I press on. “How are things?” The air is thick with the scent of coffee and pastries and things that need to be said, but that’s all I can manage for now.
“Fine.” She puts her phone in her lap. “Bette—”
“Just be normal.”
“What is that?”
I shove the lump down in my throat. We spent so many nights here at this very coffee shop—dissecting all the crap that went down in ballet class, with Will, with Alec. She spent countless days with me in hell on family vacations to the Cape or in the Hamptons, witnessing my mother’s drunken dramas firsthand. We danced every class and performance together, whispering merde to each other for good luck, ever since we were six. She’s not getting off that easy. “I need us to be us. Just tell me what’s going on at school, like we’re in our old room again and about to go to bed.”
She sighs, not looking up. She picks up her phone, texting, like I’m not even there.
“Why can’t you just talk to me?”
“So much has changed.” Her eyes finally meet mine. They aren’t scared or begging for my approval like they used to. They’re different now. Her pupils are dilated, drowning out the golden sunflowers that usually rim them. They glitter with newfound confidence or self-assurance. Something she didn’t have last year. Something she hasn’t had in the whole time I’ve known her. I want to like her new strength, but it might mean she doesn’t need me anymore.
I move my chair closer to her, so close to her I can smell the rose-scented shampoo she’s using now. “Please, Eleanor. I miss you.” I drape my arms around her and don’t let go until I feel her hands finally land on my shoulder, the stiffness slowly softening. I can feel her breathing, that old hiccupy rhythm. I wish I’d been nicer to her all these years, treated her better.
“I miss you, too,” she whispers.
“I’m going to fix everything. I didn’t do it. I swear to you.”
She doesn’t tell me she believes me. I just feel her hand stroke down my back.
“We’ll be roommates again and everything will go back to normal.”
She pulls away a little. “The accident has caused problems here. Serious ones. The company has lost major sponsors and donors. Mr. K is being crazy. Enrollment is down. My scholarship could go. Families are pulling their kids out. Especially, the petit rats. There’s been bad press about the school—”
“I’ve seen the papers.”
“Level 8 isn’t even allowed to dance in The Nutcracker this year.”
“How is that—”
She railroads through my question. “Be quiet for a sec, so I can tell you.”
The words keep bubbling up and pushing out and I’ve lost all sense of how you’re supposed to talk to people in the real world. I used to be great with words. Mean ones.
“They’re doing a performance of Swan Lake for the fiftieth anniversary. Opening night is the company, then the next night is us. The new director, Damien Leger, will be casting us along with Mr. K. He’ll decide from there who gets spots at ABC. If any of us do.”
I try to absorb it all. Damien Leger? That means I actually may have a shot at the company. If I can prove myself innocent. If I can get back to school. I open my mouth to tell Eleanor all this, but she’s packing up her things.
“It’s late, Bette,” she says, sounding more tired than I’ve ever heard her. “I’ve got character class in the morning.”
I nod, zipping up my sweatshirt and pulling the hood up. “Will you help me?”
“With what?”
“I need everyone to know I didn’t do it.”
“But didn’t you settle? Everyone’s saying—”
“My family settled with hers, but that doesn’t mean that I pushed her. I didn’t. We just wanted it to all go away.” I feel the desperation slip into my voice and try to erase it. “I need help finding out who did this. Nobody believes me. But you do, don’t you? You will?”
“I don’t know what you’re asking me.” She stands.
Her phone lights up in her hand, and it’s like she’s gone already. I wonder if I made her feel that way—unwanted, unimportant—all those countless times. I wonder if this is how it felt.
“I’ve got to go.” Grabbing her bag, she pushes past me and out the coffee shop door. The bell chimes.
Someone recognizes me and snickers. A table of younger ballerinas point in my direction. A year ago, they’d be cowering in my presence or hoping I’d join them. They’d be coveting what I had: the looks, the roles, Alec. All of it. And now I stand here, the tears stinging my eyes, wanting what they have: nothing more than a group of friends who secretly hate each other. This is what it’s come to.
I slip back outside into the cold. The streetlamps glare down at me. I walk quickly toward Broadway, then pause, pondering calling the car service. Instead I decide to walk. Going through the park at night is a risk I wouldn’t usually take, but right now, in this moment, I’ve got nothing to lose.
8.
Gigi
“I NEED YOUR HELP.” I grab Will’s arm and drag him down the hallway outside Studio E. People zip by, dropping off their bags for afternoon ballet classes, and heading up to the café for lunch or off to find a corner to stretch in.
He wrestles his arm away from me. “Oh, so you have time for me now?” He pets the newly shaved lines in the left side of his scalp, and fusses with the perfect topknot he’s put in his red hair.
“I meant to text you back.” We haven’t hung out since the start of school, and every time I’ve invited him to hang out with Alec and me, he’s refused.
“Sure you did,” he says.
“I invited you to come for dinner last night.”
“I don’t want to hang out with Alec. I want to hang out with you.” His tone shifts from shattered to mock annoyed. Tears shimmer across his green eyes.
“Okay, come hang out with me now. I need you.” I poke at his side until he laughs. “Forgive me?”
“Fine. Since you’re begging.”
We laugh.
“I really missed you this summer, so you know I need my time with you,” he says, squeezing my hand.
“I saw you every weekend.” He showed up at Aunt Leah’s every Friday without fail. More than Alec even. He’d come with frozen yogurt and ballet movies. Aunt Leah’s boyfriend got so tired of seeing him that I had to make up fake Friday plans or pretend to be sick sometimes.
“But still”—he rubs my arm—“isn’t it so much better now that we can see each other every day?”
I nod, just to get that sappy, pitiful look off his face. He’s been weirdly clingy lately. But I should feel grateful for his friendship. I can only trust three people in this building: him, Alec, and Cassie.
“So what is it?”
“Cassie told me something,” I whisper.
“You two are friends now?” The way he recoils at her name, it worries me for a second. But I tell myself he’s just being sensitive.
“Um, not really. She’s been nice.” He starts to say something about Cassie, but I interrupt. “Sei-Jin is the one who put the glass in my shoe.”