| |
––––––––
THE BRIGHT LIGHTS OF the stage suffocated me as I waited behind the crimson curtain of right stage, maybe it was my costume that still didn’t fit the way I wanted it to. The skin-tight orange and white spandex clung to every inch of my curves, and the tulle skirt was so tight I could barely breathe. For once, I was glad for my lack of chest that fit perfectly into the suffocating corset. Adjusting my pointe shoes once more, I practiced my moves against the barre, our ballet balance beam, as I waited for the next scene. My chance to shine, and finally show the world that Jaquellyn Arnolt was more than just a millionaire’s daughter, a spoiled brat, and victim of unfortunate events, but a beautiful, talented, and amazing ballerina.
This was the most important scene of my career. Dancing in front of a crowd didn’t concern me, not with the last four years I’d spent at the Opera Nationale de Paris. What concerned me was the scene between Claude, who played Prince Ivan, and I. The big lift at the end hadn’t been executed properly in rehearsals, and I had begged our instructor, Elizabet DeBussey, to replace him with an understudy. She insisted Claude would be fine.
“Whatever,” I had argued, shaking my head, “we will only disappoint the thousands viewing this production. Is my safety of no concern, Mistress Elizabet?”
“It is not your place to demand an understudy, Ms. Arnolt,” she’d spit back. “Claude will be fine.”
I’d heard the whispers at Opera the last few years: I was “difficult” and “headstrong.” I didn’t care. Ballet was an art, and as a result, should be executed with precision, not with a bumbling oaf of a second-year who couldn’t even do a lift correctly.
It was unfortunate that that bumbling oaf also happened to be my boyfriend. I hadn’t meant for it to happen, and I didn’t even like him all that much. There was just something to be said for how much we had to touch each other during routines, and the fact our twelve-hour days were spent together almost every day of the week. I smoothed the tight bun at the nape of my neck as I absently thought about Claude’s knock on my dressing room door a few hours before...
***
“DID ANYONE SEE YOU?” I had watched Claude in the mirror as he slipped into the room, softly shutting the door behind him.
“Non,” he whispered, and crossed the room in two light steps. He moved in real life as he did on the stage: soft and confident, and owned any room he entered.
“Zip me, will you?” I turned my back to him.
Before I could stop him, he had twirled me around and pressed his lips to mine, pushing me back against the small table where I did my makeup. Fortunately, I hadn’t started yet, because it was about to become profusely obscured.
Before I could return the kiss, Claude grabbed my hands in one of his large hands and shoved them above me, pinning me to the table. He peeled the spandex suit from my shoulders and trailed rough kisses down my neck, biting into my shoulder.
I bit my tongue to suppress the moan that was trying escape.
He murmured something I couldn’t hear, biting into me harder. As a dancer, he was strong; his upper body was ripped with muscles that rivaled those in his agile legs. We didn’t have time for this; I wanted to protest, but my body betrayed me, melting under his touch. He knew I liked it rough, despite my protests.
“Ms. Arnolt? Jaquellyn?” a voice interrupted from the other side of the door. It was Gerard, our stage hand. “One hour to show time!”
“I’ll, uh, I’ll be ready!” I called.
Claude sunk his teeth into my breast, and I clamped down on my tongue to resist screaming.
“Everything okay in there, Ms. Arnolt?”
“Yes, yes, it’s fine!” I barely managed. To Claude I whispered, “don’t leave a mark where it will show, you idiot!”
He glared up at me, his intense dark eyes sending me a warning not to interrupt him. “Make the fool go away,” he growled.
Before I could even my voice to speak again, Gerard spoke from the other side of the door, “I’ll be back une thirty minutes, mademoiselle!”
“Oui!” I cried, hoping my voice didn’t reveal what was actually going on. When I heard his footsteps retreat, I struggled in Claude’s grasp. “We don’t have time for this. Later, mon Coeur.”
He dropped my hands and instantly his long, thin fingers wrapped around my throat. “It won’t take but five minutes, lover.” His other hand pulled a wide ribbon from the top drawer of my dresser, and deftly wrapped it tight, binding my wrists together. We always used ribbons, they left no marks. He hooked the edge of the knot to the top of the mirror, holding me there. He peeled the spandex from my body and pulled my legs to the edge of the dresser, spreading them wide.
