by A. K. Small
“Told you,” he said.
Little Alice, Simone, and Ludivine ran up to me, bowed, then kissed me on the cheek. Suzanne De La Croix smiled too. Monsieur Chevalier gave me the thumbs-up. More of the First Division boys were now pouring through the doors, and when Luc (Number 2), Sebastian (Number 3), and Bruno (Number 7) saw me, they waved.
“Félicitations,” Luc said.
He flew over to me, hair glossy from sweat, and as I returned the praise, he clasped me in his arms. Startled by his warmth and the thump of his steady heartbeat, I shivered, inhaled the usual whiff of his laundry detergent, and found momentary stillness.
“So happy for you,” he said.
Before I could tell him that his hug had calmed me, that I was secretly glad ranking was over, and that I wanted to listen to him play the piano sometime soon, he bolted.
The Ruler, who’d been speaking to Louvet in the corner of the Board Room, meandered over to where Cyrille and I were still standing to congratulate me. Her hair was up in a bun, except for one wisp that cascaded down the side of her face. She wore a gorgeous sweater, the color of red currants.
“I heard you were stunning,” she said.
Stunning? Standing across from Gia and Cyrille, Kate’s heartless behavior receded. The world was not so bad anymore. I was improving and had become friends with The Demigod and The Ruler. This new status almost took away my hunger. I stared at The Boards a final time to admire my name next to the number one. I was about to say goodbye to Gia and Cyrille when Gia mumbled something in his ear. Still in her pointe shoes, she rose on her tippy toes and hung on to his forearms. Together, they were the perfect pas de deux height. The crown of Gia’s head touched Cyrille’s chin. Her angora sweater left fuzz on his overalls. I could have been jealous. But not tonight. Not after a win. Not after Cyrille had wrapped his hand around mine after our spontaneous pas de deux. I ran my fingers over my collarbone, checked my ribs. A solid three were protruding. Better. Much better. Yet, when Gia pulled back, Cyrille broke the sunny spell.
“Don’t you wish he were here?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Oli. I wish he were here to celebrate your success, even just tonight.”
The respite I had felt dissolved. Guilt, like an old friend, resurged.
Cyrille put his hand on my shoulder, leaned in close. “This was a good day, Marinette.”
“Do not call me that.”
I was stunned at the power of my voice. Everyone in the room stopped speaking. I didn’t want to explain. I didn’t want to say that grief was like a recurring injury that erupted instinctively. People who’d never grieved didn’t know. Who was I kidding? Remembering Oli erased the thrill of The Boards. The truth? There hadn’t been a good day in years because even if I got a perfect score, Oli still resided in an urn, unable to dance himself—le seul rêve, the only dream, he’d ever wanted.
fourteen
Kate
All night, I yearned to tell M that I hadn’t really meant what I’d said about cheating, about her planning to perform her pas de deux for The Witch in private, but every time I worked up the courage to say something to her, a new surge of jealousy flared. I saw the number 1 attached to her name, the way everyone in the Board Room, including The Ruler in her angora sweater, had looked at her with awe.
For the first time at Nanterre, I was frightened, uncertain of what might become of me. It had been a week since I’d swallowed the single pill and it hadn’t worked. My hormones were bulldozers. I couldn’t sleep. Cyrille kept on ignoring me in and out of the studio, and secretly carrying a baby in an elite dance school was, well, I wasn’t sure how to explain it even to myself. I wished I could have glossed over the pregnancy the way I did with the persistent cases of acute tendonitis in my ankles or the washed-out moments where I curled into myself, but this was different. Sometimes, I whispered English words to the baby. Goopy stuff like, What’s up, Jelly Bean? I know it’s not your fault. Other times, I pretended that my bodily changes were just a dream. And I wanted J-P’s pills more than ever before, the sweet oblivion the drug had once brought me.
