Bunheads (3 page)

“I want to dance in
Swan Lake
,” Mattie informs me.

“Good for you,” I say. But I can see already that she has her father’s body, and this does not bode well for Mattie’s future ballet career. Harry is not built like a dancer; Harry is built like a Mack truck. “That’s wonderful.”

“We’re going to do
The Nutcracker
this year, though,” she adds.

“Wow,” I say. “You know, we’re rehearsing
The Nutcracker
now, too? We dance it every year starting the day after Thanksgiving.”

Harry smiles indulgently. “It’s not the real
Nutcracker
,” he whispers. “They’re just going to have Sugarplum Fairy costumes. My wife is slaving over the damn thing already.” He laughs. “But Mattie loves to dance. Don’t you, girl?”

Matilda nods happily. “I want a costume like yours someday,” she whispers. Her pink cheeks flush even pinker.

I glance down at the silvery satin costume and touch one of its hand-sewn pearls reverently, protectively. “I hope you get one,” I whisper back.

Then Luke, my partner in
Four Winds
, appears, wanting to practice the pirouettes we do together in the first section. He doesn’t acknowledge Harry or Matilda but reaches out and grabs my hand. To a lot of dancers, the stagehands are simply invisible, like familiar pieces of furniture. Those dancers don’t appreciate that without the stagehands, nothing—and I mean
nothing
—would work as it should.

“Please,” Luke says. “I’m nervous.” He blinks at me with his large, slightly watery green eyes.

I feel sorry for him, and so I nod. “All right, come here. Hold your arms out.” I’ve danced this ballet dozens of times, but it’s not easy, so I can sympathize. I step into his arms.

Matilda’s eyes grow even wider. Now she’ll get an impromptu performance.

I count off four counts, just to give Luke time to prepare, and then I start to turn. I fall to the right on the first pirouette, though, because Luke has me off my supporting leg.

“Hold me more firmly,” I tell him. “You won’t hurt me.”

The second time he keeps me on my leg, and I rotate three times. Matilda applauds.

“Good! You’ll be fine,” I say reassuringly.

But right at that moment, Otto Klein glides by, frowning slightly as he sips from a bottle of Evian, and Luke visibly pales. “Is he watching tonight?” he whispers.

“I doubt it,” I say, shaking my head, because I know Otto’s presence will only make Luke more nervous, and then he’ll forget what I told him about holding me right.

Of course, Otto probably
will
watch, and the thought of it makes my heart beat a bit faster.

I wave to Harry and Matilda, and then Luke and I go to join handsome Jonathan and gangly Adriana, who are waiting in the wings. The lights from the stage stream through the wings in pink, yellow, and blue beams that look like the sun shining through the clouds. We count our eights to make sure we come in on time. It might be overkill, but I like to count them on my fingers so I don’t lose track.

On the end of the ninth eight, we walk onto the stage in unison and into our formation. As soon as I make the transition from wing to stage, I grow about two inches. I listen to the music and it cues my muscle memory. I tombé-glissade-piqué into Luke’s arms. Then, preparing for the pirouette, I take a breath. On the first rotation I’m off my supporting leg, but I use my core strength to put myself back over my toe for the second turn.

“Sorry!” Luke whispers.

“Don’t worry,” I whisper back, even though I’m annoyed at him.

We run into formation and he lifts me high and quick for the pas de chat as we cross with the couples on stage left. I pose on the side in B-plus (one leg gracefully crossed behind the other) and then curtsy to the couples on the right and the left of us as if to greet them: “Hello, Adriana. Hello, Olivia.”

Onstage we’re all on the same team; worries about competition, casting, and promotions vanish, and we revel in the dance itself.

When the music stops, the audience erupts in applause. As I curtsy, I feel the adrenaline coursing through me.

“Thanks for not dropping me,” I whisper to Luke as we take our bow.

“Anytime,” he says with a grin.

