Breaking Big (3 page)
“Ah, really, it’s great, Rob,” says Charis finally. “We’re happy for you, aren’t we?” She looks around at the others.
“Oh yeah, of course,” they chime in.
“Way to be enthusiastic,” I grumble. “Look, maybe there’ll be more understudy parts.” The others brighten a little at the thought. “And if not, at least one of us can uphold the reputation of the Premier Dance School!” I add cheerfully.
“That’s what we’re worried about,” Mavis says. She pauses, then shoots a small grin my way. She means it as a joke. At least, I think she does.
Jeremy, Cam and I head to the change room. Jeremy has gone all quiet, but he does that sometimes. Cam is chattering mindlessly, eyes darting back and forth between Jer and me.
Then Jeremy cuts into Cam’s babble. “Are you sure you’re ready for this, Rob? It’s a big step, and you don’t have any experience working with the company.”
Is he kidding?
“Well, duh. This is how I’m going to
get
some experience! It’s not like anybody else from our class has danced with the company.”
“Actually, I have,” he replies. “I played one of the little fairies when I was a kid. Did you know Puck’s solo ends with a double tour? Are you going to be able to do it?”
“Geez, Jer, they wouldn’t have picked me if they didn’t think I was ready.” I don’t really want to think about the double tour.
“All they know is that you’ve got potential. Nobody knows if you’re ready!”
“What are you getting at, Jer?” I ask. I’m angry now. “You want me to say,
No, I won’t do it
? Maybe say you should do it instead? I never pegged you as the jealous type.”
“Get over yourself, Rob! I’m not jealous. I’m just looking out for you,” he retorts. “You should really think about this. If you blow it, it could be the end for you with the company.”
“And the beginning for you?” I shoot back.
“Give me a break!” Jeremy’s shouting now, and Cam looks scared. “We’re friends! I didn’t mean that I wanted the part.”
I jam my stuff into my locker and head for the door. “Well, thanks for the great advice. And the support and encouragement.” I make sure to slam the door on my way out. I can’t believe him. I’m not stupid. I know that being an understudy is going to be hard, but nobody—
nobody
—says no when a chance like this comes up. You’d be crazy to refuse. I was counting on the guys to help me
through it—help me practice, maybe—because the company dancers aren’t going to pay me much attention. But that doesn’t look likely, not with them acting all put out because I was the one who got the break.
Unless, of course, I can bring them around. Why can’t we all get something out of this? They help me, and I bring back what I learn from the company?
It sounds completely reasonable to me.
* * *
I’m the last one to the cafeteria for lunch, and there’s hardly any room left at our table, so I have to push in. Did they forget I was coming? “Somebody must be putting on the pounds!” I joke as I make everybody shift over.
Nobody laughs. “You’re going to be the only student understudy,” reports Jeremy. “I checked.”
“Oh. Wow.” What else can I say?
“So it’s only you representing the school,” adds Johanna. “Mavis is right. That’s a scary thought!” Everybody laughs, although I don’t know if it was meant to be funny.
“So maybe you guys could help me practice?” I ask. “Mr. Acton won’t want to spend much time with the understudies.”
There’s an awkward silence. Charis finally speaks up. “That probably won’t work,” she says. “Mr. Acton won’t want us sticking our noses into it. We might say the wrong thing and mess you up.” The others nod in agreement. “Don’t worry—you’ll be fine.”
Conversation around the table starts up again. Sybille goes back to mooning over Rick, Mavis reminds her that company members can’t fraternize with students, Johanna makes a rude comment about some girl’s weight (why do they laugh when
she
says it?), Cam tells Jer about this new song he’s downloaded, but of course Jer isn’t listening because he’s all basset hound over Sybille, and everything is the same as it usually is, except that I’m invisible. I really, really didn’t expect this.
I inhale the bean salad and shove off early.
“I’ve got math homework,” I say. “See ya.”
Cam’s the only one to say goodbye. Things are really bad when math is more appealing than hanging with your friends. If they’re still my friends.
I can’t believe the attitude, but I’m going to stop thinking about it. They’ll come around—I know they will. And I might as well do math while I can, because I won’t have much time for it once rehearsals start. At the door, I take a look back over my shoulder, then wish I hadn’t. My whole table is quiet, watching me leave. And I hear Mavis say, just loud enough to reach my ears, “This is all we need. As if his head isn’t big enough!”
