Danse Macabre

11

The next day I couldn't shake what Leslie had said about Kendra holding her back. I could have easily pictured Leslie partnering with Nikolai Zelenko, maybe if she had gone to England he wouldn't have spiraled out so hard. I remembered Leslie talking about it like it was the saddest thing ever. To her there were no male dancers more perfect than Zelenko, I admired the animalistic abandon and height he was capable of with his jumps, but he lacked the precision that Aleksi had, but most dancers did.

                Other than dwelling over what could have been, I spent the day seated in my undies binge watching television shows that I missed while in Britain. It was a very average summer day, the kind of average day that I missed. Well, aside from the texts.

    [I'm sorry about yesterday, can I make it up to you?] Aleksi text'd me at noon I couldn't help to wonder who put him up to it. He hadn't seen in an apologetic mood when he dropped me off, frankly he seemed a bit annoyed. You hurt his feelings, what did you expect?

    [I'll see you tonight when I go to dinner with Leslie. No need to make it up to me, I'm fine.]  I returned, and set my phone on the counter.

                I didn't look at my phone again until I was on my way out to meet Leslie for dinner at the Diner. My hair was pulled back in a pony tail that brushed the middle of my back and I wore a pink tank top and jeans, with a short white jacket over it. I was dressed down, so down the only makeup I wore was a little bit of lip gloss and eyeliner. Are you sure you want to leave the house like that? Miss Manners interrogated me was I locked the door clutching my purse to me.

                When I reached the block the theatre was on I checked my cellphone only to find out I was an hour early. Instead of heading to the Diner I went into the back door of the theatre and wound my way through the rehearsal spaces. Piano music still drifted through the halls, everyone was busy rehearsing. I could even hear the faint taps of Garrett's tap shoes. A few more moments passed and I decided to listen into each door to attempt to find Aleksi and Leslie.

It took a while but I found them. They were in room E which was a moderate sized room with space designated for chairs, almost like a mini amphitheater. I remembered Kendra telling me when they first joined the company that it was the room they occasionally used for small scale showcases. I lingered by the small sound blocking wall and watched them silently. I didn't want to be rude and interrupt them.

                They kept playing the music for the Pas de Deux over and over again. Always it started off well and then the tall, ginger vampire acting as the repetituer—think coach—would sigh and rub his face, look at the clip board, sigh again and gesture to the pianist for the piece to start again.

     "And the lift, good Aleksi. Leslie lighter on your feet, good... good. Stop! Stop! Stop!" The red haired male yelled. Colette was there, she stood from one of the chairs and walked over to Aleksi.

     "Watch," Colette chirped nodding to the pianist who started again. She and Aleksi flowed together like water. They were perfectly in sync, but from what I gathered, Aleksi was always the Knave, and Colette always Alice. The music stopped and Colette tugged on her leg warmers. "The trick is to trust him with the lifts. I know he's very tall and there's that moment when you think he's going to drop you at the release but he has it. For the first class this is really good, you're a natural, Les. Just trust him," Colette beamed at Leslie who nodded and glanced nervously at Aleksi who looked slightly annoyed. The red head gestured again and the music started once more. This time they made it through the entire thing and the red head clapped and Colette squealed with delight.