Still trying to catch my breath, I walk backstage to check tomorrow’s schedule. The schedule tells us which ballets we’re dancing in, which ones we’re rehearsing for, and which roles we might have a chance of getting. Dancers study it as if it’s the word of God. If your name is printed under a soloist or principal part, it means that Otto sees potential in you, and your career is in the ascendance. Continually being cast in smaller corps parts, though, means the opposite. Since we perform so many different ballets in a season, each ballet is, in theory, an opportunity for a great part. So we’re always hopeful—even if we’re often disappointed.

All the lights are off except for a single blue bulb that burns dimly above the bulletin board, barely illuminating the schedule
tacked there. I scan the paper for my name, and when I see it, my breath catches in my throat: I’ve been called to understudy Lottie Harlow for the lead in Otto’s new ballet—the part that Zoe and I were angling for.

I feel a rush of excitement. Okay, so I didn’t actually
get
the part, but Otto wants me to learn it! If something were to happen to Lottie, he trusts me to carry the ballet in her place. I smile and give a happy little hop. This could be a sign of good things to come.

Bea hurries up next to me, still breathing heavily from her performance, and looks for her own name. “Are you serious? I’m dancing
Unraveling in G
again?” Her red lips look black in the dim blue light, and her pancake makeup covers her freckles completely. “It’s like I’m still an apprentice,” she says grimly.

“That sucks,” I say. Then, unable to help myself, I blurt, “I’m understudying Lottie in Otto’s new ballet.”

“Really?” Bea immediately brightens. “Good for you.” She reaches out and gives me a quick squeeze. “See? Otto
was
watching you.”

Then Daisy and Zoe come over, eager to find their own names. Zoe pushes past us, knocking Bea off balance.

“God, Z,” Bea says. “Shove much?”

Zoe ignores her and two seconds later gives a little yelp. “I’m understudying Lottie,” she says, turning to us and smiling, her teeth white and perfect.

Immediately my heart sinks a little. Of
course
Otto put us together again.

“I guess Otto was giving me the up-down, too, huh?” Zoe says slyly.

“Uh, yeah,” I mumble.

“Hey,” Daisy says. “You guys? Where am I?” She tries to catch a glimpse of the schedule, but we’re all in the way. She jumps up and down, attempting to look over Zoe’s shoulder.

“Looks like you’re in
Symphony in G
and
Haiku
,” I say.

“Yes!” Daisy pumps her little fist. “I’ve always wanted to dance
Haiku
.”

Zoe leans over and whispers in my ear, “What a dork. That’s, like, the lamest part in our rep.”

“She’s oblivious,” I whisper back. “But at least her delusion will keep her happy. You know how she stress-eats when she freaks out.”

Zoe giggles.

“It’s so cool you guys are learning Lottie,” Bea says loudly, trying to make sure Daisy doesn’t overhear us calling her a dork for being so excited about an apprentice ballet.

But Daisy doesn’t even notice; she bounces off toward the Green Room, her dark hair unraveling from its bun.

Zoe turns toward me and speaks with deliberate casualness. “You know, Otto will probably rehearse a second cast, which means one of us will dance it.” She thrusts her shoulders back and gives me a little smile. “I
wonder
which one of us he’ll choose….”

I shrug and turn away, although inside I’m practically seething. We all want bigger and better parts. It’s ingrained in us—the drive to succeed is as natural to us as breathing.

Behind me I hear Zoe snickering. I guess she thinks she’s funny.

Honestly, I don’t think Zoe and I would have been friends if she hadn’t sought me out when I first came to the Manhattan Ballet Academy. Like me, she was one of the youngest girls in Level C, and she stood next to me in class. I was too shy to talk to her much, but I was happy to have an almost-friend.

Over the course of a few weeks, we started talking more, and eventually Zoe invited me to dinner at her apartment. Since I’d been surviving on the slop they tried to pass off as food in the dorm cafeteria, I was thrilled at the idea of having a home-cooked meal. And I was also—though I would never admit this to Zoe—aching for a mother figure, even if it wasn’t my own. I was fourteen and on my own in New York City. It wasn’t easy.

As I entered Zoe’s Park Avenue foyer, a yappy Pekingese nipped at my ankles.

