by Charis Marsh
Mr. Yu grabbed Julian by the shoulder and spun him around. “Mrs. Demidovski would like to have a talk with you,” he said quietly. Julian looked apprehensively at Mrs. Demidovski’s back as she exited the studio. “Not now, go get changed quickly and come up, talk in office,” Mr. Yu clarified. Julian nodded and ran downstairs.
As he got changed, his mind buzzed with a million different reasons why Mrs. Demidovski could want to talk to him and none of them good. Were they taking away his scholarship? Did Mr. Yu say that his room was so messy that he wouldn’t keep him in his homestay anymore? Were his grades too bad to stay in the Super Achiever’s Program? (He crossed that one off the list — he’d scraped a B average in term one, and the first day of term two was too soon to be failing.) Had somebody died? Surely they would’ve pulled him out of class if someone had died. Maybe this was just some sort of new student — middle of the year checkup?
“What are you in a hurry for?” asked Tristan. Julian almost groaned out loud. Couldn’t he do anything here without it being commented on?
“Mr. Yu said that Mrs. Demidovski wanted to talk to me. Is that bad?”
“Depends,” said Tristan, taking the question seriously. “Could be. But I doubt it.”
Julian took a deep breath and then hurriedly wiped off as much sweat as he could reach with his towel, pulled on his shirt, did up his runners, and started out the change-room door.
“Backpack,” said Tristan, holding it out.
“Geez … thanks. See ya tomorrow.” Julian grabbed it and ran up the stairs.
The office door was open, and Julian stepped in, holding his backpack awkwardly in one hand. “Sit down, sit down,” said Mrs. Demidovski, gesturing him toward a seat.
“Thanks,” said Julian nervously. Mr. Demidovski was there, too, but he wasn’t paying attention to them — he was just talking to Gabriel about some papers. He still made Julian nervous, though.
“You are doing well, happy here?” Mrs. Demidovski asked.
Julian nodded. “Yes, I really like it here.” He shifted his position on his chair, his legs feeling too long for the small office.
“You are friends with Taylor?” Mrs. Demidovski asked. Mr. Demidovski came and sat down beside them.
“Er, yeah?” said Julian, unsure of the correct answer.
“Girlfriend?” Mr. Demidovski asked, giving him an understanding smile.
“What? Oh, no,” said Julian, not sure if he had understood him correctly. “Taylor’s not my girlfriend. But we’re friends.”
Mr. and Mrs. Demidovski looked at each other, and Julian shuffled his foot under the chair uneasily, trying to remember any rules about dating being in the student handbook. He was pretty sure it had only said “no public displays of affection.”
“You both signed up for festival doing two pas de deux together. That is correct?” Mr. Demidovski asked.
Julian paused, slightly unsure. “I think Taylor’s mom might have signed us up?”
“Classical and contemporary …” mused Mr. Demidovski. “Who did your contemporary pas de deux?” Mr. Demidovski asked suddenly. “Leah? Se-kuuu-ya? Who did for you?”
Julian’s mouth fell open. “Uh, we haven’t really, I mean, we haven’t done it yet. Learned it.”
“Must start now.” Mr. Demidovski nodded firmly to himself. “Mr. Demidovski will coach you for the classical.”
Julian looked at him in amazement. “Really?” he said excitedly. “But …” His face fell as he remembered Tristan telling him how much privates with Mr. Demidovski cost. “I can’t actually afford it. Me and Taylor — we were just going to sort of work on it ourselves?” Mr. Demidovski snorted in disbelief. “And so I think we’ll have to do that, but it was really awesome of you to offer …”
“Taylor, will pay hers.” Said Mr. Demidovski confidently, waving away Julian’s objections. “So, for you, can be free.”
“Wow, thanks,” said Julian. He got up a little shakily, his legs betraying him after a tiring day. “That is really, really coo— nice, of you. Thanks, Mr. Demidovski, thank you, Mrs. Demidovski.”
Mr. Demidovski waved Julian’s thanks away. “But you must work. Make me proud, make the school proud, yes?”
“Yes,” Julian agreed.
