Though much of what I say in the next few minutes might contradict it, don't misunderstand me: I love a lot of ballets.
I love the American pride I see in Balanchine, and his rule breaking ballets, like Apollo and Agon. I love the older classics, like Coppelia. I love Swan Lake because Tchaikovsky wrote a classical score that holds my heart in its hands.
La Sylphide is my favorite because it's not a love story. There's no story, really, just little winged nymphs waltzing around in white and a poet boy they're all trying to seduce. They live simple lives, that I wish were mine. The music sounds like white wine, and 1800s European Romanticism.
But I am painfully sober. And this is no time for romance.
We're in the middle of rehearsing Act II from La Sylphide, a group variation of just the girls in my class. The starry eyed crop of aspiring soloists in our uniform of pink tights, our royal blue leotards that slice red grooves into our boyish hips, and the pink satin coffins suffocating our feet.
We dance, we spin around each other. I keep catching Violet giving me this pained grimace that truly gives me no reason to believe this can end well for any of us.
"Tombé pas de bourrée, glissade, pas de chat!"
Miss Slavenska barks steps in the hoarse thickness of her Russian accent. I used to wonder if now, now that she's 300 years older and curled into herself like a dying flower, she still believes that she's just as beautiful as she was when she was my age, dancing on her toes, drooling over the boys class, dreaming of tutus, and lights, and roses in her arms. Breathing, eating, sweating ballet all day long. But I am older now, and I don't have the energy to care.
The blister on my pinky toe popped, and the raw skin is grating against the shitty jet glue job I did on my pointe shoes. They're a pair of twin Rottweilers now. I gave them a sharp little set of gnashing teeth.
"Devotchki! Girls! That diagonal is mess!"
I hate myself, I hate myself, and I swear to God, why the fuck can't Slavenska turn on the air conditioning?
I have a headache from the fluorescent light. I have a muscle in my leg that's seizing like a dying insect, and a bone in my lower back that keeps shifting in and out of place like it can't make up its mind, and blood is seeping through the band aids wrapped around my toes.
"Miss Stearn, keep your eyes off the floor!"
But I go, I go, I grind salt into my wounds. I feel the blood drying, getting sticky between the knuckles. The skin under the nails is probably going black.
"And a one, and a two, and stretch out of your hips!"
Double pirouette, then an arabesque jump out the door of our rehearsal room into the quiet hallway, and I collapse into myself. My chest heaves, while I slouch the weight of my torso into my hips. In the hallway, the aerosol smell of orchids is so sweet that it's burning my sore lungs. Tamara Coyle comes hurling out like a tornado after me, throwing expletives in her wake.
"Jesus," I half wheeze, half laugh, and she chuckles between her labored breaths.
"You alright?" she asks, genuinely concerned. We were close two years ago, and she's being sweet, but by my judgement we've got about 3 minutes left of rest time before we start again. I can't afford to valuable waste breath over this.
"So-so. I don't know."
"Caleb trouble?"
I restrain a pained cry from nearly biting my tongue in two. Tamara is sweet. She's always sweet, but sweet things can crumble and crack like burnt sugar does, and I will crack her sugar skull with my fist if she says his name again.
