Bunheads (28 page)

Because I don’t want to
, I think. But I don’t want to be rude. “I have a matinee tomorrow,” I say.

“Oh, what’s one night?” Matt asks. “Come on. I’ve got the best view of the park from my apartment.”

I take a step back and look down at the beautiful dress he bought. “I don’t think this is really working for me.”

When I look up again, Matt wears an expression of complete surprise. “What do you mean?”

I could give him a hundred excuses about my career and everything else, but I decide to be honest. “There’s someone else,” I say—even though I’m not sure there is. For all I know, Jacob is finished with me forever. I take another step away. “But thank you for tonight. Thanks a lot.”

And then I turn my back and hurry toward the street, where a cab seems to be waiting just for me. I duck inside and relax back against the vinyl seat, relieved to be alone.

“Let’s begin with the solo,” Otto instructs.

The pianist shuffles through his music as his glasses slide down the bridge of his nose. Zoe briskly walks toward center stage, her pointe shoes loudly smacking the floor, and positions herself with a thud. I stand a little too close to her on her right. We’ve been rehearsing
Rubies
for two weeks now, and we have our first run-through today.

“And—” Otto motions to the pianist to begin.

I curl my toes in my shoes and feel energy coming out of my fingertips. I exhale and step into an arabesque. I thrust my hips forward and exhale again as I brush my leg through. I stumble a bit on the swivel but quickly recover for the piqués. I see Zoe out of the corner of my eye inching closer to me, but I force myself to imagine that I am alone. I focus on making large, full
movements that flow into one another. Otto is seated directly in front of me, but I ignore his steely gaze. This isn’t for him.

As the music accelerates, my chest tightens, and I sip breaths deliberately through my nose. Overcoming the anticipation of exhaustion is always the most difficult part. It’s a mental battle on top of a physical one.

Sure enough, toward the end I can’t get enough air, and I begin to experience the familiar choking feeling.
This is temporary, this is temporary
, I think. But it feels like I’m drowning. As I come to the last set of turns, I turn off my mind and go for them. Overthinking will make me falter.
Don’t think, just do.

I float through them. I nail the final pose. I hear Zoe panting beside me.

“Okay,” Otto says quietly. And then he walks away.

“You seemed a little off in the double pirouette to the knee,” Zoe says, turning to me. “Is your hamstring bothering you?” On her face is a look of what can only be false concern.

“I’m fine,” I answer, although, honestly, my hamstring hasn’t been feeling that great.

“I hope so,” she says. “Because those pirouettes are a really important part of the solo, and I can’t see Otto risking the role on someone who feels shaky.”

“Well, it would be convenient for you, wouldn’t it?” I ask mildly.

For a moment, she looks surprised. Then she smiles, revealing a row of small, perfect teeth—the result, I happen to know, of ten thousand dollars’ worth of orthodontia. “Oh, come on
now, Hannah. You know I’d be happy for you if you got the role.”

I bend down to gather up my sweatshirt and leg warmers. “Of course,” I say. But I don’t mean it any more than Zoe means what she said about being happy for me.

We walk back to the dressing room in silence, and then Zoe goes up to the roof for a cigarette. I sit down in front of the mirror and put my head in my hands.

The physical effort is hard enough; why does the competition have to make it even worse?

After the run-through, I head down to physical therapy. The PT room is sandwiched between the vending machines and the laundry area, and it has all the charm and spaciousness of a utility closet. On the familiar cinder-block walls are random, aging anatomy posters, as well two large mirrors with big dinosaur stickers decorating the edges. There are two massage tables and some plywood shelves. The lower ones display a stash of Advil, Band-Aids, ice packs, and Ace bandages, while the top ones have a couple pairs of crutches and a boot.

“Hey, Hannah! How’s it going?” Frannie, the physical therapist, smiles broadly as she thrusts her elbow into Adriana’s calf. “Just finishing up here.”

“Hey,” I say. As I wait for my turn, I scan the physical therapy sign-up sheet, which divides the day into ten-minute slots for massage, adjustments, and so on. I see Daisy’s name a few
slots below mine; she’s been complaining about her left shoulder. The sheets go up in the mornings, and they always fill up within moments.

I watch as Frannie uses the weight of her upper body to press down on Adriana’s muscle. Adriana sighs in what is probably a mixture of pleasure and pain. A moment later, Frannie pats Adriana’s foot, and she slowly dismounts the table.

“Is it cool if I do a little ultrasound?” Adriana asks as she squirts a mound of blue jelly onto her foot.

“Do what you need to, darlin’. You know how to set it up?” Frannie asks.

“I’m an old pro,” Adriana says as she switches a lever and turns a knob on the machine. She rubs the blue goo in circles over her metatarsals with a metal handle as the sound waves travel deep into her tissues, creating a gentle (and hopefully healing) heat.

I climb up onto the table.

“So, how can I help you?” Frannie asks. Her soft, kind face curves into a smile.

“I pulled my hammy again,” I say. I try to sound nonchalant, but I can hear the pang of panic in my voice.

