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Eight Years Later
“You have practiceagain? Sofia, it’s Friday night. For fuck’s sake, live a little.”
My best friend and roommate, Anastasia Ivanova, is propped up against the stack of pillows on my bed, painting her nails a brilliant shade of crimson.
“You’re just going to have to take that off before class on Monday,” I tell her dryly, nodding at the bottle of polish.
Anastasia, or Ana to me, is one of the top ballet students at Juilliard, where I study violin. We’re both the top in our class, actually, but that’s where the similarities end. Ana is naturally blonde, tall, and impossibly thin, with a list of numbers in her phone a mile long and a date every night of the week. I dye my hair platinum blonde, I’m just shy of 5’6, and although I definitely lost my baby fat when I turned sixteen, I have more curves than Ana does. But beyond that, I can’t remember the last time I was out on a date. I’ve never had a boyfriend. Ana spends every weekend out at the elite Manhattan clubs, flashing her fake ID to anyone who dares question her right to be there, and I spend my weekends getting in extra practice sessions with the rest of the string section.
How she remains the shoo-in for the next prima of the New York City Ballet, I’ll never understand, other than the fact that she’s ridiculously talented. I’ve seen her dance a handful of times, and it takes my breath away every single time without fail. Watching her dance is like watching a fairytale come to life.
All fairytales have a dark side.
For a brief flash of a moment, I hear my father’s words echo in my head, in his deep and kindly voice, and a shiver runs down my spine. I bite my lip hard to keep my eyes from welling up. It’s been eight years, but I still can’t hear my father’s voice in my head without wanting to cry.
“Did someone walk over your grave?” Ana asks, glancing up at me with the brush hovering over her finger. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
“I’m fine.” I pull my hair back into a ponytail, still watching her. “Your teacher is going to have a fit, Ana.”
“I’ll take it off before class.” Ana insists. “But I’m not going out with bare nails, or worse, painted some frumpy pale pink.” She swipes the brush over her pinky nail, caps it, and then sits up, waving her hand in the air. “Come on, Sofia,” she says again, her voice pleading. “We never go out. And it’s my birthday month.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes. “You don’t get a whole month, Ana. No one does.” I gingerly lay my violin in its case, carefully setting the bow beside it and zipping it up. “I’ll go out with you for your birthday though. I promise.”
“I’d rather you go out with me tonight.” She pouts, pursing her lips, which are painted with the same shade of lipstick as the nail polish. “Come on. You can borrow something out of my closet.”
“Nothing in your closet would fit me,” I point out. “There’s not a chance.”
“You’re still thin. Just because you have boobs doesn’t mean you can’t fit into anything I have. There’s one dress that I always wear a pushup bra to fill it out—”
“Ana, no. I promised my group—” My phone goes off then, and I dive for it before Ana can pick it up off of the nightstand. The preview of the text on the screen makes my heart sink.
Ana catches the look on my face before I can smooth it over. “They canceled, didn’t they?” she asks triumphantly. “Now youhaveto go with me.”
Desperately, I try to think of another out. It’s not even just that I don’t want to go out, even though that’s part of it. It’s that I know the kinds of places Ana likes to go—the fanciest, most expensive clubs and bars that Manhattan has to offer. It’s not that I can’t afford it, either. It’s just that I don’t want to spend the money.
Every month, like clockwork, an embarrassing amount of money shows up in my bank account. I don’t know where it comes from or how, and I’ve tried every way that I can think of to dodge it. I’ve changed banks multiple times, but it always shows up again. I’ve tried to get a job, so that I won’t need to use it, but most of the time I never even get a call back, even for the simplest of retail positions. When I do get a call, the position somehow is always filled before I can go in for an interview.
And then there’s my tuition to Juilliard. Every semester, it’s paid in full, before I can even try to call and set up a payment plan of my own. When I tried to get the receptionist in the registrar’s office to tell me who had paid, they’d said it was an anonymous benefactor. Even when I’d tried to move into the dorms, I’d gotten a call the day before telling me that a two-bedroom apartment in an expensive pre-war building near campus had been leased in my name, with the first year’s rent paid in full.
It was all very mysterious, very frustrating, and made me feel both anxious and curious as to who, exactly, was providing all of this. I’d spent one night alone in the too-big apartment before putting out an ad for a roommate, which Ana answered almost immediately. Since the place was already paid for, I just asked her to chip in for groceries and utilities, which she was more than happy to accept. All I wanted was a quiet roommate who didn’t party, didn’t disturb me, and didn’t have boys over very often if at all.
That didn’t turn out to be Ana in the slightest. But somehow, despite the fact that she’s as extroverted as I am introverted, as much of a partier as I am a homebody, and could rival an opera singer with her moans every time she brings a guy home, we rapidly became friends. Part of it, I think, is due to the fact that I don’thaveany other friends, and part of it is that Ana, with her slight Russian accent and willowy frame, reminds me of my mother, just brunette instead of blonde.
Ana taps her fingers on the nightstand. “Earth to Sofia. Come on, I know they canceled. Are you really just going to stay in tonight instead of going out with me and seeing the most eligible bachelors that Manhattan has to offer?”
“I’m not interested in dating,” I say almost automatically. “You know that.”
“Yeah, butIam.” Ana hops off of the bed, linking her arm through mine. “Come on. You can be my wingwoman. Drinks are on me.”
I can see that I’m not getting out of it. And atinypart of me, ever so tiny, is curious. I’ve never been in this world that Ana inhabits on the weekends, full of expensive cocktails and glamorous men and women and neon-lit clubs. It doesn’t really appeal to me, but shouldn’t I experience it just once? The spring recital is only two months away, and just after it, graduation. Then I’ll be leaving Manhattan for good, and that means Ana, too.
So maybe it wouldn’t hurt to indulge her, just a little.
“Okay,” I relent, and her entire face lights up.
“Yes!” She claps her hands excitedly. “I’ve been wanting to make you over since I moved in. Come on, we’ll dig through my closet.”
“O—okay.” I can tell there’s no use in arguing, as Ana eagerly drags me out of my room and down the hall towards hers.
