by Lola Keeley
She hears it, but there’s a more pressing matter of reallocating the second bar of—
“Victoriaaaa?”
It’s gone. She’ll have to start the sequence again. Victoria tosses the pen she’s been idly twirling at the open door.
“What?” she barks.
Kelly appears with a stack of magazines in her arms. “I knew you wouldn’t want the rest of the paper, but I picked up a few extra along with the office subscription.”
“Give.” Victoria bends her fingers impatiently, beckoning Kelly forward.
Instead of handing them over, Kelly spreads the semi-glossy magazines across Victoria’s otherwise tidy desk, only the pad she was taking notes on disturbed by the display. “Michelle was supposed to send these for approval on Monday.”
“Did you really think she would?” Kelly asks. “I don’t think Anna will be here for warm-up yet, but should I send someone for her?”
“I’ll ask for Anya when I need her. Don’t you have work to do?”
“Fine,” Kelly mutters. “It’s pages twenty-two through twenty-five, by the way.”
Victoria’s fingers twitch toward the nearest copy. She trusts Michelle, after a fashion. The new season brochures delivered earlier are seamless, drawing attention in all the right ways. Anna will stand out but not overwhelm. It’s honestly not Victoria’s most interesting concept, but that’s just something to keep people happy when they’re shelling out for overpriced champagne before taking their seats.
This is the real campaign now, no matter how Victoria had to be coaxed into it. Adaptability has been her greatest asset in the past twenty years, and there’s no reason for that to stop now. Seizing the opportunity presented, even if it means putting herself back in a spotlight she’s been deliberately shunning. Not to mention how Rick will blow a fuse on seeing it.
She grabs. She flips. Page twenty-two.
Well. Michelle certainly hasn’t lost her touch. The shots are just as striking as Victoria expected.
She lays the magazine down but lets her right hand linger over the page. She must be imagining it when her index finger trembles for a fragment of a second; the bump from where she broke it after a failed lift is more pronounced now, as she grows older and the skin thins slightly. The reminder of fragility is blown away as she traces the peach satin wrapped around her own photographed arm, and over Anna’s in turn. Only when every inch is mapped does Victoria let her gaze flick to the head of the page where their profiles face off against each other.
Oh. That will do. That will do very nicely indeed.
“If you make me wait for the coffee to be made, I swear…” Anna trails off as Jess unfolds the paper and its insert magazine on the table between them.
“Get ready.” Jess flicks through the pages and smooths out the stunning first shot.
The white background, their profiled faces. Anna doesn’t see herself at first, drawn instantly to Victoria. It’s the angle captured countless times in publicity shots and freeze frames, because a dancer with that natural poise knows how to hold herself at all times. Whatever Michelle has done after the makeup artist worked her magic has erased at least a decade, and for a moment Anna sees them both as peers.
This is her life now. Photoshoots with her idol and showing up in the Sunday New York Times.
Anna looks up at Jess. “Wow?”
“Wow is right. There’s more.”
“I know, I was there.” Anna lingers for a moment longer, tracing the binding ribbon around their forearms, remembering how it felt to have part of her pressed against Victoria for long minutes, and the way Victoria had so nonchalantly entwined their fingers, the skin of her palm cool and dry against Anna’s faintly damp and nervous one.
“So turn the page. Come on!”
“I’ll turn if you tell me how you got Irina into bed…or, well, sofa.”
“What makes you think I made the first move?” Jess hedges, smiling a little too eagerly when the waiter brings their coffees and Danishes. It’s a delay that doesn’t deter Anna one bit. “She must have remembered where I worked and came over after the Sunday matinee to apologize.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I was going out anyway with the crew, so she tagged along. A few glasses of wine later, we went back to my place. When you got home Monday afternoon, well, that was the encore.”
“Of the encore?”
“Something like that.” Jess flushes, staring at the table.
