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“Mom,” I said in a quiet voice. “I messed up big time.”
Mary didn’t get it.
“But how?” she asked. “Did you fall during a big performance? Did you break something? Or,” and here, her eyes flew wide. “Is it drugs? Honey, you know that stuff’s bad, we’ve talked about it a million times.”
I shook my head slowly. I’ve always been afraid of drugs, ever since they showed us that scary documentary in junior high. Yeah, I’m that wimpy. But Mary’s question made sense because as dancers, we put ourselves through so much that prescription painkillers are a part of our lives. A lot of ballerinas have gotten addicted, popping pills non-stop, sometimes even downing twenty or thirty a day. So my mom knew what she was talking about, but her fear was unfounded, drugs weren’t my downfall.
“No Ma,” I said slowly. “No painkillers, nothing like that. It’s worse.”
She breathed a sigh of relief before looking at me again.
“But what?” she asked confusedly. “What could go wrong? I just don’t understand honey. What’s so bad that they’d throw you out?”
I took another wavery breath, meeting her eyes this time.
“Ma, I wasn’t thrown out, I quit,” I said slowly. “I quit because I was sleeping with the CEO, and it got out of hand. He didn’t care about me at all, and I couldn’t stay afterwards. I had to go,” I finished on one big breath.
But my mom was completely confused now.
“What CEO? What are you talking about baby? Who’s the CEO?”
Tears pooled in my eyes again.
“Every ballet troupe has a CEO,” I began slowly. “We didn’t realize it out here in Kansas because we never saw that side of the business. But every dance troupe has a guy at the top who runs things, and in this case, the NYC Academy CEO is a very important guy.”
Mary nodded slowly.
“Okay honey, I get that. Did he force you out? Oh wait, you said you quit right? Honey, what’s going on? I’m just so lost,” she said, blue eyes bleary, unsure what to say next.
And slowly the story came out. How I’d met Luke. How I’d danced for him in his private studio, leading to our first steamy session. And how we’d begun what I thought was a relationship of sorts, except that it wasn’t, not for him.
Kudos to Mary because she listened quietly the entire time. As I relayed all the gory details, my mom didn’t say anything, just letting me talk uninterrupted. And by the end, I was completely in tears again.
“He was seeing someone else the entire time,” I concluded, sobbing sorrowfully now, hanging my head. “I heard them, I heard all the banging and it was clear what was going on.”
My mom extended one gnarled hand. Being a seamstress is difficult work, and her joints were swollen and thick with arthritis. But her touch was gentle as she stroked my curls, like I was a little girl again.
“Don’t worry, baby,” she murmured. “Don’t worry.”
That just set me off even more.
“It was so horrible,” I choked. “The cries, the screams, the gasping and moaning. All the evidence was there,” I choked, a spasm of pain ripping through my chest so hard that I doubled over, caught in the agony. “It was true, I heard them myself.”
My mom leaned back in her chair then, sighing, wiping a hand over her eyes.
“Baby, men aren’t what they seem,” she said in a soft voice. “They’re never what they seem.”
“I know that now,” I wailed, lifting my head momentarily, face crumpled and bright pink. “But I didn’t know then, and now I’ve lost everything,” I said brokenly. “My life in New York, my scholarship, my dance, and my … my … my love,” I finished.
Mary’s hand caressed my head again.
“It’s not so bad,” she said. “You’re young. You can still have a career here in Kansas. There are lots of little girls who want to learn ballet, you could open up a studio here,” she said reasonably.
I lifted my head, eyes wide with disbelief.
“Ma, we live in a beaten-down part of town,” I said woodenly. “No one here can afford ballet lessons, and even if they could, why would they want me?” I asked bitterly. “I’m just a washed-out nothing who didn’t make it in the big city.”
But Mary was realistic.
“So you didn’t make it in New York, is that so bad? Honey, there are lots of people who don’t make it in the Big Apple, and they go on to have productive lives. They go on to have wonderful lives with lots of friends, family, and a fulfilling career too. You could have that, I know you could,” she said, her voice encouraging and warm. “I know you could, you’re my best girl.”
But the words just sent me over the edge again. Because sometimes Luke had called me his “best girl,” and the memory made the pit in my stomach grow even deeper and darker. How could he? How could he, on our one night apart, bring another girl to the apartment? How could he be so faithless, so dismissive, treating me like a nobody?
