Bright Burning Stars

by A. K. Small

“Great,” the pharmacist replied. “Then here, take this.” He offered me a tiny green packet with NorLevo written on it. “Problem solved. This is very effective if taken within seventy-two hours post-intercourse.”

  I wanted to ask what would happen if I took it, say eight weeks later? Would it still work? But I didn’t want to leave the pharmacy empty-handed. I had to try.

  “Is there anything else I should take?” I said.

  He excused himself, saying he needed to grab something, then disappeared into the back of the pharmacy. I waited for what felt like a million years. Was he calling the cops? Could I get arrested for being pregnant? Could I be thrown out of the school and never dance again? He reappeared with a hook, reached up on the last shelf and pulled down a paper bag. It was filled with what looked like tea leaves. “I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said but he handed it to me anyway. “This is more homeopathic. You simmer it and drink it over the course of a few days.”

  “It was an accident,” I said.

  “Of course. Come by and see me soon to tell me how you feel.”

  “Okay,” I lied.

  “The NorLevo might make you bleed and the herbs can bring on sharp pains and nausea.”

  “How much for all this?” I showed him my thirty euros.

  “That’s fine,” he said. “Just promise to take good care of yourself. And—” He paused. “If you start to worry, find Mireille.”

  “Mireille,” I repeated. “As in the beekeeper?”

  He nodded, glasses slightly slipping off his nose.

  “I will,” I lied once more. “Thank you.”

  Walking back, I wondered what a beekeeper might do for a pregnant girl like me, but then I grew frightened again and looked around for anyone I might know, ready to duck. But the sidewalks were quiet. Even the nut vendor was gone. As I made my way toward L’Allée de la Danse, keeping my eyes on the white buildings nestled together in the distance, I shoved the green packet and the test in the paper bag with my tea leaves and placed it in the front of my jacket. No matter what, do not think about a baby. I crossed through the gates and ran to the wall I’d brushed against earlier, retracing my steps.

  When I got to the nearest door, I clutched the handle and pulled. At first, it didn’t open. It was stuck, or locked. Had the pharmacist called the school? Was The Witch inside waiting for me? I yanked the handle hard once more and felt a release. I snuck into the cafeteria, bolted through the doors, and made a sharp turn toward the dorms. The Witch was nowhere in sight.

  In the girls’ hallway, I planned what I’d tell Marine. I’d explain that the pharmacist had given me herbal tea. I’d pull M into my arms for one big forgiving moon-sister hug. I might even ask her to Beyoncé. But back in our bedroom, Marine wasn’t waiting for me. Instead, she’d left a note on my desk that read, Snuck up to the costume room. xo. Of course. I wished she were sitting on her quilt. I wished we smiled at each other conspiringly the way we used to. I wished I didn’t feel so lonely. Whatever. I shoved the paper bag under my mattress, then hid the pregnancy test in my sweater and went to the hallway bathroom. No more wasting time.

  “What’s under your shirt? Pads?” Isabelle startled me. She stood at the mirror re-pinning her chignon and then smeared eyeliner on her upper lids. She smiled smugly at herself. “You can show them. This isn’t America. No girl here cares if you have your period.”

  Inside the stall, I sat down on the toilet. Go away, I begged. As I waited for the bathroom door to close, I thought of the times Cyrille and I had been together, how he’d called me aussi brûlante que le soleil, sun-hot, how I’d wanted to throw pointe shoes at his head and say, “Please, stop it with the head games. Just tell me you love me.” God, I could still feel his thumbs. If it wasn’t for the test I clutched in my hand and for the bloat in my belly, I might wonder if anything between us had actually happened or if I’d made the whole thing up.

  “Need instructions?” Isabelle mocked.

  Once the bathroom door closed and Isabelle was gone, I realized that I’d been holding my breath. I read the how-to section, peed on the stick, and sat doubled over, eyes shut, waiting. Do not think about a baby. Water ran down pipes. Another dancer walked in and flushed a toilet. When I opened my eyes and looked down at the stick in my hand, two heavy blue lines had appeared. Just like on the box. Except that on the box, next to the two blue lines, a woman was smiling and a man rested a palm on her shoulder. They were not in a dorm stall, realizing their career might be over before it began. I slid the stick back into the box, closed the lid, made sure the corners were shut, and slipped it once more beneath my sweater and above the baby officially growing inside me.

