With her foundation-smooth skin, thick mascara, golden eyeshadow, and wine lipstick, the girl who returns my stare doesn't look much like me. Her newly-cut hair, washed and sprayed by something that shimmers, is braided into a complicated crown that weaves around her head. Loose from the braid, brown strands that match her eyes hang over her ears, and those eyes, for some reason, look vivid for once. She looks elegant and regal and certainly nothing like the seventeen-year-old she is.
I'm used to the pageantry of dance competitions, the perfect makeup and hairstyles and costumes we're all supposed to have. But I haven't put on a drop of makeup in two months, and even then, what I wore to the Academy's ceremony was light.
This is not light. Not for me, anyway.
I sit in a black salon chair, faced with a mirror as tall as me, one in a line of ten. It's framed with more black, matching the dark tiles at my feet—my bare feet, where cotton balls have been sandwiched between my toes. To match the dress that I'll soon put on, navy blue polish dries on my toenails, along with my fingernails.
The inside of the Midtown beauty salon that Iris made me an appointment for is nearly all-black, with its tiles and pillars and chairs and light fixtures. The walls are constructed of carob brick, and the lights are bright to illuminate every detail of my face. The stench of hair spray permeates the air, coming from my head and the heads of other women in the salon.
I'm bracing myself to find out how much a haircut, a hair styling, a manicure and pedicure, and getting my makeup done all adds up to. They've had me walking around this place for two hours, from one room to the next, where they fix me a little bit more each time.
It's left me to my thoughts.
The week went by quickly, ballet a blur, as always. But I've nearly perfected my memory of the choreography for Giselle, and the next several weeks leading up to performances will be all about perfecting the choreography itself. Then there's Cal and his lessons, another of which I had on Wednesday, where we finished with lifts. He told me that I wasn't getting off the hook today, a Saturday, and that we're having a lesson tomorrow night. An actual, real contemporary lesson.
I came up with a decent question for him on Wednesday, asking Cal what he wanted that money couldn't buy him. He spent a while thinking about it before proceeding to share an elaborate, scheming plan that involved him becoming the choreographer for the Super Bowl Halftime Show. I'll never so much as attempt to explain it to anybody.
He asked me what my taste in music was. I still remember the bored shrug that I gave him, and the head tilt that he gave me. I told him that despite my profession, I don't have a particular taste in music and that I don't really listen to music in my free time. Safe to say Cal was disappointed in me, considering he made me give him my phone number—which isn't a week old, by the way—so that he could send me a six-hour playlist tilted Cal's Epic Playlist. I haven't so much as looked at it since.
Since. The week's gone by too quickly, every minute a minute lost to time, a moment closer to tonight. The gala's still an hour away, and ten o'clock is hours off, but . . . the million-dollar question is if ten o'clock will be an attack or a warning. I replay Shade and Farley's words again and again and find no new clues. As a Street Fighter, I'm supposed to accept that, being given what I'm given and asking for no more.
I don't.
Luckily, my stylist comes along to save me from my thoughts. She taps my fingernails, though they're long dry and it's just a formality. "You look beautiful," she says, just a formality, though I feel it too.
With my bloodred lips and twisted hair, I feel beautiful, like someone drawn out of a portrait—artists are commissioned to make their subjects beautiful, after all. I feel powerful, more powerful than I feel when I'm dancing en pointe. With my painted-on foundation, rendering my face a clean canvas, I feel indestructible. Or at least I look the part. I feel like a prima ballerina, and I feel like a woman who makes six figures.
Swallowing, I smile at her through the mirror in the beauty salon. "I know."
My ballgown fits me like a glass slipper, sliding over my curves and rippling down to the ground. I didn't notice it before, but a slit in the inky blue fabric runs up to my knee to show one tanned, thankfully-shaven leg. My back's half-exposed too, with the dress straps running along my shoulder blades before joining the bodice. The color of it reminds me of the darkest that the sky ever grows in New York City before dawn comes all over again.
Along with my black stiletto heels that no ballet dancer should wear, I carry a nice-enough coat that I bought a few weeks ago and a cloth bag that contains my former clothes, shoes, and phone.
Having changed from the dressing room at the back of the salon and paying a sum of money that I choose not to think about, I emerge outside. High above the skyscrapers of Midtown, Manhattan's gone overcast. Rain shouldn't fall today, but cool fall air prickles at my arms. It makes me shiver.
