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Her eyes widened. Under the bright sky, the hazel color was at once bright blue studded with April green. Mischief and pride, tempered by the sweep of azure. One day, she’d turn those eyes on a man, and he’d forget how many fingers he had on each hand.
The thought struck Joel enough that he stepped back. Annalisa pulled her hand down and joked that she’d sweat out too much water. Automatically, like a coach talking to his team, he told her to go shower. But the words, coming on the edge of the light pressure of her hand, sounded oddly intimate.
He felt himself bolster like a bristling bear, thought better of saying anything else, and strode away. There was no time for him to wonder on the moment, to dismiss, or rationalize that he’d noticed an attractive feature on one of his female dancers because Len buzzed towards him.
“We’ve got trouble.”
“Yeah, Music Man?”
“We’re not in River City, Dorothy. Fabric shipment from China got caught in customs.”
“What?!”
“Melinda just got off the phone. I was on my way out when she told me.”
“Do they know—”
“You know they don’t.”
“Fuck.”
“We can’t wait on this.”
“Costs inside the U.S. are insane. You know that.”
“Shipping is faster.”
Joel didn’t answer. Heels striking the ground hard, he walked back inside and took the stairs two at a time, up to his office. Behind him, Len slipped in, and the door was slammed shut.
He shoved both hands through his hair before gripping his neck. If he could strangle away the knot of tension rapidly binding itself, there might be time to think and not lash out at the sardonic expression his cousin wore. A mix of I-told-you-so and rightful anger.
Not only was the company partially his, but the creation of the ballet was entirely his. There are method actors and there are method choreographers, men and women who throw themselves so entirely into a project, they forget to bathe. Even though his cousin did not agree this Graham production was the best step for the approaching season, Len had thrown himself into it.
And where there should have been a cushion of fabric for costumes to land in there was concrete. Probably also mixed in China.
“Cancel the order,” Len said.
“The measurements were already cut.”
“Then we’re gonna have to do Swan Lake or Sylphide in the spring. We’re gonna have so much white.”
Eventually, the order would arrive, but in the meantime, they were going to place the same order with an in-country company. Theater productions are trains. They are engineered to stay in motion. If brakes are applied, the risk of derailing is sobering.
In other words, the show must go on.
With a heavy motion, his joints feeling like they had been fused together with rubber cement, Joel dropped into his chair, cursing to himself. Turns out, the photographer coming on Saturday for the photo shoot was a good thing. The sooner Annalisa’s face went out on their social media, the sooner he’d get a check. The sooner he went to dinner at Lapis, the sooner Gerry reached in those deep pockets.
“Make the order.”
“Don’t look at any bank statements in the next forty-eight hours.”
“As soon as the whoring pays off, I’ll have the guts to look.”
“We all make sacrifices, Joel.”
“Like you made for me when I said I wanted to do this?”
“Shut up. I wasn’t saying that.”
He knew and it cut deeper that it was, nonetheless, true.
***
BY THE TIME HE STEPPED from his office, late that same night, most of the lights were off. Overhead, there was the faint, red glow of an exit sign and the dimmed illumination coming from emergency lights that were always on. Sounding distant, the HVAC system hummed. In the morning, the outsourced cleaning company would wipe away what overnight hours and condensed air could not evaporate so the studio and the halls did not smell like sweat, soaked fabric, rosin, and feet.
Not that he minded those smells. The distinct aroma comforted him. He had been one of the bodies, once, contributing to the olfactory impression. His shoulders ached from repeated liftings of women and men. His knees screamed, leaps and jumping sequences always choreographed for ballerinos. Often, he remembered reclining the seat in his car and being a carcass for the better part of an hour before it felt like he had abdominal strength enough to sit forward and drive.
He'd do it all again.
There were nights he’d step into one of the rehearsal rooms and move like the dancer he once was. He’d let the sound of his breath, the impact of his feet on the floor, be his accompaniment. The sound of his legs and arms cutting through the air, defying gravity for brief seconds, only to land with control be his downbeat. To hear his own breathing increase felt like it made him more powerful, more resilient to a form of movement that should be impossible.
Not tonight, though.
Emails from Moves about the dimensions and lighting in the studio had been incessant. Some bills got paid. Some got put off. Employees came in and out with questions. The fabric department was informed of the mess with customs. Local 2 of the IATSE (international alliance of theatrical stage employees) had gone on strike.
