Moss sits me on a leather couch beside a mixing board, and I take in the space. Two keyboards, microphones, various guitars. Black cords snake here and there. There’s a bar out here too and I find myself with a tall glass in my hand.
‘Okay?’ asks Moss, cigarette in the corner of his mouth. I don’t mind the smell so much now.
I nod. Take a sip. I’m not sure if it will wake me up or put me back to sleep.
Moss pushes buttons on the mixing board and sound fills the room. No lyrics, but I hear Bruno’s drums, the funk carried along by Bryn on bass guitar. We’re barely a minute in when sound is replaced with silence.
‘It’s the bridge,’ he says. ‘I don’t like it. The bridge isn’t working.’
‘The bass is good,’ I say.
‘Can you dance to it?’ asks Moss. He glances at me before looking down and fidgeting with something on the mixing board. ‘You need to be able to dance to it.’ He’s muttering to himself and I’m not sure if he’s talking to me. When he looks up again, he raises his eyebrows. ‘Will you dance?’
‘It’s the middle of the night. I’m tired.’ It’s true, but also a tease.
Moss steps from behind the mixing table. ‘I need to see how you move to the music. Just …’ He waves his hands at the room. ‘Do what you normally do.’
‘Like at a club?’
‘No, real dancing. Like … show me the music.’
Something about the way he keeps shifting his feet and waving his arms makes me think that Moss hasn’t slept for a while. He seems all pent-up, switched to a hundred and ten.
But at the same time, I understand what he’s asking. He wants me to interpret the music. He wants me as a dancer. In some ways it’s the most flattering thing I’ve ever been asked.
I slip off my shoes, stand up. Test the response of the floor with the ball of my foot. I can do this. I used to do it all the time, at home before starting at the Academy. The minute you start to rehearse a piece is the minute it becomes just that.
The music begins. I don’t look at Moss, try not to think about him, just take in the music. Feel it, and respond.
The music is sassy and confident. We reach the place when Moss last switched off and I keep going into the bridge. The sounds are more layered here, faster, busier. And there’s a moment when I lose the feel, faff a little, try to pick it up again.
‘There!’ The music turns off. ‘That part, there’s something wrong.’
I’m panting, light, and a little dizzy. ‘Moss, it’s really good. It’s not perfect yet, but you should get some sleep. You’ll be able to see what it needs in the morning.’
‘Sleep?’ He comes around from the mixing board, pacing in front of me. His hair is all mussed up, as if he’s been pulling at it. ‘I can’t sleep until I get this right. Do you realise what’s at stake here? My whole career depends on this album. If I miss this chance –’
‘Moss!’ I place my hands on his shoulders. ‘The song, it’s going to be awesome. You just need to leave it for a while. It’s late, okay? I’m tired.’
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a snap-lock bag. ‘Here. This’ll help.’
There’s white powder inside.
I bite my lip, eyes on the bag. Grant’s not here to stop me, or Bruno. I think of Saturday night, and the way Moss is now, and somehow I know that I’ve reached a point I’m not going to cross.
I shake my head. ‘No thanks.’
‘Come on.’ Moss jerks his head towards a table, expecting me to follow. ‘You won’t believe this, babe. It’ll wake you up. Open your mind.’
I stay where I am.
Moss turns back impatiently. ‘Come on.’
‘No,’ I say and shrug. ‘I don’t want it.’
He snorts. ‘How do you know if you’ve never tried?’
‘I just …’ I shake my head. ‘You can finish the song without this stuff. You just need some sleep.’
‘I won’t need sleep once I have a hit.’ Again, Moss holds up the bag. ‘Just have a bit.’
‘Look, I said no, all right?’ I draw myself up taller. ‘I’m not giving you grief about Kitty Hudson, so don’t give me grief about this.’
That takes him by surprise. One eyebrow cocks. ‘Touché.’ Moss looks at the bag in his hand and slips it back in his pocket. ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘You’re really something, you know that?’
I’m not sure if it’s a compliment or an insult. Right now I’m too tired to care. ‘You really should get some sleep.’
