Shiny Broken Pieces (2 page)

I
'
M BACK TO THE BASICS
:
fifth position in front of the mirror. The Russian teacher my mother hired—Yuliya Lobanova—rotates my left hip forward and backward with small wrinkled hands. It pinches and burns, and I relish the heat of the pain. It reminds me that underneath all this pale pink, my muscles are strong and trained for ballet.

Yuli's gray-streaked hair is swept into a bun, still obeying the elegant, upward pull. Bright green eyes stare back at me in the wall of mirrors in my home studio. “You keep sitting in this hip,
lapochka.
” She used to be one of the stars of the Maryinsky Theater. I had her picture on my bedroom wall, young and bold and startlingly beautiful. “Turn out, turn out.”

I push harder to please her and myself. To be strong again. To be
me
again.

“Lift! Higher, higher.”

Practicing five hours a day, seven days a week keeps me
from having to think about everything that happened last year. The pranks, the drama, Gigi's accident, and my suspension are replaced with pirouettes,
fouettés,
and
port de bras
.

“Show me you're ready,” she says, happy with my new and improved ultra deep turnout.

I step toward the mirror and lengthen my spine as long as it can go. I am still the ballerina in the music box. I am still an ABC student. I am still me.

My mother keeps paying my tuition, and she's on the phone with Mr. K and Mr. Lucas every night battling to get me back into school. “Bette did not push that girl. She's completely innocent. And you have no substantial proof that my daughter was the only one
teasing
Miss Stewart.” She'd said the word
teasing
like I'd called Gigi fat. “Still, we've settled with the Stewarts. They've been well compensated. So Bette should be back in school as soon as classes start. The school can't afford any more scandal. The Abney endowment has always been generous to the American Ballet Conservatory and the company. The new company building is proof of that. I mean, it's called Rose Abney Plaza, for god's sake!” She never even paused to let whoever was on the other line get a word in.

“Now, turn for Yuli.” My ballet mistress doesn't care about rumors and truths. She's focused on practicalities, the here and now.

I take a deep breath and exhale as she starts to clap. The smell of my hair spray—powdery and sweet—fills my nose and the room. For a second, I'm back in Studio A for the very first time, the sun pushing through the glass walls while I swing my leg into a turn.

I'm a new Bette.

A different Bette.

A changed Bette.

Last year is a blur of images that I don't want to deal with. If I let my brain drift away from focusing on my ballet lessons, the memories squeeze in like a vise: losing two soloist roles, losing Alec, losing the attention of my ballet teachers, being accused of pushing Gigi in front of a car, being suspended from school.

“Faster!” Yuli hollers. Her claps and shouts fold into my movement. “Out of that hip. Don't lose your center.”

I can't afford to lose anything else. My mother won't tell me how much it cost her to settle with Gigi's family or how much Mr. K's been charging to keep my slot open. But I know it's more money than Adele cost in all her years of intensives, private lessons, and special-order dancewear. I'm the expensive one now. But it's for all the wrong reasons.

“Now, opposite direction.”

I hold my spot in the mirror, whipping my head around and around. Sweat drips down my back. I feel like a tornado. If I had my way, I'd be returning to ABC, ready to take down everyone and everything in my path.

In a week, everyone moves into the dorms. Eleanor will settle into our room.
My
room. I should be there.

Not here, in a basement studio that might as well be a prison.

Level 8 is the year that matters. This is the year we finally get to do it all—choreograph our own ballets, travel the country (and the world) for audition season, explore other companies. But the main thing, the most important thing, is that American
Ballet Company's new artistic director, Damien Leger, will be visiting ballet classes and figuring out who his new apprentices will be. Only two boys and two girls will make the cut. I
need
to be there for that.

After my last pirouette, Yuli jostles my shoulder. “You ready to go back . . .” It's half a question and half a statement.

“Yes,” I say, breathless. “I am ready.”

“Madame Lobanova.” My mother's voice travels down the staircase and bounces off the mirrors in the studio. The slur beneath the words makes me cringe. “No more today. Bette has company.”

“Yes, of course, Mrs. Abney.” Yuli gathers her things and kisses my sweaty cheek. I want to reach out, touch her shoulder, tell her not to leave. But she slips away before I can say anything.

“Bette, freshen up,” my mother says once I reach the top of the stairs. She's perched over the kitchen island and halfway through a glass of red wine. She points it up in the air, directing me to my room.

I go upstairs and take off my leotard and tights. I gaze out the window and look down on Sixty-ninth Street to see if there's a car parked out front that I might recognize. Nothing. I take a two-second shower, change into a dress, then ease down the front staircase. Justina squeezes through the French doors in the living room.

“Who is it?” I whisper.

“Man from your school, I think. And a lady.” She pulls my hair away from my shoulders, smoothing it. Her fingers are warm, her touch light. “Be my good girl in there, okay?”

I peek through the French doors before committing to opening them. The back of Mr. Lucas's blond head stares back at me. I nearly choke.

“Oh, there you are.” My mother waves me in.