I moaned in pleasure as he tightened his grasp around my neck and euphoria filled my clouded vision. “Fine,” I managed. “I hope you brought protection.”
***
CLAUDE HADN’T BEEN wrong. He slipped out of my dressing room as quietly as he’d entered, leaving me almost the full hour to carefully apply the white makeup and orange bronzer to fit my costume. I struggled my sweaty body back into the spandex, pulled the tulle over my thin hips, and laced my bodice. Throwing my pointe shoes over my shoulder, I joined the team of other ballet artists backstage as if nothing had happened.
Now we were at the climax of Stravinsky’s masterpiece, and I hoped Claude would be able to do his job correctly.
Especially since I planned to break up with him during the after party. I needed it to be in a crowded place, because I wasn’t sure how he would take it. Badly, as he did most things. He was a sour, bitter man who never took no for an answer.
I shook my head. I was about to go on. I couldn’t focus on this right now.
I took a deep breath as the costumed demons rushed past me to join Claude and his team of dancers. The finale involved fifty different dancers, the most complicated part of this ballet. Stravinsky’s composition swirled from the speakers, picking up speed, as I made my entrance. I barely gave any notice to the four balconies of the audience, except for my mother, Rochelle Baker, and her new writer husband, Elijah Baker, who as always, were in the front row. A brief nod to them both, and I was focused on the stage under my feet.
I danced like the wind, my arms moving fluidly to imitate flight, as I wove around the dancers, expertly poised on pointe. Claude danced towards me and grabbed my waist as we turned and twisted. The other dancers finished their routine. Holding my forced smile and Claude’s eye contact as we had been trained, I watched as he danced away from me. My relevé was poised and balanced as I danced towards him.
In a careful plie, I spun, balancing on my right leg, and began the run into the lift. Claude’s arms wrapped snuggly around my waist and hoisted me, but his grip was weak. I kept smiling, and waved my arms through the move.
His hand started to tremble, and I knew he was going to drop me as he nearly did during dress rehearsal.
I hit the floor hard, my head cracking and bouncing hard on the wood stage. Dizzy, but not losing consciousness, my right ankle bent painfully behind me. I screamed as pain shot through my leg, especially when something warm ran through my eye, obscuring my vision.
The crowd was on their feet suddenly, gasping and shouting. In the midst of the crowd of dancers, the falling curtain, and the rush of a paramedics the Opera always kept on standby during events, I watched Claude stride off the dance floor, without another word.
***
I DIDN’T CRY WHEN THE doctor set my broken ankle. I gripped the sheet of the emergency room bed and gritted my teeth, but I would never cry. He’d given me the brutal diagnoses, and I kept shaking my head. No, he was wrong, I told myself. It wasn’t a fracture. Couldn’t be.
It was hard to understand his thick Russian accent anyway. He spoke halting French with English mixed in, and the nurse ended up translating most of what he said.
“Such a shame,” the nurse said a few minutes later, as she swooped the needle through my forehead, stitching the wound above my eye. “I hear the show was absolutely beautiful.”
“Accidents happen on the stage all the time,” the doctor muttered softly as he wrapped my ankle. “Ballet is very dangerous.”
Every touch was agonizing. “Hurry up, would you?” I screamed at him.
“Jaqui!”
My mother pulled the curtain back and rushed to my side. A bigger woman, still in her black evening gown and fur on her shoulders, stood next to me. She wasn’t the affectionate sort, but she reached out and touched my arm. “Are you okay?”
“Just a few stiches and an ankle to set, and she’ll be fine,” the nurse told her.
“Mind if I intrude?” My step-father, Elijah, poked his head through the curtain.
“Who is this?” the doctor asked, looking rather annoyed.
“Her father,” Elijah said before I could answer.
“Not my father,” I seethed, “but I don’t care.” I was in too much pain to worry about who was standing in the crowded bay.
Elijah frowned at me over his silver-rimmed glasses and wrapped an arm around my mother’s wide waist. “We were so worried about you,” he said, his frown twisting into a look of concern. “Are you sure she’s okay?” he asked the nurse.
The nurse had finished stitching my eye and was busy helping the doctor set the splint. I winced again as they held it straight. I glared at them. I’d heard of accidents like this ending careers.
My mother asked the question before I could: “How long will it take to heal, Monsieur?” She translated for my stepfather, who still basically spoke none of our language, despite having lived in France for the last four years.
