Dance of Shadows (10 page)

“She missed a couple of beats,” Vanessa said. “I didn’t think they were huge mistakes.”

“Seriously?” Steffie said. “She almost fell over in the middle of a leap. It was impossible to miss.” She narrowed her eyes at Vanessa. “Or maybe you were busy watching someone else.”

Blaine frowned. “Who?” He looked at TJ, but she was just as confused. “What’s she talking about?”

“I have no idea,” Vanessa said, lying.

“Okay,” Steffie said. “But admit it, I’m right. You were watching him.”

“No,” Vanessa said. “I was watching the stage.”

“You were
facing
the stage,” Steffie said with a smile. “But you were thinking about him.”

Him
, Vanessa thought. She didn’t even want to let herself say his name.

And then suddenly, someone said it for her.

“Zep!”

He couldn’t be here, on her floor. Could he? Vanessa ran a hand through her hair and turned to see TJ standing in front of their door, holding a piece of paper.

“It’s from Zep,” she said, looking perplexed. She stared at Vanessa. “And it’s—it’s for you.”

They all gathered around Vanessa, leaning over her shoulder as she read.

Vanessa
,

You looked radiant tonight. Nice to see you shine in every way
.

—Zep

Vanessa’s cheeks flushed as she walked into the room, the others trailing in after her. She imagined Zep coming to her room, knocking on her door, and when he heard no response, reaching into his pocket and scrawling these words. Words he would have told her in person, had she only come home sooner.

“Let me see that,” Blaine said, grabbing the note and holding it up to the light. “Is this real?”

“It was tucked into our door,” TJ said, as if she still couldn’t believe it.

Blaine’s mouth dropped. “Zeppelin Gray came to your room?” His voice was so loud that a group of girls outside in the hall stopped talking. Blaine cocked his head toward them. “Yeah,” he said to the girls, hissing like a cat. “You heard me correctly. Now mind your own beeswax.”

The girls immediately ran away, out of sight.

Vanessa put a hand to her forehead. “Geez, Blaine. You don’t have to broadcast it to the world. I mean, what if it was a mistake?”

“A mistake?” His cheeks flushed. Blaine loosened his tie. “It says your name on it and Zep’s, together on the same piece of paper!” He fanned himself with the note. “If I didn’t like you so much, I’d hate you.”

TJ hit him on the shoulder. “What about Anna Franko?” She turned to Vanessa. “Does she know about this?”

Vanessa swallowed. “I don’t know.”

“Judging from the way she stormed off after the ballet,” Steffie said, “I’d say yes.”

“But it’s just a note,” Vanessa said. “And all he did at the ballet was give me a look. It’s not like anything happened. I’ve never even spoken to him.” She bit her lip, trying to convince herself, but no one was buying it.

“Yet,” Steffie interjected.

“Girl, you better watch yourself,” Blaine said.

TJ rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Anna is so slight I could eat her for breakfast. And I barely even eat breakfast. Just focus on dance. They’re all going to hate you anyway, so what’s the point in worrying about it. Right?”

“Right,” Vanessa said slowly. TJ was right. She hadn’t come here to make friends. Having Steffie and TJ and Elly and Blaine was a major bonus, of course. But if she was honest with herself, there was only one reason she’d come to this school in the first place: to find her sister.

She repeated that to herself—
it doesn’t matter if Anna hates me, if anybody hates me
—after Steffie and Blaine left. Their floor was a mess, strewn with TJ’s books and clothes and accessories. TJ tripped over a small box, then cursed and kicked it aside. Vanessa laughed and changed into a tank top, while TJ combed her hair and hummed a violin concerto.

They both crawled into their beds, but just before TJ reached to turn out the lights, they heard a knock on the door.

Vanessa sat up, her mind spinning. Zep. Could he have come back?

She stood up and was about to answer the door, when TJ whispered, “Your shorts!”

Vanessa looked down. “Thank you!” She was grateful to be spared the mortification of Zep seeing her in tiny boy shorts that were covered in pink cats. After throwing on a pair of leggings and running a hand through her hair, she turned the knob.

