I'm shaking again as somebody presses a folded leotard and tights into my hands, asks what size my feet are.
Barely in the wing, staring straight ahead, but not really looking at anything. What the hell just happened?
I was just granted a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, that's what the hell just happened. Given to me by perhaps the best young dancer at the Academy, even if it made him look like a madman in the process. After I gave Cal my last name, I mutely walked from the stage, a silent acceptance of his offer. I could still run. I should still run.
"Mare?" the man questions, attempting to make my hands react to his, urging the clothing into my grasp. "Your foot size?"
His voice is vaguely recognizable the second time he says it, and my fingers clamp down on the clothing. The door guard? I twist my face to him, at my side with raised brows.
"I'm an eight, street shoe," I tell him, studying the guard I first showed the advertisement poster to. Same black irises, like Evangeline's. Same lack of hair as there was when I greeted him outside the building's front doors. He isn't a stagehand, but security, with a form-fitting shirt, cargo pants, and boots, with a belt around his waist. The entire ensemble is black. The belt carries a walkie-talkie and a gun in a holster, if I'm not mistaken.
What is this place? And why did I tell him my size?
Thinking he's going to abandon me for wherever the shoes are kept, I shift on my feet, but he only cranks his neck for the rafters. "You fell three stories and got up without any help."
"Yes," I acknowledge, thumbing the new fabric. The leotard is cold and silky, a sangria purple. The black tights are soft and flexible. I couldn't have gotten offstage quicker, mortified myself less. I did the right thing in pretending it was nothing, playing it off as an ordinary, silly event. If only Cal hadn't become involved.
"I'll find your shoes," he says, and the guard wants to say more, opening his mouth, but instead hurries from backstage, leaving me alone. To watch the next girl enter from the other stage wing-like nothing ever happened.
The man—Lucas Samos, I learn with contempt on the way up, cousin of Evangeline Samos—drops me off in a studio identical to the room Cal caught me dancing in, and that's that.
Distantly, a clock ticks away in my conscience, counting down the minutes until I'd go on stage to do my so-called audition. Even with the pointe shoes in hand, leotard and tights draped on a nearby barre, it's ridiculous to believe I'd ever go out there, dance for the people who'd spit on me if they knew where I was from.
Though I know the choreography I'd use. I remember it perfectly and dream about it more often than I care to admit. It was a solo I would've performed at my old studio's recital, the opening act. In the months before I stopped dancing, I practiced the piece relentlessly, stayed at the studio oftentimes until midnight. It was beautiful and a tragedy I never performed it.
All of a sudden, I bark out a harsh laugh, happy for the privacy. I'd hurtle the pointe shoes to the floor if I didn't find them so pretty.
This place . . . its fancy windows and marble . . . this is stupid. I'm stupid, for entertaining the thought of dancing here for a damn second. I can't afford it, so I'm not sure why I'm in this room contemplating it.
I must've hit my head. The way I kept myself poised on stage, rose without crying, and managed those few words to Cal, knowing hundreds watched me, the odd maid with the ugly red uniform, indicates I suffered a brain injury. The whole thing is a blur, and it wasn't long ago.
It doesn't make sense.
Scrubbing a hand over my face, I walk over to the barre, planning to deposit the shoes under it and leave. This can't be my life. I owe it to my family to find a job that I won't quit, that I have a future in. This would be selfish, worse than becoming a life-long maid.
Besides. I don't have the money. So why I entertain this idea, I don't know. I rest my forehead on the barre.
Only to hear a pair of taps hitting the marble floor outside of the room. Crap.
There's one person in this whole building who'd be wearing tap shoes, walking around in them like he owns the place. I haven't been around most of the Academy dancers, but I'm willing to bet it's Cal's individual trademark. Cal, who should be a floor down, judging pointe dancers with the rest of his family.
And there's no way he's walking this hallway not to see me.
I struggle to compose myself in the time he's allowed me, warranted by the harsh click of metal on marble. Straightening my back, I brush the hair out of my way and face the door where he'll inevitably appear.
My hand goes to rest on the leotard, a comfort after so many months. Whatever's Cal's planning to say . . . it won't work. I'll say my piece to him, thank him for the opportunity, and do my best not to hurl insults. Then, I can walk straight out the front, wash my hands of the Calore Dance Academy. As much as my family needs money, a day and a half of pay isn't worth it. Ann probably didn't finish filling out the papers documenting my job. Good thing, too. I would've had to tell her I'm not an adult yet and that I didn't finish high school. It might not be illegal, but I don't want her knowing it.
