by Lola Keeley
Only, when she turns to see who’s slamming doors, Anna suddenly can’t breathe.
“Yes?” The woman snaps eventually, pulling wild curls into a slick bun that puts Anna’s own attempts to shame. “Take a picture, hmm? It lasts longer.”
“You’re…”
“Ir-ina,” she answers, as though speaking to a particularly stupid child. “You, I don’t recognize.”
“I haven’t seen you in classes—” Anna interrupts, her heart racing.
For a moment, a world-tilting moment, she had thought her mother was in the room with her. Anna never saw the resemblance from clippings. Her mother laughed it off the few times it was ever mentioned, and Irina had still been dancing with the Bolshoi in the years when Anna attended the ballet with her mother. But the slender profile, the pale eyes, and those wild curls all seem torn from Anna’s memories, and she isn’t quite sure how to get her breathing back under control.
“I was detained in Kiev.” Irina sighs. “Are you the attendance monitor?”
“No, I’m Anna,” she says, crossing the space and realizing this is one person who hasn’t seen the display of favoritism. She offers a hand. “I’m new this season.”
“Anya?” Irina repeats back, shaking Anna’s hand for the briefest possible second, barely touching her. “It doesn’t matter, I won’t remember. Names are not so important.”
“Right.” Anna tries not to frown. “I’m really thrilled to be working with you. And Victoria, obviously. I mean, it’s a great company. My mother was a huge fan of yours,” she exaggerates, because something in her just needs to put the two women in the same sentence.
“Was?” Irina looks amused as she hangs her leather jacket in her locker.
Anna pretends not to see when a plastic baggie is pulled from Irina’s pocket and palmed away.
“Did she stop liking me?”
“She died,” Anna blurts out. “But before that, she saw you dance in Moscow. She told me all about it. I wish she had been around to see you join Metropolitan. We would have been at every performance.”
Irina looks at her for a long moment. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she adds. “But I’ve been here for almost twelve years. That sort of devotion would be expensive.”
Anna nods, fighting back unexpected tears even as she laughs at Irina’s dry humor. “I was going to eat before rehearsal. Did you want to grab something, maybe?”
“You are sweet.” Irina sits on the bench and pulls her boots off, wriggling out of tight indigo jeans. “But for me, it’s physio first. What kind of mood is Vicki in today?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Anna answers honestly. “It doesn’t seem like the worst mood, though.”
“Good. She promised me a full season, and it might just be to piss off Westin, but I plan to dance as much of it as possible.”
A pang of guilt hits Anna. Is this someone else she’s stealing an opportunity from?
“Well, I’m sure you’ll be great,” Anna says, which earns her another wry smile. “I’d better go get that lunch, huh?” She closes her locker and departs with an awkward wave. Irina doesn’t return it.
When Anna steps outside, she runs into Ethan, who thrusts a brown paper bag at her.
“Quinoa bowl and some fruit,” he says. “When I saw you hadn’t made it to the café yet, I thought I’d be your knight in shining armor.”
“Thank you,” Anna says with real enthusiasm, because the way to her heart is most definitely through her stomach. She grabs a banana from the bag and peels it quickly as they walk. “Did you eat?” she asks around a mouthful.
Ethan shows her his own bag and pulls a wrap from it. “We could head up to the roof terrace and make a lunch date of it, if you like.”
“Oh.” Anna feels her stomach sink as she swallows. “That’s so nice. But I’m really not dating right now. I swore I wouldn’t even look the entire first season, because—”
“Whoa, Anna!” Ethan waves in front of her face. “Not that way inclined. I was just being cute about the date.”
“I wondered where I’d got a straight dancer from. Is Gabriel Bishop the only one around here?”
“Well, he’s straight for Delphine.” Ethan sounds disgruntled now. “But far be it from me to gossip.”
They sit on the roof, wolfing down their respective lunches.
“Did Delphine and her coven give you shit back there?” Ethan asks as the sun warms them a little.
