by Lola Keeley
“I thought I’d take rehearsal today, for shits and giggles.”
It takes considerable restraint not to kick someone. Victoria has to literally bite her tongue to keep from lashing out. The rest of the room has stopped pretending they’re doing anything other than listening in.
“Your jokes are getting less funny by the day,” Victoria drawls as she turns around. “You’re welcome to watch, of course. Though next time a little notice would be appreciated.”
“I don’t mean to pull rank.” Rick advances on her like a jaguar having spotted his prey. “But I’m pretty sure it’s my name on the checks. I’ve always reserved the right to check in on my dancers, make sure they’re being treated right. So, baby Gresham, why don’t you start us off, huh? Show me what you got.”
“Uh, show you what exactly? I’m understudying all three for Gala,” Morgan asks at a loss.
Victoria is relieved Anna hasn’t been called on first, even though she knows there’s no way she’ll avoid being put through her paces.
“Right, right,” Rick says, wagging a finger at Morgan like she just told a dirty joke in front of the class. “For making a good point, you dodge the bullet this time. Now let me see… Who can put on a little show, demonstrate Victoria’s genius for the room, huh?”
He’s walking the whole time as he talks, clearly in love with the sound of his own voice. Anna doesn’t see it coming until he slows in front of her, plucking her water bottle from her hand and tossing it toward the trash.
“Uh, that can be recycled—” Anna starts to protest, but he’s right up in her face then.
It wouldn’t take much for Victoria to pull him away, but she forces herself to hold back.
“I hear you fancy yourself the man about town, Miss Gale,” he says. “Not content with displacing the principal ballerinas, you think you can dance a prince as well as…well, me?”
“I never said that,” Anna says, but Victoria tries to silence her with a shake of her head. “I just do what I’m asked.”
“Well, I’m asking for a little preview,” Rick says. “Unless you don’t think you’re up to it? But trust me, I’m a way more patient audience than opening night ever will be.”
“If you want a run-through, then speak to Kelly and schedule one,” Victoria interrupts, coming to stand between them. “Don’t come in here and disrupt my rehearsal. I won’t work like this, Rick.”
“Hey, if you’re offering to lighten the wage bill…”
“Go to hell.”
“I can do the scene from—”
“No!” Victoria barks at her, and Anna shrinks back. “Gale, you were favoring your left hamstring. Go see Dr. Sawyer about it.”
Anna is stunned. It has been a little tight all morning. How could Victoria possibly have noticed?
“But—”
“Sawyer. Now.”
“Fine,” Anna mutters. After snatching her bag from the floor, she pulls her phone out of her pocket instead.
Jess rushes over to her at the subway exit, dragging Anna down a side street until they’re safely tucked into one of the bars usually half-full of unemployed actors and dancers. Anna tries desperately not to see that as an omen. While her sister orders them a bottle of wine, Anna picks out a booth in back, far from sight of the other patrons who are nursing their drinks or cackling quietly over some script pages. Another lousy audition, probably.
“Thanks for playing hooky with me.” Anna takes the opened bottle with her glass, pouring her own out and knocking it back before getting around to filling Jess’s. It’s barely even lunchtime. “I got sent to PT like it was middle-school detention, so I blew it off.”
“Well, you’re having a bit of a time. Irina gave me a heads-up about her being your aunt,” Jess says, cutting off Anna’s complaint about that. “I know, I know, but she was worried, that’s all. I’m worried. How fucked-up is this?”
A snort is the only response Anna can think of, letting her sister wrap her up in a bear hug that could break ribs, bumping them both against the low table as they gently sway in their seats for a moment.
“So what does this mean?” Jess prompts when Anna stays quiet. “Oh God, does this mean I shouldn’t be dating Irina? I swear to God, it better not.”
“No… I mean, no. It’s a little weird, sure.” Anna sees the implication in Jess’s vehement denial. “You really like her, don’t you?”
“Your aunt? Your hot, talented aunt?” Jess teases. “I’m not really good at talking about this stuff. But…she’s amazing. Please don’t ask me to stop dating her.”