But on the days that followed, after M crushed the rankings, I kept my mouth shut and went about my business. Friday, I tiptoed to the cafeteria way past curfew and found an opened bottle of Sauvignon Blanc inside the fridge just as Bruno had promised. I gulped it down, looking out the window. Buzzed, I said to the baby, This is Nanterre, Jelly Bean. I cannot carry you here nor birth you, not even if I wanted to. That night, I slept, dreamless. The next morning, hungover, I brewed the pharmacist’s vile tea and drank it. Then, I practiced my Giselle variation over and over, hoping to induce a miscarriage.
My plan worked. Late that night, after I’d finished nearly all the tea leaves, after I’d pretended to study for a history exam in the library, and after I’d rehearsed attitude turns alone in the ground-floor studio, spinning myself into a tizzy, I crawled under my covers, nauseated. Hours later, I woke clutching my abdomen, cramps coming one after the next like waves crashing to shore.
M slipped from under her sheets and stood in the middle of the room, hugging herself. “What’s the matter?” Her hair was still up in a bun. In her flimsy nightgown her bare arms looked fragile.
I moaned.
“I’ll get help,” M said.
“No,” I managed. Everyone would find out. But another cramp hit me and I let out a wail.
Marine sat down next to me, rubbing my back. Her fingers were soft, her breath steady. The circular motion soothed me.
“What’s going on?” she said.
A new wave hit. I lifted my comforter, knelt, hugging myself. “Get me a trashcan.”
As soon as Marine placed it in my hands, I vomited. I tried not to think of the baby, what the tea was doing inside me. Nothing helped the pain and the god-awful taste. Wiping my mouth, more came up. All night this went on. Marine ran to the bathroom, rinsing and emptying out the trashcan. Between trips, she rubbed my back and said, “Do you need a sip of water?” or “Is it getting better?”
Grateful for her touch, I managed to say “Thank you” in the dark.
I promised myself that if I got through this, I’d try to explain things. Yes. I’d tell M about how the pain I was feeling now was small in comparison to the waves of hollowness and loneliness that sometimes nearly strangled me. I’d tell her, and Marine would come back to me like before. Our quarrel would end. Together, we’d claim The Boards and the upcoming winter demonstrations.
When dreary light started to filter through the blinds, I lifted the damp blanket and placed my hand on my lower belly. The bloat was still there, smaller though, like a quarter, not a peach.
“I’m sorry,” I quietly said.
Marine had fallen asleep on top of her quilt, one foot dangling off the mattress, her nightgown hiked up her thighs. As I watched her in that vulnerable position I was reminded of the two of us years ago, sleeping entwined like rope in her twin bed, our bodies radiating heat because both of us had been plagued by a fever. When we’d finally woken, our limbs sore and tangled but at long last cool, we’d giggled and made fun of each other’s matted hair. If we can get through this together, M had said, we can get through anything. Now, in my own soiled bed, I wished I still felt that way. I almost got up to nudge her, to tell M to move over so I could lie next to her, but I didn’t have the strength to cross the room. Not yet. The silence was disconcerting. Maybe I should ask M to grab my laptop and Skype with my dad. But as soon as I thought the words, I dismissed them. Last summer, my father hadn’t even been able to buy me a two-piece bathing suit. He’d averted his gaze from the blue ruffled bikini I’d tried on. How could he ever handle this?
I reached under my bed and checked the contents of the paper bag. Only a few leaves remained. Exhausted, I closed my eyes and tried to fall back asleep but, at once, I missed not only my dad, but our little r
anch house, the James River—the way the water coiled like a dark ribbon outside my bedroom window—and, of course, my mom. The memory of her. Maybe because I was on empty, and maybe also because I couldn’t bear to think about what I’d just done, I decided that I must have been wrong about Delaney and that she might materialize someday right here in Paris. Why not? I imagined her standing by the Nanterre gates, wearing her bright red lipstick, smiling. Then I thought of Cyrille, of the baby we would never have. I wished for anger to come—even sadness or disappointment, anything—because for any normal girl, what Cyrille had done, the damage, was probably enough to hate him until the end of time. But for me, for my hollow, hollow self, it was different. When I conjured him up, I still felt love. Sick love. Shirley Temple fizz bursting in my chest. Like ballet, I couldn’t and wouldn’t give him up. He lived in my bloodstream and made me feel alive. We’d created life, hadn’t we? I would ask M to find him in the morning so he and I could have a heart-to-heart. After all this, didn’t I deserve it? Didn’t we? And, just like that, relief spread through me.
fifteen
Marine
The morning after Kate got sick, while sleet battered the windowpanes, I found Cyrille and snuck him back to Hall 3. The two of us tiptoed inside my dorm room where Kate sat beneath her Grand Canyon and rolling hills posters, legs crossed, back leaning against the wall.
