A weight of responsibility settles on my shoulders, and I suddenly understand why there’s such a strict hierarchy in the ballet world. I understand now why Natalie and Frederick command the respect they do from the entire company. It's because the weight of all of our jobs to some degree rests on them. All the principals carry this weight.
The strength of the company rests on their talent, and not just their innate talent but what they actually bring to the stage when the pressure is on. Suddenly, I feel unready for this. I've dreamed and dreamed and wished on every candle and star in my path for ages, and yet now... what if I fuck this up? What if I'm not ready?
It doesn't matter if I'm the best dancer in the corps. What were they thinking putting me in this role? We aren't supposed to, but I peek through the edge of the curtains to the box where I'm back to being convinced that my mysterious lover, benefactor, and tormentor sits at every performance. But he's not out there. He's not here.
Maybe he's running late. Or maybe he's never here until right before the curtain rises. I don't know; I've never stolen a peek before the show like this before.
Panic surges through me. I need him here. He doesn't make me nervous or distract me. He makes me feel grounded, anchored to this plane of reality. And he's not here. The theater is packed. Whispers of the new and exciting Firebird choreography and the new principal dancer have swept through the city, and probably the larger ballet world as well.
I'm going to die. I cannot do this. Then a hand is in mine. Frederick spins me around to face him. “Hey. You've got this. You'll do great. And I'll be out there with you. Old pro here, remember?” He winks at me, charming as ever.
I nod, managing a weak smile. The orchestra starts warming up. Oh god, I'm going to die.
“Breathe,” Frederick says. “Do you want to run the first part again?”
I shake my head. “It's too late. We don't have time.”
“You know this. It's all in your muscles. Don't think. Just let it happen. You do this every week.”
I do not do this every week. This is very much a different thing from what I've been doing every week. It's a special sort of tragedy that I’m only realizing this now, moments before going onstage.
A few minutes later, the music starts, and I go on. Once I'm out there, the nerves do diminish. I feel the energy of the audience feeding me, supporting each leap and each turn. I relax into the role. I'm no longer Cassia. I am the firebird, and somehow I know everyone in the audience and in the company knows it. If there was a single doubt about me, it's erased in my opening solo. As I move, I feel a heat rise off me as if I'm made of actual flame. It's a living energy, and I’m sure right now that the audience can see this, too.
At the end of my solo, I glance up at the box, and my heart sinks to find it empty. He's not coming, I realize. I fight back the tears that he isn't here to see this. Did I do something wrong? Did something happen? Is he hurt somewhere?
I can't stop the endless chattering in my mind, even as Frederick's promise that my muscles will remember proves true. They don't let me down. Frederick has an introductory solo, and then there’s a piece from the corps.
Then I'm on stage again in my favorite scene in this re-imagined Firebird, the capture. The audience gasps at my blindfold. It wouldn't occur to them that of course I can see through this material. Not well, but I can see enough.
I move easily through my part. I'm nervous again about the leaps. I remember being pushed in the old opera house through grand jetés across the floor, and I'm worried it won't be spectacular enough. It won't be dramatic enough. I won't do this choreography justice. But he isn't in the audience anyway. This performance doesn't have to please him. He won't punish me for any missteps. And I've already won the hearts and minds of everyone who is watching.
But I'm still so hurt. He isn't here to watch me perform his choreography. Why wouldn't he be here?
The music changes, and I feel Frederick behind me. Then his hands are on my waist and the pas de deux begins.
But it isn't Frederick. It's him. I would know his hands on me anywhere. This is not how Frederick dances. The difference in dance partners is absolute and distinct. He guides me through the dance, the blindfold still in place.
The orchestra reaches a crescendo, and he rips the blindfold off and turns me to face him. It's all in the choreography, but it’s also so much more. I see him, and I flinch. I know him. I know who this man is. His dark intense gaze ensnares mine.
I have to fight the gasp, though I don't know why I should. The audience will eat this up, thinking this is some amazing acting ability on my part. He pulls me in toward him and says, “Don't disappoint me, Firebird.” He propels me away from him, launching me in a series of spins and turns.
Then I run. Not off the stage. In the choreography, I run from him. Run run run grand jeté across the stage. But he's there, ready for me. Then the other direction. Run run run grand jeté across the stage. But he's there. He captures me, and we dance together. Each lift is precise. Each turn sharp and perfect.
He never wavers in his support, and I do everything in my power not to think about who he is because I'm on a stage, and there’s no room for being anything other than the firebird in this moment.
The pas de deux ends, and with it, the scene. I'm locked in his embrace. We're staring at each other, breathing hard. It isn't customary for an audience to give a standing ovation during the middle of a performance. But the people who have become spellbound by me and my partner do not care. They've lost all sense of propriety and etiquette. They've been swept away by this primal act played out before their greedy eyes in the glare of the spotlight.
Everything they know about the appropriate time to clap, the appropriate time to stand... It all fades away. The orchestra has to actually stop, and there’s silence except for this thundering applause. It goes on forever.
No one seems to care that my dance partner was just switched out mid-performance. No one has missed a single stride. Not me, not my new partner, and not the audience.
He leads me off the stage, and before I can question him or say anything, I'm engulfed by the other dancers in the wings as he slips away. Congratulations and excited exclamations about how magical that was pour over me in a wave. They gush about how they've never seen anything like it.
I look around, but I can't find him now. He's disappeared somewhere into the shadows like the phantom of the fucking opera. What about our next scene? Will it be Frederick back on stage again? How will the audience react to that?
“Oh. My. God!” Henry says. He's not in this next scene, so he pulls me back away from the wings out of the way of another string of dancers who are about to go on. “Oh my God,” he says again. “Do you know who that was? Do you know who you just danced with? Oh my God.”
I nod, my body shaking from all the adrenaline. Yes. I know who I just danced with. Sebastian Trent. He was possibly the top male dancer in the entire ballet world—and I mean internationally—until a motorcycle accident ended his career a couple of years ago. No one saw him after that. He just disappeared.
