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Your hair is the wrong shade of blonde. Your nose is too big, your eyes are too far apart. You’re too tall to do ballet, too heavy for most dancers to lift. Your posture is imperfect. Your feet are too large.
I swallow and lift my chin. I have to overcome my obvious shortfalls, be resilient enough to make it as a dancer. My dad put me through ballet academy and he has certain expectations.
If I work hard, if I focus all my energy on each and every move, I should be able to prevail.
But by far the worst thing of all is that I lack mobility in my turnout. The rotation of my hip joints, to turn outward away from the front of my body, is sadly never going to be a perfect one hundred and eighty degrees.
I wrinkle my nose at myself and drag my eyes back up to the rest of the class. I see my group moving forward again and I rush to take my place. We execute another set of pirouettes under Melanie’s eagle-eyed gaze.
“Ella, you are still a step behind everyone else. Always a step behind. Start earlier.”
The incredibly tiny black woman blushes and bows her head, but says nothing. I would kill for Ella’s diminutive height or turnout, but I am incredibly glad not to get that same bit of criticism from our teacher.
“Let’s change it up,” Melanie says. She turns around, signaling to the piano player to stop. “This will be the last combination. Girls, please begin with relevé developé, pas de bourre, arabesque en diagonal, tombé, and demi-plie. Okay? Let’s go.”
The hardest part of my day is right now, when we’ve already had an full day of classes and we only have a few minutes more. The last fifteen minutes always seem to drag terribly.
We go through the combination two more times, with Melanie correcting everything she sees. Don’t get me wrong, I know that she’s one of our most kind hearted teachers. But by the time the class ends, I’m done with her critiques.
Honestly, I could probably use a day off right about now. But between attending my last month of classes here at the New York Academy of Ballet and my much less prestigious night job, there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of that randomly happening.
I walk over to grab my bottle of water, taking a long pull. As I’m guzzling down the water, Eric walks up. I gulp as he casually starts talking to me; with his blonde hair, clear blue eyes, and his muscular danseur’s frame, Eric looks like a freaking Disney prince.
“Hey,” he says, picking up a small black duffel bag from against the wall. “That last round of combinations was killer. I feel like I just got my ass kicked.”
Before I even say a word, my face grows hot. As a ballerina, I’m always sensitive to my body and the story told by my posture. But talking to gorgeous Eric brings a whole new level of embarrassment and self consciousness.
I give him a shy smile. “Yeah, especially the last one. That releve développe sliding into that pas de bourrée was really tricky.”
Eric nods, digging through his duffel bag. “I think that move is featured pretty heavily in The Nutcracker. So if we have any hope of getting picked for any ballet company, I guess that’s a move we really have to nail.” He pulls his water bottle out of his bag and takes a swig.
As he drinks, I look at the way his head is thrown back. His throat arches, his whole body effortlessly shifting to balance. I watch the motion of Eric swallowing, my eyes tracing the path of the water moving down his throat.
Will he ever ask me out?I wonder.
I’ve never been on a date or had a boyfriend, but I have definitely had the hots for Eric for years.
He snaps the lid closed on his water bottle and catches my longing expression. He arches an eyebrow. “What?”
My face goes red and I turn away from him, heading toward my own duffel bag. I fib a little. “Did you know that I can get extra life out of my pointe shoes by using floor wax? I dab a little inside the box, put the shoes in a preheated oven that’s been turned off. When I take them out and let them cool overnight, they feel better and last longer.”
He squints at me. “You are really thrifty, Kaia.”
I am. I have to be.
There is no magical force out there, guiding me toward making money. Just me, trying to scrimp and save and cut corners to get by.
I flush, looking down at my hands.
Eric continues on, as if I had never started off on a weird money saving tangent. “I’m just wondering about what company I’ll end up in. Imagine if we both got accepted to the New York Ballet.”
Manon is standing by the wall where my bag is. As I approach, she turns around, her lip curling into a delicate sneer.
“There is no way that Kaia will be chosen by the NYB. They only recruit five graduates from every ballet academy in the world each year. You just…” Her eyes scan my body, a smirk appearing on her lips. “Don’t measure up. You should apply for Cincinnati or Birmingham or somewhere that they need second rate ballerinas, honestly.”
My heart drops toward my feet. I open my mouth to return her snarky comment, but Ella walks over, inserting herself in the situation. Ella refuses to let anybody talk to her or her friends with disrespect… and I’m lucky enough that she has adopted me as one of her besties.
Whatever that means for ballerinas, anyway.