“I was never going to. Besides, if I want to get to know her, I get plenty of opportunity in the studio. If Victoria even wants me back.”
“What did the princess of pain do this time? At some point, we really have to talk about your taste in sadists.”
“Well, all ballerinas are masochists,” Anna reminds her. It takes a lot of effort, but she bites back the automatic defense of Victoria this time. “Apparently when Richard Westin shows up and clicks his fingers for us to dance, she suddenly doesn’t think I’m up to the job. No way to treat the dancer who ended up in her bed, right?”
Okay, so maybe Anna had been a little more ambiguous there than strictly necessary. Screw it. Everyone else got to be dramatic and desired, why shouldn’t she get in on the action? Even if just by implication.
She gets the luxury of that elongated freak-out because Jess is only just done choking on a mouthful of wine. Red in the face and jaw loose in shock, she stares back at Anna in stunned disbelief. “You had sex with Victoria?”
For a moment, Anna considers the lie. She’s never been a particularly good liar, but there’s something about spinning the story, about getting to be someone else entirely for a few minutes, that always appeals to her.
“No,” she admits a moment later. “I just went over after the Irina thing, and then in the middle of the night I forgot about the sofa and just wandered into the nearest bed. Trust me, she wasn’t any more impressed by my sense of geography than she was with my dancing today. But then, if I’m such a disaster that she doesn’t want to encourage, how come we were making out earlier, huh?”
Poor Jess had foolishly taken another mouthful of wine. Anna almost ends up wearing this one.
“What the hell is going on at that ballet company?” Jess demands when she’s gathered herself.
“I wish I knew. But I’m not going back today to find out. Next bottle’s on me, okay?”
“Cheers,” Jess answers, raising her empty glass to Anna’s, who clinks after draining the last mouthful and starting to refill so they can polish off this first bottle. “Now, go back to the start…”
CHAPTER 31
Victoria slams the door behind her on the way out of physio, having found no Anna there. Of course it’s a swing door, so that completely takes any glimmer of satisfaction from the move. She stalks back to her office, stabbing her cane against the marble floor and wishing the stupid hard rubber tip didn’t take the violence out of it.
“Kelly, get Anna Gale in this office immediately. If teleportation still hasn’t been invented, then get her on the phone. Failure is not an option, so I hope for your sake you’ve had her microchipped.”
“She’s a dancer, Victoria.” Kelly has already picked up and is dialing from memory. “You’re thinking of poodles again.”
“A poodle can be trained,” Victoria grouses.
“Sure, but Anna almost never pees on the floor. So she has that going for her. What did she do? Wear neon in your direct sight line again?”
“I sent her to physio, to spare her from Rick trying to humiliate her, and she has the audacity to have skipped out. Does this look like Hickville Junior High? Is she really trying to play hooky in the middle of my season?”
“You seem a little worked up.” Kelly hangs up and pulls out her cell phone to text instead. “Anything to do with Rick haunting the halls?”
“Don’t ever let that happen again.” Victoria h
as almost made it into the sanctuary of her private office, but she turns and marches back out to make her point. “I mean it, Kelly. Not even you are indispensable. Certainly not if you keep letting me get ambushed by that asshole.”
“Anna’s phone is off now,” Kelly reports. “So yeah, microchipping would be handy. And no, I don’t have any contacts at the FBI who can track her, before you start.”
“Call the theater her sister works at. She’s bound to have gone to Jess. Wheedle a likely location out of them, and text me an address.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you’d make one hell of a stalker?”
Victoria’s glare must be one of her finest, because even the fearless Kelly blanches and starts dialing again, after a glance at her contacts list. Making her way into her office, Victoria can’t concentrate for trying to overhear what Kelly is up to. A minute passes, then two. Kelly isn’t talking to anyone yet, and the stalker comment is still resonating.
“Kelly?” she calls out. “Forget about it. Just send her the standard missed a day email, and warn her that her wages will be docked if this happens again.”
