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She warned me about going to dinner with him. She told me I would end up disappointed. But she’s always been my mother’s girl, and I was always sort of his, until he left.
When I return to the table it’s been cleared.
“Are we ordering dessert? They have a panna cotta I was thinking about trying.” He thumbs the dessert menu.
“I shouldn’t eat dessert, Robert.” I test out using his first name to see how it will land on him. “I’m a ballerina.”
“Robert? I’m your father.” He waits for the accusations—“then act like it”—but I won’t give him the satisfaction. He sets down the menu. The woman at the adjacent table hears the deep pinch in his voice and looks over at us. He clears his throat and leans forward. “Are we getting dessert tonight?”
“I’m a ballerina.”
“Are you going to still be a ballerina?” he asks, his words clipped. I’ve clearly hit a nerve. “Your mother told me about the school’s decision, Bette.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Head high and eyes straight ahead, I make sure not to look away. He taught me that. “You all of a sudden care now what happens to me?”
“I’ve always cared.”
“Then where have you been?”
His wide shoulders seem to jump with what I can only assume is surprised humiliation. I think about saying something to smooth over the anger, but my mind fills with other mean things to say instead. Since he left, our relationship has been a series of missed dinners and empty apologies and bank deposits.
“Your mother can make things quite difficult.” He puts a hand under his chin, like the words coming out of him are too heavy for even his firm mouth to handle.
“Mom is difficult. No, she’s terrible. And you left us there with her.” I clutch the locket around my neck. It was his grandmother’s. He gave it to me for my thirteenth birthday. My hands are shaky. The buzz of the pill is finally settling in and I am hyperfocused on the way he looks at me, the fact that he opens and closes his mouth more times than words actually come out.
A flicker of guilt flutters in my chest as I think about what it must’ve been like to be married to my mother. But I won’t feel sorry for him. I can’t. He chose to marry her. He left us with her. We didn’t get a choice. So, no, he won’t get any pity from me. Not now, not ever. “Have your panna cotta,” I tell him. “I’ll see you next time. Whenever that is.”
The maître d’, used to scenes like this, I guess, already has my slim red peacoat waiting for me and slips it over my shoulders as I walk out, my stride strong, not revealing the shakiness inside.
But once I’m out the door, my shoulders drop and my pace slows. It’s exhausting pretending to have it together. I wait a few seconds, thinking he’ll run after me and beg me to come back to the table. I had hoped—stupidly, I guess—that maybe, just maybe, today I’d find in my father an ally. Like the way we used to be. But no one comes outside. And now more than ever, I know that I’m in this on my own.
On Monday morning, after my mother goes off to the spa for her usual weekend recovery appointment, I call the lawyers’ office. I pretend to be her—slurred, angry voice—and demand that the files from the settlement with the Stewart family be sent over for her review. They arrive within an hour.
I have the courier set the lawyers’ boxes on the dining room table. In the dark, they are shadowy tombs. I turn the light up, pull open the drapes, and the boxes become less scary in a haunted-house way but more intimidating in a real-life way. My whole life is in these boxes, filed away forever, everything in them shouting that I was bad.
I riffle through the files. The first one has pictures of each person in my class, their names scrawled along the bottom in black marker. I set them out on the table like I’m a ballet master placing dancers into a piece of choreography.
Giselle Stewart
E-Jun Kim
Eleanor Alexander
William O’Reilly
Henri Dubois
Sei-Jin Kwon
Alec Lucas
I run my fingers across Alec’s face, missing him. He hasn’t called. Not once. I haven’t exactly reached out to him. I couldn’t bear the idea of calling him and being clicked to voice mail or sending a text and having it go unanswered.
I comb through the boxes and lay out all the evidence that led to the settlement with Gigi’s family:
1) A copy of Henri’s statement saying that he saw me push Gigi in front of that taxi.
2) Pictures of the crime scene: the street outside the club, the curb where we stood, the hood of the taxi bent with an indentation from Gigi’s body.
3) The police report from that night.
4) A copy of Will’s statement about past pranks I’ve pulled on other girls. Though there’s no mention of the role he played in any of those pranks, of course.
