Marin had hung amber-colored curtains over the windows so that the light turned her room warm and honey-gold. We strung red fairy lights around the top of the ceiling, just beneath the molding, then stepped back to take in the effect.
“I like it—elegant and welcoming,” I said.
“Did you bring your stars?” she asked.
“Of course I did.” Marin had given me a set of glow-in-the-dark stars to stick on my ceiling when she moved into her first apartment, sending them completely out of the blue. What she had called a “reverse housewarming present” had broken through four years of silence, and helped us start talking again. I had put them up in every one of my bedrooms since. “They’re arranged in constellations and everything.”
“Your favorite mythologies, all set out on the ceiling.” Marin folded herself onto the bed, then began sewing the ribbons on a new pair of pointe shoes. “Just like you always said you would have.”
“Rearranging the stories so the ones that should be next to each other are,” I said.
“You used to tell me stories about the stars when we were kids,” she said, not looking up from her sewing. “When I couldn’t sleep. About the two princesses who lived in the star palaces. Remember?”
“They had a constellation carousel, to move the sky into place for their adventures.” I pressed the heel of my hand against my chest, soothing the ache of the memory.
“I loved those stories. Did you ever think about writing them down? I mean, not to sell or anything. I know that’s not the kind of thing you write now, but, like, just to have?” She snipped the thread, and picked up the other shoe.
“They were more just things for you, not for writing down,” I said. I had, though. My first semester away at Blackstone. When I still thought she wanted me to come home for Christmas. I had been planning on giving them to her then. Instead, nothing but silence from her, and the beginning of our years of separation.
They were packed away, with everything else I had put in storage—I didn’t want them, but couldn’t bring myself to destroy my own work. “They weren’t ever meant to be for publication. And no, I didn’t apply here with Star Princess stories.”
She laughed. “I didn’t think you had. Still, I sort of miss them.”
“Fine. Next time you can’t sleep, you can knock on my door, and I’ll tell you a story.”
She looked up, and smiled, and I almost, almost told her the truth about the stories. It wasn’t that I couldn’t say it. I could. But there are times that you don’t speak, because silence hurts less. There was no need to reopen old wounds when we both wanted them healed. Instead: “Do you want to have dinner tonight?”
“I would, but I’m meeting Gavin.”
Gavin Delacourt was a principal dancer with the National Ballet Theater. Onstage, he moved as if gravity were an option for him, as if the air itself were his partner. Even outside of the dance world, he was a star, regularly appearing in tabloid lists of eligible bachelors and beautiful people and gossiped about as the possible inspiration for one character or another in Hollywood dance fantasy films.
She tucked the finished shoes in her bag. “We’re figuring out the plan for the year.”
“Will you go down and take class with NBT?”
“That’s one of the things we’re going to talk about. How to balance the time here with the need to be in training with a company. Plus, I want an audition with them by the time this year is over. I don’t want to push too hard, but I don’t want to just let it go, either.” She stuffed the finished shoes into the side of her messenger bag, then twisted her long hair into a tidy bun at the nape of her neck.
“Marin? Did you mean it when you said you were terrified to be here?”
She sat back down. It was how I had known the conversation was going to be serious when we were growing up, when my kinetic sister would voluntarily stop moving. “It’s a big risk. Time is never a dancer’s friend, and a year off is a lot. But I needed to get out of where I was, and to do it with enough drama to be talked about, so people don’t forget about me when I’m not onstage. The world’s full of next big things, so it’s not enough to just be good, I have to be good and be the dancer they’re looking for.
“But working with Gavin is a great opportunity, and he chose me, specifically, to work with, which has to mean he thinks I’m worth the time.”
“And that you have the talent,” I said.
“I hope so. He’s such a technically gifted dancer—every movement, every angle is utterly precise. That’s what I’m missing in my work, and if I can get that”—her face set—“if I can get that, I won’t just be good, I’ll be great.
“If I’m lucky, the benefits balance the risks. I’m not thinking about what happens if I’m not lucky. It’s too terrifying. Anyway, I need to go check into my studio.”