Clad in a slim black tuxedo, Maven waits for me on the sidewalk. His hair's combed back and slicked with an outrageous amount of gel, and he's topped off with a bowtie, looking exactly as he did the night we went up onto the Academy's stage to be announced as partners.
Seeing him makes me forget about everything for a moment. I make my way for Maven, navigating between a few people as I cross the sidewalk. With my gala-ware, I look ridiculous among them.
"What do you think?" I ask him when I get within speaking distance. He told me that he'd pick me up from here a half an hour before the gala started, and a black town car, shiny as Maven's hair, waits on the street behind him. Thank God I convinced him to forgo the limo.
"I . . ." Maven's eyes flash from my feet to my face more than once. "I . . ."
His syllables are stretched out, but it seems that Maven can manage no more. Apparently, I've taken his breath away. Wide-eyed and wide-mouthed, the skin at his neck flushes the lightest pink.
"You look amazing," he says after a moment. Maven's gaze softens, cools. "But you always look amazing."
That's not true, but I'll take it.
"You're going to give the rest of high society a run for their money tonight, you know," he adds.
What he says sets my stomach churning all over again.
After tonight, more people will know my name. I'll no longer be a whispered mystery that Tiberias Calore has tried his damndest to keep out of the press. The youngest Principal dancer—save for my partner, Maven Calore, a month younger than me and Tiberias Calore's second son—of the Manhattan Dance Academy will have a face. A face painted in cream and gold and ink and wine.
Still, I find it in me to laugh a bit. "Thanks, Maven. You look great too."
Maven has enough sense left to open the rear door to the town car and make a sweeping motion inside.
Lifting my skirts, I step past Maven and climb into the car before he or I might say anything strange or awkward.
The town car's interior is dark like the salon's, cushioned black leather seats, black carpeting, black doors, and a black roof lining the inside. The windows are tinted grey, and while it makes it so that nobody can see who's in the car, it also washes out the city. Not that it was an especially bright day in the first place.
I'm not tall, but I have to crouch down as I shuffle over to the farther seat, my hands careful to keep my dress from catching on anything. A moment later, I'm sinking into leather and dropping my coat and bag to the car floor. Following behind me, Maven pulls the door shut.
I notice that I can't see the driver, or the street ahead, for that matter. A stormy grey screen divides the rear seats from the front, and it looks awfully soundproof.
A beat later, the car starts up, and the small lurch forward has my back hitting the seat, bare skin meeting leather. I figure that with the evening traffic, it'll take half an hour to get downtown, and we'll probably get to the gala a couple of minutes after seven. We'll be fashionably late, if you will, and unlike last Saturday, Farley won't be there to get pissed at me for it.
Though she'll more than likely make an appearance later in the night.
Sensing my thoughts, Maven reaches a hand over. My fingers deftly intertwine with his between our two seats, and it's enough to tether me to this town car and away from my floating thoughts.
"It's going to be okay," he says, as though he's the one who got me into all of this. In the corner of my vision, monochromatic buildings inch by at a snail's pace through the window. His hand, tight against mine, reminds me of the air outside. Crisp and cold, but not in an unpleasant way. His touch is far more comforting than the air of Midtown.
"I know," I say, as I said to the stylist about the way that I look. "It'll be okay," I return, echoing, though I don't believe it.
I should thank him. Thank him for taking me shopping that one time, for going out with me every weekend, for doing this, for being here with me, though I already have so many times.
He understands me, and I understand him. I have since that first day we spent together, and because of that, I can call Maven my best friend.
Even when he's become something more.
While ballet mistress Blonos wears an eternal cringe, I'm fairly sure she was actually cringing when Maven and I came apart from our first kiss. I liked it, but apparently she didn't, considering she literally told us that we needed to practice that in private.
So we have. We practiced on Monday evening in an empty studio that we made sure to lock, and we practiced again yesterday when we went out, in the shadow of a restaurant. It's nothing hot or heavy, our kisses light, almost playful. I don't think that either of us are ready for anything more. His hands never stray from my waist, and mine never from his shoulders.
Now, his hands feel like something second-nature, the pad of Maven's thumb rubbing circles against my knuckle.
Maven leans halfway over the armrests splitting my seat from his. Again, he's probably sensing my thoughts. A smile plays at my lips as I do the same, only to remember the pounds of makeup on my face.
Despite the size of New York City, Maven and I have discovered that it's rather difficult to find places to kiss that don't run the risk of being caught. Monday night at the Academy was a gamble that I don't intend on chancing again, and even the streets of Manhattan felt dangerous last night. The town car, however . . . is the perfect opportunity for us.