  Back in my room, I grabbed the bag from underneath my mattress. I dropped the box with the pregnancy test back in it, then took out the green packet. Afraid that Marine would return at any moment and ask me what I was up to, I unwrapped the single pill, thought of my mother walking out on me to save herself, and swallowed it dry. I nearly cradled my belly and asked the baby for forgiveness but who was I kidding? I was a two-months-pregnant ballet student with few to no options. The walls of my room caged me in and the chalky taste of the pill stuck to my tongue. What else was I supposed to do? Please work, I thought. I shut my eyes and pictured myself in the circular studio, spinning in a gorgeous arabesque turn, a silvery bell-shaped tutu fluttering around my ankles as I defied space and gravity.

  I waited for the bleeding to begin, for the nausea, the vomiting, for the whole nightmare to be just a vague dream because I knew that once it hit, I’d be one step closer to done, one step closer to back to normal and to clutching The Prize.

  I waited and waited and waited and waited and waited.

  But aside from the clock ticking and M eventually returning and tiptoeing around the room to not wake me up, nothing happened.

  thirteen

  Marine

  On Monday after lunch, or the day after Cyrille and I picnicked in the costume room, Monsieur Arnaud rang the old bell, unlocked the Board Room, and left the doors wide open. Everyone rushed in. The Boards were empty except for one piece of paper tacked up on the center panel. The ink was thick and dripping, The Witch’s trademark.

  Division One welcomes Suzanne De La Croix, it read. Then, Congratulations on your promotion.

  Suzanne was the Number 1 Division Two rat. Girls from all divisions walked around whispering and frowning, unhappy at the startling information.

  “She’s not even that good,” Isabelle complained.

  Ugly Bessy grimaced and said, “It’s her extensions but she has no jumps. She’ll rank lower than Colombe.”

  Suzanne had to change bedrooms, to leave her best friend, Marie Champlain, at the end of Hall 3 and bunk up with The Ruler next door to Yaëlle’s old single.

  “Thank God they’re not making her move in there,” Marie-Sandrine whispered.

  “Still, I give her less than a month,” Short-Claire said. “Rooming with Gia is another kind of death sentence.”

  I silently agreed. The Ruler killed you by intimidation. Her room was immaculate, full of famous artists’ memoirs neatly stacked up in corners. She had one photo framed in gold above her bed of her partnering in the summer with Dominique Breux, the top sujet of the company. But what I was most upset about was not Suzanne’s arrival in Division One but the fact that I would now have to dance fourth during générales. I had always danced third, but because of Suzanne’s last name, The Witch had slotted her in my spot.

  That afternoon, in the studio, I practiced alone. One more girl meant one more opportunity to slip. I listened to my footsteps, wanting the tempo to be sung only by the soles of my pointe shoes. I wore a long skirt and a red leotard with a cutout on the side. Usually, I loved the way the skirt hid my fleshy hips and how the red leotard had a high neck, which flattened my chest more than the First Division’s low scoop. But not today. In the mirror, I looked fa
t. Even my elbows looked fat. Plus I couldn’t get my allegro right. I shook my hands and feet out. Allez, I told myself.

  “Un, deux, trois, deux, deux, trois,” I counted as I dug my pointe shoes into the ground.

  My beloved high ceiling burdened me, somehow, and the vast windows that allowed me to almost see Paris brought in a gray light. What was wrong with me? This Don Q variation was one of my favorites. When Chevalier had assigned it as my solo for the winter demonstrations, I’d almost hugged him. The quick turns and the jumps with that slight Spanish flair, the way I had to scissor my legs on a diagonal, worked with my body. Now, though, nothing was working. I yanked my skirt into place and silently yelled, Tempo!

  I kept my chin up and placed my hands on my hips. No arms. No hands. No music. Just footwork, I thought. Every time my brain was about to tell me something, I shut my eyes. Vas-y. Get out of your head. And after repetition and more repetition, I began to get it. Muscle memory. Right, left, right, left. Forward, back, in a circle. There. It was as if dance had chosen me as a conduit, not vice versa.