* * *
Class that afternoon is devoted to preparing for the dance exams, which is incredibly boring. I hate dance exams. Doing the moves in front of a panel of grumpy old dancers seems so fake, but it’s a requirement, and Mr. Colson expects us to take it seriously. Odette shines at this kind of work. I bet if she were a pianist, she’d love doing scales all day long. She’s that sort of girl. Usually Charis and I make funny faces at each other in the mirror to make the time go by, but today she won’t let me catch her eye.
After class I grab Charis’s arm. “Hey, you missed my best face!” I leer at her.
“You’re ridiculous,” she says with disdain. “Do you honestly think the company’s going to appreciate that sort of nonsense?”
“Not you too! Come on, Charis. I thought we were friends.”
She whirls around, looking so fierce that I drop her arm and put my hands up in surrender. “Whoa! Calm down!”
“Friends? You’re such an idiot. We’ve never been friends, not ever. Don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t see.” I really am confused. “Pizza? Pranks? A couple of laughs so we don’t think about how much our bodies hurt? Eating meals together, sharing class? That’s not friends?”
“No. That’s not friends,” Charis says, slumping a little. “That’s pals. And it’s okay to be pals, for a while anyway, but we can never be friends. None of us can.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Think about it. We all want to dance. There are twenty of us in our year alone. How many places open up in the company each year? Not twenty, that’s for sure. This isn’t a team situation—it’s a competition. A competition for our futures, and we only get one chance.” Charis puts
her back to the wall and slides dejectedly down on her heels. “Maybe you don’t get it because you’re a guy. Cam doesn’t want to be in the company, and there’s probably room for both you and Jeremy, because you two are the best of the senior boys. But us girls? There are dozens of us for every single spot. How do you think I’m going to feel when Sybille and Johanna and I are all trying to get the last place in the company? If I get the place, they’ll hate me. If one of them gets it, I’ll hate them. We can’t be friends, Rob. It will hurt too much in the end.”
I slide down to the floor beside her. Why do girls make everything so complicated? “I still don’t get it. You and I don’t have to compete, so can’t we be friends at least?”
Charis shakes her head sadly. “Girls can play Puck too, you know. I mean, Puck’s a fairy, for heaven’s sake! Who knows if fairies even have genders? If I’d been given this chance, I’d have a real leg up for a company spot. You don’t need this break, but I do. I’m sorry, Rob, but I wish it was me instead of you. They probably only gave it to you because they wanted Rick in the role, and it was easier to have a male understudy.”
“Gee, thanks, Charis,” I reply sarcastically. “Appreciate the support.”
“It’s the truth, Rob. Face it. Right place, right time. You got lucky, that’s all.”
I’m trying to process this as Sybille and Johanna spot us hunkered down on the floor. “So this is where you got to!” they say, each taking an arm and pulling Charis up. They ignore me completely. “Come on, we’re going to the gym.”
As Charis heads off toward the gym, arms linked with Sybille and Johanna, she turns back to me. “I’ve got to go with my
pals
.”
I watch them go. Maybe she’s right. But girls’ logic makes me so confused that I really don’t know what to think.
* * *
Since everybody’s going to the gym, I decide to skip it. Instead, I head to the park around the corner from the school. It used to be where the smokers hung out, but hardly anybody smokes anymore, which means there’ll be no dancers but me. I pull out my cell phone.
“Hey, Mom,” I say. “How’re you doing?”
“Fine, dear. Where are the boys?”
Normally, Jeremy, Cam and I video chat with my mom together. She’s kind of adopted both of them—Cam even calls her Mom—but I don’t want them to bring her down like they have me.
“Oh, they’re around. I’ve got some news.”
“Yes?”
“You won’t believe it. I’m going to understudy Puck for the company’s next performance!”
Mom squeals, and I can hear her yelling for my dad and my brothers. “You’ve got to hear this!” she’s shouting. “Robin, I’m putting you on speakerphone! Hurry up, men! Okay, Robin, they’re here. Tell us everything.”
This is what I wanted, what I needed. I tell them about Noah, the prank (“Robin, you didn’t!”), the meeting with Bellamy Acton (“Mom, he said pranking made me perfect for the role!”), the contract, the rehearsal schedule and Rick Mathews, the dancer I’m shadowing.
