Abigail: Nice Girls Finish Last

by Bruno Bouchet

  She doesn’t stop there. Next call, an expensive clothes shop. I wander around looking aloof in my designer sunnies while Grace persuades the shop assistant I’m THE Vanessa Hudgens. Soon I’m trying on amazing outfits for ‘the premiere’ I have to attend tonight. The assistant believes the store owner’s promised a dress. It’s outrageous, totally wrong and, I have to admit, amazing fun. As we leave, with a great outfit all bagged up, the assistant stares at me while she punches out a ‘You’ll never guess who’s been in my store’ status update on her phone.

  Next it’s my turn. We can’t pay for a taxi back to the Academy but there is a young police officer standing by his patrol car just down the road.

  ‘Hello. My name is Pia. This is my friend Helga, vee are from Sweden. Vee are so lost!’ I say in the world’s worst Swedish accent. For a second I think he’s going to arrest me. My heart’s pounding and my hands are sweaty. Then he offers us a lift! I can’t believe it. This is better than performing at the Opera House – well not better than a solo but definitely better than the corps de ballet second row.

  As our police escort pulls up by the Academy, Tara and Sammy are standing outside draped over each other in that touchy-feely friends way of theirs. They stare at us as we run past and then back at the police car. Perfect, just perfect.

  The next day, the thrill of the hunt has worn off and I realise that technically I have just stolen a dress. I have to take it back. Grace wonders why, but isn’t it obvious?

  ‘I don’t want to be confused for a thief … or a B List celebrity,’ I say.

  ‘But we still had fun right?’ she asks.

  No argument from me.

  CHAPTER 3

  Until today the Prix de Fonteyn was something that was about to happen, but now it’s real. Saskia Duncan, the company’s youngest ever principal dancer is recovering from an injury and will be taking us for repertoire class. She knows how important the Prix de Fonteyn is. ‘Career defining’ is how she describes it. She’s agreed to let us start preparing now and gives us the afternoon off for it. I’ve got to find something perfect for my solo – something challenging that will showcase my technical superiority. First stop is the DVD library in the boarding house – the more DVDs I can grab, the less inspiration anyone else will have. I’m there before Tara so I’m hoping that I’ll have an advantage, but she bypasses the DVDs and goes straight to the board to write up her choice – Victoria from The Red Shoes, also known as the solo Saskia danced when she represented Australia in the Prix de Fonteyn. It’s a brilliant choice that makes the stack of DVDs in my arm look unfocused and ill-prepared.

  Tara wastes no time. By that afternoon she’s already got the red marker pen out and is colouring in her pointe shoes in the common room, subjecting Grace and me to her toxic fumes. She only stops when Ethan comes in. They went out last year and the tension’s still lingering. Ethan asks Grace to perform a piece he is choreographing for the Showcase that’s coming up, but she’s not interested. Of course Tara thinks she’s the natural choice for Ethan’s choreography. Wrong. Ethan asks me.

  ‘If it’s any good, can I use it in repertoire?’ If I’m going to help him out, I need a pay off – other than Tara’s face as she gets snubbed.

  Later at my first rehearsal with Ethan, I begin to regret my decision. His choreography is less than inspiring.

  ‘Abigail, stop trying to be so technical. Show me how you feel,’ he says. There it is again. What is it with the world’s obsession with feelings?

  ‘Do you even know what you’re doing?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s a work in progress,’ he says. ‘I think it’s about frustration and disillusionment.’

  ‘Could you show me the steps for that?’

  Speaking of frustration, Ethan’s sister, Kat, comes in. What part of ‘no longer at the Academy’ doesn’t she understand? I thought I was here to dance, but it seems I’m here to witness sibling banter about tonight’s dinner menu. I head out.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Ethan asks.

  ‘You should look for another dancer,’ I tell him. ‘Someone meek and compliant. And FYI – your choice of “disillusionment” music gives new meaning to the word bland.’

  I thought that would be the end of it, but Ethan doesn’t give up. The next day as I’m on my way to Saskia’s repertoire class, he tells me he’s got a much better idea of what he wants to get out of it. And he is rethinking the music.

