Shiny Broken Pieces

by Sona Charaipotra

  But I can’t.

  “Make sure you extend the leg fully in that first turn—that will set the tone for the whole variation.” She grabs my leg as it flies up, lifting it further, higher. I can feel the spasms shooting up from my calf to my thigh, making me shiver with pain. “Long, strong arms.” She lets go of my leg and lifts my arms next, pulling me this way and that like a marionette. I push her away and then pause, my hands on my knees, to breathe for a second. All my time at home, working with just Yuli, lowered my stamina. I walk to the edge of the stage and pick up a bottle of water.

  “What are you doing?”

  She pulls it right out of my hands. “You’ll lose all the heat, the momentum. We’ve still got to practice the fouettés. That’s the most difficult part.”

  “You don’t think I know that?”

  “I know that you know that. You’ve seen the ballet a hundred times. But you have to do it.” Her eyes burn into mine. “Now, the coda.”

  We practice the thirty-two fouettés for an hour straight. She can get it without stopping, without thinking, every single time. I have to work through it, every single time. “You’re thinking too much, Bette.” She yells. “Relax into it. Let go. Otherwise you’ll lose it, without fail.”

  She sends me spinning again, and I try to block everything out and focus. But my mind wanders to whether I’m smiling enough and if my hands look soft and if I’m up on my leg. I imagine finishing the final spin and the roar of the applause and how Alec’s arms will wrap around my waist, strong and safe, like they used to. At turn number twenty-three, I crash.

  “Bette.” Adele’s voice drills into my head. “If you’re going to join me at this level, you have to give it your all. You can’t think about other things, no matter what. American Ballet Company will only take two of you, and you’ve worked so hard for so many years. Don’t blow it now.”

  That stops me in my tracks. Failure is not an option for me. Especially not now that I’m so close.

  “I know. I just keep thinking about what you’re seeing. My hands, face, you know?”

  “Stop thinking. Just do it. Focus on how it feels. You’ll know it’s right then.”

  The music is reset and I start again, from the beginning. I let the quickening pace carry me like I’m a dark cloud floating around the room. I’m all impossibly long arms and out-to-forever legs. I’m all the grace of the swan and the frenetic energy of little blue pills and endless cups of strong black coffee. It’s like my heart is impatient, leaping, angry, and urgent.

  Adele watches, trying to keep the judgment off her face. But there it is, in the narrowing of her eyes and the two little frown lines that have settled in on either side of her mouth. I look at her now and see myself, but with all the softness worked out of me. I feel her exhaustion cover me like a blanket.

  “I need some water. Then I’ll start over.” I head toward the wings, grabbing my bag and a bottle of water. The little old custodian, the one who washes the floor every morning, gives me a wave. I frown in response. He knows we’ve got the stage till eight. He’s not supposed to be up here yet. I plop down on the stage, the opposite of grace, unable to move.

  I stretch out my muscles. They still feel buzzy and dead. I can’t do it again. “You know what, Adele, I can’t dance anymore today. I don’t know if I’ll ever get it.”

  “You will.” She walks over to me and offers a hand, a consolation. “Let’s do it one more time. Then we can call it a day.”

  I shake my head. “I’m done.” I uncap my water bottle and take another big sip, hoping the chill of it will calm me down. But all I can hear is the pounding in my ears. I close my eyes and let the darkness overtake me for a second, dropping my torso between my legs to cool off.

  “I’ll show you. Sit and watch.” She might as well pat me on the head and give me a lollipop.

  I start the music for her. She’s gone, somewhere far away, inside her head, where it’s just her and the sweet melody of the music. She’s far beyond my reach, and I feel a pang as I realize that I’ll never quite be her equal. I’m barely her shadow. I’ll never match the way she extends those legs sky-high, the way her arms arch and flow, with all the grace of a real swan. It’s breathtaking.

  She starts the thirty-two endless spins that are a signature of this ballet, a challenge for any ballerina. It’s almost like it’s automatic, the momentum and the velocity of it, like someone’s wound up a little knob on her and let her whirl off. Round and round she goes, and I want to look away but I can’t. It’s exciting and infuriating—to see something that beautiful. And to know you’ll never live up to it.

