“No, it’s what the dancers call the company’s fraternisation policy. One of Peter’s many reforms: he’s got a strict no-dating-within-the-company rule.”
“What?” Heather scoffed. “How does that even work? Every company I’ve ever heard of has multiple married couples in it.”
“Oh, so do we. They were exempted when Peter made the policy. I mean, he couldn’t exactly make them split up, could he? But no new relationships allowed.”
“And what happens if you break the rule?”
“You get fired,” he said simply.
She stared at him. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly,” he nodded. “I think Peter witnessed some fairly full-on sexual harassment when he was a dancer, and you know how many MeToo scandals there’ve been in ballet in the last few years. Peter takes that stuff really seriously. He says a no-dating policy makes for a more professional and harmonious work environment.” He probably wasn’t wrong, Marcus thought. It was pretty awkward being in a rehearsal with two dancers you knew had just started hooking up or watching people in the middle of a nasty breakup trying to playact as lovers on stage.
“So he’s actually fired people who got caught?”
“Yep, two guys from the corps got busted fooling around last year, and he sacked them on the spot.”
“Is that even legal?”
“It’s ballet,” he shrugged. “Peter’s a reformer and everything, but...legally he can still fire us for just about anything if he wants.”
Heather cocked her head to the side and frowned. “Why didn’t I know anything about this?” she asked. “I read up on the company and all Peter’s reforms, but I didn’t see anything about...Pas de Don’t.”
“Probably because the dancers hate it. I mean, it’s well intentioned, but it makes our lives pretty difficult. It’s hard to date outside of ballet, you know?”
“Pretty hard to date inside ballet too,” Heather retorted.
“Uh, yeah, that too,” Marcus said quickly, hearing the bitter edge in her voice and hating it. “Anyway, Alice and I are justmates. Friends, I mean. I’m, uh, I’m not seeing anyone right now. Very single.”
He glanced over at her and saw an unnameable expression on her face. Relief?
“But if you were to date someone, they’d have to be outside the company,” she said flatly, turning to meet his eyes. “Those are therules.”
“Those are the rules.” He held her gaze for a few long seconds, wondering if his face was betraying any of his disappointment. Then, seized by an urge to move and put some physical distance between them, he pulled himself to his feet. “Shaz says I should practice walking as much as I can.”
They strolled slowly along the esplanade in silence. Just as he had yesterday, he felt hyperaware of her next to him, not least because her shoulder kept brushing against his arm. Was she touching him on purpose?
“Sorry,” she said, with a small shake of her head. “Walking on the left is going to take some getting used to. My body wants to be over there.” She pointed to the other side of the wide footpath. So, no, she was not touching him on purpose.My body wants to be over there. What else would her body want?he wondered, before swatting the question away.Don’t go there, he thought. She’d just broken off an engagement and was only in the country a short while. Plus, Pas de Don’t. It was hard to imagine anyone more off-limits than the woman walking beside him.
“You can ask about it, if you like,” she said, interrupting his thoughts.
“About what?” he asked guiltily.
She looked up at him and pulled her sharp chin down firmly, her eyes meeting his with an expression that plainly said,Cutthecrap.After a confused moment, he realised what she meant.
“About how my fiancé screwed a corps member behind my back and how, when I found out, I fell apart and ran away to the other side of the world,” she said, matter-of-factly. Her voice was steady,but Marcus noticed that, as she spoke, she crossed her arms tightly across her chest and pressed her forearms against her stomach. She turned away from him and looked out at the water.
“I did hear something about that,” he said. She gave him that look again, holding his gaze a little longer this time. Her eyes bore into his, challenging him. “Okay,” he conceded. “Everyone heard something about that.”
“No secrets in ballet. Well,” she scoffed, “almostno secrets.”
“Fuck that guy,” Marcus shrugged. “He’s a tosser. Men in ballet think they’re God’s gift to dance. I mean, no offence to what’s-his-face,” he said, as if every male ballet dancer in the world didn’t know Jack Andersen’s name, “but as long as a guy can do half a pirouette and is willing to wear tights, they’ll put him on stage and let him do whatever he wants off of it.” Marcus knew Jack Andersen could do at least eight perfect pirouettes, on both sides, if you asked him to. And the Prince of American Ballet didn’t just wear tights, he looked like the very concept of tights had been invented for him.
Marcus had looked at the guy’s Instagram feed the previous afternoon, when he’d gotten home from dropping Heather in Kirribilli. He had never seen anyone so...symmetrical. Jack Andersen looked like he’d been genetically engineered in the same lab that made the Hemsworth brothers. He was bronzed and blue-eyed, and his straight teeth were a bright American white. It was easy to see why the role that had made him a star was Apollo, the sun god. Marcus couldn’t imagine that anyone looked more like the princely ideal of the danseur noble than Jack Andersen.
But he’d also spent six years listening to Alice talk about how well men in ballet were treated, and how badly a lot of them treated women. And as special as Heather’s ex was, in this regard, he doubted he was any different from the assholes Alice complained about. From what Marcus had heard, he was probably worse.
He looked over at Heather and found her watching him, her mouth open in surprise.
