by Tracey Ward
“So you decided to show up smelling like a frat house after a weekend bender?”
“Glad to see I was wrong about the hard time,” I mutter under my breath.
“I heard that,” she shouts from the corner.
I smile at her as I finish my lunch. She watches me in the shadows of the far side of the room, arms wrapped around her stomach impatiently.
“Take the box to the trash in the greenroom,” she tells me when I stand. “I don’t want this space stinking of poi.”
“What’s poi?”
“The gray shit. Get it out of here. Get cleaned up. Come back immediately so we can finally get to work.”
“I’m on it, Boss.”
“Go!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
SUTTON
I wander the room as I wait for him. Occasionally I’ll leap or spin. Lunge. I try standing up on my toes the way I used to when I was a ballerina but I’m too out of practice. My feet scream in protest until I drop back down on my soles. I’m only twenty-one but I’m painfully aware that I’m not as young as I used to be. I’m not as balanced. Not as agile. I’m definitely not as innocent. What I still am is angry. I’ve always been angry. It’s my constant companion. The only thing that changes is who or what I’m angry at.
Today it feels like everything. I’m angry with me and the show and Eric and air. I’m angry at so many things. So many people. All the time.
It’s exhausting.
I wish I was back on the stage in New York. I could step outside of myself and into a character with a completely different life. I’d be someone else with a different world full of different problems that feel so much smaller than they are because they aren’t really mine. Nothing in the world is as daunting as your own troubles. They can be the size of planets in your eyes while to the rest of the world they look like distant stars. I want that distance. I want anonymity from myself.
I go to the digital display on the wall that controls the speakers hidden throughout the room. I can pull any song from one of the millions in the digital library stored here in the studio, but it takes me only a second to pick the one I want. The one I need. The song will hurt like knives through my heart, making me bleed on the floor until I’m limp and listless. It’s old medicine. The dangerous kind. I’ll bleed myself until the sickness is out and I’m nearly spent, but I’ll be better when it’s over. I’ll be less and I’ll be me, and that’s the only way I can live anymore.
I jump right into the dance. It’s mournful. Painful. I glide across the room on air and sorrow, my limbs heavy with emotion that tries to drag me down. That’s the way the song feels; like lead. I immerse myself in it completely. I live it as I dance it, letting it take me over. Take me away. I let it move me in broad, rich strokes across the canvas of the dancefloor. I’m painting a picture in dark grays, rich purples, and aching reds that slash at my mind with every arc of my arm. I don’t have to think as I move. This dance is one I remember as clearly as my own name even though I never performed it. I thought I was meant to, but maybe I wasn’t. My whole life feels like that. Like I thought I’d be one thing but I’m something else entirely. I just have no clue what that is or who I am, and maybe that’s what has me so tired. The never knowing.
“I love that song.”
I pause mid-step. My heart slams in my chest with surprise and exertion. I keep my eyes closed for just a second longer, just one more breath to myself, but then it’s gone. I blink into the brilliant light of the studio to find Clara standing in the doorway. She’s watching me curiously.
“Me too,” I answer, feeling breathless and oddly out of shape. “On my Own is one of my favorites.”
“I didn’t know you were in Les Mis.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Do you just like—”
“I’m sorry if it was too loud.” I cross the room to smash the STOP button on the display. The space falls into a deafening silence. “I know how much Eric hates it when I turn the music up too high.”
“He’s not here. You can have it as loud as you want.”
I shake my head tightly. “I’m done.”
She studies me closely. I feel her scrutiny down to my marrow, but that’s my body. She can’t see what I won’t let her. I shroud the rest of me. The most precious, delicate pieces that aren’t ready for the light of day.
“You look tired,” she tells me quietly.
“I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“You should take something tonight. Get some rest. Ambien has always worked wonders for me.”
I wrinkle my nose in disgust. “No. I don’t like drugs.”
“I wasn’t suggesting you take meth or something.”
“I know, but my mom made me take stuff as a kid. Tons of stuff. Uppers. Downers. Diet pills. She had me on birth control the second I turned thirteen to stop my periods because they got in the way of rehearsals.” I frown down at my feet, my chest burning. “I’m not doing any of that anymore.”
Clara nods, her eyes digging deeper. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
She glances around the room, sniffing softly. “What is that smell? Is that bacon?”
“BBQ pork.”
“You ate meat?” she gasps.
“No,” I laugh. “I’ve never. Shane brought in his lunch.”
“Are you kidding me? You let him eat in here?”
“I told him he couldn’t and he did it anyway. What do you want me to do? He’s like a thousand pounds. I can’t stop him from doing anything.”
“Where is he now?”
“Showering. He stank from football practice so I sent him to the green rooms to get cleaned up.”
“He’s just going to work up a sweat again.”
“Yes, but this will be dance sweat. It’s different.”
“It’s all going to smell like pork.”
I feel my stomach roll; same as it did when I caught that first whiff of him. Chemicals in the deodorant. Alcohol in the cologne. Sweet BBQ sauce on the pig. I don’t mind sweat. Sweat I can handle because I’m used to it. It’s the mix of everything else that makes me sick to my stomach. The smell of cooked meat has always been like manure to me.
