Bunheads Page 11

Mai is the rock star of the Manhattan Ballet. Not the star star, but the rock star: She has that wildness, that edge. She also has the longest, blackest hair I’ve ever seen, and if you passed her on the street, you might think she was a twelve-year-old girl whose mother had something against hair salons. But she’s absolutely stunning onstage. Luminescent. Her pale skin almost seems to glow in the spotlight.

  Mai is incredibly thin, and Otto uses her as the model for the ideal ballerina body. I’ve heard that she eats only once a day, and then only white foods. As I look at her, I can believe the rumors, even though I don’t want to.

  I watch her begin to dance. She must think she’s alone. She lifts her arms and then falls out of a turn. She does that a lot, actually. She’s sloppy but totally fearless, and I admire that bravery. After all, sometimes I feel scared of just about everything; that’s probably why I’ve always been scared to break any rule. For me, it’s always been easier just to do as I’m told.

  I hear a noise behind me and turn to see Zoe approaching with two big steaming cups of coffee.

  She smiles and hands one to me. “Jonathan ran out to Starbucks, so I had him get us some.”

  “Thanks,” I say, taking a grateful sip. I don’t know how any of us would function without caffeine.

  “What’s Mai doing out there?” Zoe asks, wrinkling her upturned nose.

  Mai does a complicated fouetté sequence. “The solo from Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux, looks like.”

  “She’s like an overcooked noodle, all floppy.”

  I smile. “She’s better than that and you know it.”

  Zoe sighs. “I know. I’m just jealous she gets to dance that part.”

  It’s rare for Zoe to admit any sort of vulnerability, so it’s sort of comforting to hear that. We watch for a while in companionable silence until my stomach growls loudly and I remember that I still haven’t eaten.

  “Oh crap, I forgot to eat,” I say, the near panic apparent in my voice. Matt’s out of town, so I can’t hope for one of his surprise gourmet lunches.

  Zoe puts a hand on my shoulder. “Chill, lady. I’ve got an extra yogurt and a banana upstairs that Gladys packed.”

  This sparks a tiny flare of suspicion—why is Zoe being so extra nice? Does she want something from me? Is it because she feels sorry for me for having breasts? But I’m too hungry to pay much attention to my suspicion, and so we leave Mai to her solitary dancing and go up to the dressing room, where Zoe feeds me lunch prepared by her housekeeper.

  “Do you think Mai ever wishes she had a life outside the theater?” I ask. “I mean, it’s her break right now, and she’s not even taking it.”

  “What, you think she should take this opportunity to read Frankenstein? Or go on some environmental reading kick like your crush? She’s a dancer, Hannah. She dances.”

  I swirl the spoon around in the yogurt. “Yeah, but sometimes I just wish there was time for other things.”

  Zoe pulls a pair of black knit shorts over her tights and shiny purple leotard. “Remember what Annabelle said.” Then she does her best Annabelle impression: She somehow manages to fold into herself so that she seems much smaller, and she squints her eyes. The expression on her face suggests she’s just smelled something very unpleasant. Her voice comes out high and clipped. “ ‘A dancer’s job is not to live, stupid girl. A dancer’s job is to do tendus until she drops!’ ”

  I laugh, but the impression’s so uncanny that it gives me goose bumps.

  As part of my new fitness regime, I talk Bea into coming to Bikram yoga with me, even though she thinks the practice is gross because of all the sweating. In Bikram, the room is heated to over one hundred degrees, and classes take place in front of a wall of mirrors. It’s one of the most intense forms of exercise I know, and I hope that it will help me get back the body I used to have.

  As we enter the studio and unfurl our mats, I point to the front of the room where Taylor, the instructor, is waiting for everyone to get settled. Taylor has black hair, deep blue eyes, and the kind of strong, masculine jawline you see in cologne advertisements. He also likes to wear tiny shorts that show off his muscular legs. Bea winks at me and lifts an eyebrow. I point at her and mouth, He’s all yours! Bea then blushes and drops into lotus position. She refuses to look at me or at Taylor until class begins.

