Finding Center (21 page)

Aly

“Tonight you dance, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And it’s your last performance until next year. Until after the baby.”

“Yes. As long there’s a place for me, I’ll come back after maternity leave.”

“Are you worried there might not be a place for you?”

“Rationally, no. Irrationally, yes. I just keep telling myself I need to focus on my technique and make everyone believe the story that Zed and I and the other dancers are telling. That’s all I need to be worried about right now.”

“How do you feel about going out onstage in front of everyone almost seventeen weeks pregnant? You can’t hide your body in your costume like you do here under sweatshirts.”

“It’s terrifying. I keep thinking I’m huge but my doctors say if anything, I’m still on the small side. I’m just showing more because my bone structure is small.”

“It’s terrifying, but you’re doing it anyway.”

“I have to.”

“Because you’re worried you don’t click with this world without it.”

“Yes. And, I really like the ballet I’m dancing. And if this is the last ballet I get to dance for District Ballet, I’m glad that it’ll be this one.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know much about
Rubies
. What do you like about it?”

“Oh, it’s just wonderful. It has all these different pieces but they fit together in this abstract narrative that isn’t so abstract at all. Ultimately,
Jewels
is about ideas. It’s one part romantic, one part clever and one part nostalgic. It feels like a well-rounded life and story, doesn’t it? If I have to leave on any note, I’m glad it’s this one.”

“I like that.”

“Me too.”

Zed

You can take the guy away from the stage, but the stage never really leaves him. I made my career elsewhere, and I love teaching, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve spent six years trying to leave ballet behind while falling back in love with a ballerina. I’ve worked hard to stay in the eaves of Aly’s career. I attend the cocktail hours and the galas, but unless someone remembers that I danced, I don’t offer that information.

That was one of the first fights that Aly and I had, actually. She wanted to introduce me as a former dancer, but I didn’t want to be a former dancer. I didn’t like that idea. Maybe it was the thought of living in the past, or maybe it was just too painful to think about why I had to leave dance. Either way, it shouldn’t matter if I’m a former dancer because what I’m doing teaching is just as important and fulfilling.

But holy fuck does it feel good to be here on opening night, in a dressing room and not in the audience.

It’s been a while since I’ve done my own stage makeup so Sarah Lincoln, another one of the ballerinas, is helping me out. She’s got purple streaks in her hair, something I can’t believe Jonathan tolerates but then, he’s letting me dance this ballet and he’s agreed to this crazy plan of mine. I probably don’t give him enough credit.

We’re fixing the jewels on my costume when the devil himself pops by. He’s the one other person who knows what else is going down tonight.

The most unlikely sidekick.

He looks tired and haggard, like any good artistic director does ahead of a ballet. He gives me a tired smile as he shakes my hand. “Ready?”

“Sure,” I say and my voice shakes. I flush a bit, but Jonathan doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care.

He nods and says, “I’ll spread the word about the music to everyone but her. Just make sure you don’t miss your marks.”

“Christ,” I mutter and he laughs as he leaves.

I could back out now and no one would know the difference. Except Jonathan. And maybe now Sarah. But Aly’d never know and it’d be fine, our lives would continue on as normal.

Sarah says, “What’s he talking about?”

I reach into the pocket of my coat and pull out a small black box. Sarah looks at it, then looks at me, and her smile gets even wider. “Does she like surprises?”

I snort and raise an eyebrow. “You’ve danced with her for two years. What do you think?”

This fall’s been nothing but surprises. From the pregnancy to my dancing to the house to this. I think we’re both learning to expect the unexpected, in a completely resigned and slightly resentful way. Part of me thinks Aly’s going to be pissed, and part of me thinks Aly’s going to be thrilled. All of me’s probably right, let’s be honest here.

Sarah’s totally nonplussed by my nerves and snappy attitude. “Yeah, I didn’t think she’d be a fan.”

Aly told me to ask her again. God save me if this wasn’t what she meant. I close my eyes as she begins to apply foundation to my face so the stage lights don’t wash me out.

“I think that’s one of the things we do for people we love,” Sarah says. “Close your eyes.”

She brushes the shimmer stick over my eyelids as I say, “Surprise them?”