The doctor finished the last wrap and was signing my chart, but in his heavily accented English informed us, “Six weeks for fracture to heal, maybe eight.” He looked at me. “It was those shoes, mademoiselle, that did you in. The tip hooked under your knee and fractured four of your tarsal bones.”
“No, no, this can’t be,” I muttered. I felt the flush of anger running through my veins. “How long before I can dance again?”
Without hesitation, the doctor looked at me. “Three months.”
“You are wrong!” I spat at him. “Katerina sprained her ankle and it took three weeks before she could go on pointe again.”
“Yes, I understand,” the doctor shifted, uncomfortable. “But this is a serious fracture, Mademoiselle Arnolt. You must give it time to heal.”
“How do you know anything about dance? You’re just a doctor,” I spat bitterly, crossing my arms.
The Russian doctor smiled at me then, handed the nurse the chart in his hand, and spun into a perfectly executed sauté leap, ending in fourth position with his feet angled perpendicular, the hardest of them all, despite his worn tennis shoes.
In the clearest English I’d heard this entire time he said: “Now you believe me, mademoiselle, when I say you must give it time to heal.”
I blinked at him. My step father spoke first. “That was quite a feat, Doctor.”
He just nodded. “Six years in the Russian ballet will teach you a few things.”
“Why would anyone give that up to be a doctor?” I mused sarcastically.
He waved it away. “It doesn’t pay the bills, sadly. And such, how you say, drama, drama, drama, with those dancers!”
I grunted. The drama didn’t concern me, thought I was isolate anyway due to my family history. Besides, this doctor might have been a dancer, but he clearly didn’t understand it was the passion of the arts that motivated me—not the money. Not that I cared too much, my real father’s estate was worth so much I’d never have to worry about poor people things, like paying bills and such.
Mother’s hand landed heavy on my shoulder. “We will make sure she gets some rest. Thank you, Doctor.”
The doctor nodded curtly. “Nurse Gianne will be back with your discharge papers un minute.” I watched them both disappear behind the curtain.
“It looks like you’ll be moving back to the mansion,” Elijah said as soon as they left.
I shook my head. “The dormitory has been my home for four years. I won’t have it.”
“Ah, ah, ah,” my mother scolded, her favorite phrase when she was frustrated, especially at my little sisters, Izzy and Darci. She never said it to Renee, my brother, but then he always got special treatment. Especially since my older sister, Elise, had run off with her American husband a few years ago.
“You wouldn’t make Renee move back home.” I glared at her.
“Renee still lives at home, until he is ready for college,” Elijah pushed his glasses up his nose. “I know you’re twenty now, Jaqui, but we’re still your parents.”
“Wrong. She is,” I nodded to my mother, “but you don’t control me.”
“Why are you so petulant all the time?” Elijah exploded. “You know since your father died I’ve always taken care of you.”
“His money took care of me!” I argued, ignoring the tears in my mother’s eyes. She was so weak and cried all the time these days, so I just ignored it. “And Father would still be here if it wasn’t for Renee. It’s all his fault.”
“Enough!” Mother finally shouted. “I’ve had it up to here with you and Elijah arguing. He’s my husband now, and your father is gone, Jaquellyn. That fire wasn’t anyone’s fault. You’re coming home with us, and that’s final. I’ll make arrangements with Mistress DeBussey tomorrow morning, and Elijah can go get your things from the dormitory.” She walked to the curtain and motioned for her husband to follow her.
“He won’t touch my things!” I called after them. “I’ll have Claude retrieve them.”
“We will be back to fetch you after you get those papers,” my mother answered, her eyes dry and her revolve flashing in her eyes. “That’s just how it is, Jaqui.”
I wanted to call another retort, to hurt her the way she always hurt me, but my anger fizzled as quickly as it had come. I hated my temper, hated what I had said about Elijah. I knew he loved my mother. She was miserable with my father, and in the last four years we had all watched her blossom into a different person. She was happy and singing again, like she did when I was young.
But I still knew I’d never forgive her for moving on so soon after my father. It’s like she didn’t even mourn him, or care the five of us had lost our parent. I would never understand my mother’s choices.
Then another thought hit me like a slap in the face—three months without the stage, the applause of the crowd, the roses thrown at my feet? It was my drug, and I needed it. What in the world would I do without ballet?