“Oh dear. Are you on tonight?” Frannie motions to me to lie down on my stomach.

“I have a doubleheader.”

Frannie just sighs as I place myself in the head cradle, which presses against my forehead and cheeks. “I need you to work some magic,” I say into the face hole.

“I don’t know how you girls do it,” Frannie says as she leans
into my leg with her body weight. It’s not exactly a feel-good massage, but I can tell that she cares about me and wants to make me feel better. I close my eyes and imagine that Frannie’s hands are my mother’s hands and that her touch is telling me that everything is going to be okay.

After a few moments Frannie gently taps my foot, and I lift my face from the cradle. There is a pink indentation across my forehead.

“Why don’t you come back for a little heat and microcurrent before the performance tonight?” she says.

“Okay, thanks,” I say. “I will.”

I gather up my things, but I’m reluctant to leave. It’s so rare to feel taken care of in this world that every moment of kindness feels incredibly precious.

As I head backstage to prepare for my first ballet of the evening, Harry intercepts me, holding out an envelope with a slightly embarrassed shrug. “It’s from Mattie,” he says. “She was up late last night making it, but she wouldn’t show me what it is. It’s pretty late for Valentine’s Day, but Lord knows that kid runs on her own clock.”

“I’ve got to do a barre,” I say, hardly looking at him or the envelope. “I’ll open it when I’m done.”

“Sure, sure, no problem,” Harry says. He ducks his head and waves me off.

But as I stretch my calves at the barre, I wonder if I’ve hurt his feelings somehow. Couldn’t I have just stopped for thirty seconds and looked at his daughter’s card?

“Did you hear about BaryshniMoss?” Jonathan says.

“What?” I bend over my leg and feel the muscles lengthen. Then I realize he’s not talking to me; he’s talking to Daisy, who is sitting at his feet like a disciple.

“Supposedly, Kate Moss is, like, training in ballet, and she and Baryshnikov are going to make some dance movie together,” Jonathan says. He bends down to touch his toes, pronouncing the last part of this statement into his knees.

“No way,” Daisy says.

Jonathan stands up and shakes his head as he makes a crossing sign over his heart. “She thinks because she can wear eight-inch heels down a catwalk she can stand on pointe. Well, good luck, Kate! That’s all I have to say.”

Daisy nods. “Totally,” she says. “But Baryshnikov—I loved him on
Sex and the City
.”

I have to stifle a snort. So that’s what Daisy thinks of when she thinks of Mikhail Baryshnikov: Carrie Bradshaw? She’s even younger than I thought.

Jonathan grins. “I know. He was a total silver fox.” And even though he’s in the next ballet, too, he skips off to spread the Kate Moss news elsewhere.

Focus
, I tell myself,
focus
.

Christine hurries past, mumbling into her headset. She looks up and our eyes meet. “Costume, Hannah?” she says, making a
hurrying motion with her arm. “You’re in
Fortitude
, right? That’s in ten.”

“I’m on top of it,” I say.

On the way to the Green Room, I open Mattie’s card.

It’s very cute, misspellings and all. I put it with my things so I can hang it on my mirror in the dressing room, and then I step into the pink tutu that Laura holds out for me.

A few days later in Mr. Edmunds’s class, during one of the notoriously boring adagios to the tune of “My Favorite Things,” I’m blankly watching the first group of dancers promenade in arabesque when Mai seems to sit down in a less-than-graceful spin in the center of the room. At first Bea and I giggle—we think it’s just Mai being sloppy again—but when her head hits the floor and she stops moving, we begin to panic. The pianist stops mid-phrase and Mr. Edmunds rushes to her side.

The rest of us, too, all instinctually swarm around her, but Roman yells at us to get back. “Give her some air,” he cries, waving his arms madly. “Move!”

I glance down, though, as I back away. Mai looks impossibly frail, with her hair so black and her skin whiter than white. Lying on the floor, she looks no bigger than a child.

Julie calls 911 on her cell phone as she strides nervously
around the room on her long, powerful legs. Mr. Edmunds has one of the boys carry Mai to the physical therapy room, and a crowd of dancers follows, murmuring in concern. Before I know it, I’m the only person in the studio, standing there dumbly looking at my own figure in the mirror.

What just happened?
I think.

Feeling slightly dizzy myself, I sit down at the piano and touch a few of the keys lightly. I wonder if Mai’s gained consciousness yet; if she hasn’t, does that mean something’s really wrong? I listen for sirens coming up Broadway—not that I’d be able to hear them in this fortress of a building.

I hear voices in the hall, and I go out to see who’s there. It’s only Luke and Emma, who turn to me with solemn faces and say that Roman carried Mai down to a cab and was taking her to the hospital.

When I get back to the dressing room, everyone is theorizing about what went wrong.

“She’s obviously malnourished,” Zoe says as she takes a protein bar from her bag. “I heard she only eats, like, chicken broth and spinach. God knows how she has so much energy onstage.”