Moss nods as a slow smile spreads across his face. ‘You want to go to bed?’ He takes my right hand and holds it up to his mouth. I feel his breath on my wrist, his lips tickle the inside of my elbow. He slips his hands down, grasping my hips and pulling me towards him.
‘Is that what you want?’ whispers Moss into my ear.
All I have to do is turn my head and we’re locked together, kissing. The electricity in him feeds into me. We don’t make it to bed, just melt onto the floor.
It answers a question.
I still want him.
I shouldn’t.
But I do.
THIRTEEN
I’m tired for the rest of the week. It’s as if I’ve left part of me back with Moss. Dancing’s no relief. It’s hard to sleep, and eating just makes me tired. On Friday I turn to jelly beans for energy, then start feeling sick and switch back to coffee instead.
By the time I make it to grad performance rehearsal on Saturday I’ve been forcing focus for so long that my eyeballs ache.
‘Here,’ says Paige, holding out two headache pills when we get to the final break. There’s no smile, just her steady gaze.
‘Thanks, Paige, you’re a lifesaver.’ I take the tablets and down them with a swig of Diet Coke. ‘Ready for more?’
She looks at me evenly. Everyone else is going home except me, Paige, Lachlan and Tadpole. Around us is relieved laughter and lots of tired farewells.
‘Come on, you lot,’ says Tadpole with a click of his fingers. ‘Time to show them what we’re made of.’
‘Saccharin and caffeine?’ I groan.
Even Miss Penelope seems tired of being here. Her fuse is so short that she’s yelling by the time we’ve reached the fifth step.
‘Avant, Scarlett! Sissonne en avant!’
‘Sorry!’ I call as we keep going.
It’s hard to find my way into this piece. There’s no energy coming from the steps. I haven’t had a chance to practise them on my own. We’re halfway through when I miss the timing of a jump, and lose the thread entirely.
‘No, no, no, Scarlett!’ snaps Miss Penelope. ‘Your partner is waiting and where are YOU?’
‘I know, I know.’ I turn to Tadpole. ‘Sorry.’
‘Not good ENOUGH,’ shouts Miss Penelope.
Tadpole wipes dampness from his hairline, breathing hard. When he notices I’m watching, he pulls a face, tongue between teeth. It makes me smile, but at the same time I know what he’s thinking. Just get this done so I can go home.
I get through the rest of the piece without messing up. Miss Penelope marks out a section with Tadpole, but says nothing to me. A meaningful nothing.
We’re a short way into the next run-through when I miss another step and the yelling starts again.
‘No, no. I want you to swap,’ says Miss Penelope. ‘Understudy in. Scarlett, mark through the steps until you know what you are doing.’
‘I know what I’m doing.’ Quickly I turn from Miss Penelope to the others. ‘I’m just tired.’
‘No tiredness allowed!’ bellows Miss Penelope.
Frustration flares in my chest. I step aside, pressing a balled fist into my thigh.
Lachlan hovers as if to step in with me, but I pretend I don’t notice and start marking through on my own, pausing here and there so I can watch Paige dancing with Tadpole. It’s a victory dance that the prima ballerina shares with her spirit once her love of dancing has returned. Not romantic at all, but considering who’s dancing the r
oles, I can’t help expecting some kind of spark.
As soon as Paige moves into position I can tell she’s been practising. The steps come easily, and with precision. She reaches the section that I kept messing up and executes it perfectly, so I take the chance to mark it through, fixing it in my mind before watching the rest.
Overall the dance is smooth and seamless. Tadpole knows what he’s doing too. But still, I can’t help feeling as if something’s missing. Where’s the spark?
It’s only then that I realise what’s wrong. Paige never looks at Tadpole. She holds her head high, facing front when she’s meant to, but when the time comes for her to look at Tadpole, her gaze always drops. It takes so much away from their performance.
Once they reach the end, Miss Penelope calls Tadpole and Lachlan aside. Paige and I are left standing. Our eyes meet before she looks away.
It feels so weird and tense. ‘Hey, well done,’ I say. ‘That was awesome. You’ve been practising.’