“Are you still seeing her?” Anna has to know. It determines whether she’s getting over this or holding a petty grudge a little longer. She feels proprietorial over Irina in a way she doesn’t entirely understand. It’s nothing she could confidently explain if pressed on it, so she’s going to have to find a way to deal if Jess is pursuing this.
“Couple of times,” Jess admits. “You know, with these hours—”
“Well, don’t tell her embarrassing stories about me,” Anna pleads. “I don’t want the whole company knowing my high school disasters.”
“Seriously, look at the rest of the magazine. This is your big break. It’s really happening.” Jess pats Anna’s hand.
“It is?”
“Do you get to keep the dress?” Jess asks. “Even I would borrow that one.”
“It’s at work. I guess I could ask Susan if you need it for something.”
“Don’t go to any trouble for me.” Jess sips her coffee. “So come on, tell me how they rigged the flying shots.”
Victoria arrives at the studio just in time to overhear the last of Delphine’s rant. Most of the room has cleared, but Morgan and Teresa are taking their sweet time to maximize what they overhear.
“—trusted you! Which, by the way, is a big deal for me. For weeks you’ve been acting like my friend, and I’ve kept cool about you coming for my job. Enjoy the Times, Gale. Because it’s the last press you’ll be doing this season.”
“Delphine!” Gabriel is physically holding her back at this point, and Anna is ashen. There’s sweat beading on her forehead and she’s gripping the barre with both hands. “Come on, you know it wasn’t her call.”
“That’s right,” Victoria says, and the focus of the room rolls to her as surely as a riptide changes a swimmer’s direction. “When I want your approval on the marketing strategies of this company, Delphine, I’ll ask for them.”
“Go fuck yourself.” Delphine breaks free of Gabriel’s grip and barrels past Victoria, out the room.
Gabriel picks up their things and gives an apologetic shrug that could be for Anna or for Victoria. “She’ll calm down,” he says. “She always does.”
Victoria clicks her fingers and the stragglers hurry out.
“Victoria, I’m sorry,” Anna begins. “Please don’t do anything to Delphine for cursing at you. It’s me she’s mad at.”
“Anya, if I took action every time a Wade called me something unpleasant, I’d never do anything else. Artists need to express themselves, and that’s all Delphine was doing.”
“But—”
“You’ve seen it?”
Well, that stops the girl mid-babble. She blushes, of course, and looks to her feet as though she’ll find answers in her shoes.
“Yes.”
“And?” Victoria keeps the click of impatience from her tongue. It’s suddenly desperately important that Anna liked the shots. For morale, of course. It wouldn’t do to have her self-conscious or embarrassed by them, to have that lingering over their rehearsals in the coming weeks. But how could she be? Even Victoria, perfectionist to the last, has almost no bone to pick with the image choices or the composition.
“They’re amazing.” Anna looks up, takes a deep breath, and makes eye contact. “I looked at them and I felt…you know.”
“Beautiful,” Victoria supplies. Why in the hell did she just say that?
“I’m sure anyone would look good if Michelle—”
“Not true.” Victoria waves a finger. She steps a little closer and Anna snatches up her bag
from the floor. “It would be just as easy to make someone look tired, even ghoulish. Michelle’s skill is in bringing what’s already there to the surface.”
“Well, it made me feel pretty good. Until now.”
“How many times am I going to have to tell you to own it? You have an astonishing talent, and this kind of exposure comes with it. Delphine will be over it in a week, when Vogue wants her to model some capri pants or something.”
“Astonishing?” Anna repeats, and God she’s instantly glowing at the praise. “Is that really what you think?”
“Would I be staking my reputation on it otherwise?” Victoria snaps, but she feels exposed under Anna’s wondrous gaze. “I expect this is the last time I’ll have to reassure you on this. It’s about the work, Anya.”
“Anna,” she pushes back, softly spoken but with just a hint of steel. “If I’m so important to your plan, then I think it’s time you got my name right.”
