Chapter Ten
“They say it was sprained, if not fractured,” Gregor tells me at dinner that night.
“Huh?” I ask. The hours that had passed as the ambulance came and I had stepped in as the understudy, seemed to pass by in a haze. Madame had accompanied Eric to the hospital, and Mr. Schlewp had taken over the session, but not allowed us to dance under the dire warning from Madame.
“I overheard Angela talking with Madame Roussou. Apparently, he hasn’t been practicing or stretching to accommodate freestyle dancing, and only continuing to do ballet exercises. He didn’t think it was necessary for them because dancing is all he does anyway. Freestyle, combined with the ballet moves, is a completely different way of dancing, using completely different muscles sometimes. He didn’t account for the fact that he would be in a nontraditional costume, and interacting with props. He tripped over one of the props on the floor that was being used. He went down, and the rest is history,” Gregor explained.
I had just gotten done from a grueling session with Madame, who demanded I stay over the Christmas break for extra sessions to catch me up to speed with the rest of the leads. I was tired and ached all over, and she was going with Eric tomorrow for more x-rays, which would give me one blissful morning of peace and quiet as she accompanied him to the hospital. He had come back in a cast and the entire company fawned over him, as Madame cornered me and immediately began to work on my subpar form.
When that session had gotten over, I was still in a daze as I made my way to the dining hall. On the one hand, the stress of not having to worry about Gregor and Eric becoming too close was gone. But on the other, my malcontent had grown exponentially over the last couple of weeks. Internally I was berating myself, thinking I was a terrible person for secretly being relieved. An injury like that could potentially cost Eric his entire career if he doesn’t follow exact doctor’s orders. As much as I dislike the guy and don’t like him close to my boyfriend, I would never wish an injury like that on another dancer.
I barely touch my dinner as I listen to Gregor and the others recount what had happened. After a few moments, Angela begins to cry into her salad, having been terribly affected by the loss of her lead in Swan Lake. Gregor turns to me as others dole sympathy on her, with the exception of Katarina and I, because this could potentially be the break I need in my own career.
“Do you want to go upstairs and get away?” Gregor asks softly.
“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea,” I murmur. We quietly excuse ourselves as Angela continues to sob. The drama department is hanging on her every word as we retreat out the door. I vaguely feel bad for them that they have been sucked up into her drama, but then she’ll fit with them nicely at the end of the musical. She had been cast as Mimi, the lead female who comes with her own set of drama and issues, so Angela will have no problem fitting the role well.
I trudge up the stairs heavily. Tonight it feels like I’m marching towards a prison sentence than a place of respite.
When we get out onto the roof, Gregor turns to me and says, “I won’t let you break up with me. Not over this. His accident was not your fault,” he says quietly.
I blink at him, and then I feel anger rage through me. “Not my fault? How is it not my fault? I practically willed the guy dead and then this happens. I loathed you for being so close to him when I couldn’t touch you! You never noticed me standing there watching you when those moments came, and it felt like I was dying inside when you didn’t see me. So, tell me again, how this is not my fault.”
“You didn’t put that prop there. And you didn’t cause Eric to neglect his duty and diligence as a performer to himself and the company. His arrogance caused his accident. Ballet isn’t the only form of expression. Now, as for ignoring you, we both figured this issue would come up at some point, and we agreed to work through it when the time came. Well, here it is. I told you it changes nothing between us, and I meant it. I won’t let you throw away what we have, because I still honestly believe we are better for having it,” he finishes.
I pace the rooftop, angry and confused. It would be so much easier if I just broke things off with him and focused, like I originally intended, on the dance. It would be easier, in theory, but having to work with him daily now? Being that close, there is no way I wouldn’t want to be back in his arms again. I don’t know what to say, so I continue to stomp around the rooftop as he watches me.
A couple of times I pause and look at him, ready to say something, anything, but the words get stuck. Finally, I blurt out, “you can’t force me to be in a relationship with you.”
I feel stupid the minute I say it. Anger flares in his eyes and I wonder at what his breaking point is. I know I’m new to the gay relationship ventures, but at some point, his endless amount of patience is going to run out with me. However, he takes a deep breath and releases it, indicating that it is not going to be tonight.
“You’re right. I can’t force you to be in a relationship with me. I can however, point out that we have something between us. Something neither one of us can deny. If you need some space while you get your head in the game, if you want me to back off a little while you get accustomed to the schedule, I can back down. But I am not going anywhere. Remember that. When you’re ready, you come and find me because I’m right here.”
With that, he turns and walks back to the door to leave me with my thoughts. He props it open so that I’m not locked outside, and I take a few steps toward him as he turns his back and leaves. I’m not sure what I would say to him. “Stay. Don’t go. I’m an idiot and don’t know what I’m doing.” All seem like perfectly plausible things to say, but when I open my mouth to say them, the words get stuck somewhere between my brain and my emotionally confused heart. I kick gravel at the door in frustration and turn away.