“You mean, you’re like a bench player?” asks one of my brothers.
“Yeah, sort of,” I reply. “I’ll only dance if he gets hurt or can’t go on for some reason. But it
means I train with the company, and they get to know me. It’s huge.”
“What about Jeremy and Cam?” asks Mom. “Are they understudies as well?”
“No, only me. I guess they didn’t need any other students.”
“Oh! They must be so excited for you!” says Mom proudly.
Yeah right. Sure they are. Why do you think I’m out here by myself?
“Do you need me to help with your costume?” Mom asks. “I kind of miss the old days when I got to sew your costumes.”
Inwardly I groan. She has got to be kidding. “Mom, this is the company. The
company
, get it? They have a whole team of designers and seamstresses to do the costumes.”
“Yes, but I’ve seen their costumes. Ridiculous, some of them. And others are so very plain. You know I could do better.”
I have to smile. Mom is great. Honestly, she’d have me in sequins, given half a chance. She’d have my brothers’ whole football team in sequins if she thought she could get away with it.
She’s a madwoman when she has a needle in her hand. I can almost hear my brothers snickering in the background—I know they’re thinking the same thing.
“You know it only takes two hours to drive in to the city. We’ll be buying tickets, of course, so let me know when they go on sale.”
“Mom, that’s great, but remember, I’m not dancing. I’m just the understudy. Okay?”
“Robin, for heaven’s sake, I know what an understudy is. But it’s a perfect opportunity to get some culture into these three oafs you left me with. And you never know—maybe you
will
dance.”
“Mom!” shouts one of my brothers. “Don’t say that! It’s bad luck!”
“Yeah, and offense can’t afford any more bad luck, can it, bro?”
I hear my brothers start going at it in the background. “What’s that about?” I ask.
Dad answers. “There’s been a string of injuries on the football team. So many that even the coach is getting superstitious about it. It’s a bad blow, but I have to say that the whole woo-woo sentiment has been pretty amusing for the rest of us.”
For the first time ever, I wish I was home and not at Premier. Making fun of my brothers, laughing together, cheering at their games, rolling our eyes at Mom’s weird notions while we love her to bits…I miss it. So we talk about football and Mom’s lasagna and Aunt Sally’s gallbladder and the neighbor’s dog and a million other inconsequential things until my cell dies. And, with it, my good mood.
I try not to be nervous about warming up with the company. As the only student understudy, I’m going to be completely on my own. But no worries. I’m going to prove them all wrong. I deserve this chance, and I’m not going to fool around and blow it. So I’m in the company studio early, in full uniform, completely warmed up. I am ready.
The company dancers start to wander into the studio in twos and threes, and my heart sinks. Of course company dancers don’t wear the school uniform. Jeremy could have—should have—told me that. I look ridiculous in my white T-shirt, black tights and mid-calf white socks. They don’t even wear leather ballet slippers, only canvas. Everything they wear is ripped and torn, and they
have more layers on than an onion has skin. Most of the girls have topped their wooly layers with garbage-bag pants and shawls to keep the heat in. As if Mr. Colson would ever allow the girls in my class to dress like that! The guys are wearing torn sweats—at least I own some of those. I am absolutely not wearing uniform tomorrow.
Some of the dancers smile at me, and a couple even come over to say congratulations. They know better than anybody how it feels to get your first big break. It’s so totally cool. I stay at the barre but keep an eye on the other warm-ups. One of the guys is using a Nalgene water bottle to roll out his calves, and a girl is using pink rubber balls to roll out her feet. I can’t wait to tell Charis—she’ll like that. Another girl is dancing with toe spacers, and man, that’s got to hurt. But I guess it helps when you’re wearing pointe shoes. If guys have to do double tours, it’s fair that girls have to wear pointe shoes.
When Mr. Acton comes in, I’m relieved. This is a long warm-up, and even with all the weird stuff going on around me, I’m running out of ideas. It would probably look really lame if I started to copy what they’re doing.
Class is no different than it is in the school: same exercises, same music. Ballet is all about doing things the same way they have always been done, so I’m good here. My first correction makes my heart lurch, but Mr. Acton corrects other dancers too, so it’s not only me. The most unbelievable thing is that the dancers wander away from the barre from time to time and do their own thing—like rolling out their hips—then wander back, and Mr. Acton doesn’t even seem to mind. Then the music stops.