"What?" Iris asks, Converse padding along the sidewalk. "I like taking the subway."
The subway has a few trains that head from the Academy to downtown, and Iris, apparently fascinated with the dingy culture of the subway system, asked if I'd like to take the subway with her. Holding onto a handle, she spent most of the ride gazing around the car with that astute curiosity of hers, always taking in details and analyzing them.
In this case, the details happened to be the knockoff coats and tired faces of Manhattan's working-class who stared at their phones. With my newfound knowledge of who Iris Cygnet is, it makes a little sense. Maybe, in her Converse and blue jeans, Iris likes to experience life apart from the Upper East Side and see how most live.
Though I haven't seen my brother since Sunday evening, I have the feeling that he and the Scarlet Street Fighters intend to exploit my friendship with Iris in some shape or form.
"I can tell," I return, crossing my arms as we leave the shadow of Freedom Tower and wind around Brookfield Place, the massive, modern shopping center that graces the bank of the Hudson. It's only been a week since the gala, but the Calores are already dragging me back downtown. I inwardly sigh as Iris and I pass between two rows of dying trees, a few leaves crunching beneath my boots.
Southern Manhattan looms as it always has, and in spite of the crisp and clear blue sky, the buildings suffocate. The One World Trade Center, otherwise known as the Freedom Tower and the tallest building in Manhattan, at least, gleams in all of its crystalline glory. Its sharp, geometric blue edges threaten to tear apart the sky, and its antenna certainly pierces it.
The sidewalks are still quiet, and the people still talk about what happened.
We're not ten blocks away from Calore Industries.
As usual, I push those thoughts aside, looking ahead. Across the Hudson, the modern buildings of Jersey City await, but compared to Manhattan, they're nothing, few and far in between. The river itself gleams with reflections of the city, looking like a pristine mirror in the face of the polluted East River. The irony of it bordering East Harlem isn't lost on me.
Iris and I walk down tan-colored steps to an open plaza of grey cobblestone. Past a wrought-iron fence, one of the Hudson's marinas awaits. White sailboats and cabin cruisers gently rock against their anchors and ropes, white and glimmering and perfect against the water. Further out, I watch as the occasional speed boat flies across the water followed by a jetski. The rich of New York, finding it to be a warm-enough Saturday for late September, are having their last bout of fun before the temperatures really start dipping.
Even though I was expecting it, I still swallow as I behold the grand jewel of the marina, a jewel far too precious to stay in Manhattan year-round.
"They brought it in from the Hamptons," Iris comments, reading my thoughts. "It'll go right back as soon as the Academy's done with it tonight."
I can only nod, staring at the four-story, sleek, disgusting, and perfect marvel at the far end of the boats. While the body of the yacht is black, its upper stories are a silken eggshell color, adorned with tinted windows and long decks. The bow of the yacht is as sharp as the edges of Freedom Tower. Lavish and expansive foredecks stand on the backside of the boat, and I imagine that all sorts of luxuries await me on each story, between hot tubs, bars, and sumptuous sitting areas. The boat, in a way, reminds me of the Academy and its regal, classical beauty. At night when it's lit up, the yacht will look like it's on fire.
It's nearly too big to fit inside of the marina's gates at all, casting shadows over the rest of the yachts down the line. The Calore, as the golden cursive scrawled upon its onyx body reads, sways a little less than the other boats do, as though it's held in place by some superior force.
I'm being dragged onto the Calores' yacht for publicity purposes. Just like he did with the gala, Lucas decided that it would be a good idea to wait until the last minute to tell me about the Academy's trip out to New York Harbor. It might not interrupt my schedule, considering we usually have classes on Saturday, but I'm pissed nonetheless.
The Academy's bringing on Manhattan's finest photographers, journalists, and cinematographers for an afternoon and evening of publicity stunts.
Carmadon choreographed a pas de deux that the Principal and Soloist partners have been working on throughout the week after rehearsals, and with the help of some famous directors and drones, the Academy plans to turn the dance into a short film. From what I hear, a massive number of gorgeous dresses wait on board for the ballerinas to dance in for photos. Hopefully, the journalists won't include that pesky lady with the red hair and glasses from The New York Times who's hellbent on interviewing me.
Iris and I make it to the end of the marina, where a number of the Academy's ballerinas and dancers loiter, talking among themselves. We should be boarding The Calore any moment now, and then I'll have Blonos and Elara to face, who will undoubtedly be after every stray hair in my bun and point of my foot.