Mr. Demidovski inclined his head toward him. “Have a good night.” Mrs. Demidovski smiled and nodded at him.
Julian exited the office, closing the door behind him as quietly as possible. He gave a start of surprise — Tristan was standing in the hall waiting for him. “No ride today, so I thought I’d wait and we could bus together,” he explained. “Soo ... how was it?”
Julian just grinned.
“Okay, let’s ditch this place so you can tell me about it,” Tristan said, shooting an uneasy glance at the office door. He swung open the door. “Come on, loser.”
Chapter Two
Kaitlyn Wardle
So sore! Glad to be back at dance again and to see everyone :)
Kaitlyn woke up feeling excited, but she couldn’t remember why. She lay on her bed for a moment, her covers pulled up to her chin and her eyes closed as she listened to her alarm clock beep. Oh! Today she had her first private with Mr. Moretti after class! She couldn’t wait to start rehearsing for competitions. She’d already learned the variations she wanted to do, and changed them a bit to add more turns. She turned off her alarm clock and bounced out of bed, hurrying to get ready.
“Kaitlyn, are you ready?” Cecelia called upstairs.
“Almost,” Kaitlyn called back. She spat out her toothpaste and washed her face, looking at it. Yay, that pimple that had started to swell on the side of her nose was fading down. Maybe it wouldn’t actually appear. She ran and grabbed her ballet bag and headed downstairs.
“Kaitlyn, I need to talk to you about something,” Cecelia said, too brightly.
Kaitlyn looked at her, worried. “What?” She sat down on one of the high stools at the kitchen island.
“I had a talk with Mrs. Demidovski the other day.”
“Yeah?”
“They said that they are not giving you Swanhilda this year.”
Kaitlyn stared at her. “But they said they were going to,” she protested.
“I know. They changed their minds.”
“Who’s going to be Swanhilda instead of me then? Why did they change their minds?”
“I think you know why, Kaitlyn,” Cecelia said pointedly. “Mrs. Demidovski said at the end of Christmas last year that you needed to lose weight, and you didn’t. You had all Christmas break to lose it, and I don’t think you’ve lost a pound.” She handed a piece of paper to Kaitlyn.
Kaitlyn eyed the list in her hand warily. A lined sheet of paper filled with her mother’s writing broken up only by dark bullet points, the list looked innocent enough at first glance. Kaitlyn looked up at her mother’s face across from her. Cecelia looked hopeful and proud of herself. Kaitlyn glared at her, but looked down and started to read.
Goals Before Competitions Start
Lose ten pounds
Win Swanhilda role back by proving to the Demidovskis that you deserve it (winning at festival).
Have privates with Mr. Demidovski
Kaitlyn was livid. “Lose ten pounds? Look, it’s my body, I’ll do what I want with it, all right? Just leave me alone. And of course I am going to try my best at festival, what do you think I am going to do, try to bomb it?”
Cecelia’s expression grew more fixed. “Your father and I have sacrificed hours upon hours of our time on dance for you, and that’s not even counting the amount of money we’ve paid out over the years. I’ve waited for you to do something about your weight all year, but obviously you aren’t going to do it by yourself. You have time before competitions start. You can do this, Kaitlyn. It’s all within your reach, but you have to start now.”
“Just leave me alone!” Kaitlyn jumped off the couch, holding the paper clutched in her hand.
“I’m not joking. This is getting ridiculous. Do you want
to be made fun of forever? It’s not just about you, you know. Do you know what it feels like to go into the academy and have people like Taylor’s mother give me condescending looks just because of your weight? You are better than everyone at the academy, Kaitlyn, you can do this.”
“And how exactly am I supposed to get privates with Mr. Demidovski?”
“Ask him. Say you really want to be coached by him.
“Mom, that’s not how it works, okay?”
“Well, I know that Taylor is going to be coached by him. Her mother was talking about it in the lobby yesterday. If you want to be the only one not coached by Mr. Demidovski, fine.”
“Mom! Mr. Demidovski asks you if he wants to coach you, you don’t ask him!”
