Tiny Pretty Things and Shiny Broken Pieces

Sei-Jin’s sweet perfume wraps around me. She bats her big eyes. “Understudy for Gigi. No one’s first choice. You think you’re so great, but no one else does, huh?” Her eyes narrow.

That hits. My momentary quick wit vanishes, and I fidget, trying to squirm out from under her gaze. It only hurts when it’s true, I guess. I feel the jewelry box shift in my duffle bag and hear the tinkle of its insides. I don’t know if she’s thinking of my father, too, but I can’t help myself. The only thing my mom ever said about him was that he started a new family, one he prefers more than us. What Sei-Jin says is true in more ways than one.

Of all the things she’s called me—a bitch, a poser, a wannabe-white girl—this is the worst. Understudy. I remember my mom’s words on the phone. And her threat. If I can’t do better, I’m getting pulled out.

“Nobody wants you,” Sei-Jin says.

I want to say that she wanted me. I want to bring up the kiss. Which I never have. Not in all these years. But I don’t. I’ve kept her little secret.

Jayhe says something to her in Korean. She stops.

“You already won,” I say at last. Sei-Jin doesn’t know what to do with that. I want Jayhe to see her as the bad one. The other girls throw a few Korean insults my way, and even though I can translate some of it and know how rude they’re being, they can’t come close to hurting me the way Sei-Jin just did. Sei-Jin hushes them, waving her hand in their direction the way I’ve seen Bette do to Eleanor and Liz. She really is trying to model herself after Queen Bette, and she’s pulling it off. The girls quiet instantly.

I turn to retreat into the studio.

“I found this,” Sei-Jin says, and reaches into her own bag. Something glints in her hand, and I know immediately what it is. My missing compact. She knows how important it is to me. It’s always in my bag or on my desk. I imagine her riffling through my room. I grab for it, like a child, and am surprised when she lets me have it. Her mouth twitches, holding back a smile. I open the compact, but inside the mirror is broken, and the glass has cut the perfect little powder cake. It’s destroyed.

“Oops,” Sei-Jin says.

The hall is now full of dancers and they all must be watching, because the space is silent and I feel the heat of a dozen pairs of eyes on my face.

Jayhe says something else. Sei-Jin and he spar back and forth. I wonder if it’s about me. I click the compact closed, wondering if I can glue the tiny mirror back together again.

Morkie sweeps everyone into the studio for class. We warm up, complete our barre exercises, then Morkie makes us do fouetté turns in the center. I go to the front of the class, squeezing between some of the other girls. I spread out my arms to get them to move. Some grumble. Others mutter under their breath. I don’t care. I want her to see me turn.

The music starts. The other girls around me finish their four turns. Just what Morkie asked for. But I can’t stop. I spin and spin and spin, stamping out the conversation I had with Sei-Jin. I do one revolution for every insult and mean word.

I feel eyes on me for the first time. Morkie walks in front of me. The other girls move away from me. I know they want me to stop. I know they’re thinking that I should’ve just done the four turns Morkie asked for. I am alone in the center. A spinning top.

I’ve lost count of how many I’ve done. I finally come down off my leg.

“Bravo!” Morkie says. She calls me dedicated in front of everyone. She says my fouettés are perfect. Usually, I’m a ghost to her and all the teachers. Not worth noticing. But not today. I took the risk. I pushed myself to show off a little.

Everyone claps for me, except for Sei-Jin. Some rub my back and give me compliments that don’t feel fake or ridiculously transparent. Gigi squeezes me so tight I feel like I can’t breathe. She grins like she’s proud she gets to live with me. I fight the warm feelings it gives me. I even see Mr. Lucas, Alec’s dad, watching from behind the glass wall—which he almost never does. He gives me a strange little smile and nod.

When I curtsy and return to the barre, I catch Jayhe’s eyes on me through the glass. He’s standing instead of sitting now. I hold his stare for what feels like an eternity, then turn my back, trying to fight off a smirk, the weight of his gaze heavy on my slim shoulders. Not so invisible anymore.

I know what I’m going to do to Sei-Jin.