The tracks from where we have danced together are all over the roof. Some of the paths are beginning to fade under the elements, but most of them are in wide swooping circles. I walk some of the arcs in an attempt to clear my head. I consider putting some music on from my phone and dancing my stress away, but I realize for the first time in as long as I can remember, my reason for dancing, the desire and passion I have for it, is gone. It just walked through that door and walked away from me in the form of Gregor. To chase after him now would be desperate. He’s not wrong, I need to work through some of my emotions before I go to him again.
I sink to my knees and rock back and forth for a long time as I try to sort them out inside. But the more I try, the more jumbled they get. I continue to rock myself when the rain starts. It beats down on me in hard pelting, torrential downpours, and it feels like my soul is weeping right along with it. This is where I remain for a long while. It’s also where Katarina comes to find me, apparently hours later, when I didn’t turn up for our scheduled movie night. It was meant to help us relax for an hour or two before going to bed, because the next day would be just as hard and difficult. Katarina sits in the rain with me and when I next look up, tears are streaming down her face too.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” I ask.
“I told my parents I am switching programs.”
My stomach sinks. I can sense her world crashing down around her, just like mine has. “What happened?” I ask hesitantly.
“They told me they wouldn’t pay for me to attend Julliard if I do. I spoke with administration and I would have to do the work study program if I want to stay.”
The work study program isn’t bad, and she knows this. It’s the fight with her parents that has her completely wrecked like I am. I pull her into my arms, and we sit in the rain, drenched through to the bone on the rooftop, and we cry for ourselves and each other as we work through our misery. The only glimmer of hope remaining in us is that we have each other as best friends to get through all this. It’s what motivates us to get up out of the puddle of water, and return to the dorms to get dried and get some sleep. Somehow, we know we will find the will and the way to continue on the next day. We
fall asleep next to one another as we watch the dancing hippos in Fantasia.
Chapter Eleven
The next day I wake, and my arm is numb. I realize there is no feeling in it, because Katarina is lying next to me and using the crook of it as a pillow. I lie there, staring at the boring beige ceiling, wondering how on earth I am going to make it through the next few weeks of rehearsal with Gregor in such close proximity. It’s going to be torturous, to be that close but not truly have him. He’s given me the choice to come and find him, of course. But what does that really mean? Does he want me to divide my attention between him and dancing? He said that wasn’t it, but how do I choose a man who has given me an ultimatum I don’t understand?
I sigh and turn my head to the night stand.
“Oh no! Ohhhh no!” I sit up hastily, jostling Katarina awake.
“Hey!,” she glares at me.
“We’re late! We’re late for rehearsal!,” I panic. I rip my tights while pulling it on in a rush. “Damn it!” I snap as I grab my bag. “Come on Katarina, we’re late. Get up!” I shout at her.
“You might be late, but drama classes don’t start for another two hours.” She grumbles and rolls back over in my bed.
I had completely forgotten that the drama program starts at seven in the morning, not five. I grab my bag and dash out the door and down the navy blue and white colored hallways. I skid to a halt outside the studio door and peer inside. The entire company is halfway through warm ups as I push my way inside and grab the empty slot on the closest end of the barre.
“How good of you to join us.” Madame’s voice cuts through the soft swooshing of limbs from across the studio. I plie and move my right foot up into second position from first before bowing and moving to third.
“I’m sorry Madame,” I murmur. Her withering stare cuts through me as I bring my foot back into fourth position.
I half expected her to continue berating me in front of the entire class. It’s bad enough Eric is sitting in his cast in a metal folding chair in the center of the mirror watching all of us and smirking. When I hear the clunk of Madame’s cane on the floor as it approaches, I cringe in anticipation of what is to come.
She surprises me though. I feel her withered hand wrap around my arm and tug me away from the barre and toward the door. Is she kicking me out? I look desperately around the rest of the class whose faces remain mostly passive as I allow myself to be steered into the hallway. Angela and Eric are the only ones with the satisfied smug look on their faces, and a few of the other classmates almost look at me pityingly.
The door shuts softly behind us and I look back through the window one more time before I follow Madame as she stumps her way down the hall. She doesn’t say a word as she walks, and I dutifully follow her, all the way through the school and into the auditorium.
When we get there, she climbs the stairs on the side of the stage and I walk behind her as she walks around the stage and looks out over the rows and rows of red velvet seats that sit empty, but sit, looking back at us like blank faces, waiting for the performance to begin.
“Do you know why I picked you to come to Julliard?” she asks suddenly. I stop beside her as we stand center stage and look out over the rows of empty seats.
“Because of my performance in Lord of the Dance,” I answer promptly. My performance had been flawless.
“No. I may have been in attendance at that performance, but that isn’t why I even deemed you worthy enough to speak to after that dance.”
“I’m confused then, Madame.”
“I picked you because you tried. You, the little Irish boy from Boston, got up on that stage despite the fact that you have that God awful red hair and the fact that you’re an inch shorter than the typical six-foot Danseur.”
“I still don’t understand, Madame. Of course, I tried. I rehearsed for that performance for months.”