Cautiously, the door glides ajar, pushed by a concealed force. Cal slips through the crack, hands behind his back as he toes it shut.
Do you wear those everywhere for the purpose of announcing your arrival?
What have you done?
"You're angry with me?" he asks through white teeth, filling the silence. He doesn't bother acknowledging my fall.
I stare at him across the room, and yes, I see how he might find me angry. I haven't begun to change into the provided ballet uniform, and my fists are clenched, prepared to throw a punch. I wonder if he knows how to fight.
I can only imagine what my face looks like.
"You lied to me," I say, not speaking about today.
"No," he argues lightly, approaching me. I hold my ground. "I would've told you who I was had you asked me."
"I didn't know to ask you."
But I see it now. The confident smile, the clearness of his eyes . . . Cal's never had a hard day in his life.
This man . . . this boy, whatever he considers himself, holds a great amount of power at the Academy. With a snap of his fingers, he summoned Lucas to the wings of the stage, awaiting me with a leotard and tights. He's not arrogant or cruel the way Evangeline is, but it pokes at me nonetheless. I tried to steal from Cal, the son of a very, very rich man.
Cal's shrug is his response. He glances at the shoes on the floor, then the leotard and tights, protectively covered by my hand. "Why haven't you changed?"
He doesn't get it. I can't afford it, as I've repeated again and again in my head, but it would be unimaginably selfish, too. I force myself to hold his gaze, even as he towers over me. "If I've learned something in the last week, it's that I need a job. And you got me a job, so thank you. But I can't work here anymore, and I certainly can't dance—"
"Oh, you can dance, alright," he says, interrupting me. "I saw you doing those turns during your cleaning, and from personal experience, they aren't easy. Some of our dancers are struggling with them. So why not audition? You don't have anything to lose."
The room goes quiet the second he stops talking, and I realize we're probably the only two on this floor. Outside, a story below, the people of New York continue walking, oblivious to the Academy's happenings. With nobody around, part of me's tempted to scold him for being such an idiot.
I choose a less violent approach. "It's not—" I stop, failing to come up with the right words. "You're right," I say. "Nothing to lose, but nothing to gain either. You can't possibly think I can afford to dance for this company, with the tuition fees and clothes I'd have to buy. I need a job, Cal. A job to support my family, not the opposite. So I'm leaving."
I go forward, but with a step, Cal blocks my path, his lips parted and eyes unfocused, something about what I said confusing him. "You think you have to pay to dance at this level?" he asks quietly. "I don't know what you think these auditions are for, but this is it. Professional ballet, professional tap, professional everything. Not some summer intensive for teens. It's hard work, and you're young to be making a career out of this, but if you make it . . . you get paid. Not the opposite. And a heck of a lot more than a maid makes."
Oh. For a moment, a new scene flashes before my eyes, but I quickly push it away. Because I couldn't. I could never.
Even if money isn't an issue as it always has been.
"I'm not good enough to become a professional dancer," I tell him. It comes out blunt, but I don't care. "I haven't danced in six months. No way am I good enough anymore."
Cal lets out a breathy laugh. "You say that, yet I suspect you practice if you can do those turns. You watch the other girls on stage, and you note their flaws, too, don't you? You're better than most of them."
How could he know that? A couple of fouettés and he thinks he knows everything about me.
No. A walk with me back to my apartment, and he does know everything. He knew I was good even then, just because of the way I talked about dance and myself.
My silence is adequate answer for Cal. Yes, I did pick apart the auditioning dancers' flaws, and yes, I'm as strong, flexible, and graceful as ever, thanks to the training I do in my room.
"You can make up as many excuses as you wish," Cal says. "But I call it a waste if you don't try."
"My mom, my dad, my siblings . . ." I start, and Cal's brows knit, already planning how he'll counter. My resolve's splintering, along with my words, becoming vague and thoughtless.
"They need me, and I can't . . . live this fantasy life out of nowhere." I swallow, crossing my hands behind my back as I stare him down, no more than ten feet away from me. "This might be my dream, but it doesn't matter. They deserve more from me, and I can't have them panicking about me being away until midnight every night. I can't provide for them with a job that I might lose any given day."
