Kat: Breaking Pointe (3 page)

So I move into Ethan's man-pad in Bondi, taking up residence in the room formally known as Sunroom. It's the narrow built-in balcony of a two-storey terrace and apart from the six a.m. wake up from psychotically cheerful birds in treetops out the window, it is extremely serviceable, in a flooded with intense sunshine sort of way. The other guys don't seem to mind me becoming a permanent fixture. I get my own shelf in the fridge, and my name is added to the cleaning roster. When Ethan's around we eat together, if not I cook cheese on toast for one, which is kinda sadsack and lonely, so more often than not I eat dinner at the Academy. The other housies are batlike: sleeping through the morning, working afternoon and evening shifts in a bar. Our paths rarely cross.

At school I just do a lot of sitting. I've never had to sit for so long before. My schools have always had at least fifty per cent ballet included in the curriculum. Apart from drama, all my classes involve intensive sitting. It makes me twitchy. I hang around the edge of Elke's group at lunch. At least I have people to eat with. But when Elke and Trilby get into heated arguments about a carbon tax versus emissions trading schemes … well, it's not that I don't
care
exactly. It's just that conflict makes me queasy.

I find myself gravitating back to the Academy, before and after school, on weekends. The bits of my life that happen between just don't seem that important.

I'm at the café at the Academy. Everyone else has gone to class. Ben's ballet bag rests on the ground beside him but he doesn't seem to be in any hurry.

Ethan walks past with a takeaway coffee. ‘Wasn't your excuse for monopolising the shower that you had to be at school on time?' he hassles.

‘And I'm going this second.' I jump up, grab my bag. Ethan disappears inside. Ben chews dolefully on his hoodie string.

‘Signing out for another day of bum numbing in the classroom.'

Ben catches my eye and suddenly his face comes alive with mischief. Uh-oh.

 

‘If I'm going to wag,' I tell him finally, after endless pestering (he's cute as a puppy, and puppies don't stop pestering until you kick them, or play with them), ‘I'll need a costume change.' I gesture at my school uniform.

‘Go for it,' Ben says, watching eagerly.

‘I don't have anything else to wear. I don't carry extra clothes like you balletbots.'

He throws his bag to me. ‘Knock yourself out.'

I find some convenient bushes to duck behind.

‘I vote we go to the Aquarium,' he calls to me. ‘Annoy the sharks.'

I throw out my school shirt. ‘How exactly do you annoy a shark?'

‘Tell them they're not as pretty as dolphins?'

I step out, wearing an outfit cobbled together out of his ballet gear – an oversized tee, tights.

He looks me up and down. ‘I love you as me.'

I grab my clothes and stuff them in my schoolbag. Ben finds a card that has fluttered to the ground.

‘Who's Anne Black?' he asks.

So maybe I didn't throw the card away. Maybe I transferred it from one outfit to another. Maybe I've been carrying it around with me for days, trying to decide if I want to call her.

‘Some dodgy agent I met at Showcase. She wanted to meet with me.'

‘But that's awesome! You should ring her.'

‘I bet she gives her card to every blonde who can do a time-step.' I go to grab it but he holds it out of reach, reminding me what a shorty I am. I jump ineffectually a few times.

‘Well, cupcake,' Ben tells me. ‘It's the agent or the sharks. Your pick.'

I look at him, thinking about it.

 

The agency is a lot more swish than I expected.

‘See?' Ben says. ‘Not at all dodgy.' His eyes follow a tall, gorgeous model type walk across the foyer. I so don't belong here.

I notice Anne Black walk into the reception area. I don't expect her to remember me, but straight away she says, ‘Katrina?'

I forget to speak. The sharks would have been less intimidating. But Ben isn't intimidated by anything. ‘Ben Tickle,' he says, thrusting out his hand. ‘Her manager.'

‘My friend,' I say. ‘Who needs managing.'

Anne smiles. I see Ben's charm works on young and old. ‘Mr Tickle, your client and I need to talk.'

She ushers me through to her office.

‘You've got five seconds,' she says to me.

‘What? Oh. Well I … it's Katrina but everyone calls me Kat … and I just thought. My friend Ben out there thought …'

Anne does the sound of a buzzer. I stop, startled. Anne laughs.

‘That's how much time the casting directors will give you. You have to know who you are.'

In five seconds? When I haven't worked it out in sixteen years?

‘You're your own business now. You're Katrina Karamakov.'

