Bright Burning Stars

by A. K. Small

  Monsieur Chevalier banged his cane on the floor.

  “Duval?” he called.

  I had to do as he said so I joined Cyrille.

  Minutes later, Isabelle danced with two partners to make up for Kate’s absence. Every rat-girl, including The Ruler, glowered at me. I tried to concentrate on the set of steps that Monsieur Chevalier half showed with his cane. My ankles hurt. Concentre toi. Focus, I scolded myself.

  “From the top,” Monsieur Chevalier ordered, nodding at the pianist.

  I slid my feet into soussou. As I turned, Cyrille’s palms pressed on my hips. I imagined I was Gia, that dancing with The Demigod was nothing but routine. Except that dancing with The Demigod was sort of like baking with Yves Renoir, the most well known pâtissier in Paris. I’d baked macarons with him once and the experience—the scent of the almond paste and icing sugar, the way his slender fingers had crumbled the dough then turned the mixture into perfect circles and domes of all colors—had been stamped in my brain forever. I’d been only nine on that special occasion and after eating at least five of the macarons I’d asked Yves if I could marry him.

  “Pirouette into arabesque,” Monsieur Chevalier chanted, slaloming through the couples. Once in a while, he pushed the tip of his cane against a girl’s chin or below the heel of a pointe shoe. “Boys, help the girls into splits.”

  I lifted my right leg until my toes pointed to the ceiling. Cyrille adjusted my line.

  “Perfect, Mademoiselle Duval,” Monsieur Chevalier yelled.

  For the first time since I’d entered Nanterre, I half fancied my reflection. Even the ivory of my leotard seemed brighter today.

  “Break,” Monsieur Chevalier eventually declared. As we shook our feet, he added, “Next, poisson.” He paused. “To get the angst out of the way,” he said, scanning us one couple at a time, “the partner that you have been granted today will be what I call your ‘anchor’ partner, the one with whom you shall dance from now on until the Grand Défilé. I know you all have been dying to know the results of ‘The Anchoring.’ Well, here you go. Look around. The execution of that pas de deux could determine your entry into the company. Better start to practice now.” Again, pause. “Cyrille and Marine, please demonstrate. Don’t catch her on your shoulder. Contact on the thigh will suffice.”

  The Anchoring? Demonstrate? How could we demonstrate a fish dive after having danced together for a meager half hour? A fish dive was complicated, a move two people perfected after months of training together. One student, just before summer, had slipped from a boy’s hands onto the floor and broken her nose. Last year, I hadn’t even attempted it with Luc.

  In the back, Jean-Paul said, “Allez la boulangère.”

  My cheeks heated up.

  Images of Yves Renoir’s macarons and of my mother’s madeleines and beignets flooded my brain. I tried to tell myself that Jean-Paul’s teasing was not nearly as embarrassing as leaving class early, but somehow it was. No one had seen Kate curled up on the bathroom floor, except for me. Yet everyone saw my shame not only in my body shape, but in my family history.

  “I’m waiting,” Monsieur Chevalier said.

  Front and center, Cyrille stood, feet in parallel position, thighs rippling, palms up.

  “Come on,” he coaxed.

  I summoned my courage, made an arabesque in the corner, then ran into a grand tour jeté above his head. As I flipped in the air, telling myself, Vas-y, scissoring my legs, hearing the swoosh of my tights, Cyrille’s forearm pressed against my rib cage and his right hand clasped my inner thigh. A success. I arched my back, held myself up. Cyrille exhaled, his breath blowing on the back of my neck.

  “Hold the pose,” Monsieur Chevalier hollered as he circled us.

  With his cane pointing to Cyrille’s navel, Chevalier showed the others how his hips turned toward mine. He lifted my back leg even more, explaining that the higher the working leg the more royal the position. I clenched my teeth.

  Chevalier said, “Try to jump higher next time.”

  Jean-Paul chuckled, making me blush with embarrassment.

  After a water break, everyone began working again. An hour later, as we all poured out into the hallway, Cyrille surprised me by squeezing my shoulder.

  “Who would have known?” he said. “You and me. Anchors.”

