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“Mila! You’re early today.”
“I have to make up time. Annalise was on me about missing yesterday to take Niki to therapy.”
Rachelle makes a face. “She’ll find an excuse to get on to anyone about anything. Don’t take it personally.”
“I try not to.” I glance over at her. “What’re you in for?”
She groans. “Same thing, missing time at practice. I had to pick up an extra shift at work.”
I’m far from the only one in the corps to need to work a second job, or to deal with financial problems. Ballet doesn’t pay well, even at this level, even when you have the lead role—or, in Rachelle’s case, the understudy to the lead. Some of the girls take regular jobs, like Rachelle—bagging groceries or working retail or waitressing. Others, like me, set aside their pride and strip. And some—also like me, until very recently—have rich men as their patrons.
“It’s only going to get more intense until the showcase, too,” Rachelle continues, leaning forward as she stretches. “Annalise is already losing her mind. She’s not going to let us get away with missing any time at all. She’s so strict.” She leans back, arching. “Do you have to work tonight?”
I nod. “As soon as practice is over, I’m going to check in on Niki and then leave for work.”
Rachelle shakes her head. “Have you not seen Alfio lately? Surely, he should be making things easier for you.” She presses her lips together. “I think at the next party, I’m going to try harder to get someone’s attention. Maybe I’ll even get lucky, and get one of those older guys who like spending their money on patronizing the arts, but they can’t get it up, so they just watch. Or just want someone to spend time with them.”
I let out a sharp breath as I finish tying my pointe shoes. “Alfio and I aren’t—seeing each other any longer.” I don’t want to offer up any more information than that, so I quickly get up, moving to the other side of the barre to stretch where Rachelle can’t see my face. The last thing I want is to tell her that Alfio is dead.
“What?” Her astonishment is palpable. “Oh no, Mila. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I keep my voice as neutral as I can. “He was awful. Really, if you can manage without doing what I did—you should.”
“It’s worth it, though, isn’t it?” Her voice softens, just a little. “Being able to focus on what you really want to do? Not having to worry about bills? And they can’t all be awful?—”
I don’t tell her the truth—that even having Alfio helping me didn’t make things easy. It just made them manageable. But he also didn’t spoil me to the extent that some patrons like to spoil their pet dancers. If anything, I think he enjoyed having me at his beck and call while still doling out favors in the smallest amount possible.
“Maybe one of the Campano brothers will be at the next gala—” Rachelle’s voice turns slightly dreamy. “They’ve always patronized the ballet. They’re all so handsome. Dark hair, green eyes…I’ve always been a sucker for that combination. The older one seems a little more laid-back, surprisingly, but the middle brother has that cold, forbidding thing going on. It’s kind of sexy. It makes you wonder what he’d do if he ever thawed out a little. And those Italian accents?—
It takes me a moment to realize why one of them sounds so familiar. And then the face of the man in the mansion’s hallway yesterday swims back into my head, and my heart trips in my chest for a moment.
I lower my leg from the barre, turning to face her. “That man you just described. He’s one of the Campano brothers?”
Rachelle nods, going into a plie. “Lorenzo Campano is the middle brother. He doesn’t show up as often, but I heard a rumor that he’s taking over more of the family business. I’ve seen him once before, at one of the galas after a showcase. He’s gorgeous.” Her voice takes on that dreamy edge again, and I feel an entirely irrational flash of jealousy. I’ve barely even met the man, aside from possibly having been trapped in a hallway with him yesterday—and I’m not even entirely sure that it’s the same person. But just the thought of him with his hands on Rachelle instead of me, her giving him that doe-eyed look, sends a flush of heated jealousy through me that twists my stomach.
But maybe I could turn it to my advantage. If it was him?—
I don’t know if he felt the same attraction that I did. But it’s my experience that men are all the same. If I offer myself up to him for his personal enjoyment, in exchange for something as inconsequential to him as money?—
I don’t think he’ll turn me down.
Even if Lorenzo Campano and the man I ran into in Alfio’s mansion aren’t the same person, they’ve clearly shown an interest in the ballet. Maybe I can still exchange one patron for another.
The thought lingers with me all throughout practice, tumbling around in the back of my head as I endure Annalise’s shrill instructions and her never-ending displeasure with the slightest mistakes, and then afterward, the aching in my feet as I unwrap them from my pointe shoes. I think about it on the bus ride back to my apartment, getting there just in time to pick Niki up from the bus station and take him upstairs to wait for Darcy, the hundred and fifty dollars from the watch still occupying my thoughts as well.
I still need to make another three hundred and fifty tonight at the club. It’s not impossible, but on a weeknight, it’s also not guaranteed. It’s never guaranteed. If I get enough private dances, I’ll be able to pull it off, but I’m competing with the other dancers for those—dancers with curvier figures and bigger breasts and often a willingness to do more than I have been in the past.
I might have to get over those compunctions, too, if things don’t change. The thought of giving seedy men a handjob or grinding on them until they come in the back room of the club for an extra thirty or fifty dollars gives me the same feeling that I had this morning, when the landlord propositioned me.
But everything will be so much worse, if Niki and I are kicked out. We’ll be separated, and all his progress will disappear. I’ll be starting over from scratch, with the climb back up so much harder than it is now.
I bite my lip, looking at my phone. It’s four p.m. I doubt men like Lorenzo Campano keep regular business hours, and it will take some research to find out where his offices are—if he even has an actual office. For all I know, he ‘works’ from a penthouse while girls in lingerie feed him grapes, or something like that.
I’ll go and see him tomorrow, I tell myself as I grab a hoodie and throw it on over my t-shirt, steeling myself for the night ahead. Darcy will be here any minute, and I need all the time that I can get at the club tonight. If I seek him out right now and Lorenzo turns out to not be the man I think he is, or if he denies me altogether, I’ll be entirely out of options.
I have to make the rest of the money tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll try to find Lorenzo, and offer him the same deal that I had with Alfio.
One foot in front of the other. And all the while, I have to hope that I don’t trip and fall.