There was a brief window in my teens when I dabbled in bulimia. I had to stop because I was losing too much weight too fast, but ever since then, my gag reflex is on a hair-trigger. The littlest thing can set me off, turning my stomach to the point of total revulsion. There are certain smells that do it. Certain tastes. Certain people.
Clara comes deeper into the room. She folds her arms over her chest, getting down to business. “Maybe try to go easy on this one. We can’t afford another Joey Lawrence incident. The show isn’t strong enough to handle it right now.”
“Joey Lawrence was not my fault.”
“They never are.”
“Don’t take his side,” I demand. “He drew first blood. He called me a raging cunt.”
“After you called him a bald has-been!”
I snort, trying to contain laughter that doesn’t want to be contained. I lose the battle in the end, laughing harder than I have in days. It feels good; like stretching. Like I’m pressing against my body and making it bigger than it was before.
“He might have been right,” I admit, still chuckling. “Maybe I was a cunt.”
Clara smiles. “You certainly weren’t sweet.”
“I don’t do sweet.”
“You could try with Shane.”
“Don’t start,” I warn her.
“He’d be good for you.”
I shake my head firmly. “Nope. He’d be perfect for some nice West Coast girl with cowboy boots and bangs.”
“You could pull off cowboy boots.”
“But never bangs, so let it go.”
“Fine,” she relents on a sigh. “What’s your song choice for this week? You guys got the Charleston, right?”
I smile devilishly. “I picked Lucky Strike.”
“Maroon 5?”<
br />
“Adam Levine himself.”
“Oh honey,” Clara chuckles, dropping down to sit on the floor by the mirrors. “You’re going to give Eric such an aneurysm.”
“I hope so.”
“You might not want to poke that bear. With the show in the state it’s in, he’s not feeling very forgiving lately.”
I cross the room to drop down next to her on the floor. She immediately takes my hand in both of hers, warming my cold fingers that never seem to be anything but icy. It’s a circulation issue. My mom has it too.
“I’ll stop,” I lie about Eric.
That’s something else I inherited from my mom; lying.
Clara reaches out to tuck a stray hair behind my ear. “You really do look tired, honey.”
“I really do feel tired,” I admit with a sigh.
“Have you eaten today?”
“I had a banana at breakfast.”
“Nothing since?”
“I’m not hungry.”
She frowns with disapproval. “Have you ever thought about having fun with the competition and enjoying it instead of pushing yourself to the brink of hospitalization every season trying to win it?”
“That was one time, and it was because we all got the flu. I threw up more than the girl on The Exorcist. Of course I almost went to the hospital.”
“Linda Blair.”
“Here we go,” I mutter. “You’re going to do that thing, aren’t you? The one where you give me a Hollywood history lesson every time I mention a movie?”
“She was nominated for an Academy Award for that one. She didn’t win it but she got a Golden Globe.”
“Oh my God,” I lament sarcastically. “She was robbed.”
Clara smiles. “You’re just jealous.”
“I’m really not.”
“You are. It’s okay.”
“I have two Tony Awards and a Grammy. I wouldn’t wipe my ass with a Golden Globe.”
“Jesus, I would hope not.”
I laugh, leaning into her warmth. She lets me sit too close until our sides are running parallel and I can feel her breathing. This is the kind of contact I like. The easy kind. The kind where no one wants anything from me in return. Clara is like the mom I always wanted but never had. Affectionate without being cloying. Teasing without being cruel.
“Why’d you come in here today?” I ask her quietly. “You’re not supposed to interact with us during our rehearsals. They’ll think you’re playing favorites and helping me.”
“Of course I’m playing favorites. You think I want to look at Melisandre’s pinched face on The Wall for the rest of eternity?”
I smile affectionately. “Cheater.”
“Only if you let me help you.”
“I won’t,” I vow, my pride rising like a balloon in my chest.
“That’s because you never do anything wrong.”
“That definitely doesn’t feel true.”
“It looks true from the outside.”
“Thank you.”
“Not a compliment,” she promises me. “You’re boring.”
I laugh, jerking my hand back playfully. “And people call me a bitch.”
“I’m serious. You should do something ugly once in a while. It’s good for a girl to get some dirt under her nails.”
“Why would I ever want to do that?”
“Because it’s fun.”
“I’ve never done anything just because it’s fun.”
“And that’s your problem right there.”
It’s not. My problems are mountains high and oceans deep, but a lack of fun has never felt like one of them. It feels like a side effect of everything else. Like the symptom of a sickness, not the source. Men are the source of my problems. They always have been. Ever since I was just a girl.
Dread floods my body. I feel faint for half a heartbeat. Like my blood disappears from my veins before it comes rushing back at full force, nearly knocking me out of my own body. Garret’s face flashes in front of my eyes before I can get a hold of him, and then he’s there in the room. His fingers are in my hair, his hand under my dress, and my heart is rising in my throat where it beats the rhythm to a song I never want to hear again. I blink rapidly, trying to clear my mind, but he refuses to leave.
He never did what I wanted. Never. He’s so much like Eric in that way, I almost can’t tell them apart.
