Prologue
NewYork City, June
Heather’s chest heaved as the heavy gold curtain thudded gently onto the stage and the orchestra played the final, plaintive notes of the score. For a beat, a sublime empty moment, the theater was silent, and Heather could hear nothing but her own ragged breaths. She stood in the wings, mentally replaying her second-act solo, spotting a handful of mistakes and tucking them away to correct before next season—but as far as she could tell, it had been her best performance yet. Panting, she waited for the audience to hand down its judgment.
A second later, the theater erupted into applause. Out in the dark, beyond the velvet curtain, people cheered, whooping and roaring in a way that stuffier ballet-goers would frown upon. Heather exited the wings to center stage, where Jack waited, his forehead glistening with sweat under his sleek golden-brown hair. She smiled up at him, relieved and delighted that the final performance of the spring season had gone so well.
“You were amazing,” she said, pulling the damp fabric of her white tutu away from her ribs, a hopeless attempt to get air onto her skin. She brushed the back of her neck, where a few sweaty strands of her long brown hair clung to her. She’d started act two with every hair lacquered in place, her skin powdered to a ghostly white—but now her bun had loosened, and her cheeks felt flushed, sparkling with sweat.
“You too,” Jack panted, sounding unenthused. He tugged on the bottom of his royal blue velvet jacket, straightening the line of shining silver buttons at the front. “Your arabesque was low just now. We’ll work on it.” Her smile faltered a little, but then he flashed her a dazzling grin, and she hiked it back up. Jack always picked the wrong time to give her feedback, but Heather knew he meant well.
She glanced over his shoulder and saw the stage manager holding up his fingers, counting down from five. She hastily arranged her feet in first position and stood up straight as the curtain rose to reveal the source of all that gratifying sound.
No matter how many times she’d done it, taking a solo bow at the front of the stage was thrilling. Jack had told her that the awe had worn off for him years ago, because he’d been promoted to principal just two years after he joined the company. But even though Heather had been doing it more lately, especially since she’d been made a soloist, it still felt like the first time every time. To stand before the audience and know that they were cheering for her specifically—not for the corps de ballet as a unit, but for her alone? It was what she and Carly had been dreaming about since they were eleven-year-olds at the company school: the kind of shining, surreal moment that all ballet dancers imagined but so few got to experience.
As she swept one arm in front of her, pliéd into a deep curtsy, and bowed her head, Heather’s legs trembled, and it wasn’t only because the second act ofGisellewas an exhausting marathon of dancing.
From the corner of her eye, Heather saw someone walk onto the stage with a large bouquet of flowers in their arms. She stood and turned. It wasn’t the orchestra conductor, as was customary for curtain calls, but Mr. Koenig, the company’s longtime artistic director. He strode toward her, his suit jacket unbuttoned and flapping around his middle, his pale face split by a wide smile. Then she noticed the microphone in his hand. Heather’s stomach dropped in shock, and she willed herself to keep the smile fixed on her face. Since she’d joined the company a decade ago, she had seen Mr. K, as the dancers called him, do this enough times to know what that microphone meant. And if she was right, her life was about to change forever.
Heather glanced over at Jack, raising her eyebrows as the question passed between them, and he cocked one eyebrow mysteriously.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. K said, stopping at Heather’s side and looking out into the packed theater like a duke surveying his lands, the bright stage lights bouncing off his polished bald head. The applause ended as audience members settled back into their seats.
“I’m delighted that you enjoyed tonight’s performance ofGiselle,” Mr. K went on, his usually icy voice warm for the crowd, “and that you so clearly admire the artistry and talent of our dancers, Jack Andersen and Heather Hays.” Another outbreak of applause, and at Jack’s name, some whoops that sounded like they’d come from women in the audience. Mr. K waited for the noise to peter out, and Heather resisted the urge to fidget, willing her hands to be still. She flicked her eyes toward the wings, looking for Carly, but her best friend must have gone straight to the dressing room as soon as the corps left the stage.
“It has been a pleasure and a privilege to watch Miss Hays grow into the artist she is today, and I look forward to many more years of watching her dance...” He paused for dramatic effect, and Heather was sure they could hear her heart pounding up in thefamily circle. “Which, from now on, she will be doing at the rank of principal dancer.”
The house exploded in applause, both Heather’s hands flew to her mouth, and Mr. K thrust the huge bouquet of red and pink roses toward her. She pried one shaking arm out to accept it, tears of gratitude, relief, and pride in her eyes.