‘I am?'

‘But you need to want this. Because when I believe in the artist more than they believe in themselves, that hurts, Katrina.' The phone rings and she answers it, but while she talks she scribbles something on a piece of paper. I blink at it, confused. She covers the mouthpiece. ‘Audition. This afternoon. It could be the start of a special and lucrative bond between us, Kat.'

‘Can we go now? Because that's unsettling.'

I point to the group of cheerleaders who are doing tumbles and acrobatics on a large oval in the middle of an enormous stadium. One of the girls does a no-handed cartwheel. They are all cute. Perky. They all wear
adorable
figure-hugging outfits. Ben's T-shirt hangs round my knees.

Ben is about to hyperventilate. ‘We can't go, that's against everything I stand for.'

‘So you stand for girls in tight outfits with fluorescent teeth?'

‘Yes. Yes, I do.'

The peppiest of them all spies me lurking. I guess she must be Jordana, the name written on Anne's piece of paper.

‘Are we auditioning for the Emu Cheer Squad today?' Jordana asks me, with an unnaturally wide smile, like someone with a terminal case of enthusiasm.

I line up with the other girls, shooting desperate looks at Ben, who grins supportively.

‘We're looking at flexibility, danceability, crowdability, personalability. I mean, personality,' Jordana chirps like a budgie. ‘Okay, and I want to see sunshine beams on those faces!'

She leads us through the routines. At first I feel silly, waving my pompoms in the air, cheering for a sports team I've never heard of and couldn't care less about. But as we get into it, it's actually gruelling and soon I'm using all my energy just to keep up, let alone keep a smile plastered on my face. Every now and then I catch a glimpse of Ben, enjoying himself in the stands.

But at the end of it all, when I'm standing there panting, listening to Jordana say, ‘Okay, the girls I call need to collect a uniform and come back tomorrow for a callback,' I find myself listening for my name. I can't believe it when she calls me. I run up to collect a uniform for the callback.

 

The thrill wears off when Ethan intercepts me escorting Ben back to the Academy.

‘Your school rang,' he says.

‘I gave myself an excursion.'

‘Purely educational,' Ben agrees. ‘She's now master of the left herkie.'

Ethan scares Ben away with a big brother glare.

‘It was a one-off, a vitally important audition,' I plead. My whole family are suckers for the importance of an audition.

‘For who?'

‘For … the Emus.' Realising how lame I sound, I quickly add, ‘Cheerleading is harder than you'd think!' I show him my best herkie. He isn't impressed.

‘I thought you wanted to make a go of normal school?'

‘I did, I do. It's just maybe, this could be my thing.'

‘
Cheerleading?
' he sneers. ‘That's your thing?'

‘You're a snob!' I accuse, though not so long ago it had been me doing the sneering. My family have a proud tradition of snobbery.

‘Yes, I am. You gave up the National Academy – '

‘I got kicked out of the National Academy,' I remind him.

‘So you could do cartwheels for a sport you don't even like? It's just another distraction.'

I can't answer. What can I say? That I have a burning desire to be a cheerleader? I walk away.

He calls after me. ‘I told the school you're looking forward to detention.'

And I can't help the ripple of annoyance, mostly because he's right. But Ethan has known he's wanted to be a choreographer since he was a pre-schooler. Some of us are still working it out.

 

Still angry with Ethan I decide to stay over at Tara's. She's wigging out because of something Grace said about hitting out of her league with Christian.

After dinner in the boarding house common room Ben disappears, muttering something about
girls
and
sleepovers
and
appropriate activities
. I scoff down a giant cinnamon roll.

Ben bursts in holding a bottle of something. It looks like fake tan.

‘Are you kidding?' I say.

‘Every cheerleader needs a tan, Kat,' Ben says authoritatively. He adds, ‘It's part of the costume.'

I wrinkle my nose.

‘Ooh,' says Tara, perking up. ‘Makeover?'

‘For best results exfoliate first and dry well.' He studies me. ‘I recommend two coats darker than your natural tan. A wholesome glow that's nicely slimming. Not that you aren't slim already,' he rushes to add.

‘Yeah. Thanks, Ben.' Lucky my self-esteem issues are about the inside, not the outside. Still, Tara looks so buzzed about a female bonding tanning experience, I can't disappoint her.

I take the bottle. And then look pointedly at the door.

‘I could help with the application,' he suggests.

‘A selfless offer, but no.'

