by Charis Marsh
“Julian?” the pantsuit lady whispered, startling him as she suddenly appeared at his elbow. “You’re second up.”
Julian nodded, waiting in the wings and trying to breathe as he waited for the adjudicator to stop writing notes about Kageki. He heard the tinkle of the small bell the adjudicators were given on their desk to signal that the next solo could begin, and Julian walked on stage. He waited for his music.
He began late, not hearing the first beat until too late as the CD player was playing his music more quietly than Kageki’s music. He loved this variation so much — Theresa had let Taylor and Julian pick their own solos and pas de deux, thinking that they would do better if they picked what they liked. Julian had picked a variation from La Bayadere, which let him use the same costume as the one he wore for their pas de deux. They were doing Le Corsaire for their pas de deux.
This variation made Julian feel like he was flying, and he could feel the huge grin on his face. He still couldn’t do much of the variation very cleanly, but he danced the harder parts very enthusiastically. He finished three pirouettes with a wobble, but was still smiling as he ran off stage. He heard clapping. Oh crap … He ran back on stage, bowed, and ran off again.
“You forgot to bow, didn’t you?” Tristan asked him, looking disbelieving.
“Never,” said Julian laughing. He watched one of the boys he didn’t know wait nervously in the wings. He could feel buoyant glee filling him up. That was fun. He loved being on stage, it was the most awesome thing ever. The adrenalin rush was incomparable.
He went up to the pantsuit lady. “Am I allowed to sit in the audience?” he whispered.
“Yes, dear,” she whispered back. “But be quiet.”
Julian nodded and hurried out of the backstage. He couldn’t just go through the stage now that the competition had started. He snuck up behind Taylor and Jessica. “Hey,” he whispered, sliding into the seat beside Taylor.
“Hey,” Taylor said, smiling at him.
Julian stared at her, confused. That’s it? “Hey?” How did I do?
The bell tinkled and it was Tristan’s turn. Julian sat back to watch silently, Taylor resting her head on his shoulder. Julian held his breath without realizing it as he watched Tristan begin his solo, the prince’s variation from Sleeping Beauty. Tristan wasn’t as strong as Kageki, but his muscles were less bulky, more fluid, and his body was more flexible. His extensions were extremely high for a boy, and his jumps were clean. They weren’t as high or exciting as Kageki’s, or as happy as Julian’s, but they had a fluid cat-like quality that reminded Julian of Vladimir Malakhov.
Tristan bowed and ran off, and Julian felt himself deflate. There was something obviously different between his performance and Tristan’s. Tristan’s had a professional quality to it, a cleanness, a sense that he could exactly repeat any moment of his variation upon being asked, whereas how Julian performed his variation was largely up to luck or how he felt at the second he was dancing that beat. Julian realized that Tristan had thought about and rehearsed every second, every shift in emotion or performance, each transfer of weight or landing. The something different between their two solos was the difference in hours and hours of work between them. In fact, Julian had only practised his solo full out maybe five times on his own time (not in a private with a teacher) and that had only been because Taylor had guilted him into it while they had been rehearsing their pas de deux together.
Julian clapped so hard that his hands hurt. “He was good, right?” a grandmother sitting next to them asked. “I liked him.”
“Yeah,” Taylor and Julian said together. “He was really good.”
“I thought you smiled more though, dear,” she told Julian. She settled back down in her seat, going back to her crossword puzzle as the adjudicator shuffled his notes and stood up.
“Good job, me. I smiled,” Julian muttered to himself.
“I have to go backstage,” Taylor told him, shaking him off her shoulder.
“All right, fine.” He shifted over a seat and leaned on Jessica instead. “Your shoulder hurts, it’s too boney.” She giggled.
Julian nodded. He noticed the adjudicator get up with his papers, and remembered he had to be backstage to get his placing. “Oh, crap!” he quickly jumped up and ran down the theatre, steps, disappearing backstage.
