Tiny Pretty Things (3 page)

Our other teachers are lined up behind him. Along with Mr. K, there are five of them that decide our fates. The piano accompanist, Viktor, the lowliest of the lot. His smile holds a cigarette, and he barely speaks but knows everything—all the things
they
think of us. Then Morkie and Pavlovich, our ballet madams. We call them the twins—though they’re not related and look nothing alike. Their narrow eyes flit over us ever so briefly, as if we’re ghosts they don’t quite see.

Lastly, there’s Mr. Lucas, the board president, Alec’s father—and Doubrava, the other male teacher.

Mr. K concludes his speech by congratulating us on making it through the audition process like the budding professionals we are. They all retreat into the admissions office. Someone whispers that they’ve gone to get the cast list. The open space feels lighter without them in it. Everyone starts to talk softly. I hear the words
new
and
black
and
girl
whispered in various combinations. After one month here at school, the first major casting makes me feel my skin color like a fresh sunburn. I’m the only black ballerina aside from a little one named Maya. Most times, I try not to think about it because I’m just like everyone else: classically trained, here to learn the Russian style of ballet, with a shot at moving from the school to the company.

But my skin color matters more here than it ever did at my California studio. Back there, we held hands while waiting for the cast list and hugged each other with hearty congratulations. Aurora in
Sleeping Beauty
, Kitri in
Don Quixote
, Odette in
Swan Lake
came in all colors. There were no questions about what looked best onstage. There were no questions about body type. There were no mentions of the Russians’ love of the
ballet blanc—
an all-white cast on stage to create the perfect effect.

Here, we tug our hair into buns, we all wear colored leotards that signal our ballet level, we put on makeup for class, and we only learn the Vaganova style of ballet. We follow traditions and age-old routines. This is the Russian way. This is what I wanted. This is what I begged my parents to send me across the country for. My best friend, Ella from back home, says I’m crazy to come across the country just to dance. She doesn’t understand when I tell her that ballet is everything. I can’t imagine doing anything else.

Someone whispers, “Who will he choose to dance the Sugar Plum Fairy?” but she is quickly hushed. Besides, we all know that it will be Bette.

Everyone wants a soloist part. Everyone wants to be the prima ballerina of the American Ballet Conservatory. Everyone wants a spot in the company. Everyone wants be Mr. K’s favorite. Even me.

The moon stares in through the glass, even though it’s barely past dusk. At home in California it’s still the afternoon. Mama’s just finishing up in her garden about now. I wonder if she’s waiting for
the cast list news, too, and if she’s finally getting excited about me being here. She wanted me to dance at a local studio. Keep ballet a fun after-school activity.

“You could permanently hurt yourself,” she’d said before I auditioned for the school, as if the rigor of ballet is like falling off a bicycle. “You could get sick. You could die.” Death is her favorite threat.

I fight the nerves. I fight the feeling of homesickness that creeps up on me. I fight the weird knot forming in my throat as I look around and it sinks in that I am the only black ballerina in the upper ballet levels. I’m lonely here. Most of these kids have been here for years, like my roommate, June, and Bette and Alec, who’ll likely be cast as the leads this year. I watch Bette lean her golden head against his, a matched set, and hear her sigh, content, knowing that her big moment is coming. I suppress a little pang. I just got here, I’m the new girl. I shouldn’t want what she has—the role, or Alec. But I can’t help it. I look away, trying to find somewhere else to put my thoughts.

I stare up at the hundreds of black-and-white portraits of the American Ballet Conservatory graduates who went on to be apprentices, soloists, and principals in the American Ballet Company. They cover all the walls in the halls here, looking down on us, showing us what we could become if we’re simply good enough. In the almost ninety years of history on the wall, there are only two other black faces in a white sea. I will be the third. I will earn one of the few spots in the company saved for conservatory members. I will show my parents that every part of me can handle it: my hands, my feet, my mind, my legs, and my heart.

