Finding Center (13 page)

Aly

In the dressing rooms, Sofia waits with me and catches me up on the company drama after my week away. This is what friends do, and I’m grateful for her right now. It’s lessening my anxiety about running late this morning and missing my usual company class. The first, with Madison, Yevgeny and Yana, is nearly done and the dancers for the next one fill the hall. We’re the last two in the dressing rooms.

I stare at my reflection, sliding my last bobby pin from between my lips and into my hair. Another thick section still hangs loosely from my ear to my bun. Pregnancy and prenatal vitamins are doing wonders for my previously thin blond locks. But taming my hair now requires double the hair spray and double the bobby pins. Somewhere in this room, there’s a black hole where Band-Aids and bobby pins disappear. I reach over and snag one of Sofia’s dark bobby pins with a wink. Lila will frown at me—she’s a stickler for proper appearance—but I’ll get away with it until I can buy a new box.

Sofia rolls her eyes at me and says, “You could
ask
, you know.”

“You’d say yes,” I laugh. “I took out the middle step.”

Sofia surveys me, leaning back from her mirror. “You look different.”

I blink and look at myself in the mirror again. “I don’t think so. Same old me. Still look way younger than I am. Still would get carded at bars if I went out.”

My heart’s pounding when I stand up and turn away from her. I wore an older leotard today, a little slouchy in the stomach, but I can see it in the mirror. I know, I know, I know I need to tell Jonathan and the rest of the company. Zed made me promise this morning that I’d tell Jonathan before I danced but he was in a meeting when I showed, and I was relieved. But some secrets you can keep. And others you can’t. This isn’t going to be a secret I can keep.

“Alyona?” Sofia knows. I can hear it in her voice. Her chair scrapes backward. The room is quiet, quiet, quiet, and outside in the hall, I can hear the murmur of voices, the sound of the water fountain running, the muted notes of the piano in the studio. Her hand on my arm is hot against my cold skin and I jump. She whispers, “It’s okay.”

I am not going to cry. I’m just not going to cry. I cried when I woke up and I had to come back here, even though I want to be here. I want to be here and have a magical wand that keeps the baby and hides my body. I don’t know how to reconcile this in my mind.

“Yana and I thought so, a few weeks ago, but Yevgeny didn’t want us to say anything because he was worried that maybe you were gaining weight for a medical reason or something,” Sofia says. Her voice so so soft.

I swallow tears and say, “Please don’t say anything. I want to tell Jonathan myself. He should hear it from me.”

“Why are you so sad?” Sofia says, wrapping her arms around me. I let her hold me up, her arms strong and powerful. I feel small next to her despite our height differences.

“I’m not,” I say, wiping at tears so they don’t dot her leotard. “I feel like I’m crying a lot lately.”

She straightens up, holding both of my hands. “That’s the hormones. When are you due?”

“April first.” I take a deep breath. “Okay. Time for class. I’ll talk to Jonathan afterward and maybe we can all meet for a quick coffee before dinner so I can tell the others? Can I put you in charge of that?”

“I think I can handle that,” Sofia teases. She squeezes my hands. “I cannot wait to buy all of the ballerina-themed onesies.”

“I don’t know the sex yet,” I tell her.

Sofia shakes her head. “I can tell. It’s a girl.”

I can’t puzzle out the warm, sticky feeling filling my chest, like someone had filled the spaces between my ribs with cotton candy. It’s hard to breathe properly, but I’m smiling, and I squeeze Sofia’s hands back. “Thank you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away but...it’s been a thing. You know how these go.”

“I don’t,” she says, dropping my hands to fix one of my bobby pins. “But I know you. Come on. Let’s go dance and I promise we’ll handle what’s next.”

Behind me, the door bangs shut. Sofia goes still, her eyes darting over my shoulder. She doesn’t relax immediately and I know, I know by the coldness in my gut that it isn’t good. So I’m not surprised when I turn around and see Madison leaning against the door. Her hair’s loosened from dancing and she’s still flushed from class, but she’s biting her lip in a victorious smile.

“I was wondering if you were just getting fat or if you were pregnant,” she says. “But I thought, ‘She wouldn’t endanger her career like that. She wouldn’t make it
easy
for me to rise in the ranks.’ I guess I was wrong.”

“It would have happened eventually,” I say quietly. “And it’s not an opening for you, Madison. I’m cleared to dance through twenty weeks by my doctors and I’ll only be seventeen at opening weekend.”

“Your doctors cleared you,” she echoes softly. “But not Jonathan.”

Suddenly, I know what she’s going to do. I fight for control of my voice. “Madison, don’t.”