But that's not going to work out for me.
"You're not ruining my makeup," I tell Maven, trying to sound like I'm scolding him.
"But I've always wondered what lipstick tastes like." His face stays mock-innocent for but a moment before his lips melt into a devious smirk.
I highly doubt that Maven's ever wondered that. Still, against logic and reason, I lean a little closer.
"You better have a napkin or something," I mutter. The last thing we need is me and Maven showing up to Calore Industries with matching lips.
"I do," he murmurs in return, even though I see nothing that resembles a napkin in the car.
Just as he's about to close the final inches between us, just as my stomach's beginning to bubble with thrill, Maven's phone rings from his pocket.
Three inches from mine, his eyes almost gutter.
From being half-draped over the armrests, my body returns fully to my seat.
Maven huffs, but he pulls out his phone.
"What's up?" he asks the person on the other line.
A muffled, indistinct voice talks to Maven through the phone, and I find myself gazing out of the window. People walk alongside the big buildings with that fast pace that so many New Yorkers tend to have. Those big buildings, seeming to line every inch of this city, make them look so small.
No smaller than me, though.
I used to be an outsider to these sorts of things. I'd be on the streets, looking at the taxis and town cars, looking at buildings like the Manhattan Dance Academy and the behemoths of Wall Street. I despised all of it, and while a part of me still does, it's easier to be a part of it than I thought it would be.
I tell myself that I hate the glitter, the magnificence of those big buildings.
But being inside of this luxury town car is so much easier and so much nicer. Wearing this dress and face is so much easier and so much nicer. Having money and not worrying about it is so much easier and so much nicer.
So much nicer than hating things only because you don't have them.
"How did you manage to lose your shoes, Cal?" Maven asks, and a moment later, begins laughing at his brother through the phone. "Didn't you just buy them last week?"
And I'm tethered again.
Cal says something through the phone, and Maven chuckles.
"Yes, I suppose you can borrow an extra pair of mine," my partner says, shaking his head. Then his expression turns inquisitive, and Maven's eyebrows knit together. "But if you're at the penthouse, that means you're forty minutes from the gala. You're going to be late, brother. Really late."
I make a face at the one-half of a conversation I'm hearing.
"Did you bother to look under your bed? And lane splitting is illegal, you know," Maven says. He continues to shake his head in disbelief.
Even as I look back to the window, my body starts to shake a little with laughter. It sounds like Cal's planning on taking his motorcycle downtown and cutting between lanes of traffic to get there faster. All the while, dressed in a tuxedo.
"Mare's laughing at you, you know," Maven adds.
Glaring, I turn on him.
Though I still can't hear him, Cal speaks again. Maven smiles a little, his laughs fading away.
"Yeah, she's in the car with me."
Another muttered exchange on Cal's end has his younger brother raising a brow.
"Cal's wondering if you'll save him a dance," Maven says to me.
I almost roll my eyes, imagining the wide grin Cal has on in his family's penthouse, phone at his ear and awaiting my response.
I'm not sure if I want that kind of publicity, waltzing around with Cal, heir of Calore Industries, inside of Calore Industries. Will Whistle once called him the most eligible bachelor in New York, and I have no doubt that I'll see all kinds of girls and women throwing themselves at him tonight.
But who am I to say no to my contemporary teacher? And even if I tell him as much, he'll probably end up dragging me out to dance with him if he's determined enough.
I sigh. "I suppose I'll save him a dance," I tell Maven, legitimately rolling my eyes this time.
Like today, Wall Street comes too fast.
Not that it means anything when our car travels down a compact, one-lane street, enveloped in the shadows of downtown Manhattan, but I believe that the sun's setting, skimming the horizon right about now.
Wall Street, Times Square's dark reflection, makes it as though there never was a sun at all. Stone buildings with tall pillars that stretch upwards countless stories stand like sentries along both sides of the street, blotting out the last of today's light with their cold grandeur. The world's cast in grey because of them. Even the golden light that comes from their glass panes seems subdued in the face of that cold, though I tell myself that it's only the tint of the town car windows.
I find myself missing those ninety-five degree, sultry summer days.
Maven pulls his hand away from mine, and while I don't notice the movement itself, I notice his hand's absence.
"I know you're not going to be happy about this," he murmurs, breaking the silence that's hung over us for the last fifteen minutes, "but my father got you something. He wanted me to give it to you, his newest Principal dancer, tonight."
I'm not sure that what he says is a welcome distraction from the grey world outside when what he says shoots chills of dread down my uncovered back.
