Shiny Broken Pieces (28 page)

“
WHAT
'
S NEXT?
”
AUNT LEAH ASKS
.
We're sprawled out on Mama's couch, legs intertwined, watching a bunch of old movies. Mama's in the kitchen. I smell the smoky scent of barbecue wafting in from the patio. I spot my dad's shoulders through the window, leaning over the grill.

“I don't know. Maybe I'll wait for audition season for the San Francisco Ballet, or go up to Portland.” I pull the blanket over my legs. “I don't want to think about it.”

“Your mom wanted me to try to talk to you about it. Talk you into putting in some applications. Maybe community college, then apply in the fall for a university.”

“I don't want to go to college yet.”

“What is it about ballet?” She pushes her foot against mine.

I love to dance now more than ever, but there are moments when, if I'm honest with myself, I regretted going to the American Ballet Conservatory, and all that's happened. There are days since graduation where I still feel broken, and the whole thing
feels pointless, not having earned an apprenticeship.

But then I think of the accident and what I went through to get it all back. It makes me want it that much more.

“You never danced,” I say.

“Yes, but I do understand art.” She goes off on a tangent about the art world.

I don't tell her that I feel like ballet is like a drug. A rush that always goes to my head—the zip of excitement and thrill that comes with every casting, every performance. I always want to bask in it, and when the rehearsal period is over or the performance curtain comes down for the last time, I want it all back again.

But ballet hurts sometimes. I wonder if the high is worth all the lows—all the criticisms, the chewed-up feet, the bloody blisters, the aches that never seem to go away. All the time wasted in front of the mirror, watching every bite that goes into your mouth and wondering where it might end up on your body, the thoughts that you aren't good enough.

I cut into Aunt Leah's story about museum curation. “I know you all don't understand it. I just need you—and especially Mama—to trust me. Can you tell her that for me? Work on her? I've only been home a week.”

“Okay,” she says, smiling.

I play on my phone to avoid talking about this anymore. A picture of June appears in my feed. She's at the barre at Salt Lake City Ballet. There are a string of congratulations. I take a large breath and type in a bunch of smiley faces. I'm happy for her. I am.

Mama comes in from the patio with trays of food. She hands both of us bowls of fresh summer corn, cut from the cob and
cooked with tomatoes and okra. I smile up at her. The phone rings, and she scurries to answer it.

Aunt Leah and I turn back to the movie.

“Gigi,” Mama calls from the kitchen. “It's for you.”

“Tell Ella I'll call her later.” She's been trying to get me to come out with her new friends, plotting another bonfire. But I haven't been up to it. Not just yet.

“It's not Ella,” Mama says, waving the phone at me.

I grab the receiver. “Hello?”

“Gigi, it's Damien Leger from the American Ballet Company.”

I hold my breath and pray that my heart slows, beats out a rhythm I know is safe. But it's not listening, thumping hard and fast in my chest. I'm instantly flushed and sweating.

“Gigi? You there?” he says.

“Yes, I'm here,” I manage to squeak out.

“Well, I'm calling because we have another opening at the company. We lost an apprentice. We'd love to have you. You still interested?”

An excited panic rushes through me. My heart goes into overdrive, triggering my monitor, and I can already feel Mama panicking. I want to scream.

“Yes,” I shout.

Mama rushes out of the kitchen. Aunt Leah pauses the movie. I feel frozen as Damien explains the process for me moving into the apprentice apartments and the paperwork I need to send to him. “Everything clear?” he asks.

“Yes. Yes.” It's the only word I can seem to form. After he hangs up, I still stand there gripping the phone and waiting for
my heart to slow down, waiting till I can breathe again, to tell them the good news.

A week later, I'm back in New York, back at Lincoln Center, back home. At the company building, the skylight windows let so much light into the locker rooms, I sit and bask in it for a minute, letting the sun warm my shoulders. I'm early for my first ballet class at the company. I run my fingers across principal and soloist members' lockers and trace over those important names: Becca Thomas, Samantha Haan, Svetlana Barkova, Angela Liao, Michelle Feldman. The space is three times larger than the one at the conservatory. Vanities are well stocked with bobby pins and hair spray.

The doors open. One of the corps de ballet members enters. I think her name is Maria. She smiles at me as she heads to the back to the showers. Other girls start to pour in. Ballet class will start in two hours. I pretend to keep getting dressed just to linger here and see who comes in. I don't know what to do with myself. The excitement bubbles up in me.

“Gigi!” Bette is right behind me.

“What are you doing here?” Her words echo around us, getting tangled in the warm lights and the hanging practice tutus and the clouds of hair spray of the dressing room. Her beautiful blue eyes flash with shock.

I smile. “I'm back.”

“It's good to see you,” she says, as other company members watch.

“I'm sure it is, Bette. I'm sure it is.”

WE
'
VE LEARNED FROM OUR TIME
in the trenches that publishing is all about family—the family you're born into, which helps you get to
The End
in the first place, and the family you make. We're so grateful to be surrounded by both kinds. To keep it short and sweet, we want to thank our own families, for all their love and support along the way, always.

To our pint-size powerhouse of an agent, Victoria Marini. Thank you for always taking the risk and making the leap with us. We couldn't do it without you.

We want to thank our HarperTeen family: our editors, publicist, the library and marketing team, and all the people behind the scenes who make this magic happen.

We can't forget the lovely early readers who helped us vet the manuscript through edits: Alla Plotkin, Ellen Oh, Kathryn Holmes, and Renee Ahdieh. Thank you so much for giving us your time to make sure we got things right.

We're also forever grateful for our publishing tribe: the We Need Diverse Books team, our cheerleaders, our confidantes, our safety net, and our shoulders to cry on. We're so proud to be a part of this very important mission.

And finally, last but certainly not least, our readers, who stuck around despite the cliffhangers and crazy antics. Thank you so much for reading.

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SONA CHARAIPOTRA & DHONIELLE CLAYTON
met while attending the New School's acclaimed Writing for Children MFA program. Sona is a journalist who has written for the
New York Times, People, Parade, Cosmopolitan,
and other major media. Dhonielle is a librarian at a middle school in Harlem, and taught English at a cutthroat ballet academy. Together, the pair cofounded CAKE Literary, a boutique book packaging company with a decidedly diverse bent. Find them online at
www.cakeliterary.com
.

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hc.com
.

Tiny Pretty Things

Shiny Broken Pieces: A Tiny Pretty Things Novel

Cover art © 2016 Sean Freeman

Cover design by Michelle Taormina

HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

SHINY BROKEN PIECES
. Copyright © 2016 by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

www.epicreads.com

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015955159

ISBN 978-0-06-234242-3 (trade bdg.)

EPub Edition © June 2016 ISBN 9780062342447

16  17  18  19  20    
CG/RRDH
   10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

FIRST EDITION