She shakes her head. “Wouldn’t you have done anything to get ahead? There’s only so many roles, Alyona, even in a world dominated by women. What other choice do I have? How else do I get seen if you’re always in the spotlight?”

There is blood in the water and it runs over Madison’s tongue.

“Madison,” Sofia says, her voice the gentle but commanding one she uses with the younger dancers. “Alyona’s telling him today and we’ll have to see what Jonathan does. It’ll look better for you if you wait to see what happens.”

“No one gets anything by waiting and seeing,” Madison snaps. “You, of all people in this company, Sofia, should know that.”

Sofia’s silent. I’m silent. Madison’s still. We’re waiting, I think, to see whether the angel or the devil on Madison’s shoulders wins her decision here. I can almost see them hovering and chattering to her. Her lips press together in a fine line. If she goes to Jonathan first, it’ll look like I’ve been deceptive. If she goes to Jonathan first, my news becomes more of a contract violation. I don’t think he’ll exercise the right to cancel it, but I know that I need to be the one to tell him.

Madison spins and yanks open the door. I grab my pointe shoes off my chair and follow her in two quick steps. Sofia’s right behind me and we’re in the congested hallway, dodging people as we follow Madison down the hall toward Studio C and Jonathan’s office. He’s in the hallway talking to one of the marketing guys when he sees the three of us charging for him.

He frowns, eyes moving from Madison to me to Sofia. He steps away from the marketing guy and holds up a finger. “Ladies?”

“Can I speak to you in your office?” I ask him, my words jumbling together like my insides in my rush to speak before Madison does.

Jonathan stares at me hard and opens his hand toward his office. I think he knows, or at least guesses, because his eyes are trained too firmly on my face. He doesn’t look at my bare feet or the pointe shoes in my hand or my body. I take a step toward his office, aware that the hallway is full of very quiet and still people.

Then Madison says loudly and clearly, “She’s pregnant. I heard her tell Sofia and she wasn’t going to tell you yet. She’s been hiding it.”

There’s a wave of murmuring behind me and a muscle in Jonathan’s jaw twitches slightly. He nods. Hot tears prick at my eyes and I step toward Madison. “You
bitch
.”

She smirks at me, crossing her arms. She isn’t remorseful at all. She saw an opportunity and seized it. And now, in front of me and half the company, she’s vicious in her victory. “
Wouldn’t you have done anything to get ahead?
”

“Alyona,” Jonathan snaps, moving toward us. “My office, now. Madison, stay here. Everyone else, get to where you’re going.”

I wait until the door to the office shuts behind me before I say, “I’m sorry.”

“For treating this company like it’s high school? You should be.” He waves at a chair as he takes his seat, this time on the other side of the desk. The message is clear. Today he is my boss, not my longtime colleague. I don’t sit down. I can’t sit down. My legs tremble. He rubs at his face. “But you shouldn’t be sorry about the other thing. Is it true?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Please sit because if you faint now, I have to call an ambulance and that’s going to ruin both of our days. Especially mine after Zed kills me,” Jonathan grumbles. “When are you due?”

“April first.”

“I assume this is why you were out last week,” he says, steepling his fingers.

I sink into the chair, finally. “Yes. Jonathan, I can still dance. I’m cleared by my physicians.”

“How far along are you now?”

“Eleven weeks.”

He nods. “When were you going to tell me?”

“Today,” I say, shooting a glare to where Madison’s waiting outside, texting on her phone. “It’s getting hard to hide.”

“It is,” he said. “But I have a personal rule that I don’t talk to you about your body line, Alyona. So I hadn’t brought up anything and to be quite honest, I think the weight gain’s been good for you. You look good. So you were only going to say something because you had to.”

It feels like there’s a wrong answer here. I study him and finally say, “Yes.”

He sighs and leans forward, elbows on his desk. “Are you
ever
going to trust me, Alyona? We’ve known each other for years at this point.”

“I can still dance,” I say again, because I don’t have an answer to his question. “It doesn’t affect anything here.”

“It does,” he says softly. “I can’t let you dance everything I’ve cast you in. I want to. You’re the best dancer for it, but I can’t ask Yevgeny to lift you while you’re pregnant and the company can’t assume the liability if you were to fall or be dropped.” He frowns. “You
did
fall. So don’t even start with the part where you rarely fall. It’s a liability thing, for you, for the company and for the other dancers around you. There’s nothing I can do, Alyona.”

“Don’t act like this isn’t your decision,” I snap, shaking. “Don’t say your hands are tied.”

He turns his back to the hallway of dancers so they can’t read his lips. “I didn’t say that. It is my decision, it is a final one. You’re lucky I gave you the rationale behind it.”

