by Charis Marsh
Taylor hopped off the chair, and Julian was relieved to see she wasn’t crying anymore. She followed Julian out of the room into the studio.
It was Theresa. Julian smiled, glad to see her. “Hello Jules,” she said, smiling back at him. She was dressed in her old ballet clothes like usual. She was the only ballet teacher Julian had who did. All his other teachers wore something they could move in, but it was still street clothing. Theresa wore her tights and soft shoes and bodysuit and did her hair up to teach them. Julian found it a bit odd, but endearing at the same time. He tried not to look at the bones on her chest. She always wore pale bodysuits, and Julian could see all of her bones through the light fabric, and it made him want to wince, like the videos about starving people in Social Studies class. The worst was her boobs: he could see her nipples and then a flat oval patch on each side where a boob should have been but wasn’t.
“How are you two?” Theresa asked. “Warm?”
They shook their heads. “We were talking to Mrs. Demidovski,” Julian defended himself.
“That’s okay. You wouldn’t want to leave Mrs. Demidovski. All right then, I’ll give you a few minutes to warm up.” She walked over to the CD player and began fiddling with it. Julian swung his chest down to his legs, hanging there to stretch out his hamstrings. He was still so sore from men’s class yesterday. He walked slowly backwards, still hanging down.
“Taylor,” he hissed. She was on the floor tying the ribbons on her pointe shoes. “What was wrong?”
“Nothing,” she whispered back. “Tell you later.”
“Why not now?”
“Later!”
“A little bit warmer?” Theresa asked, pulling on a pink knit ballet shrug.
“Yeah.” Julian nodded.
“Now, Julian,” Theresa said, looking at him. “I want to teach you something a little bit different today.” She walked over to him and turned around, so that they were both facing the mirror. She placed his hands on her hips, and adjusted so that she was on demi-pointe and her left leg was in arabesque, facing the side wall. “Now, lift.”
Julian plied on his right leg and bent his arms at the same time, and when he came up again he had pressed her above his head. “Good!” Theresa said excitedly. “Very good! Now lower me down, gently, gently, on my leg so I can balance, make sure you aren’t tilting my hips so that I will fall. Very good! Much better Julian, you improve so fast.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Julian saw Taylor roll her eyes.
After their private and regular classes, Julian walked out of the studio with Taylor. “So why were you crying?” he asked.
“I told you, it was nothing.” Taylor walked slowly, and Julian struggled to keep pace with her, but it was worth it if she would just tell him what was up.
“Come on, you have to tell me.”
“It was just, she was talking about how I needed to get better, and how I needed to work on my pirouettes, and how I wasn’t ready for competition and exams, and what was I planning to do next summer because she thinks that I should stay at the academy and study, and then I just started crying because I’m not good enough.” She burst into tears again as Julian watched, horrified. He had not been expecting that again.
“Taylor, you’re good!”
“Not really good, not like Lexi,” Taylor answered, blowing her nose in the napkin Julian handed her.
“Well — maybe you just need to work harder,” Julian suggested.
Taylor instantly stopped crying and froze, staring at Julian. “What?”
Julian felt unsure about where this conversation was heading. “Well, if you want to be better, you probably just need to work harder.”
Taylor pressed her lips together and stomped her foot.
“Did you just stomp your foot? Seriously?” Julian stared at her, astonished. “I thought girls only did that in movies.”
“I need to work?” Taylor exclaimed disbelievingly.
“Well, not you, specifically, I mean everyone does —”
“I can’t believe that you, of all people, said that.”
“Hey! What do you mean me of all people? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t.” Julian stared at her. Their sides had switched suddenly; he could feel anger welling up inside of him. Julian was nice until he snapped, and then words seemed to pour out of his mouth. Taylor looked sorry that she had brought anything up.
“Well, you never work as hard as everyone else,” Taylor explained. Her voice sounded as calm and convinced as if she was explaining that it rained a lot in Vancouver, or that her hair was blond.
“That’s not true!”
“Yes, it is. All the teachers think so.”