I take a deep breath and exhale, like I'm standing in the wings, preparing to take my place center stage. I step into the room and sit across from him.

A man like Mr. Lucas doesn't just show up at your house unannounced. He's with a woman who isn't his wife. She's got one of those haircuts meant to make her look older, more sophisticated, less hot in a beach-babe way. She probably wants to get people to pay attention to more than just her very blond hair and the fact that her shirt is a tad too tight, showing off her large breasts.

“Hello, Bette.” Ballerinas are mostly flat-chested, so I'm lucky not to have her problem.

“Hi, Mr. Lucas.” I dig my nail into one of the curved rosewood armrests, leaving a half-moon shape behind. One evening, not long from now, my mother will settle into this high-backed chair in front of the fire and ask Justina for her nightly glass of wine. She will run shaky, wine-drunk fingers across the indentations and yell about it.

“This is my new assistant, Rachel.” He motions at the young woman. She gives me a slight smile. He unfolds a thick bundle of papers and flashes them at me. “Your mother showed me this.” He's holding the settlement agreement. All the things I supposedly did to Gigi are spelled out in black and white. The little typed script makes them look sicker, more disgusting and
official than they actually were.

“You know, I still don't understand how any of this happened.” His brow crinkles in the same way Alec's does when he's confused.

“I'm sorry,” I blurt out because that's what the Abney family therapist told me to lead with. I flash him a half smile. I try to show him I'm a different Bette. That I've learned whatever lesson they've been trying to teach me. That I'm ready to go back to normal now.

“Do you know what you're sorry for?”

“Messing with Gigi.”

My mother steps in. “Dominic, we don't need to go back through this entire incident. That can't be why you came here.”

“It's okay, Mom. I'm taking responsibility for my part.”

“Things have been settled, and you didn't—”

“Mom, it's fine.” It feels good to clip off her words the way she's done to mine so many times. She takes hurried sips from her wineglass and motions Justina over with the bottle. Mr. Lucas's assistant shifts uncomfortably in her seat and tugs at her shirt. Mr. Lucas refuses a glass of wine or any of the expensive cheese my mother goads Justina into offering.

“You're lucky it wasn't tragic,” he says in the gentlest way possible. The words hurt even more when they hit me softly. The sting burns long into the silence in the room.

“Can I come back to school?” I ask.

“No,” he says, and his assistant looks at me like I'm this fragile thing that might break at any moment. “We've deliberated long and hard, and we still can't let you return. Not at this point.”

“But—” My mother rises out of her chair.

“What would it take?” My eyes bore into his. I hold my body perfectly still but my heartbeat hammers in my ears. I lift my rib cage and drop my shoulders like I'm ready to jump off this chair into the most beautiful firebird leap he's ever seen.

“This”—he shakes the papers—“doesn't fix it. Not all of it. Not by a long shot. I don't understand you girls. The boys don't behave this way.”

He's right. But I want to remind him of how different it is to be a female dancer, treated like we're completely replaceable by choreographers, while the boys are praised for their unique genius, their dedication to being a male ballet dancer when the world might think it's unmasculine. He rubs a hand over his face and passes the settlement papers back to my mother.

“I didn't push Gigi.” My words echo in the room. They feel heavy, like they're my very last words.

“If you're innocent, prove it.”

I can. I will.

STUDIO D BUZZES LIKE DRAGONFLIES
swarming in the September sunshine. Everyone's chatting about summer intensives, their new roommates, and their ballet mistresses. The parents are comparing ballet season tickets or grumbling about the rise in school tuition this year. New
petit rats
storm the treat tables, and other little ones steal glances, cupping their hands over their mouths. I hear my name whispered in small voices. None of the other Level 8 girls are here.

Just me.

I should be upstairs, unpacking with the rest of the girls on my floor. I should be breaking in new ballet shoes to prepare for class. I should be getting ready for the most important year of my life.

Mama's hand reaches for mine. “Gigi, please be an active participant in this discussion.” I'm back to reality, where Mama has Mr. K pinned in the studio corner. He looks pained. “Mr. K,
what have you put in place so that Gigi is safe?”

“Mrs. Stewart, why don't you set up an appointment? We can go into more detail than we did in our last phone call.”

Mama throws her hands up in the air. “Our last conversation was all of ten minutes. Your phone calls have been—how can I put it? Lackluster. You wanted her back here. She wanted to be back here. You told me she'd be safe. I am still unconvinced.”

Her complaints have been following me around like a storm cloud.
Why would you ever want to go back to that place?
The school is rife with bullying!
Ballet isn't worth all this heartache
.

A younger dancer walks past me and she whispers to her friend, “She doesn't look hurt.”

I look at my profile in one of the studio mirrors. I trace my finger along the scar that peeks out from the edge of my shorts. It's almost a perfect line down my left leg, a bright pink streak through the brown.

A reminder.

Mama thinks the scar might never go away completely, even though she bought cases of vitamin E oil and cocoa butter cream made for brown skin. I don't want it to go away. I want to remember what happened to me. Sometimes if I close my eyes too long or run my finger down the scar's raised crease, I'm right back on those cobblestoned streets, hearing the metal-crunching sounds when the taxi hit me, the faint blare of sirens, or the steady beep of the hospital monitors when I woke up.