But when she opened the door, Steffie was standing there, still in her dress, her eyes wide and confused and …
scared
.
She didn’t say anything for a moment, as if she were trying to find the right words.

“Steffie? Is everything okay?” Vanessa asked. She could feel TJ’s gaze behind her in the dark.

Steffie gave her a blank look. “Elly is gone.”

Vanessa had never liked going into Steffie and Elly’s room.

Sure, she had sat on Elly’s frilly cushions, reading magazines or hanging out, but every time she did, she had to push away the memory of Margaret. So when Steffie led Vanessa and TJ back to her room, Vanessa found herself hovering in the hall, not wanting to step inside.

The paint was chipped where the door met the wall, and suddenly Vanessa was overwhelmed with the urge to peel all the layers of paint away, as if her sister’s secrets might be hidden underneath.

But all of that faded away when she heard TJ, her voice so soft she almost didn’t recognize it. “You
have
to see this,” TJ said.

Vanessa looked up to see a sliver of bare wall and Elly’s bed
stripped down to the mattress. It was dull blue in color, with a big ugly tag sticking out of the bottom—so different from Elly’s pink pillows and ruffled comforter. And for a moment, it no longer mattered that the room had belonged to her sister, because now Elly was gone too. Shaking herself back to reality, Vanessa stepped through the door.

TJ and Steffie were standing in the middle of the room. Steffie’s side was cluttered with clothes and jewelry and makeup, photographs and prints of dancers decorating her walls. Elly’s was empty. Traces of tape were still stuck to the wall where her ballet posters had hung. Dust bunnies gathered under her bed, where her pink satin shoes had been neatly arranged. The only thing left behind was a single bobby pin, tangled with a few pale strands of Elly’s hair. Vanessa bent down and picked it up.

“At first, I thought someone had broken into our room and stolen our stuff,” Steffie said. “But then I realized that none of
my
things were missing.”

“Do you think she left?” TJ said. “Like, moved out?”

“Without telling us?” Steffie said. “Why would she do that? She at least would have waited until we got back. Or left a good-bye note if it was so urgent.”

“But what could have been so urgent?” Vanessa asked.

Steffie leaned on Elly’s empty desk, staring at the bare shelves, which still had three glittery heart stickers stuck to the side.

“A death in the family?” TJ said. “Who knows?”

“
Someone
has to know,” Vanessa said. “Elly couldn’t have just moved out of her dorm room without telling anyone.”

“Kate,” Steffie blurted out. And without another word they slipped into the hall, the door clicking shut behind them.

The resident adviser’s room was at the end of the hall. A bulletin board hung on the door, peppered with maps of New York, class schedules, and activity forms. Vanessa knocked.

Kate was on the phone when she answered the door. Behind her, the room glowed with warm, yellow light. Music blared from her computer. A mug of tea sat beside it.

“Hi, guys,” she said, covering the mouthpiece of her phone. “What’s up?”

“What happened to Elly?” TJ and Vanessa said at the same time.

“What do you mean?” Kate said, looking confused.

“You mean you don’t know either?” Vanessa said, a flutter of nausea tickling her stomach. Beside her, she could hear TJ’s breath quicken.

“Oh no,” TJ whispered.

“Know what?” Kate said, lowering the phone.

Steffie swallowed. “Elly and all of her things are gone.”

Vanessa blinked, remembering the last conversation she’d had with Elly. She was going to stay in and read, she’d said, her voice stilted as if she’d meant to say something else. Had Elly actually meant to say good-bye? A sickening feeling of regret passed through Vanessa, and suddenly she was back at her kitchen table at home, smelling her father’s apple pie that had burned to a crisp after the call had come in. She had relived the scene hundreds of times, but now it wasn’t just a memory. It was real. Only now, it was Elly.