“Kaitlyn, you have to take control of your own career.”
“I am! I don’t want to ask him for privates!” Kaitlyn ran for her room and slammed the door, wishing for the millionth time that she had a lock on her door. She flung herself on her bed and angrily folded the paper up into a minuscule square before sticking it into an old French-English dictionary that rested on the shelf by her bed.
“I hate her,” Kaitlyn informed the ceiling. “I wish I was as skinny as Taylor …”
“Kaitlyn?” She could hear her dad knock on her bedroom door and sighed. “Kaitlyn, you need to come out now, your mother is really upset.”
“Like I care!” Kaitlyn shouted back.
There was a pregnant pause, and Kaitlyn lay on her bed waiting for her parents to decide what to do.
“Kaitlyn, come out,” Jeff said finally. “I’ll drive you to dance.”
Kaitlyn got up silently and grabbed her bag and jacket, following Jeff downstairs without looking at him or her mother.
Kaitlyn had trouble working at school at the best of times, but today it felt almost impossible. She knew she had to do school, but sometimes it seemed so stupid. Like, why did she need to know math or how electrical circuits worked if she was going to be a ballet dancer? If she had to stay at school for the amount of time the regular students did, until 3:15 or whenever it was that they finished, she’d go crazy. Finally at 11:30 a.m., the bell rang, and Kaitlyn headed out of the school. The noise level in the halls increased to epic levels as everyone spread out for lunch. Kaitlyn wasn’t really sorry that she was missing lunch: she didn’t want to sit there and talk to the other students. They just had nothing in common. Kaitlyn knew what she wanted to do for the rest of her life, and the other people in her grade had no idea. All they did was go to school, hang out, and do stuff recreationally. Kaitlyn thought it was stupid. She couldn’t imagine not knowing what she wanted to do with her life, it would be so scary.
She broke into a run as she got out of the school doors, seeing the bus almost at the stop. Ahead of her she could see Julian and Tristan start to run, and behind her she heard Grace call, “Come on, Anna, we’re going to miss it!”
They all made it on and collapsed into the seats as the bus lurched away from the stop. Julian sat down beside Taylor, and Tristan followed him, sitting on Taylor’s other side. Taylor giggled happily, and Kaitlyn struggled not to roll her eyes. Taylor never seemed to get that the only reason Tristan was nice to her now was because of Julian.
“So,” said Julian, grinning as he turned to Taylor, “I heard that you told Mr. Briggs you’d do a solo for the spring assembly.”
Taylor squealed, and Kaitlyn winced. “Omigawwwd, it sucked so bad. ’Kay, so you know how Mr. Briggs has that look he does, you know the one, right?”
Tristan laughed. “Oh, the one where he pierces you with his big brown eyes and you just know that a good McKinley Dolphin would do what he’s asking?”
Taylor nodded and giggled. McKinley Secondary’s faculty tended to take their mascot seriously, and a good example of a McKinley Dolphin volunteered for anything and everything. Particularly if it involved a developing country, old people, the environment, or physical activity. Kaitlyn wasn’t sure if it was UBC’s new broad-based admissions policy that inspired so much of the student body to participate in these activities or the guilt tactics used by the McKinley staff, who all seemed to have a streak of insanity in their nature. “So. Then he totally confused me, because he was like telling me how he wanted me to perform, and I was like sure, but then he was saying, ‘Good, good!’ and talking about how proud of me he was and stuff, and he thought I’d said yes to this assembly.” Taylor finished her sentence with a deep breath.
Julian shook his head. “Face it. Mr. Briggs is smarter than the entire student body put together. I nearly didn’t drop out of French because of this story he told me about a McKinley student who helped a French tourist on the train. It was an epic story.”
“Manipulative old Dolphin,” Tristan said, opening up his Thermos of soup. He was bitter over the fact that Mr. Briggs had coerced Taylor into doing the performance over him. Mr. Briggs wasn’t his counsellor, but still.
“So what are you going to dance?” Tristan prodded Taylor. Kaitlyn frowned, annoyed. She’d wanted to perform in the assembly. She had asked Mr. Briggs about it last semester and he had told her to check back again next semester. She had forgotten about it until now.