“That’s your big demand?” Victoria tries to downplay it, but she knows a test when she sees one. With a firm hand, she reaches out to push Anna’s bag down and out of the way, though she never lets go of it. “Fine. Anna.”
Victoria thinks she’s prepared for the smile, but it’s so quick to blossom that she smiles back on sheer reflex, almost ruining her carefully maintained froideur.
“Here,” Victoria adds, thrusting a brochure toward Anna. “Toward the back.”
The rifling sound of crisp pages fills the air between them, and the vellum smell of freshly printed materials competes with the other sundry scents of the previously crowded studio. Victoria can pick out the warmed notes of Anna’s perfume through it all, something light and clean and probably by Clinique.
“Oh my God,” Anna whispers. Her hands are shaking.
Victoria considers a steadying touch, and opts to lightly grip the fold of the booklet instead. It works, and Anna gathers herself.
“I had every one,” Anna starts to explain. “Every season since I was born, even before I started to come and see the performances. And my mother’s too. London, Paris, Moscow. If she could see this…”
“If you need copies, Kelly will arrange that. I’m sure your mother would be proud, but remember this is just the beginning. There’s a lot of work before you come close to realizing this potential.”
“I know. I’m not so sure she’d be proud of how I’ve upset Delphine.”
“Toughen up.” Victoria lets go of the pages she’s been holding in place. “I’m not going to listen to this hand-wringing for months.” With that, order is restored. “I’m canceling our session this afternoon.”
“Wait, why?”
“You’ve been working hard this week. And out of sight, out of mind might not be the worst idea while Delphine cools down. Go, be young in New York. You must have a million things you want to do.”
“Not really,” Anna admits. “Everyone I know is here, or keeps theater hours. But that’s not your problem, of course! I just… I can get laundry done. And catch a movie, maybe.”
Victoria groans under her breath. “Do you know anything about art?”
“I almost went to art school.”
That derails Victoria for a moment. She tries to picture all this perfect movement wasted in a painter’s smock or godawful dungarees.
“But I couldn’t give up on this to do it. Maybe if I hadn’t got in this year…”
“There’s an art fair, a friend is running it. I said I’d put in an appearance, but I only know what I like. If you might actually be useful, in terms of knowing whether something is worth investing in—”
“I can be useful.” Anna jumps right in. So eager, as always. “Should I dress up?”
“No more than usual. My car will be out front at three.”
“Thank you.” Anna gives another one of those easy smiles, and for a horrifying moment Victoria truly believes she may be subjected to a hug. “I guess it’s a date!”
It’s endlessly entertaining, how the color drains from her face the second she finishes saying it. There’s the world’s longest mortified silence before the stammering begins in earnest, and Victoria just rolls her eyes.
“Don’t embarrass me in front of actual people.”
Victoria strides out, her pain level low and her mood something approaching pleased for a change. She notices Teresa lurking in the hallway, and the wounded pout on her face suggests she overheard every word. Well, that should finish the job of setting Anna apart from the company. It also has Victoria conveniently out of range whenever Rick’s hangover clears and he happens to flick through the paper.
Coffee, Victoria decides. Then she’d better get Kelly to find her a non-dismal art fair to trail around for an hour later today.
CHAPTER 16
Anna gets done with David’s session earlier than expected, so she’s out front and waiting by Victoria’s car just before three. Knocking on the window, she waves at the driver to let him know she’s there, and gets a slight smile in response. There’s no indication the doors have been unlocked, so Anna fiddles with her purse and tries not to look too awkward.
She looks toward the grand building in anticipation, but it isn’t Victoria who she sees coming down the steps of the Metropolitan Center—it’s Teresa. A stack of manuscripts gripped like a shield as always, she looks harried in a way she hadn’t during the rehearsal. Just when Anna is deciding whether to wave or not—it’s not like they’ve ever really spoken—Teresa changes course and strides right over.
“Listen,” Teresa says, sounding quite friendly, “I was going to let you just make a fool of yourself, but some of us care too much about Victoria’s reputation for that.”
