Off Balance (Ballet Theatre Chronicles Book 1)

by Terez Mertes Rose

  When this mandate proved too challenging for Alice on Tuesday morning, she called in sick, took three ibuprofen and a Valium, and slept the entire day. The mantra sprang like a default into her mind as she entered the offices Wednesday morning and pasted on a determined smile. All it took, however, was one look at Gil, his goofy smile, so reminiscent of the one she’d worn after her first night with Niles, and her own smile dropped from her lips.

  Gil, undeserving Gil, had won his special thing in the time she’d lost hers.

  Her gut gave a vicious twist. She swayed and clutched at Gil’s door frame.

  “You look like shit,” Gil commented. “You’re still sick, I can tell. Go home.”

  She didn’t need a second invitation.

  Home provided no relief from her torment, however. She couldn’t fight the hurt and she couldn’t make it go away. She couldn’t talk to Montserrat about it, who’d left for her East Coast tour. Calling Niles himself was forbidden, a sure recipe for disaster. In the end, there was only one place she could productively vent out her mood.

  The gym it was.

  The gym: an unpretentious, warehouse kind of structure, exposed beams on the second-story ceilings, a broad stretch of floor holding Nautilus equipment, Cybex Strength Systems, bikes, treadmills and racks of free weights. Pop music blared over the continual thud of various barbells and clanking weights, the buzz of conversations. Most people were like her, working out to keep in shape, but the floor was crowded with gym rats too, buff creatures of all ages, muscles bulging, who seemed to spend half their waking hours there.

  She took the late-afternoon kickboxing class, which she tried to do twice weekly. Here, it was all about noisy boom-boom music and parallel position. She, who’d relished the advantages her naturally turned-out hips had given her in ballet, now struggled eternally with the mule kicks to the side, hips turned in, knees pointing straight ahead. She was the only one in the class who couldn’t kick that way. She saw in the mirror, every dancer’s best friend and worst enemy combined, just how stupid she looked. But this afternoon it didn’t matter. She punched viciously at the air, she kicked and jumped until she was breathless and spent. By the end of the hour, sedated by endorphins, she decided life was tolerable.

  Saved, by the gym.

  She hurried back to the gym after work on Thursday, as well, striving to find the same comfort. Toward the end of her workout she noticed something out of the ordinary was going on, accompanied by a buzz of speculation. The word raced through the gym: there was some famous ballerina there. No one knew her name, no one there knew a thing about ballet, only that she was “hot” and “gorgeous.”

  Alice craned her neck and saw, with a sinking sense of disbelief, Lucinda, of all people, at the front desk, talking to the manager. Next to her was Katrina, principal dancer with the WCBT, the one whom Alice, in another life, had competed with and beaten.

  Alice could only stare dumbly as the two of them, accompanied by the gym manager and the WCBT publicist, began walking through the gym, which created an even greater stir. Katrina, tall, willowy and blonde, didn’t walk, she wafted. She was so thin, so milky-white, she looked like a different species next to the straining, grunting, sweating gym rats. None of the aging dancer showed today; she’d applied her makeup with great artistry and looked beautiful, fresh, much younger than Alice.

  Lucinda tipped her head, murmured something, and Katrina nodded obediently, tucking herself in between the publicist and Lucinda. Alice resigned herself to the fact that it was too late to run and hide. Reluctantly she made her way over to their group. Lucinda recognized her first and smiled, pleased.

  “Alice. So this is how you can eat all those muffins and ice cream bars and still look so good.”

  Lucinda had the unerring ability to toss out an inadvertent insult with any compliment she doled out. Then again, maybe they weren’t inadvertent. Alice smiled back at her.

  “Oh, that’s me. A daily exerciser. Helps me cope with the stresses at work.”

  And the bitchy females I have to work around, she wanted to add. Instead she plucked at her too-small exercise shirt. Both the vee-neck shirt and the sports bra were too low cut and revealed too much. That she’d chosen to wear this old, overstretched outfit today only served to prove that the fates were having a good time with her this week, chortling over each new misfortune.

