Like all dynasties, the Manhattan Dance Academy shimmers artfully in the summer sun.
Grumbling my complaints to nobody in particular, I clench the poster in my left hand and shield my eyes with my right.
Years and years ago, the descendants of whoever owns this dance empire—family business, I've heard—decided to base operations out of a building nestled into Times Square at the corner of Forty-Second and Broadway. Not in the heart of Times Square, but close enough for there to be a steady stream of people and cars and those wonderful electronic billboards. I've passed by this place plenty of times before, but never paid it attention, deeming it just as marvelous as the rest of the block. But now—now it takes my breath away, knowing what it is and who the people are inside of it.
Dancers.
Eleven stories tall and more than wide enough, the building must be ancient compared to the skyscraping glass and steel monuments overhead. But along with the hints of its age, modernness has taken over a good part of it, making it . . . classically advanced. The long panes of glass creating beautiful windows have a golden tint to them, like Cal's eyes, and there's nothing on the other side of them, just the reflection of the city street and cars and the revolving doors across the street, where I stand. Or so it appears. One-way mirrors for the dancers' privacy, I suppose.
It doesn't follow the code of the shimmering blue skyscrapers that litter the city. It's composed of warm colors, rather than icy gray and blue, but manages to loom nonetheless. Where the stretching panes of glass aren't, rows and columns of red brick and steel stand out to create a tidy and elegant grid.
The stories about entire glass walls are nearly true. The last two stories at the top are older, not adorning that same polish the others have. They have more brick to them, coupled with cement that alternates between red and beige. Balconies too narrow for actual use are sewn into every other window,—an eighth of the size of the ones below.
On the ground level, a single revolving door sits under a black marquee, and embedded into its front are the words, Manhattan Dance Academy, red and silver in a large and ornate font.
Seeing the traffic light turn red at the intersection, I make a move to cross. Now or never, I told myself with an exhausted and near-shattered body last night. After dancing for hours atop the roof.
The dancing helped, whether or not my body says so. Made me forget about Kilorn and the Street Fighters, Cal and my sister.
At a closer look, the windows are trimmed with ebony frames, and hooked lanterns protrude from the thin brick margins.
Exquisite.
The street beneath my feet is hot in the midday sun, but what's new. I opt out of taking the sidewalk, instead cutting across Forty-Second and edging past waiting cars. I don't bother winking at the drivers as I so often do.
Not when the security guard under the marquee takes note of me before I finish my crossing, his dark eyes watching and in wait. Though I wouldn't consider myself terribly threatening, I'm flattered that he takes me seriously as I approach him, the poster steadfast in my hand.
I keep my eyes trained on him the entire time, his mouth twitching when I come within five feet. Not overly large or threatening himself, wearing his simple security uniform. A relatively plain man, aside from his near-black eyes.
"This poster," I say finally, unraveling the darn paper, "was taped to my local grocery store window. I'd like to be interviewed for the job."
He looks me up and down, from the light makeup I bothered with to the rundown sneakers I've worn every day this summer. "Great. Just go inside and they'll set you up."
He's kidding. I didn't expect to get far enough to talk to anyone who works here. If he hadn't been standing outside . . . despite my talk, would have I gone in?
I quirk my brow at him. "That easy, huh?"
He gives me an incredulous look. Not arrogant, but realistic. "Believe it or not, but people aren't lining up to get a cleaning job for minimum wage," he says with a touch of sarcasm I appreciate. I might turn out not to hate this man, who isn't older than thirty—but is entirely bald.
It's not about the money, though I definitely need it. This place, even if it's as the lowest on the pyramid, is the closest to dancing as I'll ever get again.
"Thanks," I mutter, casting an equally derisive smile onto him.
I step towards the gilded revolving doors that graze a fine marble floor, but the man stops me from entering by putting a hand around my wrist. Somebody else did that to me recently.
"Workers go in through the side," he tells me, nodding down the street.
"Oh," I say, not in the mood to fight him. Fine. Their territory, their rules. I'm just along for the ride.
"Yeah," is what he responds with.
I turn around to face the intersection, rolling my eyes. Some New Yorkers.
But did that just happen? Truly?
Though the Manhattan Dance Company is barren of the electronic screens and billboards that plague the rest of the intersection, it fits in just fine with its grandeur. Sparkles just like the rest of Times Square.
A block or two one way or another, and the crowds would be really bad, but here, I find my way to the intersection easily enough.
The glass and steel high rises advertise makeup and the latest movies, but none of it interests me, at least not in the way the Academy does. Had I grown up with any money, I might be fascinated by the boards, might find myself comparable to the people looking at them with such interest, but yet they're all the same to me. So colorful my eyes would bleed should I stare too long.
I turn the corner and pass green-gated stairs to a subway station, the yellow of taxis and rainbow of cars meandering past.
