en pointe — chapter 16: allégro

w — swearing, sexual references. 

allégro [ a-lay-groh ] : bright, fast, brisk steps and tempo.

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A C T  I I I  —  W I N T E R

 

 

 

 

SOMEWHERE IN NEW YORK CITY

 

 

I know I’m in the right place, because it’s a dump.

Indent Maybe I’m being harsh—Taaffe Place is alright enough in the morning sun, dotted with saplings and ivy creeping up the brick apartments, but here and there the roughness of Bedford-Stuyvesant sneaks out. Wild, overgrown lots, prison-like bars guarding every window, stolen grocery carts lying on the sidewalks. The face of 138 Taaffe Place is masked by graffiti, and overflowing garbage bags pile up either side of the front door. The stench is fucking awful. It doesn’t seem to bother the landlord, who awaits under the tiny red awning, arms folded.

Indent The landlord is still in her fluffy bathrobe, apparently having just woken up to receive me. She must be in her sixties: grey-haired, stout, wizened like a snapping turtle. “You’re late,” she says irritably.

Indent “Sorry! Traffic.” I heave my suitcases up the stairs. The landlord makes no attempt to help me. I offer my hand in peace. “Evangeline. Nice to meet you.”

Indent “Here’s the rules, young missy,” she pinches my hand and barrels on, as if eager to return to bed, “no parties, no loud noises, no cooking meth, no cats or dogs, no damage, or else you’ll have to pay up.”

Indent I know all of this already. Aunt Lilith called me to her Santa Monica home in August, made me churros con chocolate, and we read through every detail of the lease together. “Sounds good,” I say politely, which takes every fibre of my being.

Indent Mrs. Snapping Turtle digs in the pocket of her bathrobe and hands me a pair of lint-covered keys. “Fourth floor, to your right. Don’t hide the spare key in the front garden.” What, in the garbage?

Indent Her door slams in my face, leaving me alone beneath four flights of stairs.

Indent Well, fuck you, then.

Indent I struggle up the dank, filthy staircase, cursing out the lady when I drop a suitcase on my toes. When I get both of them up to the fourth floor, I wipe beads of sweat off my forehead. My door must have been glossy red at one point, but the paint is peeling, and it takes three tries of jamming the key into the lock for it to creak open.

Indent The apartment is dark, and quiet. Dust motes adagio amongst slivers of sun falling from the east windows. It’s a little smaller than the academy dorms: old plaster and brick walls, the tiniest kitchen with black-and-white checkerboard tiles, a double futon squeezed in by the windows. There’s barely any space for a dining table, and none for a sofa. Boxes of my possessions, the few I could afford to ship from California, are stacked carelessly by the bathroom. I pull on the lightbulb and it flickers noisily to life. This is the best I can muster on my shitty corps de ballet salary.

Indent The old floorboards creak as I gingerly step towards the windows; dust poofs up at my footprints. Great. The landlord didn’t even bother to sweep. I wrench open the windows. There’s a family of sparrows in a nearby oak tree, and their twittering voices calm my anger. The wrought iron fire escape is just below. I imagine a tiny herb garden and maybe a pillow. I might be stuck in a shoebox, but it’s my shoebox.

Indent I tie a handkerchief around my face, arm myself with a spray bottle, and leap into battle. Almost immediately, I stumble across a dead rat under the fridge. I chuck it straight out of the window and into the garbage bags below. There won’t be any fucking New Yorkers (rats, I mean) skiving off rent on my watch. By the time I wash the floors, furiously scrub out every bit of grease from the kitchen, and permanently evict the spiders in the bathroom—it’s five o’clock, evening sunlight is creeping across the dining table, but the apartment is clean, sparkling, and almost feels like home. My worn golden retriever plush, Señorita Papperino, lies upon Mom’s pale blue quilt, embroidered with periwinkles; the green enamel camp kettle sits on the stove and matching mugs hang above; summer Polaroids stick to the fridge under my National Park magnets.