  His thumb rested on my shoulder blade. I looked away.

  “What?” he said. “Would you have preferred someone else?”

  I didn’t know what to say. Everyone wanted Cyrille. But did that make him right for me? I wondered if Kate had gone upstairs to bed, how I would break the news to her about Cyrille and me being anchors. Maybe I’d misheard. Maybe dancers would rotate again.

  I blurted, “You’re not disappointed that you have to partner with someone who’s—” I paused. “Fat?”

  Cyrille looked so earnest that for a moment I couldn’t remember why I’d chosen to be rude with him.

  “You’re not,” he said. “Far from it.”

  I rummaged through my bag, searching for God knows what, certain that angels with harps would appear and sing at any moment. The Demigod thinks I’m not fat. “I do need to lose a few kilos,” I added, more to myself than to him.

  Cyrille closed the space between us. His hair almost brushed my face. I forgot to breathe. Kate wasn’t joking about his light. On a scale of one to ten, he was definitely a twenty-five.

  “Can I call you Marinette?” he whispered.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because.” I hung on tight to my ballet bag. Marinette was my brother’s nickname for me. I didn’t want to hear someone else say it.

  “See you,” he said with the tiniest hint of a smile. And just like that, he was gone.

  When I turned to go, Luc emerged in the hallway, and at the sight of him, I relaxed.

  “You looked good in there today,” he said.

  That was the difference between them, I thought. Luc calmed my nerves while Cyrille grated on them. Luc also grinned while Cyrille smirked. Well, there were many other differences. For example, Luc wore sweats, neon sneakers, and T-shirts with the names of arcane jazz bands. Sometimes even baseball hats. Cyrille wore slouchy, hand-knitted, sexy warm-ups, the leather jacket, and scarves. Luc had a cleft on his chin. Cyrille had that bottom lip. Luc was my friend. Cyrille was not.

  Maybe it was the light in the hallway but had Luc grown over the summer? Did he always have freckles? I was about to say something about anchors, but at once I grew too exhausted and starving.

  “You okay?” Luc said.

  “Sure.”

  As if thinking about two boys on an empty stomach was not overwhelming enough, Oli’s ghost hovered beside me. He was sixteen and he sported leggings rolled up above his ankles, a T-shirt wet with sweat, face open and ready. Renewed guilt bloomed inside my chest. Pense au Prix. Focus on The Prize, I thought. Oli evaporated.

  “Do you think numbers below five will get canned this month?” I said.

  “You shouldn’t worry,” Luc replied. “With your new partner, you’ll shoot up a notch or two.”

  Number 2. I saw it etched in gold next to my name. At the possibility, my heart soared but then I thought of Kate, of her being unwell. I needed to get back to our room to see how she was.

  “I guess Short-Claire isn’t too bad a pick,” Luc said.

  “Missing me already?”

  “You wish.”

  Luc stepped toward me. I found myself inhaling his soapy scent and staring at the words Backbone Jazz on his T-shirt. But then he knuckle-bumped me, spun around once, and performed a court jester’s bow.

  “You are so lucky to have me,” he said. “You know that?”

  Before I could tsk, ruffle his hair, or ask if he wanted to walk back to the dorms together, Luc began humming a new melody and scuffed on down the hall.<
br />
  eight

  Kate

  I woke up unsure how long I’d been asleep and starving, my hunger erasing any thoughts of The Demigod, rankings, or how I’d left the studio that afternoon feeling ill. I only saw my best friend standing next to me, holding a tray with a warm plate of tiny potatoes, asparagus, and roast chicken. Grateful, I reached my hand out to help Marine put everything onto my comforter and I remembered a long-ago afternoon at her mother’s bakery.

  In matching aprons, Madame Duval, M, and I had arranged hundreds of mini éclairs au chocolat on cookie sheets, foreheads nearly touching, the rich smell of custard filling the air.

  On the radio, Serge Gainsbourg crooned the song “Mes Petites Odalisques.”

  I said, “It’s as if the entire world, no, the whole galaxy is rooting for us. We are the odalisques.”

  M and I giggled.