  I count the turns in my head. After her twentieth turn, she drops, just disappears out of my sightlines. Half her body has fallen through one of the trapdoors in the stage. Her arms flail overhead, grabbing hold of the edges of the stage, and she’s shrieking. I leap up and run toward her.

  “Betttttte!”

  Her arms and head are the only things above the floor. I try to tug her up, but she yelps in pain, so I let go. I’m trying to pull her forward again, more gently this time, when I hear heavy boots on the hardwood. The janitor appears.

  He clomps over. “Wait— Is she hurt? Don’t move her. You could make it worse.” He’s leaning in now, with his flashlight, letting the beam spill on her legs, her torso, her face as she blocks the sharp light. She’s whimpering now, her face white with fear and pain.

  “Hold on, we’re going to get you right out of there.” His voice soothing and warm. He pulls up his walkie-talkie and talks fast, requesting help and an ambulance. “They’re on the way.” He turns to me. “Did you see what happened?”

  My voice is shaky when I finally manage to speak. “I—she was doing the coda, the fouettés. But the trapdoor—”

  “Wasn’t supposed to be open. Nobody’s down there this time of morning.”

  The door was shut tight before. It was just the two of us—Adele and me. No one else.

  The EMTs come rushing through, dragging sleet across the stage and leaving wet stains on the hardwood. A tall dark-haired one in a blue uniform carefully lowers himself down into the trapdoor space, as others carry a gurney over, prepping it for Adele. He gingerly lifts her up to the stage, and I see her face explode with pain. That’s when the tears come. Hers and mine.

  “I was supposed to be dancing,” I say aloud.

  “What’s that?” one of the EMTs responds.

  “That was supposed to happen to me.”

  “You feeling okay?” The EMT reaches for my arm. “You should sit.”

  I follow her directions. She checks my blood pressure while they strap Adele onto the gurney. Nobody would ever want to hurt Adele.

  Me.

  Someone would want to hurt me.

  Adele cries out.

  “Shhhh,” the EMT whispers, dabbing her forehead with a cloth.

  Another EMT fires some questions our way. “What happened? How did she fall?” Then he asks Adele: “Can you move your foot? Your leg?” She whimpers in response.

  “Are you related?” the first EMT asks me. I nod. “How old is she? How old are you? We need to call your parents.”

  It’s all rushing back, the sirens and chaos of that night Gigi nearly died. This feels so familiar. But the real question is: Who did it this time?

  30.

  June

  “E-JUN KIM?” THE LADY BEHIND the registration desk riffles through the stack of papers for a third time. “Are you sure you’re slotted for today?”

  I nod my head again, and the flush creeps up my neck to my cheeks. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, I remind myself. It’s just a clerical mistake. But so far, the whole trip to San Francisco has been one huge mistake.

  It’s Valentine’s Day. I should be at home with Jayhe, celebrating with kisses and even coconut cake. But we haven’t talked since that night at his little cousin’s birthday party. Now here I am, almost three thousand miles away, and everything’s gone wrong. When I got here,
the hotel gave me a hard time checking in, since my name wasn’t on my mom’s credit card and I didn’t have a note with her signature. Then I couldn’t figure out which trolley to take here this morning, so I took a cab, which cost me fifty bucks. Now they can’t find me on the audition roster.

  It must be a sign. I can’t move to San Francisco. It’s the last place I should be. Besides, everything here reminds me of Gigi—I feel like she’ll be on the next trolley or in the diner down the street from the hotel or here at the dance company, where she’d fit right in, and I feel so out of place.

  “Oh, E-Jun Kim.” The woman’s dimples swallow her face. “We have you under June. Sorry. I don’t know where my head is today. You’re in batch B—which goes on in half an hour. I’d warm up now if I were you.”

  I try not to roll my eyes. Does she think I’m new at this? This is the fifth audition I’ve done in the last month. But the others—DC, LA, Salt Lake, and Miami—all came to New York for castings. So I just walked to midtown, instead of going cross-country. I don’t know if I’m cut out for California, but I’m here, so I’ll give it my all. I have to.