  After ten minutes of bending and balancing in seemingly impossible ways, I feel sweat running down the back of my neck and my legs and onto my mat. Taylor wanders through the room, offering friendly encouragement (“Breathe through the pain; it will make you stronger”) and indecipherable yoga philosophy (“Remember that the tourniquet effect encourages blood flow and opens up new pathways of thought and consciousness”). By the time class is over, I’m nearly nauseated with exhaustion.

  “I feel wrung out,” I tell Bea as we rinse off in the showers. “Like an old towel.”

  “You certainly smell like an old towel,” she says, laughing.

  She’s beet red from the exertion, while I’ve turned pale and splotchy. But I know this is good for me. Another few weeks of this is all I need.

  That night I fall asleep on my couch and dream that Otto comes at me with a knife. He tells me in cool, reasonable tones that he is going to cut off my breasts. “You will dance so much better without them,” he whispers. He flicks off the light, but I can still see the knife glinting as he walks toward me. I wake in a pool of sweat.

  The next day, before company class, I go to the gym again and work out twice as hard. The gym scale tells me I weigh two pounds less.

  18

  “Can I take a picture?” Matilda, Harry’s daughter, asks. She holds up a pink digital camera covered in stickers and points it at me hopefully.

  I still have a few minutes before I have to go on for Rhyme, Not Reason, so I pause on my way to the wings. “Sure. How about one of me and your dad?” I ask.

  Harry appears out of the shadows and reaches for the camera. “Better yet, how about one of Mattie and Hannah?”

  Matilda nods wordlessly and steps delicately over a pile of cords to stand by me. Then her little warm hand snakes its way into mine, and we stand side by side as her dad takes our picture. Mattie is wearing her ratty tutu and sneakers again; I’m in a blue-gray leotard with a chiffon skirt.

  “Great,” Harry says. “Just great. My two ballerinas.”

  “Thank you,” Matilda whispers to me.

  “No problem,” I whisper back.

  And then I hear the intro to my music, so I wave as I hurry to the wings. There, Adriana is tapping her bony fingers against the wall, counting out her entrance. She marches out, and then four counts later I follow her into the white lights of the stage.

  Rhyme is set to Chopin, with choreography inspired by the interplay between shadow and light. The corps wears shades of gray, and the principals wear stark white, so they appear to glow against the black backdrop. The shadowy lighting accentuates our muscles; the piano’s tune is lilting and melancholy. I imagine that it’s dusk, when the shadows are soft and long. Those of us in the corps are the shadows, and the principals are the lingering sunshine that bounces off the buildings in bright, fleeting bursts.

  I love ballets like Rhyme, ones with simple costumes and almost no scenery. I like to feel as though my body is unrestricted and free, and to imagine that I’m performing outside under the sky.

  When the ballet is over, I linger for a moment in the wings, breathless.

  “Lovely,” Harry says, passing by with Matilda in his arms. “Just lovely.”

  I smile because I had a great time out there. Maybe it’s the Bikram, and maybe it’s the bra, but who cares? I feel confident and strong, and that’s what matters.

  Harry stops and turns back. “I’d love to see you in some solos soon, okay?”

  There’s another casting coming up, and I’ve been killing myself to be noticed.

  “Me too,” I tell him. “Me too.”

  Matt calls me the next morning as I’m getting ready to leave for
the theater.

  “I’m back!” he says. “I was in France. Paris, then Normandy.”

  “Don’t you ever work?” I ask, trying to get my coat and scarf on without dropping the phone.

  Matt laughs, but it has sort of a hollow ring to it. “For your information, I was scoping out companies for my dad’s investment sideline. So, yes, I work.”

  “Well, welcome home. I hope it was fun.” The other line beeps—it’s Zoe, no doubt reminding me to bring her the leotard I borrowed—but I let it go to voice mail. “I missed your lunch deliveries.”

  “Have you read Proust?” Matt asks.

  I laugh as I slip on my boots. Proust is on my reading list, but I don’t exactly have time for a 650-page novel these days. “No,” I tell him. “I haven’t even had time to buy groceries.”