  The magic of that moment, its serendipity and the emphasis on us, had thrilled me then and now. I was about to remind M of that special day, of the galaxy pulling for us to win The Prize, but as I dug into my food, tasting the bitter tip of an asparagus, M broke me in half as she announced that she and Cyrille were anchors.

  ANCHORS?

  “Chevalier pointed to him, then to me, and that was it.”

  I thought I might take the tray and slam it against the wall, and, maybe, get sick again. Nausea mixed with hunger had been plaguing me nonstop for the past few days. The star stickers we’d plastered on the ceiling together the first weekend back from summer twinkled above our heads. I’d have given anything to go back to that peaceful September day when the two of us had stood on tiptoes in our socks decorating the plafond, as M instructed me to call it. Or even further back to the afternoon in the bakery where we’d touched foreheads with Madame Duval and had marveled at Gainsbourg’s fortuitous song. I clicked on my bedside lamp, wanting light. My chest grew large and hollow. I grabbed a potato and ate it whole.

  “Aren’t you going to say something?” Marine asked.

  I popped another potato. My world had gone from three-dimensional to flat to inconsequential in seconds. When I finished the potatoes, I went for the chicken, then I made myself eat the rest of the asparagus. I could have kept on eating. Nothing filled me up. I ate every morsel, drank a bottle of water, then another. I watched M open her closet, then pick up a laundry bin.

  “Who did I get?” I said.

  “Sebastian,” Marine answered.

  I looked up at the ceiling. One of the stars was detaching.

  Sebastian was Number 3. He was magnetic but inattentive and sometimes sloppy. His favorite pastime, everybody knew, was to wildly spin around studios on weekends. I understood that M hadn’t been the one who’d made the anchor list but a thick rage toward her and everyone else at Nanterre zipped through me.

  “Why didn’t you come and get me? Had I been there, it would have been fairer. Chevalier wouldn’t have forgotten about me.”

  Marine said, “He nearly chopped off my head for following you to the bathroom. Plus, he wouldn’t forget you because you’re sick one day.”

  I refrained from plucking every stupid star from the ceiling, from throwing them at M, from yanking my comforter off the bed, and from screaming at the top of my lungs.

  I said, “Last time I checked, the old goat picked favorites, and he sure likes you best.”

  “That’s so untrue. Monsieur Chevalier likes Gia best,” Marine protested. “Everyone likes Gia best,” she added.

  “What hurts,” I said, “is that I’d have done it for you.”

  “That’s unfair.”

  I watched M carry her laundry bin to the door. Somehow, her ivory leotard seemed to fit her better. Her collarbone stuck out and she wore lipstick, a rare indulgence. Before First Division, I’d have gotten ahold of myself. I’d have said, “Sorry.” I’d have thought moon-sisters and would have tried to calm down. I might have made a joke or clicked on Spotify for a round of Beyoncé. But tonight, our pact and that day in the bakery felt like a long-ago dream, something from another life. I didn’t like this burgundy-lipped Marine. Plus, it was late October. I was running out of time, and with my current anchor partner and god-awful ranking I might as well quit on the spot.

  “I didn’t choose him, Kate,” Marine said.

  True. But I imagined Cyrille spinning M in his arms onstage. The emptiness expanded and the weird floating sensation washed over me, its intensity as acute as the days after Saar had gone. I grabbed the food tray and tipped it so that everything, including plate, glass, and silverware, crashed into the trashcan, the noise startling us both. What had happened to The Closet? To Cyrille and me? A couple of days ago, I’d seen him walking through the courtyard and he hadn’t even waved in my direction.

  Marine stared at the broken pieces of glass and porcelain. The room grew scorching hot.

  I said, “Your partner almost gave me his leather jacket.”

  The unexpected lie flowed easily. Saying it felt good, even thrilling. As if I were throwing some kind of counterpunch to the one I’d just received.

  “We’re dating,” I kept on.

  I imagined Cyrille kissing me against the barre of the circular studio, my chest filling up with pink bubbles and momentary joy.

