I step out onto the stage, wearing a fraudulent smile.
With the blinding lights above, faces in the audience are obscured shadows, but there's no debating whether eight-hundred individuals are gawking at me or not. Seated in comfortable red-velvet seats, they watch my every breath, hissing thoughts at one another.
Deciding to pretend none of them are there, Cal included, I bring up my chin to the doors at the top of the theatre, past the steep incline of the seats, to the afternoon sun slinking through the entrances.
Soon after I focus my attention on the natural light, though, the doors glide shut, almost of their own accord. To spite me. The rest of the theatre near-black with red exit signs, the stage is what lights up the room, what all eyes are drawn towards.
Were the doors shut for the other dancers? I don't recall.
Still, I watch the panel of wall as the audience watches me. They're aware I'm special, and I'd bet most of them are bewildered that I made it this far, wearing my pretty little ballerina get-up. I might be a maid, but the smart ones are analyzing my figure—the lean muscles on my body, my thin arms and bony chest—and predict there's more going on.
The wall serves me kindly, grounding me to the earth. Over the years I've learned where to look when I couldn't bear looking at my judges. Places that made my judges believe I had all the confidence in the world, even when I didn't. I've always found the back wall a comfort in that way.
"State your name," Cal's father says. I'm glad Cal didn't decide to step in yet again and take his father's line. With the man's solemn voice, the whispering grinds to a halt. I'm half-tempted to roll my eyes at the line.
Though I've seen it before, fell on it, in fact, the platform is larger now. It might be the difference in lighting—because yes, I'm sure the doors were open before. The sturdy floorboards are like an island, a bright speck of light in perhaps an infinite crowd of people.
With the doors closed, I can hardly make out much of anything besides for those dull exit signs. For all I know, the rows of seats might go on for miles.
I snicker at my imagination.
"Mare Barrow," I say into the black. The lights above me are hot, and they must illuminate about every pore, every imperfection on my body. I keep staring at the one point where the doors were.
The father of Cal emits a sound of contemplation, setting my nerves on edge. Though my heart beats normally. It can be as though I'm dancing for nobody but myself, in front of a nonexistent group of people, if I don't pay them attention. It's a great dance, with great choreography—
"My son says you can dance, Mare Barrow," he repeats my name, and I don't like the sound of it on his tongue. "You did fall from the rafters to audition. So you prove to me you are a decent ballet dancer, and then we'll talk."
I'm honestly shocked nobody laughs at the man. Out of respect or fear, I suppose.
"Very well," I say under my breath, but the theatre might carry sound well enough for him to hear me.
Venturing further, past the centerline, I turn away and face the corner. It's unsettling to not be able to see them, though I can't imagine what they could do to me from their seats.
In an instant, my face melts from a small smile to an open-mouthed frown, a gasp. I make my eyes wreak of sorrow, mourning, just as the melody suggests. A sad, lonely girl. A loss of a lover or father . . . it's hardly relevant. Loss is loss, and it hurts all the same.
The loss of a father who could run and walk down the streets of Manhattan with me; a brother who's gone, dust in the wind; or a passion, cemented bone-deep with no hope of ever getting rid of it.
A moment longer, and the audience, the damned members of it, will begin to grow restless and antsy. So I find my positioning, with a graceful, defeated slouch, if it's possible, and begin breathing heavily. As if I'm crying. The leading instructor of my studio always emphasized acting. To dance is half of it, to act, to bleed, is the other, equally vital part. The girls before me, they used little to no facial expression. Evangeline was good enough, but her's was only blithe and haughty and lacked raw emotion.
I take a deep breath.
The track of slow music begins in my head, steady and strong.
So do I.
On the lonely stage, I begin my old dance.
I force myself to forget everyone. It's easier when I have no fear of messing up or failing altogether. The first motions, though I wish I had more time to review them, come to me naturally, and I get lost in them. I get lost in the freedom I find in them.
The maiden I play shows her face after she stretches her arms, slouches farther over, and sheds her tears. She rushes forward, leaping high.
