Tiny Pretty Things (20 page)

A bright blush creeps up my neck.

He says something in Russian to Morkie, who nods at me, too. They’re starting to see me, really
see
how hard I work, how much I want this.

He doesn’t let any of the other girls dance. The Harlequin Doll is mine. A soloist role. He trusts me enough to get it ready and perfected in just eight hours. I wonder if this has ever happened before. I wonder if I’m finally special to him.

The news spreads. The cast timing and music are all adjusted. After spending hours in the studio—and skipping lunch—I have my new
Nutcracker
costume fitting. I go to the third floor and wait outside Madame Matvienko’s costume room with the other girls in our black leotards and white practice tutus.

I sip my
omija
tea to keep my stomach calm. I will be fitted for three costumes—the Sugar Plum Fairy one, just in case Gigi doesn’t dance for some reason that’ll never happen, my plain pink corps one for the Waltz of the Flowers ensemble dance, and the bodysuit for the Harlequin Doll. Across from me, Gigi hums and I glance up from my place on the floor to shoot her an evil look, implying that she should be quiet.

She stretches flat along the floor like a pancake. Alec’s loud voice escapes the costume room, and each time it rings out, Gigi gazes at the door like a puppy. She doesn’t even hide it. Pathetic. I guess they’re really together now, even though she’s been babbling to me about how he hasn’t “asked” her. So she can’t be sure. What she should be sure of is that if Bette didn’t hate her before, she definitely
does now.

Bette marches into the area. “They’re not done yet?” she asks, waiting for someone to answer her. One of the younger girls chimes in, saying the boys are running late, her eagerness to please Bette written all over her face. Bette pops a piece of fruit in her mouth. “How’s everything, Gigi?” she asks. “You feeling okay?”

“I’m fine,” Gigi replies curtly. “I’m not sick.” Her voice lands hard on the word
sick,
like it’s the last word on earth she’d ever want to use. Her eyes narrow, and she eyes Bette suspiciously. “Why are you asking?”

“Well, Mr. K wanted me to check in on you. I am one of the girls that’s been here the longest. I just wanted to follow up with you about things. I probably should’ve checked on you a while ago. Been busy and all. We really don’t tolerate bullying here. There haven’t been any other incidents, right?”

Gigi doesn’t look up from the floor, like she’s trying really hard to focus on her stretching. I squirm a little, thinking about how I added to it. I wonder if Bette’s seen that medical report. I wonder if Gigi has, too. I feel a pinch of regret, but only for a minute. I try not to think of Cassie either. Things were at their worst with her.

“I’m fine, Bette,” she says, as gracious as ever. “Thanks though.”

Bette bats her eyelashes over her blue eyes and adds a little giggle, then continues. “Let me know if anything else happens, okay? I’m here for you.”

Before Gigi can respond, we’re called into the costume room. It’s full of light and perfume and the smell of makeup. We only get to be here twice a year, and the costumes we need are brought over from the company’s storage. I savor every moment. Tiaras line one table, while costume ornaments and handmade pointe shoes and ballet slippers sit primly on another—little pink layers piled one on top of the other like miniature cakes. Once we all settle in, the mood is airy. Here, we’re just girls playing dress up—the best part of ballet.

The volunteer mothers bring around our costumes. Gigi and I stand together as ours is presented. A rich plum costume drapes down from a wooden hanger, jewels stitched along the bodice. My fingers graze the fabric just as Gigi’s do, too, and we admire it, both wanting to wear it forever.

“You’ll be gorgeous in this,” the mother says to Gigi. She doesn’t even look at me. Like I don’t even have a chance of wearing this costume. She knows all too well how the ballet world works. I don’t let it pinch. The woman helps Gigi change into the tiny costume, and it squeezes her rib cage snugly, clearly needing to be let out a little. I hide my smile, knowing it’d never need to be let out for me.

I put on my corps costume—a pink, frilly, knee-length outfit worn by all the girls who will play flowers in the group dance. It itches.

“Put this hairnet on.” One of the mothers hands it to me. I pull it over my bun and head, then go to the wig area. They fit me in a white wig that smells like baby powder and mothballs and looks like it should be atop the head of some seventeenth century judge. I see other corps members reflected in
the room of mirrors. We are all the same girl.

I change out of that costume and into the checkered bodysuit costume for the Harlequin Doll. Black and white diamonds cover my whole body and a white neckpiece that reminds me of a coffee filter is fanned around my throat. There’s a gold keyhole in the back where I’ll be wound up onstage like the tiny dancer in my music box.

“E-Jun Kim!” Madame Matvienko shouts my name from the front of the room. And I realize by her frown that she’s called my name more than once. I approach, head down, and curtsy to her. She’s just as important as the other Russian teachers here, even though she’s only the costume mistress.

“Turn,” she says without emotion—her face cold and wrinkled, her hair cropped close around her head, her lips frowned up and pursing like an angry fish. She leans forward in her chair and slides a measuring tape around my waist. I fight the urge to look down and see the number. Instead, I focus on holding my breath. I feel big, as if the tape measure has to stretch. She places pins in my waist and stands to adjust the old wig on my head.

“Hmm. Wig too big,” she says, removing it and placing another one on top. “But costume fit just right.” She pats my side and I release. “You look so much like your mother, but your body remind me of your father,” she says. “So narrow, so tall, such a tiny head on top of it all. Just like him.”

“I’m . . . sorry?” I say, barely able to get the word out. It must be a mistake. She must be confusing me with Sei-Jin or one of the other Korean girls. I know they think we all look alike.

“Tiny head. All of his children. Very funny. Such a tiny head for such a powerful man, no?” Madame Matvienko finally looks at my face and notices, midlaugh, that my jaw has dropped, that my cold, clammy skin is as pale as I’ve always wanted to be. My legs shake so badly I have to sit down.