Some of the Corps girls greet me and Iris. It's strange to see them in regular, normal-people clothes when I only ever dance with them, but they're here, in every type of shoe and jacket, talking it up. Most of them, whether they're eighteen or thirty-five, look excited to enjoy an evening of luxury that only their connections to the Calores can get them.
A few of the younger dancers, though, look nervous. It takes me a moment to understand why they shift on their feet, eyes flickering from one side of the marina to the other.
On the opposite side of the throning of dancers stands an annoying familiar girl, clad in black leather pants, an inky designer coat, and heeled boots that must hurt her dancer's feet. I almost miss the black brace around her knee, blending perfectly with her pants.
Tension crackles in the air so quickly it's like somebody turned on a microwave.
Everybody recalls our last interaction well. Since then, I've stolen the lead from her.
She gives me a saccharine grin that holds no semblance of being friendly. Elane's at her side, grinning lazily at me as though she just told a joke.
"Mare Barrow," she says. "It's a lovely day for yachting, isn't it?"
"Evangeline. It is a lovely day for yachting," I return, though I've never been yachting before.
It hasn't been three weeks. Her broken ribs are virtually healed already. Any cuts or bruises the crash gave her are gone or else concealed. Evangeline is fast on her way to making a full and speedy recovery from tearing her meniscus.
She's like some kind of witch.
The older dancers, used to Evangeline's antics and bored of them by now, pay no heed to her. The younger, newer dancers are a different story. Their eyes shift between me and Evangeline, trying and failing to decide who they should ally themselves with.
The sun glimmers as though it's summer again, and with the yacht's heating system, it feels like it too.
Clad in a pair of white running shorts that might as well be underwear for their length and a white sports bra with a ridiculous number of straps, the pearly-pink pointe shoes on my feet are the only part of my ensemble that I feel comfortable about.
The lack of clothes exposes my ballet-toned tan legs and eleven-line abs, along with the subtle curves of my hips. My sports bra flattens what little of a chest ballet has given me, and meanwhile, a headache-inducing bun pulls at my scalp from the nape of my neck. My face is made perfect with foundation, mascara, and whatever else the makeup artists downstairs threw on me. My lips glimmer with a glossy lipstick the color of sunsets.
Still, I force my hands to stay on my hips as I continue up a flight of narrow stairs from the sitting room-turned-makeshift Academy girls' dressing room. New sunlight glistens as a number of other Principals and I emerge from the stairs and onto the uppermost story of the Calores' yacht.
It holds the largest of the decks by far, with gorgeous tan-colored wood gracing its floors and silver railings wrapping around its edges. The space is wide-open, as large as the smaller studios at the Academy, its own divine entity on top of a harbor swelling with sunlight.
Behind me, stairs to the wheelhouse ascend to a small enclosure, but it's as though I'm on top of the world. I see the outline of southern Manhattan, the dying leaves of Battery Park accompanying the skyscrapers of a now-distant Wall Street. The Statue of Liberty stands off in another direction, pastel-green and vibrant in the fall sun. The small shadows of Jersey City and Brooklyn wait along the coastlines too. Stupidly, I have to wonder when I was last this far from Manhattan.
The dancers that have already made it up stand in waiting, looking ethereal in their white clothing. The women all wear the same shorts and bras and shoes that I do, and the men have donned shorts that look like swimming trunks and loose linen shirts.
Sleeves rolled up to their elbows, the shirts stay unbuttoned to reveal the dancers' chests.
The team of cinematographers that the Academy hired waits near the stairs to the wheelhouse with film equipment and a couple of drones. They stand around, shifting on their feet not unlike how the younger dancers waited before the yacht. A blond woman in sunglasses and a black scarf around her neck only scowls. She must be the renowned New York director the Academy hired.
"Why can't you two get along like Mare and Maven?"
Elara's harsh words snap through the deck, and a moment later, I take note of her, Anabel, Blonos, and Carmadon, who all stand at the yacht's forward. Unlike the dancers, the ballet mistresses and master wear their typical teaching clothes, and they're a small flurry of black in a sea of white.
Of course, they stand in front of Cal and Evangeline, who are having problems at the front of the pyramid that the partners will soon arrange in.
I barely take note of them, content to ignore Evangeline as I spread out with the other arriving dancers, daring further onto the platform bathed in sunlight.
Evangeline talks over Cal as he tries to speak, muttering something about having no chemistry.