They filed onstage, waiting in a line for the adjudicator to come down. Julian stood in first position. He blinked — the lights were really bright. He began to sway, left … right …
“Stop it,” Tristan hissed, poking him in the stomach with his finger. They were standing close enough together that he could do it without being too obvious. On the other side of Julian, Kageki just giggled. There was a commotion up at the main doors to the audience, and they all looked up. Julian saw Mr. Yu’s silhouette. He walked in, so tall that that his head almost touched the top of the door. He put his hand to his forehead, peering out to the stage. Recognizing his students, he waved at them, and went to sit down, stepping over top of the rows of seats instead of walking in between them. He found a seat he liked and sat in it, putting his legs up on the back of the row of seats in front of him.
“He is so lucky Mr. Demidovski isn’t here to see him,” Tristan whispered, low enough that only Julian could hear him. Julian nodded, grinning as he saw their adjudicator glare at Mr. Yu as he walked past him.
The adjudicator was not very old, but he had an air of determined maturity. He opened his mouth and Julian hoped that he just told them who got what right away.
“My name is Josep Glass.” He looked around at the almost empty theatre. “I won’t bore you with my resume, I’ll save that for the afternoon audience,” he said dryly. “Suffice it to say that I am fully qualified and competent enough to critique you. Good job, dancers, there were some nice moments in all of your solos this morning.” He looked down and began to read from his sheet of paper, squinting at the handwriting. “Julian Reese, third place.”
Julian felt his face fall. He walked over and got his paper, forcing a smile that dropped as soon as he got back to his place in line. He stood there listening to him continue.
“Kageki Sato, second place.” Kageki took his paper with a huge grin on his face, and returned to the line, bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet.
“Tristan Patel. First place.” Tristan smiled confidently as he walked up and took the piece of paper, meeting Josep’s eyes as he took it and nodding his head in thanks.
Josep handed out placings in other categories, and then they all filed off stage. “Is that it?” Julian asked.
“No, you can pick up a critique comment sheet from the box outside, too,” Tristan explained. “Out in the lobby.”
“Right,” Julian said. “Congratulations.” He went down to the change room and began to get changed into his street clothes, intending to go back into the theatre and watch Taylor’s performance. He shoved the bag of makeup that Tristan and Taylor had helped him buy in his backpack, along with his sweaty tights, and folded up his costume neatly to ease the guilt at having not brought a costume bag to protect it. He knew Cromwell Gilly would have killed him if he’d seen what Julian was doing to his costume.
The lobby was mostly empty. Everyone had already gone into the theatre to watch the girls’ competition. He paused, deliberating. Now that he was done, he just really wanted to get out of there and go home. He walked over to a lady who looked like she was helping out with the competition. “Hey,” he said. “I was supposed to pick up a critique or something?”
“Name?”
“Julian Reese.”
“Here you go, dear. Congratulations.” Julian took the paper from her and walked away, opening it up and reading as he walked. It was a series of comments on his solo in bullet form.
Keep your sternum forward.
Not enough plie in your preparation for tour jeté or pirouettes, don’t anticipate.
Turn out your arabesque.
Nice floating quality in your jumps.<
br />
Nice lift to your jumps, but be careful of your form. Use the whole stage.
You kept a lovely sense of stage presence and expression throughout the solo. This added a lot to your performance.
He stared at it, trying to wrest more than there was from the page. He wasn’t sure what he had been looking for, but it wasn’t this. He had, for reasons unknown to himself, cherished a hope that Josep would have written something more along the lines of:
Julian, you are that rare find, a truly naturally gifted and brilliant dancer. At such a young age you have managed accomplish more as an artist than the top dancers at twice your age. Please see enclosed your offer for a soloist position at American Ballet Theatre or the Royal Ballet, the choice is yours.