I scan the crowd for my aunt Leah, who is decked out in leggings and a hand-knitted sweater dress. I can hear her voice above the others, a little too loudly introducing herself to other parents and guardians as Mama’s younger sister and an art curator at a Brooklyn gallery. She grins and waves at me. With her pink knit hat and freckly brown skin, she’s as much an outsider as I am in this lobby, and she’s been a New Yorker for decades.

I wave back. The girls around me tense up. My roommate, June, moves a small step away from my side. Even my waving is too loud, but I don’t care.

The office door cracks open, its squeaky hinges hushing everyone. We all gasp. I put a hand to my chest. Clapping echoes through the room as he reenters. Mr. K’s pretty secretary walks to the board with a sheet of paper, her arms outstretched to tack it up.

Mr. K looks around. “
Podozhdite!
Wait, wait.” He raises his hand before she exposes the page.

He crisscrosses between us. He’s dark—almost ominous—dressed in all black. Anton Kozlov, a
danseur russe
. Frantic energy bubbles through me. The other dancers squirm and part, giving him way. I drop my head, my body still jittery whenever he comes near. I haven’t quite overcome it.

I will my hands to settle. I will my muscles to relax. I will my heart to slow. Beside me, I hear other girls’ breathing accelerate. We are one sphere of nervous, nauseous focus. I try to use Mama’s calming technique: listening to the noise inside our gigantic pink conch shell. I picture my dad finding it in Hawaii that summer. I attempt to listen for the gauzy melody, but the calm doesn’t come.

I hear footsteps, then see my reflection in the toes of two black shoes. Two of Mr. K’s long
fingers lift my chin and I meet his mottled green eyes. Sweat dots along my hairline. I feel dried blood mar my mouth like a tiny streak of Mama’s paint. All eyes turn to me. Our ballet madams watch. The parents go silent, including my aunt Leah. I lick my cut, hoping to stop the pulsating thrum.

Mr. K’s face looms right above me. Heat gathers in my cheeks.

I can’t escape his gaze. He holds me there and everything slows.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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

I DON
’
T MIND THAT MR. K
’
S
interrupted his speech to lift Gigi’s chin and force her to pay better attention. It’s terrible, but I like seeing her get in trouble for her California spaciness. Serves her right. He didn’t say a word. But I know he’s sending her a warning: tune in. Always.

I sip tea from my thermos to hide my smile. The bitter
omija
herbs warm my irritable belly, calming the bile that’s constant company. I fight the urge to retreat to the bathroom and escape to the cold comfort of porcelain and an empty stomach. But I can’t afford to miss this moment. I have to know where I am now.

Mr. K’s secretary holds the page close to her chest, as if we’d attack her for it—and maybe she’s right.

“Luminous,” he says, then goes on to repeat five more times, asking dancers close to him to define it, describe what it means onstage or else he’ll delay the casting announcement even further. They quake and stutter, unable to answer him. If he’d have asked me, I’d have known just what to say—to be luminous onstage means to glow, to shine, to own it. It’s a quality few among us possess, but I know I’m among the very few. Still, they don’t give me the roles I want, no matter how well I think my auditions have gone, but it’s only a matter of time.

A tingle tickles its way up my spine. The worry, the anxiety, the nerves. I savor it. My classmates, they’re all stupid and empty-headed, wrapped up in their emotions, unable to see things clearly. They don’t pay attention. If they had, they’d already know whose name will be written in each spot. Mr. K
never changes. Those who have been here forever know his habits, his choices, his patterns. Newbies don’t stand a chance. Ballet is about routine, training the muscles to obey tiny commands. I’ve been here since I was six—shuttled back and forth from Queens until I got old enough to live in the dormitory above us. I know the drill.

It all comes down to this: the casting of
The Nutcracker
. The first ballet of the school year. This one starts the game. I can’t wait to finally be in it.