  Marine looked like she might cry or say something, but she waited for me to continue, to be the one to clear the air. Except that I didn’t. Then, she left. The joy in my chest vanished, leaving me with nothing, nothing at all.

  I picked the pieces of broken glass and porcelain from the trashcan. I piled them up on my bed from largest to smallest like the Tower of Pisa. But the construction collapsed so I arranged the shards into words instead. I HATE YOU, I wrote, unsure who the “you” stood for. I stared at the words for a while, at their razor-sharp edges, how easily they’d cut if . . . But then, feeling strangely exhausted again, utterly drained, I threw everything away, curled up on my bed, and closed my eyes. First, I dreamed of my mom, wading deeper and deeper in the James River, a summer dress billowing around her, until she’d crossed the water and kept on going, never turning back once to look at me. Then, I dreamed of M’s and my Moon Pact, of the flap of a wing against the skylight, of us twirling together in glittery tutus, heads back, laughing. Of holding hands and never letting go.

  My mother abandoned my father and me on a cloudy April morning. Next to the chipped coffee mug she’d turned over to dry, my mom, Delaney, left a sticky note that read I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore. My poor dad had to put on his glasses and read it to me.

  But it wasn’t until months later, at my sixth birthday party, that my mother’s disappearance began to wreak havoc inside me. It started when a grown-up, who’d handed me balloons, tied the strings around my wrist. She was the parent of one of my guests and she’d worn red lipstick, the exact same hue as my mom’s.

  “What’s the matter, honey?” she’d said. “Cheer up. It’s your birthday.”

  I nearly wiped the lipstick off her face. The yellow, blue, and purple of the balloons, their static electricity as they danced and rubbed, latex against latex, above my head frightened me. Only my mom wore that color and called me “honey,” I almost yelled at her, but back then I still somehow knew right from wrong. As the French would say, I hadn’t turned to vinegar yet or hadn’t gone west (meaning “gone crazy”). Instead, I ran away and stuffed a piece of vanilla cake in my mouth, the frosting thick and plugging my throat funny. I wondered if I could choke from something as benign as cake, if someone would notice if I disappeared, and that’s when the feeling of nothing, the hollowness, had first clutched me, only to return later, again and again and again.

  In that moment, I had been okay with choking, even relieved.

  I’d pictured myself skipping out of my dad’s second-story bedroom window, floating up with the balloon bouquet into the sunny sky, pink flip-flops dangling, the James River shining ribbonl
ike beneath me until I, too, became as small as a particle.

  nine

  Marine

  On the second Sunday in November, three weeks after Kate and I fought, the ancient bell rang, informing dancers that the lockdown, an antiquated tradition dating back to Napoleon III days, was on. Les mois de confinement had begun as a sickness prevention, a way to keep smallpox and cholera out of the ballet during the winter months. Rats, then and now, were forbidden to frolic into the courtyard. Everyone needed to use his or her door card to slip in from one building to the next. If you were caught outside off the narrow pathways leading to the buildings, you were ranked last at générales.

  That night, Kate and I were doing homework, each at our desks.

  “Do you want to talk?” I said.

  We couldn’t keep ignoring each other. Wasn’t everything rectifiable between moon-sisters? Kate closed her French Lit notebook and stood up. “I’m running to the lab. Sorry. But later?”

  Kate let the door slam behind her. The silence in our room thickened and all the stuff piling up on her bed—red hearts, her woolen overalls, two pairs of jeans, and three black sweaters—made me both want to cry and clean up after her. I loved Kate’s side of the room: a poster of the Grand Canyon and a photo of what she called “her” Virginia, of rolling red and yellow hills in the fall. Unlike other rats, Kate didn’t have posters of dancers. I loved Kate’s plush turquoise comforter with the white polka dots and all of her pillows. Kate had had the same bedding since Sixth Division. The turquoise had faded and there was a stain in the middle—a souvenir of when Kate wore bright nail polish back in Fourth Division even though she wasn’t supposed to. Kate hated both the stain and the comforter. “Makes me look foreign,” she’d say. She was right. Girls here covered their twin beds with thick pastel-colored blankets, one traversin, and, like me, thin throws with intricate and colorful patterns.