And then Nick Jacobs had come along, with his strong shoulders and his ludicrously long eyelashes. Pulling her suitcase up the front path toward the front door of her rental, Carly pictured him mocking her, that condescending smile twisting his mouth. Asshole. Somehow, being laughed at felt even worse than the ghosting or willful ignorance, she thought, as she shouldered her way into the apartment and rolled the suitcase into the bedroom. She opened it up and let out a sigh of relief at the sight of her teal dress.
Now, should she have called him an asshole to his face, even if he very clearly was one? No. Carly was willing to admit that.
Still, she thought, peeling off her leggings at last and stepping into a pair of denim cut-offs, most assholes didn’t try to apologize right away. Didn’t look mortified when they were accused of going through someone’s private belongings. Either way, she was too old to have so little self-control.
She gave herself a little shake, trying to get the image of his face out of her head. She had things to do today, places to be and people to help. Besides, she reasoned as she buttoned up the shorts and looked at herself in the mirror, it could have been a lot worse. It wasn’t like she’d ever see Nick Jacobs again.
Chapter 3
Carly had mostly calmed down by the time she and Heather walked into the ANB building a few hours later. It helped that it was a gorgeous summer day, the sky a saturated turquoise, clear and cloudless. A far cry from the damp gray skies and sleet she’d left behind in New York.
“You weren’t kidding,” Carly said, peering out the window of the empty rehearsal studio. “The water isright there.”
The Australian National Ballet performed at the iconic Opera House, but its studios and administrative buildings were a couple of miles away, Heather had explained, built on what used to be a working wharf. A few decades ago, the high-ceilinged warehouses that lined one long finger wharf had been converted into rehearsal studios and offices, while the wharves that flanked held condos and a hotel. A few feet away from where Carly stood, the harbor glittered in the sun, sloshing around the legs of the wharf. It was spectacular, and so strange. She’d mostly believed Heather when she’d described the studios, but seeing it with her own eyes—hearing it, she couldhearthe water lapping outside—was something else.
“There’s something magical about dancing on water all day,” Heather smiled. She sat in the center of the sunny studio, pulling a pair of legwarmers over her canvas ballet slippers. “You can see for yourself next week. Peter said you can join company class any time you want.”
Carly turned away from the window and nodded in thanks. She had hoped to finally relax a little on this vacation, but Catherine’s email had changed everything. She couldn’t very well go back to New York out of shape and expect to be promoted. A tiny, treacherous part of her wondered if she should be here at all. Shouldn’t she be back in New York, attending the optional classes the company put on during the break? Showing her face at every opportunity so she could impress Catherine with her commitment?
She banished the thought and looked over at Heather, who had started her usual pre-class warmup sequence of jumping jacks, crunches, and stretches. The same one she’d been doing since they’d joined the company together at eighteen. Carly had spent all of fourth grade begging her parents for a sibling, but once she’d met Heather, she’d stopped. It didn’t matter they were about as different as possible on paper; from the day they’d met in a ballet class at eleven years old, it had felt like they fit together like two feet slotting into a perfect fifth position. Heather was the closest thing she’d ever have to a sister. Carly was right where she needed to be.
“Can I join you?” she asked, as Heather jumped up and down.
“If you want, but aren’t you tired?” Heather lowered herself to the ground and began her crunches sequence.
Carly was tired, and she wasn’t exactly dressed for dancing, but if she was going to stay in shape, she might as well start now. Besides, it had been ages since she’d been able to dance with Heather. Even if it was just jumping jacks and a short barre before the pianist and rehearsal director arrived to run through one of Heather’s solos, Carly wouldn’t pass up a chance for them to dance together.
By the time they’d worked through the sequence—crunches, stretches, and then a series of calf raises, a new addition that ANB apparently mandated to prevent ankle injuries—Carly’s quads felt warm and liquid and her spine loose and long, as if the endless flight from New York had never happened.
“Ready to dance?” Heather asked, panting slightly from the rapid-fire bicycles that rounded out the crunches sequence.
“Ready,” Carly grinned. “Music?”
“I have a playlist I usually use when I give myself barre.”
“Let me guess, it’s allGiselle,” Carly said slyly.
Heather rolled her eyes. “I swear, if I never have to dance that ballet again, it’ll be too soon. No, it’s just standard music for class, piano covers of musicals, the usual.”
“Not today,” Carly shook her head, already pulling her phone out of her back pocket and pulling up the music app. “Today we’re going to mix it up.”
“Ha, of course we are.”
“Today we’re going to mix it upandthrow it back,” Carly said, typing and scrolling until she found what she wanted. She hit play, and a second later, Heather was laughing, the sound slightly drowned out by the tinny sound of Usher and Lil Jon coming out of Carly’s phone.
“We cannot do pliés to a song about sweat dripping down someone’s balls!” Heather objected, but she was grinning.
“Excuse me, that’s a totally different song, and we can do pliés to whatever song we want. What’s going to happen, the ghost of George Balanchine is going to haunt us? Swoop around scowling until we turn on Stravinsky?”
“You’re ridiculous,” Heather shook her head.
“You love it. And if you don’t want this song, I’ve got the rest of the hits of the early 2000s all lined up and ready to go.” It was the soundtrack of their years at the NYB school together. The songs they’d played over and over again in their dorm room. “You think Balanchine’s ghost will like ‘Hey Ya’? Or maybe he’s more of a Ciara kind of guy?”
“Ridiculous!” Heather repeated with a laugh, but she peeled off her legwarmers and jogged to the back of the room. Carly followed her, and together they dragged a barre into the middle of the studio. Heather claimed stage right, as she always did, and Carly set herself up on the other side of the barre, turning away from the mirrors lining the front wall of the room. She glanced over her shoulder at Heather and smiled to herself. Right back where she belonged.
She put her hand on the barre, fanned her feet out into first position, and took a deep breath. They began.
As it turned out, they could do pliés to Usher. And “Goodies” turned out to be the perfect tempo for tendus. Alicia Keys was a good fit for ronds de jambe, and “Hey Ya” made for some very fast, very frantic frappés. By the time they got to grand battements—to “Freek-a-leek,” by Petey Pablo, and Heather didn’t even bother pretending to object—they were both sweaty and smiling, and completely unfazed by the prospect of being haunted forever by the ghost of the father of American ballet. Who, to be honest, had been a bit of a creep and probably would have enjoyed spending his afterlife haunting young women.