  Katrina was even happier to see Alice, someone familiar amid this place so far from her own milieu. She offered Alice a warm greeting and asked what she’d been up to, outside the WCBT offices. In reply, Alice gestured around them. Katrina glanced around with the nervous, guarded expression of a covered-wagon pioneer surrounded by unseen Indians.

  “So you really lift weights?” Her voice was hushed. “Alongside all these men?”

  “Sure. Why wouldn’t I?”

  Lucinda cut in to direct Katrina’s attention to something the gym manager was telling them. Apparently this was a dry run before a photo shoot the following day. This PR ploy of Lucinda’s was part of an effort to make the dancers appear “just like anyone else,” thus forging a connection with the elusive 22- to 30-year-old age group. It certainly was effective here; every male from that age and up could not stop staring at Katrina.

  The gym manager called over two of the men, who, apparently, were to be in on the action tomorrow, serving as a backdrop for Katrina while she struck some everyday pose by the weight machines. The gym manager and the publicist conferred and the manager suggested having one of the guys lift her. One of them stepped forward eagerly and Lucinda pressed closer to Katrina.

  “No one lifts the dancer!” she cried in the shrill tone of a little girl harboring her best Barbie from her playmates.

  Alice couldn’t hide her amusement. It was Lucinda’s job to protect the dancers from the wrong sort of PR, to guard the mystique that was the WCBT. She didn’t, however, appear to recognize that this was at odds with the very thing she’d set out to do in bringing a dancer out into public. Alice’s hand towel slipped to the ground and she bent to pick it up. When she straightened, she saw that Katrina’s eyes had dropped to her chest. The too-small sports bra and the shirt had apparently once again collaborated against her. Katrina raised her gaze.

  “Alice,” she exclaimed, “you have cleavage.”

  Alice hid her sigh and instead offered Katrina a polite smile. “Well, of course. It was part of the severance package I negotiated with Anders, eight years ago.”

  Katrina regarded Alice, her face a tableau of elegant confusion until a moment later, her eyes widened and she laughed, a lilting, musical sound. “Oh, Alice.” She laid a delicate paw on Alice’s arm. “I’ve forgotten how funny you can be.”

  She herself had forgotten how easily entertained Katrina could be. Part of her seemed to be eternally frozen at the nine-year-old girl stage, the obedience, the gullibility, the sweet, somewhat confused smile. She was beautiful, like a fairy-tale princess, and still at the top of her game. Alice, looking at her, didn’t know whether to worship, envy or hate her.

  The ringing of her cell phone in her pocket jolted her. Niles, she thought. Please, please. She fumbled for the phone, her heart pounding so hard she could hear the whoosh of it in her ears, but one glance at the incoming caller’s number dashed her hopes. It was her stepmother, Marianne, not Niles. Lucinda and Katrina were watching her, however, so she hid her disappointment.

  “Ooh, goody,” she said, with a coy smile. “Gotta take this call.” She offered Lucinda and Katrina a farewell with a flutter of her fingers.

  “Why, hello there,” she cooed into the phone as she walked away from them. “I was hoping you’d call me.”

  “You were?” Marianne sounded confused but pleased.

  “Well, yes. It’s been a while.” Once out of range from the others, her voice returned to normal. “How are things going?”

  “Oh, busy days, busy days.”

  Alice found herself lulled by Marianne’s chatter, its soothing, predictable cadence.
A humorous encounter during her shift as a gallery volunteer at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Adventures with the garden and the presence of rabbits. Considering signing up for the ceramics class her friend Lolly had. Alice murmured an affirmative reply from time to time but otherwise kept quiet. When Marianne finished her rundown she asked, with a laugh, why Alice was acting so complacent today. Was she fishing for a favor?

  No favor, she told Marianne, she was simply glad to hear from her, that autumn seemed like a season for family. All of which she meant, she realized. She found herself proposing a Sunday dinner at the house, an idea that seemed to please Marianne as well.

  “I’ll make a roast. With some of those fingerling potatoes roasted in olive oil and rosemary.”