“You wanted to see me?” Cyrille said.
Kate’s eyes lit up and a wave of color bloomed across her cheeks. “If it isn’t The Demigod illuminating our room.”
Those words and the moment itself nearly made me cry. The sight of my friend sitting up was like the sky turning blue again after long days of rain. I knew she and I could figure out our next steps if only we could talk and be back on track, holding hands before générales. I asked Kate if maybe she should try eating a petit bout de pain.
Kate shook her head. She tapped her turquoise comforter, gesturing for Cyrille to sit.
“This was a bad idea,” he said. “I should go.”
Kate pleaded, “All I need is a few minutes and the truth.”
Cyrille lowered himself down on the edge of Kate’s bed, then stared at the tips of his shoes. Kate rested her hand on his shoulder with such intimacy that I had to look away.
“I know we all make mistakes,” she began. “Believe me. But just tell me The Closet was as significant to you as it was to me.”
Cyrille stood up.
Kate kept on speaking, her American accent thickening. “Remember how I told you about my mom the night I came up to your room. How you said that a person’s void could feel like a thick presence. I thought what we had these past few months was special, that we meant something real to each other.”
Cyrille kept on staring at his feet. Kate leaned over her bed and pulled out the box with her old turquoise pointe shoes. Inside, there were more red hearts she’d cut out with Would You questions written on them in Sharpie. She took a fistful and chucked them at him. “Did you ever bother to read the ones I gave you? Or the letters I slid under your door night after night?”
The hearts scattered at his feet.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“What about the wool overalls?” she asked. “Why did you give them to me?”
“I felt bad about the old ones you wore and I wanted to acknowledge what had happened between us.”
“You paid me for The Closet?”
Cyrille picked up the hearts and gingerly placed them on her desk.
“You got me pregnant.”
I shut my eyes. How could I have not seen it? All the baguettes and candy wrappers. The sleeping. God. I wanted to smack myself. For a moment, Cyrille looked like he might lose his balance but then he said, “What can I do?”
Kate cautiously rose and took a few steps. “I know someone who might be able to help.”
Cyrille reached for her hand but she swatted him away.
“Please, let me take you,” he said.
I waited for them to leave and for the door to shut. Comment pourrais-je avoir été si crédible? How could I have been so gullible? I opened the window and leaned into the wet air. Rain still fell but the sleet was gone. The last time I’d felt this betrayed, this left behind, had been on the day of Oli’s funeral when my twin brother had left this earth forever. The same kind of peine, of heartbreak, struck me now. Why hadn’t Kate told me about any of it? How many hearts had Cyrille broken? Would the school find out and punish them both? What was I supposed to do? How could I keep on partnering with un menteur, a liar? I suddenly remembered us, Cyrille and I, rehearsing my Kitri variation, how I’d asked about the leather jacket and if he and Kate were dating. “No and no,” he’d said, almost indignant, as if I’d asked him something absurd. Shivering, I grabbed my bedspread and wrapped myself in it.
A few hours later, Luc knocked on my door and invited me to the Division One afternoon movie. At the sight of him, at the way he stood in the hallway, hands deep in his back pockets, a rugged baseball cap on his head, and freckles dancing across his nose, I nearly lost it.
“What?” he said.
I had the urge to spill everything, to tell him about Kate vomiting, about the baby growing inside her, about Cyrille hunched over in our dorm room, his mythical energy gone, how disgusted I felt with him and his actions, but of course, none of it was my story to tell, so I complained about the weather, then threw on an oversized sweater before following him.
