Tiny Pretty Things (5 page)

My phone buzzes in my bag. My parents. They know I’m still up. I click them to voice mail. I know what they want. They’ll ask if the nurse checked me after the cast list excitement. They’ll gloss over my accomplishment, only wanting to know how I’m feeling physically. Since I came out here, they treat me like I’m sick, some patient who shouldn’t be out or who should be in a wheelchair, or better yet, a bubble. I was officially cleared to dance at the conservatory months ago. I try not to think about it. I don’t want anyone to know. Ever.

I turn on the music on my cell phone.
The Nutcracker
score sounds tinny and distant, but it will have to do. I need to dance. I dig my pointe shoes out of my messy bag and put them on. My legs start first, extending out of my hips so far I feel like I’m on stilts. Long and tall, I stretch from the top of my head down to my tiptoes, trying to become one straight line. As I dance my mind quiets and my body takes over. I follow the current of music, each chord a wave, each note a splash. My feet move to match the rhythm, drawing crazy, invisible patterns on the floor.

My heart’s racing. I tell myself it’s just from the dance and the excitement of landing the role. But a voice in my head whispers that it’s because I’m thinking of Alec, too.
Bette’s Alec
. My chest tightens.
Control your breathing.
I haven’t had one episode, not in ballet class, not in Pilates, not in character dance, not even once all last year at my old regular school. I’m fine. I will my heart to slow. I’m in control of my body.

I come down off pointe, wipe the sweat from my forehead, and put my hands on my head until I can catch my breath. If I stretch a bit, maybe I’ll relax even more. If I focus on the deep pulls in my muscles, I can get it together. I push my leg across the barre to feel the stretch and the calm that usually comes afterward. My muscles tremble, my feet spasm, my hands shake. My fingernails are purple. The light flickers off for a long moment. Sad darkness surrounds me until the light comes on again.
Maybe I’m not good enough to dance the Sugar Plum Fairy. Maybe I’m not cut out for the role. Maybe I’ll disappoint Mr. K and Alec and prove everyone right. Maybe Mama was right—I’m not well enough to dance.

“Shut up,” I say to the mirror. “Chill out.” I fight the negativity. “I got the role!”

My heart’s not slowing down. This hasn’t happened in a whole year. My body usually obeys. I sit on the floor and press the soles of my feet together so that my legs form butterfly wings. I press on my knees. I try to breathe like a yogi—deep, slow breaths. Nothing will take this away from me. Nothing.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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NO ONE HAS SPOKEN TO
me since the cast list went up, not even Eleanor, who is breathing heavily in the bed next to mine, so comfortable with mediocrity as an understudy that she can sleep right through her failure. I do all the tricks: counting sheep, picturing myself afloat on the ocean, pretending my body is filling with grains of sand and getting heavier and heavier.

It does nothing for me. On endless loop is one impossible thought:
I am not the Sugar Plum Fairy. I am not the Sugar Plum Fairy.
I assume I have text messages on my phone from Alec, checking to make sure I’m okay after I ran off and hid in my room, but nothing can interrupt the flow of those words and their hold on my mind. Which is why it takes me a few moments to register the loud knocking at our door at one o’clock in the morning, when the dorm should be all silence except for roommate whispers or secret hookups.

“Bette?” Eleanor says, and it’s her voice, sleepy and soft, that breaks through the loop. Then the harsh knocking and our RA calling out my name, louder and louder.

“Jesus, what’s going on?” I say, and get myself out of bed and to the door. Eleanor moves more slowly, rubbing her eyes and grumbling about the time and the noise. Our sour-faced RA is at the door when I open it, and she rubs her knuckles as if the incessant knocking has caused her an injury.

She does not look pleased.

Then again, neither do I.

“Your mother,” she says.

“You can’t send her away?” I say.

Eleanor is awake enough to scoff behind me.

“So not my job,” our RA says, and she stomps off, slamming the door to her room behind her and probably waking up the students who didn’t already stir from all the knocking. A few people have opened their doors, and others are shuffling behind them. The gutsier ones take the elevator right after me and come down to the parents’ lounge on the first floor, though Eleanor tries to motion them away and Liz threatens them with bodily harm. It’s useless: my mother always puts on a show, and they know it. Besides, these girls have been waiting a decade for my downfall. They wouldn’t miss it for the world.

She’s right outside the elevator when the doors open, moments away from heading up without permission: steely, skinny, mouth in a line so straight I could use it as a ruler. My mother. She smells like red wine and rare steak and the angry kind of sweat.

“Bette,” my mother says, her lips tight and too pink from Chanel lipstick, which has been hurriedly drawn on over red wine–stained lips. The
T
s in my name land hard. She pulls me past the front desk and toward studio C. The three other elevators open with a ping. More students pour out. She doesn’t seem to notice, or care. Someone laughs, but the cowards mostly hide near the elevator
bank or chat up the front-desk guard, waiting to hear whatever she’s come to say to me. They are too far away to smell the booze on her breath or to see the unfortunate pit stains that have ruined her couture gown. But they’ll be able to hear every slurred word. “Next time, please tell me the truth about how your audition has gone.”

My mother doesn’t raise her voice. Not ever. It’s more powerful all low and practiced anyway, and she knows it. Even when the vowels are long and loose and the words slip on top of each other, she stays in control of the volume. We’re WASPs; we don’t shout.

“It’s not like I’m some understudy, Mother,” I say. I do not let my voice break, but my eyes are filling with tears. During the last winter ballet, I was the only Level 6 girl, besides Cassie, to dance a soloist part. I was the Harlequin Doll, cast with the Level 7 and 8 girls. I try to remember that feeling, but my mother erases every inch of it.

