“In the meantime, everyone please welcome Hosea Roth, the newest addition to our studio family,” Marisa says with a smile. “Hosea comes with a strong musical background and we’re lucky to have him.”
A strong musical background? Either this is the best-kept secret in all of Ashland Hills High or Marisa is totally fucking with us, because I wasn’t aware he could play any instruments. Hosea gives us a nod followed by a smile you would miss if you looked away for even a second. His dark hair is long and pulled back from his face. He wears the same clothes I’ve seen him in for as long as I can remember: faded jeans, a black T-shirt, and black boots with a heavy sole.
Our eyes meet again. He knows me. Not very well, but I see him at school sometimes and at most of the parties. And once, I went with Phil to pick up an eighth at his house, and Hosea looked out at the street from beneath the hood of his sweatshirt and saw me sitting in the passenger seat of Phil’s car. Hosea is pretty much focused on pills and Phil usually sticks to pot, but they’re friends, so he makes an exception for Phil.
Until now, my school and ballet worlds have been segregated, except for a handful of recitals Sara-Kate has talked her way into attending. But now Hosea is here and I don’t know how I feel about it and he just keeps staring at me, until I give in first and look away. Ruthie catches all this and flicks her eyes to the ceiling as we line up at the barre in first position for plié.
I’ve been dancing so long that ballet has become an extension of me. I can no longer stretch my legs without pointing my toes, and I’m always aware of my arms, my back, the roll of my shoulders. As I walk between classrooms, while I’m rinsing dishes, even when I’m picking out apples with Mom at the market.
Some people associate memories with music, but I can align most of mine with dancing. The mere mention of chicken pox sends gold-sequined swatches through my mind as I remember secretly suffering during my fourth-grade recital, how I dug my fingers into the stretchy fabric of my costume again and again when no one was looking, because if they knew, they wouldn’t let me dance. The slightest whiff of menthol reminds me of two years ago, when I developed tendinitis and kept slathering my ankle in smelly ointment to numb the pain.
Dancing on pointe reminds me of Trent. I got my first pair of toe shoes when I was twelve and he became my first boyfriend a year later. It’s not just the timing, though. I fell for him nearly as fast as I grew to love pointe work, so for me, the two are forever linked. He asked to see my pointe shoes a couple of weeks after we’d been together. I slowly pulled them out of my dance bag in the front seat of his car and slipped one onto his lap, the ribbons swimming between us in silky waves. I’d just gotten a new pair, so they were still unmarred; a soft, sweet pink against the dark blue of his jeans. He slid his hands around the satin almost wonderingly, then looked over and said they were pretty, like me. Sometimes I’d complain about the pain in my feet and he’d say I should quit if it hurt so much. I don’t think he understood that it was all worth it, sore feet and ankles included. The only thing he seemed at all passionate about was me.
Some days, in the beginning, I was so tired from dancing on pointe that I didn’t feel like going to class. And some days, I didn’t feel like doing what I did with Trent. Lots of times, he was exactly what I wanted, and I felt sexy when he pinned me to the backseat of his car with just his torso as he whispered in my ear that I was special. But sometimes I wished we could go back to the kissing and slow touching with all our clothes on. On those days, I couldn’t understand why sex with him made me feel a little dirty. After all, we’d been doing it for months.
We stretch and strengthen our ankles and feet as we work through tendu and dégagé, rotate our hips through the arc of rond de jambe. My favorite barre exercise is grand battement. It’s so powerful, thrusting one leg as high in the air as you can and returning it to the supporting leg quickly, but with total control. To really pull it off, both legs have to stay perfectly straight as we execute grand battement devant, à la seconde, and derriére—to the front, side, and back—on both sides.
Once we’re finished at the barre, we move from our place along the wall to start center work. The center exercises are similar to what we just finished, but we’re warmed up now, so we can perform them without the additional support of the barre.
By the time we get to allégro, my muscles are limber and my legs lengthen straight and assured. I hold myself up with the invisible string Marisa always talks about, the one that makes my leaps sky-high, my neck long and elegant. Even now, even with his music serving as my soundtrack, I am able to put Hosea out of my mind and dance like no one else is in the room. I feel Marisa’s eyes on me. I’m worried she thinks I look tired, so I make my next jeté count even more than the others.
I allow myself to sneak another look at Hosea. He’s good. Very good, like he’s been playing piano as long as I’ve been dancing. It’s the same classical music we’ve danced to for years, yet there’s also a personal connection that makes each note seem fuller, more meaningful, as if the piece was crafted specifically for our ballet class. I couldn’t be more surprised, and I wonder if there are rules about revealing that kind of thing in his world. Like piano is for pussies and you’d damn well better hide it if you don’t want to be labeled as such.
I’m exhausted when Marisa dismisses class. I dance three nights a week and every Saturday. Each time, I leave dripping with sweat, my chest heaving and my legs burning. Today, I wonder just how bad I look and avoid glancing at the piano before I leave the room.
I have a standing dinner date with Sara-Kate and Phil after ballet on Thursdays. It sounds fancy, but it’s not like we’re sitting in a dimly lit restaurant with tablecloths and heavy flatware. It’s always Casablanca’s and always the back booth with the cracked vinyl seats and a dirty sugar dispenser in place of sweetener packets.
Sometimes we drive around and smoke a bowl before we go into the diner. Today would’ve been a good day for that. The winters are shitty, but nothing beats October in Chicago. I know it means everything is dying, but I could stare at the leaves for days—the burnt gold and burgundy and flaming orange hues bursting from tree branches. I like the fat pumpkins perched on front porches and how the air is perfect—cool but not freezing, warm enough under the sun but not stifling.
But we can’t drive around today because Phil has a trigonometry test tomorrow and wants to study. His boxy sedan and Sara-Kate Worthington’s powder-blue Bug already sit in the lot when I arrive from the train station. I slide into the booth just in time to hear Phil extolling the virtues of Goodwill over independent thrift stores. Phil Muñoz has an opinion on everything and it’s usually the least popular one if he can help it.
“How was class?” Sara-Kate turns to me almost gratefully. Phil’s impassioned rants are too much for even her sometimes.
“Fine. Except—”
“Except what?” She moves a strand of lilac-colored hair behind her ear and reaches for the menus tucked behind the ketchup and mustard bottles.
“Except . . . I was late because of the stupid train,” I say as I stack my bag and coat on the empty seat next to Phil.
He stops pulling his trig textbook from his bag to look at me, his dark eyes narrowed behind the clear lenses of his aviator eyeglasses. The thin gold frames almost blend into his light brown skin when I look at him from a certain angle. “Good story, Theo.”
I make a face at Phil. Then: “I have a question.”