The rest of the dance troupe followed Mme Giry, the younger girls casting sympathetic glances at Sorelli, the older girls with glances full of contempt. Only one scholarship student was allowed in the Opera's ballet school. Several of the girls were orphans, true, but the government paid for them to be put into dance training, as it was cheaper to load them off on someone else than take care of them all at an orphanage. Sorelli's parents, as far as she was concerned, were still alive, somewhere in the streets of France's largest seaport, Marseilles. Sorelli had left them as soon as she was accepted into a small ballet school in Aix-en-Provence at7 years old. From there, she had been sent to the Paris Opera House's school because Paris was looking for a charity case to take on to save face. Something about an accident in the cellars of the opera creating bad press. Now 17, Sorelli had to earn her keep by working late nights in the kitchen, washing dishes and starting the stews and roasts that would need to cook all the next day. She was also everyone's errand runner, which got very annoying late at night when someone was ill, considering the Opera's doctor lived on the other side of the Seine.
Sorelli picked herself up, trying to get the dirt off of her pristine pink toe shoes. She hated to get messy, and the floors in the practice rooms of the Paris Ballet were not the cleanest places in the world.
I might as well go get started on my work for tonight, she thought with chagrin. The cook, Mme Poindexter, wanted to give a full spread tomorrow in honor of her retirement. Sorelli had no problems with the elderly woman, but she was a strict and demanding woman. You'd never go hungry under her watch, but you had to make up for it by washing dishes in the back. She hoped that the next cook would have the same values.
The kitchen was quiet as Sorelli began slicing the vegetables for a quiche in the morning. To help pass the time, she began to hum to herself a soft, Mediterranean lullaby that was very common in Marseilles. Involuntarily Sorelli's hips begin to sway in time to the song, her chopping following the beat. Slowly, she put the knife down and began to do a small dance in front of her station. All Sorelli could hear was the music in her mind and the beat of her heart.
Sorelli stopped herself suddenly, looking around to make sure that no one was watching. Only street whores on corners danced the way she just did, advertising themselves, available for a price. Mme Giry would be very disappointed to see her stoop to the level of the older Ballet dancers, Les Putains De Ballet.
Sorelli hurried through her chores and ran to her bed in the ballet dormitories. She couldn't help but shiver as she opened her door. She could swear someone was watching her. When the door of her room shut with a harsh click, the only thought on her mind was:
I hope no one saw me dance.