Sixty was sitting beside me and I could feel her eyes veer my way, but I didn’t look at her. I looked up at Molly and tried to do as Roderick had said. What would I think of Molly if I just happened to see her onstage? The first thing I’d notice was her height; she was probably the tallest fourteen-year-old I knew. She was very skinny too, but it was a skinniness that looked natural, like there was just too much of her for any amount of food to fill. She had a small face, high cheeks round as plums. Her mass of hair was slicked tight to her scalp, black as underground oil. I scanned the length of her legs. Pink tights on brown skin made an ashy color. I could tell her feet were powerful; they were big and the one in cou-de-pied showed off a protuberant arch.
“How tall are you, Molly?” Roderick asked from behind us.
“Five-nine.”
Roderick paused. “Hmm. And still growing?”
“Um, I don’t know.”
“How tall are your parents?”
“My mom’s just five-six.”
“And your dad?”
She looked down at her feet for a moment. “Pretty tall, I guess.”
There was a pause. “Can you go up onto pointe for us, Molly?”
She was about to say something but Roderick beat her to it.
“Just relevé into fifth position. I don’t care what you do with your arms.”
I thought I saw a new tightness around Molly’s mouth. She placed her cou-de-pied down on the floor and pliéd in fifth position. Then she snapped her feet together so that she was standing on pointe, one leg crossed snugly over the other. The impression was powerful. Her body became an endless pike of muscle.
“I have news for you, Molly.” Roderick had pushed himself out of his corner and was walking slowly up the side of the audience. “You’re not five-nine anymore.”
She lost her balance a little and had to move her front foot. “Okay.”
“You’re about six foot two now, which is a good five inches taller than the average male dancer.”
Molly kept her eyes fixed.
Roderick crossed his arms over his chest and turned his body toward us.
“So actually, we can’t imagine Molly as a dancer who’s caught our eye in the corps, because Molly will never get a job in the corps. Or at least not the corps of any reputable classical company. She’s just too tall.”
I looked at Molly. Would she be able to stay in control of her feelings? She tottered to the left again and had to move her foot to keep her balance.
“You can roll down now.”
She did as she was told but I saw the first flicker of defeat in her eyes.
“Now don’t look glum.” Roderick was moving toward her. “It’s not as though you were any shorter when we accepted you last spring.” He was just a foot or two away from her now and he stopped. “Some of the best ballerinas of all time have been as tall as you. Suzanne Farrell. Sylvie Guillem. And their height wasn’t a disadvantage to them. No. It wasn’t a disadvantage at all. It made them magnificent.” He crossed in front of Molly and stopped at her side. “So that’s your challenge. That’s your work cut out for you. Your height means that you have to be better than good; you have to be the best. Do you think you can be the best?”
“Um.” She pinched the strap of her bodysuit, looked at the floor. “I don’t know.”
A meanness smeared Roderick’s expression. “Well, that’s a problem.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I know either.”
I watched Molly process this.
“But we’ll find out. When the company directors come to watch you dance at the end of senior year, they have to pick you out and say, I want that girl as a soloist. They may look at someone else and say, hmm, she’s talented, let’s take her on as an apprentice and see how it works out. But you, no way. They need to be able to hire you on the spot and drop you straight into their toughest repertoire. There isn’t likely to be more than one male dancer over six-two in that company, and you’ve got to prove that you’re worthy of him.” Roderick shook his head. “Okay, Molly. Go sit down.”
She looked surprised for a moment, as though she’d misheard him, but then she rejoined us, lowered her body to the floor. Roderick just stood there. A piece of hair dipped over his forehead and he swung it away without using his hand.
“The point of that wasn’t to pick on Molly. It was an example for all of you. We could take the time to go through that process with everyone, and we will, one on one. You all have your individual challenges and it’s crucial that you know what they are from the outset so that you can monitor them from here on in. Because otherwise”—he lifted his hands in the air, shrugged—“what are we doing here?”
He turned around and took a few steps with his back to us.