“No,” she says. “Open your eyes.” She spins me around to face the mirror and squints at me. “Eh, you’ll be a little washed-out but I don’t want to overdo the makeup. I meant that love pushes us outside our comfort zones.”

Love.

I blink at her, open my mouth and then shut it again. Sarah grins at me and claps both her hands down on my shoulders. “Now. You’re ready.”

“Is that what this is?”

“Ready to give the performance of a lifetime?” Sarah asks, ignoring my question. “
Rubies
is lining up in the wings.”

“Wait,” I say quickly, remembering a crucial piece of this performance. I take off the St. Anthony’s necklace I wear and add the contents of the little black velvet box to the gold chain, putting it back on and tucking it inside my dance shirt. “I’m ready.”

Once I thought I had given the performance of a lifetime. The last time I stood on a stage with Aly, hands in the air, as she swept into a curtsy and I could feel her pulse pounding in the center of my palm. That was it, wasn’t it? In my head, I review the choreography as I let Sarah lead me back to the stage wings. She squeezes my hand and wishes me luck and I can’t even remember if I thanked her.

A few people are staring at me in particular, where my white tights end at the top of my prosthetic leg, the ballet slipper on my right foot and the probably totally obvious anxiety playing over my face. I look at Yevgeny who is dressed half for
Diamonds
and half for his previous part in
Emeralds
. “What if she doesn’t say yes?”

Even though this is the first time he’s heard me say it, he doesn’t blink an eye. Yevgeny snorts. “Like that’s going to happen.”

They don’t know she’s said no once before. Yevgeny shakes my arm. “Zed. Stretch again.”

Right. I sink into my warm-up, letting my body reach back into the recesses of my memory for muscles that no longer exist, a range of motion that only comes to me in dreams.

“Ready,” Jonathan whispers as the set changes and the
Rubies
dancers fill the wings.

I shift my weight onto my left leg and roll onto the toe. The knee bends immediately, as it should, and I stretch my right leg. “Ready.”

Just before they went out, Jonathan went around and told all the
Rubies
dancers that if the music stopped, they should freeze, and to not start again until the music started again. It’s the antithesis of what dancers are taught, but hopefully they all remember this. He told all of them but Aly, of course. I can see her across the stage, up on her pointe shoes, readying herself. She has her stage face on. I can see it from here.

She takes her big step in place of a leap onto the stage, and I follow, leaping from the darkness and under the bright lights to meet her.

It’s her eyes under the dark stage makeup following mine as I dance behind her the first time and we look at each other. I can feel my weaknesses the most right now, where my body isn’t quite as fast as it should be out onstage. The lights are blinding and I’m painfully aware of our families and the audience out there in the inky darkness. The softness of Aly’s shoes slows her down enough that our timing is almost on the nose. My lines in my arabesques are crap and I can’t get off the ground because my left leg just doesn’t do what it used to do. But it doesn’t matter. Our pas de deux is nearly perfect.

And nearly perfect isn’t half-bad.

We run off the sides of the stage, and Aly grabs my hand. She kisses me quickly between her breaths. Her stomach rises and falls and I touch it with a trembling hand. She whispers, “You’re doing great.”

I smile. “You’re always going to say that.”

“Ready,” warns Jonathan and then Aly disappears, bursting back onto stage a few seconds too early but I follow her to keep the timing right.

Because then, as we move in front of all the other
Rubies
dancers, the music stops and every dancer stops except Aly. Then she turns around, confusion on her face. I’m in the center of the stage, right on the edge by the pit orchestra, and I can see their grins from here.

The audience murmurs, but the stage is silent and I can’t see any of them out there in the darkness. I can only hear myself breathing and I can only see Aly’s confused, breathless face looking at me.

I catch my breath as I unhook the necklace around my neck, taking a shaky step toward her, and then another one. I slip the ring off the necklace and sink to my knee. The fake one. The metal knee against the Marley floor. For her. The audience inhales sharply as Aly’s hands cover her mouth and tears fill her eyes.

My voice might not be loud enough and it might shake. I wouldn’t know. It didn’t matter. I’ve been practicing these words for weeks. But this part I try to project, all my theater training coming in handy. “Alyona Miller, I love you. I love you when you are mine and I love you when you aren’t. I love you when you dance, and I love you when you’re asleep, which is basically the only time you’re not dancing.”