“Theresa doesn’t.”
“Yeah, because she’s super weird and, like, obsessed with you!”
Between them there was a sudden, shocked silence. Julian could see from Taylor’s face that she had not meant to say it, and his temper went down, replaced by confusion.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, don’t you think it’s a bit weird? That she’s a bit weird? She only wants to coach you.”
“She coaches you, too.”
“So you can practise pas de deux because she knows it would look weird if she practised with you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Whatever.”
Taylor began to walk toward the bus stop. Julian ran after her. “She’s not weird,” he said, catching up. “She just wants to coach the dancers she actually likes.”
Taylor shrugged. “Okay.”
“What do you mean okay?”
“Crap, my bus.” Taylor ran for her bus, leaving Julian behind. He was very confused. He turned around and started walking toward his bus. It started to rain, a light drizzle through the sun. He pulled on his sweatshirt. I do work. She’s wrong. She’s the one that dropped out of school, anyway, so she has no right to say anything. He knew Taylor was right about Theresa being weird, but she was a ballet dancer. It wasn’t like she was going to be normal. Besides, Julian thought, why shouldn’t she just coach me if that’s what she wants? Maybe she just thinks I’m the best dancer. That’s probably it! I bet Taylor’s just jealous. The more Julian thought about his theory, the more convinced he was that he was right. He ran and got on the SkyTrain, heading out to Burnaby. He wanted to go to Metrotown mall to find a present for his brother River. It was River’s birthday in a few days, he was going to be five, and Julian wanted to get him something.
The SkyTrain was crowded, and Julian had to make room where there wasn’t any, taking his bag off and shoving it onto the ground. He couldn’t reach the rail, so he held on to the train ceiling with his fingers. Around him was a cacophony of people, speaking different languages, listening to different music that was coming out of leaky headphones, smelling of sweat and cheap perfume and different foods. Julian suddenly felt overwhelmingly homesick. He didn’t want to be home, exactly, but he wanted to feel like he did at home, where everybody basically thought the same things and smelled the same, and ate the same food. He wanted to be able to speak an opinion and have everyone nod in agreement, not look at him like he was an alien. He was sick of people telling him that he didn’t work hard enough, and he was sick of the other students gossiping about him, and he missed his old best friend, Caspian, and how they could talk about things for hours without having weird silences. He wanted someone to hug him.
He got off the train at Metrotown station, and walked across the overpass that connected the train to the mall, his head down as he passed the groups of wannabe gangs in their cheap imitation rap clothes. “Hey!” one of the boys shouted. Julian didn’t turn around, walking faster until he had safely entered the doors. He wished he didn’t still look so young; it would be nice to look more like the sixteen years he was, instead of having permanent baby-face. It was fine in dance, most people looked younger than their age there, but in the outside world it sort of sucked. He
walked down, heading toward Toys “R” Us. He’d forgotten what Metrotown was like. It was just so depressing, the waves of people spending and worrying about money, the cheap items, the smell of plastic and fast food. It was the most horrible thing. Julian thought that that must be what Las Vegas was like, except a trillion times more so; the smell and feel of hundreds of people worrying about money. He missed that about the Island; there it hadn’t mattered so much if you had money, or what you spent it on.
“Julian!” Julian turned around. There was Tristan, standing on the top of the escalator with Delilah, waving at him. “Julian!”
Julian hurried toward him, breaking through the crowds of people that were between him and Tristan. Tristan stepped off the escalator, and they stood looking at each other awkwardly for a second. “What are you doing here?” Tristan asked suddenly, at the same moment that Julian said,“I thought you weren’t talking to me!”
They both laughed nervously. “Um —” Julian looked around. “I need to find a present for my baby brother. Something cheap and not terrible. And I’m not supposed to get him candy, Daisy got mad at me for that last time.”
“Cool. I’ll help if you want; I was just here to get a pair of jeans.”
“The ones you were going to get last time, at Zara, were so sweet,” Delilah interjected.
“I wasn’t going to get those ones; they make my legs look weirdly shaped. The zippers made my calves look bowed.” Tristan turned back to Julian. “Um, so are we good?”