I checked my phone. “I’m not sure if I’ll be here when you get back—I have my first appointment with Beth later. But, Marin, if you need anything—”
She cut me off. “I know. That’s why we’re here, too, right?”
Ariel and I were trying to wrestle her trunk up the stairs to her room. It was an actual steamer trunk, leather-strapped and brass-hinged, an heirloom that had belonged to her great-grandmother, and so even though it was less practical than cardboard boxes, she had used it to ship her things to Melete. It was beautiful, but even unpacked it was heavy, and it was currently stuck on the second turn of the stairs.
“Are you going to be done anytime soon? I need to get my lunch out of the kitchen,” Helena said from the landing above us.
“You could help. We’d be done faster,” Ariel said.
“All of my stuff is in my room. Neither of you helped get it there,” Helena said.
“True, but we would have, if you’d asked,” I said.
“Would you really?” The thing was, she sounded genuinely curious, like the idea of asking for help would never have crossed her mind.
Ariel stood up, wiped the sweat from her forehead. “Go get something. Anything. And I swear, I will carry it up and down the stairs as many times as you want later, if you help us move this damn thing now.”
Helena cocked her head. “Okay.”
Ariel looked at me. “What have I just done?”
I shoved my hair out of my eyes and laughed.
Helena snaked herself between the wall and the trunk to help us lift it. “If you have everything out of this, why does it need to be in your room? Just put it in storage or leave it in the front room or something.”
“Count of three?” I said, and we all heaved on cue.
“Because it’s like home,” Ariel said, yanking up and backward as we finally got the trunk unjammed. “And because my great-grandmother was a nightclub singer, until she got married. She traveled with this. It reminds me of what I come from, of who I want to be.”
“That’s a good reason,” Helena said.
“Glad you approve,” said Ariel.
We wrangled the trunk the rest of the way up the stairs and down the hall to Ariel’s room.
“You can go bring me my lunch,” Helena told Ariel, “but you don’t have to walk anything else up and down the stairs.”
“Thanks for helping,” Ariel said.
Helena nodded, a sharp jerk of her head, then walked off.
“It’s like she spent part of her life being raised by wolves,” Ariel said, watching her go. “She only almost knows how to be a human. Do you want me to bring you anything while I’m carrying my penance, er, Helena’s lunch?”
“No.” I grinned. “I’m good.”
I rechecked the directions my mentor, Beth Edwards, had sent me, then slid my phone into the back pocket of my jeans in case I needed them again as I walked. The mentors lived on the Melete grounds as well, but their houses were grouped on the opposite side of the studios. “Close, but not so close I can read over your shoulder while you’re working,” Beth had emailed.
As I walked, I could see fellows moving into their studios, carrying instrument cases and paint-splattered bags. Somewhere in the midst of them a piano crashed through a phrase, paused, and then repeated. I felt like I was walking through the opening montage of a movie—everything was just a shade brighter than real.
At some point, I knew, being at Melete would feel settled, normal. I would be used to seeing houses with moats, or constructed with the same impossible geometry as a Dr. Seuss drawing. It would be no big deal for an Oscar-winning actor to smile at me as we passed each other walking, and I wouldn’t blush as I smiled back. Until then, I would revel in the novelty.
Farther out, on the edge of the Commons, was a rose garden. Drowsy with bees and full of late-summer blooms. A riot of color, the surrounding air drunk on the scent.
Just past the roses, I veered left off the path, toward a faded Cape Cod–style cottage so weathered it could have been plucked from some coastal peninsula and then set down in the New Hampshire forest.
It was a weird thing to be standing outside Beth Edwards’s house. She had won the Orange Prize for the book she had begun while at Melete, a novel in stories about the young women at the center of the Salem witch trials, and that had only been the beginning of her success. She was seven books into her career now, all of which had appeared on bestseller and awards lists. She’d been profiled in The New Yorker and Vogue. And still, she was a writer’s writer, her technique both brilliant and seemingly effortless. I loved the sparse precision of her language and the way that she was unflinching about writing emotion in her work, even when it wasn’t comfortable to read. She was one of my most lasting influences, the reason I had chosen the structure I had for the book I would work on while I was here.
