If anything, the air conditioning is what keeps me from quitting.
The work is redundant, full of dusting and vacuuming, but the rooms I clean are cool. Between yesterday and today, the blasting air from the AC has become the sound I most often hear, when all the dancers and teachers are on the lower floors. After the day and a half I've worked, I haven't had any more run-ins with anybody of importance. Though Evangeline and her mother can hardly be considered that when I wouldn't be able to identify them in a crowd. Only by their voices.
This morning, unmotivated to leave the house before the crack of dawn, I decided that I would do my studio cleaning late at night, after all of the classes end. I hadn't yet decided what excuse I'd be telling my family to explain why I couldn't get home until midnight.
But when I got here, Ann told me that the dancers have Sundays off, and I can clean the studios whenever I'd like to. Though according to her, today's a special day: hundreds of Academy hopefuls will be downstairs in the theatre for auditions.
What sort of auditions, what for, I don't know. How I'd like to watch them, though. Classical pointe, tap, hip-hop, maybe even contemporary, just to laugh at it.
Even if I regret watching afterward.
But if I sneak away for just a moment, go find a secret place to watch the performances from . . . I'd get caught, no matter how sly I am.
I walk down the hall of one of the residential floors, tugging my maid's cart along with me. Today I've taken a tour of the rest of the building with Ann and gone through my assigned rooms up here, and now, noon approaching, I make my way towards the elevator.
Ann wasn't kidding when she said this place was big. I believed her at the time, but I had no idea . . . a dance academy could—or should—be so humongous. It doesn't look as big as it actually is from the outside. Eleven stories tall, not narrow in either direction, but this place . . . this place. Ann gave me a map, and I'm still unsure if she meant it as a joke or not. But the fact that they have maps at their disposal at all should indicate something.
It's a sort of labyrinthine structure, staircases and elevators at every turn. While the carpet isn't the prettiest up here, the most gorgeous of marble decorates the lower floors, a warm, orange color. In the studios, doors always cracked open to allow the cold air in, there's either wood or vinyl, surrounded by mirrors and glass. It was perhaps what struck at me, bothered me a bit this morning when Ann guided me through the wide and sprawling hallways of the Manhattan Dance Academy. The echoes of music, pounds of various shoes against the floor. Although dancers don't have classes on Sunday, apparently plenty came to practice for their auditions.
Ann told me if they weren't already downstairs to watch, I could kick them out to get my cleaning done since they don't actually have classes today. My jaw almost popped open at the thought.
A countless number of studios we walked past, a number that I quickly lost track of. Every time I thought we'd finished exploring a floor, another corner would come, another track of quiet music playing from an ajar door. Only that familiar sound of a teacher shouting was missing. I don't imagine the shouting and lecturing would be so different from the things I heard during my days in dance. Even as professionals, they continue to get criticized. No such thing as perfect.
I slap the button alongside the elevator, leaning against its wall to feel the air flow in my direction.
Then I come back around, looking at my reflection in the murky elevator doors. A hideous red shirt for a maid, basic black slacks, black shoes to blend in. Not so different from Mom. I've promised myself I wouldn't work here for more than a few months to help my family out, to get a glimpse, but after that, I'm done. A glimpse is a glimpse, and any more would be bad for me.
I won't become like Mom. I won't disrespect her hard work for our family like that. She works for us, so we have a chance. Even though I've already wasted it—high school dropout—I won't end up as a cleaner. Just because I know she'd never want this life for me.
The doors to the elevator open with a chime, and I pull the cart in with me. The dancers should be downstairs now, which leaves an opening for me to get my work done.
Ann, who is as much of a boss as I have at the moment, provided me with a list of my assignments and circled the locations on the map. Half of the tenth-floor residences, a few hallways downstairs that need mopping, and three studios. It seems excessive to clean the studios every day, but the owners want their property in tip-top condition.
Though they're rather nonchalant when it comes to hiring. One would think, a rich-as-shit ballet company, as Ann put it, would require background checks and fixed hours.