Reading these just confirms what I know: I am the most hated person at American Ballet Conservatory. Maybe I deserve to be, according to the quotes from Will, Henri, and half a dozen other dancers, some of whom I’ve never even talked to.
“Bette is toxic.”
“Bette has it out for anyone who is better than her.”
“Bette’s jealousy turns to madness.”
“Bette terrorizes people.”
I’m not supposed to be going through these files. The Abney family therapist said I shouldn’t fixate on things that I don’t have the power to change at this moment. But she should know by now that I don’t listen, and I don’t follow directions well unless they’re doled out by Madame Morkovina. I wonder what Morkie thinks of me now. I feel a hot pinch in my stomach. One I can’t ignore.
I look at a lawyer’s crude drawing of the scene. They’ve used basic, almost stick figures to draw where I said everyone was standing that night. I’m on the curb next to Alec, Gigi, and Eleanor. Henri is off to the left or maybe it was the right. This summer my memories of the night skewed each time I was asked to replay them out loud for the lawyers. Sometimes Henri was on the right. Other times he was behind me. Sometimes Will lingered behind Gigi.
I bend the edges of Gigi’s picture. The audition photo she took before getting accepted to the conservatory smiles up at me. Bright white teeth, happy eyes, and perfect sun-baked skin. I look at my own picture. My mother had a famous fashion photographer take it. I don’t think I’ve ever been as happy as Gigi is in that single photo. I remember her first ballet class with us. She stuck out. It made me realize, for the first time ever, just how white the ballet world is. Even the Asian girls sort of blend in at initial glance, with their pale little arms and tiny frames and quiet personalities.
But not Gigi. She barreled into the room, her hair a burst of wild curls, pins between her teeth as she wrestled it into a bun, and she wore a hideous, multicolored leotard, totally ignoring the very specific ballet class uniform instructions in the conservatory packet we all received. I remember thinking she was gorgeous, despite it all. Her skin glowed like she’d just run three miles.
I close my eyes and can see her dancing. I see how loud it was. How riveted everyone was. How much fire she had in her movements. A hot and angry knot forms in my stomach. I throw her picture back in the cardboard box and slam the lid on it. I may hate her but I didn’t push her. I didn’t hurt her in that way.
I take my phone from my pocket and dial Eleanor. Voice mail. I hang up and dial again, and again. She still doesn’t answer. I leave her several messages, telling her I need to talk to her, that I miss her and she’s my best friend. My only one.
I build up my courage and dial Alec just once. I leave the smallest, vaguest message ever: “Call me. Need to tell you something.” I’ll regret it in an hour, but the adrenaline of it all pushes me. If he calls me back, I need to figure out what that something is.
I pace around the room for what feels like hours. That night floods back to me—dressing up June to come with us to the club, the cab down to SoHo, seeing Gigi dance with Alec. I remember trying to be nice to her and buying her a drink, making a truce, and owning up to some of the petty things I did. I think through every step I took that night after we left the gala, like it’s a difficult variation I have to learn. In slow motion, I try to recall every detail again: the slur in Gigi’s laugh as she and Alec were tripping on cobblestones in front of us. The spring mistiness in the May air. Alec’s hand resting on the small of Gigi’s back as we walked toward the street. The look on Will’s face as he caught that same moment. It must have mirrored mine.
And then, the light shifting from red to green as Gigi stumbled forward, traffic taking her with it. I shudder at the memory, so vivid in my mind.
“Who hates me?” I say out into the room.
A voice inside answers: Everyone.
Tears prick my eyes. I shake my head. This is not the time to fall apart. My mother would say Abney women never fall apart. I pull my hair out of my face, sweep it up into an easy knot. It is trained to behave even without the bobby pins and hair spray and water.
I pore through the papers again, trying to figure out who could have done this. The obvious choice: Cassie. But Cassie wasn’t there that night. Henri made his intent to destroy me clear last year, with Cassie as his impetus for the whole thing. And I can’t remember where he was standing. The feeling that I’m right is overwhelming as it bubbles up inside me, ready to erupt.
All the evidence I really need is inside the dorms because everyone is there.
