Home > Tiny Pretty Things(4)

Tiny Pretty Things(4)
Author: Sona Charaipotra

   But my skin color matters more here than it ever did at my California studio. Back there, we held hands while waiting for the cast list and hugged each other with hearty congratulations. Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, Kitri in Don Quixote, Odette in Swan Lake came in all colors. There were no questions about what looked best onstage. There were no questions about body type. There were no mentions of the Russians’ love of the ballet blanc—an all-white cast onstage to create the perfect effect.

   Here, we tug our hair into buns, we all wear colored leotards that signal our ballet level, we put on makeup for class, and we only learn the Vaganova style of ballet. We follow traditions and age-old routines. This is the Russian way. This is what I wanted. This is what I begged my parents to send me across the country for. My best friend, Ella, from back home, says I’m crazy to come this far just to dance. She doesn’t understand when I tell her that ballet is everything. I can’t imagine doing anything else.

   Someone whispers, “Who will he choose to dance the Sugar Plum Fairy?” but she is quickly hushed. Besides, we all know that it will be Bette.

   Everyone wants a soloist part. Everyone wants to be the prima ballerina of the American Ballet Conservatory. Everyone wants a spot in the company. Everyone wants to be Mr. K’s favorite. Even me.

   The moon stares in through the glass, even though it’s barely past dusk. At home it’s still the afternoon. Mama’s just finishing up in her garden about now. I wonder if she’s waiting for the cast list news, too, and if she’s finally getting excited about me being here. She wanted me to keep dancing at my local studio. Keep ballet a fun after-school activity.

   “You could permanently hurt yourself,” she’d said before I auditioned for the conservatory, as if the rigor of ballet is like falling off a bicycle. “You could get sick. You could die.” Death is her favorite threat.

   I fight the nerves. I fight the feeling of homesickness that creeps up on me. I fight the weird knot forming in my throat as I look around and it sinks in that I am the only black ballerina in the upper ballet levels. I’m lonely here. Most of these kids have been at the school for years, like my roommate, June, and Bette and Alec, who’ll likely be cast as the leads this year. I watch Bette lean her golden head against his, a matched set, and hear her sigh, content, knowing that her big moment is coming. I suppress a little pang. I just got here, I’m the new girl. I shouldn’t want what she has—the role, or Alec. But I can’t help it. I look away, trying to find somewhere else to put my thoughts.

   I stare up at the hundreds of black-and-white portraits of the American Ballet Conservatory graduates who went on to be apprentices, soloists, and principals in the American Ballet Company. They cover all the walls in the halls here, looking down on us, showing us what we could become if we’re simply good enough. In the almost fifty years of history on the wall, there are only two other black faces in a white sea. I will be the third. I will earn one of the few spots in the company saved for conservatory members. I will show my parents that every part of me can handle it: my hands, my feet, my mind, my legs, and my heart.

   I scan the crowd for my aunt Leah, who is decked out in leggings and a hand-knitted sweater dress. I can hear her voice above the others, a little too loudly introducing herself to other parents and guardians as Mama’s younger sister and an art curator at a Brooklyn gallery. She grins and waves at me. With her pink knit hat and freckly brown skin, she’s as much an outsider as I am in this lobby, and she’s been a New Yorker for decades.

   I wave back. The girls around me tense up. My roommate, June, moves a small step away from my side. Even my waving is too loud, but I don’t care.

   The office door cracks open, its squeaky hinges hushing everyone. We all gasp. I put a hand to my chest. Clapping echoes through the room as he reenters. Mr. K’s pretty secretary walks to the board with a sheet of paper, her arms outstretched to tack it up.

   Mr. K looks around. “Podozhdite! Wait, wait.” He raises his hand before she exposes the page.

   He crisscrosses between us. He’s dark—almost ominous—dressed in all black. Anton Kozlov, a danseur russe. Frantic energy bubbles through me. The other dancers squirm and part, giving him way. I drop my head, my body still jittery whenever he comes near. I haven’t quite overcome it.

   I will my hands to settle. I will my muscles to relax. I will my heart to slow. Beside me, I hear other girls’ breathing accelerate. We are one sphere of nervous, nauseous focus. I try to use Mama’s calming technique: listening to the noise inside our gigantic pink conch shell. I picture my dad finding it in Hawaii that summer. I attempt to listen for the gauzy melody, but the calm doesn’t come.

   I hear footsteps, then see my reflection in the toes of two black shoes. Two of Mr. K’s long fingers lift my chin and I meet his mottled green eyes. Sweat dots along my hairline. I feel dried blood mar my mouth like a tiny streak of Mama’s paint. All eyes turn to me. Our ballet madams watch. The parents go silent, including my aunt Leah. I lick my cut, hoping to stop the pulsating thrum.

   Mr. K’s face looms right above me. Heat gathers in my cheeks.

   I can’t escape his gaze. He holds me there and everything slows.

 

 

3


   June


   I DON’T MIND THAT MR. K’S interrupted his speech to lift Gigi’s chin and force her to pay attention. It’s terrible, but I like seeing her get in trouble for her California spaciness. Serves her right. He didn’t say a word. But I know he’s sending her a warning: tune in. Always.

   I sip tea from my thermos to hide my smile. The bitter omija herbs warm my irritable belly, calming the bile that’s constant company. I fight the urge to retreat to the bathroom and escape to the cold comfort of porcelain and an empty stomach. But I can’t afford to miss this moment. I have to know where I am now.

   Mr. K’s secretary holds the page close to her chest, as if we’d attack her for it—and maybe she’s right.

   “Luminous,” he says, then goes on to repeat it five more times, asking dancers close to him to define it, to describe what it means onstage or else he’ll delay the casting announcement even further. They quake and stutter, unable to answer him. If he’d have asked me, I’d have known just what to say—to be luminous onstage means to glow, to shine, to own it. It’s a quality few among us possess, but I know I’m among the very few. Still, they don’t give me the roles I want, no matter how well I think my auditions have gone. But it’s only a matter of time.

   A tingle tickles its way up my spine. The worry, the anxiety, the nerves. I savor it. My classmates, they’re all stupid and empty-headed, wrapped up in their emotions, unable to see things clearly. They don’t pay attention. If they had, they’d already know whose name will be written in each spot. Mr. K never changes. Those who have been here forever know his habits, his choices, his patterns. Newbies don’t stand a chance. Ballet is about routine, training the muscles to obey tiny commands. I’ve been here since I was six—shuttled back and forth from Queens until I got old enough to live in the dormitory above us. I know the drill.

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