The audience laughs softly and Aly does too, touching her stomach and shaking her head at me.

I grin at her and then say, softer, because this part is for her, and it doesn’t need to be for the audience, “I love you when you’re more in love with dance than you are me, and I know you love me. I love you, all of you, and you’re not smaller because of all the things you’re becoming. You’re more you than you’ve ever been. You’re still Aly. You’ve always been Aly. You will always be Aly. Be my Aly forever.”

Her eyes close, but she mouths the words
thank you
at me as I take a breath and lift my voice again. “You told me to ask you again and to make it a surprise. I put back on a ballet slipper for you, darling. Will you wear a ring for me?”

Aly nods, laughing, and smiling, and crying. She pulls her left hand from her mouth and holds it out, shaking to me. The room is thunderous with applause as I slip the ring onto her left ring finger and she pulls me to my feet. She stands on pointe to kiss me in front of the whole company and the whole audience.

“You’re in so much trouble,” she whispers against my mouth.

I grin. “I know.”

The music starts again and this time, I get to spin her offstage, her hand firmly in mine, the coolness of the ring the only thing keeping us both here on earth.

Aly

In the wings of the stage, I spin, pressing the palms of my hands against Zed’s chest. He stumbles to a stop, grinning this wide, violently beautiful smile that threatens to steal the show from the rubies on my hand. My heart’s still pounding too loud for me to hear what he’s saying to me and my knees shake. His hands close around my elbows and his smile drops from his face when he kisses the corner of my mouth. I curl my hands into fists and the metal around my left ring finger is warm against my skin.

I let out a breathy burst of laughter and Zed’s arms wrap around me, his relief evident as we rock against each other. He’s warm and sweaty and mine, mine, mine. His words work their way into my head. “—thought you were pissed for a second. Couldn’t figure out how fast I needed to do damage control.”

I start to talk, but then lift my face clear of his chest so he can hear me. “When’d you plan this?”

His hair sticks up at strange angles from his sweat and I resist the urge to rearrange it. “I called Jonathan earlier this week. But the ring, I’ve had that since before you told me to ask you again.”

It’s gorgeous, a thin white gold band with tiny rubies set around a small diamond. It’s unusual and a little bit familiar. I turn my hand examining it, and then frown, my other hand reaching to touch my bare neck. “It’s the same jeweler who did the necklace you gave me in New York.”

“Still there,” he says. “Still ornery. He says he remembers you but who knows.”

I lean backward and Zed holds on to me. “Hi, fiancé.”

His eyes light up and he kisses me with a smile still turning up his lips. “I like that.”

All of the promises that we exchange silently every day turned into something tangible and real, spoken in front of guests and known by the universe, all wrapped into a thin band of silver.

“Endearing, hopelessly romantic, et cetera et cetera,” Jonathan says, clearing his throat. He nods to me. “But now you’re all in our way. Go be romantic elsewhere.”

“Thanks, Jonathan,” I say dryly.

“See you soon,” Zed says, kissing my cheek quickly, and I turn out of his arms and dart back to the dressing rooms.

The girls crowd around me, simultaneously cooing at my ring and helping me pull out the red jewels stuck to my hair. I pull on a dark gray lace dress with long sleeves and a black belt that sits just over my baby bump. I change my hair for the gala part of the event. I still have to woo the donors, even though I didn’t dance as the principal tonight. I can barely sit still while Sofia tries to fix my mascara. She scowls and I smile.

She softens and says, “Happy?”

“Happier than I thought I’d be,” I admit. “I can’t believe he did that in front of the whole company and the audience though. I’m going to kill him later for that.”

Sofia laughs. “Wouldn’t expect anything less. Here, hold on, I have to put on your lip gloss.”

“Quick,” I tell her. “I want to watch Madison before I find Zed.”

Madison had been dancing at her absolute best in rehearsals, which was hard enough to watch. But worse is watching her completely bonk onstage. She misses two marks, stops too early out of a pirouette, bumps another dancer. She’s loose and sloppy and as much as I don’t like her, my heart’s breaking in the stage wings. She wanted my roles, but she only got them because Jonathan couldn’t let me dance. She isn’t ready to dance multiple principal roles. Her nerves, not her talent, grip her tightly under the stage lights.