“Sutton?” Clara’s voice calls from outside the cotton crammed in my ears.
I swallow thickly. “Yeah?”
“Are you okay?”
The door to the studio opens suddenly. Shane steps in, his head nearly brushing the top of the frame. His hair is wet from his shower. It clumps together in bright tresses that glisten like sunshine. His face is flushed, his chin cleanshaven for the first time since I met him. It makes him look younger. More my age than his. It also softens him somehow, or maybe that’s me. Maybe it’s the light. Maybe it’s Clara. Maybe it’s the way the moon is lined up with Mars – I don’t know. But the change is good. As the first breath of him comes into my lungs, I smell soap and hot water. A man’s musk without any assistance from cologne. He smells nice and natural, the scent instantly washing away all lingering images of Garret from my mind, and suddenly I feel good. Better than I have all morning.
He smiles when he spots us sitting together against the wall. “Ladies. I have been detoxed.”
“Give us a spin,” Clara commands, twirling her finger in the air. “Let’s see.”
I push her hand down into her lap, shaking my head at Shane. “Don’t do that. Don’t listen to Clara unless you absolutely have to. She’s a sexual harassment suit just waiting to happen.”
Shane smiles at her. “I won’t tell if she won’t.”
“Do not encourage her,” I mumble. I stand, reaching down to help Clara up off the floor. “Besides, she was just leaving.”
“She’s not going to watch?” Shane asks.
“I’m not allowed to interfere or assist,” Clara explains. “I only get you guys for the group numbers.”
Shane opens the door for her when Clara leaves. She smiles at him, thanks him, and casts me a meaningful glance as she exits.
“Are you ready?” I bark once the door is closed.
Shane nods, bouncing up on the balls of his feet. “I’m ready.”
“You ran at practice, right?”
“That’s almost all we did.”
“Good. We can skip the workout and jump right into the dance. We need to practice that shoulder lift. The dismount was shaky yesterday.”
“I’m nervous I’m going to drop you on your head,” Shane confesses bluntly.
“Me too, but the only way to get over that is to practice it until we can do it in our sleep.” I motion for him to stand in front of the mirrors next to me. “Right foot to start. Ready and five-six-seven-eight.”
We launch into the number from somewhere around the middle. I watch Shane in the mirror as his feet fly, sharply kicking out the steps I taught him yesterday. We do a few gestures that he describes as ‘totally Chaplin’ before he slides out on his knees in front of me. He pounds his palms on the ground to the beat, keeping his head low. I run at him from behind, leapfrogging over him. I stand with my feet apart and my body rigid as I wait for him to make his next move. If he does it wrong, I’ll fall. If he does it right, I’ll be sitting over eight feet in the air.
Shane puts his head between my legs, takes hold of my ankles, and stands effortlessly with me on his shoulders. It’s dizzying how quickly he manages it. How incredibly strong he obviously is. His hands are hot on my ankles, steadying me on my perch, but he doesn’t need to. I clench my thighs tightly around his neck, tickled by the thick tresses of his hair. It sends shivers down my spine. Luckily, the feeling only lasts for a second before he’s supposed to bring me back down into his arms. Or two seconds. Three? Five?
I look at him impatiently in the mirror. “Shane?”
“I know,” he replies apologetically.
“What’s the problem?”
“I forgot which way you come down?”
“On your right.”
“Right. Okay.” His hands flex on my ankles nervously. “Are you ready?”
“Whenever you are.”
Just like I taught him, he leans us to the right, toppling me off his shoulder. It’s an uneasy feeling, but I keep my cool and tuck my arms in tight to my body to make myself a sleeker package. He catches me easily in his arms. He’s meant to drop my upper body, holding onto my knees to swing me around his torso where he’ll catch my shoulders and release my legs, only it doesn’t happen. He freezes again, holding me cradled in his long arms.
I stare up at him impatiently. “What’s wrong now?”
He frowns deeply. “I’m nervous I’m going to drop you.”
“Am I that heavy?”
“No,” he chuckles absently. “You weigh nothing. That’s part of what scares me. I’m worried about flipping you around and losing hold. What if you fall?”
“I get back up and we do it again,” I say sternly.
He doesn’t like that answer. “Can’t we put some mats down or something?”
“No.”
He hesitates, his eyes on mine. He’s searching for something but I won’t let him find it. I won’t give on this. If he can’t get the confidence to do this first move, he’ll never find it when we really need it later on.
“I promised I wouldn’t hurt you,” he reminds me quietly.
I feel my heart heave. It lurches somewhere south before rising up again, fuller than before. I can feel his own beating against my body where it’s held tightly to his chest. His heart is steady and strong; just like the man it beats for. “You’re not going to hurt me. But you’re not going to be a coward either.”
A smile plays at the corner of his mouth. “No one’s ever called me a coward before.”
“Don’t make me do it again.”
“Yes, Boss.”
“Are we going to do this or are you going to stand here holding me all day?”
His fingers move against my sides, warm and wide. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind,” he teases, his voice deep and sultry.
“I would,” I lie sharply. “Put me down. We’re going again. No hesitations.”