You in Five Acts(9)

“Oh my God, he’s so cute,” I heard Maple Rhodes whisper to Lolly as you jogged back to your place across the room. “When you dance the Showcase with him, can you please, please get on that and then tell me all about it?” Then, a few turns later, Maple got up and did a completely lackluster dance to—of all possible things—the Sugarplum Fairy solo. It made me feel much better. Until they called my name.

I’d been imagining the moment of my Showcase audition for four entire years, so actually living it was incredibly surreal, like a dream, or a nightmare—maybe both at once. I walked out to take my starting position, my brain reeling off a laundry list of reminders: Pas de couru, tombé, manège of piqué pirouettes. Relax your face! Smile, but not too much! Keep your chest lifted! Tighten your core! Squeeze your glutes! Remember your turnout! Don’t roll your ankle! Don’t overthink it! I shook out my legs, hoping the thoughts would go with them.

“You’ll just have to give us a moment, Joy,” Mr. Stratechuck said, peering under the piano lid. “One of the hammers has been giving me trouble.” I nodded and smiled tightly, feeling like an idiot for standing in front of everyone for longer than I needed to. I was facing the teachers, which meant that Lolly and Maple and pretty much everyone had a nice front-row view of my butt. Much like my chest, my butt had not gotten the memo that it was not supposed to be a distraction. It was not a flat line, but then again, I didn’t want my heart to flatline either, from eating nothing but rice cakes and Diet Coke. Having a healthy body was not something I was willing to sacrifice, for anyone or anything.

While Mr. Stratechuck fiddled with the piano guts, people relaxed and started talking. Suddenly my moment seemed a lot more like a pause.

“Should I sit back down?” I asked.

“No, no,” Ms. Adair said. “You’re fine where you are.” Then she looked me up and down. It was no more than a blink, really, almost imperceptible. I felt it more than I saw it. But then she gave me a stern look. “You need to trim down before May.”

My mouth nearly dropped open. Ms. Adair could be a bitch, but she almost never called anyone out publicly; she liked to whisper things, make a point of coming up during class and getting all cloak and dagger with her insults. Somewhere behind me came a burst of laughter, and Ms. Adair pursed her lips.

“It’s not a joke,” she said, addressing the whole class this time. “George Balanchine said that dancers are instruments, and it’s true. You all should treat your bodies with the care that you would use to tune an instrument.”

“Speaking of which, I’m ready when you are,” Mr. Stratechuck said, banging out a few high Cs on the piano.

Nervous adrenaline flooded my system, and I felt the words coming before I could swallow them: “Balanchine also said ballerinas should have skin the color of a peeled apple,” I said. “So if it’s OK with you, I think I’ll be selective with his advice.”

Before the shock could register on Ms. Adair’s face, I nodded at Mr. Stratechuck, who started to play. As soon as the first note rang out, I wasn’t thinking anymore about my face, or my body, or my weak right ankle. All I was thinking was that I needed to show Ms. Adair—show everyone—what it was that I really wanted to do.

I wanted to become 1 in 1,086. But before I did that, I wanted to blow the doors off that room.





Chapter Three


    January 6

127 days left


“TONIGHT IS GOING TO BE CRAZY,” Liv said, stepping back to take another picture of the mantel. Before a party, Liv always took down anything breakable, stashing framed photos, vases, and various precious family knickknacks in a laundry bag at the back of her closet. But first, she took photos of everything so that she could put it all back perfectly before her parents got home from wherever they had gone off to. It was pretty impressive, but also kind of messed up given how many opportunities she’d had to perfect her system.

“Crazy like fun, or crazy like fire hazard?” I asked, taking a sip from the red Solo cup full of water I had already marked with my name even though we were the only people in the house. I didn’t want to risk taking an accidental glug of Liv’s drink, an amaretto and Coke mixture she’d gleefully dubbed “the Amaghetto.”

“Well, some junior I’ve never met before invited me to my own party, so . . .” She raised her eyebrows excitedly and then turned to photograph the wall lined with her mom’s collection of African masks. She was wearing a sleeveless, skintight sweater dress, which was such a Liv thing to buy: its form completely undermined its function. She also owned more than one pair of open-toed boots.

“Doesn’t that make you nervous?” I asked.

Liv put down her phone and drained her cocktail. “No, it makes you nervous,” she said. “Come on, you know it’s always fine. Hector knows what’s up—and he’s basically legally blind—the apartment across the hall is being renovated, and the people with the baby next door are still on vacation in Miami.” Hector was the building’s near-sighted night doorman, whose loyalty Liv purchased with care packages of cookies and long conversations in Spanish about his sick grandmother. “Besides,” she said, splashing some more amaretto into her cup, “If anyone needs to relax tonight it’s you. You’ve been so uptight about the audition, and now it’s over.” She raised the drink in a “cheers” motion, fixing me with an expectant smile.