I glance sideways at Jonathan. His fist is against his mouth. Next to him, Lila’s shaking her head, not even trying to hide it. I swallow and glance back at Madison. I should be feeling victorious and grateful. But all I feel is guilty and crestfallen.

As the dancers hurry off stage after curtain call, I catch her by the elbow. I want to say something before Lila and Jonathan do. She scowls at me. “Here to gloat?”

“No,” I say softly. “Here to say that it’s okay. We all have bad nights and you were thrown into the deep end. I know you thought you wanted that, but you weren’t ready and it’s my fault that you had to do that all at once. It’s going to be okay though. There will be other performances. It isn’t the end of the world.”

Her eyes well with tears and under my hand, she’s shaking. “My contract’s up for renewal, Alyona. So you’re wrong. It kind of is the end of the world.”

“I’ll say something to Jonathan for you, if you want,” I say.

She blinks at me. “Why would you do that?”

“You worked hard. In rehearsals, you had exactly what this takes. You just need time to adjust to the stage.”

I don’t think I could ever be Madison’s mentor, the older dancer that she needs and maybe even wants, but right now, I think this is what I’d need if I was in her pointe shoes.

She nods a little bit. “Thank you.”

Jonathan’s right behind her. “Madison, go get changed. See you at the gala. Alyona, can you come with me?”

I think he’s about to chide me but he adds, when Madison’s out of earshot, “Mrs. MacQueen.”

I dig my phone out of my purse and text Zed.
Where are you? Off to talk to Jonathan and MacQueen.

He texts,
Outside with your parents. OK?

I reply,
I think so.

Out in the hall, Jonathan turns to me and says quickly, “What’d you say to Madison?”

“That’d I’d vouch for her with you,” I tell him.

The worry fades from his eyes and he looks thoughtful. “Interesting. Okay. No need. She needs time. But thank you.”

Around the corner, coming down from her box seats, is the very well-dressed and smiling Mrs. MacQueen. I smile and hold out my hand. “Mrs. MacQueen. I hope that you liked tonight.”

“Let me see the ring,” she demands, her smile light and girlish.

Relief floods me as I offer my hand and she inspects the ring, turning my finger this way and that in the dim hall light. “That’s Zedekiah Harrow. He danced at Lyon and Philadelphia with you.”

“Yes,” I say quietly. “I’m not sure he’s dancing again beyond tonight, but it was wonderful to share a last dance with him on our terms.”

She says, “Well. Now with a wedding, you get to dance a first dance. It’s nice to turn over a blank page, isn’t it?”

I blink at her. I’d never thought of it that way. Zed and I have thousands of stories behind us, millions of pages that fill up our lives together and the time we were apart. I never thought about a first dance at a wedding. I take a deep breath. “I guess it is. I hadn’t thought of that.”

She smiles and says, “I know I speak for Jonathan and the rest of the board when I say we look forward to your return after maternity leave. You danced beautifully, even if you weren’t technically perfect, and the love between you and Mr. Harrow was evident. I’m glad that I got to see this. I look forward to seeing you here next fall.”

I glance between her and Jonathan. “Thank you, Mrs. MacQueen. I’m looking forward to returning to the Company as soon as I can.”

Jonathan nods his approval. I didn’t make any promises. I wait for anxiety to settle in, but it doesn’t. Instead, Mrs. MacQueen gestures to my stomach. “Do you know the gender yet?”

Now I relax. “A baby girl.”

Everything about Mrs. MacQueen softens, almost instantly, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Girls are joys. Is Zedekiah happy?”

“Very,” I tell her.

She nods, effectively dismissing me, and looks to Jonathan. “You can escort me to the party now.”

Jonathan shoots me a relieved glance and mouths
thank you
over his shoulder as he offers her his arm and they walk down the hall. Sofia appears behind me and whispers, “All clear?”

“She liked it and she and Jonathan both said they wanted me to return after maternity leave. I guess I should thank Madison for that?” I ask, watching in wonder as Jonathan and Mrs. MacQueen walk away.

Sofia squeals and hugs me. “Good. Now, let’s go show off this crazy beautiful body of yours at that party.”

I slip my arm through hers. “Okay. Let’s.”