26.
Bette
I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE Eleanor’s face. I moved in earlier this week, but she’s been too busy, apparently, to welcome me back. I can’t wait to plop down with her on the sofa, pop in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and fall asleep under the same fuzzy blanket. I can’t wait to hear the soft, consistent up, up, down rhythm of her snores, so familiar to me they’re like a lullaby. I feel like I’m finally home.
When I open the door, the room is dark, quiet. Empty. She’s not there. It’s 11:30 now, way past curfew, way past lights-out. I flip on the lamp. I walk around “our” room, trying to get comfortable.
This year, Eleanor’s definitely claimed her space, draping the little sofa with a teal throw and pillows, scattering piles of dog-eared dance mags on the floor near her bed. There’s an open, half-eaten tub of hummus—that she definitely shouldn’t be eating, not after the peanut incident—sitting on top of the minifridge. In my absence, Eleanor’s inner slob has come out. I thumb through her dance notebooks, with the Odette and Odile movements marked out lovingly, as I wait for her to come home.
Settling in on the couch, I shove Eleanor’s tattered copy of Wuthering Heights to the floor. There’s no space for me here. Maybe that means there’s no space left for me in her life either.
Thirty minutes pass. Then an hour. I’ve had enough of the waiting. I stand up and gather the book and the magazines. I stack them neatly on her desk, mopping up crumbs with my disinfectant. I empty two of the dresser drawers—still annoyed that she thought she could just have the whole thing, that she didn’t realize this room was also being saved for me and put her bras and underwear in a laundry basket on her bed. Underneath them, though, are a few lacy ones that definitely look like they’ve come from a lingerie catalogue, that are meant to be seen. A panic hits me.
I remember that night at the hospital, the kiss I wasn’t supposed to see. I scroll through the pictures on my phone to the ones from that day. I zoom in on Mr. K kissing a sleeping Eleanor. I click off my screen, shuddering. I have to talk to Eleanor. I practice the words in my head, how I’ll ask her.
I grab my toiletry kit and robe and head into the bathroom. I need to wash the weight of today off. When I come back out, an Eleanor-shaped lump is in the bed across from mine, the covers pulled from head to toe, her deep snore cutting through the quiet.
“Eleanor?”
I’m answered by a whistling snore.
“El?”
I push down the lump in my throat. I climb into my bed, and let that familiar rhythm soothe me to sleep.
Gigi’s all over me before class. We’re at the barre and she keeps turning her head to look at me, as if every moment is surreal. I guess it is, because no one thought I’d be back, especially not her. Even after I told everyone the truth and Will had to leave, it’s like they’re still waiting for that to somehow be untrue.
I hold my gaze straight ahead, which only makes her crane her neck more, like if she gets her face right in front of mine I’ll give her whatever it is that she wants. Morkie’s calling out orders, so I’m in military mode. If necessary I’ll salute her. I’ll do anything to get my old life back.
“Is it weird to be back?” some new girl behind me whispers while Morkie grabs June’s arm and pulls it practically out of its socket to get it into position.
“No.” I say it under my breath. She should know better than to have a conversation in the middle of class. We turn to face the other side of the studio. With June’s arm in place, Morkie goes back to yelling out positions, and I watch myself in the mirror on the opposite wall as I move through each order. I’ve missed the way we look all in a line, reflected in the mirror. It’s almost meditative, getting lost in the swish of toes brushing the floor, the bending and straightening of knees in perfect time, the triangle of space between all our thighs making a distinct pattern in the mirror.
Mostly, I like the way my own body fits into the perfect synchronization in the mirror. When I am truly focused on the precision of the movements, I can forget which legs belong to me, which feet are mine, and the fact that I almost lost all this.
I’m just about in that state when Eleanor’s feet get out of time with the music and with Morkie’s staccato demands. Her feet flex when they are supposed to point, the left foot drags on the floor instead of the right.
I let out an aggravated huff of breath, but it’s too late to get back in the zone. I’m a beat behind. I trip over my own feet just in time for Morkie to catch me. I don’t just slip up; I catch my left foot on my right ankle and my knees bend and I have to fight a full-on drop to the floor.
“Bette!” Morkie says. Then she’s right up in my face, her nose almost touching mine. Her breath smells like coffee and cough drops, but I stop my nose from wrinkling.
“Sorry.” I try to just enter the movement, the pattern, without another word. Morkie stands directly in front of me, though, so I can’t see myself or anyone else in the mirror, and my heart thumps with awareness at her singular focus on me. “You are making a mess. Too much time out of my classroom.”
I can’t get my breathing under control and my limbs don’t seem to be listening to Morkie at all. I should’ve taken a pill before ballet class. I can’t trust my brain or my body anymore.
“Sit this one out.” Morkie has a curl of disgust in her voice.
I slip out of line and don’t argue. But I do let my gaze land hard on Eleanor. She bites her bottom lip and her eyes go wide. She won’t look back at me though.
Morkie turns her attention to Gigi’s feet, not touching them, but rather conducting them, the way one would an orchestra. Her fingers dance in the air, and Gigi’s flawless feet align themselves in response. Morkie grins, like she herself is making Gigi’s delicate movements happen.
I look away. Gigi doesn’t exist to me. That’s what the lawyers said. You don’t even look at her. She is a ghost.
The piano music stops when Morkie stops calling out orders, and we exhale as a group, except I am on the sidelines and everyone else is at the barre, working their legs through slow movements and experiencing the momentary euphoria of having driven through hell. Morkie releases them to stretch.
“Bette, you come,” she yells, which means I’m going to have to work on technique with her whispering in my ear and the other girls watching as they cool down.
I nod and approach the barre. It is my best friend and my nemesis. We spar and we make up.
“Toes!”
I rise up, gripping the barre with the hope that today it will be a lifeboat. I tell my mind to stay quiet so that I can hear Morkie and respond with my body without a hitch. Eleanor wisely stays out of my sight line, and June is in her corner, lifting her leg to the ceiling as usual. But Gigi is right in front of me. Her legs are spread and she keeps inching them farther and farther apart until they are practically a straight line that her long, lovely torso grows from.
I fight looking at her, but my gaze drifts to the dark ringlet of hair that’s escaped from her bun and the beautiful way her neck meets her collarbone. I can see Alec’s fingers on the symmetrical bones, his palm fitting perfectly around the curve of her shoulder. I feel like I’m back in that same place I was last year. What is it about this girl?