“All right, ladies. Everyone at the barre.”
He talked us through the first exercise. He nodded at the pianist and the music began, languid, drippy notes running into the notes beside them. We bent our knees, made diamonds of negative space, lifted heels into ankles. The end brought a suspension, soutenu in fifth. I lifted my arms.
“Stop.”
The music stopped. My arms found my sides and we turned as a group to face Roderick. He was marching across the studio to the barre, heading to where Veronica stood. I saw a tiny flash of fear on her face.
Roderick motioned toward her. “You go back to that last position.”
Veronica hesitated for a half second then put her hand back on the barre. She lifted the other arm, resumed the soutenu in fifth. Her focus shot forward, deliberately unflinching. She was still as a statue; her pale hair caught the light.
Roderick turned to the rest of us. “What is that?” He pointed at her hand. “Those fingers,” Roderick continued. “Yikes.”
I looked at her fingers. Technically they were in the right position, her middle finger dropping to her thumb, the index finger isolated and lifted. But I saw what Roderick was talking about. They looked wooden, complicated, like a severed set of antlers. She must have been double-jointed, because her thumb even curved the wrong way.
“Jesus, that’s going to keep me up at night.” He turned away from her, fluttered his hand over his shoulder the way a king dismisses a servant. “Put that thing away.”
Veronica lowered her heels to the ground, let her arm drop to her side. She suddenly looked very young, not fourteen but more like seven, a kid lost at a crowded mall.
“Where the hell did you learn that?” Roderick was pinching the bridge of his nose, shaking his head.
“I don’t know,” she answered quietly.
“No, tell me. Where did you train?”
“The local school in St. Catharines.”
“Called?”
“The Niagara School of Ballet.”
“The Niagara School of Ballet,” he repeated slowly. “Wow.” He brought his hand to his stomach. “That just about killed my lunch.”
Veronica stood very still, stony across her shoulders.
Roderick talked us quickly through the next exercise, then went back to his usual corner behind the piano, slinked his body between the two walls. His eyes pulled into two narrow sneers and there was a tilt in the line of his lips, like he was just a breath away from laughter. Why did he want to laugh at us? It was as though, without knowing it, we had collectively done something ridiculous. I could see Veronica on the opposite barre. She was biting the inside of her cheeks and her eyes had the tender look of someone who’s just taken off her glasses. I figured she was doing everything to keep her feelings from boiling up onto her face.
When Roderick dismissed us, we walked as a group back to the change room, lifting our heads only to swig back water or wipe perspiration from our brows. No one spoke and the distant warble of piano chords sounded as sad as funeral music. Sixty found my side and we drifted together without looking at each other. When we got to the change room, Veronica and Molly dropped their T-shirts and reusable water bottles and hugged.
&n
bsp; “You were so good,” Molly said after a moment. “You didn’t even flinch.”
“You too,” said Veronica. “You were totally deadpan.”
“I thought I was going to hyperventilate.”
“You couldn’t tell,” Veronica assured her. “I couldn’t even see you breathe.”
Anushka and Sonya moved in toward the girls and took turns hugging both of them. Anushka whispered that she was so sorry and Sonya said she’d heard that it was a good sign to get picked on first. Sixty looked at me, her expression steady with compassion, and moved in to hug them as well. Molly was crying now, and Veronica handed her a box of Kleenex from the bottom of her locker. I tried to join the group of them, moved over as much as I could so that I was in the general hub of activity, but I didn’t know what to say or how to initiate a hug without looking stupid.
“What are you staring at?”
It was Veronica’s voice and my heart stopped. I looked up and saw that she wasn’t talking to me but to Chantal, who was standing alone in front of her locker. Chantal looked completely pissed off by the question. She shrugged a shoulder and turned toward her locker.
“That is really inconsiderate.” Veronica glared at Chantal’s back.
The other girls turned around.
“What did she do?” Molly asked.
