I beam as I pull mine out of the garment bag. The piece I tried on before is now pristine—from the intricate beading to the layers upon layers of tulle gathering around the waist. After weeks of wearing only white—and in a room filled with white swans—it’s a special treat to get into the skin of the maleficent Black Swan. Valérie and her team did a wonderful job; the costume fits perfectly. But thepièce de résistanceis yet to come. I open the box that came attached to the bag, and retrieve the headpiece. I put it on, and two beaded feathers wrap around the back of my head, covering my ears.
“Mamma Mia, Mia!” Lucy says in an exaggerated Italian accent as she skitters toward me. She’s in her own costume, a pared-down version of Audrey’s.
“You look amazing,” I say.
Lucy smirks. “If you like my costume so much, I’m happy to swap. I’ll be the Black Swan, no problem.”
I roll my eyes and she laughs. We’re all assembled in the biggest studio, the only one that can fit us all. Drapes hang loosely from the corners as makeshift change rooms, so we can get in and out of our costumes. Seeing everyone all dressed up for the performance fills me with so much pride. You can rehearse choreography dozens of times. You can listen to the music on your phone every break you get. You can reread the story, digging deep inside of it to explore your character’s motivations. But it takes a room full of white birds—and this little black one—to drive it home. The program is rapidly coming to an end; what may or may not come next, no one dares to talk about. We’ll be performing onstage in front of the apprentice program directors from around the world in just a few days.
Instead, as we wait for Valérie and her team to inspect each of our costumes and perform last-minute tweaks, we chat about what comes now.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” I ask Anouk and Lucy. Except for Audrey, Fernando, and me, everyone has the day off before the dress rehearsal. All of the principal dancers, myself included, will meet with Monsieur Dabrowski tomorrow afternoon for a final run-through, but he’s giving us the morning off so we can rest before the final push.
“I’m going shopping,” Lucy says, an excited spark in her eyes. “I’ve been saving money for months so I could treat myself in Paris. But I still haven’t gone. What have I been doing?”
“Hanging out with Charles?” Anouk answers in a gently mocking tone.
“Yeah, okay,” Lucy admits. Then she laughs. Every night at dinner she’s been giving us updates on her adventures with him. She’s even talking about coming back for a weekend later in the summer, before school starts, so they can see each other again.
“What about you, Anouk?” I ask. “What’s on your must-do list before you leave?”
“I’m going on a street art tour with my friends in the afternoon. It’s a bummer you can’t come.”
I nod, and then, of course, I think about Louis. When we’re out in the city, he always points out the pieces of art painted on the walls. Often it’s simple graffiti in black and white tucked in a corner, but sometimes it’s an impressive mural with incredible detailing. Louis talks excitedly about how the museums are in the streets now, and I find myself wondering if we’d have time to take one of these tours together. Probably not.
Lucy turns to our White Swan in residence. “And you, Audrey?” She’s been loosening up a little bit more every day. By her standards, it means staying back at the dinner table to chat with us, rather than going straight to bed with a book and a face mask on.
“Well, hmm,” Audrey starts.
There are still half a dozen students in line before us, so we have plenty more time to wait. And to tease.
“Audrey’s Paris plans are all about Russia,” Anouk says to Lucy and me with a wink. “Bol-shoi, Bol-shoi, Bol-shoi,” she repeats in a chanting tone.
Lucy laughs, but I don’t join in. I know Audrey’s story now. Her mother has called her every day throughout the summer, reminding her that shemustimpress the Bolshoi Ballet apprentice program director. There’s no alternative. Still, I’m not sure that’s what Audrey wants. Every time she talks about the Russian company, her face falls a little.
I wouldn’t go as far as calling her my bestie, but things are so much better between us now. We practice together. We help each other. And since we’re hoping for different ballet companies, we’re not even really competing against each other.
“Who knows what will happen anyway? We might get surprised,” I say, more to deflect the subject.
But Lucy catches on immediately. “What are you saying?”
I glance at my reflection in the mirror. Whenever I look that way, I wonder who the girl covered in black feathers is. It takes me a second to recognize myself. I’ve changed since I arrived in Paris. My dream is the same, and yet it feels different.
“There are other companies,” I say vaguely, feeling myself blush.
“Yeah,” Anouk says, readjusting a strap on her shoulder and stretching out her arm. “I’d take an apprenticeship anywhere. Copenhagen, Beijing, Sydney. It’d be a great excuse to travel. Ballet is ballet everywhere. It’s always going to be an amazing opportunity to learn.”
I agree with her in theory, but it’s so much more complicated than that for me. “Wouldn’t you miss your family?” I ask. “If you get an apprenticeship somewhere, then, if all goes well, you’d probably just stay with the company. Maybe not for your whole career, but at least for a few years.”
Lucy and Anouk look at each other and shrug. “So?”
“It’d be hard, being so far away from my parents and everyone else,” I say.
Lucy gives me a devilish grin. “What if you found a good reason to stay here?”
I shake my head meekly. “ABT has always been my first choice.”
“But then sooomebody came along,” Lucy says in a silly voice.
