Tiny Pretty Things

by Sona Charaipotra

  Buoyed by my first find, I continue my search. I comb through the desk drawers. Other findings come fast: a stash of stuff from Alec, little mementos that she’s kept in the file drawer of her desk. A Valentine’s Day card from last year, photos of them dancing in performances throughout the years. One from when they were maybe about seven—cherubic and haloed, their blond heads and blue, smiling eyes, like a matched set. Then another one of them around ages ten or eleven, filled out, but still quite startlingly similar, as if they could be siblings. But the next few shots would easily dispel any such notion—there they are doing their pas in Don Quixote, the joy clear on their faces, and then playing on the beach, Alec’s arms around Bette’s bikinied body, casual and relaxed and oh so intimate. I’ve seen evidence of much worse, but the image burns my eyes and my heart, further proof of how well they fit and how mismatched Alec and I really are. What am I thinking? What am I doing here? Why am I torturing myself? Why can’t I trust that he likes me?

  I stash the photos back in the drawer and tiptoe toward the closet. I browse through the clothes—expensive dancewear and Bette’s always-fabulous dresses, all size zero, naturally. Along the floor are sky-high heels, couture goodies that probably cost as much as a year at the conservatory.

  I stroke the cashmere sweaters neatly stacked on the shelves, finding myself coveting, once again, what Bette has. I try to snap myself out of it. I should get out of here. But then, there’s one more box, a pretty damask-print cardboard box on the floor that’s calling my name. I can’t not look.

  Kneeling down, I gingerly lift the top. Inside is a disorganized mess of paper—meal and clothing receipts, Bette’s signature scrawled across the bottom of many. I dig through them, and they lay out an itinerary of extravagances—meals at the Russian Tea Room and Jean-Georges, her fancy frocks, the finest dancewear imported from Europe. And then, there it is. Completely out of place. Six dollars spent for two frosted cookies and a latte from the coffee shop around the corner. On Valentine’s Day. 12:07 p.m. During our lunchtime. Irrefutable proof. As much as she denies it, it’s been Bette all along. She’s done it all.

  I stash the receipt in the back pocket of my jeans and put the lid back on the damask box.

  And just as I’m about rise and leave, satisfied, I hear a voice.

  “What are you doing?” Eleanor asks, standing in the doorway, her face startled and a bit worried as she looks from the box to me and then to the box again.

  “I . . . uh . . . I thought . . .” But I don’t know how to finish that sentence. There is no reasonable explanation. There’s only me and my paranoia and the proof that’s burning a hole in my pocket.

  “You shouldn’t be in here,” Eleanor says. But her face has softened and her voice is low, as if she won’t tell my secret. She’s all sweaty from class, and I wonder if it’s over yet.

  “I just had to know,” I say, my voice rising, the pitch guilty as I walk toward Eleanor and the door, as if I’m the one who’s done all these things wrong. “I had to see for myself. And you know I was right.” I find myself pulling the receipt out of my pocket, shoving it under her nose. “See, here it is. Valentine’s Day.”

  Eleanor looks truly surprised and sincerely worried. “Where did you find that?”

  I point to the box. “There,” I say. “With all of Bette’s stuff. She’s the one. She’s been torturing me. All the little things. And the big things.” I can feel the tears slipping down my cheeks. One, then two, then an endless stream. “It’s all her.” I’m shaking now, and I’m so, so humiliated. But at least now I know.

  “Gigi,” she says. “I . . .”

  “You can’t tell anyone,” I say, suddenly urgent. I have to get out of here. I have to pull myself together. “You can’t tell Bette.”

  “I won’t tell anyone.” She looks down at the receipt, and her face does a funny thing, between a startle and smirk, as she processes. She bites her bottom lip. “Gigi, it was me.”

  “What?” I say.

  She takes a deep breath. “I did that.”

  “The cookie?”

  “Yeah.” She shakes her head. “And the roaches.”

  “It was disgusting,” I say. “Why?”