Nothing but an empty, abandoned theatre.
The silent music doesn't falter, and neither do I, caught up in a beautiful rhythm as the beat grows faster and louder.
Without having to check, my feet are pointed perfectly and my posture is tall. I use the space to the fullest, as though it's the world and I'm the last one alive. Which means I must be as big as it, consume it, and own it. My kicks rise above my head and my leaps are controlled. I run with purpose, conviction, when the maiden decides to run.
The turns . . . oh, the turns.
The maiden turns with strong legs and shows her sorrow to the world with an uncaring pride.
All those months ago, I knew my dance better than the palm of my hand. As it comes back to me, the eight-counts ebb away, and music overtakes my imagination. To guide my pace, the pretend music track plays steadily along in my mind, never wavering, never faltering.
I drift further and further from the audience, from reality. There's something addictive in the dance and the music, something I want to cling to forever. Like on the roof, not only getting lost in the dance . . . but losing myself altogether.
Losing those jaded parts, the heartbreak that comes with the loss of a walking father, a brother, and a passion. Because here, in these pointe shoes, I'm not the same person as I am at home. Mare Barrow, the high school dropout, the ex-dancer, the poor girl. Though I told my name, it means nothing. I am nothing but a dancer here.
The tear slipping down my cheek is not the maiden's.
I trust myself enough to squeeze my eyes shut, stopping the tears, and feel the floor beneath my feet, though I haven't been dancing on it for long. I trust my pounded-in habits: Head tilted up, a long neck, a back not arched. And more. The other girls were so nervous, so terrified. I do my best to be everything they're not.
Opening my eyes to turn, I'm facing the audience again, having completed the shortest sequence of the dance. The music ceases, and I stare out, shifting from the far left to the far right. I bring my arms up, then down to the sides, to present myself and the show I would've begun.
I survey the shadows longer than I should, drawing me to the present. Though they don't scare me, the adrenaline in my veins overpowering logic. I see each figure, waiting for whatever I have in store next.
Motionless and quiet. Good. It means I'm not a joke. Maybe.
And suddenly, I find myself. Pulled from a lulling abyss.
Downstage, I complete three pirouettes, intent on screaming my heartache. To explain to them, what I am and what I've been through, and why they'll never laugh or roll their eyes at me again.
I watch them and they watch me as I retreat, my heart pounding at the interaction. I don't let them see it, though. They see power and strength and grief.
I carry on.
Like Evangeline, ferocious in everything she did, I dance through a series of what appears to be basic, simple moves, but anybody who's danced knows my footwork took years to perfect. I exaggerate the steps for notability, feet smacking the stage. This is no delicate dance.
The music nears its peak, the strings of a violin booming with my arabesques. I push myself in each motion, convincing my legs to go high, higher than I practiced. Gorgeous, long arms. Pointed feet.
I thought it had been all for nothing, the night I slammed the door to my room, screaming and crying into my pillow for hours. I had hit rock bottom, and there was this unbearable pain in my heart, so unbearable there had to have been something wrong with it. And then those years I spent training in the studio with my beloved mentors felt insignificant, when I had poured my heart and soul into learning for it all to amount to nothing.
I didn't care about anything else. Not when everything had been ruined.
The dance would be longer if I was performing it for the recital. But I have a feeling I've already gone over my time, as mangled as my sense of it is.
I greet the stage's center, preparing to end it with the same turns Cal caught me doing. In a mockery of Evangeline's performance, I sweep my arms around, though the crowd does not yell at me to finish it as they did for her.
I bring my right foot behind me, and without another frivolous arm gesture, begin my fouettés.
Fouettés. Considered one of the most difficult movements in ballet, something the other teenagers at my studio never dared to try. Yet after seeing them online, I was obsessed.
All that pathetic practice in my bedroom is enough for me to still do them. I turn and turn, whipping around, my leg a stock-still force as the other comes in and out. Sixteen . . . sixteen of them, and then I'm done.
