Dance of Shadows (19 page)

Blaine collapsed on Steffie’s stripped mattress. “Nothing.”

Vanessa blew a strand of hair away from her face. “I guess it’s hard to believe that it would still be here after all these years.” She glanced out the window, where nothing but a thin screen separated the tiny room from the sprawling city. Was her sister out there somewhere? Was Elly?

Steffie bent down and picked up one of her old pointe shoes. It was worn and tattered, the pink satin discolored with use. “But if the diary isn’t here, and it’s not at your house, then where is it?”

Monday morning, and the clock on the nightstand blinked five twenty-nine.

Thwarted by a deluge of homework, Vanessa and her friends had spent the last week in the library, which was so crowded with students studying for midterms that they could barely say a word without practically the entire school hearing it.

Vanessa had stared at the arched entryway, waiting for Zep to walk through it, but he never did. Instead, her eyes fell on Justin, who was hunched over his books, scrawling quick notes with a pencil, the Fratelli twins on either side of him like bodyguards. With them around, there had been no way for Vanessa to approach Justin. And even if he knew something about her sister, did she really want to talk to him?

The only time she had been able to steal with Zep had been
during the previous week of preliminary rehearsals for
The Firebird
while they were becoming familiar with the score and learning their steps. They couldn’t talk; rehearsals were silent unless Josef spoke; though just being close to Zep was enough. She barely noticed the other girls glaring at her, or Justin following their movements like a shadow.

In those early days, Zep caught up with her after rehearsal, his chest damp with sweat, and together, they’d walk out of the studio and down Broadway, Zep’s warm hand grasping hers as if they were still dancing. They sat close to each other at dinner, squeezed into a tiny table until their knees knocked against each other. They laughed and chatted; Vanessa told him about how worried she was about living up to the expectations of her role, about how difficult the steps were and how she had so much to learn. Zep assured her that her technique was perfect; she just had to practice more. He touched her hand, sending a shiver of warmth up her arm and making her forget herself, if just for a moment.

She should have been brimming with happiness, yet something about each date was strange. It wasn’t just that they were exhausted, parting ways at the end of the night quicker than she would have liked. It was the sense that he was holding back on her. She was always the one divulging her feelings, and he the one who comforted her, but whenever she asked about him and how he spent the rest of his time, he dodged her questions. He was really busy, practicing and working with Josef. On what, she didn’t know. Only that it had to do with his technique and getting him into a good corps next year.

She wanted to press him but held back. Maybe because he was a senior and she a freshman, because he was Zeppelin Gray and she was just Vanessa, the redhead who somehow won Zep’s heart, though no one, including herself, could understand why. Even his texts were brief, and though they seemed sweet on the surface, they felt somehow impersonal.

You were beautiful at dinner tonight.

Loved dancing with you this morning.

Vanessa couldn’t pinpoint exactly what about them disappointed her. They were walking through the steps, saying all the right things. But to her it didn’t feel like a relationship; it felt like a rehearsal.

Then, as the week progressed, the little time they had together began to vanish. Vanessa noticed that Josef seemed more impatient with Zep, barking at him for reasons Vanessa couldn’t quite grasp. And that wasn’t the only thing that seemed off. Once, through the window in the door, Vanessa thought she saw the Fratelli twins glaring at Zep, but when she blinked, they were gone. She was seeing things, she concluded. Yet every day when they were through, Josef would pull Zep away to his office—to discuss his part, Vanessa guessed—and she retreated to the library, burying herself in her books. But all she could think of was Zep, and when she would see him again. Was he her boyfriend? Was it real? Or was he somehow slipping away from her?

TJ turned over but did not wake as Vanessa slipped out of bed. She muttered in her sleep—nothing but gibberish, though her tone was pained. She hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and
had been short-tempered, especially when the subject of Elly came up. She didn’t understand why no one else was as worried as she was. Vanessa made sure not to wake her.

Outside, the streets of New York were quiet, save for the soft
swoosh
of cars rushing down Broadway. She dressed and tied her hair in a loose ponytail. She slung her dance bag over her shoulder and slipped into the hallway.

She had planned to go to the dance studio downstairs, to stretch out and warm up for the first real rehearsal, when they would dance, rather than walk through, their parts. But when she reached the lobby, she hesitated. Through the glass panes on the door she saw a group of teenagers walking down the sidewalk past Lincoln Center, carrying skateboards and backpacks. Vanessa watched one of them buy a donut from a street vendor. Her bag slid down her shoulder. She realized she didn’t know what it felt like to take a leisurely walk with friends and not talk about ballet or rehearsal, to eat a donut and not feel guilty afterward, to have afternoons free to do whatever she wanted. She
could
go, she realized. The lobby was deserted. No one would see her leave.

She glanced down the hall toward the studios, understanding for the first time how her sister must have felt when she decided to run away. All she had to do was push open the door, and she could leave everything—the
Firebird
cast, the catty upperclassmen, the mysterious disappearances, Justin and his two sidekicks, even Zep and his aching absence—behind.

She took one step forward, and then another.

And then her phone rang.