  “Bette, Liz, and even Will and I used to do stuff like that. It’s embarrassing to even say out loud, and I’m sorry. The cookie was sitting on my desk for days. The roach trap was from the basement,” she says. Her face is the color of strawberries. “I just . . . I got caught up in it all. I got a good role, and . . . I left the receipt in Bette’s things. I should’ve thrown it out. I don’t know—”

  “Why should I believe you? You’re Bette’s best friend. Why are you telling me this?” I ask.

  She knits her hands in front of her. “Honestly, I feel terrible about it. I wanted to tell you so many times. Apologize. It was childish.”

  “Why would you do that? Do you hate me or something?” I say, breaking Mama’s cardinal rule of not asking questions I don’t necessarily want the answers to.

  “A little part of me does,” she admits, and I don’t feel like it’s a threat. “We’ve just been here so long, worked so hard. And you—” She grabs a new pair of tights and shoes. “There’s no excuse, really. I’m sorry. I won’t do anything else again.” She hugs me before I can answer.

  “Please don’t tell Mr. K,” she says. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t tell him what I did.” She squeezes me tighter.

  I don’t push her away, but I don’t hug her back either. I came looking for answers, and what I found is even worse than I thought. If kind, sweet Eleanor could hate me, could do such awful things, then what might the others have in store for me?

  35

  Bette

  GIGI LINGERS AROUND IN STUDIO E where I’m supposed to practice with Henri. I wish she’d just leave. It’s already going to be torturous dancing with him again, and I don’t need her watching us, making it worse. I stretch my leg across the barre and ignore Gigi. I wonder why she’s hanging around. I remember how she let him stretch her during that week after The Nutcracker cast list went up. Tease. Is she going to take him, too? Date both him and Alec?

  She marches over to me. “Why do you keep sending me stuff?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Is this another one of your crazy theories?” I say, pushing deeper into my stretch and reveling in the pinch of anxiety in her voice. I look back at Henri, who hasn’t looked up from his floor stretch to watch.

  “The letters,” Gigi says. “Really crazy, Bette!” And she isn’t lying about that part.

  “Letters?” I say, even though there they are in her hands. Alec’s words about how much he loves me, my breasts, all the things we loved to do together, the tops of my thighs, the scent of my hair, how we’ll get married one day. A version of our love story. And that is a hundred times worse than having Gigi look at me with hate and accusation and pity.

  “Where’d you get these?” I say, but I stumble over those words because I’m so stunned by the look of those letters in the studio light. They look a thousand times more psychotic now.

  “Come on,” Gigi says.

  “Maybe you took those from my room?” I say. She thinks that I don’t know she was in my room. That I don’t have a way of getting Eleanor to tell me anything and everything. That I don’t know when my things have been touched. But this is my school and information isn’t kept from me here. That much hasn’t changed. “You were snooping in my room, weren’t you? You thought I wouldn’t find out about that?”

  Her face contains so many emotions at once. Confusion. Fear. Anger. She opens her mouth, no doubt to defend herself. I try to take the letters from her hands. I want them back anyway. I can’t let her go to Alec with them.

  “You did everything!” She’s practically shrieking. “You’re not fooling me! Eleanor told me. I bet you push her into stuff. After our talk I thought may
be . . . but this is actual proof! You did . . . the GLASS in my slipper, too!” She’s crying now, wringing the letters in her hands like they’re dirty dish towels. At last I’m close enough to pull them out of her grip, but she won’t let go.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say, but she’s too far gone. “Give me the letters,” I say through clenched teeth. She’s holding them up, and screaming about all I’ve done.

  “She’s harassing me! She’s trying to hurt me!” Gigi shouts to people passing by the door. All of them stand frozen by her accusations. Freshmen, sophomores, juniors. All upper ballet levels. I’m lucky the seniors are away on auditions. Level 8 girls don’t need to see this.

  Girls from the hallway pour in now.

  They make sympathetic sounds. Gigi’s muscles are flexing and trembling; no one wants to get anywhere near her.

  “Enough!” An RA pops into the room. The girls stick to the walls, their asses glued to the mirrors so they can watch like we’re some silly TV drama and not actual people.