‘A bit.’ Paige is watching me warily.
‘It’s almost perfect. If you just make sure you really look at Tadpole, you know, in the arabesque, and just before the lift?’
She puts her hands on hips, chin jutting. ‘Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind when I’m dancing it at the grad performance.’ Each word drips with sarcasm.
‘Look, I was just trying to help.’
‘Because now that you’ve done a music video, you know everything. Is that it?’
What is her problem? ‘Listen, I really didn’t mean anything. Next time I’ll keep quiet, okay?’
For long seconds Paige just glares, and then lets out a breath. ‘Next time, you won’t say anything because you’ll be the one who’s dancing.’
There’s no way I’m sticking around once we’ve finished. I grab my stuff and mumble a goodbye. Halfway out the door, I stop.
I think about how it felt to step aside …
No wonder Paige has been acting so weird around me.
Inside my bag is an ad I tore out of Dancer magazine ages ago and have been meaning to give her. It’s not much, but it’s all I have. A peace offering.
Paige is zipping up her jacket when I find her, no Tadpole in sight.
‘Here,’ I say, handing her the crumpled gloss paper.
Her eyes travel over the page before finding purpose. ‘Moulin Rouge. Auditions.’ Paige looks up. ‘For when I miss out on the NBC?’
I tell myself not to take the bait. I turn it into a joke and pop my eyes like a teacher talking to a naughty student. ‘Noooo. But I thought it was interesting. See? You have to be over –’
‘A hundred and seventy-five centimetres,’ finishes Paige.
‘How tall are you?’
Muscles clench in her jaw. ‘Tall enough.’
‘Well, it’s good to know, isn’t it? And how awesome would it be to work in Paris? You’d even get to make use of all our French classes.’
‘Yeah, thanks.’ But the way she pushes the paper into a side pocket of her bag makes me think it’s never coming out.
We’re quiet for a while, but I don’t turn to go. It doesn’t feel finished. Soon Paige inhales, scanning the empty seats of the theatre. ‘Do you want to go and grab a bite?’
‘What about Tadpole?’
Her mouth scrunches to one side.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask.
‘You mean you haven’t noticed?’ Her eyes flash for a moment before she swallows. ‘Nothing. That’s what’s going on.’
Understanding hits me with a mix of guilt and relief. It’s not just me that’s making her like this. I jerk my head towards the door. ‘Come to my place?’
She nods, staying quiet on the bus and hardly looking at me.
Once we get home, I send Paige to my room then throw together a plate of carrot sticks, crackers and cheese, the sound of bad piano scales filtering through from the living room.
When I walk in Paige is hunched over a magazine lying on my desk. At the sound of the door, she swivels towards me. She opens her mouth to say something, then clamps it shut. She almost seems angry. Confused somehow.
‘Here.’ I leave the plate on my desk and settle onto the floor. ‘So tell me … what happened with Tadpole?’
There’s a moment when she just looks at me. She opens her mouth, swallows. Shakes her head.
‘Come on,’ I push. When did Paige stop telling me about this kind of stuff?
Finally she says, ‘I’m not sure what happened, really. We’d been hanging out and hooking up a bit. Except, we’d been busy so we didn’t spend much time together. And then last week, I asked him where we stood – you know, if he wanted to make it official.’
‘And?’
‘He said that he just wants to focus on school at the moment, and the show.’ She looks miserable. ‘But I could tell that he was just saying that.’
I shuffle closer on my knees. ‘I don’t know, Paige. You’re just as focused as he is. Maybe after we graduate –’
She’s shaking her head before I’ve even finished. ‘Nah. I can tell. It’s over … not that it even started in the first place.’
I’m not sure what to say, so I pick up the platter and hold it out. She loads up on carrot sticks.
‘Maybe it’s a good thing.’ I grab a cracker. ‘We’ve got enough to deal with as it is.’
Somehow Paige crosses her long legs in the desk chair. ‘You seem to manage a social life as well as everything else.’ When I shrug and keep munching, she glances at the magazine on my desk and back to me. ‘So what is going on with you and Moss Young?’