  She hands me a number—44. The number four is bad luck in Korean culture, at least according to my mother, which means I’m already off to a terrible start. I try not to freak out. “Any chance I can get a different number?” I ask.

  “Next,” she calls, ignoring me completely.

  “It’s just a silly superstition,” I tell myself as I walk to the ladies’ changing room, where I pull on my tights, leotards, and ballet slippers, and put my stuff into a locker. I’ll have to deal. I check my phone again, hoping for a call from my mom or, really, a text from Jayhe saying break a leg, or thinking about you. I miss those. I ponder texting him, just for a second, but part of me knows it’s pointless. I don’t think he wants to hear from me again.

  I look around the studio. It’s all glass and metal, not unlike ABC. These companies, they’re all the same, but different.

  I follow a numbered crowd into a warm-up studio, which is sweltering with the heat of too many bodies. The barre is filled with dancers of every shape and stripe—statuesque blondes that remind me of Bette, willowy Asian girls like me. But as much as I keep thinking I’ll see her any second, no one looks like Gigi in this room. She’d stand out, even here.

  I plop down on the floor and spread my legs into a V, determined to warm up despite the thick crowd. I lean forward and touch my toes, letting my torso drop between my legs. The stretch shoots down my thighs and into my calves until it reaches my toes. I point and flex, point and flex. Then I lie down like a dead frog, knees apart, flat to the ground, opening up my hips and getting them ready to turn out.

  I look for a space at a barre. That’s when I see Sei-Jin, in the far corner. She’s not facing me, but I recognize the long black hair, pulled taut in a bun, the mole that sits on her neck adjacent to her right ear. I recognize the familiar way her arms move up and over and down, but the fingers curl, never quite extending enough no matter how many times Morkie corrects her. I remember telling her it would hold her back, when we were still friends.

  I back away from the barre, hoping to make it out of there without her seeing me. What happened to Princeton and Yale and Brown? I thought she’d given up on ballet. But, I realize with a start, maybe people think the same thing about me.

  “Batch B,” the lady with a clipboard announces, “you’re up.”

  I rush to follow her out the door, but I can sense Sei-Jin not far behind me. She hasn’t noticed me yet, but she will in a minute. The last thing I need here is a scene.

  “You five first. Line up,” the clipboard lady announces. She points to me and four other girls—including Sei-Jin, today dubbed number thirty-nine. She’s magically by my side, her mauve mouth smirking at me, an eyebrow rising when she sees my unlucky number. She does a little wave.

  They hand us each a fan, and announce that we’ll be doing Kitri’s fan variation from Don Quixote. We learned this in class back in Level 6. We spent weeks perfecting how to hold a fan while doing simple jumps. “No chicken wing arms,” Madame Dolinskaya would holler at us. “Big, bold Spanish arms. Bigger, bigger!” I always had trouble getting into character. But I’ve been working on that with Bette, so I know I can handle this.

  “Wait your turn stage right.”

  We line up along the edges of the studio. The other three girls in front of me are white, brunettes. They all look alike to me—although they probably look at Sei-Jin and me and think the same. We’re mirrors, despite my short bob, now starting to grow in, and her long dark hair, pulled into a proper bun.

  A ballet mistress goes over the steps once as a refresher. Then, one at a time, we’re called forward to the center.

  I mark the movements. I get to review them three times before I go on. Sei-Jin performs right before me, missing a step early on, then staying slightly off the beat for the remainder of the variation. Usually, I’d be filled with glee at this humiliation, but I can see the pain behind her pasted-on smile, and it breaks my heart. I’ve been there. We all have.

  “Number forty-four!” the ballet mistress calls, and I grimace, but manage to pull myself together. I saunter to the center, circling the space. I smile and bow at the line of ballet masters and mistresses sitting in front of the mirror. The music starts, loud and clear. I flash my fan, jump on my toes and prepare. The harp chords deepen. I press my hand against my hip and flutter the fan. The variation begins: arms wide, long steps, leg up. All you hear is the music and the clack of a fan opening. My movements are automatic, step, step, step, extended leg, plié. Slide the leg out and up, and turn. I do a quick crisscrossing of the feet and tiny taqueté hops with pointed toes.