  “She—she did everything,” Gigi says. Her hand is over her heart and she closes her eyes, taking a few wonky breaths. She looks like she is working damn hard to get herself under control, but I don’t have to try. For once, perfect Gigi is showing all her messy parts, and I am in a perfect first position with an unflinching face. Who looks crazy now?

  “I’m just trying to do my pas practice with Henri. She’s acting all crazy,” I say, my voice pitch-perfect, without a hint of distress. “And she’s stolen things from my room.”

  I feel the blood rising to my head with the fear that her accusations will stick, and I will get the blame for everything. Besides, I didn’t do all of it. There are other girls in this room with just as much to hide. With just as much reason to mess with her.

  The RA tries to usher Gigi out.

  “NO!” Gigi yells. The noise is a howl, an animal sound, a tortured crack of vocal cords more than an actual word. Her hands tremble, and she stumbles and looks like she might just fall over. “I’m not done yet.”

  “Yes, you are,” the RA says.

  Gigi throws the letters all over the floor. “You can have these, too.” She pulls out the rest of the naked photos of Alec and me, and adds them to the pile on the floor.

  I scramble to pick them up as others look on. That’s when Henri finally gets up, and he must catch sight of the pictures, because he raises one side of his mouth in the world’s most beautiful and terrible smirk. Then he grabs three pictures right off the floor.

  “Oh là là,” he says, putting his own French accent on extra thick, like he thinks that will somehow drive me crazy. Or drive Gigi crazy, since she’s the one he’s looking at. He has naked pictures of me in his hands. “Very pretty, Bette. Can I keep them?”

  “Gross,” I say.

  “You’re a true belle, Bette,” Henri says then, in a lower voice. The smirk is gone from his face and for a glorious moment I feel wanted again. Wanted and pretty and better than Gigi.

  “Do what you want with those, but I don’t ever want to see them again,” Gigi says, readying herself to leave. “Please just leave me alone, okay?” She rubs the tears away, and has the defeated look of someone who just lost the big game.

  “I’m keeping my ears open,” I say. “We’ll figure out who’s bothering you.” I don’t mean it as an offer in kindness, of course, but a reminder to her that I’m not the criminal, I’m not the one they’re all looking for. And to make sure that RA doesn’t think anything or go report anything about me.

  Gigi just shakes her head. And anyway, I meant what I said. I don’t want her injured and fragile, I just want her gone. The RA ushers her away like Gigi’s just learned her dog got run over by a car.

  And then she is gone, at least from the studio. The others follow. The show is over. The star has left. I exhale for the first time in too long. A loud sigh of a breath through my mouth.

  “You two really hate each other, eh? It’s kind of sexy.” Henri raises his eyebrows and I remember he still has my photos.

  “Give those back,” I say. He holds them above my head, out of reach. A girl like Gigi would jump up and down trying to reach them, but I am not that girl. Instead I cross my arms over my chest and wait for his arm to get tired. Look up at him with a look Alec used to like: wide eyes and a tilted head and a little pout. Henri laughs and lowers his arm. Flips through the pictures one more time before pocketing them. I make a sound in protest, but he cuts me off.

  “I mean it, Bette. You’re gorgeous. Not my type, really. Too icy. But objectively hot regardless.”

  It’s not like I need reassurance from Henri. It’s not like I need anything from the strange, mysterious French boy. Who is nothing.

  “Well, you weren’t acting like that when we were in the PT room or the last time we were out,” I say, not necessarily wanting to remember those two past moments, but I can’t let him win.

  “Hmm, maybe that was a mistake,” he teases. “Now Gigi—”

  “I know. Luminous. Amazing. I don’t need to hear it.” I turn to leave. I can’t possibly dance now. I prepare myself for a night in the dorms with the unfamiliar aloneness that is seeping into my life.

  “And if you’ve forgotten, you kissed me at the restaurant,” Henri says. “And you let me touch you in the water.”

  I want to say in order to shut you up. Instead, I sit down and undo my pointe shoes. “Whatever you think is happening here isn’t happening,” I say. Then he sits down next to me and takes hold of my foot in his hand. I fight him at first, but he doesn’t let go.

