Tiny Pretty Things and Shiny Broken Pieces

A WEEK AND A HALF after the cast list went up, we’ve settled into our rehearsal schedule. We pile into the second-floor studio E, where I won’t be able to see the rest of the sunset. I’ve been trying to follow Mama’s advice and watch it every day in order to stay positive. “Don’t carry worries around,” she always says. “They’re heavy.” It’s hard to hold on to her words here. Nerves erase them easily. But I have to, and it helps that I haven’t felt sick since the list was posted. So they have nothing to worry about.

Eleanor walks into the studio beside me and I make a joke about our ballet madam’s new haircut, just to get her to talk to me. It’s hard to have real connections or even conversations with the girls here. She laughs, and so do I.

The room is a mess of leg warmers, pointe shoes, and chatter as we stretch our bodies so they’ll fold like putty. June rests her head against the wall, her legs two arrows shot in opposite directions. She always warms up, even though she doesn’t get to dance in the center with the rest of us. She only sits and marks variation movements and timing in the understudy book off to the side. I imagined that we’d rehearse together, laughing, teaching each other little things, moving in sync, like we used to do back home. But she won’t. No matter how many times I ask her if she wants to.

Bette finishes tying on a translucent dance skirt as if she has all the time in the world, and she’s watching me from her peripheral vision, like I’ve angered her even more by coming to rehearsal with Eleanor. Like I’ve broken some rule. There has never been a knife sharper than those blue eyes of hers. And where her eyes go, everyone else’s follow. It takes only a few moments until the eyes of the whole cast are on me. Enjoying my audience, I make a fart sound with my mouth. Some of them laugh, some of them frown, and Bette rolls her eyes.

I plop down next to June and smile, and she gives the worst imitation of one in return. I’ve learned it’s just her. Not to take it personally. I peel off my warm-ups: cutoff sweatpants that used to be Mama’s and one of my old T-shirts cropped at the top and bottom. I sew new ribbons onto my pointe shoes, my fingers fumbling with the needle and dental floss and slippery satin. I try to shake out the nerves in my hands. Today I have to mark my solo for timing and progress in front of everyone. I’ve only had a week and a half of character instruction with Morkie and Pavlovich. And I should’ve broken these shoes in yesterday so they’d be perfect. I pull the dental floss through the shoe and it snaps.

Get it together, I tell myself, resewing. I stand and push my heel on the front of each shoe, feeling the glued fibers in the toe box break under my weight. With quick fingers, I work with the inside of the shoe, peeling back the fabric to expose the leather shank, like it’s a banana, and use my pliers to pull out the tiny nail. I remember crying when I had to break in my first pair of pointe shoes. I thought it would make them ugly instead of able to support all the new movements I would make. I cut away part of the shank under my heel right where the curve in my arches begins. I secure it with quick-dry glue and tape, then test my weight. I pad my toes with a swath of lamb’s wool, slip the shoes on, and tie the ribbons in a square knot.

Eleanor warms up next to me, and her shoes make a weird crunchy noise. We look at each other and burst into laughter.

A bag clobbers my head. “Oww!”

I glance up.

“Oh! I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you there,” Bette says, standing above me, no longer hovering in the background. Bette plops down in the small space between Eleanor and me, and pulls aside a bit of the fabric covering the mirror. All of them are draped with curtains because Mr. K insists that reflections distance dancers from becoming their characters, that they make dancers lazy.

Bette stares at herself. Her lips, when they are pursed together and painted with that hot-pink lipstick, are an impossible heart shape. With a mouthful of clips and pins, Bette slicks her blond hair into the perfect bun. Each strand obeys her touch, unlike my own hair. She adds hair spray to seal it in place.