Normally Kelly would push back, ask if Victoria is sure. It’s a mercy that this one time she doesn’t. With the afternoon free unexpectedly, Victoria decides it’s time for one more change, to keep Rick out of the loop and hopefully out of her studio. She’ll have to get Delphine on board, but it should be a formality at this point.
When her phone bleeps to life with a text, Victoria tells herself her heart doesn’t race, and that she isn’t disappointed to see Teresa’s name on the screen instead of Anna’s. If she keeps up this level of denial, she might just start to believe it.
“I’m dying,” Anna groans, picking herself up off the floor she’s apparently been asleep on, using her bag as a pillow. Why she would do that with a perfectly comfortable bed only a few feet away is beyond her. At least she gets an answering grunt from Jess, who’s similarly sprawled out on the bedroom carpet.
“Jesus.” Jess groans as she tries to sit up. “Tell me you have coffee, kiddo.”
“You do,” Irina says from the doorway. “What a mess you are, Jessica, that you don’t even recognize your own apartment.”
“Hnnng,” Anna grunts in acknowledgment, trying desperately not to hurl. That kind of explains it, then. “I have to get to class.”
“Yes, you do.” Irina makes her way across the room with her Moon Boot still on, helping Anna to steady herself. “I would say take a very long and hot shower, but you lack the time, little one.”
Anna checks her phone, the battery at a precarious 4 percent. She has thirty minutes to make what will be a twenty-five-minute journey minimum at this time in the morning. Unable to hold back on throwing up any longer, she darts toward the bathroom. When she emerges, she’s officially running late but feeling a bit fresher.
“Did you shower?” Jess asks from the floor, a location she shows no signs of quitting. “Or just go with a whore’s bath?”
“Rude,” Anna fires back. “I’ll have a proper shower between rehearsals. I’m only going to sweat for most of the day anyway. Don’t ever let me go day-drinking again, okay? Regrets, I have so many.”
“Get your ass in gear,” Jess warns.
As Anna bolts for the door, Irina interrupts her, handing over some bank notes.
“A taxi, or Vicki will have your head. I’ll be in after warm-up, but feel free to blame me as needed. She won’t pick that fight.”
Anna’s head swims. Irina, stuff of legend and rumor, barely even a friend in any official sense, but acting like…well, an aunt. It’s bizarre, but damn if it doesn’t settle Anna’s stomach for the first time since she opened her eyes.
“Thank you,” she says with a gasp. “I’ll pay you back later, I promise.”
With that, she’s off down the stairs and hurtling out onto the street. Miracle of miracles, the first yellow cab she flags down actually stops, not flipping his light off until she’s confirmed her destination.
“You a dancer?” he asks as she collapses into the backseat.
“Mmm” is all Anna can choke out at that point. The motion of pulling out into traffic has made the hangover queasiness come back.
“I thought so, when you said Metropolitan. My kid, she’s six years old, and I swear to God she knows ballerinas like I know the roster for the Mets. Obsessed with it. Me, I don’t know the first thing, but I know she loves it.”
“That’s nice,” Anna says absently. She decides to brave the calls and message lists on her phone, but the moment she hits the Home button the damn thing up and dies on her. “Ballet’s hard,” she says with a groan. “Make sure she knows that.”
“That’s what they say.” He catches her eye in the rearview mirror, and Anna returns his easy smile. She’s starting to rally a little, and for the sake of her own six-year-old self, she knows she has to do better.
“Henri, right?” she reads from the medallion and ID badge.
“Sure, and Yara, that’s my little girl.” When they come to a stop at the traffic lights, he taps his phone screen to show a picture of a gorgeous dark-haired little girl, squealing with laughter in her father’s arms. They look alike, right down to their broad smiles and light brown skin. Yara’s wearing a fluffy pink tutu, the synthetic ones that scratch as they’re pulled on, and Anna warms at the memory.