  I give him a kick. He takes it and doesn’t let go of my foot. He unwraps the tape circling my toes. My foot is bruised and damp and there’s nothing alluring about that part of my body right now—it only looks delicate when it’s wrapped in the pink fabric of a ballet slipper. Naked, it looks like it belongs to an ogre. He examines my toes, and for a second, I flinch, thinking he could snap one if he wanted.

  “Relax.” Henri kneads his knuckles into the aching flesh, and something in me gives in. It’s not just the expert way his fingers find the pressure points on the sole of my foot, the soft spots between each toe, the callouses on my heel. I also surrender to the way he looks at me while he massages my toes, the endlessness of his stare, and the fact that he isn’t scared to break me.

  I wait for him to bring up Cassie. I listen for her name, feeling it lurk beneath his every word.

  “You still want Alec.” There’s an echo in the now super-silent studio, and his words reverberate, hitting me hard, over and over. I wiggle away. He grabs my foot harder. I don’t want to be stopped by him, but doesn’t the truth always paralyze you? It does me. I can’t breathe because of how real those words feel.

  “I want to be on top. To be back in dance magazines, to get another endorsement deal,” he goes on. I barely hear. I haven’t even said those exact words in my own head, and I’m surprised to feel a give of relief in my chest. He releases my foot. I stand, trying not to let the ache in my knee show. I should run as fast as I can away from him.

  He follows close behind me, and I whip around before his hips press up against mine. I put a hand out until he walks directly into it. My hand presses into his chest. His eyes go narrow and his knuckles white and I can feel his thoughts racing around in his head.

  “Wouldn’t Alec just hate seeing you with me?” he says, the whisper of his voice hitting my throat, feeling too cramped. He takes another step, my elbow bends against his weight, and I don’t think he can get any closer to me.

  “Alec is pretty distracted these days,” I say. But of course I know he’s right. Even if Alec “really likes” Gigi like he says he does, he still doesn’t really like Henri. They’ve never gotten close despite being roommates. He would still be the worst person for Alec to see me with.

  “We can get his attention,” Henri says. His b
ody touches mine at all the parts where I blossom: my chest, my hips, my thighs. He puts his forehead to mine. “Don’t give up, pretty girl. When I get set on something, I get it. My maman says, ‘Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.’”

  I hate him even more for calling me pretty girl. I don’t know what his quote means, but I let his hands find my back, and it’s impossible not to give in to them. They are huge and strong and wrap around so much of my waist that it seems they could hold me up. And I haven’t been touched in so long, it feels good to let the warmth of his palms seep through my tights and to my skin. I could stop trying so hard. I could just give in.

  “It wouldn’t be so terrible, being with me. Driving them crazy. It might even be fun.” He speaks directly into my ear. “And we could dance so well together that we become the next It ballet couple.” He drums on the small of my back. “I could forget everything I know, if you help me.”

  I hate my body for going so weak at the combination of his accent and his hands and his warm breath. I breathe heavily. The world feels suddenly small and cramped. I’m so tired, I actually consider just letting him do what he wants. For once, couldn’t I just do the easiest thing?

  His touch is so different from Alec’s. Eager and aggressive. Like he doesn’t care what I did or did not do to his ex. He railroads straight through all the thoughts in my head of how this is a bad, bad idea. His lips find my earlobe and there’s the nip of his teeth on that soft centimeter of skin. I well up, not at the pain, which is tiny and a little sweet, but because having Henri touch me just makes me miss Alec’s touch. The controlled danger. The mutual, aching desire. I used to get lost in Alec’s touch, but Henri is pointed. Goal oriented.

  “You’re ridiculous,” I say, but it comes out with a hint of a pant behind it, and I know I’ve shown my cards. I’m turned on: not just from Henri being against me, muscles and dimples and all, but also at the idea of getting Alec back, taking control of my life, hurting Gigi, getting a photo shoot in a dance magazine that’s not bought by my mother’s money or my sister’s acclaim.