. But that was my business, not his. Like the couple we were about to play on stage, we too had our timing all wrong.
The velvety voice of the theater manager came through the announcement system: “The house is now open. The house is now open.”
I opened the door for Claus. “See you out there.”
“Can’t wait, sweet Juliet.”
He walked out backward and continued looking at me. “I love you,” he mouthed without a sound before turning toward the stage door beyond which our audience awaited.
I love you? My right hand covered my heart—beats uneven, breaths uneven. We will kiss. We will kiss many times tonight.
Chapter 4
We had a full house indeed—an electrified and electrifying full house. At the end of every solo filled with jumps and turns, people clapped and shouted with an enthusiasm I’d only seen on YouTube and almost always involved Bolshoi-groomed Ivan Vasiliev.
Twice the applause had been so long and so loud I’d struggled to hear the music that followed. What a lovely problem to have.
Should I try a triple pirouette at the end of the masquerade ball solo? The warmth of the audience had already inspired me to take a few risks, and I’d already nailed two triples where I normally did doubles.
This one was different, though. Romeo was watching.
Up to the ballroom scene, he’d been dancing with his friends, and I’d been dancing in my room. Now Juliet was in the arms of the man her parents wanted her to marry—the handsome Paris—but he was about to get distracted, and Romeo was about to seize the opportunity.
Let’s go with the triple. Preparation. Turn. Nice.
“Brava!”
Yes!
Now Juliet’s life was about to change, in one, two, three … bam! Claus’s hands locked onto my small waist—the lovers’ first touch. Freeze.
My feet moved in a series of small steps en pointe but nothing else did— arms bent up and still like a porcelain doll’s, eyes wide, mouth slightly opened, heart… What was the heart doing? It wasn’t frozen.
It’d been zapped, like in medical television shows—that was it. Charge to two hundred, clear, zap. Only the shock hadn’t been delivered through paddles on the patient’s chest, it’d been delivered through my love’s hands. Zap.
My body traveled to where he directed, upper body still in shock. His grip tightened. Charge to three sixty, clear, zap.
And Juliet responds. She turns to Romeo and their eyes meet. I love you. We will kiss. We will kiss many times tonight.
Her family responds too, the whole lot of them and Paris. Juliet’s cousin Tybalt separates the two before anything can happen. Sigh.
I couldn’t imagine having my parents decide who I’d marry. What was it like for the young women who had to do it? Some were luckier than others, for sure.
Was it safer? For Juliet it would have been—she’d have lived. But would she have been happy? Would she have truly lived?
After all the ballroom flirting, it was finally time for the first kiss—the balcony scene.
We met center stage precisely as we’d practiced. My hand reached for his, and I placed it over my heart. Did defibrillators go higher than three sixty? Claus’s hands did. Zap.
Both our chests rose and fell with deep breaths. I exhaled hard—it was time to show off a little. More triple turns? Absolutely.
We finished dancing for each other, and Claus buried his face in the hem of my nightgown. It’s all too much for Juliet, and she tries to run. Romeo grabs her hand, bringing her back to him.
Claus’s lips were six inches from mine. I rolled up onto the tips of my toes, meeting his height. We will kiss all night…
He was supposed to close the gap, but he pulled me in instead—his fingers under my chin.
That wasn’t Romeo kissing Juliet. That was Claus. That was Claus kissing me. What was he doing?
The mixture of excitement and hesitation in my reaction seemed to ignite a fire in him. He was supposed to have his hand behind my back, barely touching me, his arms framing us.
But I felt the pressure of his hands and moaned against my will. His lips parted. Salty sweat, together. Heartbeats, together. Heat, together. Two became one.
By the time he let go, I didn’t have to pretend to be dizzy. I pulled away and ran up to the balcony. What had just happened?
Forget about coming back for the final pose. I was supposed to get down on the edge of the balcony and reach for him. But I left him waiting for me to appear one more time and hid behind the curtains instead. I covered my heart with both hands and heard the audience explode in cheers and shouts.
Was he going to do that with every kiss? My heart pounded as I imagined romantic scenes to come.
We will kiss. We will kiss many times tonight.
The wedding kiss was next, and then the bedroom kiss, and then many, many more all the way to the end of the ballet. I would never be able to perform all night if Claus continued to kiss me like that. Had he even planned that wild moment in the garden below the balcony? Or had the kiss just happened? God help me.
Standing in my kitchen the morning after our last show, I enjoyed a cup of my trusty breakfast blend before opening the paper to read the reviews.
I’ve always believed Romeo and Juliet is a ballet best appreciated by dancers. It lacks the bravado and Latin flair of Don Quixote and Paquita; there are no swans in pancake tutus, no ghosts in long romantic dresses with wings. Romeo and Juliet is blood and guts. It’s also an hour longer than most ballets, with more purely dramatic scenes than most. People are at the theater for at least four hours. But the intensity of the plot and the depth of the romance make it wonderful to dance.
The response we received from the audience and the critics was especially flattering considering the demand we put on them.
ANA BRASSFIELD AND THE SEASONED CLAUS GERT BROUGHT THE ROMEO AND JULIET TRAGEDY TO LIFE ON THE STAGE OF THE RIVERCENTER THIS WEEK
END, WITH BEAUTIFUL DANCING AND FLAWLESS INTERPRETATIONS WITNESSED BY HUNDREDS OF TEARY-EYED SPECTATORS.
THE COUPLE RECEIVED ROOF-RAISING OVATIONS AS THEY LIVED AND DIED WITH THE INTENSITY AND TRUTHFULNESS YOU WOULD EXPECT AT THE SHAKESPEARE’S GLOBE, LEADING ME TO WONDER IF THESE YOUNG DANCERS HAVE ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED THE JOYS AND SORROWS OF LOVE FOUND AND TRAGICALLY LOST, OR IF THEY SHOULD BE PURSUING A CAREER ON BROADWAY.
THIS IS MR. GERT’S SECOND TIME PERFORMING AS A GUEST WITH THE ALLEN BALLET. HE DANCED PAQUITA WITH LORIE ALLEN IN 1996, WHEN HE WAS A PRINCIPAL WITH THE ATLANTA BALLET. HE NOW DANCES WITH THE RHINE-MAIN BALLET IN HIS NATIVE GERMANY.
Mission complete.
I grabbed my keys and took Barysh to my neighbor’s apartment before driving north to Pine Mountain. It was time for me to go after the heart of the one who’d proved faithful, made me happy, and gave me peace—Peter. I’d had enough with the anxiety and pain I’d lived on stage with Claus.
I’m not taking the scenic route today. I got in my car, found a good melody, and headed for the highway.
Should I go straight to Callaway Gardens or should I go by the house first? Argh. My nice melody turned out to be a Christian song. Why did people listen to that stuff? Wasn’t Sunday enough?
I looked for my favorite country station. “There. Funny DJ. Miranda Lambert setting stuff on fire. Good.” A horn blasted loudly to my right, and I looked up from the radio. I’d almost moved out of my lane. That was not supposed to happen. I-185 was busier than usual, packed with cars and trucks driving in a hurry toward Atlanta. Staying alert was not optional.
Why was I queasy? Something wasn’t right. My mouth was dry and my chest felt funny, like I’d been holding my breath. But I was breathing just fine. Should I pull over?
A Season to Dance Page 5