The Immortalists(17)

Lady appears behind him. ‘Ready for a lift?’ she whispers.

‘Ready,’ says Simon, and suddenly, he rises. Lady deposits him on top of the pedestal, her hands sure on his waist. When she lets go, he pauses. The men in the audience stare at him curiously.

‘Give it up for the new boy!’ Richie calls from across the room.

There are a few scattered claps, a whoop. The music swells: ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen.’ Simon gulps. He shifts his hips left, then right, but the movement isn’t fluid like it is on Adrian; he feels jerky and awkward, like a good girl at a school dance. He tries again, jumping like Richie, which feels more natural, but perhaps too much like Richie. He points at the audience with one hand and rolls the other shoulder behind his back.

‘Come on, baby!’ shouts a black man in a white tank top and jean shorts. ‘I know you can come better than that!’

Simon’s mouth turns dry. ‘Relax,’ says Lady from behind him; she hasn’t yet left for her own pillar. ‘Drop your shoulders.’ He hadn’t realized they’d risen to his ears. When he lets them go, his neck releases, too, and his legs feel more limber. Gently, he sways his hips. He tosses his head. When he listens to the music instead of copying the other men, his body sinks into a rhythm, as it does when he’s running. His heartbeat is vigorous but steady. Electricity circuits from his scalp to his toes, urging him on.

When he reports for his shift the next day, he finds Benny wiping down the bar.

‘How’d I do?’

Benny raises his eyebrows, though he doesn’t look up. ‘You did.’

‘What do you mean?’

Simon still feels high, remembering how it felt to dance with those beautiful, sculpted men, how it felt to be adored. For a moment, in the dressing room, he had friends. He wasn’t thinking about home, about his mother, or what his father would think of the crowd.

Benny takes a sponge from behind the bar and begins to scrub at a crust of simple syrup. ‘You ever danced before?’

‘Yeah, I’ve danced. Of course I’ve danced.’

‘Where at?’

‘Clubs.’

‘Clubs. Where no one was watching you, right? Where you were just another face in the crowd? Well, they’re watching you now. And my guys? They can dance. They’re good. I need you’ – he points the sponge at Simon – ‘to keep up.’

Simon’s pride stings. Sure, he might have been a little stiff, but by the end of the night, he was jiving like the rest of them – wasn’t he?

‘What about Colin?’ he asks, boldly imitating Colin’s limpid sway, his mime act. ‘Is he keeping up?’

‘Colin,’ says Benny, ‘has a shtick. The art fags are into him. You need a shtick, too. Whatever you were doing last night? Shuffling around the pedestal like you had bugs in your pants? That wasn’t it.’

‘Hey, man. It’s not like I’m in bad shape. I’m a runner.’

‘So what? Anyone can run. Baryshnikov, Nureyev – you look at those guys, they don’t run. They fly. And that’s ’cause they’re artists. You’re a good-looking guy, no doubt about that, but the guys who come here have standards, and you’ll need more than your looks to keep up.’

‘Like what?’

Benny exhales. ‘Like presence. Charisma.’

Simon watches as Benny opens the cash register and counts the previous night’s earnings. ‘So you’re firing me?’

‘No, I’m not firing you. But I’d like you to take a class. Learn to move. There’s a dance school at the corner of Church and Market – ballet. They get a lot of guys in there, so you wouldn’t be hanging around with a bunch of chicks.’

‘Ballet?’ Simon laughs. ‘Come on, man. That’s not my scene.’

‘And you think this is?’ Benny takes out two thick stacks of bills and wraps them in rubber bands. ‘You’re out of your comfort zone, kid – that’s a fact. What’s one more step?’





4.


From the outside, the Ballet Academy of San Francisco is nothing but a narrow, white door. Simon climbs a tall staircase, turns right at the landing, and finds himself in a small reception area: creaking wooden floors, a chandelier furry with dust. He didn’t think ballet dancers would be so loud, but women chatter in groups as they stretch against the wall and men in black tights shout at one another, kneading their quads. The receptionist signs him up for the twelve thirty mixed level – ‘Trial class is free’ – and hands him a pair of black canvas slippers from the lost and found bin. Simon sits to pull them on. Seconds later, the French doors behind him bang open. Teenage girls in navy leotards stream out, hair pulled back so tightly their eyebrows lift. Behind them, the studio is as large as a school cafeteria. Simon presses against the wall to let the girls pass. It takes all of his resolve not to bolt down the stairs.

The other dancers gather their bags and water bottles and begin to amble into the studio. It’s an old, dignified room, with high ceilings, worn floors, and a raised platform for the piano. Students carry heavy-looking metal barres from the perimeter to the center as an older man enters the studio. Later, Simon will learn that this is the Academy’s director, Gali, an Israeli émigré who danced with the San Francisco Ballet before a back injury ended his career. He looks to be in his late forties, with a powerful stride and the dense body of a gymnast. His head is shaved, and so are his legs: he wears a maroon unitard that ends in shorts, revealing smooth thighs striated with muscle.