  “Well, don’t consider it a character flaw; very few people have. Remembrance of Things Past is a masterpiece, though, and it basically killed Proust to write it. But that’s not my point. My point is that, in Swann’s Way, which is the first volume, the narrator falls in love with a woman simply because one night he can’t find her and doesn’t know where she is. It’s the oldest trick in the book.”

  “Oh, really?” I say. I’m not sure where Matt is going with this, so as I fumble for my keys, I wait for him to continue.

  “I figured that if I made myself scarce, my charms would only come to seem more charming.” His tone is slightly self-deprecating, but not that self-deprecating.

  “Interesting strategy,” I say, laughing a little. It hadn’t exactly worked, but I’d heard worse theories about romance. For instance, Jonathan’s belief that he could win over cute, blond Tommy Hatfield by feigning complete indifference to him. (I kept telling him he had to at least say hi to Tommy, but he wouldn’t do it, and now Tommy’s dating Jude Forrester, who, if you ask me, dances as though he’s constipated.)

  “And did I tell you about dinner?” Matt asks.

  I give myself one last glance in the mirror before I step into the hall. I have a bad case of bedhead, but since I’ll be putting my hair in a bun the moment I get to the theater, I suppose it doesn’t matter much. “What about dinner?” I ask.

  “I’m taking you,” he says. “Tomorrow night.”

  “Really?” I say, taken aback. “Did you want to check with me about that first?”

  He laughs. “I know what you need, and that’s a break. I’ll meet you outside the theater at eleven.”

  “I don’t think I can—”

  “If you try to tell me that you can’t, I’ll simply kidnap you.”

  I can hear that dazzling smile of his in his voice. He’s just so certain I’ll say yes.

  And I surprise myself when I do. My reasons for accepting aren’t entirely clear to me, and honestly I don’t feel like figuring them out. Sometimes you just want to say yes. As Otto always says, “Don’t think, just do.”

  So that’s how I’ve ended up at Per Se, which is one of the most expensive restaurants in Manhattan, decked out in my black vintage Marni dress with my patent-leather wedge Mary Janes. Across the table from me, Matt is pouring wine into my glass and telling me that I would love this couple he’s friends with in France because I am a free spirit like them. He says he can see me racing down the highway in a Jaguar with a scarf trailing behind me, the ocean on one side and the French hills on the other.

  While I don’t want to be rude, I’m forced to point out that this is a ridiculous cliché. “I’ve seen that in about six movies,” I tell him, taking a sip of the wine. It tastes like pears and honey, and I decide to drain my glass as quickly as possible. Maybe it’ll make me feel less jittery.

  He laughs. “All right, so you’re saying I need to try a little harder to impress you.”

  I nod, hoping to project the confidence I don’t entirely feel. “Probably. Although this salad is impressing me.” Which it had better, I think, considering it cost forty dollars. According to the menu, it has ramp top “subric,” Oregon morel mushrooms, and “émincée” of green almonds and roquette. I don’t know what most of that means, but it’s delicious.

  “I like that you’re one of the dancers who isn’t afraid of food,” Matt says as he spreads a slice of thick-crusted bread with French butter. The white button-down he’s wearing accentuates his tan, which he probably acquired on some gorgeous Ibiza beach.

  I give him a stern look. “Do you take a lot of dancers out to dinner?”

  He clears his throat and for a moment looks slightly uncomfortable. “Well, I do go to a lot of holiday parties,” he says. “You know, for the ballet.”

  “I’m only kidding you,” I say. “You should take as many dancers out to dinner as possible. We poor girls live on Bugles and tuna fish.”

  He laughs. “Oh, but I only want to take you,” he says.

  He watches me consume my salad as he plays the part of the gracious host: pouring me wine as fast as I can drink it, asking me if I want more bread or another bottle of San Pellegrino. And it feels nice to have someone taking care of me for a little while. Matt makes lighthearted conversation as he slices into his entrée, which is squab or game hen or some other small, helpless bird. I try not to look at its sad little carcass on his sparkling china plate.

  “You’d also love this little town down in the south of France,” he says. “It has the most incredible view of…”

  In a way, what he’s saying hardly matters, and he knows it. It’s as if he can tell that I’m exhausted from the performance and that I don’t have much juice left for conversation. I’d like to give him points for being perceptive, but if he’s really dated as many dancers as Daisy says he has, then he’d have to know how we feel at the end of a night.