  “That sounds wonderful.”

  “Why don’t you come over early, around five-thirty? And what about Niles—will he be joining us?”

  “Oh, far too much work.” She tried to laugh, which ended up sounding more like a bleat. “It’ll be just me. Shall I bring dessert?”

  “That would be nice. Oh, I’m looking forward to this!”

  “Me too. See you Sunday.”

  She made it through a lonely Saturday night by treating herself to pizza, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and juvenile classic comedies like Dumb and Dumber and Wayne’s World, movies guaranteed not to make her cry, think of ballet or Niles. She stayed up late and slept in till noon on Sunday. Thus fortified, she made her way late Sunday afternoon over to the Willoughby house, a rose brick Tudor in hushed, manicured Pacific Heights.

  “Mom? Dad? Anyone home?” she called out as she pulled open the heavy front door and stepped into the paneled entryway.

  The word “Mom” came differently out of her mouth today. She hadn’t paused to consider its definition in years, but in the last week, it had come up again and again, courtesy of Lana. Marianne, this woman who’d played the role of mother in Alice’s life for twenty years now. Marianne, who’d been successful in finding that sweet spot of being a friend to Alice, not threatening in the least as a future stepmother. She’d been direct with Alice back then, when it became clear to all that a marriage proposal was forthcoming. “I could never replace your mother and I wouldn’t presume to try,” she’d said. “But I hope you’ll let me be your friend.”

  Alice, almost thirteen, had been flattered to have this grown woman act so respectful, so caring toward her, and had agreed. What she’d left unsaid was the fact that she wouldn’t have minded if Marianne had gone ahead and established herself as mother from the start, as she had for Alice’s brother Sterling, four years her junior, who hardly remembered the healthier, larger-than-life Deborah. “The boy needs a mother,” Alice had heard her aunts murmur among themselves, and then to Marianne. “Alice will be fine,” they’d added. “You’ll have no trouble there.”

  Which pleased Alice to hear, but in some ways, it nudged her to the periphery. She needed a mother, too. She’d dreamed of having a mother again, yearned for it with every fiber, a sick pang in her stomach that rose up every Mother’s Day, every school event where other mothers came and stood on the sidelines, beaming with pride. But she’d fantasized about a softer, kinder, more loving mom. She didn’t even need to be beautiful. Deborah had been beautiful, but she’d been a strict, unyielding mother with high standards and even higher expectations for her daughter. The years of illness, instead of bringing softness and warmth, brought fragility and terrible, life-shaking insecurity that went on and on. Alice had had a strong, domineering mother for eight years, a weakening one for two and a half, and then the two-year abyss of nothingness.

  Ballet had saved her. All her teachers became, in a collective way, her second mother. Ballet was beautiful, feminine, like her mother. And, like Deborah, it had been both nurturing and demanding, harshly exacting even as she remained utterly wrapped up in her love for it. The women at her studio had treated her ideally after her mother’s death, not with continual hugs and sad puppy eyes, but with affirmation and approval when she danced well for them. Firm, but caring. She’d felt it, responded to it. She didn’t reveal personal emotions beyond the dazed, shaky first few months in the aftermath of her mother’s death, which had been like a too-rough carnival ride that unceasingly battered and ungrounded her. But eventually she grew stronger. She clung to the memory of Deborah’s words, her mantra, and became a true Willoughby, a ballerina in training, someone who could excel in adverse conditions, rise above the white-hot churning emotions and turn ballet’s regimented, disciplined steps into art.

  She’d succeeded; she’d excelled. And, as a reward for her hard work, her exemplary comportment, she got Marianne. A mother for Sterling, a friend for herself.

  It could have been a whole lot worse.

  A muffled voice replied to Alice’s called-out greeting.

  “I’m in here,” she heard Marianne say from down the hallway. Alice followed the voice into the bright warmth of the kitchen and immediately felt better. Home did that to you. Sunday roasts did that to you. She sniffed appreciatively. “Mmm. Something smells good.”