Indent I pin up the birthday party Polaroid of my family—so many people squeezing into the frame that I can barely make out their faces—and I’m hit with a strong wave of déjà vu. The first day at the academy. Piper poking her head in the dorm to say hello. Eva then feels like forever ago. Young and brash and angry at my Achilles. My quibbles with Vicky seem childish now. So much has changed since then, good things; but standing here, alone in Bedford-Stuyvesant, I know that I’m further away from safety than I’ve ever been.

Indent From downstairs, the doorbell buzzes staccato. I poke my head out of the window. A sleek black car idles on the potholed asphalt. It’s so ridiculously out of place that I laugh. The man on the doorstep glances up. In his gloved hands is a shower of blue blossoms, just like my favourite wildflowers in Malibu.

Indent Mrs. Snapping Turtle emerges from her cave, grumbling. “It’s for me!” I yell at her, because there’s no other idiot who would send a fucking Bentley into Bed-Stuy. I race down four flights of stairs. The chauffeur says nothing, but bows in that polite Japanese way. I thank him awkwardly, bounce back up to my apartment, and fill up the enamel kettle with water for the flowers.

Indent A folded note slips out. The narrow, looping ink feels like a brush of lips against my fingers. I text my partner happily. He’s taking his final exam at Harvard right now; I imagine his sweet frown of concentration, his dark hair falling over his brows as he writes.

Indent I bury my face in the star-shaped petals. The final piece of my new life.

Indent Mom picks up when I’m walking along Taaffe Place, searching for dinner, because I stupidly forgot about grocery shopping. The sunset flickers through the oak trees. Commuters on bicycles tick-tick past. A construction site jitters loudly in the evening. Everything moves so fast.

Indent “Hi, love.” Her anxious voice is barely audible through the clanging and cars honking in the peak hour rush, and I quicken my step. “Is everything going okay?”

Indent “Landlord is a bitch, but fine!” I can’t help myself, and Mom tsks, but can’t hide her laugh. “I’ve been cleaning all day and I think it’s turning out sick. Check the fam chat, I sent pictures.”

Indent My siblings and cousins had spammed very excited messages in response—same with my ballet squad group chat—but Mom has been strangely worried about my move to New York, given she’s happy to let me run amok in California. I’m not sure if she’s forgotten that I’m the sole child Dad has been passing on his ability to disrespect, as in Muay Thai, but she’s told me at least fifty times to never walk alone at night. “Great job, Señorita Papperino looks comfy,” she says after a brief pause, “make sure to lock the windows and deadbolt your door after 8pm, will you?”

Indent “Okay, okay.” I turn right onto Myrtle Avenue and walk past a rundown Pay-O-Matic, then a rickety metal playground, which I recognise as behind my apartment. Ugh. Loud kids. The inviting smell of spices and meat slows me down in front of a Jamaican restaurant. Handprinted on the stripey awning is: Kingston Bakery Brooklyn. “Cool, there’s a bakery called Kingston! I’m gonna grab dinner.”

Indent “Ooh, enjoy your dinner. Text me when you get back to the apartment.”

Indent “Mom, it’s one minute away,” I say in exasperation, but my heart aches: I wish I could reach across the continent and hug her. “Promise. Love ya! Bye!”

Indent “Love you, Eva.”

Indent The bell tinkles as I slip the phone in my pocket, and enter the warm, glowing restaurant. Jazzy trumpet plays, and people are laughing over the plastic table sheets, printed with hibiscus flowers, their forks in dishes of fragrant bean rice. Somehow, it feels like home. I ask for two Jamaican beef patties. The hearty woman at the counter surprises me with a warm loaf of nutmeg bread. For your first breakfast in Bed-Stuy, she says kindly, and I don’t ask how she knew.

Indent Maybe New York City isn’t so scary after all.