Well, perhaps not exactly like that, but closer to that. Julian felt a bit disappointed. Well, he said I have a nice stage presence, he thought to himself, shrugging off his sadness with reality. He walked out of the theatre, past the parking lot toward a cement structure surrounded by tall grass and some scraggy trees. He had honestly believed that he would get first, he told himself as he sat there. The sun was shining finally, and the spot of cement he was sitting on was almost dry. I’ll do better at YAGP, he decided. If I just work harder … He took out a joint he had saved in his makeup bag and lit it, sitting on the grass. He just needed some time to himself, space to think. He had been so busy lately he hadn’t realized how fast everything was going by. In a couple more weeks he was going to be in California. In a few months he was going to be finished grade eleven. He needed to work as hard as he could now, at dance, at school — he let the smoke rest in his lungs, and stared out at the sun as it sparkled on the grass. In the bottom of his stomach was the gloom that came from the truth: he could have done better. He knew it, even if nobody else knew it; and that was the part of his loss that hurt. He knew in his heart that he could be better than Tristan, but he hadn’t put the time in. He hung his head between his legs, trying to block out the thoughts that were flooding his brain, his self-accusatory missives of hate. It was over. There was nothing he could do about what was past; he just had to do better next time.
Chapter Ten
Kaitlyn Wardle
Happy B-day Julian Reese! Ur old now ;)
Kaitlyn hopped from one foot to another as she waited for the bus. Her hands were freezing, even though she was wearing gloves and had her hands shoved in the pockets of her coat, and her feet were numb.
Taylor was telling an extremely unimpressed Jessica about her jeans. “People keep telling me that these jeans look really good on me, but I, like, don’t know what they mean!”
“Maybe they mean those jeans look good on you?” Jessica said dryly, raising her eyebrows.
“Well, yeah, but, like, I’m a person, and these are jeans? Why are they hot on me? And I, like, don’t have an ass!”
Kaitlyn pulled out her iPod, opting to be antisocial over listening to Taylor for one more moment. She turned the volume on low; she knew everyone would tease her so badly if they knew what she was listening to: she had downloaded an entire playlist of Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus music.
“Kaitlyn.”
Kaitlyn was busy humming along to “Liberty Walk.”
“Kaitlyn!”
“What?” Kaitlyn quickly took out her earphones.
“Did you remember Julian’s present?”
Kaitlyn nodded. “Of course.”
“What did you get him?”
Kaitlyn frowned. She didn’t think it was really any of Taylor’s business what she had got Julian. “Starbucks gift card.”
“For how much?”
“Taylor, seriously, why do you care? It’s not your present.”
“I just want to make sure everything is perfect.” Taylor shrugged. “And I think he’ll like a Starbucks gift card — even though it wasn’t on the list that I gave you.”
Kaitlyn didn’t even try to not roll her eyes. Taylor had handed out an extremely detailed list of presents that Julian would probably like, written out in bullet point with purple gel pen. Maybe she wouldn’t be failing if she put as much effort into school as she did on that list, Kaitlyn thought. Thinking about Taylor’s grades made her feel better about her own; she’d gotten a C on her in-class essay on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.
“Now, remember, meet me outside after class and pretend that you don’t know anything about his birthday before that,” Taylor ordered.
Jessica wandered off to meet Grace and Anna — she hadn’t been invited to this birthday party. In fact, Kaitlyn didn’t know who all had been invited. “Who’s coming?” she asked.
“Me, you, Keiko, Tristan, and Julian, obviously,” Taylor answered.
“Not Kageki?” Kaitlyn raised her eyebrows. “He’s, like, one of Julian’s best friends.”
Taylor shrugged. “My mom said I was only allowed to invite four people over,” Taylor explained.
The bus pulled up and they all began to get on. “Anna, that coat is so beautiful,” Taylor said, staring in awe as she got on.
“Oh, thanks, babe,” Anna said, laughing. “Guess where I got it?”
“Where?”
“Cromwell Gilly made it for me. He did a photoshoot for his portfolio last week, and this was one of his designs. He let me buy it off him.”