Odd, but I don't want it to be over. Even if I'm nowhere up to par with the standards of the Calore Dance Academy and have thoroughly embarrassed myself. In that case, I'll have to start dancing up on my roof again.
The lights heat my body, and my legs and chest burn.
Sixteen turns, and then I fall.
My side hits the stage gently, and legs bent, they curl towards my stomach. Hands pressing on the ground, my face ends up an inch from the wood, looking straight down at it.
An intentional fall, not like from the rafters.
At the end of my dance, I'm supposed to fall, in a fluid and poised sort of way. And I do, collapsing on myself mid-turn. My vision limited to what's underneath me, I focus on what I feel: the solid wood beneath my body and leotard, warmed by the glaring lights, the palpable shock in the audience, and the joyous tingle in my feet. The tingle that will later become an ache.
For longer than I should, I just lie there, breathing heavily and refusing to give my surroundings a gander. The fall was intentional, and I practiced it to look the part—
Applause.
It starts with one clap, a single smacking together of hands. From somewhere to the right, not from Cal. And after one clap, everything changes. It isn't whoops or cries or laughter, the tentative clapping, but a smile blooms at my lips, however hard I try to keep it at bay.
I push myself up, rising to my full height. The time it takes between lying down, a pathetic, heartbroken girl, and standing up is unbearable.
Still the same shadows, every last one of them a mystery to be solved.
I nod, so different and irreverent from the deep bows and curtsies my competitors gave their assessors before I walk off.
As much as I want to, I don't keep walking past the wings. Instead, I stop right next to Lucas, sit down, and begin unlacing my pointe ribbons.
"Well. Shit," he says.
I huff a laugh. It's all I can manage.
Lucas props himself against one of the cement pillars at the stage's edge. He crosses his arms. "So how did such a talented ballerina end up working as a maid here?"
Another laugh. "An incredibly long story," I explain, not intending to elaborate if he prods. Nobody needs to know about Cal's hand in this; it would lead to questions and trouble. "What should I do now?" I ask, hoping to curve him off the topic.
"I have no idea," he says with a shrug. "Typically, a dancer auditions, and next weekend we have our acceptance ceremony. I have a feeling you're a special case, though."
I nod distantly.
"How are you so calm about this?"
"I-"
Lucas's phone begins ringing, and it isn't until then do I realize I'm shaking again, shaking so hard I can barely manage a grip on the ribbons. Looking over my shoulder, there isn't another dancer waiting to come on from either side. I still can hear faint clapping, gradually dulling into those whispers.
That just happened.
I danced, when I haven't danced in months, with about half an hour to prepare beforehand. The crowd applauded for me, and I offered but a nod of my chin in return. They applauded for me. I hold back tears—and possibly vomit—sure to come later, subdued for now by Lucas and whoever he's on the phone with.
I try to review my dance, though it's no more than a blurred dream. During it, I let go of any worries, any awareness, passing on my performance, my fate, to my subconsciousness. The one part I can recall with any clarity is when I came to the front, and peered out, finding nothing but shadows.
Ah, the shadows.
Maybe it was nothing spectacular, and the audience only clapped because they were impressed that the maid stood on pointe without breaking her ankles.
But . . . those fouettés . . . unless I've totally lost it, they were good, better than any practiced in my measly thirty minutes of rehearsal. And the way I fell . . . it had to have looked planned. It was planned.
Lucas says "yes," into his cellphone, over and over, taking in seemingly complex instructions. I don't do anything, sitting helplessly on the floor with fingers too numb for removing my shoes.
The overhead lights dim as Lucas says a "Yes, sir," to the receiver on the other end, and I can vaguely tell the theatre doors are open. But auditions aren't done, and I doubt they're resuming their break. With the number of people out in the lobby, tryouts must be going late into the night. Unless—
It's something else, by the waiting look Lucas has, slipping his phone into his pocket. I give up in my efforts to take off my shoes, the shaking worsening.
"What?"
The security guard offers me two blinks. "The owner of the Academy would like to meet you. And offer you a different job."