Ben backs out of the room reluctantly.

‘Did he say slimming?' Tara asks.

I spray myself quickly, wearing the bikini I left at Tara's place last time we went to the beach. Tara stands in front of the mirror, staring glumly at her bum.

‘The problem is, I'm only a C plus.'

‘Any topic but school, thank you,' I say.

‘I mean physically. Christian's an A or A plus but I'm only a C. Probably a C minus on a bad skin day.'

I hand Tara the bottle and Tara begins spraying herself from point blank range.

‘It says hold the bottle five centimetres from the skin …'

But Tara pays no attention to me. ‘Do you think Christian knows he could do better than me? Because I'm not pretty enough for him?'

‘I
think
you need to spray that thing further away.'

She stops for a minute. ‘I would give anything to look like you. Or Grace. There is so much wrong with me.'

An annoyed tone creeps into my voice. ‘Yeah, like you don't have a great boyfriend, you've got no idea what you want to do with your life, and you're completely untalented. You mean those kind of things?' From where I sit, Tara doesn't have much to worry about, except the things she's creating in her own head.

But she's too lost in her obsessive thoughts to pay attention to me. She closes her eyes and sprays her face.

I confiscate the spray. ‘Look T, this morning you were in love – like publicly – and by the looks of it, happy. Has it occurred to you maybe you don't always need something to work on?'

‘There's always something that needs working on,' Tara tells me firmly.

 

I lie awake that night, thinking about what Ethan said. Was cheerleading another distraction? Why had I auditioned? Why was I going back? I was no cheerleader. It was obvious to Ethan, it was obvious to me, it would be obvious to Jordana, too.

Ben meets me outside Tara's room, looking suspiciously like he'd been waiting there for some time. ‘So,' he claps his hands together. ‘Ready for the callback? Cause I sure am.'

‘We're not going.'

‘I could be your good luck token. Look how lucky I've been so far.'

‘
We're
not going because I'm not going. Who am I kidding? Tan or no tan, I'm no cheerleader.'

‘Do you think they'll let you keep the uniform?' Ben asks, hopefully.

I roll my eyes. ‘I'm taking it back.'

Ben sags, disappointed.

 

I can't bring myself to go back to the stadium to return it in person, so I decide to leave it at Anne Black's office. I figure I can drop it and run.

But she springs me.

‘I didn't think you'd be here on a Saturday. I thought you could return it to the squad.'

Anne checks her watch. ‘You've got a callback in twenty-eight minutes. And I don't courier while wearing Prada.'

‘I don't care about rugby.'

‘You think all those girls care about rugby?'

Well, if they didn't they were better at faking it than me,
I think. Which goes to show that I didn't belong. I try to explain. ‘My friend Ben dragged me here.'

‘You dragged yourself. Something made you perform at Showcase. Something made you audition yesterday.'

‘I think … I miss it. Dancing. I didn't think I would, but my legs feel weird without it.'

‘So you are a dancer.' She looks at me. And then asks me the question. The one that haunts me, the one I never dare to ask myself: ‘Are you scared of not being good enough?'

And that was it. In a nutshell. Did I jump or was I pushed? Did I flunk out of the Academy because
I
wanted
to fail? Or was it simply that I wasn't good enough, that I've never been good enough? Am I a rebel … or a reject?

I nod.

‘Then forget what happens next,' Anne said, gently. ‘Just see this audition and every other, because there will be others, as a chance to dance. It doesn't matter if it's for a ballet company or to be a cheerleader. You're a dancer. Dance.'

 

I stand in the middle of the oval. I feel exposed, and not just because of the clingy uniform, the short skirt.

Greenness stretches out around me.

The music is far away, tinny.

In all this space, I am very small.

I take a deep breath and smell lawn. The grass is springy under my feet. It reminds me of being a kid, when dancing was just another way to play.

I take a deep breath and I empty my head. I stop thinking about
being
a cheerleader. Instead I just give myself over to the music, feel the beat pulse through me and allow my body to take charge. I move to the music, throwing in a bit of Showcase,
a bit of
Gaia's Vengeance
, a bit of old school ballet and some of Christian's hip-hop. And I love it. This time my smile isn't part of the costume, it's for real.

I get to the end of the track and I know, with every fibre of my being, that I haven't got the gig. I don't even have to look at Jordana's face. I just know. But I don't care.
Every audition is a chance to dance
. There'll be other chances.