Something beautiful and grayscale ripples at the edge of my vision. This place has never deigned to post advertisements on its walls, though every other building seems to have them.
Yet that doesn't mean they don't find other decorations for the walls.
But not decorations. Masterpieces.
Stretching double my height, photographs like the one on my crumpled poster have been printed onto massive sheets of canvas. Their backgrounds are shades of black and grey, the dancers on them beautiful creatures, sporting lavish costumes in the midst of flawless leaps and turns. Some costumes are traditional, the kinds of outfits that the ballerinas and dancers use in the ballets, but others are modern, women clad in tight jeans and heaping dresses that could never actually be danced in. Pointe shoes, tap shoes, no shoes . . . every walk of dance you could imagine.
A shadowed male wearing jeans is portrayed on the last canvas, with no shirt or shoes. His face is turned from the camera, alluding to a mystery that I'll never solve. A muscled back and arms with the same power splayed out to the sides, his left leg is stuck outward in an effortless a la seconde.
I used to be that good. Maybe I still am. I didn't fall out of a single turn yesterday on the roof, though my body feels like I fell a dozen times.
Assuming they wouldn't be stupid enough to keep their side door unlocked, I rap my knuckles on it three definite times.
And of course, even the side doors are glamorous. The french doors have gilded framework encompassing them, a couple of golden bars striking through the middle of the opaque glass.
Because of the constant noise echoing throughout the intersection and adjoining streets, I don't know if anyone even hears me. Thirty seconds go by, and prepared to knock again and then try opening the door myself, I take a step backward as somebody approaches, the handle turning.
The woman who greets me isn't incredibly young, but by no means is she an old prune. Her uniform tells me she isn't one of the wealthy. She must be another cleaner, or secretary, or something.
Her hair is washed out, maybe from dying it too many times as a teen, but her eyes are bright, and she smiles as she beckons me inside.
"Ah, yes. They told me to be on the lookout for a wannabe cleaner. Nice of Security to send you to the side, eh?" She turns her head to look at me as I step inside, closing the heavy door behind me.
"Mare Barrow," I say, extending my hand.
But the woman doesn't take it. "Are you even out of high school?"
"Thankfully," I say, prepared for the question. Even with the makeup, there's no mistaking me for anything more than a teenage girl. "I graduated last spring."
She seems happy enough with my answer, taking my hand. "You can call me Ann. Miss Walsh if you're up to it."
Past the doors reaches a long and wide hallway made of the same stone I glimpsed at through the front.
But Ann cuts me off from any exploring I might've gotten to do when she stops in front of an elevator. Given how it's tucked back into this side hallway, I bet it's a worker's shaft. She presses the down arrow at its side. "The basement," I say. "Really?"
She says, "What? Did you think this job, clocking in at a stunning ten dollars and forty cents per hour, was going to involve something else?"
No. It's just . . . "No. I was just hoping to have a second glance before you guys threw me in the basement."
Ann only laughs in response.
The bell to the elevator rings and the steel doors glide ajar. The inside is bland and tasteless, and somehow I bet the regular elevators in the lobby are far more appealing.
Ann taps a button before turning to me. "You sure you want this job? You seem uncertain. Otherwise, buckle up and listen."
I have to swallow my pride and knot the stream of words I want to say to her, but it's hardly her fault. She's just another maid, just another cog in the machine. I get into the elevator after her.
"I honestly don't know why we need another one," she begins, looking me up and down. "I thought we had enough workers, but apparently one of the big guys said we should hire another one or two. So now you're here. I'll show you the ropes, but if you can handle a mop, then you're all set. I'll have you fill out the paperwork in a few days." The elevator comes to a halt, and the doors open. "If you thought this place looked big on the outside, think again. It's bigger than big. Though now we're technically overstaffed, you'll still be expected to work fast but thoroughly, and cover lots of space."
With a ding, the doors glide open again.
The elevator leads to one room, and one room alone. A large, wooden supply room, compiled of shelves lining two walls. Nope. Not the ritzy, high-end start I was looking for. The shelves contain all sorts of cleaning products: industrial containers of soap; buckets of sponges; rags for dusting; and too many chemicals I'm not familiar with. Vacuums and brooms and mops are balanced on the third wall, and a floor polisher is tucked into the corner. In the room's center, carts like the ones maids use at hotels lie in wait to be brought up to the main floors.
"The cellar is the one part they didn't renovate about twenty years ago, so they decided to stick an elevator into it and call it the Maids' Quarters. Soon enough, the creaky floorboards are gonna drive you insane.
"The top two levels are residential," she continues, grabbing one of the carts and wheeling it into the elevator. "Though the Academy isn't one of those places that schools and houses students, they like to have us keep up the rooms. The dancers use them when they want, and a couple stay here all the time." She squeezes past the cart to fetch something left on the far shelf.