I have to find a way back.
A MAGIC SORT OF FEELING zips through me as I change for ballet class. The sounds of slippered feet and laughter push through the thin walls of my room. Doors open and close. The ping of the elevator echoes. I can feel the excitement of the girls getting ready for afternoon ballet class.
I pull on tights and try to figure out if you can see my scar through the pink. Just a little. I pack my dance bag, which is now outfitted with one of Mama’s ugly suitcase locks. I sew the key into the lining of my leotard so that it’s close. It makes me wonder whatever happened to the little rose charm Alec gave me last year for luck. It’s long gone.
I put on my heart monitor. Everyone knows about it now. I don’t care anymore. I text Alec that I’ll see him downstairs and receive a smiley face back. I filter through all my social media feeds. First-day-of-ballet-class posts fill the screen. Good luck messages and pictures of pointe shoes flash. I check various students’ feeds: Eleanor, June, Will, Alec, new girl Isabela, even Bette. I let my guard down last year, and it nearly killed me. This year, I plan to know exactly what everyone’s up to.
I skip going to the café for lunch and head straight down to the first-floor studios instead. I can’t eat anyway. My stomach is a tangle of nerves.
The lobby is thick with bodies. Moms and dads drop off their petit rats for afternoon ballet. Little dancers zip around in a chaos of white, red, yellow, and green leotards, looking for their ballet class locations. Parents position themselves outside the glass walls of the studios, hoping for a prime watching spot. For a small moment, I wish Mama was still here, fussing with my hair, slicking down the edges so they won’t frizz. She used to love to watch me dance, and she’d bring me to the studio early and stretch alongside me. Then she’d peer through the glass, ignoring the other watching mothers who tried to chat with her, focusing on me. She’d always ask me how it felt to move like that. She used to like ballet then.
One of the moms stares at me. She nudges the woman beside her. They cup their hands over their mouths, exchange looks, and whisper. A few others have now spotted me. Some of their faces bear weak half smiles or pitying grimaces. I want to elongate my arm and break out into the deepest arabesque penchée they’ve ever seen. A full 180-degree standing split right above their heads. They’ll know nothing’s wrong with me after that.
The elevator opens. I just see the blondness—a familiar golden halo—and it feels like I’m seeing a ghost.
I step back. A knot twists in my stomach. My heart beats faster. The little monitor on my wrist vibrates.
I tell myself, You are not afraid of Bette. She should be afraid of you.
But it isn’t Bette. It’s Cassie.
“Hey,” she says.
Their resemblance is unnerving.
“Hey,” I finally manage. We’ve never spoken before.
“I’m Cassie. You must be Gigi.” She grins, and in that moment I can see the difference between her and Bette. “I’ve heard we have a lot in common. I mean, besides my awesome cousin Alec, of course.”
“We do.”
Her eyebrows lift in a telling way. Dancers stare at us from their stretching spots as we walk down the corridor toward Studio B. When we pass the front office, Madame Yelena Dorokhova—one of the company directors—steps out. She’s dressed in dancewear and is tapping away at the tablet in her hands. Instantly, every girl in the hall sinks into a deep révérence, bowing her head in respect. The teachers command a presidential authority here. I’m in awe of her. After all, she is a former principal at ABC and danced fifteen years as one. I can’t help but smile. She smiles back. She’s beautiful—dark hair, dark eyes, pale white skin. She nods, and we all disperse, like we’ve been unpaused by a remote.
Cassie and I scurry toward Studio B. We drop our stuff in the hall and plop down. She fingers the suitcase lock on my bag. “Smart. I should do that, too.”
“Yeah.” I look at her profile as she sinks into a deep stretch and realize that she’s the only other person in this building, in this entire city, in the entire world, who knows the exact shape my life took last year. “I guess I was the new you.”
“You’re not kidding.” She faces me. “Did you find out who did all those things to you?”
“Yes. And you?” A strange web of energy grows around us. We’re complete opposites, and yet we’re exactly the same—the hurt, the fear, the anger connects us.
“Yes.”
Neither of us says her name.