“They were all gone. Just Irina. She’s really something up close.”
“She’s old school.” Ethan starts flicking through his phone. “Her ankle’s pretty shot last I heard. Can’t kill the bionic woman, I guess.”
“She seemed fine,” Anna lies, closing her eyes and trying not to think about the drugs she saw that were definitely not prescription vitamins. “I totally fangirled and made an ass of myself, though. My mom saw her, with the Bolshoi? I babbled the whole story like a stage-door groupie.”
“Your mom’s a bunhead, too? That must be wild. I haven’t seen mine in twenty years, and my dad tells his friends I work construction.”
Anna blinks at him.
“Sorry, I have this overshare thing.”
“That’s okay.” Anna holds his shifting gaze to make sure he knows she’s being sincere. “My mom didn’t have the dancing gene herself; she just loved to watch. It’s how I got into it, I guess. Oldest story in the book, right?”
“Did she take you to see Irina?”
“No, she passed away even before Victoria came to Metropolitan, so she missed Irina coming here to replace her.” Anna is showing off a little, but she can’t help it. She’s studied the history of this company the way other people know baseball stats and stock prices. The changing headshots each season are a Rolodex in her head, some fleshed out by the few times she could afford to see the shows in person.
“You must have been young then. I mean, it’s eleven years since Victoria retired.”
“Twelve. Yeah, it was before that. I did see Victoria, just not with my mom.”
“Lucky you.” Ethan’s getting restless and throwing his phone back in his backpack. “I mean, I’ve seen the videos. It’s something, working for a living legend. People still rave about her, even now that the memories are getting kinda dusty.”
“Does she ever talk about it? Why she stopped, I mean? Because I followed her career… But there was never a clear answer. Just rumors, a lot of speculation. Does she ever tell you guys about it?”
“About why she stopped dancing?” Ethan drains the rest of his juice. “Oh, sure. Was it my first month? No, my second. Victoria comes in, hugs each of us individually, and invites us into this circle of trust, sitting on the studio floor. Told us the whole story, start to finish.”
“Really?” Anna gasps.
“No!” Ethan bursts out laughing. “Anna, she wouldn’t waste her breath telling us the choreography if she didn’t have to. We’re all just so many dancing puppets to her, until we do something special or useful. Like you must have.”
“I don’t know about that. I need to walk this off. You up for taking the long way back down?”
“Sure, shall I lead the way? Or are the corridors starting to make sense?”
“You lead. But I’ll pick it up quickly enough, just you wait.”
“Of that, Anna Gale, I have no doubt.”
Anna hopes Victoria’s next grand entrance will keep attention far from her, but the room divides into those who watch their leader, and those who turn or bend to shoot glares at Anna. She stays stretching on the floor, looking only at Ethan until she catches Gabriel smiling at her in the mirror behind Ethan’s head. Without much confidence, Anna smiles back.
“I’m not here to babysit you,” Victoria announces, nodding to Teresa at the piano and David, who’s curled neatly on a windowsill, his impressive arms still bulging the tight black material of his shirt.
The day has grown progressively gray outside, the lunchtime sun all but faded now. The
studio, all stripped white wood and mirrors, reflects as brightly as any stage lighting might. Anna can’t help feeling better for being bathed in the brightness.
Her shoes are holding; she hasn’t felt the shank give any under her sole yet, so Anna slips them back on and ties the ribbon securely. The company settles, a restless murmur fading out as Victoria flips through some papers on top of the piano.
“Principals, you only have to endure today before your private studio time. Soloists, you need to see out this week and next before your schedules let you work on your pieces. Corps? Well, this is as good as it gets, mes enfants.”
The groan that goes up is good-natured. Anna knows she’s in a room with about sixty people who all want this as badly as she does, or they simply wouldn’t have made it this far.