Indent The street lights pip-pop to life as I walk briskly back to 138 Taaffe Place. I remember to text Mom, and deadbolt the door, before squeezing out with difficulty onto the fire escape. The cool, smoking breeze tickles my face. Distantly, evening trains rumble along Manhattan Bridge. The golden, spiced crust of the patty crumbles between my teeth; the beef is juicy and delicious. The warmth in my hands is like a talisman.

Indent I stay curled up on the fire escape, until the iron hurts and the ghosts of stars whisper in the sky. There’s too much smog and electric lights for them to shine. And still, I search desperately for the glimmers of home in the night.

Indent Only Mars shines bright enough. Desire. Ambition. Kasei, my partner called it, that midnight on the beach. Lust. Fire. War.

 

 

NOON AT BOW BRIDGE

 

 

Fuck the subway.

Indent Forty five minutes of the hot, crowded, filthy behemoth—chasing me from the G Line to C Line before I burst into merciful fresh air, wanting to scream. This was my first time venturing into the catacombs of New York, and I already hate it. The tiled labyrinths and hissing trains that snake under the skin of the city can’t be anymore different from Central Park, but I can’t enjoy the greenery, because now I’m fucking late. The bright idea only occurs to me, after ten minutes of confused wandering, that this park is enormous and I have something in my bag called Google Maps. I walk-slash-sprint along boulevards of leafy trees and wrought iron lanterns. By the time I reach the lake where Bow Bridge is pinned, I’m wheezing like my old uncles.

Indent A Victorian filigree bridge stretches between elm trees, lavender blooming in ornate marble vases upon the railings. Even from a hundred feet away, he’s unmistakable. Tall, and achingly beautiful, his white shirt billowing a little in the September breeze. He’s gazing over the pond, which isn’t sweet and clear like the lakes in the Sierras, but an opaque green—still, there’s something lovely about it, the ducks bobbing and quacking, even the couples gliding in rowboats beneath the bridge. I know immediately that this must be his favourite spot in Central Park.

Indent Mako turns just before I crash into him, and catches me with a laugh. I bury into the warm curves of his body, the steady thud of his heart, the smoky Armani Privé: marks, now, of home. He presses his lips to the crown of my head. Our relief bursts like stars in his embrace. We sway there for seconds, or minutes, before I pop up.

Indent “Hi,” I say happily.

Indent His dimples twinkle. “Hey.”

Indent We fall into our natural rhythm, as easily as we had never been apart. The woodlands are in their late summer greens, New Yorkers picnicking and playing ball on the lawns, great fountains sparkling by the lakes. It’s a different sort of nature from California. No olive trees and desert cacti bleached under the sun, but cool, sweet, and heady. Squirrels chitter and gather leaves for nests and tease dogs, who yap furiously at the end of their leashes. Every so often, we walk past food carts with green-and-white stripey umbrellas: giant pretzels, cherry ice pops, slightly questionable hot dogs.

Indent I wriggle my arm around my partner’s waist. A suit jacket spills over his arm and cufflinks glimmer at his wrists. He returned from Harvard yesterday night, and went straight into a business conference this morning. Something with his family members, who surprisingly, flew in from all over the world. It’s hard to imagine Mako with cousins and aunts like my family; they must be just as elegant. “How was your fancy pants conference?”

Indent “We reviewed the annual performance of our investments.” He throws an arm over my shoulders. “Want me to keep going?”

Indent “Please don’t.”

Indent He laughs, kisses my temple. “How’s the apartment?”

Indent “Fine, after I evicted the rat, but ugh.” I toss my head back and watch the sun flickering through the foliage. “My landlord already hates me.”

Indent “What was it about not making any enemies again on the first day?” Mako bumps me, amused. “It’s day zero. You’re breaking a record.”

Indent “I didn’t do anything!“ I elbow him back. “She’s just a grouchy old turtle. With any luck, I won’t see her much. You know, maybe I can just get up and down with the fire escape.”