When she visited my college on a signing tour, I had been too nervous to go, afraid that I wouldn’t be able to do anything other than babble at her. I wasn’t confident I was going to do any better today—my heart was racing, and anxiety surged like electricity through my joints. I rubbed at my hand, stretching the scar tissue, and sucked in a breath. Even if I babbled, working with her was why I was here. Forcing my spine straight, I walked past the rows of tiny purple flowers and knocked.
It’s a clichéd observation to make about a hero, but she was shorter than I expected, the top of her head only coming up to my shoulder. The scents of cinnamon and vanilla floated past her out the door. “You must be Imogen. Come in. I made cinnamon rolls.
“So, are you completely overwhelmed yet? I know I was when I was first here as a fellow. It took me a full two weeks to stop expecting someone to knock on the door and tell me mistakes had been made and I needed to leave. Mugs are in the cupboard to your right, if you want coffee, or I have tea.” She slathered icing across the tops of the cinnamon rolls.
“I prefer coffee, thanks.” I helped myself to a mug. “And I’m too excited to be overwhelmed.”
“Well, that’s good. Here you go.” She slid a plate over to me, and then poured tea into a daisy-patterned cup with gilded edges.
“Let’s go into the other room. I enjoy everything about this house except for the kitchen chairs, which could double as torture devices.”
I followed her down the hall and into a room filled with books. Once we were settled, she said, “Tell me what you’re writing.”
“Actually, I’d rather not.” The words came out of my mouth before I could stop and reframe them into something more polite, before I could consider whether maybe she knew best, and what I wanted didn’t matter. I clutched the fork in my hand so hard I worried it might bend.
Beth set her cup carefully in its saucer and looked at me. The silence stretched and held. That was it, then. Not even fifteen minutes into my first meeting with my literary idol, and I’d fucked it up already. My stomach attempted to turn itself inside out. Then: “Good for you. Good for you. Protect your art. Too many people don’t do that, and nothing—nothing—you do matters as much.”
She sipped her tea again. “Take a breath, Imogen. I won’t hate you for speaking your mind.”
I did, and I ate another bite of a cinnamon roll. Then another. “These are great, by the way.”
Beth smiled and nodded. “I like to eat, so I learned to cook, and I learned to do it well, because I can’t stand half-assing things. Now, you do know what you’re working on while you’re here, yes?”
“Yes. I started writing it my first night in residence. I know what it will be, I just don’t want to talk it to death before I have it written.”
“Good. You don’t have to explain your artistic choices to me, so long as they aren’t sitting around and not writing. I’m picky about my fellows, and I have no tolerance for people who use the opportunity of being here to do nothing. It’s nice to see that I’m not wrong about you. Now, what do you want out of the time you and I will spend together while you’re here? Be honest.”
I sipped my coffee. “I want to know where I’m failing, so I can get better. I want to be able to talk to you and get advice about setbacks, and frustrations, and how to work through those.”
“Not my agent’s number, or a blurb for your book?” She raised a brow.
“No, because if I’m good enough, you’ll give me those without my having to ask for them.”
Another pause, and then she laughed, huge and bawdy. “You’re right. If you’re that good, I absolutely will. That way, I can brag about discovering you. I think we’ll do well together, Imogen. Let’s talk about the practicalities. How often do you want to meet?” She got up and walked into the hallway.
I scanned the bookcases while I waited for her to come back, looking for some clue to her interests, influences. Something I could file away and use as a tool to make my own writing better. Magic words.
She returned with a yarn-filled bag. “Not being busy makes me itch. About a year ago, I learned to knit. Now I feel lazy if I’m sitting down to do anything other than write and I don’t have yarn in my hands.”
“I’d like to meet about every two weeks, I think. But I don’t want to show you my writing until it’s done. I hate getting feedback on an unfinished project, and I don’t want to waste your time on problems I can figure out myself.”