Not tonight.
Earlier, he’d emailed Mr. Big. Boone was only too glad to have his special guests dine with him on Sunday night.
He’d go home to his West Loop apartment on the fifteenth floor. There was a finicky snake plant on the windowsill he’d forgotten to water and one chunky rancho goldfish who didn’t like to miss meals. He’d throw one of his Made Fresh meals in the oven and shower while it cooked.
In the morning, he’d send a suit to the dry cleaners. Already, he had emailed Annalisa that Gervais wanted them both to wear blue, trying to give her what little notice he could.
***
LIKE HIS MOOD, SATURDAY was gray. The sky was mottled with moisture laden clouds. Mornings like this gave Joel headaches. Special ones at the base of his skull, where no blend of acetaminophen and cold compresses could reach.
In keeping with his temperament, he yanked on a long sleeve, fitted, black shirt and shoved the sleeves up to his elbows. He wasn’t the business man today and the crew from Moves could eat shit. Stone washed jeans were yanked on, and he donned a pair of leather slingback mules bearing a silver buckle.
The preferred light roast blend had been set to brew on his coffee maker overnight and once Joel was dressed, the rich, acidic aroma did its best to welcome him. Into a white, insulated Thermos, the whole carafe was poured. Joel would grab a sesame bagel on his way to the studio, toasted dark with light butter.
Cream cheese was for a good mood.
The agreed upon time was eight-thirty. Yet, when he pulled into the parking lot at eight, he saw a mess of human beings, backdrops, obscenely large props, and two rolling racks of merchandise.
And his first words out of the car, after slamming the door, were a little too loud for the morning hour.
“I said eight-thirty.”
A woman with a pinched nose replied. “We were told the session started at eight-thirty.”
“Yes.”
She had the nerve to look impatient. “Do you know how long this all takes to set up? We’ll be lucky to start by nine-thirty. When is the model coming? We heard she’s a redhead and red hair can be unpredictable under lights.”
“She’s not a model. She’s a company member of this ballet. Her name is Annalisa.”
“And she has red hair?” the woman persisted.
Joel didn’t answer. He strode past them and unlocked the front doors. Behind him, they bustled in, not unlike a scene in a cartoon where a crowd is portrayed by a moving mass of feet, noise, and debris. They followed his directive towards the small studio and took over the space.
At the threshold, Joel hung back, leaning against the doorframe. Canvas quickly covered the floor. Lights on steroids were latched together and propped up. Ladders helped the staff hang a white backdrop that overtook the wall. He wasn’t in their way, but his pride would not let him, for a minute, keep them from knowing they weren’t in charge.
At ten to, Annalisa arrived, looking very much like a human woman. After all, dancers were not human. Wearing jeans and a tee-shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, the whimsical force she was when music touched her body was not evident.
“I’m not late,” she announced.
“You’re not. You’re early.”
“I thought I might be late. The bus didn’t pull up to the stop on schedule. I was almost going to text you.”
“You could have. That’s why company members have my number.”
“I’d rather the first time I text isn’t because I’m going to be late, like I can’t get my life together. Doesn’t exactly go with the impression I’m trying to make.”
He was about to reply that there was no impression she needed to make. She had made it already. Just a few days prior, to be exact, determined to force his hand by her talent.
She had always impressed him.
In fact, there was a selfish part of him that wondered what impression he was making on her. How prominent was the Mr. Dvorak of former days? He’d wager money she never thought that man would settle, sell out, and leave his pride in the wind.
However, a man with a round bristle brush tucked under one arm and a woman with an alarmingly long manicure hurried over. By her arms, they took Annalisa, chiding that she should have arrived earlier and didn’t she get the private message sent on her social media page instructing her to do so.
Joel did not hear her answer, making note that he would tell these people his dancers were not to be contacted for anything through social media.
Moving nearer to where they had sequestered Annalisa, he watched how quickly she, like the room, was transformed. The man with the brush immediately attacked her hair, dampening, straightening, curling, and straightening again. The woman’s fingernails seemed to assist in the nearly mechanical way she applied makeup. Before his eyes, she went from being a pretty young woman to Nikiya, the temple dancer, in La Bayadere.