Indent We slow by a garden of dahlias. My partner kneels down to cup the petals. I watch him, my heart softer than ever. There’s something different about him, in New York. Maybe because he’s back in his territory, or perhaps no longer the shadow to Misha’s radiant light, but he’s relaxed, and confident, glowing with the kind of beauty I first saw in his mother—the kind that always draws the gazes of people passing by. Even now I catch the stares from a pair of Pilates girlies running past, but when I run my fingers over his dark hair, and he glances up at me, happy, the twinge of annoyance disappears as quickly as it came.

Indent The afternoon sails among gentle clouds. We’re too deep in conversation to plan where our footsteps fall. The mountain valley of wildflowers, how Misha helped me plant saplings in graves of wildfire; the hydrangea along Tokyo canals, blooming bright after rain, and Chiharu throwing rice to koi, swimming lazily in the ponds of jinja, Shinto shrines. I excitedly point out The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It feels like ages since we were in the spring glade, accepting the pas de deux gold together, our futures still obscured in the hands of judges.

Indent The tantalising scent of gyros pulls us to a cobalt Greek food truck. We perch to eat on the edge of a fountain, scuffed Converse against Italian leather. An angel tiptoes in the glimmering water, lichen and moss growing on her wings. My souvlaki is so good—fresh tzatziki and chargrilled chicken, wrapped up in the fluffiest pita bread. Mako brushes away crumbs from my chin with a laugh, and neither of us notice the storm.

Indent Plip. A tiny raindrop hits my head. Heavy iron clouds are gathering; the breeze turning slow and sluggish, murmuring of a late-summer thunderstorm. We take one look at each other, leap up, and haul ass to Central Park’s southern gate. The raindrops plip plip and then plop.

Indent Manhattan blasts me in the face. Taxis honk mercilessly, wipers slashing against the rain, orange headlights shimmering. New Yorkers skirt around puddles. The psychics, or maybe just people who checked the weather forecast, are hidden underneath black umbrellas. The rest of us idiots scramble.

Indent My partner pulls me along 6th Avenue and into 57th Street, beneath skyscrapers that soar into storm clouds. We scatter past antique jewellery shops, piano tinkling from oyster bars, ducking under endless scaffolding. I splash through a puddle and pigeons take noisy flight. Mako tries to umbrella us with his suit jacket, which does absolutely fucking nada, so we just race the storm to the doors of an elegant black-sheathed hotel. I briefly glimpse gold letters over the awning: Kogarashi New York.

Indent When we tumble into the gleaming shadows of the lobby, breathless with laughter, I must look like a woebegone street cat—but Mako wraps a Kogarashi-embroidered towel around my shoulders, as if I belong here. He guides me to the reception. Behind the walnut concierge desk is a handsome Japanese man, apparently cut from the same tall and pretentious cloth as my partner, because he’s wearing an Armani suit. God. Why do I know what Armani looks like? Ew.

Indent Mako begins talking to the concierge in Japanese, so I swivel around and cast my gaze over the lobby. It’s like The Solstice Hotel that we slept in during the Grand Prix finals—the kind where you can’t speak more than a whisper. A thousand gold chrysanthemum petals oscillate above us, their rustling almost like delicate mechanical wings; here and there, far below, businessmen lounge with newspapers and whiskey glasses. I suddenly notice the rain we’re dripping everywhere, but Mako doesn’t seem to care.

Indent The concierge slides a shallow gold dish across the counter, and switches to a perfect New York accent. “Do you have a form of identification?”

Indent Huh? I glance at Mako, who is leaning upon the counter with all the confidence in the world, and he smiles reassuringly. “I’m giving you biometric access,” he says, as if this is completely fucking normal, “so you can come and go whenever you like.”

