Bunheads (5 page)

“That’s crazy,” I say, thinking,
Shouldn’t this guy be talking about beer pong and toga parties?
I’m glad he isn’t, but still—I thought that was pretty much all your average college guy cared about.

“And I’m taking Italian lessons,” he goes on. “From this old guy in Little Italy. About six months ago I got this idea that I wanted to watch all of Fellini’s movies and not have to read the subtitles.” He pauses and looks thoughtful. “Do I sound like a dilettante? A jack-of-all-trades, master of none? Probably I do. Oh well. So I have kind of a hard time figuring out just one thing to focus on. But I’m young—I don’t need to know what I want to be when I grow up. Not everyone has his life figured out by age ten, right?”

I laugh. “I
was
ten. How’d you guess? But really, you’ve got a few years yet. When did you start playing the guitar? You’re good.”

“Thanks. I first tried when I was about three.” Jacob smiles at the memory. “The guitar was bigger than I was and, needless to say, I wasn’t that successful at strumming chords. But I started taking lessons in middle school, and I’ve been playing ever since.”

“Did someone inspire you? I mean, I saw the Manhattan Ballet perform when I was, like, five years old, and I knew right then
and there that I wanted to be up on that stage someday, too.” I’m surprised at how comfortable I feel now.
I’m actually having a conversation with a nondancer
, I think.

“Well, I can play every Bob Dylan song ever written,” Jacob offers. “But these days I’m into Will Oldham.” He waves to Trudy, who sidles over with another beer for him. “I think he’s kind of a genius.”

“Cool,” I say, making a mental note to find out who Will Oldham is. “So you’re a student-slash-musician-slash-self-taught kayaker?”

“And after-school teacher,” he adds. “It’s my work-study job, and it’s totally cool. My dad teaches high school history. He says teaching’s a more socially responsible way to earn a living than being alone up on a stage, singing songs about lost love or what you ate for breakfast.”

I laugh. “You have a song about what you ate for breakfast? What’s it called?”

He grins at me, a lovely, lopsided grin. He is possibly the cutest guy I have ever seen. “ ‘Waffles,’ ” he says. He picks up a spare fork and helps himself to a bite of my pasta. “Wow, that’s delicious.” His arm brushes lightly against mine.

My heart seems to flutter quickly in my chest, and my stomach feels funny, which is either a sign that my pesto isn’t agreeing with me or that I’m developing a serious crush.

Jacob stabs another rigatoni. “But back to you. Ballet just sounds so intense. How do you do it? I mean, how did you get good enough?” He pauses. “Is that a weird question? Yeah, that’s a weird question.”

I shrug. “Really hard work. I mean, if you devote yourself to one pursuit, you can probably master pretty much anything, right?”

Jacob laughs. “Sure, if you can
choose
one thing.”

“I was reading about this painter who lost his right arm in a car crash, and so he taught himself to paint all over again with his left hand. And now he’s showing at this gallery in Chelsea, and his paintings go for, like, twenty grand at least.”

“And don’t forget those elephants who paint,” Jacob adds. “They’ve gotten really good, too.”

I look at him doubtfully. “Elephants?”

“Yep. Thailand’s full of elephant abstractionists. Trainers hand them brushes, and the elephants go to town.”

I laugh. “I can see the reviews now: ‘Dumbo’s paintings are lyrical and expressive, characterized by bold colors and interesting shapes,’ ” I say, affecting a snooty accent.

Jaocb laughs, too. “I like you,” he says suddenly. “It’s not just that you’re pretty or you might know something about art, or because I think you have good taste in pasta. I just think you seem interesting—different from other girls I know.”

I think Jacob seems very interesting, too. And he’s definitely different from the boys I know at the company, but I don’t have the courage to tell him that. So I just smile and push my plate of pesto pasta closer to him.

By the end of the evening, I’ve had three glasses of wine, Jacob’s had two pints of Brooklyn Lager, and we’ve exchanged phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

Outside, he asks, “So I’ll talk to you soon?” as he opens the door of a cab for me.

I nod, silent again.

Jacob leans close to me. I think he’s aiming for my lips, and I have a rush of anxiety because I’m so inexperienced. I’m afraid I won’t know what to do when his mouth meets mine. But then he kisses me ever so lightly on the cheek. I feel the brush of his collar against my neck, and I smell soap and pesto and beer. I’m both relieved and disappointed.

I duck into the waiting cab. My skin tingles where he touched it, and I keep my hand over my cheek as if to protect that faint fluttery feeling.

It’s ten thirty in the morning and time for company class. Company class is our warm-up before rehearsals, as well as an opportunity to perfect our technique. It’s optional in theory, but only principals ever consider skipping it.

The studio floor is littered with slouching and stretching bodies. Pointe shoes, Thera-Bands, and corn pads spill out of dance bags, and water bottles and coffee cups are tucked against the mirrored walls. Some of the dancers are chatting with friends while others prepare for class by listening to their iPods or just stretching in silence. Most still look exhausted from last night’s performance.

By the door, Lottie Harlow twists her auburn hair up with a mouthful of long pins. Her oatmeal-colored sweater falls from her bony shoulders. The boys, who don’t have to worry about their hairstyles, roll their calves out on tennis balls and do push-ups.

We start out by finding our places at the barre. Six barres are arranged in the center of the studio, plus the ones lining the walls. I squeeze in between Bea and Jonathan, who lives in my building and looks kind of like Bradley Cooper. He blows me a kiss and nudges his bag over with a pointed toe. If he liked girls, which he doesn’t, I would have developed a crush on him long ago.