"Cal doesn't understand that he can't lift me like he is," she accuses. Although I'm looking at her back, I can sense the eye roll from a million miles away. "He's holding onto my bad knee." She still wears her black brace. Among all of the regal white, it stands out like a sore thumb.
"Yes," Cal returns after a couple of more complaints from Evangeline. "I'm lifting her according to the choreography."
Elara sighs, putting a hand to her temple.
Carmadon, who knows that he'll have to cater to Evangeline and change the choreography, tries and fails to keep his dark eyes professional. "You shouldn't have come back so soon, Evangeline," he says with a bit of ire, practically scoffing. "This was a mistake, and you're obviously not ready."
"This is ridiculous," Anabel announces, apparently the most fed-up of all. "Evangeline, get off the deck, go downstairs, and lick your wounds."
If it was quiet before, the Calores' grandmother and her words strip the harbor of all its oxygen. Even I blink, pausing near the middle of the deck where a number of the Soloists stand.
I wish that I could chalk up what Anabel says to ignorance. She's been out of the city, after all, and will be leaving again soon. But no. The woman danced for the Calores for twenty years and has lived on the Upper East Side for most of her life. She knows all about the Samos family and the power that they hold, a power that plays a role in Cal and Evangeline's partnership. Anabel married a Calore, and she knows exactly what kind of rich bitch she's up against. Two generations ago, she was Evangeline.
Evangeline, stunned into a silence that isn't typical of her, just tilts her head at Anabel. I'm glad that I can't see the girl's expression as Anabel stares her down.
Blonos chuckles it off, her laugh dry and forced. "Don't be silly, Anabel. We're not taking Cal out of the shoot."
Anabel laughs right back at her. "Of course not. We'll have Miss Barrow replace Miss Samos, and we'll bring up another girl from the Corps for Maven to dance with."
She looks around the sea of white clothing, searching until her eyes land on mine. Two dozen sets follow her own until all of the yacht's attention is on me.
My eyebrows raise, and quite honestly, my heart begins to pound. I wasn't expecting an altercation between me and Cal's partner until the sun went down.
Evangeline, who wastes no time in clenching her fists and tensing her shoulders, is one of the last to turn around. When she looks at me, she doesn't smile her bitchy smile, nor do her eyes gleam with nefarious plans. All I see is a face livid with rage and quickly turning green.
"Don't be ridiculous, Anabel," Evangeline spits, flashing a glare towards the older woman. "Cal's my partner, and Mare is his brother's. It won't do any good confusing New York whose partner is whose."
"And I would prefer to dance with Mare, actually," Maven's voice calls from the stairs, who with a glance behind me, I see is just coming up. His eyes linger on me from across the deck for a moment, not exactly staying on my face.
I give him a silent smile, glad for my foundation to hide my blush, even as I notice how nice he looks in his linen. His black hair curls in the subtle breeze coming off the harbor.
Elara's scoff is the only thing that has me turning back around, even as Maven approaches me. "Evangeline's right, Anabel. And besides, my son learned the dance with Miss Barrow. Just change a few of the steps, Carmadon."
Carmadon, deciding that he likes the choreography the way it is, only shakes his head. "We shoot at sunset, and we need the rehearsal time. Mare and Cal will make fine partners for the evening."
Blonos, to my surprise, nods along with Carmadon. She mutters to Elara, who's outnumbered three-to-one, to go fetch a Corps girl from downstairs.
One of the older Principals puts a hand on my back, gently coaxing me forward. I imagine that she wants Evangeline out of here. I don't miss the feeling of Maven's fingers grazing my shoulder as I'm forced to take a step towards Cal. "It's fine, Maven," she hisses, probably blocking him as I unwillingly advance to the front of the deck. The Principals and Soloists part, white fabric moving softly in the breeze as though they're angels and I'm making my ascent to Heaven.
In no time at all, I'm passing Evangeline, who with a few harsh and stinging words from Blonos, begins her retreat. Her eyes scrutinize me with all of the hatred in the world, but she holds her tongue.
Somehow, I know that her silence is a bad thing and that she'll be planning something far worse than anything she can say at this moment. It gets my gut churning, even as I paste on my most pleasant stage smile.
I finally force myself to look at Cal. He stares back at me, a smirk on his face even as his guilty eyes trail Evangeline and Maven behind us.
My head suddenly feels as though it's a dozen meters under the water of New York Harbor.
Or at the top of the Freedom Tower after a long elevator ride.