Indent “Oh. Cool.” I fish in my tote bag for my driver’s license, the beat up one I’ve had since sixteen; when I drop it in the gold tray, I’m painfully aware of the plastic peeling away from the corners and the stain that might be chipotle sauce. The meaning of biometric only clicks when the man scans my license then my fingerprint.

Indent The concierge returns my license. For a split second, in the shadow between his suit cuff and gilt-buttoned glove, the crimson back of a snake glides slowly. I blink, and it’s gone. Just a tattoo. The man inclines his head. Perfectly measured.

Indent Mako leads me into an elevator tucked behind the concierge desk. Everything hushes in the darkness of the elevator as it begins to rise. A flute pipes quietly; an ornate cart with brass cocktail shakers and ice spheres gleams in the corner. I turn to gaze at my reflection in the mirrored walls, repeated into infinity. Every reflection is sandy-haired and disheveled. I’m out of place, like usual, a messy blot upon the perfect lines of this hotel. Money has always loomed over me as an uncomfortable stranger; but this time, something feels different.

Indent Mako leans back against the mirror and reaches out for me. The rain lingers on him; that lithe, beautiful body I trust more than my own. I take his hand. In the quiet of the elevator, he becomes translucent. The snowy shirt clings to his skin, the New York assurance slipping into a vulnerability I’m more familiar with. I nestle between his legs and he draws me close; my temple to his beating heart. Something tugs at my conscience.

Indent “Oh yeah!” I say brightly, and fish out the second silver key from my tote bag. This tiny fucker is definitely going to get lost within the week. I lift Mako’s hand and press the key into his palm, folding over his slender fingers. Now we’re even. He tilts his head. “My spare key. Look after it for me?”

Indent He glances up at me, softening. “Of course.”

Indent “Thank you.” I gently cup his face. Instinctively, his head bows to kiss my palm. For the first time in months, our faces are close enough that I can count the raindrops sparkling on his lashes.

Indent “I missed you,” he whispers, and the words are so quiet I can’t tell if he meant for me to hear.

Indent I tap his nose affectionately. “Missed you too, Hayashi.”

Indent His gaze lights up; and he kisses me. My eyelids flutter shut. His hands glide over my waist, along the vertebrate of my spine, tracing the bones he’s traced a hundred times before. The towel slips to the elevator floor. When he gently presses his lips to my flushed chest, my entire body relaxes into his, the fear of the unknown city disappearing.

Indent The elevator pings. Reluctantly, I open my eyes and glare at the blinking 60. We must be above the storm clouds. The doors part silently.

Indent What the fuck. 

Indent Wordlessly, I drift into the penthouse. The onyx marble is cool under my bare feet. A thousand more gold petals suspend, silent, above; I have to crane my neck to see them all. Shadows and lustrous ink thread together in a palatial lounge that makes even the Steinway piano look tiny. For the briefest moment, I imagine young men in suits draped over the sunken sofas, ballerinas in sequins coming undone beneath the chrysanthemums, bloody wine dripping off the wings of porcelain cranes.

Indent But only one person lives here. 

Indent The vastness of Manhattan yawns beneath us.

Indent I remember the midnight of the finals, when we had curled up together on the The Solstice balcony and gazed at the impossibly tall skyscrapers lining Central Park. Mako mentioned that his father gave him a penthouse for his sixteenth birthday. I had brushed the comment off as another classic rich kid thing, but this is nothing like I’ve ever seen before in elite ballet. The height is dizzying. It doesn’t feel real. Something pitches in my belly. All of a sudden, I’m untethered—lost in a sea of shadowed wealth that I can’t even begin to comprehend. What world am I stepping into? Whose? 

Indent I discover myself in front of the glass. The summer storm is already passing over the Hudson River, and great shafts of sunlight drift slowly across Central Park: an emerald of verdant forests and lakes. An oasis in the desert.

Indent The sight calms me. I turn back to Mako. He’s folding his suit jacket, unclasping his cufflinks, each movement with the grace of a danseur étoile. This is my pas partner. Basilio. Romeo. The uncertain feeling in my belly eases. “Would you like a tour?” he says distractedly, the question like clockwork.