  Remember to smile.

  Remember the quick, small fan flutters from the wrist.

  Remember a Spanish-style port de bras, arms extended over the head.

  The joy of the wedding dance lifts up from the center of me, floating like the celebratory bubbles in a glass of champagne. My face is rosy and flirtatious, the smile beckoning. I glide my toes forward, one after another, as I move from the left corner to the center, presenting the fan.

  I take a small bow, and exit. One other girl dances after me. We wait for them to let us know who’ll go on to the next round. I’m feeling good about my chances, and then the ballet master, a man with a thick Eastern European accent, calls out, “Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three.” He pauses. “The rest may go.” The rest. Sei-Jin and me.

  I don’t think I’ve heard him correctly. “Wait, what?”

  Sei-Jin steps forward to leave, and my hand reaches for her arm, holding her back.

  “But—” I can’t believe the word has escaped my mouth, and she looks as horrified as I feel. It’s not proper to acknowledge the rejection, to utter a word of pain or regret. Still, I can’t quite believe it. I did well. I know I did.

  “Yes, number forty-four?” The man’s voice drips with ice and disdain.

  “I’m sorry, I just—I thought I performed well.” I look at Sei-Jin, and her eyes are dark, desperate, begging me not to drag her into this. But a surge of confidence shoots through me.

  There’s dead silence in the room. When he speaks again, there’s a finality to his voice, which remains neutral, indifferent. “You certainly were spirited, and your technique was strong.” His eyes trace all the lines of me, from tip to toe. “Strong pointe, good expression, although a bit too practiced. The passion doesn’t scream authentic. But frankly, you’re not the right type for San Francisco. The look—too lean.” My head drops along with my heart, and he waits for me to lift my eyes, to look at him again before he dismisses me. “Honestly, I think you’ll find it difficult to get work without building some strength. It’s a risk most companies, financially and otherwise, are not willing to take.” He waves his hand, and I feel Mr. K’s shadow enveloping me. “Good luck in your search.”

  I will not cry. I keep telling myself this as I storm out of the room. I feel a hand
on my shoulder before I break down. It’s so familiar, the touch of those long, lean fingers, the scent of lip gloss. Like a flash of home in this foreign place.

  “June.” In that moment, I want to forgive everything and let Sei-Jin hug me. “I know this is hard. But I don’t think this is about what you think it’s about.”

  “And what’s that?” I’m blinking back tears, trying not to give her this moment, the satisfaction. Knowing, then, that we’ll never be friends again. Not in the way I’ve secretly hoped for, all this time.

  “I know I did poorly,” she says. “I didn’t display the fan properly, my leaps weren’t great, and my heart wasn’t in it. I shouldn’t really be here at all, but I couldn’t let it go.”

  I don’t know what to say to that—except that she’s right, it’s all true. So I don’t say anything at all.

  “You, though.” She looks at me so intently, from just inches away, like she did that day when everything ended. “You were probably as good as I’ve ever seen you. Despite the unlucky number.” She swallows and looks down and then looks up again. “But, E-Jun, what he said was true. You’re going to have a hard time.” She reaches out, touches my chin, and then my collarbone, which is exposed by the scoop neck of my black leotard.

  The tears fall, fast and furious and unstoppable. She tries to hug me then—the moment I’ve been hoping for every second of the past three years. But it’s all wrong, and I’m flailing my arms and pushing her away.

  She won’t let go. I give in this time, and we stand here, heads together. “Come on, E-Jun, let me help you.”

  Sei-Jin gets our stuff from the locker room and bustles me downstairs. I’m still wearing my pointe shoes when we get into the cab. I can’t bear the thought of having to take them off again.

  The trip home is a blur. I take a cab from the airport straight to my mom’s. She doesn’t ask me how it went. We don’t talk about it that night or the next morning. But I know she knows. She’s been watching me, when I’m not looking, trying to figure out what to say, what to do.