As Vanessa fished her cell out of her bag, a janitor appeared from around a corner, carrying a mop and pail. She must have stared at him, because he gave her a curious look as she answered the phone.

“Mom?”

“Oh, Vanessa, I’m so glad you picked up.” Her mother sounded breathless.

Vanessa went rigid. “Why?” she said, glancing at the clock over the foyer entrance. “It’s six in the morning. Is everything okay?”

“No, I don’t know what came over me. My throat went dry, I began to sweat—which as you know, I never do—”

“What happened? Do you need to go to the hospital?”

“No, nothing like that. I’m just so glad you picked up. You never pick up anymore. It worries me.”

Vanessa let out a sigh of relief. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m just so busy with
The Firebird
and all.”

“I was just thinking about that and how proud your sister would be. And how proud I am. I know I haven’t been as supportive as you’d like, but I just don’t want you to literally follow in her footsteps.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your sister was so young when she was cast as the lead, and she—I guess she was too young, and she couldn’t take the pressure. And now you’re the lead, and I—I just don’t want to lose you too.”

Vanessa glanced out the doors at Lincoln Center, a pang of guilt passing through her. “Don’t worry, Mom.” She picked up
her bag. “I would never run away. I’m actually on my way to the studio now.”

Vanessa watched the janitor mop a circle of the floor by the stairwell. He caught her eye when she finished speaking, as if he knew what she had been considering. She broke his gaze and began walking down the hall to the practice studio.

She could hear her mother breathing on the other end. “Okay, honey, I believe you. Really I do.”

“Hey, Mom. Did Margaret ever tell you about a diary she was keeping?”

“Not that I know of,” said her mother. “Did you say you were going to the studio? Isn’t it awfully early for that? I don’t want you to hurt yourself or spend all of your free time practicing.”

Vanessa was ready with a response, but when she heard her mother’s words, she went quiet.

“And what about your dizziness? Is that getting worse?”

Vanessa glared at the phone. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” she said. “It only happens when everything goes right, so I don’t see why you think it’s such an issue.” But the truth was, Vanessa had been disappointed when she realized that none of her new friends seemed to suffer from the same problem.

“I’m just trying to help you,” her mother said. “You know you can come home at any time. We can set up your room the way it was before you left. It will be just like old times.”

Vanessa bit her lip. She couldn’t leave now. What about her friends? And Zep? For once, she finally felt like she was getting somewhere, slowly collecting all of the odd pieces of information
surrounding Margaret’s disappearance. If she left now, she would never know how they fit together. “I can’t, Mom. But I’ll be home in December. It’s not that far away.”

Her mother sighed. “I understand, honey. Just thought I’d try.” She paused. “I miss you.”

The pain in her voice made Vanessa’s heart feel heavy. “I miss you too,” she said, and it was true.

The girls’ dressing room downstairs was dark when Vanessa ran inside, slamming the door shut behind her, suddenly furious with her mother for mentioning her dizziness. The fluorescent lights buzzed in the silence. She threw her bag down in the corner and fiddled with her locker. For some reason it wasn’t opening, and, without thinking, she kicked it hard. It popped open, spilling out all her clothes and supplies.

She let out a cry and collapsed on the floor, rubbing her foot, which was already sore and blistered from daily classes and rehearsal. Gingerly, she slipped off her shoe. Her toes were taped with bandages, the skin around them cracked and bruised. She flexed her foot and winced. A pair of scissors lay among her things on the floor. The metal was cool against her skin as she cut the tape and began to peel it off.

She could still hear her mother’s voice clearly as she ripped off the first bandage.
We can set up your room the way it was before you left
.

She ripped off the next bandage.
It will be just like old times
.

Her toes were caked with scabs, swollen, and stiff. Using a
cotton ball and ointment from her bag, she dabbed her feet with hydrogen peroxide. A sharp, searing pain shot up her leg. She closed her eyes. If she were honest with herself, she would have admitted that in an odd way, she liked how it felt. She pressed her lips together, bearing it.

Vanessa practiced alone, blasting Stravinsky through her headphones, until the
Firebird
rehearsal began. Every time her mother’s voice cut through the music, she turned the volume up and pounded harder. A flutter of the flute and she inched across the floor, spreading her arms by her sides. A horn, sudden and abrupt, and Vanessa flung her body, the music tugging her forward and back. Then an eerie whisper, like fog crawling through the forest, and she lofted herself onto her toes. The ribbons bit into her ankles, but she closed her eyes and began to spin until the floor felt hot beneath her feet, and the music grew slower, stranger.

She grew dizzy.

The mirrors bent and warped, distorting the room. Her limbs seemed to buckle beneath her, and, unable to support herself any longer, she set her heel to the floor and came to an abrupt halt, her body wavering as she regained her sense of balance. It wasn’t an issue, she told herself. But a part of her wondered if this time her mother might be right.

After she finished her early morning practice, Vanessa sat in the corner of the studio, stretching, her leotard damp with sweat. When the rest of the troupe filed in—the girls who would
play the thirteen princesses—she wiped off her forehead and checked her makeup, hoping none of the other dancers would realize that she’d already been practicing for hours. They were all seniors, most from the group who’d been rehearsing with Josef since the first week of school.