The Turnout(28)

This, too, will be over soon, Dara told herself. Maybe it already was.

One day, she told herself, Marie will learn to control herself.



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Besides, there was no time for it. No time at all. As soon as they arrived at the studio, Charlie rushed to the back office to catch up on paperwork and Dara faced the gauntlet. Nutcracker preparations were already dominating their days, the frenzy of auditions past and performance panic already setting in, all alongside the low grumble of a hundred disappointed or resentful girls bemoaning the loss of Clara, the role they were all born to dance, to that little nothing Bailey Bloom.

Immediately when Dara arrived, it emerged that, the day before, Bailey had found a razor blade cunningly hidden in her demi-pointe shoe. Fishing it out with her fingers, she’d shorn off a flap of skin.

“Why did it take you so long to tell?” Dara asked gravely as she inspected the girl’s foot, tender and pulped.

“I was afraid,” Bailey said, “you’d take Clara away.”

“Bailey,” Dara said, “Clara is yours to lose.”

What she wanted to say was, Bailey, steel yourself.

It happened every year. There would have to be a meeting to discuss company loyalty, spirit, healthy competition. Another thing to do.

Marie and the contractor. Maybe it would go away.



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    Mrs. Cartwright, you knew the schedule before we even began auditions,” Dara was explaining to one of her most frustrating mothers, always swooping in in her camel-hair coat and gold-rimmed sunglasses, striding over to Dara with My life is crazy right now, Ms. Durant, you must understand . . .

“But these rehearsals,” she said, “why, they press right up against Thanksgiving. We always go to Bermuda for Thanksgiving. Iris is counting on it.” Then, lowering her voice, “And, well, she’s just a Candy Cane. Which was, of course, your choice, not mine.”

And there it was. It was never really about the schedule demands, Saturday rehearsals. It wasn’t about the weeknight costume fittings or the shared carpool duties. It was about who was Clara, and who was not.

“Mrs. Cartwright,” Dara said, snapping her fingers at the dawdling Level II students, Marie’s pigeon-breasted seven-year-olds, ushering them into Studio A, “we made it clear that all the parts bring the same demands. Even the Candy Canes.”

Mrs. Cartwright paused, eyebrows lifting.

“You know,” she said, “your sister is more polite.”



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Past the gauntlet, Dara finally approached Studio A and Marie. You couldn’t miss her with that garish lipstick she persisted in wearing but also, today, with an improbable scarf flung around her neck. Garish polka dots and fringe, like something she’d dug out of the lost-and-found bin.

“You can’t teach like that,” Dara said. Charlie appeared in the doorway, his posture stiff.

“I can and I have,” Marie said.

“She can’t teach like that,” Dara said to Charlie, making a face.

“I can do anything,” Marie replied, looking at Charlie in a way that irritated Dara. And what was it with that lipstick, like a red gash across her face.

“She can do anything,” Charlie said wryly to Dara, with a shrug.



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So Dara threw herself into the day, trying to avoid Studio B, avoid seeing him. Twice, she saw Marie lingering at the plastic curtain between classes, her fingers tangled in the edges of that ridiculous scarf of hers, the little ones scrumming past her. She wasn’t doing anything, but Dara didn’t like it.



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No, no,” Dara said, watching dear, long-lashed Corbin Lesterio struggling with his entrechats, his legs scissoring with dizzying speed but no form. “No flapping like a duck.”

“I’m sorry, Madame Durant. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just be better.”

He tried again.

“Where is my flutter?” Dara called out. “Your legs should be moving sideways, not swinging back and forth.”

She had no intention of touching him, but he didn’t seem to understand, and when she approached, he stepped back abruptly, his face coloring. His voice, half-broken, stuttering an apology.

“I didn’t know. I mean, you can, but I . . .” he began, then stepped back again, his arms twined around each other, his hands spread as if covering himself, as if Adam with his fig leaf. His eyes darted all around, catching on the plastic curtain to Studio B. “Please, I want you to show me. I just . . .”

Dara looked at him, his radiant blush. His hands hovering beneath his waist.

She understood now. “Do you want to talk to Monsieur Charlie?” she asked.

Every boy ended up needing to talk to Charlie about certain things—the particularities of the male body, puberty. Not all of them felt comfortable explaining to their mothers about needing support, about dance belts, those filmy thongs with the pouches meant to keep everything in place.

It’s the only favor ballet ever granted its men, Charlie once told her. Brushing and pressing up against bodies all day, the heat and closeness, it was impossible to hide anything. Worn under tights, the dance belt concealed every adolescent boy’s secrets. Too slender a garment to protect them from a misplaced foot, an errant elbow, it protected them only from fleeting boy shame.