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Instead, I stay in my seat, giving her time and space to adjust, patiently hooking her so as to reel her in without her even noticing. Finally, she turns back, eyes landing on mine.
“I always dreamed of being a dancer.”
I tilt my head, amused. “And this is supposed to be new information? Allie, you are a dancer. I knew that the first moment I saw you perform.”
She shakes her head like I don’t get it. “No, not like this,” she says, shaking her hand toward the wall of windows I currently have set to opaque so as not to allow the distractions of the club’s pre-opening activities to invade this moment between us. “I mean, a real dancer. Ever since I was a little girl, it was all I ever wanted. To be up on stage, dancing and performing, creating those moments for the audience and sharing in their experience. And I worked my ass off for it too, hours of class and practice everyday, stretching until I cried, working until my toes bled and then bandaging them and continuing. It was all I thought about, dreamed about. It was everything.”
This is nothing unknown to me, but it is fresh from her lips, so I let her continue. “And what happened to divert you from that dream?”
Allie raises an eyebrow, curious. “How do you know I didn’t just give it up, that I didn’t get so tired of the constant drive to be better that I just walked away?”
I give her a narrowed-eyed look, showing her a little bit of what I know of her past. “Because if you decided you didn’t love it, you wouldn’t be teaching ballet to the next generation. You wouldn’t be performing in small community theater ballet productions. And you certainly wouldn’t light up like a star just from talking about it. But you do all those things. Even as you talk about how hard it was, I can tell you miss it. So, what happened? Something to do with that scar on your ankle?”
She huffs out a woeful sigh, looking down at her leg, though her ankle is hidden by her jeans and boots. “Not quite. Or at least, not at first. The real problem was puberty.”
I can’t help the bark of laughter that escapes at the unexpected answer. “What?”
She smiles, though it’s small and sad. “Well, several things, but that was the real trigger. Ballerinas are small, thin, light wisps of women, and I was until I turned sixteen. Luckily, or maybe unluckily, I was a late bloomer, but when I blossomed, I did so in a big way.”
She holds her hands out in front of her chest like she’s grasping huge melons, not the delectable full handfuls of breasts she actually possesses, which are in proportion to her curvy hips, giving her an hourglass shape.
“Almost overnight, I went from straight and thin to curvy, and no matter what I did to fight it, Mother Nature had other plans for my body. And I fought hard for years . . . diets, chest compression with elastic bandages, hours spent figuring out how to angle my hips so that I was never square to the directors, trying to mask it. I had to give up so much as the guys stopped wanting to do partner work with me. I knew I couldn’t be the Prima, but I thought I could still at least be one of the cast, one of the ensemble.”
I flush with anger. This precious being, not the center of attention? Insanity. Then again, the dance world has always been insane to me.
“Eventually, it caught up to me. I hadn’t eaten anything significant in days. I’d been on a broth and celery cleanse before a performance, and I was weak but pushing through. I’d overstretched, but I’d been so pleased with my progress that I didn’t consider that my body couldn’t keep up. I did a move where I was supposed to land in a deep plié with my feet turned out, and I felt a pop. I collapsed to the stage and passed out from the pain.”
My gut churns at her words, the story so very different from the dry words on paper I’d gotten in her background report. I can imagine a younger her, driven and hard-working, refusing to accept no for an answer from anyone, least of all herself.
She is still determined, but it’s softened with a cynical acceptance that sometimes your best still isn’t good enough, and perhaps now I understand why.
“And that was the ankle?”
She nods, rolling her right foot unconsciously. “Two ligaments, some space-age NASA stuff I can’t pronounce . . . and that was the end of my Sugar Plum Fairy dreams.”
Her voice is so heartbreaking, so sad, I want to gather her into my arms and reassure her that it doesn’t matter. At least to me, it doesn’t.