Indent “Not really.” I return to his side and tippy toe to kiss him. “We were kinda in the middle of something.”

Indent He smiles and shakes the raindrops from his hair, clasping my neck as he kisses me. The warmth radiating from him soon makes me forget the unsettling silence of the penthouse. My fingertips slip on the wet buttons of his shirt. Fuck. I give up on them and tug at his belt. His hips jerk. “Jesus, Eva.”

Indent “I didn’t get my Thot Girl Summer, thanks to you,” I say fiercely. “You have three months to make up for.”

Indent Mako laughs, slipping off his shirt, so I can run my hands over the lean muscles of his abdomen, the elegant bones plunging below his navel. His fingertips slide underneath the silken ribbons of my dress and then my chin, pulling my eager gaze up to meet his. Whispers his promise into my lips. “I’ll do my best.”

Indent We don’t even make it to his bed.

 

 

THE CHURCH ON CRANBERRY STREET

 

 

I sincerely hope God doesn’t strike me down by lightning, because the irony of me walking into church after last night is astronomical.

Indent Cranberry Street dozes quietly under mature chestnut trees. A cat stretches on a filigree banister as I walk by the row of townhouses, the pretty kind you expect to see in New York City. It’s far away from the beeping of Manhattan and drunk shouting of Bed-Stuy, and I breathe in the early morning peace, in my grey warmup joggers, my duffel bag slung over my shoulder. Somewhere, windchimes tinkle in the breeze.

Indent The church halts me in my tracks: ivory Roman stone, as if yanked straight from the fourteenth-century Italian streets of Romeo & Juliet. Cherubs kiss streams of water that glitter in the dappling sunlight. I trail my fingertips through the clear water as I ascend the steps. The great oak doors creak open at my touch, and I peek inside.

Indent My breath catches. Pale marble arches soar into ribbed vaults far above, like fragile bones. The morning sun, falling through stained glass windows, suffuses the church, dreamlike. The doors close quietly behind me.

Indent Where worshippers hymn on pews, ballerinas arch their backs. Petal-like skirts shimmer, arms unfold like skeletal swan wings, pointe shoes gleam in the divine glow. I’m not sure if the church was abandoned or Brooklyn Heights Ballet has obscenely rich donors, but my heart rises: what a heavenly place to dance.

Indent Delicate, eggshell blue frescoes are painted on the vaults, fading from the passage of time. I can just make out gold signets wreathing into a garden of roses, soaring upwards to converge into a giant star, and bursting into glimmering constellations. Mako would fall in love with this place. I remember his wish to get married in a cathedral of lilies, and suddenly, my heart doesn’t feel so light anymore.

Indent Dancers enter the church behind me, and I tear my gaze from the frescoes. Far below, it’s almost like a normal ballet studio—a polished wooden floor, freestanding barres, an ebony piano in the corner—except the mirrors are lined up between Roman columns crowned with marble leaves, and the familiar mess of gym bags, half-darned pointe shoes, and rosin trays are shoved into the side aisles. There must be space for one hundred dancers in here, way bigger than Studio A at the academy, which, with a mere thirty students, was a sardine can.

Indent I find an empty nook to drop my duffel bag, right under a stained glass portrait of the Virgin Mary. A halo glows behind her bowed head. I wonder if the glassmaker meant for her to look so sad. I pin a stray into my bun, slip on my ballet flats, and begin the unspoken negotiation of studio spaces. The senior company dancers walk straight into the coveted mirror-front positions and begin to stretch comfortably, a murmur of conversation rising as they greet friends; but the new corps de ballet members, like me, waver at the edges, careful not to steal someone’s precious space. I watch the dancers curiously as I slide onto the wooden floor. Paperbag pants, hoodies, puffy vests. So much more messy than the academy dress code, but I can see the years of experience in each stretching leg and pointing foot. Excitement bubbles up. Here and there are familiar faces—from Youtube videos of Grand Prix winners that I studied in my academy dorm, and the shiny covers of Pointe magazines that Sasha read during breakfasts.

