Bunheads (29 page)

Daisy says, “Olivia told me Mai doesn’t like to eat at all. She thinks it’s overrated.”

I can’t help noticing that my friends seem to be in good spirits.

As I listen to them hypothesizing about what disorder or ailment Mai has, I get more and more upset. Maybe it’s because I’m hungry, too (oh, how I miss carbs!), but more likely it’s
because I’m worried about her. “Something’s really wrong with her, you guys,” I say.

They look at me blankly. Then Zoe says, “Obviously, Hannah,” and takes a bite of a pear.

I sink down into my chair and sip from a bottle of water. I can’t help thinking about the other MB girls who’ve damaged themselves. Last year a second-year corps dancer named Lila was diagnosed with a thyroid problem, and one of the soloists developed a blood disorder thanks to her continual dieting. It was similar to hemophilia, Daisy had told us (of course she knew all about it), and she’d be on medication for the rest of her life.

I know that a certain amount of suffering is necessary to make art. If ballet were easy, everyone could do it, and there’d be no need for the Manhattan Ballet or any other dance company.

But still I feel like someone has shaken me by the shoulders.

A few days later Mai comes to the theater to watch some of the rehearsals and meet with Otto. It turns out that she has developed a severe thyroid disorder, too, and the medication she’s on has made her face swell up to the point where she’s barely recognizable. Her black hair looks stringy and dull.

As I watch Mai sip delicately from a mug of tea, I start to wonder if I’m really doing the right thing with my life.

On Monday night I go down to Mattie’s dance studio on the Lower East Side. It’s just at the edge of Chinatown, across the street from a small, paved park dotted with a few trees and surrounded by a chain-link fence. In the park, old men play chess at cement tables, bundled up in faded jackets and worn hats even though it’s seventy degrees. I walk past people carrying orange plastic bags from Chinatown grocers. The air is full of language, and little of it is English.

I could probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve been this far south, and I realize that Jacob was right. I don’t live in this city.

There’s a banner above the studio entrance that says
SPRING OPEN HOUSE
in big purple letters. The doors are propped open, and people enter in a steady trickle. I feel nervous and out of
place—I’m no one’s parent or older sister. I wish I’d brought Bea, but she’s nursing a spring cold.

The studio is warm and welcoming, if a little shabby. At the end of the hallway, a pair of double doors opens into a small auditorium. At one end is a stage, complete with velvet curtains (donated from an old movie theater, Harry said), and many rows of folding chairs. I take a seat in the back. For some reason I don’t want Harry to see me. I just want to sit here, unrecognized and alone.

There are kids running around all over. Some of them are in costume, and some of them are just here to watch their siblings. The shrieking and the laughter echo against the high ceiling. I see a round, black-haired kid who looks very much as I imagined Jacob’s Paulo; he’s eating licorice ropes, and his entire face is stained with red.

I wonder how Jacob’s doing and what stupid jokes he’s been told by his third graders. I wonder if he’s had any shows lately, and if he ever sings “Girl in a Tutu” when he gets up onstage.

I’ve had
Moby-Dick
on my coffee table for weeks now, but I still haven’t read it. It sits there next to
Frankenstein
and a stack of old
People
magazines.

“Good evening, everyone,” calls a voice through a crackling speaker. “We’re almost ready to begin.”

The kids reluctantly find their seats, and I look through my photocopied program, which is hand-lettered, presumably by one of the older students.
Welcome to the Delancey Dance Academy’s Spring Open House—A Gala Affair
, it says. Then the lights dim, and the curtain rises.

Mattie is in the very first dance. She prances onto the stage in the middle of a line of other little girls her age. None of the costumes match, and some barely fit their wearers. Bernadette would fall off her chair in horror.

They line themselves up, then lift their hands above their heads and wait. In the wings, someone hits Play on a stereo, and the sound of a Sousa march fills the auditorium. On cue the girls begin to move. They glide to the left, then to the right, and then some of the dancers come forward in leaps while others linger in the back, twirling around on demi-pointe. They’re too young to be on pointe, but no doubt they’re already dreaming about it. Every young dancer does.

The joy on the faces of those girls is contagious. I remember feeling that way, back when I was little, when I had my own first recital. And before that, even, when I was dancing in my basement in front of an audience of stuffed animals.

Mattie is among the most enthusiastic dancers. Her pudgy little legs kick and leap, and all the while she’s smiling at everyone in the audience. When she’s through, the applause is deafening.

I can hear Zoe’s voice in my head.
She gets an A for effort, but she’s totally inflexible. Not to mention kind of fat.

I sigh. No, Mattie is not a natural dancer. But she’s enjoying herself and she tried her best. Why can’t that be enough?

I sit through most of the rest of the program, though my stomach rumbles because I haven’t eaten dinner. Mattie is in two more dances—apparently she’s one of the Delancey Dance Academy’s star students.

But she could leap as high as the rafters and it wouldn’t change the fact that she is as short and thick as a fire hydrant. No one would ever think she could be a ballet dancer; she’d never be accepted into the MBA.

But let’s pretend she
did
get in. She would spend every waking moment comparing herself to the other girls, the girls with lanky ballerina bodies, and hating her arms for being short and her torso for being thick. The teachers would tell her to lose weight around her midsection and to pray for longer limbs to sprout.

This bright, sunny child would be miserable.