  ‘If you want me to be Tara, I can’t. I can’t dance like her and I don’t want to.’

  ‘I want you to do it. Not Tara. Or Grace. You. No one else.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask, suspicious.

  ‘Because this piece should be angry and messed up and, frankly, more than a little frightening. No one does that better than you.’ I’m not sure whether I should take that as a compliment, but I like being the best. I’ll take it.

  In class, Saskia asks some of us to perform our pieces for the Prix de Fonteyn. I haven’t worked out what I want to do, so I pass. Tara jumps at the chance to reveal her Red Shoes. Technically she’s not perfect, but she is believable. The class thinks it’s good and bursts into applause. Saskia, not so much.

  ‘Look, full marks for attempting something so demanding,’ she says, ‘but, wow, I’ll need a moment to shake that one out of my head.’

  Tara is devastated. She thought she’d done well. Even I did, but Saskia can obviously see flaws the rest of us missed. She’s tough.

  After classes, I agree to another rehearsal with Ethan, but I need to see something better than what he was offering before. I have to admit his choreography’s improved.

  ‘I don’t mind that,’ I give him as much of a compliment as he deserves.

  ‘Needs to be fuller. Can you push the jeté a little further?’ he asks.

  Before I get the chance, another member of the Karamakov family interrupts us. This time it’s, Sebastian – Ethan’s father and the Company’s leading choreographer. Maybe he’s here to help Ethan, this could be a chance to get noticed by a complete ballet legend. No, there’s some family issue going on and I’m asked to leave. Sebastian is not a person to annoy, so I go. But I’d love to know what’s going on with the senior members of the Karamakov family.

  Over the next few days Ethan and I manage some rehearsal without family interruptions. Ethan’s really doing something different with his choreography. Sometimes, just for a few seconds I forget where I am and what I’m doing, feeling the music, as if I’m letting my body move on its own.

  Now I look forward to our rehearsals. This is why I came to the Academy – to work with someone that really wants to make something perfect and is prepared to put in the hours to do it. I even think I’ve found the perfect song. I don’t believe in fate, but I was listening to some music on shuffle on my player and up it came.

  I can’t wait to tell Ethan but when I arrive at our rehearsal there are five other dancers there, including Grace.

  ‘I woke up this morning and realised that with you the piece is fine,’ says Ethan. ‘But with six dancers, it’ll be spectacular.’

  Fine? What happened to no one else can to do angry and messed up like me?

  Grace makes nice, apologising for muscling in. I don’t say anything, it’s not her fault that Ethan doesn’t know what he wants. Of course she’s great without even trying.

  ‘Loosen it up Abigail,’ says Ethan. ‘You’ve gone all stiff. Look how Grace does it.’

  It’s too much. I get my turns wrong.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asks Ethan, clueless. ‘You had it perfectly yesterday.’

  ‘Yesterday I didn’t have to worry about anyone else.’

  ‘Don’t think about them,’ he says.

  ‘Which one is it – dance perfectly in sync or don’t think about them?’

  ‘Don’t obsess. I can see the cogs turning again.’

  We really had something going. It was becoming an excellent solo and now it’s a group piece. ‘Maybe that’s the way I dance,’ I say.

/>   On the day of the Showcase I’m not looking forward to performing. All I can do is focus on getting my steps absolutely perfect. Forget channelling anger and being messed up, I just need to get it right. At the venue, I’m warmed up before the other dancers have even arrived. It’s so unprofessional. They push into my piece and now they don’t even turn up on time.

  ‘Where’s Grace? And the others?’ I ask as Ethan arrives backstage.

  ‘I told them not to come,’ he says. ‘I’m an idiot. I’m competitive and paranoid and I panicked. There was nothing wrong with what we had. You, by yourself, that’s spectacular.’

  ‘You make this decision now?’

  ‘It’s better as a solo,’ he says. It was better, until he made me rehearse it a completely different way.