“I think I’m going to do my Kitri variation,” Taylor prattled happily.
Kaitlyn got out her lunch bag. It felt oddly empty. She opened it up to find only a Ziploc bag of green grapes and a small container of tomato soup. Kaitlyn clenched her mouth together as she felt the corners of her eyes begin to tear up, and quickly took the bag and container out, stuffing the lunch bag back in her school bag before anyone noticed. She felt in her pocket for change; yes, she had two toonies and a couple of quarters. The problem with her bank card was that if she used it her mother would know. Even if she took out cash, her mother would see the withdrawal and ask her what she had spent it on. Kaitlyn glared at her soup as she began to eat it.
Kaitlyn ran across the street and into the JJ Bean coffee shop. Several regulars looked up in interest as she entered, not used to the speed with which she opened the door.
“And what can I get for you, Miss?” asked the barista, grinning at her. He was old, at least twenty, and his hair went in all directions, held in place by the ends of his large-framed black glasses.
Kaitlyn eyed his fish tattoo disapprovingly, and then blushed, because he would have been cute if he hadn’t been old and hipster. “Can I have that cookie over there?” Kaitlyn pointed at a peanut-butter-and-chocolate cookie behind the glass, rising to her demi-pointe as she tried to show which one.
“The peanut butter one? Sure thing.” He began to ring her up on the till. “Are you a dancer?”
“Yeah.” Kaitlyn nodded.
“We get a lot of dancers in here. Do you go to that school just down the block? Uh, what’s it called … don’t tell me, I’ll remember. Vancouver International Ballet Academy?”
“Yeah. But we just call it the academy. The academy’s owners — they’re kind of into big important-sounding names.”
He handed her the cookie. “Well, they should be. It’s a good school. I used to go to high school with a boy who went there, and man, that dude was fricking awesome!”
“What was his name?” Kaitlyn asked curiously.
“Andrew Lui?”
“Seriously?” Kaitlyn looked at him with a whole new respect. “You were friends with Andrew? That is so cool!”
“Well … I wouldn’t say friends,” the barista admitted. “He didn’t really show up to school much. But he seemed cool.”
“Oh.” Kaitlyn nodded, understanding.
“Enjoy your cookie. I’m sure you need it, all you guys must burn off so many calories.”
Kaitlyn blushed guiltily and left, only thinking to say thank you when she was halfway out the door. She tucked the cookie into her coat and sucked in a deep breath of cold air.
She walked in an opposite direction from the academy toward a park bench in a small city garden. She sat down and began to unwrap her cookie, thinking. It was stupi
d, really; her mom was right, she did need to lose weight and she was going to before competition, but it was difficult to do it when she was always hungry. I can do this, Kaitlyn decided firmly. She looked down. Her cookie had disappeared while she had been thinking. She brushed the crumbs off of her jeans and stood up. She checked the time; she still had half an hour to change and warm up before class. And then she had a private with Mr. Moretti! She tried to feel as excited about it as she had this morning, but she kept wondering if Mr. Moretti had influenced the Demidovskis in their decision to not cast her as Swanhilda for the June performance of Coppelia.
“Are you pregnant, baby?” Mr. Moretti asked, slapping Kaitlyn’s stomach as he passed by her on the barre. Kaitlyn sucked her stomach in as she faced the barre diagonally to her frappes derriere. Across from her she could see Anna smirk. They finished the exercise and Mr. Moretti paused for a moment, deciding what to say.
“Well, that was not horrible, babies, but definitely not good.”
George looked up from his piano in surprise. “What, you’re not gonna tell them how bad it was? I’ve heard you say plenty of bad things before.”
Mr. Moretti looked over at him, and grinned sarcastically. “Mrs. Demidovski says that I may not yell at the children.” As he said children, he looked at all of them, his gaze accusing. Kaitlyn shifted nervously. “All right, babies, fondue devant, fondue a la seconde, and …”
Mr. Moretti called out as she went to leave after class. “Kaitlyn.”
