Bunheads (17 page)

Daisy shoves a handful of Doritos into her mouth. The tips of her fingers are bright orange. Since the last casting was posted, Daisy’s consumption of junk food has been in overdrive.

“Do you mind?” I say.

Zoe looks up and lethargically removes her feet one by one, then returns to her spot on the other side of the dressing room. She goes on, undeterred by her displacement. “I mean, it’s all
jumps for what feels like forever. You go pas de chat, then grand jeté, pas de chat, then you open out into high kicks, then these chaîné turns, then all these coupé-jeté things….”

“Blah-blah-blah,” I mouth, and Daisy stifles a giggle. Zoe is oblivious; she goes on blabbing. She reminds me of my junior high history teacher, Mr. Schmidt. He never noticed that no one, and I mean
no one
, was listening to him.

I take out my notebook and start doodling in the margins. At least Mr. Schmidt had
facts
to impart—Zoe is just bragging but disguising it as a list of complaints.

“Has anyone seen Bea lately?” I ask, interrupting Zoe’s catalog of dance steps. “She has my leggings.” I’m wearing green sweatpants that I want to change; my shirt is green, too, and together they’re making me feel like Oscar the Grouch.

“Not me,” Daisy says. “She might be in the Green Room already. She’s in the first ballet.”

To get away from hearing Zoe brag about her great new part, I decide to watch the beginning of
The Thorn
, the first ballet, from the flies. The scaffolding of the flies forms a U above the stage; it allows the stagehands to pull the appropriate ropes and direct the spotlights from above.

In my opinion, it’s the best seat in the house. Because it’s basically a bird’s-eye view, you can see the kaleidoscopic formations of the dancers and the way they call and respond to one another. You can see how their movements have a logic as well as beauty; it’s like a secret language of lines and angles and shapes.

Harry has a small wooden desk on the right side of the flies. A green-shaded banker’s lamp arches over his lighting charts,
his scrim schedules, and whatever paperback novel he happens to be reading.

When he sees me, he looks up, and his bifocals slide down his nose.

“Hannah!” he whispers. “Let me get you a chair.”

“Oh, it’s fine, I’ll stand. I’ve got to go soon; I have to finish my makeup.”

Harry waves down to the dancers on the stage. “This piece is a total bore. Lottie gets carried around like luggage the entire time. The Bach is terrific, though.”

I look over the railing and see the way the corps, wearing pristine white tutus, move in unison as Sam drags Lottie downstage. “Yeah,” I say with a sigh.

“You okay?” he asks.

I shrug and bite my lip.

“Mattie’s been asking about you.”

“Really? Tell her I said hi.”

“She wants you to come to her performance, but I told her you’re too busy. She’s going to be an elf princess or something. Seems like every week the wife’s got to sew a new costume.”

“She’ll be so cute,” I say, watching Bea’s buoyant hops on pointe below me.

“So, how’s company life?” Harry asks.

I gaze down at my pointe shoes. “Do you want the real answer or the polite one?”

“I’m a tough guy. Do I look like I care about polite?” he responds. Teasingly, he makes a fist and flexes his forearm. It’s the size of a Christmas ham.

“Yeah, I’m not doing that great,” I say, digging my fingernail into my thigh. I should be warming up, not talking. I’m on after intermission, and I need to give myself a barre and stretch my hips.

“Didn’t get the roles you wanted.” This isn’t a question; Harry knows what’s going on.

“No.” I pull at a string on my sleeve. “It’s just so frustrating. I don’t know why I work so hard if nothing seems to happen.”

Harry exhales and pushes his glasses up on his forehead. “I don’t get it either, Hannah. I’ve seen a lot of girls come and go in this place, and there’s no question in my mind that your talents are being overlooked.”

I shake my head and kick my foot against the railing.

“What is it that you want, Hannah?” Harry asks gently.

I sigh. “I don’t know, some indication that it’s all worth it?”

I glance down over the railing at the ballet unfolding beneath us. The pizzicato pluck of the violins is joined by the drone of the cello as Sam lifts Lottie in an overhead press. The excitement builds, and the tempo picks up as the dance nears its finale.

Harry nods. “A little validation.”

“Imagine if I asked Otto for some validation,” I say. “Man, would he look at me funny!”

Harry shrugs. “My whole
life
people have been looking at me funny. I look funny at them right back.” And then he furrows his brow, widens his eyes, puffs out his cheeks, and pushes his ears forward.

“Oh my God!” I exclaim, laughing. “You look like a
chimpanzee
.”

Harry’s face returns to normal. “Exactly.” He slaps his hand on the top of his desk. “The point is, don’t let the bastards get you down. You know what you need to do.”

I glance down one more time at the ballet unfolding beneath us. It’s time for me to get ready. “Thanks, Harry,” I say. “I feel a little better.”

“Anytime, sugar,” he says. “Now go get ’em.”

The next day Zoe comes over to me after the run-through of
Stormy Melody
. She steps right in my way as I’m heading to the vending machine.

“You’ve been ignoring me ever since casting was posted,” she says. Her green eyes stare right into mine, and her nose is just inches away.

I sigh and look up at the ceiling. “That’s because you’ve been insufferable,” I tell her. I try to get past her, but she reaches for my arm and gives it a little squeeze.

“I know, and I’m sorry,” she says. “I really am.”

For once she sounds like she actually means her apology. “Really?” I say. I still have my doubts.

Her brow furrows prettily, and she makes a pouty face. “I’ve just had a lot going on lately. I can tell you’re upset with me.”

“It’s actually not about you, believe it or not,” I tell her.

