When he came out of the office after the break, he saw that among the couples ready to resume practice Sasha stood alone.
“Where is she?” Roman Ivanovich yelled.
Sasha shrugged and looked toward the exit. As Roman Ivanovich crossed the dance floor, twenty-nine pairs of eyes followed him, vulturelike.
He walked into the hallway and knocked on the girls’ bathroom door. No answer. He barged in. No one. The acrid smell of tiled walls, the floor toilets, and the flimsy wooden partitions was laced with cigarettes. The girls smoked, too? He felt betrayed. Three faucets dripped in echoey discord.
He found her in the boys’ bathroom. Asik was pushing a scrawny chess boy against the dirty wall. Him? Couldn’t she find someone better? It took a second to recall his name. Gleb. Released, he sprang away from her. Asik wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked defiantly at Roman Ivanovich. His face grew hot, as though he was the one who’d been caught.
The spin of his world slowed. He heard from the studio the tak-chwoot-tak-chwoot of the heels and suede soles of the ballroom shoes shuffling on the parquet, and the hollow thumps of the chess pieces landing on their felt feet.
“Please, don’t kick me out,” Gleb squeaked. “She made me do it.”
“Get out of here,” Roman Ivanovich said. The boy scuttled out.
Roman Ivanovich stared at a picture of a horse in a jacket and tie that someone had drawn with a black marker on the wall.
“I know it’s against the rules,” Asik said. She looked him straight in the eye, then hung her head. “But he loves me. I don’t love him, but he loves me. What can you do in such a situation?” She sniffled.
The boy does. She was lying. Or not. What did either of them know about love? The claw-grip of anger loosened on his neck, and he felt a twinge of forgiveness and generosity toward the children, toward all of them.
“Please don’t kick him out, Roman Ivanovich. It’s not his fault.” She was flat-chested, the front and elbows of her purple sweater covered with fuzz balls. The beauty marks on her gangly, pale thighs showed through her mesh tights. Little fishes caught in a net. “And please don’t kick me out. I’ll kill myself, I swear.”
He came closer. She stood slumped, looking to the side, her eyes teary. She wiped them with the back of her hand, leaving black smears on her face. Makeup was against the rules, he thought wearily. He wanted to squat down and clutch her legs, to comfort her.
“So you won’t? Roman—”
“Shhh.” He looked at her without blinking until her image trembled like a reflection thrown upon water. He was struck by the whiteness of the razor-thin part in her sable hair. He couldn’t resist drawing his finger down the length of the part, her forehead, the ski jump of her nose. Her skin was hot and smooth. Asik smiled brightly, as if she’d won a small prize.
He pulled some tissue out of his pocket and gave it to her, then walked out.
“Attention, dancers!” Roman Ivanovich roared back in the studio. The children started, like electrocuted mice, and quickly paired up. Asik took her place by Sasha. Her gaze hovered low.
“Aren’t you going to kick her out?” Olesya said. They all looked at him expectantly. Gleb must’ve told.
“What did you say?”
“The rules. She broke all of them. Even the worst one.” Olesya’s tone was shaky but with a righteous core.
“I didn’t want to,” Gleb said. He stood in no-man’s-land between the studio space and the chess tables. The chess boys pretended not to be interested in the scene.
“I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I’ve made a decision. A while back,” Roman Ivanovich said, inhaling and exhaling in the wrong places. “I am canceling the no-dating rule. You are not children anymore. Feelings should inform your dancing — as long as you’re not distracted. It’s not a secret that I met my wife in a class like this one. Love … Good, beautiful feelings deserve respect.”
The children gaped.
“What? I can’t anymore, like this. I quit,” Olesya muttered and ran into the changing room. Asik threw her palms over her face and bent forward. Roman Ivanovich caught peripheral sight of himself in the mirror — a gray, blurry lump.
* * *
At the final run-through on Friday Asik danced the way he had dreamt of since he’d first seen her on stage in the spring, in that little winking lime skirt. On Sunday she would be discovered, no longer his secret.
He stalled her after practice.
“You made me proud tonight,” he said. “If you don’t lose anything before Sunday, the first place is yours.”
Asik smiled. Her teeth were small and crowded.
“Why would I lose anything?” she said. Her confidence annoyed him.
“It’s important to keep moving, to keep dancing in your head tomorrow.”
“I know.” She lazily collected her face into a serious expression. “I’ll dance in my head through my sister’s piano banging and my mother yelling.”
“The studio floor will be open.”
“And packed with seniors and all those girls who hate me.” She looked around to see who was passing by.
“Maybe it would benefit you and Sasha to have one last private lesson. You were wobbly on that dismount in rumba.”
“Oh. For me it was okay.”
“I have time tomorrow late evening. A lot to do before Sunday.”
She shrugged. “Okay.”
“Will your mother worry?”
“She doesn’t care.”
Asik’s orange lip gloss failed to conceal how chapped her lips were. She could’ve been beautiful, if her nose was a bit smaller. “I’m sure that’s not true.”
“She’ll care if I win the stupid competition.” She caught herself. “I mean, I’m just nervous. We’ve worked so hard.”
“Come at nine, then. Tell Sasha,” Roman Ivanovich said, then went into his office and locked the door. He sat alone for a long time before the shrine to Lyuba and Pavlik.
* * *
The next day, as Roman Ivanovich took care of the final arrangements for Sunday’s competition, a reel of Asik dancing looped in the back of his mind. He had visualized her routines so many times it seemed she’d already danced all of them flawlessly and won first place. He wondered what dresses she would wear. He hadn’t asked Nata which costumes of the ones she’d been working on were Asik’s, so as not to spoil the surprise. He’d spotted a black Latina dress with long sleeves and a low-cut back that he particularly liked.
When he had a free minute in his office, he took the new pair of dance sandals out of the box and inspected them. They were made of smooth gold leather, with rhinestones on the front strap. He’d ordered them for Asik especially for the competition, but they arrived too late for her to break them in. There was a danger of blisters now; plus, the heels were much higher than what she was used to. He turned the shoes over, contemplating whether to give them to her anyway: they were so beautiful. He touched the virgin suede soles, still soft and creamy. The size was printed in gold on the shaft: 35. The same as Nata’s, he realized. He still remembered the moment when that number had become significant to him. Minutes after they were paired up, Roman Ivanovich dared Nata to follow him through an improvised choreography. He appreciated her smooth movement, her lack of extra limbs. Girls usually grew at least one additional set of legs with the purpose of sticking them in the way of a new partner. He threw her into a dip, nearly folding her spine in two. She gasped but obeyed pliantly. Before his eyes lay the valley of her chest and the shadowy, aromatic hollow at the base of her neck, in which a silver wishbone pendant sparked. Farther down was the underside of her jaw with a faint trail of a vein, her blond ponytail juxtaposed against the black satin heel, the suede sole with the number 35, and her little toe sticking out from between the straps, the nail painted purple. He was impressed with the elegant way she’d responded to the dip. He pulled her up and appraised her with a smirk.