  He’s funnier than I thought, though, and he likes books, too. He’s on an Ernest Hemingway kick, he tells me. He read The Sun Also Rises last week and For Whom the Bell Tolls the week before. On weekends he reads P. G. Wodehouse, whom he swears is a comedic genius. I write this down in my notebook so I can remember the name the next time I’m at a bookstore, which probably won’t be until summer break.

  “What’s the last good book you read?” he asks.

  I poke at a piece of brightly colored radicchio. “Well, I’ve been working on Frankenstein since, like, August. Does People magazine count?” I say wryly. (I don’t mention that I just ordered Moby-Dick from Amazon.)

  “Well, it’s not like you’re some illiterate. You like to scribble in that notebook,” Matt says, eyeing it. “What do you write? I’ll bet there are lots of juicy secrets in there.” He makes a move as if to take it from me, and I snatch it away.

  “Over my dead body,” I say. I’d stab him with my butter knife before I’d let him touch it.

  He laughs. “But I just want to get to know you better.” His dark eyes flash with amusement.

  I shrug. “I’m sure you’ll come up with other ways.”

  He’s still chuckling as he shakes his head. “Yeah, I suppose I could. Maybe next week we could check out Marea. I heard it’s awesome.”

  As I eat my ridiculously expensive salad, I wonder if it makes sense for me to be with someone like Matt. There’d be no need for awkward explanations about why I have to cancel plans. I’d be able to complain about Jason Pite’s obsession with pelvic release or Otto’s epic adagio combinations without having to explain the dance terms. And I’d get a lot of nice dinners, lots of very elegant salads, out of it.

  But maybe I shouldn’t worry about Matt or Jacob. Being alone might be easiest. Annabelle Hayes would certainly say so.

  I picture her narrow, pinched face, her small, unforgiving mouth. Your job is not to live. Your job is to dance.

  19

  Two weeks pass in a blur of rehearsals, performances, and extra yoga classes. I push myself all day long, and then at night I lie in bed and visualize myself dancing solos. And I know I’m getting stronger: I used to be nearly dead after the third movement of Prelude, and now I can dance the whole thing and barely break a swea
t.

  But then in early March, when I go to check the new casting sheet, I hardly see my name at all. My breath catches in my throat. I’m not called to learn any of the solos in Sleeping Beauty or The Fawn, Otto’s new ballet. In fact, my parts are even worse than last year.

  But Zoe got a solo in The Fawn.

  I walk the hallways in a fog of disillusionment, my legs still wobbly from the morning’s rehearsal. “Earth to Hannah,” Jonathan says, waving his hand in front of my face. I notice that he’s painted his nails a barely perceptible pink. “Hannah, I said do you want to go to the deli with us?” But I duck my head and keep walking.

  “Wonder what her problem is,” I hear Luke say.

  “God knows,” Adriana leans into Luke and gives him a little kiss with her thin red lips.

  I guess that means they’re dating now.

  Jonathan giggles as he wraps a cashmere scarf around his neck. “She’s got PMS. We’re on the same cycle, you know.”

  And I can’t even smile.

  For a while I sit by the laundry machines, listening to the sound of the dryers. A few people come up to get Cokes, but no one says anything to me. No one even seems to look my way.

  When I first became a corps member, Otto regularly had me demonstrate during company class, and once he told me that he admired my work ethic. He never promised me anything, but I always thought that he saw potential in me. And I’ve tried so hard to impress him—always, but these last months especially. Night after night, after a full day of rehearsal and then performances at night, I’d collapse into bed, exhausted but incredibly happy, because I knew that I had lived that day.

  But today the very same routine makes me feel invisible and expendable.

  “I wish they’d just put me out of my misery,” I mutter as I walk into the empty dressing room.

  Leni pops up from her mat on the floor, blinking as if startled. She’s wearing navy sweatpants and a delicate cream camisole, and her blond hair is mussed and sticking up on one side. “You shouldn’t say things like that, Hannah,” she says, brushing the tangled strands out of her eyes.