By now, the American Ballet Conservatory is more like home than the two-bedroom apartment in Flushing that I shared with my mom. I know the studios, the academic classrooms, the café, the student lounge, my corner bedroom. I know that the elevator won’t take you to floors thirteen to eighteen. I know every staircase exit that lets you onto boys’ dorm floors, all the dancers in the black-and-white photographs, quiet places to study or dark corners to hide from the RAs, best places to stretch or make out. Not that I’m doing much making out. Any of that, really.

The lobby crowd thickens with more adult bodies. Parents. Someone opened the door for them. They’re here to pick up the
petit rats
or to nose around to find out who got what role. When Mr. K’s ex-wife Galina, retired Paris Opera principal, was here, she’d block the door and gather us—her
petit rats
—all around her, willing us to be silent as we watched the older girls get cast. Any serious dancer tells their parents to stay in the far hallway or, even better, just wait by the phone. Mr. K doesn’t like when we act like children who need mommies. We may be young, he says, but we’re supposed to be professionals.

My parents are not here, of course. My mom refuses to set foot in the atrium. When she does come, she just pulls out front of the school and makes me take the rice cakes, the endless packs of seaweed and tea she’s brought for me from the car. And I don’t have a father.

Gigi’s big-haired aunt keeps inching closer and closer to us students, and I can hear her talking. It’s distracting me from hearing Mr. K explain how difficult it was for him to choose student roles this semester. I let my eyes burn into the back of Gigi’s head. I want to tell her that she should’ve clued her aunt in and told her not to talk until after the cast list is revealed. I want to whisper under my breath,
joyonghae—
be quiet
—
just like my mom always does. I need to hear every word out of Mr. K’s mouth. His announcement will show how far I’ve come, what he thinks of me now.

Mr. K pauses and the parents clap awkwardly. He nods, placing a finger to his mouth. Maybe he’ll add something new. Probably not. I could give the spiel myself. And I know his cast list before his little blond assistant tacks up the page.

Gigi shakes in front of me, trembles working their way down her back and legs. She’s like one of the
petit rats
at the front of the pack. I feel her fear and excitement. Mr. K will cast her as Arabian Coffee, just like the other brown girl from two years ago. Gigi’s exotic like her. Can’t even remember her name, she gave up so quickly once it all got tough. She complained it was so lonely being the only black girl at school. Try being the only half-Asian ballerina. Not quite right anywhere. That’s tough. And Mr. K’s just predictable enough to put minorities in ethnic roles. He’ll cast the pack of Korean girls as Chinese Tea. But my face isn’t Asian enough to join them. And I wouldn’t
want to. I want to be as far away from them as possible.

Everyone knows Bette Abney will be the Sugar Plum Fairy. Ever since her sister landed it when we were kids, no one has stopped talking about her performance. And the mean girls always get what they want here. Bette isn’t anywhere near as luminous as Adele, but that’s what Mr. K will do. Her feet are good—quick and light—and she is undeniably elegant. Even though we aren’t friends (and never have been, nor will be), I actually wouldn’t mind seeing her as the Sugar Plum Fairy if I had to lose the role. Bette has a razor-sharp edge. It’s a fascinating contrast to her sweet, doll-like face and stately pedigree.

Her lapdog roommate Eleanor will be her understudy and nothing else, of course. And Bette’s clone Liz Walsh stands two bodies away from me, in consummate formation. Chest out, soft hands at her sides, and feet in first position. Her body ballet perfect. An icy brunette, she’ll be just right for the Snow Queen.

But even though she looks relaxed, Liz’s eyes are wild, darting about the room, and I’m glad I don’t have to feel that desperation. No matter how many knits she piles on, it won’t hide her underweight body. I sip my tea, happy it leaves me satisfied, without the pains of hunger. The white girls don’t know much about diet teas from Asia. They fill themselves with calorie-packed American brands. We should tell them. But of course we don’t.