“I’d already called some very important people to come see you perform, Bette,” she says. “You said your audition went
well
. I took that to mean you were ready to be
seen.
When your sister—”

“You want to take it up with Mr. K?” I say. “I killed it. He smiled. He ever smile at Adele? At anyone? He was practically beaming.”

“Maybe it was because he was laughing at you. Did you ever consider that?” she says. I try to remember she would never say this if she hadn’t been drinking, but I know that’s not true. She keeps that pink Chanel smile on her face and her eyes don’t leave mine. She’s not that drunk. There is not a pinch of sadness or regret in the words coming out of her mouth.

Eleanor and Liz slink out of the late-night shadows. Our unspoken rule is that neither of them will leave me alone with my mother if things get out of control, and I guess this qualifies. Eleanor, Liz, and I give one another a look, and both of them take a few steps closer to me.

“Hi, Mrs. Abney!” Eleanor voice chimes out, a welcome interruption, but too light and pretty for this time of night and this kind of conversation.

“Hey, Mrs. Abney!” Liz adds, her tone thick with exhaustion. My mother ignores them both. She’s not done tearing me to pieces, not yet.

“You don’t think. You just act,” she says. “Just like your father. That’s your problem.”

I decide not to cry at the mention of my father, but promise myself that I can feel upset about it later, alone in my room, maybe when Eleanor is in the shower or something.

“Who got it?” my mother says then. I can practically see her little ears prick up like a dog’s, hunting for the next target. She’s come straight from her gala event to find out the answer to this very important question. Her eyes settle on Eleanor, then comb over Liz—my only obvious competition.

“Doesn’t matter. Not me,” I say. I didn’t want to say Gigi’s name. I don’t want to hear the things my mother will say about her or the accusations she will make. I don’t want Gigi, if she’s listening somewhere with the rest of them, to think she matters to me. Or my mother.

“Who, Bette?” She leans in a little closer, so that instead of just seeing the Chanel on her lips I can practically taste the shit, that pitch-perfect perfume and the acidic way it mixes with her boozy breath. The combination hits my taste buds hard.

“New girl,” I mumble.

“Oh Christ,” my mother yells, breaking her vow to stay silent and calm in spite of everything. Liz steps away; even she can’t handle it. Eleanor grabs my elbow, like I might topple over from the cruelty without her help.

“Her name’s Gigi,” Eleanor breaks in. “She’s really a totally different type from Bette, so I don’t think it was even really about the dancing—” She tries hard to protect me from the unstoppable gale wind that is my mother.

“Gigi . . .” My mother puts it all together. The woman spent the summer reading up on the newest recruits to the conservatory. If anyone can put a face with a name, it’s her. “Gi—no
.”
She stops. Her eyes widen as she stares at Eleanor’s red face.

I should feel relief. The pressure is off me so fast I almost lose balance, all that weight just sliding away. Eleanor’s grip on my elbow tightens.

“Well,” she said. “We can certainly fix that.”

I grab for her arm, knowing she’s going to head right for Mr. K. She knows he sometimes stays very late in his office. But my grip is too shaky and sweaty from the third degree interrogation that’s just gone down. And so she escapes, her gown sweeping behind her as she makes her way to the office with the kind of singular determination only ever rivaled by my sister, Adele. If I’m lucky, he’s not there, and she’ll just leave an angry, drunken voice mail that I hope his secretary will erase in the morning. She already has her cell phone in her hand, armed with everything she needs to make a fuss and to make a joke of our family.

“It’s okay,” Eleanor whispers in my ear, which means it definitely isn’t. Eleanor only ever says that when things are really bad. Liz doesn’t say a word. Just lets her forehead frown and her mouth purse, acknowledging the complete mortification of this moment. She knows it’s bad. She doesn’t lie to me. Not even to make me feel better.

Other students punch at the elevator button, no longer trying to stay quiet. There are guttural laughs and a few imitations of the great, drunk Mrs. Abney.

I look over at one of the elevators. Will stands there holding it open for everyone, red hair gelled up with the color-enhancing treatment he puts in every night, his cell phone in his hand, no doubt sending out mass texts (and hopefully not video) about what just happened. And I know he’s the reason half the school is down here watching in the first place. He loves seeing me fall.

Eleanor tries to hold me in place, so that I don’t run after the vultures, but I practically throw her off me. Maybe I got drunk on my mother’s breath. I don’t know. But I’m getting really tired of keeping it together, especially when it doesn’t make a difference. I fly after the students, fueled with the desire to hit one of them. I almost do, too. June’s just a hand’s length in front of me, and I could push her too-skinny ass straight into the elevator doors if I wanted. And I do want to. Just to hurt someone. Just to feel a release.

Hitting her will only get me into more trouble, though, and she’s not the person I hate most of all right now.

“Watch out, ladies! Bette’s a real animal,” Will calls out with a smug grin on his face. I want to slap the look off his face, but I shove past him, past June, past all of them, making sure to elbow as many girls as possible on my way into the elevator at the very end. I don’t let anyone get in with me. It zips up to the eleventh floor. I throw open the door to my bedroom. And then the door to my bathroom. And there she is, the girl I hate. The one I really want to punch. I draw my hand back, make my first real fist and punch the mirror. Hard. So hard it shatters around my hand. So hard sad pieces of glass clatter in the sink. So hard my knuckles start to bleed. It hurts, but not as much as the rest of the day.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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