“With a hundred percent humidity, which makes it a thousand degrees.”
She grins and leans against the door frame. “Find any jobs yet?”
I groan at the wordjobs. “Is the New York City Ballet taking any new dancers? I could learn.”
Cori laughs, loud and bright. “Not at the moment, no.”
“Shame.”
She plunks herself down on the bed next to me, making the mattress dip. “That’s not how it works, anyway. You don’t just walk in and say ‘I’d like to be a ballerina now, please.’”
“Why not? Seems good enough to me.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Years of training. Auditions. Rejection. More rejection. Bleeding feet. Starvation wages until you’re a principal, which most people never become.” She stretches her long legs out in front of her. “It’s a whole thing.”
I know it’s a whole thing. Cori is a professional ballerina with the Manhattan Ballet Company, which sounds impossibly glamorous until you realize what itactuallymeans. She rehearses six days a week, sometimes eight hours a day. She performs multiple times a week during the season, which runs from September to June. Right now they’re gearing up for the fall season—she’s rehearsing forGiselleand some new contemporary piece choreographed by someone whose name I can’t remember but who’s apparently very important.
Her schedule is insane. She leaves the apartment at seven in the morning and sometimes doesn’t get home until nine at night. She eats about three carrot sticks and a piece of grilled chicken for dinner. She has ice packs in the freezer for her feet and knees and basically every joint in her body. She makes thirty-five thousand dollars a year, which in New York City is basically poverty wages, but she loves it. You can see it in the way she talks about dancing, the way her whole face lights up.
Marcus has his life together too, in a completely different way. He and his boyfriend Brett both bartend at The Pyramid Club, which is apparently one of the most popular bars in the East Village. Marcus paints on the side—big abstract pieces that he sells to galleries in SoHo and Chelsea, or sometimes to private collectors that Brett connects him with through the bar. He’s actually making decent money from it, enough that he’s talking about maybe quitting bartending next year and painting full-time.
It feels like they both have their lives figured out in ways I’ve never had to figure out my own life. They both have jobs they’re good at, passions they’re pursuing, independence they’ve earned. Meanwhile, the only thing I’ve ever been good at is looking presentable at charity galas and making small talk with my parents’ friends. I can coordinate an outfit and I know which fork to use at a five-course dinner.
None of that pays the rent.
I envy them a little, if I’m being honest. Not in a bitter way, but in a wistful way. They know who they are. They know what they want. I’m twenty-five and I’m just now figuring out that I don’t want the life I was supposed to have, but I have no idea what I want instead.
Cori pokes me in the side. “Something will come up. Someone’s always hiring for something in New York. That’s the whole point of living here. Opportunity.”
“Something needs to come up soon,” I say, staring at the ceiling. “Or else I’m going to end up like Ernie.”
Ernie is the homeless man who lives outside the bodega across the street. He has a beard that’s mostly gray, wears a Knicks cap that’s seen better days, and has a little white dog named Shirley who’s possibly the ugliest dog I’ve ever seen but also the sweetest. Ernie’s convinced that the government is watching him through the streetlights, which he talks about often and at length. He also does a truly impressive rendition of “New York, New York” if you give him a dollar, complete with choreography.
“You’re not going to end up like Ernie,” Cori says.
“I might. I’ll be the one singing show tunes for spare change.”
“You can’t sing so that’s a terrible idea.”
“I’ll learn. Like ballet.”
She laughs and shoves my shoulder. “You’re being dramatic.”
“I’m being realistic.”
“You’re being dramaticandrealistic, which is an awful combination.” She shifts on the bed so she’s facing me. “Look, you’ve been in this room for, like, three hours staring at that newspaper. You need to get out. Come to Lucky’s with me and Marcus and Brett tonight.”
I blink at her. “Three hours? There’s no way it’s been three hours.”
She points at my nightstand, where my alarm clock sits—another thrift store find, digital with red numbers that are slightly too bright. It reads 5:47 PM.
“Holy shit,” I say. “How is it almost six?”
“Because you’ve been lying here having an existential crisis, that’s how.” She stands up and walks over to my makeshift closet.
“Come on. You’re coming out with us.”
“I didn’t say yes.”