  “Finally,” I said.

  I allowed my right arm to test the waters. Second, first, up to couronne. Yes. Now it was working. I got almost to the end of the variation when the door of the studio swung open and Cyrille strolled in.

  “Where’s the music?” he asked.

  “Not yet. I can barely make it with counts. Tempo’s everything.”

  Cyrille plugged in his laptop, pressed the stereo button, then, as if I’d been expecting him all along, sauntered to the door and clicked it shut. To my surprise, rap filled the room. A smoky voice seeped out the speaker and I smiled.

  “Tempo is everything,” he said.

  “Well, this isn’t Ludwig Minkus.”

  “Jay Z. A few guys were listening to him last night. It gave me an idea. Go dance.”

  I was so puzzled that I obeyed. I hooked my fingers inside my skirt and realized that the rhythm of Jay Z’s voice sounded a little like my Kitri variation.

  “Mark it,” Cyrille suggested. “You’ll see.”

  I began my allegro, the piqués and échappés pushing out from the lyrics. I forgot about my arms and concentrated on hitting that bam and bam and bam. My pointe shoes struck the floor as Jay Z’s lips released air. I’d never thought of ballet that way. It felt freeing, wilder, like I could shape-shift this complicated classical variation into some kind of rap-ballet-style performance. By the time the song was over, I had to catch my breath.

  “Smart, no?” Cyrille stood barefoot by the mirror. His jeans sagged low on his hips. “Don’t bend down. Put your arms above your head. Open up your diaphragm. Oxygen recovery one-oh-one.”

  I pulled myself up and lifted my hands to the ceiling, breathing deeper.

  “Want me to stay?”

  I hesitated. Kate was the one who always rehearsed with me during générale practices but Kate wasn’t around, wasn’t herself. After she’d heard about Suzanne’s promotion, all she’d done was sip from a tall glass of water. Her eyes had bluish bags beneath them. The candy and red hearts were gone from our room, the floor impeccable, which scared me more than the old mess. When I asked Kate if she wanted to practice with me, she refused. Which was odd because she was performing Giselle, the second-act variation, and everyone in the school knew it was a beast.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Don’t sound so excited.”

  “Since I told you about my brother, why don’t you tell me if it’s true that you and Kate are dating and that you almost gave her your leather jacket?” I blurted. “Because if it is, you should be rehearsing with her and not with me.”

  “No and no,” he said.

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  “I wouldn’t date Kate. For one, she’s a smoker. She’s also a prima donna. Two strikes against her.”

  “And you’re not?”

  Cyrille regarded me. “If I was, I’d be rehearsing my own variation. Not yours.”

  I felt suddenly terrible. There must have been a misunderstanding. Kate wouldn’t lie to me. But I still felt guilty that I was rehearsing with Cyrille without her. Somehow, by excluding her we were doing something wrong. But what? Kate was the one who’d refused to come and rehearse, something she’d never done in six years.

  New music flew through the speakers but with one jab of his thumb, Cyrille killed it.

  “Why stop?” I asked.

  “Because you can’t perform Don Q to rap.”

  “Then why did you put it on in the first place?”

  “I wanted you to lighten up.”

  “Put it back on.”

  Cyrille did. For the next hour, I performed to Jay Z’s lyrics. When I finished my last grand jeté into chaînés, then into a triple arabesque turn that I hung on to for one extra second, I yelled, “Did it!”

  My joy reverberated in the studio. It was as if the walls had opened up. As if something in me had expanded. More than tempo. As if my body was one step closer to the art of flying. As if I finally was able to trust myself and let go.

  “Nice,” Cyrille said, approaching me. He tugged at my skirt. “Take it off,” he said. “Show us your hips, the way they never lift even in your highest passés. Show us your waist, how you twist it just right on the back attitude.”

