Anything for Her(36)
And...there was Hunter, too, the absolute hottest male dancer who was once in a while called in to demonstrate lifts to the younger girls. He was performing the tour en l’air, leaping straight into the air and making not only one complete turn, but two, three, four, an impossible five, and still he didn’t come down, either, even though part of the jump was the finish in the fifth position.
Chloe refused to look at them anymore, although as she stalked away, she could still hear them calling to each other in those harsh voices, as if they’d found something disgusting to eat, like a dead fish or something. Or maybe they were laughing at her.
Madder and madder, she broke into a trot then started to run. She kicked one leg in the air and leaped into a jeté, then another and another, ending in the grand jeté that required her to do the splits in the air. But she couldn’t defy gravity, no matter how high she leaped. It tugged her down, and she landed hard on the wet sand.
I hate Mom and Dad. I hate them. If all they’d wanted to do was argue about...whatever it was Mom had to decide, why had they insisted she and Jason come?
Hate them, hate them, hate them... Her rage beat like every stomp of her feet, getting harsher and harsher until it became the unmusical cries of the seagulls, and, disoriented, she rolled over in bed and hammered at her alarm clock.
Even once Allie had silenced it, she kept hearing the ugly sound. Caw, caw, hate them, caw, hate them. With a moan, she covered her face with her hands.
Dreams usually faded the moment she opened her eyes, leaving behind wisps of mood that could color her day, but not images so clear they hurt. She’d never seen Rachel or Jessica again. Or Hunter, for whom she’d nursed a thirteen-year-old’s desperate crush.
She had never truly danced again, either, because that was how people were traced, she and her family had been told. To be safe, they couldn’t hold the same kind of jobs, or pursue hobbies that were too unusual or that had resulted in any of them being in the public eye. Nobody had quite looked at her when the U.S. Marshal said that, although he was talking about her, and they all knew it.
Already there had been half a dozen newspaper articles about her as a rising young dancer. Even among the many talented girls in the American Ballet Theatre’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School program, Chloe Marr had stood out. The Daily News had done a big spread, the reporter having followed her through a typical week. A role in Firebird had resulted in a feature on television.
Her parents had explained to her that, if a young dancer of her talent and training should suddenly appear elsewhere in the country, it would draw attention. Someone would recognize her. They were very sorry, but she had to give up dance.
Only for now, her mother had hastened to add, although her eyes didn’t want to meet Chloe’s. Once the trial was over, well, it might be possible...
“But dance is my life,” she had cried, and begged to be left behind. She could live with the family of one of the other dancers, or Grandma. She was sure she could. “I won’t go!” she had tried storming, and her father’s expression had cracked to show real anguish, but Mom’s was only set and white.
“You have to. If it’s at all possible, later...”
But Chloe had known perfectly well that “possible” was a lie. Months or years lost in a young dancer’s training and experience were gone forever, never to be regained.
As things turned out, that later never came anyway. Chloe Marr had died when the entire Marr family fled in the night. Allie hadn’t even dreamed about her, not in a long time.
Dragging herself out of bed, showering until the hot water ran lukewarm, getting dressed, she felt stiff and every movement mechanical. She was unable to escape the residue of the dream, weighing her down like a hangover.
It was telling Nolan she’d lived in Florida that had done it, even though she never exactly had. But Dad’s parents did, and her family had gone there so often for family vacations, it had just slipped out even though that wasn’t Allie Wright’s background. Allie Wright had lived in Montana and Colorado and Idaho, never staying long enough in any place to develop any sense of belonging. That’s what getting flustered did to her. It made her open her mouth and say something careless and stupid. It was exactly what scared her mother. I’m lucky, Allie thought, that people hardly ever ask.
“Did you graduate from high school around here?” They asked that, or where she’d gotten her college degree. But not since she was seventeen, a senior in high school who’d had to transfer midyear, had anyone cared where she came from. Back then, the newest lies were memorized fresh, and teenagers weren’t really that interested in anyone but themselves anyway. They didn’t push, not the way Nolan had. Would keep doing.