Bright Burning Stars

by A. K. Small

In an open black peacoat, with his hair pushed back, Benjamin saw me and smiled. He looked like a Hollywood producer, the perfect mix of brazenness and glamour. I thought of his magnificent torso beneath his clothes and melted. I nearly asked him something boring, like where did he live, but then I told myself to be more daring, to lay it all out on the line. Maybe it was the golden angel atop the Bastille peeking out of the stars or maybe it was the clock ticking, the Grand Défilé looming, but I took a puff of my cigarette then said, exhaling a ring of smoke, “When I make it into the company, will you consider partnering with me?”

  Benjamin chuckled. “I love the confidence,” he said. “And those incredibly blue eyes.” He added, “Of course, ma chérie d’amour.” He threw me his grin and I nearly keeled over but I kept on smoking and making more rings.

  “Where do you live?” I said, hoping he would stay on the curb with me forever.

  “Not far,” he replied.

  I suddenly wondered what company members did after rehearsals. I had the urge to grab onto the crook of his elbow, to experience walking down the street with him, to see his place, what kind of kitchen he dined in because Benjamin Desjardins was the type of man who dined. I imagined a small loft beneath the roof. A mattress on the floor. Lots of books by Russian authors and the Eiffel Tower blinking somewhere in the distance. The smell of his amber sweet cologne.

  Benjamin said, “I hope you enjoyed today. Gets a little hairy in there sometimes.”

  I nodded, not sure what he meant exactly. Then, something in his eyes or maybe it was the stubble on his chin made my stomach lurch. Being near him was worse than riding a roller coaster.

  “Can I ask you something?” he said.

  “Sure.” I tried not to blush.

  “Where did you put the brown bear I gave you?”

  “You?” I said. “You were at the demonstrations?”

  Benjamin nodded. As the car arrived, he added, “You were spectacular.”

  I would have leaped into his arms if the driver hadn’t honked. Dazed, I stepped into the backseat. Benjamin blew me a kiss. I thought I might die of happiness. I thought of the stuffed animal with the little red bow, how I’d not thought about it once after I’d carelessly thrown it on my bed. I rolled down my window and yelled, “Come visit me! It’s so boring there.”

  Benjamin waved.

  I couldn’t wait for the next day, for new Bastille rehearsals. My body tingled, grounded in a new way. I thought of everything that had already happened this year and decided that every event, even the abortion, had led me to now. Who cared about all the red hearts, about The Crowning, or about Cyrille slinking from one girl rat to the next? I owned a gift from Benjamin Desjardins. As the car zipped down busy streets, I leaned my head against the window and realized that my career was picking up speed too, that I was leaving the Division One girls behind. With my index finger, I spelled Kate Desjardins on the glass.

  When the driver asked if I’d had a good day, I replied, “The best.”

  twenty-three

  Marine

  While Nanterre slept, I slipped out of bed, crept out of our room, tiptoed through Hall 3 down to the common room into the dance annex, then made my way up to the circular studio. It was Saturday, a week after the demonstrations, and not yet seven a.m. Weak sun rays shone through the skylight. As usual, the smell of sweat and rosin lingered. The piano top was shut. A demi pointe had been forgotten near the door. Dressed in my ivory leotard, I didn’t hesitate. I stepped forward and found our cachette, our hiding place: the hole at the edge of the lower barre. I reached my hand into the hollow wood, wincing.

  Kate’s mother’s lipstick tube tumbled out into my palm along with Oli’s photo. I clutched the items to my chest. I paused only briefly to look at Oli, the way he smiled at the camera, and the way the picture had jaundiced and faded hidden in the dark and humidity. I returned to our room and placed the lipstick on Kate’s nightstand, careful not to wake her. I put the photo of my brother in my ballet bag and left. By the time everyone gathered in the studio, hand on the barre, ready to begin, I’d eaten one orange slice and had fully warmed up. Twice.

  Dressed in a teal leotard and new striped leg warmers, Kate turned to me and said, her voice flat, “You destroyed our Moon Pact?”

