I struggled to roll over, to orient myself in the dark, feeling every place the steps had struck my flesh. I merely had to keep hidden from Jane Fawley, and I’d be all right. Where was she?I rolled the heavy weight off my torso, and realized the weight was her. She lay slumped and crooked in the dark, and the dull thud of truth struck me—she was dead.
I scrambled to stand, fumbling about the chilly walls for a doorway, a window. Anything that led out.
It was this place, wasn’t it? Something about this theater. Jane Fawley and I both found and lost ourselves in the pursuit of significance, allowed it to destroy us.
I turned a corner and light gleamed through a dirty window high up in the distant wall. I clawed my way up toward it and hoisted myself, pushing up off crates as dull aches and sharp pains made themselves known all along the side of my chest and my right leg.
I forced myself up those crates and yanked that window open, grasping the frame to climb up and pull myself through to my waist. I pulled and strained, but my skirts were a bulk and a weight, refusing to go through the small opening. With a strangled cry, I forced my body further, then collapsed onto the ground and shook. Rain pelted my upturned cheek like little pebbles, and I lay there, accepting it for what seemed like forever. I was too heavy, or my arms too weak.
Then there were voices. “I’ve found her!” Boots pounded on the street, then Philippe was there, guiding my body from the window and scooping me up like a pile of sodden rags on the street, asking a hundred questions as he carried me.
“Tovah. We must find Tovah.” My words were jumbled, but he understood. “And Jane.”
“Jane? Tovah’s with the others. Came out the back way. Where are you hurt? How much did you inhale?”
“I’m all right. I just need to get home. Is the fire—”
“It’s controlled.” He wiped hair off my wet face.
“But is everyone safe?”
“Two stagehands were injured—they’ll recover. The audience stampeded the exits, but the fire didn’t move past the stage. And you?” He searched me frantically. “You’re hurt?”
“I told you, I’ll be fine.” My story had reached its dreaded scene, and I was still here. I had survived the fire—and been rescued by my principal dancer, not abandoned. He shifted me closer, bringing a severe jolt of pain in my leg, but I forced myself to relax into his arms, sinking against his chest in a way I’d only dreamed of. Rescue for rescue. We were even.
But he still owed me that dance.
37
We both wore an air of ruin, the theater and I. Sagging defeat that went deep. That was my thought the following week as I stood in the doorway of the now-forsaken auditorium. There had been a buzz among the dancers at Mama Jo’s that Craven would rise again, and that we’d all be dancing just as soon as the stage could be cleaned up and made ready for use.
Yet I knew in my bones that everything was different now. I knew it with every limping step I took up the aisle, felt it in the hush of ruin. For a week I’d attempted to stretch out the pain, to ease myself back into dancing, but the pain had only swelled and stiffened. I’d visited a surgeon to see about it, and he’d told me plainly my right knee might not fully recover, and I’d be unable to dance for at least six months. I’d set aside his pessimism—he wasn’t a dancer, after all—but now his words haunted me. Strangled me.
A door slammed, the bang echoing from the main entrance. Someone was at the offices. With a backward glance at the stage, at the tragic Craven auditorium, I limped back down the aisleand through the doors toward the offices and paused in the grand theater entrance.
Bellini emerged from his office, blinking away his shock at seeing me. His dislike was still evident in his posture toward me. “I suppose you know they’re counting on you now. The entire stage area needs to be rebuilt, and with no theater this season we must take the company abroad and make a sensation out of Minna ... and you.”
“Me?”
“You created quite a stir with the press at the preview. They’re all talking about what you’ll do next, and they’ll buy tickets just to find out. Wretched as it is, it may just be all we have left. You can bring ticket sales, and that’s what Craven needs more than anything right now. I hope you’re prepared to work harder than you have in your entire life. Fournier already has it laid out and has negotiated several appearances on the continent. Jack must approve the choreography of course, to make certain it plays to what strengths you have and disguises your weaknesses.”
If only he knew how extensive my weaknesses had become.
“We must make something sensational on the stage, and—”
“I cannot.” I clung to the doorframe. “I’m sorry sir, but I cannot do any of this.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’ve come here to give my notice. I won’t be dancing anymore this season.”
“Yournotice?” His eyebrows descended low over narrowed eyes. “You’ve signed a contract. You cannot simply walk away.”
“The season’s almost over as it is.” My last shreds of confidence melted under his hard stare. I fumbled about for my purse, which of course was not with me. “And I’ll repay thetheater. For everything. The scholarship, all the training. It’ll take time, but—”
“Repay?” His face was red.
I straightened my shoulders against the weight settling upon them. “As I said, it’ll take time, but I have every intention of making it up to you all. I hope this most recent performance has proved—”