“I had my boyfriend, Henri, investigate a little. You know, to confirm everything. I was so naïve when I first got here. I didn’t realize how far people would go just to dance.”
I nod and think of Henri, that weird intensity in his eyes and the surprising softness in his touch. It makes me shiver.
She helps me stretch forward. “We should keep each other informed.” The word lands in my bun. I nod, then inhale and exhale. I lift up and pull her forward toward me. Her hands are soft yet strong, and she smells like hair spray and baby powder and resin. Like Bette. But she’s not, I remind myself. She’s not.
“Henri told me you were always so nice,” Cassie says. We open our legs into a stretch, touching our feet together. I wonder if he told her that he kissed me. Just my cheek, but still. I wonder if that was part of his investigating. “How’s your foot? He told me what happened with the toe shoes. Also, the whole ballet school online world.”
“Brand-new.” I flex my foot. Aside from a tiny scar, you’d never know shards of glass had pierced the skin and muscle.
“Henri told me that Sei-Jin’s the one who did that.”
I drop her arms. She sits up. Her face is calm despite the hugeness of what she’s just said to me. “What did you say?”
“That Henri overheard Sei-Jin bragging about the glass in your shoe.” She doesn’t break eye contact with me.
“How could he just hear something like that?” I’ve never done anything to Sei-Jin. I’ve barely even spoken to her.
“He’s good like that. People pretty much ignored him last year. Didn’t realize he was even around, let alone listening.” She lets her arms glide over her head and down to her ankles. “I just thought you should know, in the interest of us, you know, being in the same situation.”
Girls shuffle down the hall as ballet classes begin. Cassie and I stand up and walk into Studio B. She rests a hand on my shoulder before we enter. “I know exactly how you feel.”
I follow her into the studio. The space is just as I remember it. Clear glass walls, smooth floor, sunshine streaking through, the scent of tights and ballet shoes and a little bit of morning sweat. Chairs hug the front mirror. Viktor sits at his piano, tinkling the keys to warm up. Next to him, perched on a chair, is Madame Dorokhova—already making notes about us. A little flutter bursts in my chest. Why is a company director here on the first day of class?
The other girls cluster along the walls, stretching their muscles, hydrating, and sewing ribbons and elastics onto new pointe shoes.
I scan the room. I make eye contact with Eleanor. She smiles but quickly drops her gaze. Her face looks the same—round, rosy, with impossibly bright and hopeful eyes. I don’t smile back at anyone. I want them to know I’m not the same girl anymore. I want them to be afraid of what I might do.
There are new girls: another brownish girl named Isabela from Brazil, and a new Japanese girl, Riho, who seems to have been adopted by the other Asian girls. Maybe if they had taken me in, I’d have a group. I look for June, but she’s not with them, of course. She never was. I see Sei-Jin. She smiles. Cassie’s words echo inside me. Anger simmers.
I turn away.
“Hey, Gigi. Welcome back,” a few voices say. I don’t return their warmth. I ignore them. I find a spot to plop down and get a final stretch in. I feel eyes on me, but focus my attention on loosening my hamstrings and making sure my hips are open.
A foot touches my leg and I look up. It’s June. She’s smiling down at me. No, beaming. It catches me off guard—the smile is gracious and real, like it’s coming from deep down inside. I get up and we just stand there, staring at each other for what feels like a long moment. Then she wraps her arms around me and the hug feels so out of place. I don’t know what to do with my arms and head. I try to sink into it, to find a place to rest my worries, and finally she just pulls me closer and tucks me in, as if she knows. She feels softer than before. More comfortable.
“How are you?” Her words rub against the nook of my neck.
“Okay.”
She pulls back and opens her mouth several times, the words stuck in her throat.
“It’s good to see you,” I say, so that she will stop wrestling with whatever she’s trying to tell me and just be. “How was your summer?”
“Good. You look a lot better,” she says, tentative. “Stronger.”
“I’m great.” I can feel the others listening in. “Brand-new.”
“I’m—” she starts, but a round of claps cut her off. Mr. K strides into the studio. Our female teachers trail behind him, Morkie first, then Pavlovich. Madame Dorokhova hugs Mr. K briefly, then she settles into her seat again.