“Now get used to hearing the word arabesque,” Victoria continues. “Ladies of the corps, you had better be especially attentive to this, because by the time we get this show up, you’ll be doing thirty-nine in a row. The first one to break the sequence—that’s twenty-four of you doing this in perfect unison—will be fired. Not one wobble. Not one failed elevation. Do I make myself clear?”
“What Victoria means,” David continues, unfolding himself, “is if any of you do that after being appropriately rehearsed, you’re in trouble. This week you should relax, learn—”
“And devote your entire pathetic existence to mastering it,” Victoria finishes.
David rolls his eyes behind Victoria’s back, and the assembled company has the sense to smother their laughter.
“Teresa, they’ll be doing nothing but Kingdom of the Shades until it’s perfect, so you can put the rest of your sheets away for now. David? I’ll leave you to it. Make my chaine d’ombres.“
The line of shadows. It’s one of the classical ballet sequences she’s most wanted to perform, but this is her first real chance.
“All right, company, on your feet!” David urges them.
Victoria makes her way back to the door. She veers toward Anna at the last moment, bending to offer her a quiet instruction.
“Wait for me here after rehearsal,” she says, and Anna feels the dull ache in her hamstrings increase at just the thought. “I need to see more of what we ran through this morning, to make sure you’re ready.”
Anna takes her seemingly natural spot next to Ethan, her one friendly face. This part she’s ready for. She’s going to be one of the twenty-four tutus that she’s dreamed of being a hundred times or more.
She’s really, truly going to be in the ballet.
CHAPTER 6
She doesn’t like the new physical therapy suite any more than the one she was treated in, but Victoria has been alerted to Irina’s return and knows better than to let her evaporate into the hollows of the building without speaking to her first.
“Vicki,” Irina calls mockingly, head hanging upside down off a massage table. “Anyone would think you were waiting for me.”
“I have spies everywhere. You’re two days late, Irina.”
“Will I lose any ability for doing thirty-two fewer fouetté?” Irina asks. “No, silly me. You’d have me dance on my hands before you’d stage Swan Lake.”
“Both can be arranged.” Victoria nods at Kim, their in-house orthopedist, who also runs the physical therapy team. “I’m changing the program, so your solos aren’t settled yet, before you ask.”
“A change in program this late?” Irina sits up sharply, spine curving as she wraps her arms around her knees.
Defensive, great.
“If you want to kick me out, you could have saved me the plane fare.”
“I know how much you like flying,” Victoria says. “Not to mention we paid for the ticket. Dr. Sawyer, could you give us a minute?”
“Kim,” she insists. “I’ll be back with ice packs in a little while, then.”
“How bad?” Victoria asks when they’re alone. “Don’t bullshit me.”
Irina clambers down from the table and walks across to stare Victoria down at close range. Her slight height advantage seems more prominent while Victoria is in flats.
“Name it. I can do it,” Irina says through teeth that are only slightly gritted. “Come on, one prima to another. I have taken your demotion with grace, but you know I still belong at the top.”
“Delphine is my prima,” Victoria corrects, and she hates to have to do it. “Not to mention I’ve uncovered something new. Someone who, with a little coaching, might end up on our level.”
“You mean…” Irina calculates. “The new girl? I believe we just met. She must be something exceptional in the studio, because I saw only another star-struck child.”
“That’s the one. Is that really all you think of her?”
Irina sighs and gets back on the examination table. She glances to the office to see if Kim has reappeared with the ice that is apparently growing more necessary by the second.
“Perhaps there is more to her,” Irina says, relenting. “Until I see her dance…”
“She’ll need an ally,” Victoria says, finally giving voice to the half-baked idea she’d had when coming to find her erstwhile ballerina. “To get the best out of her, I’ll have to be tough. I also need her competitive fire stoked, so I’ve set her at odds with most of the company. That said, I don’t want her isolated. I need to know that she’s coping, whatever I throw at her.”