They all stared at it. “So pretty,” Kaitlyn whispered in adoration. It really was a magnificent coat, and it fit Anna to perfection.
“I think I’m going to ask Cromwell Gilly to make me my grad dress,” Anna said, considering.
“Grad? But that isn’t till next year,” Alexandra said in disbelief. “Why are you planning it so early?”
Anna shrugged. “Why not? It’s grad.”
Alexandra shook her head. “I haven’t even thought about grad yet. Besides,” she added pointedly, “the academy almost always has rehearsal during prom. I guess that doesn’t affect you though …”
Everyone looked up and stared at Alexandra. “What do you mean?” They looked back at Anna.
Anna smiled. “I think what Alexandra’s being sweet enough to mention is that I am not going to be at the academy next year. I wanted to keep it a secret, but —” she shrugged and looked at Alexandra.
“That was low,” Grace whispered to Alexandra, glaring at her. “You knew that she didn’t want anyone to know.”
“But Anna, why?” Tristan asked. He sounded close to tears. “You’ve been going to the academy as long as I have!”
“I know,” Anna sighed. “It’s been a difficult decision, but I just really wanted to make my grade twelve year a good one, you know?”
“So this is for sure?” Jessica said in disbelief. “You aren’t going to be here next year?”
“Actually,” Anna said, “I’m not going to be here in a few weeks.” She giggled.
“What?” Tristan half-screamed. “What do you mean?”
“My parents don’t think I should dance at the academy if I am going to leave anyway.” Anna shrugged. “The high school I used to go to in West Van runs on a semester system, so I’m just going to go there, and then I can take class at my old dance school.”
“But why?” Tristan wailed. “I thought you wanted to be a ballet dancer!”
“Yeah,” Alexandra agreed. “How do you expect to get any better if you leave the academy?”
Anna’s perfectly arched eyebrows popped up and she smiled, showing her dimples. “I don’t want to be a ballet dancer,” she said simply. “I love dance, but you don’t make any money dancing. I don’t want to do it for the rest of my life.” She shrugged and turned back to her lunch.
Kaitlyn stared at Anna. It was as though a basic tenet of her life had been disproved. What did she mean that she didn’t want to be a ballet dancer? How could she not?
The bus pulled up to the academy and they all tumbled out, still thinking of things that they needed to ask Anna. “Anna, Anna,” Taylor said, talking to her unafraid now that she knew she was leaving the ac
ademy,“do the Demidovskis know that you’re leaving?”
Anna shrugged. “I think my parents told them,” she said unconcernedly.
Out of them all, only Julian seemed unsurprised, aside from Grace and Alexandra, of course. Kaitlyn eyed him suspiciously, and then dropped back to talk to him. “Did you know about this?” Kaitlyn whispered.
Julian shrugged. “She didn’t tell me,” he said. “But I thought it was pretty obvious that she was going to quit. Come on, she went on vacation instead of doing a pas de deux with Tristan, and she didn’t even register for YAGP.” Kaitlyn followed Julian into the hallway, confused as to how someone as clueless as Julian could have noticed something that she didn’t. It had just never occurred to her that someone at the academy might quit, at least someone that was doing well. Now, if it had been Angela who had quit, that would have made sense …
After class, Kaitlyn avoided looking at Taylor, who kept unsubtly signalling her to hurry up. She got changed into her jeans and American Eagle T-shirt, took down her bun and attempted to brush out her hair, pulled her wet socks onto her sweaty feet, then put on her boots and her coat, and slung her bag over her shoulder. “Okay, I’m ready.”
“Omigod, finally!” Taylor exclaimed. “That took so long!”
“Uh, it took, like, seven minutes,” Kaitlyn protested, looking at her cellphone. She followed Taylor and Keiko upstairs.
“Now, go round to my mom,” Taylor ordered, “and I’ll trick Julian into coming around.”
“Okay.” Kaitlyn and Keiko exited by the side door as Taylor intercepted Tristan and Julian coming up the stairs.