  ‘How can I go out there on my own when the choreographer doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing?’ I’m furious. Who could possibly dance under these conditions? I storm past him while he makes some pathetic comment about using my music. All he’s worried about is his stupid choreography and whether I’m still going to dance.

  So now the solo that was better as a group piece is better as a solo again. If he’d just done what I wanted him to do, wanted us to do, I wouldn’t be facing the prospect of going out there and making a complete idiot of myself. I’m panicking. I stop, pause and look in the mirror. I will not make a fool of myself. I never have, I never will. I just need to bring everything under control. I need to do this, I have to do it. Perfectly. I stare, waiting for the determination to appear in the mirror, but it just doesn’t come. Where’s my focus?

  ‘Hey! Ethan said you’re freaking out?’ Grace arrives to interrupt me.

  ‘Why would I be freaking out?’ I say, my hands shaking like a leaf.

  ‘I know you hate losing control, so if you need someone to dance with I don’t mind,’ says Grace.

  Ethan’s behind her, looking nervous. ‘We’re on in thirty seconds,’ he says. I look at him and I know I’ve got to do it. The piece is a solo. My solo. It was messed up and angry he wanted and that’s what he’ll get. That will have to be my focus, it’s my best chance.

  I’m onstage, alone in the dark as the spotlight comes. I’ve never been so scared of dancing before. The music starts and my body moves before I tell it. Suddenly I’m dancing without thinking. My body is angry, confused, expressive and my mind … my mind just is. It works, I’m great. Ethan was right, no one does angry like me.

  CHAPTER 4

  Two days before our chorey assessment is due, Grace demonstrates her usual level of dedication by announcing she has ‘some thoughts’. Like I’d still be at the ‘thoughts’ stage now.

  ‘It’s due in two days,’ I tell her. ‘Ethan’s been helping me with a solo.’

  ‘Another one?’ she asks, disappointed.

  Ethan claims my choreography is ‘cluttered’. I need to demonstrate everything that I’m capable of in this piece, but he’s right. When I strip it down and stop trying to include so many moves, it flows better. Ethan and I work well together. We’ve got a strictly professional relationship but Grace throws a romance spanner into our smoothly operating works.

  ‘The chemistry in this room. Out of control. I literally have goosebumps!’ she says as she watches us rehearse.

  I look at her blankly. There is no chemistry, just mutual dedication to dance perfection.

  ‘I get it. You’re not ready to go public yet. My lips are sealed,’ she says.

  ‘That was weird,’ Ethan comments after she leaves.

  ‘She has a warped imagination. I’ll start from the jeté entrelacés?’

  I try to move past him to get into position but he moves the same way. We touch. We look in each other’s eyes. And there it is, Grace’s spanner ruining everything.

  I catch up with Grace later to ask what gives with the unhelpful innuendo.

  ‘Just telling it like it is,’ she says, all-knowing.

  ‘He’s earnest. He’s shiny. And he fell for Tara, so add weak-minded to the list.’

  ‘Well good. I hate it when friends disappear because of some guy.’

  Good? It’s not good. I need his help with my chorey assessment and now we can’t even be in the same room.

  ‘I’ll probably fail my assessment,’ I complain.

  ‘We’ll whip something up,’ she offers. Looks like my solo is off the program for the chorey assessment.

  I find Ethan in the rehearsal studio later to break the bad news but he’s already been researching some ideas to improve my piece. I look at him being all earnest and shiny and something gives. I can’t just drop him. Maybe I can delete the word chemistry from my hard drive until after the assessment. Rehearsals resume and when we’re alone, concentrating on dance with no family, no Grace, no chemistry-induced awkwardness, it works. It’s professional, like minds working well with real dedication and chem – No, not reinstalling that word. Absolutely not.

  For his chorey assignment, Ben’s organised a flash mob event on one of the harbour ferries. He ropes us all into it. As we wait at the station to get a train to the Quay I talk to Grace about how good working with Ethan is.

  ‘Yes, it’s weird but we’re both ambitious. We’re both focused.’

  ‘Sounds hot,’ Grace says.

  ‘We could be like the new Natasha and Sebastian of the ballet world,’ I say without thinking. I can’t believe I’ve just compared Ethan and myself to his ballet royalty parents.