  I sucked in my breath, pretended to listen to the piano’s intro. A few days ago while rumors circulated that Kate was consorting with the company at Bastille, Claire, Marie-Sandrine, and Bruno had been cut. Not in the Board Room but in the circular studio. Monsieur Chevalier read off their names and told them to leave, except for Claire, who was already gone. Later, in the privacy of the costume room, I told Luc everything about the sabotage.

  “I’m a terrible person,” I’d said when I was done.

  I was expecting Luc to march me to The Witch’s office but he’d squeezed my hand, stared at me with those bright green eyes, then replied, “Stress makes people freak out sometimes. Once in Third Division, after I ranked seventh, I threw Guillaume’s ballet bag out the window. He still jokes about it today. You didn’t do anything. You were probably just shocked.”

  We’d laughed a little.

  When I said, “Still,” Luc added, “People have done worse. Shake it off.”

  Then he’d picked up an umbrella, twirled it above his head, and begun to sing. Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, what a glorious feelin’, I’m happy again. His voice sounded scratchy, his pitch perfect. In the midst of pastel-colored tutus dangling from racks, he kicked his legs to the side, cabrioling à la Gene Kelly. I’d smiled at his enthusiasm, but what I wasn’t prepared for and what made my heart unexpectedly flutter was the sudden glimpse of his washboard abs. They rippled, small waves, from beneath the hem of his T-shirt.

  Now, not an hour since I’d broken the Moon Pact, I wished Kate would leave me alone and not stand this close. My hipbones hurt from too many grand battements, and black dots floated across my eyelids. I turned my back and faced the barre.

  Kate said, “Six mega years of friendship, M? And you’re throwing it away because of a little adversity?”

  I struggled to compose a response, but then Monsieur Chevalier walked in and ordered the class into first position and the moment was lost.

  The next day, while Kate was at Bastille, Suzanne De La Croix asked to take barre beside me, an unusual request. Spots in the circular studio were chosen or sometimes assigned early in the year and very few rats moved around. Thanks to superstition and routine, most dancers longed for daily repetition, including where they practiced. As The Witch liked to say, success resided in the tiniest of details. Where you danced, what mirror you looked into, what part of the barre you held mattered.

  Quietly, I processed Suzanne’s question. Until now, she’d never paid special attention to me. Suzanne was pretty. Narrow-waisted, too, but longer limbed and skinnier than me, she had auburn hair and a heart-shaped mouth. Her identifier was not rhythm, or shine, or perfect technique. Suzanne was mystifyingly graceful. Since her late arrival in First Division, her fluidity, lightness, and extensions had earned her the nickname Silk and the Number 4 on The Boards.

  Maybe because I wasn’t saying anything, Suzanne blushed and explained that she loved watching me extend my side développé into penché arabesque on pointe and that she was hoping to learn a few subtle movements by practicing by my side.

  “I know it’s weird,” she said. “But Marie-Sandrine and Claire are gone. It’s lonely over there and the clock is ticking. I’m trying to soak up everything I can. I thought you might want to learn from me too.”

  Why not? Kate was gone and I couldn’t remember the last time we’d offered each other tips and corrections. I gestured to Luc, then walked across the room and dropped my bag by the piano. Luc followed, making Suzanne giggle and everyone else stare.

  For the next few weeks, every morning, Suzanne, Luc, and I practiced in a single file, steps away from the pianist
. I taught Suzanne to count her breaths as she pushed her hips down before lifting her pointe shoe up to the sky in rond de jambes. She showed me how to stretch my standing knee so hard that it felt fused into place. “Let go of the barre more often,” she reminded me. “Think of your arms, hands, and fingers as gorgeous feathers.”

  Though woozy from fasting, I felt myself improve and attributed my progress to her. But on a gloomy Friday in late January, Suzanne picked up her ballet bag, scurried over to Gia just as she had to me, and asked to take barre beside her. She explained loudly that she wanted to emulate The Ruler’s impeccable technique, that she’d learned enough about rhythm from The Pulse. When Gia grand plié’d in second position, her spine arrow straight, explaining that she preferred practicing alone, Suzanne rushed over to Bessy and Isabelle, who invited her right in. I felt so used, breakable, and tired that I might have suffered from Suzanne’s departure a lot more had Luc not stood by my side. He wrapped an arm around me and said, “You don’t need her. You just need to be near an instrument.”