I flush with rage, hot and simmering just under my skin.

I will figure out who did this to me. I will hurt the person who pushed me. I will make them feel what I went through.

Mama touches my shoulder. “Gigi, participate in this conversation.”

I watch her anger grow.

“She's still in the hall with all those girls.” Mama's tone is pointed.

“Each student lives on a floor with the others in their level. The Level 8 hall has been traditionally the most sought after of them all,” Mr. K says in that soothing voice he uses with benefactors and board members. “We wouldn't want to isolate her.”

“She is already isolated by virtue of what she looks like and what happened to her.”

“Mama, it's fine. It's where I need to—” She shushes me.

Parents turn their attention to us. In this room, Mama sticks out like a wildflower in a vase of tulips, in her flowy white dhoti pants, tunic, and Birkenstocks. They all take in Mama's exasperated hand gestures and facial expressions, and how calm Mr. K remains under all her pressure. He even smiles at her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder, like he's inviting her into a
pas de deux
.

“I assure you that we're doing everything we can to make sure she is safe. She even has her own room this year—”

“Yes, and that is much appreciated, but what else? Will there be a schoolwide program initiated to address bullying? Will teachers be more mindful in addressing incidents? Will security cameras monitor—”

“Aside from Gigi having her own personal guard, we will do as much as we're able to,” he says.

She jumps like his words are an explosion and shakes her
head, her billowy afro moving. “Do you hear that, Giselle? They don't care. Is ballet really worth all this trouble?”

I touch her arm. “Mama, just stop. We've had this conversation a million times.” A flush of embarrassment heats every part of my body. “Please trust me. I have to be here.”

No one moves. Mama's eyes wash over me. I chew on the inside of my cheek, afraid that she'll change her mind and take me back to California. I want to tell her that she doesn't understand what ballet means to me. I want to remind her that I almost lost the ability to dance. I want to tell her that I can't let Bette and the others win. I want to tell her that I'm stronger than before, and that those girls will pay for what they did. I have been thinking about it since the day I left the hospital. Nothing like what happened last year will happen to me again. I won't let it.

Mr. K winks at me and moves to stand beside me. He places a very warm hand on my shoulder. “She's
moya korichnevaya
. She's strong. I need her here. She was missed during summer intensives.”

His words fill up the empty bits of me. The tiny broken parts that needed a summer of healing, the ones that needed to know I am important here. I am supposed to be dancing. I am supposed to be one of the great ballerinas.

It took all summer to heal from a bruised rib, fractured leg, and the small tear in my liver. I stayed in Brooklyn with Aunt Leah and Mama, dealing with countless X-rays and doctor visits, weekly CAT scans and concussion meds, physical therapy twice a day after getting out of my cast. And, of course, counseling to talk about my feelings about the accident.

I worked too hard to get back to this building.

Mama touches the side of my face. “Fine, fine.” She pivots to face Mr. K. “I want weekly check-ins with you. You will have to make yourself available.” He walks Mama to the beverage table. She's smiling a little. It's a tiny victory.

Warm hands find my waist. I whip around. Alec's grinning back at me. I practically leap into his arms. He smells a little like sunscreen.

“They're calling you the comeback kid, but can I just call you my girlfriend?”

I laugh at his terrible attempt at a joke. Young dancers look up from combing through their colorful orientation folders, full of papers that list their current ballet levels, new uniform requirements, and dorm room assignments. I grab him and push my tongue deep into his mouth, giving them something to stare at.

I didn't get to see Alec a lot this summer. Dance intensives kept him too busy. Phone calls and video chatting and texting took the place of hanging out. I almost forgot what he tasted like, felt like, smelled like.

He pulls back from kissing me. “I've been texting you.”

“My mom's been interrogating Mr. K.” I point behind me. Mama and Mr. K are still talking.

He groans. “Wouldn't want to be him.”

“Nope.”

“You all right?”

“I'm great.” I stand a little taller.

“Nervous about being back?”

“No,” I say, louder than I mean to.

He touches my cheek. My heart thuds. The monitor around my wrist hums.

“I've missed you.” He takes my hands in his and turns me like we're starting a
grand pas
. He lifts me a little, so I'm on my toes. My Converse sneakers let me spin like I'm on pointe. It feels good to partner and dance, even if it's just playing around. Being hurt made me miss dancing every single day.

Everyone clears away, giving us some space. Enthralled, they watch us.

We do the
grand pas
from
The Nutcracker
. Our bodies know every step, turn, and lift without the music. I can hear it in the rhythm of his feet and how he reaches for me. Invisible beats guide our hands, arms, and legs. The music plays inside me. He sweeps me into a fish dive.

“You're even better than you were before,” Alec whispers as he brings me back down, his mouth close to my ear.

His words sink deep into my skin, making it feel like it's on fire. The room claps for us. Mr. K beams. Mama smiles.

No one will take this away from me ever again.