I feel my curls fighting against the bun, transforming into a frizzy nest. I should’ve gone to all the trouble to straighten it or asked Aunt Leah to take me to the hair salon. I search the mirror for Bette’s gaze. Casually, artfully, she applies fake eyelashes, dark and feathery, like the wings of my butterflies in their terrarium upstairs. I touch my cheek. My face is naked—no makeup, no lipstick, no eye shadow. Since the first day of school, June’s warned me that I should make up my face, that it is part of being a serious ballerina, that the teachers favor it. But I can’t. I don’t like the feel of it on my face, clumpy and goopy. The lipstick Bette wears would make me feel like a clown. I only wear it for performances, and even then I can’t wait to wash it off in the green room room afterward.

She must notice my fingers tiptoeing over my bare cheek, because she stops her expert application to look at me. “I love how you don’t do anything with your face,” she says, but I can’t tell if the word love might actually mean hate. I am not fluent in the language these ballerinas speak to one another. The girls at my old dance studio were never like this. “Don’t you just love it, Eleanor?”

“Mmmm,” Eleanor says.

“Oh. Yeah. Mama’s always saying she thinks makeup is dishonest, so …” Of course, as soon as the words leave my mouth I want to catch them and press them back in. “I mean, not that she’s right, I just never really got into it.” I give her the biggest, most sincere smile I can muster. “You always look beautiful, though,” I add. “Seriously.” I feel like an idiot.

“I really admire your confidence and everything,” Bette says, so smooth she erases how awkward I was. “But you really should put on a little something. Playing the part and looking the part are sometimes the same thing, don’t you think?”

I don’t really agree, but she was so graceful in forgiving my faux pas that I nod a little. She hands me a compact and a blush brush. “Just try a little. You’ll love it,” she says, matching the largeness of my earlier smile. “And boys like it.”

I sweep on a tiny bit of the powder, and maybe’s she’s right. The blush complements my skin tone. I have an extra glow. I’m just about to keep the conversation going and bask a little more in the attention Bette’s suddenly lavishing on me. But before I can say anything, she’s on her feet and hooking her foot on the barre. The moment is over. Liz tramples over. She whispers something in Bette’s ear, and looks down at me, crinkling her thin white nose like she’s smelling garbage left out on the curb.

The boys shuffle in—Alec in the lead and Henri last, as always. Alec winks at me, then swoops in and gives Bette a hug. I feel an unexpected twist of jealousy.

“You coming over tonight?” she purrs in his ear, just loud enough for us all to hear.

“Let’s see how tired we are after rehearsal,” Alec says. I could swear he shifts his eyes for a half second over her shoulder and looks right at me. Smiles, even. But it’s too quick to tell.

“You promised,” Bette says. It’s not a whine, which would be below her. It’s a statement of fact, and she crosses her arms over her chest, straightens her back, taking the stance of a lawyer questioning a witness.

“Can you continue your soap opera later, please?” Will says, interrupting the long look between the two of them. “I’m sure you’ll get your way.”

Bette bristles, even though it’s a compliment, I think. A confirmation of Bette’s beauty, her seductive powers, and most of all how much Alec must love her. Alec gives her a kiss on the cheek, and my heart twists a little more when Bette takes his face and moves it so his mouth reaches hers. The whole room looks away from them, as if on cue. As if they’ve been doing this their whole lives. Which, I guess, they probably have.

But I haven’t, so I don’t know the rule about giving Bette and Alec their little private moment, and my eyes alone stay on them. So it is only me who sees Alec slide Bette off his mouth. Her whole forehead creases, and he tries to kiss her cheek again, but she turns her face away from him and takes a step back, so full of hurt I can practically smell it.

She catches me looking straight at them, as ill advised as staring straight at the sun. Bette makes an audible, animal noise, but covers her mouth before it’s all the way out. Whatever niceties we just exchanged while making ourselves up in the mirror have disappeared. I was not supposed to see what I just saw.

I look away what feels like hours too late. I lift on pointe in a series of relevés, bounce on the balls of my feet to loosen the shank further, and make sure my toes feel comfortable in the toe box.

Mr. K storms into the room with the other dance teachers on his heels. They take seats along the front of the studio. We all scramble forward.