Cal's dressed the same as all of the other guys. His tall, muscular legs that possess a good amount of hair wear white shorts, and his unbuttoned linen shirt reveals a pack of hard, tanned abs that I've felt through his shirt plenty of times before as we've danced. I only notice now how they end in a cut V-line. He must have had his chest waxed, because no hair waits on it. His familiar hands brace at his hips, holding up strong arms. The lines of his broad shoulders stand tall as ever.
Faintly, within my muddled mind, do I compare him to a god when he's wearing pure white and has the beginnings of an ocean at his back.
It all takes half a second. I keep my stage face on, eyes returning to his face in an instant.
I remember all of the reasons I don't like Cal, and the horrors of our first contemporary lesson replace any images of Cal's abs or his muscular body in my mind.
I'm only stopped from saying something rude to Cal or Cal from saying something stupid to me by Anabel, who stands nearby us both.
"Thank God that girl's gone," she mutters through clenched teeth.
"Yeah," Cal breathes, happy to be rid of her for one day too.
From across the yacht, I have the sense that Maven watches me and Cal as we dance.
The filming company has the drones up, and they've already taken several shots of us on the yacht from varying angles. Carmadon keeps weaving between the pyramid lines, calling out whoever makes a mistake and warning them not to do it again.
"Maven," he yells from the shadows of the stairs as the drones film the Principals and Soloists in their pas de deux. "Clean that up."
I'm not happy with the partnering change either, but I don't exactly have the grounds to argue about it. Unless I want to go up to Anabel and say that I don't want to dance with her favorite grandson because I prefer Maven to him. It's a little too late for that anyway.
The sun's close to setting over Jersey City, and it turns out that it's a beautiful night for a sunset. It was a cloudless day and hour before but since then wisps of clouds have snuck into New York, and long pieces of torn-off cotton candy dance among an indigo sky. It seems that when you're with the Calores, everything in New York City gleams, and tonight is no exception. With the warm yacht lights and the lights of Manhattan, a constant presence in my periphery, it's as though I'm surrounded by diamonds.
The Indie song Cameron selected for the pas de deux plays over a speaker from the wheelhouse yet again. It's fast and loud, and oddly enough, it blends in perfectly with the sunset.
As I'm dancing, I feel like I'm on fire in that sea of white and diamonds.
At the pinnacle of the pyramid, en pointe and at the bow of the ship, I feel like I'm flying.
It's intoxicating in the flurry of the white-clad bodies that dance before me, in that perfect syncopation Carmadon's drilled all week.
It doesn't help, as I'm finding out, that I'm dancing ballet with Cal, who is, in fact, a world-class ballet dancer. I might have class with him every day, but it's easy to forget that he knows how to dance what I love when all he talks about is contemporary.
I might go so far as to say that I like dancing ballet with him.
The music pounds, and Cal's always there, taking me through the dance with that rugged grace of his.
The choreography's fast, but Cal and I are faster. I find my stage face becoming more of an actual smile the longer we dance together, the more sweat that I have to wipe from my brow with every ending.
As we dance again, Cal's abs press into my back, and one of his hands goes over my bare stomach, covering most of it with his palm and fingers as I lean into him.
His other hand holds up my leg in a split as I pretend for all of Manhattan that his hands on my bare skin don't make me uncomfortable.
Soon enough, the count is over, and Cal and I are moving again, and I sweat through a couple of turns before coming into an arabesque. In a fluid motion, Cal ends up behind me, one arm wrapping around my waist and his other hand going around my thigh as he lifts me up and brings me down and does it all over again.
A couple of fouettés, and Cal walks around me. A grand jeté, and then I'm coming back to Cal. He wears his crooked smile as his eyes trail me, playing the role of the partner rather than of the teacher. I prefer him like this, when his smile isn't putting on an arrogant show to get back at me.
I imagine that I'm a slight upgrade from Evangeline. I may be a bitch, but Evangeline puts me to shame.
Just before the music ends, Cal's hands latch onto my hips, and I take a graceful jump towards him. Then I'm going up, up, up just as we've practiced on the stage floor, and I'm keeping my balance as I arch my back and look towards the roaring sunset with graceful, floating arms.
This is the part of the dance when I really feel like I'm flying.
The music fades to a stop while Cal holds me up, gazing at me from the ground as I stare off at the horizon. His hands on me are a stable presence. Only after eight counts of silence does he let me down, and my legs, tired as hell, quiver a little as my feet return to the yacht. My hands, only for a moment, go to his shoulders to balance myself.