When Mr. Edmunds, the ballet master, enters, he motions to the pianist, who plays a slow, simple melody. We begin with a series of deep knee bends that engages our whole bodies. (You can always hear the pop and crack of people’s hips and knees during pliés.)

Then, as Mr. Edmunds demonstrates the grand battement combination, I tap Bea’s hand and she moves closer. “I met someone,” I whisper. “His name is Jacob Cohen. He’s a musician and he’s really cute.”

Bea’s blue eyes open comically wide and she gets a big grin on her face, but then she has to get into position for the combination. After a moment she leans back over the barre. “No way! When was this?”

“Last night.” I smile, feeling mischievous.

“
You
actually went
out
?” she whispers. “But you’re such a goody-goody!”

“You should talk,” I reply with a giggle. “But I know—it’s totally unlike me.”
And I feel guilty because I have a packed schedule today
, I think.
I just hope I don’t pay for it in tonight’s show.

Then Mr. Edmunds passes by us, and we both stare straight ahead. He walks around the room, frowning or nodding, depending on the technique of the dancer he’s watching.
His salt-and-pepper hair is feathered: It’s a little too pouffed on top, and a little too long at the back. He was a principal dancer with the Manhattan Ballet twenty years ago, and he loves to poke us in the stomach or the bum to encourage us to tighten up. When he does this, we usually make puking faces behind his back.

“Oh, I wish you would have taken
me
,” Bea moans. “I can’t believe you met a real, live nondancer.”

“Me either!”

In the second half of class, we move to the center, where we work without a barre. The floor is sprung and layered with linoleum, almost identical to the stage. Mr. Edmunds demonstrates another combination—something slow, an adagio—and we follow his lead. I try to talk to Bea again during petit allégro, but I swear Mr. Edmunds is keeping an especially close eye on us today.

So—silently—we balancé, we pirouette, we leap. My heart beats rapidly in my chest, and my leg muscles burn. The tempo of the music increases, and we begin to exaggerate our movements until we are jumping across the floor in grand allégro. Pretty soon my face flushes, and my breath comes in gasps. At this point I’m breathing so hard I wouldn’t be able to talk to Bea even if I had the chance.

After class I take a quick sip of water and then head back to the studio, where Otto is working with sinewy Lottie, choreographing
his new ballet. Under the fluorescent lights of the studio, Otto’s dark, deep-set eyes glitter. His dark hair has just a dusting of gray around the temples, and his olive complexion stands out against Lottie’s porcelain skin as he clutches her tiny wrist to demonstrate a promenade. Even though he walks with a limp from a botched hip replacement, he’s still considered the best partner around and regularly demonstrates choreography. If you saw Otto on the street, you’d think he was handsome but completely unapproachable.

Which he basically is.

“And développé,” Otto tells Lottie.

As understudies, Zoe and I mirror her steps along the barre in the background. Otto has been changing the choreography as he goes, so one day he asks for piqué turns and the next day he wants grands jetés. It’s hard to remember which version is which.

When we first started rehearsing, Zoe always tried to stand in front of me, but once she figured out Otto wasn’t actually going to rehearse a second cast, she turned the level of competition down a notch.

“Of course we’re understudying the one dancer in the company who, like,
never
goes out,” she whispers as she marks the piqué turns.

“I know,” I say. “She’s, like, strong as an ox.”

“And yet skinny as a carrot stick.”

I stifle a giggle as Zoe leans in close to me. “I wish she’d eat a bad mussel or something,” she says.

“But she hardly eats,” I remind her. “Or so they say.”

“Well then, we should spike her water with laxatives,” Zoe says, leaning against the barre and grinning naughtily.

I sigh. “I’m so bored. Haven’t we done this section fifty times already? Maybe I should pretend I have menstrual cramps just to get out of here.”

“Oh my God, girl problems! Otto would be so uncomfortable that he’d just shoo you out of the room,” she whispers with a giggle.

“It’s worth a try,” I say, but Zoe shakes her shiny blond head at me.

“This is just part of the job,” she says.

“I know, I know. The crappy part,” I mutter.

So I keep marking the steps and try not to think about the futility of my hopes to dance Lottie’s part. As Otto moves on to the adagio section, I allow my mind to wander a little. I imagine what it would be like to kiss Jacob, the cutest singer-songwriter in all of Manhattan. Considering I pretty much melted from a single peck on the cheek, I’m worried that a real kiss would turn me into a quivering puddle of goo. But I’m willing to take the chance.

Of course, who knows when I’ll get that chance again? Between rehearsals and the nightly performances, my schedule is beyond packed. After this rehearsal, I have one for
Vous
and another for
Prelude
, then a triple-header tonight. I’ll be lucky to make it through without collapsing from exhaustion.

I sigh and look up at the vaulted ceiling. The fluorescent lights somehow create a disorienting effect, and after hours of rehearsal I always begin to feel a little dizzy. But as Bea once
pointed out, the dizziness could also come from oxygen deprivation due to the lack of windows.

Suddenly Otto is standing in front of me, his dark eyes cool and appraising. “You’d better be picking this up, Ward.” He looks down his nose at me, and I feel very small.

I nod my head vigorously and glance over to see Zoe snickering in the corner. All thoughts of Jacob are banished for the next two hours.