A small jolt zapped him, as if her appearance had the ability to strike him. Not the makeup, alone. Not necessarily. Cosmetics were part of performing arts, painted on the face so thick that, up close, it looked unnatural. They had done something else to her. Highlighted her eyes, her cheekbones in a way that made him remember she was only a dancer during the workday and...
A young woman, a pretty, young woman, when she clocked out.
They whisked her into a small changing tent, and he looked away.
There was more altering and busy work. It seemed her appearance had warranted a change in the boom lights and first selection of props. The four people who had crammed into the small changing tent with her scattered out like shaken contents of a suitcase, after which Annalisa emerged.
Joel stepped back. The wall got in his way. She wore dark, green athletic leggings, constructed from a thick but unforgiving fabric that traced the whole lower half of her figure. On top, they had dressed her in a burnt orange sports bra, a thick, black zipper on the front more for design than function.
Leotards and tights hide nothing. For the men and women. The shape of the body is on display, but the attire is so omnipresent, so ingrained into the world of ballet, that it becomes as utilitarian as bathing suits for Olympic swimmers. Maybe to the onlooker, the display of skin and anatomy is distracting, but not for those part of that world.
Yet, he wasn’t used to this woman. This woman drew his eye. This woman made it hard to look away from how earthen her eyes were and how all the clothing might have been made for her body alone. If he tried to unsee her, if he tried to recall what she looked like dressed for rehearsal, he couldn’t bend his thoughts to obey. This woman, this stranger, thrummed a resonance between the bones of his ribcage long out of tune.
“Is orange not my color?” she called out, head tipped and blissfully unaware how pretty she looked. “You’re staring and I know that look.” She was grinning. “It means something’s wrong.”
Dead on, babe. Something cold showers and excessive time spent in the gym might not immediately fix.
Inwardly, Joel shook himself to reply. “I would have said orange isn’t a color for you, but that’s not the problem. You’re a leftie.”
Her smile broadened and he wanted to shove his foot so far up his ass he tasted leather.
One of the assistants to the photographer frowned. “What does that mean?”
Annalisa opened her mouth to answer but Joel was glad to have something to say. “It’s just another facet in her rebellion.”
“Lefties are rare,” she explained. “Most dancers favor their right side for flexibility and strength.”
“So,” Joel continued, “if you want her in that pose with her leg behind her head, you’ll get the better picture if she uses her left leg.”
For an explanation, Annalisa stood on her right foot and extended her left leg up behind her head, like the arm of a clock towards ten o’clock, in a position commonly called a Tilt.
The minions bustled, shifting lights and camera perspectives. The hair stylist asked her to stay in the pose, selecting different sections of hair to drape over her shoulder while another scapegoat asked for her to angle her chin like going through the degrees on a protractor.
Dancers who aspire to great things learn how imperative balance is. Turns, leaps, moving across the floor. Their entire repertoire. However, even the best cannot balance indefinitely, constantly being asked to change their line of focus.
She wavered, hopped, and then tipped. Joel didn’t think. He’d have done the same for any dancer. He had done the same alongside his female co-lead in a million performances.
He caught her. Of course, he caught her. At the hips, at the center of her gravity, where he would have reached to steady any partner. Yet, he let her back rest on his chest.
In an instant, they were spine-to-sternum, and she was laughing. She looked up at him with all the trust the years had built, and it took every strand of self-control not to shove her away.
How she didn’t notice the way his jaw clenched, how she failed to feel his grip dig into her to prevent himself from jerking her away, he didn’t know. With all the trust of a lifelong best friend, Annalisa rested against him with a comfort he no longer deserved.
“Miss Jean,” the stylist snapped. “We don’t have all day.”
Joel leaned her upright. “Then don’t ask her to stand like a mannequin while you play dress-up.”
“Mr. Dvorak, your presence is not needed here.”
“I beg to differ. You’ll treat my dancer with the respect she deserves.”
“And is every one of your employees subject to your omnipresence?”
Annalisa interjected. “That’s how it is. Dance isn’t a democracy. It’s a benevolent regime. I’ve been under his rule a long time.”
The woman glanced at Joel and then back at Annalisa, mischief glimmering over her expression. “Are you sure you aren’t under anything else of his?”