But again, I guess not.
The elevator makes a noise each time I descend a level, and I keep a hand on the rail as though I'm going to fall.
At last, the lift stops, the doors sliding open.
A new hallway stretches to my left and right, made of that attractive marble.
Aside from the stone and the creamy walls enclosing the space, little else is to be seen. Intermittently, there'll be a stretch where paintings of Manhattan and dancers cover the walls, or of more of those photographs like the ones on the outside of the building, but for the most part, the halls are elegantly barren.
It has enough to it, with the coffered cream ceiling, the smooth, warm-hued floor, and the constant doors, a new one on the wall every time I turn my head.
Mopping the floor isn't something I care to do at the moment, though nobody should be coming up here for a while. Either way, the last thing I need is to have an arrogant, pissed-off dancer coming up here and scoffing when he or she sees there's an enormous puddle in the way.
So instead I glance at my map quickly, making my way for the first studio Ann marked off.
It's not far down the hall, and in no time, I'm pushing my cart through its door.
And I can't help my gasping breath.
A window runs along an entire wall. The sun high above the horizon, it provides enough natural lighting in the room for the fluorescents to be of no use and casts the room in a crisp, bright shade. The floor in here looks like vinyl, mimicking wood with its dark brown color and gleaming in the sunlight.
On the side opposite the floor-to-ceiling window, a reflection of the entire room shines, courtesy of a mirror, not a mark or scratch on it. The adjacent two walls are empty, save for a set of barres at each of them.
The cleaning of the studios will be easy. Just dusting, maybe spraying the windows and mirrors when needed. An occasional mopping. But this room looks like it was just cleaned and has no use for me. It's the apartments and hallways that actually have a need for the maids, not these studios.
I leave the door open for the air and grab a rag off the cart, heading for the barres to wipe them off.
The floor is firm beneath my feet as I wipe down the first set, giving the barres nothing more than a hasty run-over. I cross the room to the second set, the sun an unfaltering presence in my periphery. The room's large, equipped to hold a class of fifty dancers, maybe seventy for a calm session without too many stuck-out limbs.
I reach the other side, my hand coming down on the top piece of wood, rag between barre and skin. My feet rise up, out of instinct, and I have to settle myself right away. My feet come down to finish my work.
Within five seconds, I finish. Great.
Looking back to the door with no one in sight, I gingerly place the rag on the lower barre, my hands gripping the upper.
Just once, because I'm not going to survive if I can't walk into one of these rooms without dancing every time.
In shoes not meant for such things, I rise up onto my toes, holding my core strong and shoulders back. So many rules. Head tilted up, a long neck, a back not arched . . . I could go on, but I hardly think about those minute details anymore, ingrained in my memory, even when I haven't had class in so long.
Next, I raise my arms, put them in front of me, above my head, then back down. Bring my foot to my knee, turned out so I'm in a motionless pirouette.
God, if there are security cameras in here . . . I doubt I'll get fired, but certainly humiliated.
I come out of my imaginary turn, taking the little rag with me. Looking around the room, there's nothing else in dire need of the cloth or the other supplies in the cart. I should've asked Ann what exactly I'm meant to do in these rooms—other than dance—when there's nothing to do, nothing to clean.
The glass will eventually grow dirty, and the floor will eventually need a scrub. But not today. With auditions all week, I'll hardly be spending any time down here.
Just to say I did something in this studio, I go back to the cart and lift the broom from its holder to sweep microscopic, fictitious dirt into the corner. I scoop it up with a dustpan. As I will tomorrow, and the next day.
A pathetic amount of dirt falls into the trash can attached to my cart when I ferry it over, returning the broom and dustpan to their places.
Turning towards it, I survey the room again and find nothing out of place, nothing to clean. I make a mental note to ask Ann protocol for studios when I next see her.
I walk to the center of the room and turn around myself. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Cool air filters though, and the sun keeps on shimmering. Everything about this place is glossy and bright and sublime. I wonder if I'll ever grow a little sick and envious of seeing it.