“You have no other dancer of my caliber. You need me. All of those donors coming for the gala, they’re coming for me,” I warn him. If I try to stand right now, I’ll fall. I’m shaking too hard to breathe. “You can’t replace me.”

Jonathan spins in his chair to the corkboard behind him. He uncaps a pen and crosses my name out from two of the three acts of
Jewels
,
Diamonds and Emeralds
, and from the Dawson ballet. He caps the pen and turns around. “Madison’s taking over your roles.”

I try to suck in a breath but I can’t. “She isn’t ready.”

“She’ll have to be,” Jonathan says. “What other choice do I have?”

“Me,” I insist.

“No,” he says. “Alyona, I can’t. I’m sorry. Trust me, I wish I could, but I can leave you in
Rubies
only because there are no big lifts in it and it’s mostly footwork. What remains I’ll modify.”

“If I had told you a few weeks ago, would you have made the same decision?” I ask, not even caring that I’m crying now.

He hesitates just enough that I don’t believe him when he says, “Yes.”

I wipe my eyes. “Jonathan, I need—”

“I know,” he says gently, interrupting me. “You can come to class as long as you’re allowed. You’re always welcome here.”

I can’t look at him when I say, “And what happens when I’m done with maternity leave?”

“You’ll come back, if you want to.” He stands up and so do I. “But Alyona, until then, you need to talk to me. My company isn’t a high school hallway.”

This time, I meet his eyes. “I didn’t go to high school. I went to ballet academy.”

“My point exactly,” he says, his voice dry and his eyes worried. “Madison only gets under your skin because you let her.”

I hear Madison saying, “‘
She wouldn’t make it easy for me to rise in the ranks.’ I guess I was wrong.
” She’s under my skin because there’s a kernel of truth in everything she’s said. I swallow and say, “Okay. Thank you.”

“Get to class.” He follows me to the door and gestures at Madison.

When she passes me, I bite my tongue but only because Jonathan’s behind me. I spend the whole class imagining all of the things I’d say to her if there were no consequences. It’s a ferocious type of daydream.

Zed

Aly squeezes onto the piano bench next to me, her eyes trained on my fingers. I wrap my right arm around her and pull her tight against my side, trying to play on each side of her. My fingertips barely reach the keys and she half giggles, half cries. I grin and run my fingers down her sides instead, playing her ribs like they’re making music instead. She’s wildly ticklish, squealing and arching away from my touch, which only pushes her against me and my other hand. She pushes at my hand, her laugh sounding stronger.

“Stop,” she protests. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I am. I had to be serious all day, you’re ticklish, it’s Friday.”

She plops her elbows down on the piano keys, kicking up a discordant sound. I wince, hands half covering my ears. She rests her chin in her hands and smiles at me, her eyes wide and blue. “Rub it in, why don’t you? Some of us have to go to work tomorrow.”

“Rub it in?” I tease her, pulling her elbows off my precious piano. “Really?”

When she kisses me, the jarring notes vanish from my mind. We’re the same chords in major and minor keys. She pulls away but keeps her fingers on my chin and her eyes closed. I watch her, the way her dark lashes tremble against the rise of her cheek, the part of her lips. She sighs.

“Long day?” I ask quietly, sensing the playfulness slipping away.

She doesn’t let go of me. Doesn’t open her eyes. Not quite shutting me out. Not quite letting me in. “Madison told Jonathan before I could.”

I suck in a breath. “Oh, fuck. I’m sorry, Kitten. Guess that went over like a lead balloon?”

A smile curves up the corners of her mouth. “Lead balloons. Central Pennsylvania is weird.”

“Penntucky, sweetheart.” In the back of my head, I think,
tell her that you’ve been dancing
. But it’s the wrong time, isn’t it? It’s the wrong time. But her vulnerability is hardest to bear when I’m keeping secrets.

“He was pissed,” she whispers. “I don’t think I’ve seen him angry since I punched him.”

“Still wish I had seen that.” I’m grateful when she opens her eyes to glare at me. “What?”

“Focus,” she says sharply.

If she’s grounded enough to chide me, I’m doing my part here. I nod, our foreheads brushing. “Okay. So Jonathan’s mad. He kept his temper, yeah? Or do I have to go kick his ass?”

She snorts. “He was scared of you, actually. And what would you do? You’re like half Jonathan’s size.”

“Ouch!” I clap a hand to my chest. “Size doesn’t matter, Alyona Miller. Besides, I could probably beat him with my leg. It doubles as a weapon.”

She tilts her head sideways, smiling. “How can my day be so terrible and you can still make me laugh?”

“It’s my superpower.”

“That’s a good one,” she says softly. “And I needed this. Thank you. Jonathan took me off everything but
Rubies
.”