I’VE BEEN VISITING THE MIRROR in studio E every night, looking for the edges of the message Bette left me. The girls told me it was her, and probably Liz, and maybe Eleanor, too. It was cleaned off days ago. Everyone else seems to have forgotten the way it looked, but I hear the threat in my head like my performance music. Each time it repeats, I get more determined to be the best Sugar Plum Fairy, more determined not to give into the ugliness and pettiness of it all.

I take the elevator to the first floor. Then I take the stairs to my basement room.

It’s empty, aside from dust bunnies in the corners and the creaks and clacks of the old radiator and the buzzing of nearly dead lightbulbs. But I get lost in the mirror in this room, too. I can’t move, can’t close my eyes to meditate, just keep looking at my reflection. Mama always says it’s unnatural to spend a lot of time in front of the mirror, that it calls out the worst of us. But for a dancer, the mirror is home.

I try to focus and imagine myself filling with light, the way I did in yoga class with Ella back home. I want the beams to erase the message and all my worries about it. Then I lift one of my legs, first to the barre, and then toward my ear. I want to become one straight, impossible line, from my left toe on the ground all the way to my right toe in the air. But my body isn’t responding as it usually does. There’s a little ache in my heart. I can’t decide if I’d prefer it to be over Alec or something medical. I’m not sure which is more dangerous.

“I can help you with that,” a male voice cuts through the silence.

I pivot with my leg in the air, assuming it’s Alec. He’s the only one who knows I dance down here. I beam, and turn to face him with a look far too eager to be truly innocent.

“Happy to see you, too.” It’s Henri Dubois, the other new kid, and he’s staring me down. He has eyes like the people in Mama’s artwork, dark and dreamy and haunted. He runs his hand through his dark, shaggy hair. He’s still in his dance belt and tights, and I can’t help looking between his legs. Those dance belts make everything look enormous. He catches my gaze and steps back, so I look at the floor.

“I’ve got it. I think,” I say, and sink even farther into a stretch.

He approaches me.

We haven’t said more than three sentences to each other. The only things I know about him come from articles I read in dance magazines. He was one of the rising stars at the Paris Opera School. Was being the operative word, at least according to the gossip. Rumor has it that he was kicked out.

“Oh, come on,” he says. “Ballet is a team sport.” He walks the rest of the way into the room, dodging broken barre poles.

“How’d you find me?” I say, bringing my leg down on my own. I’m not ready for his hands to be crawling up to support the place where my thigh meets my hipbone. I should be upset he’s found my hiding spot. I want only Alec to know about it.

I lower myself down to the floor, which seems safer for about one second.

“I was not looking for you.” He sits in front of me. His accent is attractive and flowing, and I can’t help liking the way his words blend together. For sixteen years I haven’t had a single spark of interest in ballet boys, in any boys, really, but suddenly I’m all butterflies and unexpected sweat. I don’t feel like myself. My head fills with new thoughts and feelings and ideas. Henri has probably always been cute in class and rehearsals, but I’ve never really noticed. In the strange, broken light of the notorious basement studio, though, he makes my throat go dry.

“You hide in here, don’t you?” he says. “When I don’t see you in the rec room with everybody else, you’re in here.”

I don’t answer. A half smile creeps across his mouth, and I’m not sure what’s so funny, but he has the most perfect dimples. I’m tempted to rest my thumbs in them. See how deep they are.

“Shouldn’t you be cooling down from rehearsal?” I say, for lack of anything better.

“Shouldn’t you?” he spits back, then grins. “You ballerinas take things so seriously.” He mutters something in French, and I like the way it sounds and how his mouth curves as he speaks it. “Let’s stretch, Giselle.” He doesn’t call me Gigi, but says my name the way it’s supposed to be said—all long ls and soft es. I want to tell him my parents met as twentysomething ex-pats in Paris. That they’d named me Giselle after the famous ballet.

“We need a little music,” he says. He pulls out his phone and the button clicks echo until tiny chords ping from the device. Suddenly, The Nutcracker pours out. He opens his legs in a V and reaches for me. With strong hands, he pulls my hips toward his and adjusts my leg placement, like a doll’s. Not once does he ask, just curls his fingers around my legs and spreads them. Part of me doesn’t mind the feel of his touch. Part of me doesn’t feel like myself. He touches me like we’ve been friends for a while. And strangely, I welcome it.