With my portion of the residential floors done, and just two more studios and a hallway to mop, I'll be out of here with an hour to spare.
A thought cements, repeating itself, in my brain. With plenty of time to spare . . .
Just once and never again.
I can't get attached again. Not to this, not to dancing. Even if I still come home every day, and without fail do I practice ballet.
But if only to see whether or not I can do them in these shoes . . .
And with the door closed enough and that one-way window . . .
Just for fun. I have the time, after all.
Without thinking about it, justifying it as an experiment, I prep my body, standing as tall as I did at the barre. I fall into instinct as I push from the ground, beginning a turn.
Fouettés. A difficult turn in ballet that few master. Yet I loved them. I always did.
I keep my eyes focused on the barre at the far wall, whipping my head back and forth to spot. My leg comes in and out, shoes surprisingly smooth on the vinyl.
And I can't help but smile as I continue, remembering those rules: Head tilted up, a long neck, a back not arched, and more.
A ridiculous number of rules, if you ask me, but they've made me strong, and somehow, I keep turning, though I haven't done them with this sort of force in a long time, separate from my afternoon on the roof two days ago.
I continue, my foot coming to my knee, then shooting out. Until I've done sixteen of them.
At last, I come out of the motion, shoes finally squeaking when I'm back on flat foot.
You're not a dancer. Not anymore. So stop acting like it.
It wasn't just for fun.
Those words, that truth, come back to me as the adrenaline fades away. As if it was never there.
Heaving a breath, I make for my cart, but not before a shadow flickers in the corner of my vision.
Faster than possible, I face the door, searching for a trace of the person I saw. Yes, yes, there was a person there just a moment ago, a man staring into the room.
Nothing. There isn't anybody at the threshold, and I run for it, holding out for the hope that I'll see a retreating figure in the hallway. My heart beats wildly, and not from the dancing.
I reach the door, barreling out of it and tossing my head both ways.
Nobody . . . no one and nothing.
Whoever he was, he must have seen me dancing. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been standing there. A lowly maid, doing those types of turns is not ordinary or natural. No wonder he ran away.
My cheeks flush and burn from chagrin. Yup. However low the chances of a dancer walking past this room in the seconds I turned was, it happened. Sounds about right.
That's what I get, for the stupid fascination of pretending to be a person that I no longer am.
"Mare."
Ann says my name, and I start, even as it's her voice that says it. Not some guy that I've never met, someone who wouldn't know my name.
I knit my brows at her.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," she says. "Come on. I have something to show you."
She leads me down to the ground floor of the building, and we emerge from the maid's hallway into the lobby, plenty of people dispersed throughout the grand room. The ceiling is thirty feet aloft, and along the second and third story walls lies more glass, this type showing the classrooms through it.
Most of the girls wear leotards, tights, and some type of dance shoe or other. The men don basic T-shirts, with either form-fitting pants, like thick tights, or looser workout joggers. All of them look pristine and regal, the girls wearing pounds of makeup and hair scooped up into high buns, the men with carved faces and glistening, oiled hair.
"I thought you said they didn't like the maids being around them," I say, recalling what Ann mentioned earlier.
"They don't," she replies, eyes focused on our surroundings. Not everybody wears dance clothes: others wear jeans and skirts and heels, hair not at all swept back. Private instructors and teachers from the Academy, probably. A few smothering parents, here and there.
"But," Ann continues, "auditions come around once a year. You don't seem like the kind of person who has an interest in working here for the rest of your life, so I figure you should see it now."
On my left are the main doors, where the black-eyed bodyguard stopped me from entering. To my other side, a grand staircase reaches toward the second floor, red, gold, and black carpeting covering each set of stairs.
Ann goes ahead of me through the dancers, saying a polite "excuse me" whenever needed. They don't notice us, caught up in their own conversations with one another. Along the way, I hear chatter about how they think they did, who they think has the best shot at making it.