“She was just standing there looking”—Veronica shook her head as though the whole thing was too infuriating—“weird.” She turned to her own locker and started pulling out the hairpins from her bun until a loosened ponytail swung across her back. She yanked out her elastic and her blond hair went everywhere. “Let’s do something fun! Let’s go to Coffee Time.”
“Yes!” said Molly.
“Coffee Time?” Anushka asked.
“All the guys from Eastern Collegiate hang out there. Come!”
Veronica explained that she and Molly had seen a group of guys smoking and drinking coffee in the parking lot adjacent to the shop. They’d been too far away to judge how hot the boys were, but Veronica was sure they looked promising, had shaggy hair and tapered pants, boys who could have sung indie music. The three of them started to get ready, pulling lots of extra clothes out of their lockers so that they could try on one another’s things. A pile of pointe shoes and dirty tights accumulated on the floor, and the girls laughed as they threw their heads upside down to fluff up their hair. Veronica found a spandex leotard in the clump of discards, the back a giant V that would dip down to your last vertebra. She stepped into it, smothered her boobs with her hands.
“You look amazing,” Anushka said.
Sixty and I got dressed too. She didn’t say anything but I could feel the hope lining all her movements. The last thing I wanted to do was meet boys, but I wanted Sixty to be invited for her sake. Chantal left the change room without saying bye to anyone, and Veronica, Molly, and Anushka burst out laughing before she’d even closed the door. I thought about Roderick as he smirked at Molly’s tallness, ridiculed Veronica’s hand. The spandex bodysuit cut into her skin now, gave her bum a double bulge. I looked at it and remembered the exact tone of Roderick’s disgust. Was it a coincidence that he picked on the girls who talked about boys all the time? Maybe he could sense it in ballet class, a girl who wasn’t just dancing but was conscious of her boobs in her bodysuit, who imagined male eyes sizing up her legs. What if Roderick could smell it on them, like a kind of sex smell? Maybe it leaked from their limbs, left a stickiness in the studio air. And there was a danger in this, the sex inside our bodies. It could so easily ruin ballet.
I thought about this steadily throughout math and science. When we were back in the change room before repertoire class, I didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to hear any more gossip about Coffee Time or boys. I moved faster than everyone, pulled my tights on in such a rush that I tugged a run right beneath the waistband. It helped that my bun was already made, only needed an extra puff of hairspray. I took the blue bottle of Finesse from Sixty’s locker, shielded my eyes with my hand. I slipped out the door and went straight to Studio B. The pianist wasn’t even there yet. I took the best spot at the barre, the corner where the mirrors collided, so that I could see my front and side at the same time. I scrutinized my torso. I had little boobs now. I looked at the door, made sure no one was approaching, and ran my hand over them. I lifted the straps of my leotard so that the cotton pulled over my chest, tucked everything into place. I wouldn’t think about them. Instead I sucked my stomach in and dropped from my rib cage, lifted my arms into a perfect fifth port de bras.
There was a cough from the doorway.
“Hello.” Roderick stepped into the studio. “Please, keep practicing. I just need to grab a DVD.”
He walked over to the TV stand behind the piano. I turned back to the mirror, tentatively lifted my arm. My pulse was fast and everywhere. I heard him shuffling through things and then stop.
“This is great, this extra initiative.” He was watching me in the mirror, arms crossed over his chest.
“Oh, I just…” I paused. I was so nervous. I could feel the muscles in my cheeks. “I wanted to practice my placement.”
“I can see that.” He walked back across the wood toward the door. “Practice is essential.” He looked me up and down, paused. “Why don’t we schedule your consultation for tomorrow, Georgia. Let’s do it after lunch.”
He walked out. I turned back to the mirror and stared into my own eyes. They burned with the thrill of what had just happened. This was good, all of it, Roderick wandering in and seeing me alone at work. I was swallowing this little taste of success when there was another sound in the doorway. Sixty rushed over. She’d been looking for me, asked why I had come in so early. Silently, I dug my toes into the floor, kneaded knuckle into wood.
