Turning Pointe (6 page)

She’s pregnant. We are fucked.

And she is way, way too calm. This is Aly. She spins out if there’s a shrimp in her chicken lo mein or if she loses a hair tie. If she’s calm, it’s only the calm before the stormy meltdown. I’m the calm and steady one in this relationship. I have to get myself together. For her.

I take a shaky breath. “What’s next?”

“I have a doctor’s appointment next week,” she says, almost shy. Aly, shy. Too many new things for one day. Too many changes. “If you want to come. You’ll have to skip class for a day.”

“Okay,” I agree immediately and she laughs, leaning back against my arms. I spin her, just to see her eyes light up again. “And then what?”

“One week at a time. I don’t want to tell Johan until I absolutely have to,” she says, gripping my arms tightly. “So it’s a secret.”

“
Okay.
” Ask me for the moon, Aly, I’d give it to you.

She takes my hand and squeezes it. “You aren’t fooling me, Zedekiah. You’re freaking out. Would you believe me if I tell you it’ll be okay?”

I snort. “I should be telling you that, shouldn’t I?”

Her smile’s like the sun in the park. Unexpected. “We’ll reassure each other, then.”

It’s brutal, how beautiful the day is, how beautiful she is, and how desperately I want to be happy right now. I’m spinning between happy and afraid enough to puke and I can barely keep the park in focus. It’s almost impossible to imagine going back to the studio for rehearsal because this feeling, right there in the sun with our hands linked together, this is exactly the feeling I seek every time I step onto the stage. It feels like waking up.

Chapter Ten

Aly

“Don’t lose that,” Zed tells me for about the billionth
time as he glances over at the tiny ultrasound picture in my hand. His eyes
return straight to the road as it curves along the river back into the city.

“I’m not going to lose it,” I promise, resisting the urge to
tease him as I fold up the picture and slip it into my wallet. I drop my purse
on the ground between my feet and lean back, watching the sun dance off the
river. “Besides, we’re going to have a lot of those pictures.”

“The first one is special,” he insists.

I can’t argue with that, and I don’t want to argue. At the
doctor’s office, he asked almost all the questions because I couldn’t stop
staring at that tiny little picture. My whole life I’ve built palaces and
stories and music with my body, but now, inside me, I am building a person. I
understand the science, but not the miracle.

“So I should call my parents soon,” he says quietly, his hands
gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white.

I study him, noting the furrow in his brow and the way his
mouth turns into a thin, tense line, the way a toe draws an arc on the marley
floor. “Will it help or hurt if I’m there?”

He glances at me, then back to the road. “To be honest, I don’t
know.”

I’m not sure what Zed’s parents think about me. They’re as
close to estranged as a family can get and still send each other Christmas
cards. Zed has done almost all his holidays with my family since we were
thirteen. I’ve met his parents twice but only in passing. They’re deeply
religious and hate that this is what Zed does with his life. Knocking me up out
of wedlock will pretty much confirm the evil of ballet in their minds.

“Think about it,” I say, leaning my head against the window.
“Whatever is better. There’s no rush.”

He relaxes a little bit, his thumbs drumming on the wheel.
“Yeah. Okay.”

He flashes me a quick smile, just before I see his eyes widen
and him wrench the wheel, hard, at the same time the glass around me shatters.
The air’s punched out of my lungs and the world goes upside down, grass into the
sky, sky into the grass, until there’s a sickening crunch of metal. I exhale,
and everything goes black.

* * *

I’ve spun down, a top wobbling to a stop, and then two
hands touch my heart, and I’m sent spinning off across the glossy floor. One
day, I want to dance on mirrors. I’ve seen my body from every angle except from
my feet. I’ll never be as good as my feet are. They’ve carried me across rooms,
studios, stages, cities, and countries. I’ve only learned to love them in pointe
shoes, but then the other night, Zed studied my body like I carried all the
answers to the universe on my skin. He ran his fingers over the scars of my
adolescence and kissed my stomach, my shins, the crooks of my elbows, my ankle
bones.

He said, “I love the parts of you that you forget to love.”

I’ve loved him for so long that sometimes I forget how to love
him. Sometimes I forget why I love him. Loving him is like breathing. It comes
naturally. I don’t have to think about it. I never worried, before, about the
day when I would not have him to love.

I never worried about breathing before, either.

Now, when I breathe, every part of my body splinters apart,
slashed open with a cold knife. A soft, warm hand holds my cheek and whispers,
“Shhh, shhh, darling.”

“Zed.” My voice comes out raspy, like I inhaled thousands of
shards of glass.