Cal backs away, his shoes relatively quiet. "They'll ask questions if I don't return soon. But I expect to see you," he pauses, checking his watch, not modern or electronic, but a basic watch, "in forty minutes. You made it to this room, which leads me to believe that some part of you wants this. It'd be a waste if you didn't try," Cal repeats, shoes clicking as he leaves the room.
Our discussion is brief, but it hits me like a rock to the gut.
Nothing to lose and everything to gain, so it appears.
I slip on my tights and leotard without giving my doubts a second thought, tie the laces of my pointe shoes—the faintest rose color and nearly alabaster—around my ankles.
He's right, clearly, I tell my reflection in the mirror, twiddling my hair into a bun at the base of my scalp. The lack of money has proven to be a fictional trouble, and my family . . . I'll figure out how to explain it to them. And if it's a betrayal, it'll work itself out. Because if I don't do this . . .
I've never feared the spotlight. The auditorium will be the biggest I've ever danced on, but I have faith in myself to handle the audience, however judgmental; presumably, it's filled since the crowd in the lobby heard about the falling maid and Cal's madness.
But it could hardly go wrong, after my previous appearance on stage.
Settling myself into a willed, bone-deep calm, I shove my trepidations away, promising myself that if it somehow goes right, I'll sort it all out with myself later.
It won't, but I lean into a stretch for my hamstrings, beginning the process I've gone through each day for a very long time. The stretching alone takes ten minutes, between toe touches, lunges, and splits. In the latter, I press my stomach and face to my leg, pointing my feet and ignoring the slight ache at my tailbone. Aside from that, the motions are a welcome friend, and I jump up to swing out my arms.
Next, I go across the room en pointe, warming up my ankles with the raising and lowering. Then I go through the basic footwork of my old dance, verifying I'm comfortable with it.
I follow myself in the long mirror with diligence, watching for the tiny flaws Cal and the others will notice and add up. I repeat the steps if my shoulders are a fraction too high, relaxing them back. Good.
The song I would've danced to was a mournful tune, chords of sadness weaved throughout. I was to play the part of a tearful maiden, crying over a lost lover, or something like that. The recitals were always a complicated, beautiful mess, ballet and tap and jazz and more mixed together in back-to-back performances. My teachers always said that one of these years they'd make a plot out of the recital. I never believed them.
I loved it.
No time to reminisce. A track of music sets about in my head, as it surely did in Evangeline's, and I begin to walk through—or rather dance—the piece my instructors choreographed for me, modeled upon my greatest strengths. Flexibility and turns, the exquisite, glorious things in dance. But they weren't fools who only loved grand gestures; the instructors added footwork, so it wasn't all leaps and spinning.
This is a sad song, I remind the person dancing in the mirror. So stop smiling.
"Ready?" a voice calls from across the room, startling me. My eyelids are closed and I'm in the middle of turning when the guard says it.
Fumbling, I put a flat foot to the ground to stop myself. Lucas stands at the door, wide-open. Too caught up in rehearsing my dance, I didn't see or hear him come in.
I lift my chin, rolling out my shoulders. "Okay."
"Nervous?" he asks, holding the door for me.
"Not really," I respond with, heading for the nearby stairs. I fell out of my turns once, during the half-hour I had to practice. Then again, I did fine the next five times I repeated them, but . . . not perfect enough. If I'm going out on stage, ideally, I'd like to make every member of the audience piss themselves in the process. I'd like to make them feel naive for second-guessing my skill. Which I allegedly have, according to Cal.
The other moves I practiced were rusty put together in the dance at first, but nothing thirty minutes couldn't fix. Ready as I'll ever be.
"Not a bit?"
I glare at Lucas, and the conniving mischief in him melts into something more genuine. He walks beside me, shepherds me downstairs, though the path back isn't difficult to navigate. I don't respond right away.
Everything else went well, as I practiced. Dancing on the roof is one thing, but to return to a studio is a dream come true. My motions were effortless, and I closed my eyes after a while. Doing my routine on stage, in front of eight-hundred . . . if I pull it off . . .
"Crowds don't scare me," I say. "They never have, and they never will. A fall from the rafters can't change that."
My escort frowns but nods, taking me to the left-wing. There's a girl out there who ended her audition a moment ago, bowing to the audience, to the Calores. I scoff.
"Right on time," Lucas recognizes. "Your turn."