The bottom of my stomach drops out. I don’t even think before I scoop her up and pull her onto my lap, even though we’re in the middle of the café, even though I know she hates when I make a scene. She whispers, her voice trembling, “I said I wasn’t going to cry again.”

“Well, you’re not,” I say, “So there’s that. I’m so sorry.”

“He says it’s a liability. He can’t ask Yevgeny to lift me, can’t take the risk that I fall and injure myself or the baby there.
Rubies
has almost no lifts and he’s taking out the one tiny one, so I can still do that.”

I don’t want to, but I have to ask. “And who’s dancing in your place?”

The disgust and bitterness lace Aly’s words. “Who do you think? Madison.”

I bury my face in her hair, kissing her neck. “I can’t believe that Jonathan’s giving her the roles after she pulled this shit.”

“Sofia isn’t cleared to come back until later in the fall,” Aly says miserably, “though I can’t decide if it’d be easier if I was replaced by someone I like.”

“It’d be easier,” I tell her. I sigh, tightening my arms around her. “I’m sorry that didn’t play out like you hoped.”

“She shouted it in the hallway,” Aly whispers. “And Jonathan was mostly pissed because he said we were treating the company like a high school.”

“Well. I don’t know if you were, but Madison certainly was.”

Aly lifts her head. “If that’s what high school was like, I’m not sorry I skipped it.”

“You would have been really good at it.” I brush her hair out of her face. “Sometimes being ruthless and ambitious is hard to tie together with empathy. Maybe Madison forgot that.”

Aly looks confused and frustrated but she nods slowly. She pushes away from me, putting some distance between us. I try not to reach for her. Sometimes she needs space in order to think and this feels like one of those times. She takes down her ponytail and puts it back up again, straightening herself. She smooths a hand over her stomach and grimaces.

“I don’t want to eat,” she says quietly, staring at the sheet music. “But I need to.”

“What would be easiest right now?” I try not to crow that she admitted something that’s still hard for her despite everything else she shares.
Focus
, she said, and now I’m 100 percent focused.

“Want to walk down to the Mexican place?” She rests her hand on the keys.

I poke one of her fingers down so it strikes the C. I feel the note in my chest. If we were alone, I’d ask her if she felt it in hers. “Only if we swing by the cupcake place first.”

She makes a face at me and then relents. “Fine. You and your sweet tooth.”

“Hey,” I say, swinging my leg over the bench and standing. I pull her to her feet and pick up her ballet bag for her. “Worked out well for you.”

All of my muscles are stiff and sore from dancing at the ballet academy after school today. My instincts keep telling me to bounce on the balls of my feet, stretch out my hamstrings and back but the ways that I stretch have changed thanks to the mechanics of my prosthetic knee. And I want, so badly right now, to stretch out my left foot. I can feel it cramping up. I know it doesn’t exist, but I can feel it. I stop in the doorway, stretch out my leg, wince a little.

Aly’s hand tightens around mine. “Okay?”

“Yeah. Just phantom pain stuff,” I say, forcing a smile onto my face. We step out into the street and start walking. “Cupcakes and Mexican food.”

She studies me out of the corner of her eye, almost like she’s going to ask me questions I don’t know how to answer. But finally, she just says, “I’m sorry that the leg’s bothering you. Do you think it isn’t working?”

It’s working
, I want to tell her.
I’m dancing
,
Aly.
I’m dancing again.
But I can’t figure out how the words will fit onto my tongue, sharing space with all of the emotion and all of her hopes and the type of dancer I will never be, even with this leg. But I know her. I know that she can only handle so much in a day and she just lost roles to the person she likes the least in the company.

“It’s fine. Just the usual stuff.” We’re approaching the cupcake place. If I play this right, I can get her to eat a few bites and she might actually meet her meal plan goals for the day. “I’m sorry about Madison.”

“I’m terrified that Jonathan’s not going to cast me as principal ever again, even when I come back.” Her voice is soft. The setting sun is warm on her face, and her voice sounds like it’s been stolen by the light. She turns her face up to me, worrying at her bottom lip. “What if this is it?”

“It’s not.” I don’t make promises I can’t keep, but this isn’t a promise. This is the truth. “And besides, if he doesn’t, you aren’t wed to District Ballet, Aly. You can audition elsewhere.”

She shakes her head as we reach the cupcake store. There’s a line out the door. “I can’t imagine dancing anywhere else now.”

She thought that about Philadelphia too. But I don’t say anything because it’s true. District Ballet feels like her home now, even to me.

“Cupcake. Dinner. Bed,” I tell her. “That’s the plan.”

She wraps an arm around my waist and leans against me. “It’s a good one.”