Tiny Pretty Things (39 page)

At last, the room light clicks off. Gigi lights one of her scented candles, and I’m too tired to tell her to blow it out. That it stinks and gives me a headache. And she was so nice to me. I shouldn’t even think this way. The door creaks open and I hear Alec’s husky voice and feel him pass by my bed. I roll over, hating the fact that tonight of all nights she let him come over. I ignore the pinch of wishing Jayhe was here to take care of me.

“June’s in bed so early,” I hear Alec whisper. The bass in his voice ripples through the room. “And it smells in here.”

“Yeah. . . . Poor thing, she had a rough night,” Gigi whispers.

I freeze. My weak hands clutch my comforter until my knuckles are white. I wait for her to tell him that I vomited all over myself like I’m a two-year-old with a tummy ache, but she doesn’t. She keeps my secrets. It’s then that I realize that, as much as I may look at her as the one who takes everything from me, she may be the only real friend I have.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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

I
’
M IN MY ROOM WRITING
a history essay when there’s a knock at the door. It’s one of the RAs.

“I come bearing goodies,” she says, lugging a huge box. “Another care package from your mom.” She hands it over. It’s a box wrapped in a brown grocery bag painted in deep plum and turquoise florals. “I love when your mom sends stuff,” she says. “It always brightens up the mail room.” She starts to walk off but then turns around. “Oh, and this, too,” she says, handing over a plain manila envelope. My name is scrawled across the front, but there’s no return address. That’s enough to set off the panic—my palms sweaty, my heart drumming a bit faster.

So of course I open that one first. Inside are a stack of cutup notes, ransom style. I recognize some of the handwriting. It’s Alec’s. And, I quickly figure out, Bette’s. Their love letters, filled with sweet nothings.

He wrote: “I’ll love you forever. And always.”

He wrote: “We were meant to be.”

He wrote: “You’re my soul mate.”

I know she sent them. This has Bette written all over it. She’s not even subtle anymore. And I know I shouldn’t let it get to me. But it does. Because with the bits and pieces of their notes is another one, pieced together, that says: “You’ll never have what we had. He will be mine again.” And for some reason, I know she’s right. I can’t even compete. But this time, I’m furious. And I’m going to do something about it. I’m going to find the evidence.

Everyone else is in morning ballet class. I don’t have to go, so I can give my foot a rest, and be ready for rehearsal tonight. My first one back. I walk the entire length of the hall to make sure no one is still lingering up here. I listen for voices, classical music, the soft padding of ballet slippers. Then I take one step after the other until I’m standing in front of Bette’s door. I try the knob. It opens without a hitch. I’m surprised it isn’t locked. Mama says my thrill in being in places where I’m not supposed to is a compulsion, and I shouldn’t do it anymore.

Light trickles through the white drapes on her window. I can tell which side of the room is Bette’s and which is Eleanor’s. Eleanor has motivational quotes and mantras scrawled all over the corkboard near her bed. Bette’s side of the room has one of those expensive trunks you see in the store windows on Madison Avenue. Her desk is lined with trinkets, and she has a beautiful jewelry box chock full of rings and bracelets and necklaces studded with diamonds. Pinned to her wall are a series of origami flowers. From Alec, no doubt. I feel a little pinch, feeling the fool for somehow believing that Alec had only made those for me.

I hunt for the original letter she cut up.

The little vanity in the corner smells like a mix of hair spray and expensive perfume and powder. Like a makeup counter. There’s a row of neatly lined up lipsticks, all fancy and expensive brands. I
go through them, opening this one and that, inhaling the scent and absorbing the color before carefully recapping them. And there it is—the gaudy pink one with the indented top, the same lipstick that scrawled the mean message on the mirror that day.

Buoyed by my first find, I continue my search. I comb through the desk drawers. Other findings come fast: a stash of stuff from Alec, little mementos that she’s kept in the file drawer of her desk. A Valentine’s day card from last year, photos of them dancing in performances throughout the years. One from when they were maybe about seven—cherubic and haloed, their blond heads and blue, smiling eyes, like a matched set. Then another one of them around ages ten or eleven, filled out, but still quite startlingly similar, as if they could be siblings. But the next few shots would easily dispel any such notion—there they are doing their
pas
in
Don Quixote
, the joy clear on their faces, and then playing on the beach, Alec’s arms around Bette’s bikinied body, casual and relaxed and oh so intimate. I’ve seen evidence of much worse, but the image burns my eyes and my heart, further proof of how well they fit and how mismatched Alec and I really are. What am I thinking? What am I doing here? Why am I torturing myself? Why can’t I trust that he likes me?

I stash the photos back in the drawer and tiptoe toward the closet. I browse through the clothes—expensive dancewear and Bette’s always-fabulous dresses, all size zero, naturally. Along the floor are sky-high heels, couture goodies that probably cost as much as a year at the conservatory.

I stroke the cashmere sweaters neatly stacked on the shelves, finding myself coveting, once again, what Bette has. I try to snap myself out of it. I should get out of here. But then, there’s one more box, a pretty damask print cardboard box on the floor that’s calling my name. I can’t not look.

Kneeling down, I gingerly lift the top. Inside is a disorganized mess of paper—meal and clothing receipts, Bette’s signature scrawled across the bottom of many. I dig through them, and they lay out an itinerary of extravagances—meals at the Russian Tea Room and Jean-Georges, her fancy frocks, the finest dancewear imported from Europe. And then, there it is. Completely out of place. Six dollars spent for two frosted cookies and a latte from the coffee shop around the corner. On Valentine’s day. 12:07 p.m. During our lunchtime. Irrefutable proof. As much as she denies it, it’s been Bette all along. She’s done it all.