“Uh — yeah.” Julian shrugged. “I mean, why wouldn’t we be?”
Tristan’s smile dropped. “Uh, yeah. Okay then.”
They began to walk toward the back of the mall. “Tristan,” Julian said suddenly, “can I ask you a question?”
Tristan stood still. “Uh, yeah, sure, what? What is it?”
Julian kept walking, his head down as he thought of the right words. “Um, me and Taylor, we were sort of having this argument — and then she said something, and I’m not sure if it was true, and I don’t think it was true, and maybe she didn’t mean it. I was wondering if you could tell me what you thought.”
“Did she tell you she liked you?”
“What? No! She was telling me that —”
“She does, you know. Like you.”
Julian was confused. This is not the direction the conversation was supposed to be going in. “Maybe. Anyway, she told me that I didn’t work hard, and —”
“You don’t.”
“— that Theresa coached me because she was weird. Wait, what?”
“You don’t work hard, and Theresa’s coaching you because she has issues.” Tristan shrugged. “Fact. Do you like Taylor?”
“Of course he does, have you seen Taylor?” Delilah said impatiently. “Where are we going?”
Julian didn’t know how to respond. How could Tristan be agreeing with Taylor? He opened his mouth to argue, but he didn’t know what he wanted to say. He saw a Chapters to his left. “Oh!” He veered suddenly around and began to walk swiftly in the direction of the books, deliberately leaving them behind. Tristan and Delilah had to half-run to catch up.
“Can your brother even read yet?” Tristan asked.
“Yeah, of course,” Julian said proudly. “He’s a Reece. He’s been reading since he was three.”
“Okay then. Weird. Why do you even remember that?”
“I taught him,” Julian explained. “It was cool, first I was teaching him to read Goodnight Moon, and then he started reading Dr. Seuss and Robert Munsch books and now —”
Tristan yawned, bored.
“Anyway, he likes books. Come on!” Julian sped up and the three of them hurried into Chapters, with Tristan and Delilah giggling at how excited Julian was about it. “Here,” Julian said, guiding them to the children’s section.
“It says eight to ten,” Delilah said, peering around.
“He’s a good reader,” Julian said impatiently. He walked up and down the aisles, pulling books out until he had a large tower in his arms. Then he sat down on the floor, spreading his legs out to either side of him so that the books were sitting in front of him. He began to organize them into piles; “Too expensive. Too expensive, but love. Love. Not so good, but cheap.”
Tristan had wandered off, and he came running back, excited. “Jules! I love this book.”
“Show me?” Julian reached up and took it. On the cover was a picture of Theresa Bachman as Odette, the white swan. The cover said: The Diary of a Ballerina: Theresa Bachman.
“I’ve read it like a thousand times,” Tristan said, sitting next to Julian and leaning on his leg so that he could reach the book and turn the page to the one he wanted to show him. “Or, at least four times.”
The page Tristan had turned to had the section title: “Isaac’s Departure.” Julian began to read aloud, Tristan leaning over his shoulder on one side, and Delilah on the other. “Isaac’s departure hit Theresa hard. Her performances in the weeks afterwards were lacklustre at best. It took artistic director and long-time friend Merhdad Anton’s intervention to help Theresa move on.” Julian paused. “Who’s Isaac?” he asked. He never knew any of the famous ballet dancers and choreographers that Tristan and the rest were always going on about, but feeling stupid about not knowing for the last year had made him immune to embarrassment. Now he just asked, and ignored it when they made fun of him. He’d learned a lot that way; Tristan was like a living dance Wikipedia.
“This dancer who was in Vancouver Ballet’s corps. God, Julian, you really need to learn more about the dance world,” Tristan explained, rolling his eyes. “But, see, look —” he turned the page, and Julian stopped, surprised.