Thinking about all this, I feel protective of Mattie, and just a little bit sad for the girl I used to be.

Zoe and I are called to rehearse
Rubies
again, this time onstage, at the end of the rehearsal day. The backstage area is vacant except for a few steel ballet barres left over from the night before, carelessly strewn across the linoleum. On the front of the stage, I can see Zoe gesturing with her hands while perched on the piano bench. I drop my dance bag by the barre and shed my warm-up pants and sweatshirt. As I approach the stage, I realize that Zoe is talking animatedly to Otto.

What is she talking about?
I think.
And where does she get the nerve?

Our elderly pianist enters through the wing with a pile of musical scores tucked under his arm. He politely asks for his seat back, then adjusts his glasses and smiles meekly. Zoe bounds up and giggles theatrically. Otto says something indecipherable as Zoe leans in so close to him that her lips almost touch his ear.
Then she skips upstage toward me and gives a quick phony smile with the corners of her mouth. I fake-smile back.

“Let’s run it from the top, girls,” says Otto.

We run the opening section, the solo, the coda, and the finale, all side by side. At times Zoe pushes to dance in front of me, and I respond by moving just a little too close to her. There are moments when we almost collide but narrowly miss each other.

All of this is Otto’s fault, when it comes down to it; but since there’s no point in being mad at him, I just seethe privately at Zoe.

And when rehearsal is over and I’m gathering my things, I see Zoe lingering onstage, pretending to stretch her calf. A moment later, I watch her walk over to Otto. She sways her hips a little as she goes, and she has a sly, almost seductive smile on her face.

I want to tell her off, but I just don’t have the energy.

“Hannah, come here!” Jonathan practically shouts to me. He’s pointing to the casting sheet that Sammy just tacked to the wall. There, under the lead for
Rubies
, is my name.
My
name. Not Zoe’s. My heart does a somersault in my chest.

“Congratulations, darling.” Jonathan beams at me.

“Oh my God,” I whisper. I bite my lip to contain my excitement.

“You deserve it, Hannah. I’m so happy for you!” He laughs and gives me a kiss on the cheek.

“I just can’t believe it.” It’s hard to keep from squealing with excitement.

“You get to wear that hot little red number,” he says.

“Ooh, I’m going to go try on my costume.” Waving good-bye to him, I rush down to the basement.

When I brush back the hideous costume-shop curtain, Bernadette lifts herself out of her chair. She hurries over and nearly smothers me in her enormous breasts.

“We are so proud of you, Hannah!” she says.

Carole, the other nice costume lady, clutches me with her spidery arms next, whispering her congratulations. I’m not surprised that Glenn, the third seamstress, pretends not to notice me; she’s half-buried under a pile of tulle, and she’s always grouchy.

Carole takes my hand; hers feels like a pile of twigs. She leads me to a rack of costumes and selects a short red one. “Some great ballerinas wore this before you, my dear,” she says.

I look at the lining and see
Harlow
written in black Sharpie on a hand-sewn tag; next to it, there’s another tag that reads
Hayes
. Lottie Harlow, Otto’s star ballerina, and Annabelle Hayes, my ballet mistress.

“Lottie was seventeen and so thin,” Carole says wistfully.

“You should have seen her onstage. Electric,” Bernadette adds. “Try it on.”

I strip naked and step into it carefully as Bernadette offers me her sturdy hand so I don’t fall over.

“You’re taller than they were,” Carole says, “but I think it will work.”

I step in front of the mirror. I don’t look like myself, but like a willowy, lean ballerina. The costume is a cherry-red cropped Lycra dress that hits just below the hip. The bodice is adorned with glittering ruby crystals all the way down to my belly button.

“Lovely,” Carole whispers.

The costume is old and not easy to clean, and so it has a distinctly human smell. It’s not BO, exactly, but it’s only a few steps away from it. If I look closely, I can see where the fabric has been bleached by the sweat of other dancers, and the places where missing jewels have been replaced by ones that don’t exactly match.

I’m not sure whether to be thrilled and intimidated by the history of the costume or slightly grossed out by its current condition.

“Did you lose weight?” Bernadette asks.

“Yeah, I think so,” I say.

“If you ask me, you didn’t need to,” she says.

“But no one does ask you, Bernie,” Carole says, wagging her bony finger. “They’ve got their own ideas up there on the street level, don’t they, dear?”

I smile ruefully. “It’s a different world,” I say.

I slip back into my leotard and tights. As I walk down the hall toward the elevator, I pump my fist in the air and think to myself,
I’m on the right path!
Later I’ll call my parents; they’re going to be so excited. I’m sure my dad will tell all his coworkers how proud he is of me, and my mom will phone my grandma in Florida. They’ll probably want to come to every performance.
I take the elevator up to the fourth floor to tell the girls the great news.

When the elevator doors open, I hear hysterical shrieking coming from down the hall. My heart starts to beat faster as I run toward the noise. It sounds like it’s coming from our dressing room, and as I near the closed door I’m terrified of what I’ll find. The noise grows louder, and my breath comes quick and hard.

I swing open the door, ready to find a shattered ankle, a positive pregnancy test, or someone else unconscious on the ground. “What?” I gasp. “What?”

In the middle of the room, Bea, Zoe, Daisy, and Leni are huddled together tightly holding each other. Someone is wailing. “Who’s hurt?” I say.

Leni turns toward me with tears streaming down her cheeks.