“Who are you talking about?” I manage to say, in a voice so much higher than my own that I swear it didn’t come out of me at all. Madame Matvienko is the one turning white now, then red, then almost green with what I assume is the nausea of saying something dangerous and wrong.

“I’m confused. I thought you were . . . one of the others. But of course not. You’re E-Jun, E-Jun Kim. You look so much like the other Asian girls. All of your tiny waist and pretty hair. All the same. Excuse me.”

She tries to smile and pass it off as an honest, ignorant, racist mistake. But I get the distinct and terrifying feeling that there was no error. Madame Matvienko knows who my father is. Maybe they all do. I get so dizzy, I have to sit down on one of the crappy metal folding chairs. Every part of me is instantly drenched in sweat, and I can’t muster up a single word. The thing I’ve wanted to know all my life—the answers might be right here.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

MY BOBBY PIN SLIDES RIGHT
into the lock, easing the bolt left with the slightest click. I should be at the dorm packing my dance bag with everything I’ll need for opening night. I should be stretching my feet or soaking them in an ice bath in the physical therapy room. I should be mentally preparing myself for tonight, and my heart for the long program. All the American Ballet Company ballet masters will be in the audience, hunting for new corps talent. All the company dancers, off for the night, will be watching us dance their roles. Judging us. And Mama and Dad will be in the front row with Aunt Leah, all taking deep worried breaths when I step onstage.

But there are a few hours before I have to officially worry about those things, so I push my way into the American Ballet Company shoe room on the third floor of our building. It’s closed now for the night. We’ve all gotten what we needed for the show, and the company dancers are off for the night. The hallway is desolate and the lights are out. I slip inside, falling into the scent of satin and rosin. It’s my second time sneaking in here after hours. I never get enough time in here. I am never allowed to explore. I have to take the chance while I can. The shoes will be housed in our school building for only another month or so, then moved to the new company building next door.

Posters on the wall advertise different brands of pointe shoes. A counter window is a portal into the back storage room, where cubbies hold piles of stock pointe shoes and flat canvas and leather slippers, and, in labeled boxes, custom-made ones for company dancers. They entice, like delicate pink candies sealed in pastel wrappings.

I lift myself over the counter and sneak into the back. I run my fingers over the different shoes and admire the names written under their sections. Shoes for each corps girl, shoes for each soloist, shoes for each principal.

It was a pair of pointe shoes that first made me want to be a ballerina. They were the first I’d ever seen, stuffed in a garbage can in downtown San Francisco—pretty pink satin stained brown by coffee grounds and trash. I’d reached in before Mama caught me, getting ahold of one shoe. I wanted to take it home, clean it, and keep it forever, but she wouldn’t let me. After that she bathed me in sanitizer and signed me up for a ballet class. She thought it would be light and easy. Something a girl born with a heart defect could do without much threat of injury. But when I got serious, and the teacher said I was good, she wanted to pull me out.

“It’s too much stress,” she’d said over the dinner table after I received my acceptance letter to the conservatory.

“I love it,” was my constant response. I sewed elastic on my pointe shoes, determined to have at least a dozen pairs ready before I left.

“You could be hospitalized. One wrong move. One intense practice or performance. I’m not willing to lose you,” she’d said, like she wanted to scoop me up in one of her summer canning jars, only to be stored in the pantry until winter.

She’d cried when I told her I’d rather have one year dancing than a lifetime without it. She’d cried when my suitcases were packed and Dad drove me to the airport. She’d cried when I told her I didn’t want her to come to New York to help me settle in.

I pull out several principal dancers’ shoes and slide my feet into them, even though I know they won’t fit and that I shouldn’t ruin someone else’s brand-new shoes. I don’t stand on pointe. Just let myself feel what it might be like to wear these shoes, be like these women. And any worries I had about being at the conservatory and pushing through disappear.

Half an hour before curtain, backstage is a frenzy of half-dressed girls and frazzled crew, trying to finalize everyone and everything. The nerves are zinging in my stomach, like my butterflies when they’re startled. I can’t believe it’s finally here, the moment I’ve dreamed of all my life. I try to remember how calm I’d felt earlier. Tonight I’ll finally see my parents in the audience, show them why I had to go so far from them, show them that it was worth it.

I slip to the edge of the stage, right where the thick, velvet curtains, a deep crimson that reminds me of the blood from a favorite fairy tale, will part in just minutes. I peer through a crack as the audience pours in, and that’s when it hits me, the stage fright. My heart is racing, the adrenaline surging through me. I do the breathing exercises Mama taught me, but it’s not working. I place two fingers on my wrist, trying to quiet my thoughts long enough to track my pulse. If I had been wearing that monitor, it would surely be shrieking now, drawing everyone’s attention my way. I try to focus on counting: 68, 73, 84, 96, my heartbeats climbing up and up and up. Faster and faster, out of my control.

I know that I’m pushing it. But how can I give up this moment? How can I march over to Morkie before she takes her place in the audience, and tell her I can’t do it? That I’m feeling the warning signs? I can’t not dance. Not now. Not when my feet have carried me this far.
Breathe Gigi, breathe!

I count again, slowing down this time, really listening to the heartbeats. 57, 62, 78, 85. Breathing in and out, in and out, I feel my muscles relax. And then I startle, as arms circle my waist, and hot breath hovers on my neck, sending goose bumps up my arms and my heart racing once again.

“Alec,” I say, turning so I’m fully embraced by his arms. I lean into him, breathing in his soapy scent. He’s wearing his gold and red brocade Nutcracker tunic and tights, the headpiece mask left in the wings. The heavy stage lights hit the gold of his hair, setting it ablaze, and there’s something different in his eyes tonight. Something that makes my heart race even faster.