“Congratulations, Heather,” Mr. K said, smiling down at her.
“Thank you,” Heather gasped. She tried to meet his gaze, to tell him over the roar of the audience how much this promotion meant to her, how honored she was to accept this responsibility. But he was looking at something else. He lifted the microphone to his mouth again.
“It seems, ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. K addressed the crowd, his tone sly, “that this isn’t the only happy surprise in store for Ms. Hays tonight.” He smiled again, and the audience gasped as one.
Heather looked slowly over her shoulder and nearly dropped the flowers in shock. There was Jack, his sweat sparkling under the lights and his eyes as bright as his sumptuous blue costume, his smile huge and boyish and just for her.
Kneeling in front of her, presenting a small velvet box.
Sydney, June
Marcus had never been one of those ballet boys who had to be coaxed and bribed into wearing tights. He knew there were dance schools that put off the transition from bike shorts into full-on tights as long as possible, for fear of scaring off the few precious boys they’d managed to convince to take ballet.
But the first time he’d tried on a pair, his costume for an end-of-year concert when he was ten or eleven, they’d made him feel strangely powerful. Suddenly, he could feel every muscle in his legs, feel his calves straining against the snug, stretchy fabric, ready to contract and spring back into the jumps his teacher hadchoreographed into the routine for him. He’d looked down and realised that his legs looked longer now, like one continuous line of strength extending from his waist all the way to his toes. He’d felt ready to dance, invincible—like a superhero whose power was pirouettes.
Tights still made him feel that way, even twenty years and hundreds of costumes later. Standing in the wings of the Opera House as the sound of the orchestra swelled out of the pit, Marcus felt warm and alive and ready, a welcome counterweight to the nerves fluttering in his stomach. The nerves would vanish the moment he stepped on stage, though, along with all thoughts about the outside world. He wouldn’t have time to think about his father’s grim prognosis, or about his mother’s slow-motion grieving. There would be no room for anything but the music, his partner, and the choreography.
Moments later, Marcus swept onto the stage, greeted Alice with a courtly bow, and the pas de deux began. Dancing with his best friend was easy; he knew she always needed extra support in her pirouettes, and she knew that performance adrenaline made him throw her higher in the second lift than he did in rehearsal. Dancing with her was fun, too; as he held her waist in an arabesque, she looked over her shoulder and made eye contact. That part was choreographed, but the wink she gave him was not. Marcus resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
After the opening section of the pas de deux, Alice exited stage right, and Marcus took his place in the upstage corner to begin his jump- and pirouette-heavy solo. In the quiet, heavy moment before the music began, he let his eyes flick down his legs and carried out the superstitious ritual that had begun the very first time he’d pulled on a pair of ballet tights: he pictured himself with a cape and a mask, too. He knew it was silly and childish—he’d once made the mistake of telling his brother about it, and Davo had mocked him relentlessly for weeks—but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d started a performance without it.
The first few jetés felt good, and they carried him downstage to where, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alice watching from the wings as he set up for a difficult series of fouettés and turns à la seconde. After a few rotations, the audience, unseen beyond the stage lights, began to applaud, and the sound vibrated in his chest. He could have sworn he saw Alice cheering him on from the wings, undulating in a goofy full-body wave that made her look like one of those inflatable men outside a car dealership. He set his free leg down, gave the audience a confident smile and stepped forward into a deep plié, ready to jump.
He felt something was off the moment his feet left the floor. The tour jump required him to spin twice in the air, keeping his body entirely straight and his legs crossed at the ankles, and land back in the same plié position where he’d started. But his legs felt out of line with his hips—or out of line with his ankles, he couldn’t tell, and he didn’t have time to figure it out. He came down hard in a messy fifth position and immediately felt a jagged, white-hot pain shoot up the back of his left ankle before both legs gave out.
A horrified collective gasp rose from the audience, but Marcus barely heard it. He fell onto all fours in the middle of the stage, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain so hard that he saw black spots pop and dissolve. He felt rather than saw the stage manager frantically signaling the curtains shut, and a few seconds later the orchestra faltered into silence. Then Alice was kneeling at his side, gripping his shoulder and telling him over and over again that he was going to be okay.
Panting in pain, Marcus collapsed onto his side, then onto his back. He looked up, past Alice’s face and high into the rafters of the theatre. At his feet, but also a million disconnected miles away, someone cut into his tights to get at his throbbing, searing ankle. And then the outside world flooded in: his father weak and emaciated in bed, his mother brushing away tears as she stood over the kitchen sink.