His newest Principal dancer. As though Tiberias Calore owns me. Perhaps he does.
It bothers me that he's ever thought of me, even bothered to buy me something.
Maven reaches for something tucked away in a bag at his feet, emerging with a square gift box. He doesn't hesitate in opening its top, and something glistens. It's impossible to ignore when all I see is grey everywhere else.
Diamonds. Dozens of them, cut into pieces half the size of my pinkie nail and set into silver that somehow catches light in spite of the lack of it.
"Turn around," Maven says gently, removing the necklace from its black cushion.
I can do nothing but turn around at the sight of the beautiful, bewitching necklace that must amount to a month's worth of my Academy pay.
Maven reaches around my shoulders to place the necklace at my throat, where it settles at the top of my sternum. The precious metal and stones are cold against my skin, and while the rest of my facade makes me feel powerful, the chain does not.
There are a million reasons for that.
I would shove it away if it were a gift from anybody else. But I have a feeling that one doesn't reject gifts from Tiberias Calore, however expensive and pretty they are, however much they indebt one to him. In fact, he most likely wants me to wear it tonight, in efforts to portray me as his prima ballerina, his seventeen-year-old Principal dancer that wears diamonds at her throat, talented beyond her years. And whatever else he wants me to be.
Strong, imperial. Beautiful, perfect. I can think of a hundred words to describe what I come across as, as what I feel.
"Tell your father that I say thank you," I murmur, returning my eyes to the window. Because I don't intend to speak with Tiberias Calore unless I'm forced to.
At my left, the narrow street opens up on one side. The sidewalk widens. Suddenly, everything's bright again.
Shallow white marble steps, the length of a dozen town cars, rise up from the sidewalk. Gilded railings slope upward with them, leading to a massive plaza, where marble continues from the stairs to wind throughout black, polished bricks. When I look at the pattern too long, white snakes slithering through an obsidian garden, it seems almost like an abstract painting, and I certainly don't understand it.
The plaza stretches around to the adjacent block, and an identical set of grand stairs reaches down to the next street ahead, where lamps glow. Torches encased in glass arch alongside the white snakes amid everything, and pale blue fountains and urban-sized green trees fill the margins of the plaza, seemingly on white fire.
Flashes as bright as pearls come from every angle at the top of those marble stairs, between the torches and near the fountains, but most are concentrated along a straight, terrifying line. The shade of my wine-colored lipstick, a red carpet begins at the edge of the black bricks and disappears into crowds of people. It's a silent scene because of the thick pane of glass that separates me from it.
Dancers. Ex-dancers. High society aficionados of dancers. Members of high society who don't care about dance at all but would never miss a gala of Tiberias Calore. Celebrities, perhaps. Politicians, maybe. Hoards of paparazzi and reporters and photographers and whoever else is so intent on capturing this night. They all wear beautiful colors and jewelry, that even from the safety of this town car, catches my eye.
Yet all of that is so small compared to the building that the plaza frames. Of all the streets and avenues I've walked in this city, I've somehow never walked past here or seen Tiberias Calore's downtown building.
All of the camera flashes, street lamps, and torches in the world are only a guttering candle compared to the inferno that is Calore Industries. It's unlike the stony, gloomy buildings of southern Manhattan, looking more similar to the Academy in the way that it's made of glass—a hundred stories of glass that reaches far out of my vision, glowing golden from the inside and supported by nothing more than a few pillars of cement running up its sides. If the other buildings of Wall Street stand like sentries, then this building is their king.
And nothing but a beacon of wealth and power and glory.
In the largest lettering I've ever seen, Calore Industries is scrawled across the onyx strip of stone that rests above the two-story doors. It's written in a golden Roman font and can be seen from so far away, the entirety of the plaza dividing me from it.
The gold even glitters from here. Or maybe glares is the better word.
It takes me a long while before I realize that our chauffeur has stopped the car, one in a very long procession. It takes me a long while to notice that some of the paparazzi don't wait along the carpet above, but flood the sidewalks, shoving cameras at the men and women making their way for Calore Industries. Security guards in black suits attempt to shove them back.
Tiberias Calore's diamond necklace itches at my throat. My throat itself begins to close up.
The chauffeur opens the door a moment later, the door on my side of the town car. It feels as though I'm going on stage as my face softens, as a soft, endearing smile blooms at my lips.
Maven's hand gently touches my back, reminding me to go forward, but I'm already moving, taking the chauffeur's hand as I step into the light.