“Ah, yes. You still don’t understand what I mean. Any dancer is going to practice until the moves are flawless. That is the expectation. So is getting to rehearsals on time, and wearing the appropriate, neat and tidy apparel, I might add.” She gives my tights a shrewd look and I cross my leg behind the other, rubbing the back of my foot in a pretend motion to hide the rip. She continues, ignoring the motion. “Eric is always going to have an advantage over you. He will always be better technically because he has the dancer’s body type. His presence with his dark hair and his dark eyes, stands out in a way that won’t for you. If anyone notices you, it will be because of your differences, but that isn’t necessarily a good thing.”
If Madame is trying to make me feel better about anything, she sure does have a round about way of doing it, but then she has often proven to march to the beat of her own drum.
“Eric always has been and always will be, the best.”
“OK,” I’m still not sure where this is going.
“The reason Eric will never see more than ten years as a dancer, however, is because he doesn’t try.” I raise my eyebrows at her, jaw dropping. “Sure, he can perform the moves, but he doesn’t need to try to work hard at them, because he has always been cast into the favorable light, making it easier for him by far. You, on the other hand, will always have to work hard. You’ll always have to make sacrifices and you’ll always prove to people time and time again that where you belong is on the dance floor, because whether it is professionally or personally, that is where people are always going to find you. It’s where your Gregor found you that night after the announcement of the musical, but don’t make the mistake for one minute in thinking he was the only one watching you.”
“Madame-“
She waves her hand, cutting me off. “I realize students think when I ask for sacrifices it means I’m asking them to cut out their personal lives, but in fact, it doesn’t. I’m asking students to sacrifice the typical college behavior. The drinking and the parties and the late nights. That does not include their reason for dancing. What makes them passionate that they are so overwhelmed with emotion, that they must express it with the use of their bodies. That day on the stage in Boston, you had something to say. You were telling the whole world you were the Irish underdog, but you were going to dance until there were scorch marks on the floor and smoke on your heels just to show everyone. I admired that. How hard you tried. That is why I chose you for Julliard.”
“And how does this all pertain to me being late for class this morning Madame?” I ask softly. I had never thought she had seen anything special in me, rather it was the recruiter who found, whatever it was that they were looking for and pushed her to it. In the year and a half that I have known Madame, I should have realized she isn’t the kind of woman to be pushed to anything she doesn’t want to do.
“Not a damn thing.”
I stifle a laugh. Usually when she swears at us, it is in rapid French. We’ve all come to pick up some of her sayings and understand on a level of how screwed we are from, “Mon Dieu, aide-moi s'il te plait” to “Bon sang! Comment puis-je enseigner les babouins avec les pieds de plomb?”
“I’m telling you all this,” she explains, “because you have a chance here, not just with Swan Lake, but with this musical. To show everyone how hard you try. At the end of a dancer’s career, they need to look back on it and without a shadow of a doubt, say to themselves that they danced until they simply couldn’t dance anymore.”
“Yes, Madame.”
“I don’t know what is going on with you, Eric, and that Gregor kid. What I do know is when you started choreographing your piece for the audition and I watched you dance here on the stage in an empty auditorium, you had something else to say. Whatever that was, you need to find it again, Colin. Because that’s the kind of dancing I want to see when you perform on Valentine’s Day,” she finishes.
Madame had never indicated whether she approved or disapproved of relationships. I always had the preconceptions that she wanted dancers to focus on their career. It appears as if she is saying she wants her dancers to embrace w
hatever makes them passionate about the dance. I stare at her a long moment before I ask,
“Why did you bring me here this morning?”
“Because, we need to get you up to speed. Eric can run the class in my absence. But as understudy, you know all the moves. You’ve rehearsed, and you’ve worked until you could perform the steps in your sleep. Now you need to try to dance.”
She walks over to a chair on the side of the stage and sits down. I stare at her a moment, wondering what she wants me to do, and then I look out into the auditorium, feeling stupid that I’m going to dance for an old woman, without music or an audience, and somehow feel like I am connecting with the passion for dancing. I look back at her one more time and she nods, resigned not to say another word until I show her what I have been repressing for weeks now. I briefly wonder why she chose me as understudy, if she felt like I have something more than Eric, but then she had already answered that question for me too. She’s grooming Eric. Grooming him to be the exceptional dancer, for the next ten years, and then he will move on to something like teaching and coaching, just like her. I smile at the knowledge that she has faith in my passion that I will continue even after the optimum age and let that burning light inside me shine through.
I close my eyes and begin to move, swaying side to side, searching for the internal rhythm that has almost been extinguished. I find it, deep down as I sashay to the right, avoiding a puddle on the rooftop. I pirouette, letting the rain drops spray from my limbs as I move across the roof. I open my eyes, faltering a little as I arabesque on the stage and catch sight of Madame, but I quickly bow deeper into the move, bending low before the image of my Dad, almost as if begging for his acceptance. I rise and take a running leap, as I grand jeté towards the fantasy of Gregor on the opposite side of the stage standing there with open arms. I soubresaut with Katarina, jumping up and down swiftly and suddenly as we celebrate in excitement her decision to change majors, something we should have done to begin with last night on the rooftop, instead of becoming depressed and melancholy because of the actions and judgments of others.
Dear Valentine Page 8