"What exactly," I begin, almost under my breath, "are these people auditioning for?"
There's a few hundred here alone, and I imagine there are more, in the auditorium or hidden away in other rooms. A group of women stretches in a corner, pointing and flexing their feet as they go along. A larger thronging of dancers does a tap warmup, and somebody else hollers at them to keep it down.
Though nobody is particularly loud. It's all hushed whispers and murmurs.
"You don't know anything about this academy, do you? Auditions, every July. This will be in the paper tomorrow, Mare," Ann says, and I think she wants to stop in the middle of the room just to make a point. "These auditions decide who will be this season's principal dancers, soloists, and so on. This place's specialty is ballet, but the best tap and hip hop dancers in the world have come here, too. It's a big deal, alright? If you want to know more, ask anybody here." She nods to the rest of the room.
The Manhattan Dance Academy. I know enough about it: it's among the best schools in the United States, if not the whole world.
"Sorry," I grumble, feeling stupid for asking the question. "I was just hoping for specifics."
Rather than enter one of the pairs of propped-open double doors off from the staircases—there are three of them—Ann veers off to a side wall, yanks a smaller entrance open, and enters the space.
I'd complain again, Ann robbing me of the chance to peer into those doors to see what must be a massive auditorium if I thought it would get me in there.
On the other side of the single door stands a curved and near-black pathway, marble turning to wood in an instant.
We're going backstage.
My heart flutters at the thought, worries about the man who saw me dancing suddenly a thing of the past. We're going backstage.
The recitals and competitions my teachers insisted I try were a favorite of mine. I loved every moment in that studio, but on stage . . . there was no fear, not after the relentless practicing I did at home and in class.
What the dancers are doing here, though, is not a performance or meager dance competition for teens. Life or death would be more accurate, the dancers would say if I asked them.
The narrow walkway goes on for a long while before it broadens up, transitioning from curved to straight, branching into different directions. Ahead, the main path takes a sharp right bend, heading for the other side of the stage. With a few more steps, the wall at my side breaks off, too-familiar sharp lights blaring in my eyes.
The corner of the stage. At the back of its wing, is where I stand.
In its spotlight is a girl, leaping in her pointe shoes. I see all of her movements from back here; we're separated by twenty feet and gigantic cement pillars, cleaving the set and the wings apart.
No music filters out of speakers, but she dances as though there is. I track her carefully, watching for critiques my instructors would've given her. Very flexible, but not as relaxed as she should be. Her shoulders are a little too high, and even from here, I can tell her jaw's clenched. Nervous. Petrified.
I pause my watching when a stagehand nearby notices Ann's arrival and shoots forward. I brace myself, thinking that he's going to kick us out.
A few others wait near the pillars, all of them girls in pointe shoes. They must divide the tryouts by gender and genre.
And no, they don't look at me, but the last thing I want is to get reprimanded in front of the dancers.
"Ann," the stagehand says, resting his hand on a radio at his belt. "One of the lights up there," he points upward, past the rigging to the wooden beams, "is shot, and my guys are on lunch break. Wanna come up there with me to hold the bulb while I replace it?"
My coworker sighs, putting her hands on her hips. She looks at me. "You wanna go up there, too?"
Heights . . . I've never been particularly good with them.
But if I don't go up there with her, I'll have to wait down here, with my loud red uniform.
"Sure," I say, not really meaning it. I hide my fib with a dainty smile.
The man ducks further into the wing, reaches a long table scattered with an array of cables and tools, and takes a box the size of his hand, along with a screwdriver. "Come on," he says, motioning to a ladder bolted to a pillar at the stage's corner, half-concealed by one of the drawn red curtains.
He allows me and Ann to climb up first, and I find myself holding my breath. Sitting up on the ledge of my rooftop is one thing, but with a stage and audience beneath me . . .
Use your balance.
But. This. Is. Not. What. I. Signed. Up. For.