He removes his moccasins, and we touch our feet together, letting the soles kiss. The balls of his feet are calloused and his toe joints are thick and raised—he’s got the feet of a dancer. Our legs make a diamond shape until he pulls me forward. I elongate my legs into a straight line. I haven’t stretched with a boy like this before. I never join in with the other students when they do it. There were no boys at my California studio, so the girls would stretch each other. Here, there don’t seem to be any boundaries. I’m not used to all this touching, but I move even closer though my mind says no, don’t stretch with him like this.

“Don’t hyperextend,” he warns.

I scoff and show off my flexibility. The space between my thighs inches closer to his dance belt. As he leans forward, I spot a tiny mole beneath his right eye. He’s so close he could kiss me if he wanted, and I wouldn’t be able to stop him. I’ve never been kissed before. A few close calls, a brush against my lips, a stage peck, but nothing real. Not a kiss with heat.

He rolls a white mint in his mouth. The tiny orb oscillates above and below his tongue—a white boat in a red ocean. Sweat dampens my brow and my hands get clammy. He doesn’t seem to notice, and just interlaces his fingers with mine. My heart jumps a little. I tell it to stop. I should get up and go to the dorms and get ready for bed. But I can’t. I feel glued in place.

“Come this way.” We change the stretch. He tugs me forward, lifting me off the floor, and I lie just above him, two inches from his chest, a deep tug in my hamstrings, pulling out the soreness caused by new rehearsal jumps. We hold the position and then switch. When he falls forward, I can feel his breath on my stomach. The hair on my body lifts and a faint pulse thrums between my legs, like a tiny drum.

I snap upright, knocking into him. “I’m all loose,” I babble, and close my legs, waiting for the new sensation to disappear.

The room feels too quiet. I hear the light buzz. It reverberates under my skin, half pleasant, half terrible. I hear his breathing. I hear the acceleration of my heartbeat. Control your breathing. He holds me in place, and his eyes study my expression. A chill rushes over me, like there are a thousand pairs of eyes on my face. Before I can dodge him, Henri leans forward and his lips brush my cheek and the side of my lips. Too close for comfort.

I snap backward. His face falls. “Giselle, I’m so sorry. I don’t … know … why I did that.”

I don’t know how to react.

“You just remind me of my ex, Cassie,” he says, dropping his head. “You’re both just really good … I miss her.”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out again. I tell myself to get up and leave, but my body is heavy and awkward. I don’t know how to go without making things weird. We’re both the new kids at school. He got here just a few months before me, in the summer. We’re supposed to have a connection because of that.

I fill the silence. “So. France. I’ve been there. Well, Paris. And Toulouse. And … and Bou …” I stumble over the pronunciation. “Boulo …”

“Boulogne.” His voice is so low and husky compared to mine that I blush. He presses his thumbs into my leg muscles. “When you speak French, let your lips go soft and move your mouth slower.”

I nod. He makes me say the city name again, but I fumble with the long French syllables.

“So you’ve been many places in my country,” he says.

I nod again. My parents have an apartment in the nineteenth arrondissement near Sacre Coeur and we go most summers so Mama can paint, but I don’t say any of that.

“I was born in Charenton-le-Pont, just outside of Paris. My maman and I moved into the city when I was eight.”

“Is that when you started dancing?” I ask.

“Oui … eh,” Henri says, “I think I was almost ten.”

“Ten,” I say with a shock that embarrasses me. Most dancers start when they’re five, or even younger.

“I am a quick study. Ballet became my obsession. I have many,” he says. “Are you from New York?”

“Me? Oh, no,” I say. “California.”

“I have never been. Just seen it on American TV. Beaches, sunshine, surfing, little dogs in big purses, car chases.” He teases. “All smiles.”

I slap his leg playfully. “There’s much more than that.” He rubs my hand and I pull it back. I quickly ask another question. “Do you miss home? Do you like it here?”

“Do you?” he asks.

“Yeah, I guess. It’s growing on me.”

“You should be careful,” he says. “Cassie wasn’t.” He touches my arm. My stomach flutters and I wonder if I’ll ever get used to all these boys around me—Alec, and now Henri.

