“Close,” she replies. “But more turnout.” She nudges my heels closer. “And lift your chest—you’re not carrying hockey pads on your shoulders.”
The proximity to Petra is doing things to my concentration that I’m absolutely not going to acknowledge. I comply, straightening myself, rolling my shoulders back, hyperaware of every detail: the authority in her voice, the faint scent of her freshly cleaned leotard.
“Good,” she says, stepping back to observe. I feel oddly bereft without her hands guiding me. “Now stay there. Don’t move.”
I resist the urge to fidget as she circles me. “Your weight’s too far back,” she observes, nudging my hip lightly. “Shift forward. And keep your chin up. You’re not looking for loose change.”
“Got it,” I respond, even though I don’t have it.
We move through the positions—first, second, third, fourth, fifth—and I follow as best I can, which is to say badly but with enthusiasm. My body, which has been conditioned for explosive movements on ice, feels stiff and uncooperative during the slow and methodical maneuvers.
“Relax your hands,” she says, her fingers brushing lightly against mine. “They’re not supposed to look like you’re gripping a stick.”
“Old habits die hard,” I mutter.
“Break them,” she shoots back without missing a beat, “or they’ll break you.”
The session stretches on, each movement more demanding than the last. It’s tedious in that way that feels rewarding, like solving a puzzle where all the pieces are parts of yourself you didn’t know needed rearranging. Every time she adjusts me—a hip here, a knee there, the angle of my chin—I feel this small, ridiculous spark of accomplishment when I finally get it right. For the first time in months, I feel like I’m building toward something instead of just trying not to fall apart.
“You’re motivated,” she observes after I successfully hold a plié without earning a correction.
“Have to be,” I say. “If this doesn’t work, I’m done.”
Her gaze lingers on me for a moment. “Alright,” she says finally. “Let’s keep going.”
By the end of the session, my legs are screaming obscenities and my hamstrings feel like they’ve been replaced with guitar strings tuned too tight, but there’s this sense of accomplishment in my spirit. I’m not graceful, but I put in the effort, and I can tell she noticed. That shouldn’t matter as much as it does.
“That’s enough for today,” she announces, stepping back and crossing her arms. “We’ll meet again later this week. I’ll kick things up a notch. Really test your mobility.”
“Great,” I say. “Looking forward to it.”
As we pack up our things, the studio atmosphere shifts, becoming more intimate as the work portion of our interaction ends. The mirrors seem less judgmental now, more like silent witnesses to our post-class interaction.
“So,” Petra says, glancing at me as she ties her jacket around her waist. “What’s your story, Liam LeClerc? Where are you from? I always start each year with students giving introductions of themselves, and I realize I never really got yours.”
I shrug and then lean against the barre because my legs have decided standing is no longer an option. “Not much of a story, really. Grew up in Ottawa. Stay-at-home mom; dad worked in a factory. He mostly put together modems.”
“Modems?” she says, her brow furrowing in curiosity. “Like, the internet kind?”
“Yeah,” I say. “This was back in the dinosaur days before Wi-Fi. Modems connected computers to the internet, but they made this god-awful screeching sound while doing it.”
She laughs and smiles in this way that makes me want to keep talking just to see what other expressions I can coax out of her. “Like inYou’ve Got Mail. I love Nora Ephron.”
“Exactly,” I reply, filing away this bit of information about her taste in movies like it might matter someday. “That was Dad’s thing. He built the tools that connected people.”
“And now here you are, the big hockey star, connecting pucks with nets.”
“Or I was, anyway.” I look at her, curious about the woman behind the corrections and adjustments. “What about you? How does someone from…”
“Alabama,” she supplies.
“Wow, Alabama. How does someone from there end up performing ballet in New York?”
“It wasn’t exactly a straight line,” she admits. “I grew up in a tiny town called Fairhope. There wasn’t much ballet there, just one small studio. But my dad was Russian, and ballet was a big deal in his culture.”
“Like he was actually born in Russia?”
“Saint Petersburg. Born and raised… Well, at least until the Soviet Union fell. Then he and his mother, mybabushka, fled to the States.”
