An hour later, we’ve shifted studios. I’m with Morkie, Cassie, and Riho in Studio E to work on the thirty-two fouettés in the coda.
“Did you hear the news?” Cassie leans over me while I tie on new pointe shoes. Riho is facedown in a deep stretch and meditation. She doesn’t even look up.
I ignore Cassie. I pretend that she’s some version of an imaginary friend that will just disappear if I think about something else. Morkie lingers up front, talking to Viktor, so I have at least ten more minutes to get my muscles warm and my feet ready to do what she needs them to.
“I would think you’d want to hear it from me.” Her grin is so wide I can feel it.
“All I want to hear is the date you plan to jump off a bridge. Or that you’re going to leave me alone. I didn’t tell. Your little pill stunt could’ve injured me, seriously.”
Her smile doesn’t disappear. “You might not have gotten hurt this time, but there’s always another opportunity.”
“Get over it.” I shoot up and bounce on my toes to make sure these shoes feel good. I go to the barre and sink into a stretch. She follows; she’s desperate for me to look at her.
“I’ll never ‘get over it,’ as you say. I lost a year of my life. My hip still isn’t the same. I’ll never forget that, and I’ll never let you forget it either.” She’s not smiling anymore. I’m pinned close to the barre. The wood digs into my back.
“Move,” I say.
“No.” She steps closer. My back curves over the barre. The pain of it shoots through me. I push her. She doesn’t budge.
“Oh, my Cassandra.” Morkie turns around, and claps her hands together. “Congratulations. You will be beautiful. This is your start.”
Cassie makes a kissy noise at me, then pivots around, and rushes over. Morkie rubs Cassie’s cheek, then pats her back like there’s a bruise there. “The company corps will be stronger with you in it.”
It takes a minute for it to sink in. But then it hits me all at once.
She got the apprenticeship. She’s in the company.
There’s only one spot left.
I hold the barre so tight my knuckles go white, then my fingers turn red.
Cassie squeals with delight and thanks Morkie over and over again for all her help.
Riho finally looks up from her phone. “What’s going on?”
Cassie doesn’t answer her. Morkie wraps Cassie up in another hug. “I’m so thrilled,” Cassie’s babbling as Morkie embraces her. “I’m glad Damien’s letting me do both performances, though. I’m proud to be able to finish off my final year with you and all my friends here at the conservatory.” Her eyes flash with victory, her mouth a smug smile.
Riho turns to me. “Cassie got into the company,” I say as if I’m reporting that she’s suffering from a case of hemorrhoids. Her face twitches with anxiety.
As Morkie walks off to consult with Viktor about today’s rehearsal, Cassie turns to grin at me again, expectant.
“No one cares, Cassie,” I say. Even though I care. A lot.
“Oh, but of course you do,” she says.
“Center, girls.” Morkie waves us forward. “Odile’s fouettés are what people who love Swan Lake wait for.”
Viktor plays the music, and she has us listen to it three times. Rehearsing on my own and with Adele, I’ve managed twenty- five or maybe even thirty, but I’ve never gotten the full thirty-two fouettés—and that’s a feat expected of any future principal dancer, especially at ABC.
“Cassie, I know you have company corps rehearsal after this, so you give a try first. I think Bette and Riho will need more time.” She flutters her arms out left and right like she’s shooing me to the sidelines.
I step back and turn away, so I don’t have to watch Cassie. I see Damien standing in the studio doorway, observing. He winks at me, then joins Morkie at the front.
The piano chords grow louder. Cassie moves her shoulders and arms back and forth like the perfect imitation of a stretching swan. Then she steps into her fouettés. One after another she hits them, perfect lines and perfect turns and perfect pointed feet. You would never know she had a fracture in her hip, that she’s been through rehab. She makes the turns look effortless.
Damien starts to clap before she’s even finished. She beams and spins a few more times. I lose count after she hits number thirty-two.
A few minutes later it’s my turn. This is what I’ve always dreamed of. This is what every ballerina dreams to dance. But today it feels like a nightmare, with all those eyes on me, and Cassie smug with her flawless turns and company news.
I think of Adele, of all the time she spent with me and what happened to her, because of me. I have to make her proud. I have to be a true reflection of her, of the Abney name.
I spin and stretch and curve, taking my body to lengths it’s never been before. I prepare to do the fouettés, all thirty-two of them.
I step into the first one, up on my standing leg, strong through the hip. I’m spinning and spinning and spinning, almost perfect, counting them out in my head—twenty-nine and thirty and thirty-one. And then, just as I nearly have it, my leg drops and I miss the last one.
Everything comes to a screeching halt as Damien calls out, “Stop! The understudy gets it, but the Odile does not.” He’s not glaring at me, but I can tell he wants to. He motions at Morkie, as if it’s somehow her fault that I missed one. “Bette, you must get the fouettés. It’s part and parcel of this performance. You have to let the foot go completely flat in order to maintain your strength.” His hands land on my calf, adjusting my turnout.
I can practically feel Cassie smirking from the sidelines. I want to turn to her and scream, ask her if she’s happy now that she’s better than me. Now that she’s won.
Damien leaves us with Morkie. We practice the thirty-two fouettés for two hours straight—Cassie can get it without stopping, without thinking. But I have to work through it. Riho struggles, too, but lands more of them than me. “You’re thinking too much, Bette,” Morkie says for the hundredth time. “Relax into it. Let go. Or you’ll lose it.”
She sends me spinning again, but all I can think about is beating Cassie. About all the things I did to her. Maybe this is some kind of cosmic punishment for being a bitch. Again, at maybe number twenty-three, I crash.
“Bette,” I hear Adele’s voice drilling into my head, “if you’re going to join me at this level, you have to give it your all.” So I try again without Morkie saying a word.
I only get twenty-six this time.
Frustrated, Morkie ends rehearsal early. Riho rushes out. It’s just Cassie and me left in the studio gathering our things.
“So you’re not even going to congratulate me?” Cassie’s already out of her toe shoes, her bag on her shoulder. “Still sour?” She laughs like she’s just said the funniest thing in the world. But my face is stony. “Oh, Bette. Don’t worry about the fouettés. You’ll get them eventually. I mean, you nearly got them that day, when you were working at Lincoln Center with Adele.”
I freeze. My hands stop untying my pointe shoe ribbons. “What did you say?”