I stash the receipt in the back pocket of my jeans and put the lid back on the damask box.

And just as I’m about rise and leave, satisfied, I hear a voice.

“What are you doing?” Eleanor asks, standing in the doorway, her face startled and a bit worried as she looks from the box to me and then to the box again.

“I . . . uh . . . I thought . . .” But I don’t know how to finish that sentence. There is no reasonable explanation. There’s only me and my paranoia and the proof that’s burning a hole in my pocket.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” Eleanor says. But her face has softened and her voice is low, as if she won’t tell my secret. She’s all sweaty from class, and I wonder if it’s over yet.

“I just had to know,” I say, my voice rising, the pitch guilty as I walk toward Eleanor and the door, as if I’m the one who’s done all these things wrong. “I had to see for myself. And you know I was right.” I find myself pulling the receipt out of my pocket, shoving it under her nose. “See, here it
is. Valentine’s day.”

Eleanor looks truly surprised and sincerely worried. “Where did you find that?”

I point to the box. “There,” I say. “With all of Bette’s stuff. She’s the one. She’s been torturing me. All the little things. And the big things.” I can feel the tears slipping down my cheeks. One, then two, then an endless stream. “It’s all her.” I’m shaking now, and I’m so, so humiliated. But at least now I know.

“Gigi,” she says. “I . . .”

“You can’t tell anyone,” I say, suddenly urgent. I have to get out of here. I have to pull myself together. “You can’t tell Bette.”

“I won’t tell anyone.” She looks down at the receipt, and her face does a funny thing, between a startle and smirk, as she processes. She bites her bottom lip. “Gigi, it was me.”

“What?” I say.

She takes a deep breath. “I did that.”

“The cookie?”

“Yeah.” She shakes her head. “And the roaches.”

“It was disgusting,” I say. “Why?”

“Bette, Liz, and even Will and I used to do stuff like that. It’s embarrassing to even say out loud, and I’m sorry. The cookie was sitting on my desk for days. The roach trap was from the basement,” she says. Her face is the color of strawberries. “I just . . . I got caught up in it all. I got a good role, and . . . I left the receipt in Bette’s things. I should’ve thrown it out. I don’t know—”

“Why should I believe you? You’re Bette’s best friend. Why are you telling me this?” I ask.

She knits her hands in front of her. “Honestly, I feel terrible about it. I wanted to tell you so many times. Apologize. It was childish.”

“Why would you do that? Do you hate me or something?” I say, breaking Mama’s cardinal rule of not asking questions I don’t necessarily want the answers to.

“A little part of me does,” she admits, and I don’t feel like it’s a threat. “We’ve just been here so long, worked so hard. And you—” She grabs a new pair of tights and shoes. “There’s no excuse, really. I’m sorry. I won’t do anything else again.” She hugs me before I can answer.

“Please don’t tell Mr. K,” she says. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t tell him what I did.” She squeezes me tighter.

I don’t push her away, but I don’t hug her back either. I came looking for answers, and what I found is even worse than I thought. If kind, sweet Eleanor could hate me, could do such awful things, then what might the others have in store for me?

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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

GIGI LINGERS AROUND IN STUDIO
E where I’m supposed to practice with Henri. I wish she’d just leave. It’s already going to be torturous dancing with him again, and I don’t need her watching us, making it worse. I stretch my leg across the barre and ignore Gigi. I wonder why she’s hanging around. I remember how she let him stretch her during that week after
The Nutcracker
cast list went up. Tease. Is she going to take him, too? Date both him and Alec?

She marches over to me. “Why do you keep sending me stuff?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Is this another one of your crazy theories?” I say, pushing deeper into my stretch and reveling in the pinch of anxiety in her voice. I look back at Henri, who hasn’t looked up from his floor stretch to watch.

“The letters,” Gigi says. “Really crazy, Bette!” And she isn’t lying about that part.

“Letters?” I say, even though there they are in her hands. Alec’s words about how much he loves me, my breasts, all the things we loved to do together, the tops of my thighs, the scent of my hair, how we’ll get married one day. A version of our love story. And that is a hundred times worse than having Gigi look at me with hate and accusation and pity.

“Where’d you get these?” I say, but I stumble over those words because I’m so stunned by the look of those letters in the studio light. They look a thousand times more psychotic now.

“Come on,” Gigi says.

“Maybe you took those from my room?” I say. She thinks that I don’t know she was in my room. That I don’t have a way of getting Eleanor to tell me anything and everything. That I don’t know when my things have been touched. But this is my school and information isn’t kept from me here. That much hasn’t changed. “You were snooping in my room, weren’t you? You thought I wouldn’t find out about that?”

Her face contains so many emotions at once. Confusion. Fear. Anger. She opens her mouth, no doubt to defend herself. I try to take the letters from her hands. I want them back anyway. I can’t let her go to Alec with them.

“You did everything!” She’s practically shrieking. “You’re not fooling me! Eleanor told me. I bet you push her into stuff. After our talk I thought maybe . . . but this is actual proof! You did . . . the GLASS in my slipper, too!” She’s crying now, wringing the letters in her hands like they’re dirty dish towels. At last I’m close enough to pull them out of her grip, but she won’t let go.