Sixteen is a lovely year for tears. They don’t mean enough to send you tumbling over the edge. Just enough to explore the edges of tolerance. Just enough to understand that love can take us spinning if we are not careful and lose control. At sixteen, I gave tears to a woman who was still darning the last hem into the tulle of my skirt.
Her hands moved in and out and she was careful not to look at me, her eyes never leaving the needle, which she worked as if it were the only worthy purpose. A heavy door clunked closed towards the back of the theater. A thin man of maybe fifty with red wavy hair, a little too long for his age, stood looking at the stage, arms folded across his chest.
Rebecca and I glanced from where we stood on stage but he did not speak so we returned to our alterations. Dudley came from backstage and hailed the man.
“Good morning, Étienne. I thought you might not make it today.” Dudley’s voice reached to the back of the theater. He sounded stiff and formal. Could it be that this man intimidated Dudley? I couldn’t imagine Dudley lowering his stiff chin for anyone.
“Wouldn’t miss seeing a new generation of your dancers, sir,” the man said, casually.
Dudley hurried down the steps and up the ramp to meet him. I did not like that the man wouldn’t move to meet him halfway. It seemed to me courtesy would have dictated that he do more than stand there and let the older man come to him. Now I looked down at Rebecca and she exchanged a disapproving glance with me.
The man’s jeans were overly tight and dark washed. His spotless white T-shirt fit him snugly and his hair was sprayed into a shape that must have taken someone an hour to perfect. He and Dudley talked as they walked down the ramp and up the stage steps. The man called Étienne stopped in front of me and watched as Dudley spoke to him of our run at the Westwood.
Étienne didn’t speak, only regarded me as if I stood there for his enjoyment. His eyes wandered up and down my body as he listened, never looking at Dudley for a second. Rebecca watched him suspiciously. I felt like a specimen. He made my skin crawl.
“And who is this one?” Étienne asked when Dudley’s update wound down.
“This is my Anneliese. She will dance the pas de deux with Christopher tonight. She’s quite easy to watch,” Dudley offered. He sounded proud but reserved. Perhaps protective.
“I can see that.”
Dudley looked momentarily uncomfortable and added, “…On the stage. Let me introduce you to Christopher,” he said quickly and led him backstage as if trying to avoid any further words from the man. They disappeared with a clump of wooden footsteps.
“There’s someone you might want to stay away from,” said Rebecca. The first words she’d spoken to me since she’d come into the theater that morning. I was still feeling raw.
“If I didn’t?” I said.
“You’d be an idiot, now turn a little more to your right.”
I shuffled. And thought. Rebecca hadn’t liked the man’s attention falling on me. Was she used to having the attention herself? Or was there something else?
“You keep your mind on tonight,” she said, pulling an authoritative tone with me that she felt accompanied her years.
* * *
As the theater lights fell that night, I was not feeling shivers of anticipation. Instead, I was something wild on the prowl. I lurked in the wings taking in the music of the prelude. There was time. Many long minutes of choreography would move about the stage before my entrance. At the gentle crescendo, the heavy curtains parted and bright washes of hot light fell on the dark stage and upon a chorus of lanky young ballerinas in white tulle. Small crystals glued to their foreheads caught the light now and then, giving the audience a wonderful, fiery effect.
It was strange how the sweat, shuffle, slump, sometimes even disgrace of studio class and tearful rehearsals could result in something so delicately flawless and graceful. I thought of how the audience saw them there as if it were all so natural. For instance, they couldn’t know that Theresa was anorexic, or that Bridget sprained her toe last night and had sworn like a construction worker for a half-hour. How about the fight between the two who had not been chosen for the featured duet? An ugly scene to be sure. How would people, cloistered safely in theater seats, see them if they knew the girls behind the dance? What if they knew me? I preferred the anonymity of the stage.
“So, you are Anneliese,” whispered Étienne, appearing behind me and standing too close.
“I am. Who are you?”
“Who am I? Dudley didn’t tell you?” He was incredulous.
“No, he didn’t.” I tried my best to sound disinterested.
“I own the Triple O salon in Westwood. I’m sure you’ve seen my commercials on TV? The magazine ads?” He was far too pleased with himself.
“No.” I lied. He did not react.
“Dudley and I are old friends. He promised to lend me a few ballerinas for a commercial I’m filming for my salon. I’ll pay him well and it will give your company the boost I hear that it needs.” He winked.
I wondered what he held over Dudley’s head. Or was it really just the promise of money, always in short supply.
“Well, there you have them on stage,” I told him, “Ballerinas. Theresa has lovely hair. And Bridget is an accomplished dancer.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of… you. What does your hair look like when it’s down?”
“It’s long.”
His eyes began to travel again. I turned my back to him and watched the corps de ballet. Jade and Dudley appeared at the headphones, communicating with the lighting booth across the stage. I excused myself to talk with them, skittering quickly and quietly behind the backdrop curtain.
“Jade, why aren’t you in the audience?” I knew I sounded childish. “I thought you would be watching tonight. Rebecca saved you a seat!”
“Too much to do here,” she said, handing a headset to Dudley. She scurried backstage. I was disappointed. I wanted her to see it front-and-center to prove to her that she had perfected this piece on me. I wanted to give it back to her now, ten weeks from the day she handed it to me. I ran after her.
“Jade!” She turned, looking stressed out.
“What?”
“Would you please go to the audience for the pas de deux? I want you to see it.” She softened.
“I’ll try. I know you can do it. It’s going to be fine.”
I wanted to tell her it would be more than fine. She hurried off and I returned to the wings with my heart beating a little faster. I didn’t often use such a familiar tone with her. Or ever a pleading one. But why wonder about that? I’d been peeled open that morning. I had not replaced the usual thick skin we all wrapped around ourselves at the studio; the skin that could rebound from insult, humiliation, fatigue and failure. I returned to my wing, no longer a wild thing.
“You’ll never guess who’s in the audience.” Rebecca was there in the dark.
“Bec, go and sit out there!” I’d had it with everyone not sitting where I wanted them to. I might have stamped my feet.
“Will you relax? I’m going at the intermission. I had to tell you.”
“Alright, who?”
“It’s your dad.” I froze.
“Are you sure? They weren’t going to come all the way here. They saw the pas de deux back at the studio performance.”
“He said he wanted to see it again and he was close to town anyway.”
“You talked to him? He recognized you?”
“He did.”
I couldn’t imagine the two of them conversing. I liked my two lives separate.
“What else did he say?” I really couldn’t imagine him here, tonight, when I was Anneliese-the-ballerina. Not Anneliese, Victor’s daughter, quiet and reserved. Seen and not heard. Speaking when spoken to. I felt slightly invaded. But I relaxed. At least he wanted to come. At least he was sitting.