We sat on the couch in the common room, Luc chatting about adage class, about lifting Short-Claire up in splits on the wrong beat and bruising his front deltoid. I relaxed, nearly smiled at the way he cracked up and so easily made fun of himself. When he squeezed my shoulder, then pecked me lightly on the cheek and told me that everything would be all right, my anxiety faded. I sank deeper into the cushions. I was about to lean my head against him when other rats arrived and plopped down around us, arguing about what to watch, then wondering out loud where Kate and Cyrille were. At their names, I shot up to my feet, my heart beating too hard again, wishing for the privacy of my bedroom, but Luc gently pulled me back down and said, “The King’s probably rehearsing in the circular studio. Kate, well, who knows where she is.” He added, “Let’s watch a classic like Rebel Without a Cause.”
Everyone groaned. Jean-Paul begged for One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The Ruler, who’d curled up onto a love seat, bare shoulder peeking from one of her loose poet shirts, said that she wouldn’t stay unless we watched Roman Holiday or a documentary on Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Suzanne De La Croix explained that she hated old movies and was voting for an action flick like Divergent. Ugly Bessy called her a D1 newbie and told her to be quiet. In the end, we turned off the lights, settled down, and finally agreed on Singing in the Rain. Every so often, while the actors spun around with their umbrellas, Luc would playfully wedge a finger in the thumbholes of my sweater, pat my hand, and ask if I was okay. By the time the credits rolled, the rain had stopped.
When Luc offered to see me later at dinner, when he said, “Meet you at eight p.m. by the spoons?” I nodded. I even suggested a jam session in the costume room after chores. I, Luc, and sometimes Little Alice padded up to the top floor of the dance annex and sang contemporary pieces amidst the sparkling gowns and tutus. I loved how, together, our vocal ranges expanded—Luc’s voice was low and raspy while Little Alice’s rang church-bell clear. I loved how we let ourselves go, free of criticism, wailing like a pack of puppies on a farm, just like when Kate and I Beyoncé’d. But when Monsieur Arnaud rang the dinner bell, I didn’t have the strength to go. Woozy, I filled my water bottle from the bathroom sink and kept wondering where Kate was. I drank, refilled the bottle, again and again, until I told myself that I was full.
sixteen
Kate
The beekeeper, Mireille, worked on the third floor of the dance annex, past the costume room. She was a legend who
’d risen from the earth with the building. People said that right after Nanterre had been built, she and her beehives had appeared. In all my years of living here, I had only caught a glimpse of her once back in Fourth Division, rounding a corner in her protective gear. Then the pharmacist had mentioned her. Now, as if I’d entered a strange fable, I lay back on a soft chaise in her mustard-yellow office decorated with framed pictures of bees and honey pots on the walls.
“What can I do for you?” the beekeeper asked.
“I need to know if I’m still pregnant,” I answered.
Mireille scratched her chin, then ran her palm on my forehead. “Can I examine you?”
I nodded.
She lowered my sweatpants a tiny bit, apologized for breaking privacy, and pressed a few times against my abdomen.
“I’m a doctor,” she said. “An OB. Well, a retired one.”
“Why all this?” I asked, pointing to the bees.
“Apiculture has always been my passion,” Mireille explained. “Like dance for you.”
She retrieved an old beat-up doctor’s bag, checked my vitals, and did a pelvic exam. When she was done, she discarded her instruments in a bin, slipped off her gloves, threw them away, and washed her hands at a small sink hidden in the corner. Then, she took a pot of honey from her desk, unscrewed it, and handed it to me with a plastic spoon, urging me to taste it.
“The brew you drank seems to have worked. You might spot-bleed for a few weeks and be a bit low on strength and morale.”
“You mean I’m no longer pregnant?” I lifted myself up a bit.
“Correct,” Mireille replied.
“How come you know I drank that tea?”
“I was expecting you.”
Not even Marine knew about the tea leaves.
“I’ve been friends with Yves for years. He called me from his pharmacy.”
Spies, I thought angrily. Everything we did under and away from this roof was watched and recorded.
