Miss Toni had promised her Divas she’d be there for the final dress rehearsal of The Nutcracker, and Scarlett spotted her making her entrance to the playhouse right on time. She was dressed in a long black coat and black earmuffs placed precisely over her perfect ballerina bun. Even on a frigid, blustery day, her teacher looked regal and neat as a pin.
“Hi, Miss Toni,” Scarlett said, waving to her. She nudged Anya, who immediately snapped to attention.
“Girls, how’s the dress rehearsal going?” Toni asked.
Anya shrugged. “Oh, you know. Just mousin’ around.”
“I always enjoy watching the mice in The Nutcracker,” Miss Toni told her.
“Really? Why?” Anya asked.
“Because it’s a scene that’s fraught with drama and tension,” Toni explained. “And it requires a great deal of acting ability to play a mouse.”
Anya sighed. “You can’t even see my face under the fuzzy head.”
“But I can see the emotion your body conveys through dance,” Toni explained. “And I will know which mouse you are even without seeing your face—I guarantee it.”
Anya suddenly felt a little better about her role. “Well, when you put it that way …”
“I will be watching, so I hope you girls make me proud,” she said, warning her students. “My reputation is riding on it.”
Scarlett nodded. “We won’t let you down, Miss Toni,” she said. “We’ve worked really hard, and Marcus says we’re doing a great job.”
She noticed that her dance coach flinched when she mentioned Marcus’s name.
“Yes, well, I’ll be in the back, taking notes.” She held up her dance journal. “Remember what I always tell you: strength, grace, precision.”
At the ten-minute call before the curtain rose, Scarlett snuck a peek at the audience from the wings. In the front of the orchestra was Mr. Minnelli, Miss Andrea, and of course, Marcus. She scanned the darkened theater for Miss Toni and saw her way back in the last row—as far away from Marcus as she could get.
“Places! Places! Party Scene dancers to the stage!” the stage manager announced over the backstage speaker.
“That’s you, Gracie,” Liberty said, shoving her toward the curtain. She raised an eyebrow. “You okay? You don’t look so good. Are you coming down with something?” She felt Gracie’s forehead.
“Oh good,” Liberty replied. “I wouldn’t want you to get all panicky and forget your dance or anything like that.”
Gracie gulped. “I … I won’t.”
“K-dokey,” Liberty said and grinned at her. “Good luck! Oh, wait! I shouldn’t have said that! Good luck is a really bad thing to say to a dancer. Oops!”
Scarlett noticed her sister pacing in the wings. “Gracie,” she told her. “I just wanted to say—”
“Oh no!” Gracie shrieked, interrupting her. “Don’t say good luck! It’s bad luck!”
“I just wanted to say you’re going to be amazing,” Scarlett said.
Gracie looked worried; her old stage fright seemed to be acting up. “You really think so, Scoot? This star thing is kinda scary.”
Scarlett bent down and hugged her little sister. “I don’t think you can. I know you can! Just be yourself.”
Just then, she noticed another figure making her way through the rows of seats in the orchestra section.
“Is that?” Anya gasped.
“Oh, yes it is!” Rochelle finished her sentence. “What is Mean Justine doing here?”
“She’s here to see me,” Addison said as she appeared behind them. “Everyone wants to see me. I’m the lead.”
“But I’m Clara,” Gracie piped up.
Addison waved her hand at Gracie dismissively. “As if you could ever be as good as me.”
Gracie gulped. She wished she could think of something to say back to her, something that Liberty had taught her. But all she could do was fight back the tears. Maybe Addison was right. Maybe she had been lying to herself all along.
“You take that back!” Rochelle stood nose-to-nose with Addison. “Or else.”
“Or else what? You’ll go running to your dumb Divas coach and tell on me? Who cares? Marcus listens to Justine, not to Toni.”
She pointed to her City Feet coach in the audience. She did look very cozy with the Nutcracker director. She was leaning close, whispering something in his ear.
“He obviously listened to her when she twisted his arm into giving you this part,” Rochelle added.
“Yeah!” Anya and Bria said in unison, piping up.
None of this appeared to bother Addison. “Say what ya want … but I’m the star of A New Jersey Nutcracker.”
“There’s only one star here, and that’s Gracie,” Scarlett said, sticking up for her sister. “I’ve never seen anyone dance it better—not even Gelsey Kirkland.”
“Or Barbie!” Bria added. “Just sayin’ … She had a Nutcracker DVD, too.”
“Whatevs,” Addison tossed back. “We’ll see who gets more applause on opening night.”
Gracie turned to her teammates. “Thanks, guys, for sticking up for me.”
“Are you kidding? What are Divas for?” Anya said, giving her a hug.
“Did you really mean what you said, Scoot?” she asked her sister. “About me being a star?”
Scarlett smiled. “Of course I did. I’m so proud of you, Gracie. And I’m sorry if we were bad sports in the beginning. But I want you to know we all have your back now.”
The rest of the girls nodded. “Don’t let evil Addison get to you,” Rochelle warned her. “She’s just jealous. I guess we all were a little.”
“That’s okay,” Gracie said. “I forgive you. And I’m sorry if I was a little show-offy.”
“A little?” Anya gasped. “Your head was so big, it was …”
Olivier appeared in the wings carrying his giant papier-mâché Nutcracker head under his arm.
“Bigger than that!” Anya said, pointing to the mask.
“I know, I know,” Gracie said, sighing. “Liberty just kept telling me I should act like a star. I guess I was acting more like a brat.”
“Yeah, demanding only pink M&M’s in your dressing room was a bit much,” Bria added.
“How about the time you interrupted the rehearsal for an Instagram break so you could post for your fans?” Anya giggled.
“Oh, and how about the time I told Mr. Minnelli he had to make Liberty my understudy,” Gracie blurted out.
“Wait! Hold on! You did what?” Rochelle asked her.
The girls were suddenly speechless. Of course that had been Liberty’s plan all along—to steal the role away from Gracie!
“There is no way you are going to miss a single show,” Scarlett told her.
“What if I get sick? Or panic? Or there’s a giant tornado that sweeps me away to Oz?” Gracie asked her. “Auntie Em! Uncle Henry!”
Scarlett put her arm around her sister. “We’ll make sure you’re the one and only Clara. It’s like the mailman’s motto: ‘Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night’—or something like that—will keep Gracie from dancing tomorrow night!”
Bria held up her phone. All day, she’d been checking a weather app that was tracking a nor’easter heading toward New Jersey. It was now flashing a red alert. “Um, how about a blizzard?”