  After class, as if to prove his point, Luc waited for everyone to leave except for me, then he sat down at the piano bench and began to play. He jabbed his fingers into the keys and pressed the pedals, creating echoes.

  “Someone once told me,” he said, head bent, “that a musician either attacks the piano, wrestles its sound into what he wants, or he coaxes and inhabits it, becoming an extension of the instrument.” He looked up, kept on playing, the studio reverberating with a multitude of wild chords. “Which school do you think we belong to?”

  We? “Definitely an extension,” I said, smiling.

  Luc grinned back.

  While he finished the piece, I closed my eyes and danced.

  After that, I stopped speaking to most of the girls. Kate and I no longer fought but our bond, like an old satin ribbon that had been tied and untied too often, frayed and thinned to threads. I continued my fast and took two ballet classes per day, not counting rehearsal time and extracurricular activities like mime or jazz. At a regular nutritionist visit, Mademoiselle Fabienne took one look at me and frowned, then told me that I had reached my ideal studio weight and no longer needed to check in with her as often. But I refused to believe her and insisted she hand me laxatives for severe constipation. I drank up to twelve bottles of water a day. I ate a banana, sometimes an apple and a plain yogurt. And more than once, I played the body-shape game.

  This was how it worked: I made sure to shut the door to my room, then I moved in front of the mirror, removed my T-shirt, and grabbed a pink fluorescent pen. Like a plastic surgeon, I inspected my reflection—my naked torso. I despised my breasts. I pinched the extra skin around my hips, around my rib cage, on my belly, then on my lower back. I dug my nails on the outside of my thighs so hard that I nearly drew blood. Where bright red marks were left, I drew vertical lines. By the time I was done pinching and drawing, one thing was clear: I preferred the new Marine, the slim silhouette inside the pink fluorescent lines.

  I also rehearsed more than anyone. At night, my joints flared up. My feet were so blistered that I soaked them daily in a bath full of warm water and Epsom salts and then in the ice bucket. Eventually, I lost even more weight, though my stomach still stuck out.

  One night, when Little Alice and I were in the common room doing chores, Cyrille grabbed my hand.

  “Hey stranger,” he said. “You seem so aloof these days. Why aren’t we talking?”

  I couldn’t help myself and glared at him. If it hadn’t been for Little Alice standing next to me, holding one of her pale pink leotards that needed repair, I might have said something cutting, like I don’t talk to liars or to people who brush off a pregnancy even if it was unwanted. But instead, I said, “What is there to talk about? All you and I need to do is practice, practice, and practice some more.”

  “All right,” he replied. Then he looked at Alice, raising an eyebrow. “She is in a bad mood, isn’t she?”

  Little Alice blushed, then went to curtsy, but I grabbed her hand and pulled her away, whispering for her to follow me back to Hall 3 because he didn’t deserve a bow, not from my sweet mentee.

  February was a blur. New rehearsals picked up for the Grand Défilé. Preparations for the Baccalauréat were underway. The lockdown was still on. When I wasn’t hiding in one of the studios listening to Luc practicing jazz pieces—shoulders hunched, fingers nimble, lips pursed in concentration—the sound so hot it prickled my skin, or in the costume room with him and Little Alice, or hanging out with Tasha, the seamstress, who loved thread and glitter and who taught me how to sew lamé flowers on old cache-coeurs, I spent hours rededicating myself to classical dance.

  I took barre alone, over and over, working on my turnout. I sat in splits for long stretches of time, trying to make my legs boneless. I performed multiple allegros to sharpen my technique. I relevéd thousands of times to strengthen my calves and arches. New shoes aged within hours from wear and tear. I tried to defy gravity. Hang time in the air was everything and so was equilibrium. In attitudes and side développés, I counted backward, achieving balances up to ten full seconds. I didn’t stop when the room spun. Only after I’d meticulously worked through every part of my body did I allow myself to sit and drink. I looked in the mirror only to remind myself of the fat under my arms and over my rib cage. Imagine des plumes attachés de tes omoplates jusqu’à la pointe de tes doigts, Suzanne had said. Imagine feathers hooked from your shoulder blades down to your fingertips. I envisioned the black and white wings of an osprey in flight, then I pinched my fat and swore to myself and to Oli that I would redouble my fasting efforts, and that I would become weightless, feathery light.