“You’re giving me your ugly duckling?” Irina looks disgusted. She considers Victoria for a long moment. “Not so ugly though, hmm?” If Victoria’s steady expression flickers at all, Irina seems to catch it. “Such a cliché, thinking with your…well, I would usually say dick. I would expect this from Richard, but you were supposed to be above all that.”
“I am. Will you keep an eye on the girl or not?” Victoria feels snappish, uncomfortable that anyone would even speculate on an attraction to Anna. The girl is nothing but a malleable piece of clay to be choreographed, and to turn that into anything else is just tawdry. “Let me remind you that this job would keep you on contract even if another injury should flare up. You’d be certain to see out the season on full salary.”
“Very well,” Irina agrees with bad grace.
Kim reappears with gel packs, looking to Victoria for permission. It’s granted with a wave of her fingers.
“Did you see that Liza Wade has announced her final season?” Irina says. “My phone has beeped too many times already to tell me.”
“No?” Victoria reaches for her own phone, shoved in the pocket of her pants. “Though it’s about time. San Francisco must be as bored of her headlining as we are.”
“I wonder where she’ll go next?” Irina muses. “Something contemporary?”
Victoria shudders. “Even I don’t think that badly of her, Irina. Get on with your physio, and I’ll see you for Coppélia.”
“That fossil,” Irina groans. “You are a sadist.”
“Remember to keep an eye on Anna,” Victoria warns, taking her leave.
“As if she were my own duckling,” Irina calls after her, snorting with laughter.
Victoria supposes whatever she’s taking this month is finally kicking in. Which means the pain is back to tolerable at least. For right now, that’s going to have to be good enough.
Victoria takes the scenic route back to her office, via the auditorium.
The house lights are dimmed, but not to performance levels. It gives the auditorium a warm glow despite nothing on stage being illuminated. Victoria hesitates in the wings before she allows herself to step out on the battered boards.
She’s been in here a thousand times for stage rehearsals, for performances, and sometimes just to scream at incompetent stagehands, but so rarely does Victoria get the space to herself. As she breathes out, it barely seems to disturb the dust around her. She feels at home again, for the first time in too long.
The ornate gold of the balconies reflects the yellow warmth of the lights, and while Victoria’s own preference is for sleek, modern lines
, in this cavernous space she can feel the connection right back to dancers in petticoats dancing under gas lighting. Rows of red velvet stretch out to either side, and at this distance they seem uniform and plush.
In a few strong strides, she’s downstage center. If she closes her eyes, she can almost feel the hum of it, a barely contained audience glued to their seats. The collective intake of breath at the start of a leap. The ragged, spontaneous applause when something that looks dangerous lands successfully. Flowers arcing up and onto the floor at her feet, lilies clashing with freesias and overwhelmed by orchids, a migraine disguised as a carpet of blooms. The shouts of brava, the whistling, baying, stamping power of the crowd that always wants more. It should be the eerie whispering of ghosts, but in Victoria’s head it drowns out everything but her own thundering heartbeat.
Twelve years and it hasn’t lost an ounce of its power.
Victoria hears a door creak at the back of the orchestra section and turns her back to pretend to be inspecting something on the rigging. How mortifying it would be to be caught in such a sentimental moment. She gathers herself, and exits through the wings.
There’s work to be done.
Fielding a few calls makes Victoria a pleasing ten minutes late for the end of the arabesque-fest Anna has just been subjected to.
Sure enough, the girl is sitting on the floor with tired legs extended like two sides of a triangle, the faint jump of muscles visible beneath her white tights. David has worked them hard.
Anna scrambles to her feet on seeing Victoria.
“I’m ready!” she swears, throwing her phone back into her hold-all where it rests against the wall. Anna should have pulled her hoodie back on; she rubs her arms briskly to ward off the chill.
Victoria looks down at Anna’s feet, seeing one shoe already removed. “Done?” She nods to it.
“Shank went,” Anna sighs. “I felt it on my last repetition.”
“You didn’t go over on the ankle?”