“Well, I wanted to tell you.” She moved closer so that we were wedged inside the corner. “Veronica said Coffee Time was awesome and that they’re gonna go again later in the week. She wants us to come.”
“Oh.” I moved away from her, lifted my leg onto the barre to stretch. “Great.”
SEVEN
I ate my lunch quickly the next day and went back to the change room to prepare for my consultation. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going, not even Sixty, kept it to myself like a precious stone at the pit of my pocket. A few grade-ten girls stepped out as I held the swinging door open by its metal handle. One said hi to me, lifted a hand with fingers stuck tightly together, more a salute than a wave. She asked me what was being served in the cafeteria, and it took me a second to remember the flavor that was still in my mouth, the tofu stir-fry I had just eaten. I walked around to the mirror by the toilets and waited for sounds. I heard nothing, which was just what I wanted, time to prepare for my consultation alone. I had chosen my outfit carefully that morning, dark blue jeans that were loose at the knees, a white T-shirt that hung from my shoulders like a garbage bag. I leaned into the mirror, squinted at my little face, eyes and nose trying to balance over the pale thread of my mouth. I smoothed the crown of my head with my hand and adjusted a hairpin that had crept out of place.
In my head was an image of Roderick in class the day before and the sound of him too, the nasty things he had said to Veronica. Then there was his laughter, that meanness that had flashed from his eyes when we obeyed his demands and performed the exercises as instructed. I had to show him that whatever he objected to in Veronica and Molly did not exist in me. I fiddled with the edge of my T-shirt, fanned it in the air to propel it away from my body. Roderick wouldn’t find it in me, the hidden thing that he disliked. There would be no sex in me anywhere. It couldn’t nestle in the pretty curve of the small of my back or sneak up my thighs to the place where my bum started. I had to be a dancer and not a girl. I swallowed hard and muscled my lips into a frown. Could I speak while maintaining this level of severity? I pressed molar into molar, made an intimidating sound from the back of my throat.
A toilet flushed. Veronica banged open a stall door.
“Are you okay?
” She stood there, glaring at me.
I repeated the sound with a little more phlegm, turned it into a kind of stunted cough.
“Yeah.” I pointed to my throat. “Just had this itch.”
She nodded slowly and raised her eyebrows, moved to the mirror. Her expression was steely everywhere, an alloy of suspicion. She pulled her glitter gloss from her back pocket and squeezed it all over her mouth.
“Sixty said you’re coming on Friday.” She held my eye in the mirror. It sounded like a question or maybe a challenge. “Meet us on the steps at five.”
“Okay.”
I waited for her to move but she didn’t. Finally she sighed loudly and held out the lip gloss toward me. Something in my manner had made her think I wanted some, or maybe she always thought people wanted what she had.
“I don’t have a cold or anything,” she said.
I accepted the lip gloss. It was tinted a plum color, smelled like grape juice and plastic. I brought it nearer to my mouth, tried to think of an excuse not to use it. Shiny lips were the last thing I needed now. I could picture the face Roderick would make, his eyes dipping beneath my nose to clock my eager, painted mouth, then that all-knowing sneer. I coughed again, slid the tube over the counter to Veronica.
“I shouldn’t.” I pointed at my throat. “My cough.”
She shrugged, stuffed it back in her pocket.
“See you Friday.” Her eyes hit me once more in the mirror before she kicked the door open with her foot, caught it with her hand as it swung back on its hinge, and walked out.
* * *
I knocked on the door to Roderick’s office and he told me to come in. I pressed down on the handle. The clamminess of my hand gave me a good grip on the metal. He was sitting at his desk, writing something, and as I stepped inside I realized he wasn’t alone. Two shoulders hunched in the chair facing him. They were wrapped in the kind of ballet sweater that you usually see only in ballet movies; it was a grandmotherly lilac and tied into a bow. Chantal. I waited to be told what to do. Roderick paused on a word, weighed the fountain pen in his hand, and continued writing. I expected Chantal to turn around to see who I was, but she didn’t move.
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