Mr. K claps his hands and nods. “We will mark the last part of The Nutcracker this evening. I want to see the progress. Snow Queen, you’re up first. Snowflakes, gather around her, and others dart in and out of the center like windblown flurries. We’ll just do the first two minutes, since your pas with Henri hasn’t been practiced yet. I want to see your entrance, Bette. Henri, stand off to the side as if you’re getting ready to join her.”

This is Bette’s first run-through, and when she moves she is a snowflake skittering across the floor: the very definition of grace. Her turns are effortless, her flourishes melodic, her hands and feet and face perfect. The other girls twirl around her, trying to keep up, but they are mere beginners in her presence. She holds her arms and hands in just the right way—the way our teacher Morkie holds hers. Her face is soft and she knows just the right way to turn it, a moth looking for the light. Everyone watches her in awe. A twist of pain stabs at me. Does everyone feel like Mr. K’s made the wrong decision? Do they think Bette should be the Sugar Plum Fairy? I fight away those feelings.

Mr. K yells above the music, “More charisma, you are the snow. Lighter. Lighter!”

Bette’s cheeks turn red. Morkie says something in Russian and Bette adjusts her leg. She does one pirouette and the music ends. We all clap. Bette curtsies and exits stage left. She puts her hands on her head and I notice that they’re shaking.

Mr. K turns to Morkie. “The turns are sloppy. They’re not spotting properly.”

Morkie answers in Russian. Mr. K throws his hands up. “The basics should be sharp, so ingrained, that they’re automatic. Second nature. They look like amateurs in here.”

Mr. K motions for Bette to return to center stage. She stands before him.

“Your whole combination was pretty. Your piqué turns, pirouettes all fine. Nice extension and perfect body alignment.” He strokes his goatee. “The difference between the kind of performance that gets you in the corps and the one that lands you Aurora, Kitri, and Odette is character, feeling, and transformation, butterfly. I need to forget who you are, Bette Abney, and see only the Snow Queen before me.” He dismisses her, and she curtsies and hurries from the center. She leans into the barre with her back to everyone.

Mr. K plops down where Bette left, on the actual floor, to make sure the male dancers fly over him for their leaps and jumps. All the boys look nervous, except Henri. He does so well that even Alec hovers a little too close, watching how high Henri soars. I’ve seen his high jumps photographed in dance mags, which called him and Cassie an up-and-coming dance duo.

Finally, Mr. K extends his arm to me. My turn. I gulp and shuffle to the front, ready to dance. Viktor starts my music. I present my arms in little flutters, then wait for the third beat, inhale, and step into my first piqué. Mr. K waves his hand in the air before I can start. He paces about the room with his hand on his mouth. “Sorry to interrupt, moya korichnevya. One thought before we proceed tonight …” He scratches his head.

My stomach sinks. I fidget in my pointe shoes and wipe sweat from the back of my neck. I pretend to push some of my bobby pins farther into my bun, but it’s an empty gesture. Not a curl is out of place.

Mr. K and Morkie fuss back and forth in Russian. He puts his hands up, and she stops talking.

“Can we use the mirror, maybe?” Will says, like he’s translated their squabbles. “Just for today? I know it’s a safety blanket, but maybe it would help. I know it would help me.”

My chest collapses in relief at Will’s suggestion. I have never practiced this early on without a mirror. He gives me a wink when I glance at him gratefully. I mouth the words thank you.

“Fine, fine. Boys, push back all the curtains.” Mr. K shakes his head and frowns at us. Disappointed. He tells them all to split up. The boys scramble about to different areas of the room and pull back the black drapes.

My music starts again. I concentrate on my footwork and the variation. I start to dance, tiptoeing across the floor. It flows, my mind letting go and my body taking over. My feet find every chime and melody. I feel ready to smile, to stop thinking about the steps, and let the music guide me. But I hear whispers rise above my music.

They grow louder and louder until I’m pulled out of the dance, my focus shattered.

“Do you see that? Look!”

“It’s written back there. Kind of random, right?”

“Creepy. It’s about Gigi.”

