Just before nine, Mr.Conrad enters the room with a slender middle-aged woman. According to the timetable, her name isDeborah, and she’s going to accompany our lessons on the piano. After nodding briefly in our direction, she sits down at the grand piano near the door, while Mr.Conrad stands in front of the large mirror. He’s tall, handsome, and surprisingly young, perhaps in his late twenties.
“Good morning.” He smiles warmly. “My name is Mr.Conrad, and I’ll be your teacher this year. We’re going to start with the basics today so I can get an idea of what you specifically need to work on in your first year. Let’s start from the beginning. Pliés in five positions.”
I step up to one of the barres in front of the window overlooking campus. All at once, I get goose bumps. I really made it! I’m here, in a studio at the New England School of Ballet. I get to dance and learn and improve. I’m here so I can reach for the stars. Even though not long ago I was convinced that I’d never make it.
But I’m here now. Nothing else counts.
“First position. Focus. This is about precision. I don’t want to see any sloppiness.” Mr.Conrad’s voice fills the room as we follow his instructions in synchronized motion.
As soon as my hand relaxes on the barre, my heels touch, and my feet point outward in a straight line, everything else fades into the background. I take a deep breath, bend my legs slowly and precisely to the rhythm of the music, and stretch them out again. Bending and stretching with a straight back, knees turned outward. Every muscle in my body is working.
The third time, my heels lift in a grand plié. I lower my arm smoothly, move it forward and back to the side.
“Keep your arms steady. Shoulders back,” Mr.Conrad says as he paces up and down the room. He’s walking along the barres,checking our posture. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him occasionally correcting the others. Meanwhile, we switch from pliés to thebattements tendus.
Right leg forward, diagonal, point the foot, half point, point, draw the right foot across the floor in a fluid motion. Pause. Keep your hips straight, stretch backward, half point, heels touching. Knees locked the whole time.
I breathe a sigh of relief when he gives me an approving nod, and Mae gets one too. He walks past us without comment. Mae gives me a conspiratorial glance over her shoulder, and I have to smile.
True to his word, Mr.Conrad only focuses on the basics in this first lesson, even when we move from the barre to the center of the floor. With every moment that passes, I feel more like myself. I’ve been doing these exercises almost every day for most of my life. They’ve become second nature to me. They are part of me, and last year they were my salvation. They’re my anchor, something that always stays the same no matter how much else changes.
Chapter 6
Jase
I was accepted at the New England School of Ballet! Dad is going to kill me just for going to the audition. But I couldn’t care less. I was accepted. How crazy is that?
—J
My muscles ache. Everything hurts. I’m feeling the lack of lessons during summer vacation in a very unpleasant way. Everyone who stayed here during the break, like Skye and me, technically had the opportunity to use the studios and gym whenever we wanted. But it turns out it’s harder to be responsible for your own workout plan without the structure of daily classes.
“Get a move on, Jase. Francesca will kill us if we’re late.” Ches, the only guy from our class who’s halfway tolerable, kicks my bag and turns toward the corridor while I heave myself off the floor with a dramatic groan. I grab my things and follow him. I’m tired, and for the first time, I wish that our teachers would go a bit easier on us the first day after vacation. Then again, it’s not their fault I could hardly sleep last night. I only have myself to blame for that.
The pas de deux class is one floor up, in the same studio as lastyear. Skye and a few other girls are already there when we enter. They’re sitting in little groups on the floor and talking quietly.
I throw my bag in the corner with the others, and I’m just about to go over to Skye when I hear a familiar laugh. A few seconds later, Zoe enters the room with two other freshmen, whom I haven’t met yet.
At the sight of her, the muscles in my chest react with a warning twitch. My hands clench into fists all by themselves.
Fuck.
I force my pulse to slow down, consciously stretching every finger as I watch her sit down on the floor and take her ballet slippers out of her bag. I knew that we would have this class together because freshmen and sophomores always have pas de deux together. But I refused to think about what that meant, even for a second, because that would mean that I cared. And I don’t.
So we have one stupid class together. That doesn’t mean we have to talk to each other. I don’t want to, and she clearly doesn’t either; otherwise, she would have answered my damn notes last semester.
And that settles the issue.
Somehow, I manage to turn away before Zoe spots me. I walk over to Ches and the others, pretending to join their conversation but barely listening to what they’re saying. I don’t say a word while I wait for Francesca to show up so we can get this bullshit over with.
She arrives punctually as usual, not a minute late. Francesca was our teacher last year too. She’s a petite, slender woman with an angular face and a low voice that has just a trace of an Italian accent. Everything about her is severe, except for a few dark curls that play around her face, as though they’re trying to soften her up.
“Good morning,” she says, stepping into the middle of the room. She introduces herself briefly and gets straight to the point. “I have big plans for you this year, and I expect you all to do your best. Do you understand?” Francesca doesn’t mince words. Her explanations are just as concise as her praise and criticism. Precise and harsh, but always honest. “The pas de deux is all about trust and working together. It’s about creating a connection with one another. That’s why you will be divided into permanent pairs at the end of the week. After that, there will be no more changes for the rest of the semester,” she explains. “Over the next few hours, I will decide who is suitable for whom. Is that clear?” She looks at us with her eyebrows raised. We murmur in agreement, and she nods.
“Skye, you will dance with Raffael, and Julie with Ben.” Francesca goes through the names one by one, and the fewer of us that are left, the more my body tenses up. I know who Francesca is going to assign to me even before she says it.
“Zoe and Jase.”
My pulse goes haywire, and I only realize that my hands are clenched again when I feel my fingernails digging painfully into my palms.Great.As if I didn’t already have enough shit to deal with. Now I’m stuck with Zoe.
