The tears come. But for the first time in a long time, they’re happy ones, not sad.
Riho hands me a tissue, and I snivel into it, thanking her again and telling her I’ll see her later. She nods and smiles. She turns, rushing off to academic classes.
That feeling that had come over me just a few minutes ago—the anxiety, the stress, the sadness—has lifted. I don’t even want to throw up anymore.
37.
Gigi
STUDIO B IS SET UP today with backdrops and lights for the official Swan Lake costume shoot. The pictures we take today will be used for press materials, programs, and the gala brochures, so we have to look perfect. Ballet moms run around helping Madame Matvienko check costumes and headpieces and help us do our makeup. Mr. K inspects each one of us before we head over to be photographed.
I stand in front of him. He circles me, fluffing my tutu and adjusting my headpiece just slightly. “You look luminous.”
The word sweeps me back to last year, when everything was new and untainted and magical.
I join the group waiting to be photographed. I gaze at all of us in the mirrors. This is what I love about ballet—the twirl of the tulle; the long, lean lines of the fitted white bodice; the mirror effect we create when we’re all standing together, tutus and jewels and headpieces catching the light.
The photographer shoots me after June and the quartet of the little swans. They look beautiful standing all in a row, arms interlocked. It’s lovely, the corseted top giving way to a waterfall of white tulle that flies when they move in sync.
“You look beautiful, Gigi,” one of the petit rats says in passing. I smile and wave at her.
I feel classic: the white tutu and bodice, shimmering with silver, and a stone-encrusted tiara and plumage on the headpiece. All of it is a stark contrast to Bette’s Odile. She waits to the left, enveloped in a black, feathery costume that connotes darkness and despair. It’s striking.
I step in front of the camera.
“Relax.” The photographer takes his camera away from his eye. “Good. Show me the first movement they asked for.”
I lift up in arabesque for the first picture. The flicker of the camera shutter echoes. Morkie gives corrections from the side for the second pose. I lift my leg higher, make my turns a little slower, and push my legs to their maximum. I try to keep my feet from spasming and a smile on my face. I do a few pirouettes, spinning like a top.
“Too much, too much,” he says. “It’s a still camera. I need you to be deliberate in your posing.”
I stop and pause, lifting and swishing the skirt.
“Hold still.” He looks down at his screen. “Elongate that leg!”
The comment stiffens me up further. He takes a couple more shots. I decide to ignore that he’s there and leap into a split jump, pretending it’s just me onstage.
“Great! Beautiful!”
I do another, just to hear those words. I think about my head shot in the program. I think about future articles in Dance or Ballet magazines, this time talking about how well I danced the role of Odette, the accident a distant memory.
He points to Bette. “Now, the white swan and the black swan together.”
Morkie pushes Bette forward. My stomach twists. When Bette’s in front of the camera, she’s twirling and posing and looking every bit a principal ABC dancer. She’s a little echo of Adele, and clearly the camera—and the photographer—loves it. “Heads up.” You can practically see the drool sliding down his chin. “Can you do another pirouette? And hold it, one second. Beautiful. Gorgeous. Stunning darkness.”
He places us side by side. We don’t speak to each other. I hear her deep, heavy breaths. She smells like lipstick and that perfume she always wears. I suck it up and smile, because this is my moment. I’m not going to let her ruin it. I’m not going to let my anger with her affect what I’m doing.
The photographer sets up to shoot Bette solo. I start to walk away.
“Hey.” She plants herself in my path. “Can you wait a second?”
I don’t want to, but the look on her face is deliberate, determined. “I just—” She’s at a loss for a second, but then she finds herself. “I wanted to apologize. For the mirror and the photos. I didn’t realize until it happened to me—I mean, well, not really to me, but to the people I loved—just what it feels like to be on the other side of all this. It’s terrible. Devastating, really. I’m sorry, really sorry, that I put you through all that.”
The old Gigi would accept her apology, try to make amends, let her fix things. Just how I did at the end of last year, right before the accident. I’ll never get back that innocent Gigi. I take three deep breaths. I can hear my mama’s voice drumming in my chest. “Bitterness feeds on the host.” I need to let some of this go, the stress that’s been sitting on my shoulders all this time.
“Bygones,” I say with a shrug. “Moving on.” It’s not forgiveness, not exactly. But it’s all I have to give right now.
Alec brings popcorn into the basement rec room, where I’m working on a history paper. I’m typing up my bibliography and trying to figure out why anyone would want to spend their life or careers writing papers about the past. Some students watch TV in the far corner and others play pool. The attached computer lab overflows with bodies.
He plops down in the next beanbag and starts eating the popcorn and talking to me about the basketball game on TV. I shush him like Morkie would if he was making noise outside the studio. It’s enough to get him to come over and stand behind my beanbag chair.
I pretend he’s not there. Two white fingers appear in front of my face, then a muscular arm. In the middle of those fingers is an origami rose. A smile overtakes my face and whole body, like it’s stretched all the way down to my toes.
He tries to squeeze himself onto my beanbag. “Is there still room for me?”
“No.” I can’t hide my smile. Since our breakup, we’ve danced together for weeks without exchanging words. It’s been excruciating, feeling him against me but not being able to laugh or kiss or relax.
“Miss me?” He tries not to grin, holding his mouth shut.
“I miss nights when we didn’t have so much homework.” I’m sick of comparing the governments of England and France, and can’t possibly understand why Mr. Martinez would want to read all these papers on the same exact topic.
“Well, I’ve missed you,” he says.
I let him squeeze in next to me. I inhale his familiar woodsy scent, so clean and boyish. The warmth of his skin pushes through my ballet sweater. I reach for the origami rose, but he pulls it back toward his chest and grins. I try again, and he teases me with it, lifting it over his head. I lean forward to sniff the rose, even though it just smells like a mix of paper and his skin, and I let his finger graze my bottom lip.
I move closer to his side and secretly find his hand. I trace my fingers inside his palm and sway a little, leaning closer to him so I can smell him. It sends a warm zip down my spine. I’ve missed our conversations and texts and him in my room and our stretching together.
“You still mad at me?” he asks.
“Maybe.”
“Well, I’m sorry.”