Viktor’s hands bang the piano keys in frustration, and he stops playing. Voices explode through the studio. I wobble from the sudden drop in energy. I put my arms out to catch my balance. I don’t have to worry that someone’s seen the awkward move: they’re all looking at the mirrors. Every last one of them, crowded into a pack. One of the girls points.

The teachers burst into a flurry of Russian, and I move to the edge of the crowd.

“What’s going on?” I say, all out of breath and too quiet for anyone to really hear me. The bodies block my vision. My heart races and my hands begin to shake as people turn to stare at me. Mr. K motions for Doubrava to come. They shout at each other in Russian. He hollers for everyone to get back.

Bette watches my face. The boys grip the curtains they’ve just pulled aside, seemingly frozen in place. People shuffle away from me and whisper. I can’t see anything over the crowd, all the bodies blocking me, fluttering around like butterflies. All I hear is my heartbeat. I push through the bodies.

Mr. K peers at the glass, shaking his head. I hear him say, “Who did this?” He turns to glare at us all. He repeats his question three more times, and lunges at us. “I will not tolerate this type of behavior in my school! Not again! Ballet is supposed to be beautiful. You’re making it ugly.”

I want to ask, “What happened?” But I swallow hard. I feel shaky.

Mr. K stalks through our now silent group. My head feels light from my racing heart and all the voices and the confusion. I get a clear look at the mirror. A message is scrawled across it in pink lipstick:

The Sugar Plum Fairy has farthest to fall.

FRIDAY NIGHT REHEARSAL ENDS EARLY after the message is discovered. I’m on a high with a rare chunk of free time, so I’m going to use it wisely. I took a pill after seeing the way Alec rushed to Gigi’s side after the message was revealed, and another after hearing snippets of Gigi’s conversation with Mr. K about the bullying incident and her delicate feelings.

Eleanor’s in the café, so I use our private bathroom to smooth a deep red 1940s Dior shade on my lips. But that won’t save me from the teachers’ suspicions about who did it. There will be the ones who recognized my loopy handwriting or the Chanel lipstick that is my signature color, and my sister’s signature, and originally my mother’s signature. A saturated pink that was way too obvious and will probably get me into serious trouble. But I couldn’t resist putting the message up there. It was sloppy. I didn’t even want her to see it yet. Will did that on purpose. He knows me too well. I used to be much more discreet. Undetectable.

I remember the secret pranks Liz, Eleanor, and I played on Cassie last year: putting purple hair dye in her conditioner so her blond curls got all stained, shredding up her leotards and tights just to see her get in trouble with the Russians for not having the right thing to wear for class, slashing all her shoes or soaking them in vinegar, trashing her room. But nothing compared to the look on Gigi’s face today. She’s such an easy mark. And the message was so much more clever, and the thrill of it made me feel powerful, but I can’t make the same mistakes I made last year.

I check my cell phone for a message from Alec. Nothing, but three missed calls from my mother, and no plans to call her back. I am certain Gigi’s mother bakes cookies and sends care packages and tells her she’s perfect as she is. Gigi has the glow of someone who has lucked out. She’ll probably get a special delivery after she tells them about the message and her hurt little feelings.

Leaning hard on the edges of the bathroom sink, I imagine Alec’s hands around Gigi’s waist, lifting her in a tutu and spinning her around during their pas. I imagine her liking the feel of his touch. I imagine him kissing her. I imagine him liking how different she is, her curly black hair and light brown skin and cute freckles and California mellowness. Two pills aren’t enough to erase those images and feelings. I swallow the third one dry and can taste the bitterness as it goes down. I’ll have to get more soon if I keep up this pace. The same energy that had me raring to go now gives me a new, singular focus. Find Alec.

The hum of the Adderall in my bones and buzzing in my head obliterates any sort of potential pity party. My entire body and mind want only Alec, now. After the pills, there’s only ever room for one desire at a time.

My phone buzzes, and I bristle, thinking it’s my mother harassing me still, but it’s Liz. She’s at the coffee shop on Sixty-fifth street, and, she reports, so are Alec and Will. It’s not an invitation exactly, but rather a warning. I don’t want Alec and Will alone together.