“Oh, Han,” she says. “I know I can be a total ass. But you mean so much to me. We’re still friends, right?” She leans her head on my shoulder. I can smell her expensive, lily-scented shampoo.

And the truth is I do care about her. We’ve been friends for five years. We got our apprenticeships together, we bought tampons together for the first time, we had our first underage drinks together. And even if we stopped speaking tomorrow, I’ll always be grateful for the way Zoe befriended me in those first weeks at the MBA. I might have died of loneliness without her.

But she doesn’t wait for my answer. “Anyway,” she goes on, “I should be a tiny bit mad at
you
.” She squeezes my arm and grins.

“Oh really? What for?”

“It’s March tenth—my birthday,” Zoe says, “and you and everyone else totally forgot.”

“Oh!” I pull her to me so I can guiltily hug her; Zoe always remembers my birthday, even though it happens during our summer break. “Happy birthday!”

“Twenty years old,” Zoe says into my shoulder. “Can you believe it?”

I step back and look at her. “You don’t look a day over sixteen,” I say. “What are we doing to celebrate?”

“I don’t know. Drinks? Do you have any good ideas?”

I thought about the text I’d gotten from Jacob:
Prove you’re not chained to that theater. NYU party in Wmsburg, 675 Bedford Ave.

I could go and surprise him. I just hope he won’t die from
the shock. “We’ll go to Brooklyn after the performance,” I say. “There’s a party that sounds pretty cool.”

I figure there’s no use moping around. Maybe a little distraction will do me good. Of course, I can imagine Otto’s displeasure if he found out that two of his dancers were planning such a field trip. But at this particular moment, I don’t feel that I owe him anything.

A strung-out-looking teenager asks us for spare change as we climb the gum-covered stairs from the L train platform. I cling to Zoe with one arm; the other I shove into the pocket of my leopard coat to keep warm as we teeter along the cracked pavement in our heels. Zoe is close to six feet tall in her Manolos, and she giggles as she stumbles and rolls over her ankle.

“Oh my God, be careful,” I cry, picturing a torn Achilles or a shattered metatarsal.

“I’m fine,” Zoe says. “In fact, I’m great!”

“You’re drunk is what you are,” I say.

Zoe holds up her thumb and forefinger half an inch apart. “Just a
little tiny bit
,” she says, purposely slurring her words. (She drank most of a bottle of wine at my apartment.)

As we approach the address Jacob gave me, I can feel the sidewalk vibrating from the bass.

“This is going to be good,” Zoe howls at a streetlight.

The building looks like an old factory—a place where tires
or refrigerators were once made. A large garage door opens and slides along the ceiling, and a woman ducks out to greet us. She’s got a cup of some fluorescent green cocktail in her hand. “Hey, guys! Grab some paint,” she yells over the music.

Zoe and I look at each other in confusion. “Did she say grab some paint?” I ask. “And who is that, anyway?”

Zoe shrugs as we enter. The room looks sort of like an old loading dock, with a cement floor and dingy cinder-block walls covered with graffiti. Inside, the music is even more deafening.

I stop a guy passing by with a foamy beer. “Hey, have you seen Jacob Cohen?”

“Who?” he yells back.

“Jacob Cohen!”

“Ah, I don’t know. But look, we got Girl Talk,” he yells. “Right over there!” He points to a slightly scruffy but good-looking guy who’s sporting a faded T-shirt and designer jeans and spinning records on a mounted plywood bridge overlooking the party.

I scan the space for Jacob. Posters for old rock shows hang on the walls, and empty bottles of beer litter the floor. The bathroom—for which there’s already a huge line—is partitioned off by a sheet and a large piece of plywood. There’s a couple making out near a recycling bin, and a guy in a Nirvana T-shirt blowing smoke rings up to the ceiling.

“Where do I put my coat? Doesn’t this place have a housekeeper?” Zoe yells to me. Then she nudges me in the ribs to make sure I know she’s joking.

We walk toward the center of the loft, where there’s a
pulsating mob of people dancing. They look strange and otherworldly, and for a second I can’t figure out why.

“What are they wearing?” Zoe screams in my ear.

I look more closely and realize that they’re covered in fluorescent paint. They’re holding buckets and cups of it, and they’re pouring it all over one another. Paint drips down their arms, turning them brilliant yellow and lime green. I see one girl wearing nothing but her underwear and splashes of chartreuse paint.

“What the hell?” Zoe hollers.

“I guess it’s creative expression,” I yell. “Like, if Jackson Pollock did a lot of acid and then had, like, a birthday party in a fix-it shop…”

Zoe points to the drinks table, which is stocked with giant plastic bottles of vodka and gin. “That’s all fine and good,” she says, “but where’s the Ketel One?”

“Try not to be a snob, just for a little bit,” I cry. I pour us drinks of slightly flat club soda and cheap vodka. “Look, they have lemons for garnish, at least.”

We toss our coats onto a pile in the corner and clutch our vodka sodas. They don’t taste very good, so I drink mine quickly. A little voice in my head warns me that I’m going to pay for this tomorrow, but I don’t care.

“No way am I going in there,” Zoe yells, pointing at the seething mass of paint-splattered dancers. “My dress is from Barneys.”

As Girl Talk mixes Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” with the Brazilian Girls’ “Don’t Stop,” the crowd whoops
and jumps in a rhythmic, pulsing cluster. The music is so loud I swear I can feel it in my bones, and almost involuntarily I start to bounce a little to the beat. The funny thing is that I’m embarrassed to dance in a situation like this; I don’t know how to do it like a normal person. I’m used to having everything choreographed for me, not all improvisational and loose. Some dancers I know are really good at party-dancing, but I fall at the self-conscious and awkward end of things.