This is where it started. This is why she’s doing this. That smile, that tutu that doesn’t quite stick out by itself, not like the professional ones. The satin slippers that are gradually replaced by pointe shoes, a rite of passage that can never come soon enough.
“How’s her attention span?” Anna asks, fishing around in her purse. “For ballet, I mean? Does she just like the movement, or does she watch it too?”
“Watch it? She’s always nagging me to put PBS on, even though they only show ballet once in a blue moon. I’ve been trying to snag tickets for something at the Metropolitan Center, but you guys know how to charge.”
“Does her mom like dance?” Anna finds the notebook she’s looking for and scribbles on the page.
“It’s just me and Yara.” Henri’s tight-lipped, watching the traffic too intently for a line that isn’t moving much at all. “Her mom split a while back.”
“Well, my name is Anna, and this is my first season,” Anna explains, folding the piece of paper in half. “And I don’t really know anyone in New York, except for my sister and the rest of the ballet corps. I get some tickets as part of my contract. I’d love to set some aside for you and Yara to come see a Metropolitan production.”
“Wait, I wasn’t—”
“I know you weren’t. But I used to go with my mom, before she passed. At Yara’s age, I was the only kid I knew who could sit through Sleeping Beauty as a ballet and not a cartoon. Maybe she won’t want to dance herself in the future, but if she loves it, she should get to see a professional production up close.”
“That is… You know what, that’s the nicest conversation I’ve had in five years driving this thing.” Henri accepts the piece of paper over his shoulder.
“That’s my email. Send me a few dates you can do, and I’ll get you tickets for whatever I’m doing that week—it changes a lot, as you’ve probably seen.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.” Anna sits back with a lazy grin, watching the Metropolitan Center draw nearer in all its glass-coated glory. What’s the point in being a principal if she can’t do things like this? “Oh,” she adds as they draw to a stop. “If you can make it a bit before the show, I can take her on a mini tour too. Kids love seeing the shoes and the costumes and stuff.”
“Oh man, that would blow her mind. You sure you’re a ballerina and not some kind of angel?”
“Nah. I just remember what it was like to love ballet that much but be on the outside looking in. This way she’ll get the real deal, and hopefully carry that with her, her whole life.”
“I’ll email tonight. And it’s okay if you change your
mind, or if you can’t—”
“I won’t.” Anna holds out the cash for her fare, but Henri waves it away. “Thank you, Henri. I didn’t realize how much I needed a conversation like this. Email me tonight, I’ll be checking.”
“You got it! Have a good day, Anna.”
She gets out of the cab and jogs across the plaza, finally ready to face the day. They’ve even made pretty good time, so she won’t be late after all.
Victoria watches the dynamics of the room shift and reshape every year, sometimes from week to week, depending on the company members present. It’s gratifying to see that Anna has found her niche, even if Victoria is residually pissed at her for disappearing the day before.
They’re almost done with warm-up, a decent sweat worked up and chatter happening back and forth over their repetitions, less breathless than it might be, meaning they’re all back in midseason shape at last. Seeing Teresa at the piano hasn’t exactly improved Victoria’s mood, but she knows better than to approach her right now and draw Anna’s attention back to that.
“Is that supposed to be fifth, Ethan?” Victoria snorts on her way past. “How very abstract of you.” He quickly shuffles his feet from a lazy approximation to the correct position, practically trembling in his gray tights. She hasn’t lost her touch.
It leaves her in prime position to overhear the end of Anna’s conversation with Delphine.
“—so sweet, I swear. So I’m gonna get them seats for something good, do the whole dazzle-the-kid thing with a backstage tour.”
“Yeah, who wouldn’t be dazzled by the smell of sweaty feet and buckets of sand?” Delphine mocks, but it’s good-natured.
“Adopting orphans now, Anna?” Victoria can’t resist interrupting. “I didn’t think I left you enough hours in the day to do that. Although if you’re going to set your own schedule—”
She has the good sense to blush, looking down at her feet for a moment.
“Victoria, I’m sorry. I just thought you were saying I wasn’t—”