“I’m here to have my time wasted in precisely that fashion, but if it won’t help you to discuss your work directly, we’ll talk about other things.” Beth’s knitting needles clicked against each other. The yarn was thick and lavender-colored, but I couldn’t see enough to tell what she was making.
“But if you change your mind, and you need to talk about writing, or show me pages, or change any of our meetings, don’t be afraid to speak up, whether that means getting together less frequently or more. Every day, if that’s what you want. You’re here for your art, so put it first.”
“I will, thanks.” I set down my cup, thinking that the meeting was over, glad I had made it through without embarrassing myself.
“Now, I’m going to indulge my curiosity for a moment. Your sister is here also, yes?”
I leaned back into the couch, feeling the seams of the cushions press against me. “She is, and we’re living in the same house, which is great. It was Marin’s idea to apply. I wouldn’t be here if not for her.”
The sound of knitting needles reminded me of the clatter of typewriter keys. “I don’t think there has ever been a sibling pair here at the same time before. It’s such a fascinating dynamic. Having two artists in the family doesn’t cause friction? No professional jealousy or sibling rivalry?”
“Our dad died when we were young, so it’s pretty much always been just the two of us. It’s never even occurred to me to think of Marin as a rival, someone who I ought to be competing against.”
Though our mother hadn’t seen things that way. Having a daughter who was a dancer was a reflected spotlight for the mother backstage, and our mother hoarded that reflection, clutching it to her heart. She basked in Marin’s applause, and told herself that she had earned it, too. Having a daughter who was a writer was a flashlight shone into corners that ought to be kept dark so that no one saw the monsters tucked away in them. She wanted that light turned off.
I tucked my hand under my thigh, out of sight. “We work in different fields, so it’s not like we’ll ever be in direct competition. I actually think it’s made us more secure as artists, having someone else close who knows what it means to work this hard. I mean, we’re sisters, so we haven’t always gotten along, but even when things have been difficult between us, we’ve always supported each other’s art.”
“That’s good.” Beth nodded. “To have that sort of support, and to have someone close who knows what it’s like to have a life that doesn’t look like everyone else’s. So many people don’t understand that. It’s one of the things I love about coming back here—working with people who do.
“Well, unless there’s anything else, I should let you get back to settling in, and to your work. I’m happy to be working with you, Imogen.”
“I’m happy to be working with you, too.”
I scrubbed the heel of my hand over my heart as I walked back home, almost light-headed with relief at how well the meeting had gone.
Late summer’s lazy wind blew through the rose garden I had passed before, bending blossom-heavy heads like dancers’ arms. The long afternoon shadows followed them, twisting and turning. A ballet of thorns and velvet petals and cold, perfumed darkness. I stepped off the path and into the thick of the flowers.
The wind blew sharper then, tearing the petals from their stems, sending them spinning in a red-black whirlwind. Melete’s noise fell away, and I felt seasick, sideways, as if I had been shoved partially out of my own skin.
A woman stood in the center of the whirlwind, sharp-boned and long-haired, her dress like petals sewn with silk, and for an instant, it looked like her eyes were entirely black.
Then the light shifted, and they weren’t. The tornado of rose petals was gone, and all the bustle of Melete filled the air. She smiled at me, long red dress rippling in the breeze. I waved and turned back to the path.
Stress, I told myself. Stress from the anxiety around meeting Beth, and maybe I was more light-headed with relief than I had thought. Over my shoulder, the rose garden was no more or less than it was, fragrant beauty in the late afternoon sun, tended by a woman in a sundress. That was all.
The third night we were officially in residence, I wandered into the kitchen to pick up my dinner and found Marin and Ariel already there. “You should join us,” Ariel said, setting out another glass.
“Thanks.” I set the bento-style box my dinner was packed in on the table with the two others. Two. Shit. “I’m going to go upstairs and see if Helena wants to eat with us.”
“She’s kind of horrible,” Ariel said.
“Aggressively rude. Like she’s feral, and doesn’t know how to be a person,” Marin added.