  The flash mob’s fun, even if Ben and Sammy failed to establish whether the ferries were running today and we have to perform on the train instead. Afterward we head to the rotunda overlooking the harbour. Ethan and I are sitting on a bench, talking. It takes me a few moments to realise we’re not even talking about my chorey assessment. I need a time out, there’s real danger that we might get unprofessional. I can’t believe I’m falling for the Ethan Karamakov charm – just like Tara and all the gushing ballet girls before her. Could I really be another Dance Academy cliché? I go to get some drinks to give myself some breathing space.

  In the short walk to the café and back my mind races from cutting him dead for the rest of the year to imagining us touring Europe together. His choreography, my performance, thunderous applause, rave reviews. It’s stupid, but hey, we’ve just danced in the corridor of the 2.15 City Circle train, stupid is trending today. I’m half way through a standing ovation in Paris when I come back to see Grace on the bench next to Ethan. They’re kissing. Ethan is kissing Grace. I can’t believe how stupid I’ve been. I let my guard down, lose focus for one second and this happens … I have to escape, leave them to their irresistible urges.

  Grace runs after me. ‘I have no idea what just happened. I was talking to Ethan. Trying to suss out what was going on with you guys and … then his tongue was down my throat,’ she says.

  I don’t care who did what. It’s a wake-up call. I’m here to dance, here to focus and nothing else. Grace is dogged in her good friend routine, determined that I’ll believe her, and I guess I do.

  ‘You okay?’ she asks.

  ‘I was rejected by someone I wasn’t even interested in. I’m fine.’

  CHAPTER 5

  If there’s one person I can rely on to distract me, it’s Sammy and his bad dancing. Christian’s supposed to be my partner for pas de deux, but he decides he’s got something better to do than show up at our mid-year exam. A Tara-trauma no doubt. Sammy steps in for him with his usual ‘trust me I won’t let you down’. Is it any surprise that he drops me? It is his signature move. At least with searing lower back pain and the threat of a broken coccyx I’m not thinking about Ethan.

  Sammy comes with me to Dr Wicks, the Academy doctor. Fortunately I’ve only suffered bruising. Sammy, being Sammy, has to turn my drama into his crisis. He starts having chest pains and breathing problems in the surgery. While Dr Wicks takes his blood pressure, Sammy plans his funeral.

  ‘My family will want to do a traditional Jewish funeral but if it comes to it I w
ant a beach memorial. My favourite song. Some classic Sammy stories. A bit of dancing. Write that down.’ He actually expects me to take notes.

  It’s not a heart attack, it’s a caffeine overdose from all the energy drinks he’s been downing. With his typical twisted logic he’s been practically mainlining energy drinks so he can work for hours in a grungy café to pay his fees. But he’s working so hard to stay at the Academy he’ll probably fail his exams anyway. As we head back, he doesn’t care. He’s all joys of life after his ‘near death’ experience, smelling the salt in the harbour and ‘apple blossoms’ in my hair.

  ‘I’m not going to fail,’ he says. ‘I’m going to get the scholarship. You saw me in pas de deux this morning. I’m …’

  ‘… deluded if you think you danced well.’

  ‘You really think that?’ he asks.

  I don’t want to hurt him after his ‘brush with death’ but he needs to know the truth. ‘You’ve gone backwards since last year.’ He’s taken aback, his newfound love of life deflated, but he knows I’m only saying it to help him.

  With the last of our exams, the semester’s over, but there’s no real break. Prix de Fonteyn prep classes are about to start. Ethan hasn’t got the message from my total lack of response to his phone messages. He’s got the nerve to think I would still want his help in preparing my classical solo. Not happening.

  ‘Unfortunately the choreographer – dancer relationship is based on trust,’ I tell him.

  ‘Okay, I’ll go out on a limb. This is about Grace launching herself at me the other day.’ Genius, obviously psychic.

  ‘She wasn’t the one doing the launching.’

  ‘Someone’s playing games here Abigail,’ he says, ‘and it’s not me.’