I’m not sure what to say. There’s so much I haven’t told her.
Paige wrinkles her nose. ‘What do you do when you see him? Are you like one of Moss Young’s groupies or something?’
‘No,’ I say sharply. Did she really mean that? ‘No, I … we … we’ve been together.’
Her eyes go wide. ‘You mean –’
I nod slowly, watching her expression. Sharing this with Paige makes me realise how much I care what she thinks.
‘Wow, Scarlett. That’s really … You’re like, Moss Young’s girlfriend?’
Now it’s my turn to look down. ‘Not exactly.’
‘Not exactly?’
I know how this will sound. ‘We can see other people … it’s just sometimes he sees me.’
I don’t want to look at her.
‘More like he still sees other people,’ Paige says.
I shouldn’t have said anything. Paige will never understand.
‘Scarlett … what are you doing? He’s using you.’
I’m shaking my head. ‘No. No, he’s not. He’s been honest the whole time. I mean …’ I’m not sure what else to say, so I just finish. ‘He’s Moss Young.’
‘Yeah,’ she laughs dryly. ‘I rest my case.’
My jaw clenches as I stand up. I know it sounds bad when I say it like that, but she’s not even trying to understand. ‘I’ll go and get something to drink.’
Moss calls late on Sunday, less than a week since I last saw him. A good sign, I decide.
‘We’re heading out,’ he says. ‘Thought you might want to join?’
Energy explodes through me. ‘Sure!’ I can’t help grinning. I’ve spent the whole morning doing homework, then working like a demon through the pas de deux that I was messing up at rehearsal. As long as I don’t stay out too late, I’ll be fine.
‘Meet at my joint, then we’ll take it from there,’ he says. ‘And babe? You might want to do yourself up a bit.’
‘Okay,’ I say slowly. ‘See you soon.’
Do myself up? This calls for a little black dress. I’ve got a tiny one with a cut-out back, super short. I spend ages on my hair, blow drying it all wild and away from my face. As I get ready I imagine Moss smiling, liking what he sees. You’re really something …
I do my make-up next, a bit more tonight. Then I step into some heels.
When I finish, I consider myself in the mirror. Turn my head
to one side, strike a pose.
Good.
Downstairs, Mum’s on the phone to Jinni, so I scribble a note and head for the door. It doesn’t work.
She signs off hastily before calling out to me. ‘Scarlett, wait!’
Damn. I decide to take the easy path. ‘I’m going round to Paige’s place, okay? Back later.’ Light and breezy.
For a second, Mum just looks at me. Then her eyes narrow. ‘I called Paige last week when you went out in the middle of the night,’ she says.
‘You called Paige?’
‘And Isabelle’s mum.’
Don’t take the bait. What could either of them have said about me anyway? At least they didn’t give anything away.
‘You never answer your phone. You don’t say anything to me. I need to know where you go, Scarlett.’
‘Why? I’m seventeen –’
‘Because!’ she snaps. ‘I’m your mother.’
Our eyes lock but her focus shifts away first. It’s a victory, except I’m becoming tired of this game. I swallow and turn to go. Then I make a decision. The truth can hurt too.
‘I’m seeing Moss Young. The musician.’
‘Seeing him on his own or with a group of people?’ she asks evenly.
I shrug. ‘On his own some of the time.’
There’s barely any reaction, but she has to be wondering what happens when I’m alone with him.
For a moment the distance between us makes my chest hurt, and I have to look away.
‘What time will you be home?’ Mum asks, her voice tight.
‘I … I don’t know.’ It’s just a simple question, and it takes me a moment to realise how she flipped everything back to me. ‘Not too late. I have rehearsals tomorrow.’
No arguing. No demands. No comment on my clothes. ‘Okay.’
‘Bye.’ For some reason, I’m slow to turn.
‘And Scarlett?’ she says, making me glance back. ‘Call me if you need to. Anytime. It doesn’t matter how late.’
How has she done this? She’s changed the rules. ‘Yeah, well, don’t wait up,’ I mutter, and head out the door.
Cameras flash as soon as we step out of the car.
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