I haul myself over the last rung of the latter and onto a sturdy wooden plank. Crouched, I inch my way across until there's enough room for Ann to join me, who elects to stand rather than imitate the pathetic stance I use.
"Scared of heights?" she asks in a snicker. I growl at her, turning away from Ann and the stagehand when he makes his way up. They don't need my help with whatever light demands fixing. So I take that as an invitation to look around, knuckles white as I grip the wood harder beneath me.
The beams extend from one side of the stage to the other, gaps plenty large enough to fall through between them. Dividing the back of the stage from the front, in the middle of the framework is a stocky row of lights, leaving about ten feet on either edge of the stage to walk around. The lights are pointed in various directions, but all down toward the stage.
The stage is large, and my view of the audience is cut off by overhanging curtains. The last one having left, a new dancer appears from the wing's shadows. Before she begins her routine, I can already tell she's nervous, by the way she clenches her hands.
"State your name," a deep-voiced man says from the audience. I cannot see him.
"Heron Welle," the girl says. I'm amazed her voice doesn't shake.
With that, she finds her beginning position, and I attempt to forget how high above the floor I am.
Ann and the man work ahead of me, having moved to one of the center beams to change the light fixed beside it.
The ballerina prances and twirls about the stage, and I wonder how they judge each competitor when they all dance to different choreography. And how many are there?
Pretending to be a judge myself, I watch her meticulously, as I did with the one before. The way in which her moves come together and fall apart, if she minds where her arms are during her turns. She does. But just like the last girl, she's scared as hell.
Overall, her performance is good. She smiles, though she's visibly afraid. I can't say that I'd do any better than her, if I had to come down from the safety of these rafters and into the public eye. Maybe six months ago, when I was at my peak.
In time, she leaves with a curtsy, and a new one appears again. A grueling conveyor belt.
Whatever kind of light bulb the duo across the planks is changing, it must be difficult, with their fighting mumbles as Ann holds various parts of the light for the stagehand. I consider going over to help them—but walking across the planks with considerable gaps between them . . . I decide against it.
Three more girls try their luck, doing better than the first two I observed. Their dances aren't more than ninety seconds long, but they pack skills and art into those seconds.
All of the girls are incredibly strong, toned muscles pronounced even beneath their tights. Talented, with the grace they use in turns that go on and on, toes unwavering when protected from the stage by only a piece of wood and cloth.
They were born for this, then raised for it when their parents spent exorbitant sums of money paying for ballet tuition. And at better, more pricey schools than mine. As much as I want to deny it, I envy them for what they have and what they've been given.
This one should be good, I think when I see her, a tall girl dressed head to ankle in black, her pointe shoes painted a pretty, steely blue. Her hair is dyed silver-white, cornrows at her scalp going into a bun. Flawless, golden skin, confident posture, and a smirk for the ages.
I can't call arrogance a good tool, but in dance . . . it sort of is. The Academy is looking for those with bravado and negligence for stage fright.
She saunters onto the set, heading for its center.
"State your name," the same voice asks of her.
"Ev—"
Tap shoes that aren't trying to be quiet sound from backstage, approaching. Their hits against the wood remind me of my own taps, fancy, expensive things that I still keep under my bed. The steadiness the sounds have measure up to the girl's annoying smirk.
"Sorry I'm late," the owner of the tap shoes calls, emerging from the wings of the stage. "I got caught up in working on a new combination."
My heart stops.
At the inky black hair, the smile, the eyes. The voice. A voice I've heard before.
Outside of a dinky, dirty bar in East Harlem, the man cloaked in a black hoodie to hide his muscular build. A dancer's build.
Without thinking, I rise from my crouch, starting into a walk across the planks to get a better view. I keep my eyes down, not on where my feet are going, but on Cal, the son of the Manhattan Dance Academy.
Cal, short for Calore. His last name and the other name of this place. Calore Dance Academy.
I told him so many things he shouldn't have ever heard that night. How I was a dancer, despising the rich living in the high rises of Midtown. Because that's exactly who he is.