Convincing her father to let her leave the States for a city like Moscow had been the harder part. Compromise came in the form of private security, a man known for his penchant to protect dangerous men, until she was eighteen.
And only because she threatened to run away, otherwise.
Vera had only been a little dramatic.
The thing is, she would have done it.
Vera was determined to be the ballerina in the middle of the stage, the most beautiful, all spotlights on her, and an entire crowd at the edge of their seats, waiting with bated breath for her next step; so much so that for most of her life, she’d lived and breathed the art, sacrificed education, and having a childhood just to be the very best she could be en pointe. Every day, all day.
Until she was that ballerina.
She’d loved ballet that much.
Don’t you still?
Vera didn’t have an opportunity to ponder the question she asked herself.
“You’re late!”
The first shout came in Russian, ripping her gaze away from the flyer she must have walked by a thousand or more times but had only noticed it remained that day.
She didn’t even have time to ask why today?
Hanging out of the large, black marble doors adorned with golden swans for handles, Klara—one of the company’s ballerinas that agreed to help Vera make dance classes available to underprivileged children for free three nights a week at The Swan House.
If anything, it gave Vera something to do.
Or maybe just a reason to stay.
After all, she hadn’t danced on stage in years.
In English, Klara said, “I figured when you didn’t pick up my call that something was up. I’ve got the kids doing their warmup stretches, but I have to get to my own—”
“No worries, thank you,” Vera interjected, forcing herself to smile and hoping the younger ballerina didn’t notice what had her lingering out on the sidewalk of the grand Swan House instead of being inside teaching her ballet class.
The flyer.
Her fading star ...
Klara looked like she was considering heading back inside The Swan House but hesitated for a moment. No doubt, the practice she spoke of was all the way at the rear of the old stone cathedral and monastery. Once owned by the Russian orthodox church, no one really seemed to know how it became the property of a private family that converted it into a house of ballet complete with several studios and an entire theater that seated up to three-thousand people.
Vera thought someone knew; they simply didn’t want everyone else to know, too.
Klara eyed Vera as she climbed the few marble steps up to the doors, waiting until she was at the top before asking, “Ty v poryadke—are you okay?”
“Da,” she tried to assure her. “I was just up late talking to my ma back in New York and woke up way too late.”
She didn’t mention that she’d gotten drunk after she hung up with her stepmother, Claire. Or that a part of her desperately wanted to leave Russia and her shattered dreams behind she simply couldn’t seem to pull the trigger on doing so.
“And you’re late,” Vera told Klara. “Madame Lidia is going to give you hell. Go.”
The eighteen-year-old didn’t need to be told again, but she waited at the front doors just long enough to hold the heavy oak open until Vera slipped inside.
“And thanks again for the kids!” she called to the girl’s retreating back.
Klara only waved a hand high before taking the grand staircase that curved along the west wall of the massive entrance to The Swan House. Black marble greeted guests that were lucky enough to come inside. Floors, pillars, and even the stairs. The outside had been painted the color where it could be, and the stone wall surrounding the massive property included black wrought iron grating across the top. The rich tapestries and heavy silk and satin curtains that fell to the floor in luxurious piles around every window and entrance was all nostalgic for Vera.
She remembered the first time she saw it, The Swan House with its towering golden spires and massive stature looming amongst the backdrop of the city, and the way her heart had raced as she stepped inside. It was hard not to be amazed and in awe of this place, and what it had promised to her.
It became home.
Still was.
That’s why she had yet to leave.
Partly, anyway.
Vera crossed the mostly quiet entrance, the only sound coming from the squeaks of her runners against the marble floor, murmurs from somewhere upstairs and young laughter traveling beyond the hallway beneath the massive staircase. She headed into the hallway with her small canvas duffle bag emblazoned with the logo of the ballet company tossed over her shoulder. At least in the warmer months, she didn’t have to waste time bundling up, so all she really had to do was change shoes and toss off her light windbreaker. She already had on her staple black leotard and tights. Even the compress wrap that kept her left ankle steady while she danced only took a few seconds to put on.
If the kids had only started their stretches, then she had a few minutes to work with before someone started to complain about her tardiness. Not that she thought anyone would. Vera might not have danced professionally for The Swan House since that last showing of In the Stars, but the city still knew her name and loved her all the same.
That was the last thing Vera wanted to think about, so she forced those thoughts to the back of her mind as she entered the lower gallery of the newest studio built inside what had once been one of many storage sections for the company in the massive building. It never served her well to walk into a room full of kids who seemingly adored her with a heavy heart—she swore those kids could see it every single time.
They deserved better than that.
The parents—and guardians—of the class of students that she could see already lined up along the barres against the wall of mirrors through the gallery windows stopped their conversation as she breezed straight through with a wave. Their greetings chased her into the changing room connected to the gallery, but no one followed her inside.
Pink and black and gold duffel bags lined the benches inside the changing room, and Vera dropped hers with the kids’. It took her no time at all to change out her outdoor shoes and into her sneakers after she’d wrapped her ankle. The warmer months were easier because the cold always brought an ache to the old break.
Vera had just stood up and fixed the waistband of her tights when one of the girls from her class made herself known in the changing room by clearing her throat. Eleven-year-old Nelli shrugged and scuffed the toe of her shoe against the floor when she realized Vera had noticed her standing there.
“No tights?” she asked in Russian although most of the kids and people who came in and out of The Swan House were fluent in English, too. Otherwise, they tended to pick up on it considering many of the ballerinas that studied here came from all over the world, and English was often the common denominator for many.
“Or shoes,” Nelli muttered.
“That’s okay. I’ll leave an extra set in here and you can change fast. No problem.”
At that statement, the blue-eyed, dark-haired girl who had reminded her of herself the first time she laid eyes on her beamed up at Vera. “I tried to remind Mik but—”
“Mikhail has a lot going on, right? Is he taking summer classes again?”
Nelli shrugged but nodded. “I miss him.”