  twenty-four

  Kate

  When I was back at Nanterre, which was not very often, I couldn’t help but scrutinize M. Sure, my old best friend had chosen to relocate by the piano, something that hurt my feelings deeply, but the changes I now noticed in her appearance were more subtle and concerning. Marine’s cheeks sunk in. Her golden necklace dangled between thick ribs, and when she extended her legs her hipbones jutted dangerously beneath her ivory leotard. That alone might not have triggered my decision to go to The Witch’s office, but one morning, as we were doing pliés, M tipped forward and gripped the barre as if she might faint. No one saw her knuckles turn white and her face pale, how she fought to pull herself back up, except for me, not even Luc, who since demonstrations had become M’s shadow. Maybe it was the fright I saw in M’s eyes that made me act, but that afternoon while Marine was napping, I hurried to the academic annex and knocked on Madame Brunelle’s door.

  “Come in,” The Witch said.

  In my shrug and warm-ups, I walked up to a long metal desk. Madame Brunelle’s office was sleek. No shades, just a picture window that looked onto the street with a panoramic view of Paris in the background. Bookcases were filled to the brim with biographies of dancers, Parisian history books, and other art books. I wondered if Gia had been getting her reading materials from The Witch’s shelves. But I didn’t ask.

  “What’s this in regard to?” Madame Brunelle said with a hint of impatience.

  The few tight-lipped smiles I’d received here and there in the hallways had disappeared. Madame Brunelle was writing something on a pad of paper and I hoped she wouldn’t record our conversation.

  “Marine is very sick,” I began.

  I sat down on the edge of a chair.

  “Share the symptoms,” Madame Brunelle said.

  “She is always out of breath. I’m afraid she’ll faint and—” I paused, unsure as to what to say next.

  “And what?”

  “And she’s had trouble rehydrating and she sleeps during the day. None of us First Division dancers want to compete with someone who’s sick. We all need equal footing, at least in the Grand Défilé. Marine is fragile.”

  “I’ll be the judge of a rat’s physical condition,” T
he Witch said, then she added, startling me, “What about you? How is the theater? Rehearsals?”

  “Great,” I said.

  “Are you watching your weight?” She studied my midriff and I could have sworn that a thread of lustrous silver smoke momentarily swirled above her desk. “Monsieur Chevalier told me that you were wearing teal in class. Is ivory no longer suitable for you?”

  “Oh, no,” I said, embarrassed. “I’d gotten ready for the theater early. But this is not about me. I came to tell you how worried I am about M. I saw her sleeping again.”

  “Are you trying to suggest that she should leave? How convenient for you and the other remaining girls if she goes. How terribly sad for—” She paused. “M. Is it?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I said, wondering if my motives were out of spite. But I didn’t think so. Sure, I’d been less than honorable with some of the girls, but I loved M more than rubies and sapphires despite the breaking of the Moon Pact and all our ups and downs. That’s why I was here. I tried to explain, “I don’t want her to get sicker than she already is.”

  “Such a considerate friend you are,” The Witch replied. “But for your information, I’m worried about you as well. Someone did report back what happened this fall.” She pointed her pen to her own navel, then kept on. “And you’re suddenly friendly with, well, let’s see? Benjamin Desjardins. I’d be careful with that. Getting too close to the sun, as we say, will likely get you burned.”

  My cheeks ignited. How did she know about the abortion? The beekeeper had promised not to tell. And how would she know about me and Benjamin flirting?

  “You think you’re the only devious one around here? Why do you think we swim in cardinal rules? Dancers are human. You’re lucky that no one else picked up on your pregnancy, especially Monsieur Chevalier. Francis does not hold you in high regard. He does not like promiscuous dancers. Personally, I applaud your strength, your coping skills, and your ambition. And, Claire was too short. As for your friend, she is weak. But I, and others, will decide her fate. In the meantime, I’ll speak to Francis and we will discuss a possible partner switch. I would like to see you and Monsieur Terrant onstage, the way your synergy might come together.”