You in Five Acts(46)

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After my midday Nuvigil (I was up to three a day and had to borrow from my inventory so that Dante wouldn’t know how much I was using, but all I had to do to even out the till was up my prices—it was so easy, as long as I took enough pills to stay on top of it), I stalked the dance studios, trying to find the room where Joy was rehearsing. I missed her so much it actually hurt sometimes, like the bruises I seemed to wake up with every day despite having no memory of falling down. And Ethan being gone felt like a trap opening; kissing him back in January had been the mistake that set everything in motion, and since he was always around, it was always hanging over every interaction. But maybe, I thought, just maybe, now that I had some breathing room I could get Joy alone and try to explain things—maybe not everything, but some things. Maybe she would understand, and maybe things could go back to the way they were. Maybe. Maybe.

I finally saw her through one of the doors, framed in a small window webbed with cracks: Joy, Diego, the piano guy, and that * dance teacher with the raisin face. I couldn’t hear the music very well, but Diego was standing in the center of the floor, turning to watch Joy with a dreamy smile as she twirled around him. Then he came up and put his arms gently on her waist, beaming as he lifted her off the floor, her long legs extended in an effortless-looking jeté. (At least, I think it was a jeté, Joy had explained all of the terms to me during a sleepover freshman year while we got wired on orange Crush and laughed hysterically through the movie Center Stage, but I was constantly confusing them.)

I couldn’t hear the music, but I didn’t have to. They were perfect together. It made me weirdly sad to watch. Diego could look at Joy that way because she wasn’t pretending to date anyone, let alone the third person in the room. And Joy could look at him that way if she wanted to, but she didn’t because she was stubborn or blind or both. Diligent, hardworking Joy, so focused and responsible that she brought flash cards to the temple to memorize during my bat mitzvah, since we had a French quiz the next day. “That girl has her eyes on the prize,” my dad had said. But watching her dance, I wondered if she knew there was more than one kind of prize, and that sometimes you didn’t have to keep your eyes on them for them to come to you.

Diego stood to the side while Joy crossed the floor in a series of turns en pointe. She started out fine, but after a second she suddenly faltered, stepping down quickly onto the other foot and screwing up her mouth in pain. My heart started racing; I had my hand on the knob and had almost opened the door before I remembered I wasn’t supposed to be there. Luckily, Diego rushed to help her. I turned quickly and pressed my back against the wall outside the studio, letting my bag slide to the floor. Being high and jittery and lonely with no place to go wasn’t fun, but I had at least another hour to kill before the rehearsal that you had finally agreed to at five o’clock.

A few minutes later, the door opened, and Ms. Bitchface stepped out halfway, pointing one ballet-slipper-clad toe into the hallway.

“I’m concerned, Joy,” she said. “I want you icing, heating, compressing, and elevating over break. And I’m going to have Lolly come in once we’re back to learn your part, just in case.” She rapped on the doorframe with a bony fist. “We can’t be too careful.”

“What the f*ck?” I said out loud, before I could catch myself.

“Hello, Ms. Gerstein,” she said coolly, turning to me with a sour smirk. “Practicing your diction, I see.”

“Liv?” Joy called from inside. The teacher took off down the hall and I caught the door before it swung shut. Joy was sitting against the far wall of the studio, unlacing her pointe shoes, and Diego was standing with his hands on his hips and his sweaty hair plastered to his face, looking uneasy.

“I’m sorry,” I said, clenching and unclenching my fists behind my back. Lunch had consisted of four cigarettes, half an apple, and two Diet Cokes, and I was getting lightheaded and twitchy.

“You shouldn’t be.” Diego shook his head angrily. “You don’t get someone to perform by psyching them out and threatening them.”

“It works on me,” Joy sighed.

“She knows, that’s why she does it,” Diego said. He wiped his face with the bottom of his tank top, exposing a lean, flat six-pack. Joy didn’t even glance up. “At least we don’t have to see her for ten days, right?”

“Yup, it’s a nice, relaxing stay of execution,” Joy said. She bent her bare right foot over her left knee and started massaging the ankle, wincing with each push.

“Are you OK?” I asked. She and Diego exchanged a look before she shrugged and quickly switched feet.

“Just tired,” she said. “I’ll be fine.” She looked up at me and frowned. “Are you OK? . . .”

“Just stressed,” I said. “The usual.” It was weird to feel so uncomfortable with someone I’d loved so long that I’d stenciled her name onto the lower half of my bunk bed. I tried to remind myself that the room had already been tense before I walked in.

“Yeah, tell me about it.” Joy pulled on some socks. “Do you need to vent?” She said it in a monotone that made it clear that wasn’t what she wanted to do, but it was enough of an effort for me after weeks and weeks of nothing.

“Can I buy you an early dinner?” I asked. I’d taken out money in the middle of the night to pay Dante for my next order, but I wasn’t seeing him until Saturday, and besides, I’d taken out extra to give myself a cushion.