“Then she’ll probably say no. But I still feel like I should ask. Unless she’s really that bad?” Maybe I was luckier than I knew, living on a different floor than they did.
Ariel sighed. “The Catholic guilt has kicked in. Ask.”
I knocked on Helena’s door, waited, then knocked again. Feeling relieved that I wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences of being polite, I turned to go.
“What?” Helena stood in the mostly closed doorway.
“The three of us were going to eat dinner together. Want to join us?”
She narrowed her eyes, gnawed on her bottom lip.
“If you’re busy or something”—feral, I substituted internally— “you don’t have to.”
“Fine.” She burst through the door, pulling it immediately shut behind her. “We’re supposed to take opportunities to bond as artists while we’re here, right?”
Right.
Marin and Ariel both looked surprised to see Helena join us, but recovered and set her a place. Ariel poured wine, then raised her glass. “To us, and to art.” Her exaggerated pose erased any hint of pretension from the words, making them a welcome, a celebration. Marin and I toasted, and, after a second, Helena did, too.
It’s the little things that break the ice. Helena and Marin both hated roasted red peppers, and pulled them out of their salads. Ariel stole them off their plates—they were her favorite. She and I had both worked as baristas, and shared the same contempt for people who ordered nonfat no-foam decaf like it was a sacrament. “Like, what is the actual point? Everything that is delicious in the drink is gone.” Ariel shook her head. Helena didn’t want to talk about her childhood, either. The air in the room relaxed as the meal progressed, our voices became less cautiously polite.
Then, rolling the red liquid around the bottom of her glass, Helena asked, “What would you trade for guaranteed success?”
“Like, ‘I have one hit record and can retire comfortably on my royalties’ success, or like ‘I am become Beyoncé, destroyer of worlds’ success?” Ariel asked.
“The latter. Everything you’ve ever wanted. All your dreams come true, even the ones you won’t admit to having.”
“I wouldn’t sell my soul. I might sell my younger brother.” Ariel grinned, making it clear she wouldn’t.
“If we can trade other people, I’d trade in our mother in a heartbeat,” Marin said. “Though I suppose that doesn’t count as a sacrifice, considering how horrid Mommy Dearest is.”
“Is she really that bad?” Ariel asked.
“Worse,” Marin said, tucking her burned hand out of sight beneath the table. Her scars were barely visible, even if you knew to look, but old habits linger.
“Like growing up in hell,” I said, my own hand aching in sympathy.
“I doubt that,” Helena said, her face hard. “But even if it was, what would you trade to show her you’d made it? That would be worth something big, right?”
The quick answer would be to say that I would have stayed. Lived the extra two years at home, in the hell that my mother made it. But I couldn’t say that in front of Marin, wouldn’t make her feel like she was part of the hell that life had been, not when she was the thing that made it bearable.
“I’m starting to feel like you’re asking me to sign my name in blood at a crossroads, Helena. What about you, what would you give up?” I asked.
“Everything. Anything. Whatever it takes.”
It’s a thing that’s easy to say when you’re sure no one will ever offer you that trade, because it’s an impossible deal to make. But looking at Helena’s face, I believed her.
“If only it were that easy,” Marin said. “No bleeding feet and aching muscles. No auditions where you get passed over for a worse dancer because you don’t look right for the part, whatever that means that day. No endless hours of rehearsal sabotaged by injury. Selling your soul sounds like the easy way out to me.”
“I’m just glad my only option is to kick ass the usual way, so I’ll never have to find out what I’d really give up,” Ariel said. “Seems like a good way to learn some really uncomfortable things about yourself.”
“I don’t understand any of you,” Helena said. “If it matters enough, you say yes. You take the deal. You don’t look back. If you aren’t prepared to do that, what are you doing here, anyway?” She put her dishes on the sideboard, and went back upstairs. Her door slammed shut.
“Oddly enough, dinner went better than I thought it would,” Ariel said, pouring the rest of the wine into the three remaining glasses.
“You never did answer her, Imogen,” Marin said as we cleared the table.
“I know.” I had been afraid. Afraid that I would answer like Helena: Anything.