The rest of us stand, smoothing our buns, and shuffle into the middle of the studio, ready to listen, ready to dance. I remember why I love this so much—the routine, the discipline, the elegance.
“Welcome to the most important year of your life,” Mr. K says with a flourish of his hands. We all clap and bow. “You all are reaching the pinnacle of your career as students entering Level 8. And this year, some of you will transition into the realm of professional dancers.” He paces around the front of the studio, rubbing his goatee. “You must love it. That’s the only way through the rigors you will face this coming year. Love.”
The group starts to part as he enters our flock. I feel his strong gaze on my face. He’s towering over me again, and I flash back to the first casting last year, the moment that started me on this difficult path.
“And speaking of it, let’s welcome back moya korichnevaya, Giselle,” he says.
Brown butterfly.
I think of my own fluttering butterflies, slaughtered and sacrificed and pinned to my room wall, and I can’t stop the shudder that shoots through me. He kisses both my cheeks, takes my hand like we’re preparing to do a pas onstage. I wonder if he notices that it’s shaking. He leads me to the front of the studio. He turns me. “You are resilient,” he almost shouts, then faces everyone. “That’s what ballet is all about.”
I do a deep curtsy down to the floor before he reaches for me again. Morkie squeezes my hand and kisses me.
“You are better,” she says, shaking my hand. “You look good and strong.” I want her words to sink into my skin and down into my muscles and bones, which still feel so fragile and out of practice.
Mr. K goes back into the group and pulls out Cassie. “Another one has returned to us.” He presents her. She does a spin. “Cassandra Lucas. I’d thought I’d lost this butterfly long ago.” He lifts her by the waist and twirls her. She winks in my direction. Everyone claps again before he leaves to go next door to the boys’ studio.
We start class at the barre with Morkie hovering around us. Right away I can feel the difference—my tendus are not as smooth, my relevés are not as high on my left foot. I’ve been working all summer, but I have a long way to go. As much as I tell myself that nothing’s changed, my confidence plummets. I can feel Madame Dorokhova’s eyes on me, curious, judging.
Morkie doesn’t say a word. She notes every little fault in the other dancers, but she skips right over me, not mentioning even my stumble as we make piqué turns across the floor. She’s trying to make me feel better about all this, but it’s just making me feel worse.
After class I wait for June, thinking we can go to the café and fill each other in on our summers. But she rushes out without a word. In the hall, I see Jayhe. He kisses her, lacing his fingers through hers, and they head for the lobby. When did that become official? Was I just not paying attention? I think back to the end of last year, and my head starts to hurt. I remember Jayhe’s face at the club after the gala. I remember seeing them together and Sei-Jin being upset. I remember wondering if June actually liked him or if it was just a ploy to make Sei-Jin angry. I remember Alec walking in front of me, and trying to catch up.
I stop in the middle of the crowd of dancers. The noise of their feet and chattering voices, the pings of the elevators, piano chords escaping other studios, it all drains away and the faces blur around me. I can feel my feet slipping out from under me, feel myself plunging forward into the darkness, all of me shattering, just like on that night. The night when everything changed. I back into the nearest wall, desperate to cling on to something.
A hand on my shoulder pulls me back into this building, into this hallway, into this space. It’s Cassie again.
“Just breathe, Gigi, breathe.” She’s looking deep into my eyes, making me focus on hers. “Better, faster, stronger, payback,” she says with a smile.
“Yes.” That’s what I have to be. That’s what I have to do.
I lean in close, so the others can’t overhear. “What you said about Sei-Jin—”
“Every word was true.”
I don’t have to say the rest. My eyes tell her everything. Sei-Jin’s going to pay. They all are.
“The new Gigi is going to be mean,” Cassie says, grinning.
I let myself sink into that tiny four-letter word. Mean. Yes. It’s about time.
THE SUN POURS IN ON me from the studio’s wall of glass windows, warming the back of my shoulders. I sip my omija tea from my thermos and wonder why Mr. K is calling us all together so early in the year for a meeting. It feels like fall casting, but it’s not even October yet.