  How did he know? Could he see through the fabric of my skirt? I felt myself grow hot from my shins up to my ears. I tried not to think about how one night after pas de deux I’d fallen asleep clutching my pillow, accidentally conjuring his face and the way his lips might have tasted if I ever kissed him. God, the imagined sensation had been like a burst of adrenaline. Now, I didn’t know if it was Cyrille, the heat blazing off his skin, the fact that he’d asked me to remove my skirt, or my recent breakthrough—the way I’d flown in the air—but I felt warriorlike.

  Under his gaze, I wriggled my way out of my skirt. I threw it across the barre where it draped like an abandoned curtain, and I walked back to the center of the studio. Cyrille put on Minkus’s Don Q. The music was vibrant. I could almost smell the dirt inside the Madrid arenas and feel the weight of the matador’s gold cape. Cyrille was right. Without the skirt, my reflection shone.

  “Become Kitri!” he shouted. “Don’t just dance her. Act her. Be her. Feel the power of your body.”

  Soit-elle! Be her! The words stuck. I danced the variation again, breaking through yet another barrier. I became so comfortable that I mimicked flitting a fan as if I’d transformed into Kitri at the bullfight. As I jumped into my final grand jetés, for the first time, reflected in the Nanterre studio mirrors, I was a dancer. Not what Louvet called a “ballet student,” but a classical dancer dressed in red, holding an imaginary fan.

  The music stopped. I bowed. It wasn’t until I relaxed that I saw Cyrille looking not at me but at the partially opened studio door. Madame Brunelle stood, arms crossed. She narrowed her eyes behind her glasses.

  “Well, well, well,” she said.

  I wished my skirt was back on. “I checked the schedule and this studio was open,” I apologized.

  Madame Brunelle glanced at Cyrille then back at me.

  “What a dynamic duo,” she said. “Who would have known? I have an idea. Why don’t you two perform your pas de deux?”

  “Now?” Cyrille exclaimed. “But I’m barefoot.”

  “Get your shoes,” Madame Brunelle ordered.

  Within minutes a pianist appeared in the room. I was so startled that all I could do was stand with my arms at my sides, waiting.

  “Ready?” Cyrille said.

  He rushed to take his place behind me. He’d put on black demi pointes and changed from jeans to tights. His T-shirt was tucked in. I wanted to ask him why The Witch had come and asked us to perform. Why now? But there was no time. The pianist began her intro. I took a breath.

  “We do this
right, Marinette,” Cyrille whispered to my back, “we’ll be One on The Boards.”

  I didn’t have time to scold him before the pianist began her introduction, and I performed the best live pas de deux I’d ever danced. Maybe it was the prior rap rehearsal that gave me the faith. Maybe it was my partner, the way he squeezed my fingers at every turn, a reminder that together we could rule the world. Or maybe he was right about needing to truly know your partner, and in telling him about Oli dying, a little piece of my past had found a sliver of closure.

  By the time we finished, other dancers had arrived. They lurked in the corners and watched. Everyone, including Madame Brunelle, clapped when we took our bow. I focused on the floor in order to not break down. Cyrille must have felt it because he slipped his fingers through mine and pulled me away from the room.

  He was right. On Friday, I came in Number 1 on The Boards. First time ever. I didn’t come in alone though. I tied with The Ruler. Isabelle came in second. Kate placed third. In the crowded Board Room, I rushed over to Kate. All the hurt I had been feeling dissolved. I forgot about the jacket, about the lie, about her moods. Kate wore a sky-blue shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her demeanor was so stiff and vulnerable that I longed to kiss her cheek and find a way to make her laugh.

  I squeezed myself toward her. “Let’s celebrate!”

  “Celebrate? People are saying you planned to perform that pas de deux for The Witch in private all along. Isn’t that cheating, M? Good night.”

  Kate spun around, tightened her shawl, then pushed herself through the crowd.

  “What are you talking about?” I tried to run after her. “Wait,” I said. “I didn’t do anything.”

  But Kate had disappeared. Before I could figure out where she’d gone, Cyrille emerged through the doors of the Board Room and stopped me. He stood tall in a green bandana and woolen overalls, cutting off my path. He looked flushed, like he’d just finished men’s class and had run to get here. When he glanced up at The Boards and saw my name—1. Marine Duval—he grinned.