“What happened to her?”

He grimaces, and though I want to know, I don’t press any further. I know the discomfort of talking about something you don’t want to.

“Just watch out,” he says. “Especially after that mirror thing.” He shakes his head and mutters a word in French that feels like a curse.

“The girls told me it was Bette, most likely,” I say, not quite sure I should accuse her to other people.

“Be careful with that one,” he says, fingers grazing my cheek, almost as if he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. I try not to flinch. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”

The overhead bulbs dim, threatening to go out. The shifts in light make a mess of his face. In the new shadows, he’s a different person. Heavier brow, hidden eyes, frowning mouth. I feel like we shouldn’t be in here alone in the dark anymore. The last few notes of The Nutcracker ping out of his phone and then it’s just me and Henri and the silence. He reaches for me again as the lights stamp out, and he kisses my cheek.

IT’S LATE—ALMOST NINE P.M. CURFEW—but I head to the first-floor studios. I take the most public route I can think of, making sure to pass by a few open dorm rooms and even take the elevator to the basement past the student lounge. I want them all to see me exactly as I am: hardworking and dedicated and not willing to be thrown off course by something ridiculous, like Gigi Stewart, who probably got the Sugar Plum Fairy part by letting Mr. K touch her for a few beats longer than was actually necessary. Maybe she let her lips graze his neck. Or worse. It wouldn’t be the first time girls had thrown themselves at Mr. K for a role. And it wouldn’t be the first time he gave in to it, either.

Just a little something I learned from in-depth conversations with Adele. She slipped up and told me about those too-close moments brought on by hard work and late-night rehearsals. How working so intensely on something brings out feelings. How things might cross the line. And about how girls can get caught up in it all. But Mr. K’s never tried anything with me.

I know the history of this place backward and forward, and when an unknown, awkward nobody gets cast in an important role, there’s usually a good reason for it. My assessment makes me feel better.

I walk by the rest of the dancers with pride and a new leotard. Even during class I am the perfect ballerina. Even in a room by myself with all the doors locked, just me and the mirrors and the music, I am everything Mr. K and my mother and Adele and the school have ever asked me to be.

I am perfect.

I go back upstairs to the main floor, through the lobby, which is now being wiped clean of an earlier reception for the petit rats’ parents. I take another long route, fluttering past Mr. K’s dark office and the cast list. I peek into each studio, just so I know who’s dancing and who’s slacking off or prioritizing an English paper or a new boyfriend. Eleanor is in one of them, but she’s just doing barre work and checking herself out in the mirror.

We used to always rehearse side by side, pushing each other to do better and complimenting each other’s footwork. Somewhere along the way, though, she said I was too intense during practice and it wasn’t fun anymore. I guess she’s not wrong. And she does look happy now, inching away from the mirror, mesmerized by her own body. I would never want to take that away from anyone—especially not her.

I run into Liz. She’s drenched and clearly has been in the basement weight room. Not that she needs it. Her eyes are all hollowed out lately, and her arms and legs so thin and wiry that I worry about her strength. But we don’t call each other out on things like that.

“Pilates?” I say to her.

“Elliptical,” she breathes out, panting, wiping sweat from her face. It’s very unbecoming. “I burned six hundred calories.”

I frown at her. She doesn’t need all the extra workouts. In the past year, she’s shrunk down from a respectable size two to an I don’t know what. Negative two, if there’s such a size. How does she even find anything to fit her anymore?

“God, Bette, stare much?” she says as she pats the last few drops of wetness away, smoothing down her hair. “Hey, so, I’ve been meaning to ask—what’s it like practicing with Henri?” There’s a wink in her voice, but I don’t like the implication. Alec and I have had our ups and downs, but at the moment, we’re very much on again.

“Yeah, he’s hot,” I say, already heading in the other direction, my tone colder than it should be. “But you know I have a boyfriend.”

“Uh-huh,” Liz says, pulling her long dark hair into a high ponytail, and I can’t help but stare at her too-lean legs, not sure whether I should worry about her or be jealous, as she peers into the other studio, where a few of the boys practice jumps. She’s looking for Henri, no doubt.