“He looks so much like me!” he said, shocked. The boy in the black-and-white photo, who must have been twenty years old at least, looked remarkably similar to Julian. His jaw stuck out more, and his nose was bigger, and he had more muscles; but his hair looked like the same shade as Julian’s, from what could be told from the grey tones, and the dimples and freckles were the same. It was the expression that had the most resemblance to Julian though; Julian had seen a million pictures of himself with that same grin on his face. “How come he left?”
Tristan smirked. “If you’re curious, read it.”
“He was friends with Theresa?”
“Yeah. It’s kind of weird that she didn’t talk about him to you, hey? Since she tells you so much about all the company dancers, you would think that she would have mentioned that she used to be really good friends with someone who was the fricking image of you.”
Julian shrugged. “Not necessarily. Okay, I think I’m going to get this for River, it’s on sale for eight bucks, and he’ll like it.”
Tristan read out the title. “Bruno and Boots: This Can’t Be Happening at Macdonald Hall! Sounds … great.”
“It is,” Julian said sincerely. “And — I think I’ll get this, too. He picked up Theresa’s biography. They went up to the counter, and Julian paid for the two books using a gift card his grandparents had got him for his birthday. As he put the two books in his bag, he had an uncomfortable thought. “Guys,” he said as they started to walk back to the station, “do you think it is creepy to read the biography of someone you know? Like, isn’t it kind of weird reading personal information about someone you know, stuff that they didn’t tell you?”
Tristan sighed. “Jules, she probably thinks you have already read it. I mean, I’ve read it. You’re probably like the only person at the academy who hasn’t read it.” Julian flushed, turning away from Tristan. Why was Tristan making him feel stupid all the time now? It wasn’t his fault that he’d spent his childhood reading things other than dance biographies. Tristan hadn’t even read the last Harry Potter book.
Chapter Three
Kaitlyn Wardle
A parcel full of pointe shoes is the best mail ever! <3
“Mom? Where are my pointe shoes?” Kaitlyn was spinning frantically around her room, trying to see them.
“
Which pair?” Cecelia called from the next room.
“The ones that I started to break in on Thursday, that I wanted to use for today.”
Cecelia came into her bedroom, her arms filled with a huge pile of Kaitlyn’s shoes. “I sewed a bunch last night, want to take these?”
“No! I need the other pair because they’re broken in.” She took the pile from her mother anyway and laid it on the bed, and then climbed under the bed, looking for the shoes.
“There’s nothing under there, I cleaned your room yesterday,” Cecelia said patiently.
“I can’t find them,” Kaitlyn wailed. “Oh, here they are.” She grabbed them from on top of her desk, and picked up the pile of homework that she was supposed to finish for school on Monday. There was Sunday rehearsal to get through first, though.
“Kaitlyn.”
“Yes?”
“Do you remember what we discussed? What are you going to do today?”
Kaitlyn sighed, sitting down on the bed to recite the list of stuff she had to do. “Ask Mrs. Demidovski if there is a chance of me getting Swanhilda back. Ask Mr. Moretti if I can start having privates with him again. Ask Gabriel to get me a letter of recommendation from one of the teachers of summer intensive auditions. Tell him that I am going to be missing class and rehearsal on Monday for summer-school auditions.”
“Good.” Cecelia leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. “Now hurry up. We have to leave in five minutes.”
Kaitlyn walked into the hallway. There was something weird today. It was so quiet. Where was everyone? She walked downstairs to the change rooms, and straight into a gathering of everyone. They had all congregated in a group, huddled around the lost-and-found-box. There was Taylor, looking like she was going to giggle, and Julian, looking confused and asleep. Kageki was in the corner with his blank face on, the one that he put on when he didn’t want to take sides. Keiko was beside Taylor, looking angry. There was Aiko, Leon, and Mao, looking hot and sweaty from their Youth Company practice, and Angela, looking horrified. There was Jonathon, looking half-angry, and half like he just wanted to laugh. Jessica was in the corner, looking even more furious than Keiko. Delilah was sitting beside them, looking like she was trying very hard not to laugh. And, there, in the centre, was Alexandra. “What’s going on?” Kaitlyn asked, into the silence. The second she had walked in, they had all gone quiet.