Indent It’s strange.

Indent I spilled blood and snapped tendons for this contract, and I’m surrounded by sixty ballerinas who have, perhaps, done the very same. There are more men than I’ve ever seen in a ballet studio, and dancers who must be ten years my senior.

Indent For the first time, the simple truth of it crashes over me and rises up my throat: I’m well and truly a ballerina now. The little Eva who tumbled into that first Malibu ballet class, after weeks of begging, would be over the moon.

Indent I swallow the tears and warm up my body for the hour. When the clock strikes ten, the artistic director enters the studio. He’s nearly unassuming: small beside the male dancers, perhaps in his fifties with the salt-and-pepper hair, a paper coffee cup in his hand, and yet every dancer in the studio turns to face him.

Indent “Come,” Peter Kiselyov says.

Indent The company dancers draw closer to where the priest hums prayers. I follow. Nerves, excited and anxious, begin to prickle under my skin. Kiselyov takes a sip from his coffee cup. He begins with a welcome, to the returning and the fresh corps, before beckoning to the ballet master, and then the principal dancers. Three women and three men, in their late twenties, slender and attractive, and as he names them each in turn—Isabella Fairchild, Emilie Reznik, Maria Danilova, Federico Bolle, Wen Qingtang, Zachari Rousseau—I have to stop myself from bouncing up and down like a kid. These are some of the best dancers in the country, the world. Kiselyov’s attention lingers on Zachari, who I immediately understand to be the danseur étoile. The crown jewel. A ballet dancer if I’ve ever seen one; very tall and very French. His beauty reminds me of my partner, but much sharper, and his gaze, gliding slowly over the ballerinas, is a strange, piercing blue.

Indent Kiselyov waves his hand and the dancers scatter into my first ever company class. The pianist begins to play what I recognise as a Liszt nocturne in A-flat major. The piano echoes in the church vaults high above, and reverberates in my chest. The ballet master guides us through barre exercises, moves I’ve done a million times before, but I focus hard on sliding my feet into elegant pointed arches, sweeping my leg in a semicircle through a rond de jambe à terre. As I turn to repeat the exercise on the left, I glimpse Maria Danilova on the barre opposite. Her jet black hair is glossed into a low bun, and she’s endless in the way Svetlana Pominova was, so pale and thin she could be a ghost. The grace of her rond de jambe takes my breath away. I extend the line of my leg even further, trying to mirror the perfection of it.

Indent The artistic director walks along the barres. Every so often, he adjusts the posture of a corps with a deft touch, but mostly he drinks his coffee and looks over each dancer silently. I can smell the bitterness. Dark and oily. I straighten up as he walks nearer, calibrating and tuning every muscle in my body, listening hard to the tempo of the piano as it picks up and we move into the quick, sharp, petit battements. Each beat of my foot, snapping in front and behind my ankle like a hummingbird, must be perfectly on time.

Indent Kiselyov pauses beside me. If he remembers awarding the corps contract to me at the Grand Prix, he gives no sign of it.

Indent My muscles begin to tremble at the effort of the petit battements.

Indent “Good,” he says, very quietly, and my heart swells with elation. I expect him to move on, then, but he crouches down and examines my legs. A light drag of fingertips along my calf. He unfurls; gets to his feet. Sighs. My heart starts to rattle. A hummingbird inside my ribcage.

Indent “Yet could be better.”

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Happy New Year everyone! The good thing about missing pictures is the wait is shorter and I get to be extravagant with the settings. Hope you enjoyed this chapter (a relatively chill one, but nice to see where Eva has come to since  Chapter 1) and looking forward to your thoughts ❤