  Marianne was busy poking at the contents of a pan inside the oven. “The roast,” she said as she withdrew from the heat of the oven and closed the oven door. She smiled at Alice. “Well, don’t you look lovely,” she said, sizing up Alice’s blouse and sweater.

  “Thank you.” Alice came over and dropped a kiss on Marianne’s hot cheek, giving her arm an affectionate squeeze. “Mmm, you smell good too.”

  “Again, the roast.”

  Alice laughed as she set a white bakery box on the counter.

  “Pull up a seat and tell me what’s going on in your glamorous life,” Marianne said. “Weren’t you talking about attending some fancy party last weekend?”

  “I did, and oh, it was something else.” Alice perched herself on a nearby bar stool. “Very posh and fun. Montserrat sounded incredible. Gil was a charmer.” She went on to describe the evening, edited for content, of course. Marianne nodded, all smiles; she knew and admired both Montserrat and Gil. They were People Who’d Made it Big, or, in Gil’s case, someone on the upward rise Who Knew People. She chuckled over the story of how Gil had hunted down Andy Redgrave in the first place.

  “That kid,” she said. “He’ll go far.”

  A timer went off and Marianne turned her attention to her roast.

  Alice glanced through the archway that led to the living room, scrutinizing the room as if for the first time. Lana and Montserrat were wrong; she and her family were not rich, certainly not by Pacific Heights or Andy Redgrave standards. Yes, she’d grown up in comfort and relative privilege. Yes, there were expensive touches there in the living room, with its spotless suede sofa and chairs, sleek designer tables and lamps punctuating the space. But her father complained eternally about the money Marianne’s interior decorating cost them, the exorbitant property taxes they paid, the cost of living in San Francisco. He kept threatening to move out of the city and down the Peninsula, where they could have a big yard and a four-car garage for the same money, a threat as empty as Marianne’s promise that this redecoration would be her last.

  “Where’s Dad?” Alice asked once Marianne had returned to the counter. “And how’s Sterling doing?” She wasn’t particularly close to her brother, who was more about business than feelings, a younger copy of their business executive father, but in their affection for their stepmother they were united. It was easier to keep tabs on each other through the neutralizing filter of Marianne, who always managed to put a cheerful, optimistic spin on things.

  “Your father is in the den and as for your brother, well, you’ll be able to ask him directly. He and Olivia will be joining us for dinner. Oh, and she called and asked if it would be all right if her parents joined us as well. They’re in town. I told her to tell them of course, always room for more family.”

  “Whoa, wait!” Alice regarded Marianne in dismay. “Couldn’t you have told me you were going to invite them too?”

  “I ju
st found out about her parents two hours ago.”

  “Yes, but what about Sterling and Olivia?”

  Marianne looked perplexed. “I spoke with them after I spoke with you. Why would you mind? You requested a family dinner.”

  “No. I said dinner together. As in you, me and Dad.”

  “Now what’s wrong with your brother and his wife being invited?”

  Alice’s relaxed mood evaporated. A family dinner tonight would be a disaster. Chitchatting with her brother and his bland, incurious wife of three years took a certain kind of energy that Alice simply didn’t have today. And the prospect of chatting with Olivia’s parents drained her just to think of it.

  “Well,” she spluttered, “what if I didn’t bring enough dessert?”

  “What did you bring?”

  “A chocolate mousse cake.”

  “Perfect. The Schneiders are bringing over a fruit and nut platter. Those two items will work wonderfully together.” Marianne beamed at her.

  “Oh, fine. I just wish I’d known. So I could feel prepared.”

  “Give Niles a call. I know you said he’s busy with work these days, but he needs to eat, too. And his presence always does you good.”

  Alice took a deep breath. “Well, to be honest, the truth is, Niles and I are taking a little break.”

  “Oh, Alice.” Marianne’s easy smile faded. She stood there, bagged carrots in hand, and shook her head. “Why? Why does this happen to you? Lolly’s daughter just got engaged, did you hear about that? She’s got a fraction of your looks, your talent. Why don’t things work out for you?”