Vanessa woke up just before dawn. The clock read six o’clock, hours before morning rehearsal. She rolled over, stretching, and tried to recall the strange dream she’d had. Something about Zep, a note, a weeping ballerina. Across the room, TJ’s brown ringlets spilled across her pillow. Vanessa watched her shift in her sleep, and all the events from the night before came tumbling back.

When Kate had seen the state of Steffie and Elly’s room, she’d just stood there, staring for what felt like hours. Finally she’d said, “I—I have to talk to someone about this. Josef.”

“We’ll come with you—” Vanessa had started to say, but Kate cut her off.

“No. It’s late; you guys should get some sleep. I’ll talk to Josef and tell you everything I know when I get back.”

After Kate left, the others called Elly’s cell phone, but she didn’t pick up, so they left her a voice mail. TJ took it the hardest. Ever the lawyers’ child, she was certain something terrible, something
criminal
, had happened to Elly, and it took Steffie and Vanessa the better part of the night to calm her down.

Standing up, Vanessa threw on a cardigan and tiptoed down the hall to Steffie’s room. Just as she raised her fist to knock, the door swung open.

“Vanessa!” Steffie said, startled. She was holding her dance bag and a bottle of water. Dark circles hung under her eyes.

“You’re awake,” said Vanessa.

“I couldn’t sleep with that empty bed across from me,” Steffie said.

“Have you heard anything?” Vanessa asked.

Steffie shook her head. “I knocked on Kate’s door again, but she didn’t have any news. She said she called Hilda, Josef, a bunch of staff from school—to find someone who had Elly’s parents’ phone number. Apparently Kate only had Elly’s cell on file. She finally reached one of the secretaries, who met her in the office. But just before Kate called, Hilda arrived and took over. Kate said Hilda assured her she would get in touch as soon as she figured out what was going on. And I tried calling Elly again, but got her voice mail. Have you?”

“No.”

Not sure what to say next, they stood there in silence, both wondering where Elly had gone.

“Where are you going?” Vanessa asked.

“To the studio. I thought it might help take my mind off things. You want to come?”

“Sure.”

The studio was dark when they arrived. They flipped on the lights, their reflections flitting across the waxed floors as they put on their slippers, and, without speaking, walked to the barre. Vanessa lifted her arm in the air and began to warm up in tandem with Steffie. Sweat beaded on her upper lip, and she thought of Zep, of the note he had left her and the way it made her insides flutter. She extended and lowered her leg, once, twice, three times, until her muscles burned and her breath grew short and everything melted away except for
the barre, the mirrors, the waxed wooden floors beneath her feet.

When the rest of the freshmen poured into the studio for Saturday morning rehearsal, filling the room with pink and black nylon and the bright hum of chatter, Vanessa and Steffie sat in the corner, sipping water and watching the door, as if waiting for Elly to burst in. Instead, Blaine and TJ entered the room. From the look on Blaine’s face, it was clear TJ had filled him in.

“Where were you this morning?” TJ asked, flushed. “For a minute, I thought you had disappeared too.”

Vanessa shrugged. “Sorry. I couldn’t sleep, so we came to practice.”

TJ let out an exasperated sigh and began to stretch. “As if either of you need practice.”

“Have you guys heard anything—” Blaine started to say when the door opened.

Josef strutted inside, cleanly shaven, his dark hair combed back. He clapped loudly, the room going silent as he walked to the center of the floor. Vanessa almost didn’t notice Hilda, who had shuffled in behind him and was hovering by the door, her plain brown frock blending in with the wall.

Everyone gathered around Josef as he began to speak. “I told you in the beginning that some of you wouldn’t make it through the academic year.” He paused dramatically. “Many of you didn’t believe me.”

Everyone in the room seemed to be holding their breath.

“But this morning, I come to you not with warnings, but
with sobering news. One of your classmates, Elinor Pym, has decided to leave our community. She found the pressure and physical rigors too difficult to endure, and opted to explore other endeavors,” Josef said. “And perhaps it’s for the better.”

“What?” Vanessa whispered to Steffie. “After a week? Did she ever tell you that she was stressed out?”