“Uh, a fool of my what now?” Anna asks.
“You can’t be expected to understand how genius works, so let me put you straight. So to speak.” Teresa tucks the bundle of sheet music under her arm.
“You know, I’m not really looking for advice, thanks.” She and Victoria are both adults and have real, professional reasons to get to know each other a little better and build some trust. Plus, something about Teresa’s haughty attitude slams shut Anna’s generally accommodating nature.
“Fine. Let her chew you up and spit you out.” The anger is real, and it sounds so spiteful. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. It takes a certain kind of person—”
“Uh, Teresa—”
“Don’t interrupt me!” She’s doing that scary intense whisper-yelling now, but Anna has to shut her up. “You think you’re hot shit because you get up on your toes ten times an hour?”
“Teresa—”
“I could be playing on my own concert tour, but instead I’m here. Playing twinkle, twinkle little moron for all of you.”
“If the job’s so beneath you,” Victoria all but purrs from where she’s now standing behind Teresa, “you should feel free to explore other career opportunities. There’s no shortage of people who can count to four and move both hands at the same time.”
“Victoria! I—”
“Don’t make it worse by fumbling for an explanation. Go home, Teresa. When I see you in the studio Tuesday, you’ll be back to normal. Or not. But this is your last warning.”
Teresa fumes and looks like she might actually stamp her foot in frustration.
For a fleeting second, Anna feels the urge to speak up, to shoulder some of the blame. She hates to see anyone implode like that. Then she remembers she didn’t do anything wrong, and in the face of affecting her own career and relationship with Victoria, she stays quiet. For good measure, she pulls a face at Teresa while Victoria isn’t looking Anna’s way. What it lacks in maturity, it makes up for in satisfaction.
“Anna, darling,” Victoria says next, and she lays her hand heavily on Anna’s forearm like she does it all the time. “We’re going to be late, and my friends are waiting to meet my new star.”
“Right. Let me get the door for you,” she says, bright and breezy for Teresa’s benefit.
Victoria nods in approv
al as Anna opens the back door of the car, slinking past her in a wave of delicate perfume and a tailored black-and-white dress that hugs every line of her figure.
Anna jogs around to the other side, feeling Teresa’s glare on her the whole way. Only behind tinted windows and closed doors does Anna relax. Her conscience prickles as they pull away from the curb.
“You know, she—”
“Don’t you dare.” Victoria is fussing with her phone, but she pauses long enough to shoot a sideways glare at Anna. “If you try to take one scrap of the blame, Anna…”
“Fine,” Anna huffs, talked out of it in an instant. “I didn’t know you two were dating, although I don’t know what that has to do with my dancing.”
“We’re not. And it has nothing to do with anything other than petty jealousy, which I have about as much tolerance for as I do lazy tendus. Are you only here to gossip? Because I can let you get back to that laundry anytime you like.”
“No! No. I’m really looking forward to seeing some art. I’ve only been to one gallery since I moved here, can you believe that? Some of the greatest art in the world right on my doorstep, but I just don’t find the time.”
“Well, if launching your ballet career is getting in the way of staring dreamily at walls.” Victoria seems ready to launch into one of her peevish rants but pulls herself up short. “I know it’s demanding. You just have to trust it will be worth it. The paintings will be there when the dancing is done.”
“You see a lot of art, then?” Anna asks, and it isn’t meant to be a dig, but she realizes how it could sound like one.
Victoria blinks at her in surprise.
“Oh no, I just meant—”
“That I should have the free time now I can’t dance,” Victoria finishes, far crueler than Anna would ever be. “Thank God your feet aren’t as clumsy as that mouth of yours. And I did, for a while. I had time off before I came back to the company as director.”
Anna considers asking then. It almost seems like an opening for the right kind of delicate question. Just forming the words send her into a spiral, though, and Victoria’s phone rings before Anna can ask anything more.