Things between Liz and me have been good lately, but there was a time when we competed for everything—including Alec. But he made his choice pretty early on, and after a few petty incidents, Liz realized there was no changing that. It was just making her look desperate. Plus, we finally figured, we’re more powerful together than working against each other. It just makes sense.

She heads up to shower, and I’m about to enter studio C when I remember a little something Eleanor mentioned earlier—that Gigi practices in the old basement studio. I’d stored the information, and now I want to test it out. I want her to know she can’t do anything in this school without me knowing about it. I don’t miss much around here. She’ll learn.

I pass the nutritionist’s office. I pause at the top of the staircase. I remember being little and sneaking to the edge of these steps with Eleanor and Alec and Will. We’d dare each other to go stand in front of the locked door. Whoever did it the longest always got candy from a secret stash and, most important, glory.

Voices drift up to me. I can see the door is open a hair and I’m nothing if not graceful, so I tiptoe down, dip under the window, and peek in through the slightly open door without being heard or sensed. There she is. Gigi. The Sugar Plum Fairy. Except she’s not dancing. She’s on her back, legs splayed, Henri pressing on her thigh as he stretches her out in semidarkness.

I don’t know why, but I shiver as I watch. Almost like I’m outside in the crisp fall air. I remember that Cassie used to come here, too. The insomniac girl who got in trouble for dancing all night. The girl with the perfect 180-degree grand jeté. The only Level 6 girl to land a major soloist role last year, even above me. I don’t like thinking about her. I want to forget that I even knew her and how good she was. And especially that she’s Alec’s cousin.

Henri lets his hair drop around his face and says things I can’t hear. I don’t like the way he touches Gigi and makes her laugh. I don’t like how his fingers graze a loose curl near her neck. Her voice is light and delicate—it’s too pretty. Henri is eating it up. And if Henri’s eating it up, I worry that Alec will fall for it, too, when they start rehearsing.

My stomach twists. I can’t remember a time when Alec and I weren’t together. My first memories have him in them, from family dinners when my dad was still around to dance classes and kissing him in the school’s dark corners. It was always just us.

I take out my cell phone and zoom in on Gigi and Henri with the camera. I click the picture button. The flash is too bright, so I duck and slink away quickly, quietly. I don’t get caught when I do things like this, and I don’t need that to change. I run back to the upstairs to studio C and throw myself into the Snow Queen variation. I do five, ten, twenty pirouettes, but the image of Gigi and Henri races through my head alongside my music.

I drop down off pointe and pace the room. I scream at my reflection and hope no one hears me. Or sees me breaking down in this glass box of a space.

I cover my ears and let my head bob on my shoulders, falling into a deep stretch. I try to revel in the pink message and its cryptic cleverness. The powerful way it made me feel writing it and waiting for someone to discover it. How Gigi’s face had fallen, how lucky I was that everyone saw it at the same time. I was probably the only one who spotted the tears in her eyes. I hope she’s cried every night since. That’s not quite true. I hope she goes back to California. She’ll be happier there anyway, so it’s not even that terrible that I want her to leave. It would be better for everyone. The girl is too fragile and sweet and mellow to succeed here. In some ways, I’m just looking out for her. She’ll realize it soon enough. That ballet is too much for her. That it makes you do things. Makes you do whatever is necessary.

I remember Adele’s advice before my first casting audition. She yanked me out of the pack of petit rats. “You don’t get many shots, peach.” Her hands were in my hair, redoing my bun the proper way with a hairnet. “So when the opportunity comes”—she leaned into my ear—“you’ve got to claw your way to the top.”

My body relaxes at the memory. Adele would approve. Maybe not of these methods. But of my motivation for sure. I grab my warm-ups and head upstairs to my room. When I open the door, Eleanor jumps from the futon and turns off the TV. I see those old videos of Adele out on the floor.

“Again?” I say.

“She has perfect feet, Bette,” Eleanor says. “Arched like bananas.” I can’t even fight the compliment she gives my sister.

“Can I use your printer?” I ask, wishing I didn’t have to, but I’ve been avoiding my mother, so I couldn’t possibly ask her to send me new ink. I don’t have time to go get more.