"Almost forgot. Here's your uniform." She hands me a scarlet shirt, kept together with three large black buttons, short-sleeved. The collar is black, and so are the folds of the sleeves, which will reach halfway to my elbow.
"Bright red?" I question but undo the buttons and pull it over my shirt for the hex of it.
"Dunno," she shrugs. Ann's outfit makes more sense. Black pants and the same sort of shirt I have, but in a light brown color. "They're all different colors, though not as . . . loud as that one. If I had others left, I'd offer."
I try to let it flow off me, like water off a duck's back. Besides, there'll be worse situations I deal with at this place, if I don't decide to quit after day one.
"I expect you have a pair of black pants?"
"Doesn't everyone?"
"Just checking," she says, returning the elevator. "Come on."
I follow her into the small box, having to suck my stomach in between the doors and the cart like Ann did. "So how did you wind up here?"
"Same as you. I needed work, and I figured why not work at some rich-as-shit ballet company? We get free tickets to their performances, too."
The electronic number at the elevator's top flicks from B to 1, but it doesn't stop there. It doesn't stop until we arrive on floor ten, the lift at last coming to a stop. "They don't like us being on the main floors during the morning or afternoon. Either come in early to get your assigned studios done, or wait until late at night."
No fixed hours? Well. That's just sketchy.
I almost cough up my own spit. Classes go on for hours on end at professional companies like this one. I won't be able to bet on cleaning until midnight.
Dawn it is then.
"I'll take the subway," I say, walking by her side as she pushes the cart. Though I've done it plenty of times against rational thought, I don't like the idea of walking the four miles to work every day in the dark."I'll come in early. What time do you come in?"
"Four-thirty. I get my work done in the morning, too. In fact: my shift would be about done if I wasn't training the newbie cleaning girl." She winks at me.
This floor is no different than that of a nice hotel, and I suppose that makes me no different than Mom, who's been working as a maid for years.
I won't let it last that long. Just for a little while, to get a glimpse at the life I could've had and to make some cash.
Gulping, I trail Ann as she pushes her maid's cart into the first room.
I stay working later at the Academy than I intend to.
And I think, if it were any other place in the world, I would leave sooner, wouldn't bother to admire the lovely pointe and tap shoes strewn about each room I come to clean.
Either way, it takes hours before I finish my assigned floor, having finished the second half by myself after Ann decided that I could handle a vacuum and left. Each room is more of a small apartment than a hotel room, equipped with a kitchenette, a dining table, and a sitting room.
The carpet beneath my feet looks the same as the carpet lining the stairs of my apartment, albeit newer and clean. It has those same ugly patterns on it, though, the colors mixing so loudly it's just a little painful to look at.
It's funny, really, to be able to put a place as immaculate as this into comparison with a detail of my apartment, its opposite in every spectrum.
Even the most perfect of dynasties have cracks, then. In this case, it's in the carpeting.
I silently smile to myself, pulling the worker's cart with me back towards the elevator shaft, still watching that carpet.
"You're truly certain you'll get the part?"
My body locks up, my head snapping to the opposite side of the hallway, where I just came from.
"Of course I am, Mother. I've spent every moment of this summer locked inside with those private dance instructors from Europe you and Father insist on hiring. Not that I'm complaining. The heat has been grueling.
"But even if some pretty fool decides to challenge my position, I'm sure Father will find some method of persuasion to ensure my standing. Won't you?"
Receiving a strong, strong warning that I shouldn't be hearing whatever the girl and her mother speak about, I grab the feather duster off my cart and dart into a nearby room. But I keep the door a sliver of the way open, held in place by its latch.
The woman makes a clicking noise with her tongue. I don't dare a glance out into the hallway, especially because they must be near now, but she sounds to be in her early forties, while the girl couldn't be older than twenty.
"Money may buy many things in this world, but it cannot buy talent. If you do not win that spot as his partner for the season, your father and I won't be pulling any strings for you. Get the part, Evangeline. And pay careful attention when I tell you that your father will be very displeased with you should you not meet expectations."
"Yes, Mother," Evangeline says, with less of the self-assuredness that she held before.
"Good." I flinch as I hear her voice through the wood, mere feet from me, but there's no push on the door, no ordering whatever cleaner is in here to get out.
Evangeline. Him. Who are they? Evangeline is obviously the girl in the hallway, who's vying for a part with him. She must be a dancer here, and a good one, too, if her mother's wishes were any indication. Him . . . he must be a good dancer as well. One of the best, perhaps, maybe one of the men depicted in their muscular forms on the artwork outside the building.
There's no use in thinking about it, I know, even as I push open the door minutes later to an empty hallway and hurry back to the service elevator with my cart.
No use in thinking about it at all.