"Don't tell me you're having fun," Cal says, bumping me with his elbow. His bronze eyes glimmer like stars in the sunset, high off of the dancing.
I put my forearms over my head, trying and failing to get some air into my lungs. Equally delirious from the dancing that isn't over yet, I point a finger at him. "I'm having fun, but it has nothing to do with you," I breathe. "And for the record—"
Like my sister, he points a finger right back at me. "Don't say anything that your mom wouldn't approve of, Mare." His smile, as always, mocks me.
Last night, Gee, to my humiliation, went on and on about how Mom is not going to be happy when she finds out how I treat Cal. Cal ate up her words, becoming more interested in meeting Mom by the second. I scowled the whole time. The day that Mom and Cal meet will likely be the end of me.
"My mom is going to love you," I hiss, saying it like an insult. The exhaustion from the dancing makes my words less cruel and more playful. "In fact, she already does. When I was talking to her on the phone last night, she was all like, 'oh, Cal sounds so kind and wonderful and—'"
"Stop talking to Mister Calore, Miss Barrow," Carmadon yells from the stairs, calling me out after no more than a few words from each of us.
Yes. This sunset-deadline of Carmadon's is really stressing him out.
A number of the other dancers onboard, as though we're a bunch of grade-school kids, steal glances towards us and give me jokingly-disapproving glares.
"You and Cal can talk later if you must," his disembodied voice continues. "Let's do it again."
"You're the only one I want to dance with, Maven," I remind my partner again.
He returns my words with a weak, still-annoyed smile. "I know. It's just . . ." he trails off, though I know what he wants to say.
After having rehearsed with me all week, he's irritated with his grandmother, Blonos, and Carmadon for throwing some Corps girl at him that he never talks to. When we were up there, I barely had the chance to look at Maven and see how he was doing, but he got barked at by Carmadon more than usual. With me and his brother ahead of him, it wasn't exactly easy for Maven to be on his best game.
Unlike at the gala, Cal played no role in the partner swap between the brothers, at least, but it doesn't change the pique that I catch in Maven's eyes at the mention of Cal.
For how our time on the Calores' yacht began, the rest is like a soothing balm.
Maven put on more linen shirts, and I donned beautiful sheer dresses made of silks and chiffons that Gee would pass out over. One was pastel gold with a V- neckline that cut between my breasts and another was vivid red and fell to the floor in layers.
Carmadon again took up the role of a dictator on the top deck of the boat as we went through our photos upon a pedestal somebody had dragged up. Snapshots of Maven and I in our pas de deux are now on a film roll somewhere, and the two of us are in beautiful color amidst our lifts and leaps with Manhattan, its lights, and a blue-black night sky as our background. The photos that I glimpsed look like something out of a magazine for a designer store on Fifth Avenue with all of the sparkles and opulence.
While we were up there with Carmadon and the photographers, Maven and I watched the internal issues of Cal and Evangeline's partnership play out. Wearing dresses that made her look regal, Evangeline alternated between barking at Cal and the photographers, while Cal, for the most part, just stood upon the pedestal, content to hold his tongue. I suppose that he thought staying quiet would get him away from his partner faster.
Seeing how Evangeline acts towards him almost makes me feel sorry for Cal.
"I know," I mutter to Maven. "But it doesn't matter. And those pictures are going to look great."
Still, Maven doesn't look comfortable.
He tries to hide it, but he looks a little mad. He wears that emotion along with a sad defeat.
We walk along the starboard side of the yacht's second story, now in blessed sweatpants and matching sweatshirts. Gold on black, Calore Dance Academy reads across the fabric over my heart. The back reads Barrow with a little golden star that indicates I'm a Principal. As pretty as I felt in those silken dresses, I'm happy to be in a blend of cotton and polyester along with my plain black socks. Even if the sweatshirt makes me feel a little high-schoolish.
A moment later, we emerge onto another of the yacht's decks.
Before I might take a look at the new setting I've walked onto, warm in the midst of a chilly harbor, my eyes clash with Evangeline. A number of the younger dancers of the company have already made their way down here, and she's one in two dozen on the deck. Her eyes, apparently waiting for me, waste no time in latching onto mine. Her expression is as disdainful as ever.
"Mare and Maven," she simpers, smirking with her obnoxious white teeth. Her rage is gone, replaced by a smile that I hate. "You're just in time to play a game with us."