“Hello, Hannah,” Zoe’s mother cooed as she leaned against the doorframe. “I’m Dolly. Zoe has told me so much about you.” Dolly’s hair was a darker shade of gold than Zoe’s, but mother and daughter had the same striking green eyes. Dolly wore a crimson velvet robe wrapped snugly around her tiny frame. When she reached out to hug me, holding me tight to her bony sternum, her perfume overwhelmed me. Then she stepped back and craned her neck.

“Zoe!” she shouted down the hallway. There was no answer. “She is
so
lazy.” Dolly sighed. Then she smiled broadly and picked up a martini glass that had left a circle of condensation on the hall table. “Her room’s the fourth on the left.” She rested her
elbow in the indentation of her hip and swirled the liquid in her glass while looking me up and down. “If you’ll excuse me.”

As I later found out, Dolly was the daughter of a Texas oil tycoon and, according to Daisy, a big donor to the Manhattan Ballet. Her partying and bed hopping made her a regular on Page Six. Dolly was hospitalized for stress twice, but everyone said it was anorexia. Once, and only once, I saw her eat. It was a single stalk of celery that she retrieved from her Bloody Mary.

I remember walking down the hall to Zoe’s bedroom and knocking hesitantly.

“Come in,” Zoe called. She sat on the floor blowing on her freshly painted toenails. A music video blared from a wall-mounted flat-screen TV. “You want to order some sushi?” she asked. She tossed a menu at me. “It’s the best in the city. I like the spider rolls.”

I looked around at her huge bedroom, with its expensive furniture and its modern art (I saw one of Andy Warhol’s panda screen prints by the window). Zoe fit in perfectly there: Even her upturned nose and pronounced cheekbones seemed like evidence of a genetic predisposition for wealth.

I picked just a few things off the menu, but still I could see that I was ordering more than sixty dollars’ worth of food. “I’ve got Mom’s credit card,” Zoe said. “Order more.”

“Should we order something for her?” I asked.

Zoe shook her head. “She’s going out. Robert De Niro is having a party at Ago.”

“Oh… okay.” What else could I say?

As we waited for our sushi delivery, we heard Dolly clattering
around, getting ready to go out, but she never knocked on Zoe’s door to say good-bye. It was as if they were roommates rather than mother and daughter—roommates who didn’t even like each other much.

We ate in Zoe’s massive living room, with the lights of Park Avenue twinkling far below us. We left a pile of sushi trays and soy sauce wrappers on the coffee table. “Don’t worry about it,” Zoe said. “Gladys’ll get it in the morning.”

“Who’s Gladys?”

“The housekeeper,” Zoe said matter-of-factly. “Can I have some of your salmon skin roll?”

Obviously, I didn’t get my family dinner that night. And I never did, even though I went to Zoe’s house dozens of times and sometimes even spent the night.

I haven’t been invited over in a long time, but then again, we’re not kids anymore. I don’t need a mother figure. I just need to dance that part in Otto’s ballet.

In celebration of being selected to understudy Lottie, I decide to go downtown after Saturday night’s performance. I forgo my usual post-dance body-maintenance routine and just rub arnica gel on my bunions. Then I slip into a pair of boots and a wrap dress that my mother used to wear in the seventies. The cab takes me south on Seventh Avenue to Gene’s, which is my cousin Eugene’s West Village restaurant. I skipped lunch and I’m starving.

It’s raining, and the streetlights seem to bleed yellow-and-white streaks on the windows of the cab. I see a few people hurrying along the sidewalks, their black umbrellas hovering above them. Puddles gather at the curbs, gathering little boats of newspapers and coffee cups.

When I first came to New York City, it was impossible for me to think that someday it might feel like home. Though I put
on a brave face, during my first few weeks of school at the Manhattan Ballet Academy, I was scared to leave the Upper West Side or to go outside after dark. Still, New York was thrilling. Sure, people on the sidewalk were sort of pushy, and they rarely made eye contact, but that was because they were ambitious and driven. The city’s energy was palpable. Just to be outside, to walk down Broadway, was like drinking a shot of espresso.

It’s probably how all the new kids at MBA feel right now. They’re fresh enough to look around themselves in amazement and awe. And I envy that.