“It’s Mom,” says the voice after a pause. “Alyona, can you open
your eyes?”

When I do, no one in the room calls me Aly. I am Alyona to
everyone, and there’s a hollow where my heart should be. My mother, with her
dark hair and deep-set eyes full of tears, grips my hand tightly. She starts to
speak but cries instead. My dad scoots a chair closer and leans forward, kissing
my forehead.

“Baby girl,” he whispers. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going
to figure this out.”

We’ll figure this out.
Zed told me
that.

“Zed,” I say again, trying to sit up. Something sticky’s
attached to my chest. My right hand stings. I’m tethered to an IV line and a
heart monitor. I scream and kick my feet, gasping, as the ceiling rolls above me
in the aftershocks of pain.

“Alyona, Alyona,” cries my mother, holding my arms. “He’s okay.
He’s okay.”

A nurse comes in and says the doctor will be right by, but my
dad smooths my hair off my forehead and says, “Do you remember what
happened?”

I don’t, and when the doctor comes in, they tell me the broken
fragments of a life shattered and gone. A car blew a red light and hit us going
so fast that we rolled down an embankment into a guardrail that went through the
side of our rental car. Zed and I both ended up in intensive care. They tell me
they’ll have to do a procedure to remove the tiny lifeless body from me. I
couldn’t hold on to it.

“I don’t know,” Mom says, her shoulders dropping when I ask if
I can see Zed. She wipes tears off her face. “His family came in last night and
they won’t talk to us.”

I need him, I think and then shrink into myself, guilt filling
empty spaces in my body. He needs me. We can’t do this alone.

It’s three days before I convince a nurse to take me in a
wheelchair up to the ICU, where Zed’s recovering. I wheel myself into his room
and his dad springs off the chair, looking around anxiously.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he whispers. “Mrs. Harrow—she doesn’t
want to see you.”

I can’t pay attention to his words. Zed’s face is as bruised as
my entire body, and there’s a tube down his throat. The left side of his jaw is
wired shut, the metal poking through bandages. Machines beep next to him the way
Johan would stand next to us and count off the beats for variations. I roll up
next to Zed, slip my fingers into his cold hand and touch his cheek like we used
to do.

“Zed,” I whisper.

“Alyona,” says his dad nervously. “You can’t be in here. He’s
recovering.”

For years, Zed was safe and I was safe and nothing bad ever
happened. On a bridge in Amsterdam, I danced with him from one island to
another. I asked him to stay with me, and he did. He never broke a promise to
me, even when he asked me to let him lead that dance. I grip his hand too
tightly, but he’s not letting go either. Though the machines continue to beep
like a metronome next to him, his fingers lace with mine.

I take a deep breath and lay my head on his arm. I run my
fingers over his hospital gown and close my eyes. His heart beats against my
palm. Steady. Strong. Quiet. Somewhere beneath the bruises and the bleeding,
Zed’s still telling me to trust him. He’s still telling me to let go. He’ll
catch my hand. Whatever’s to come, he’ll catch my hand.

We’re still dancing.

* * * * *

Look for
SECOND POSITION
, the next
book in the
DISTRICT BALLET COMPANY
series, available
now from Katherine Locke and Carina Press.

To purchase and read more books by Katherine Locke, please
visit her website
here
http://www.katherinelockebooks.com
.

Coming soon from Carina Press and Katherine
Locke

Four years ago, a car accident ended
Zedekiah Harrow’s ballet career and sent Philadelphia Ballet principal
dancer Alyona Miller spinning toward the breakdown that suspended her own.
What they lost on the side of the road that day can never be replaced, and
grief is always harshest under a spotlight...

Read on for a sneak preview of SECOND POSITION, the next book
in Katherine Locke’s
DISTRICT BALLET COMPANY
series.

Zed

Some things you’ll never erase from your memory. In front of me, the ice-blond braid swinging on a primly dressed woman’s back makes me sway on the spot. I know that braid, and it doesn’t belong here. Not where I am. Anywhere but here, here where it brings with it a tide of memories I’ve worked hard to bury. Images, bright and sharp and very red, slam around in my head, and I curl my fingers into my palm, hard. The pain pushes the memories back where they belong.

My first thought is,
It can’t be her.

My second thought is,
Oh
,
God
,
please don’t let her see me walk.

It might not be her. Lots of women have blond hair, and a lot of women dye their hair to get her particular shade of gold. Three people between us, and I can’t see her profile. I study her neck, her shoulders, the way she stands. I’m almost positive it is her. A certain unmistakable, accidental grace to the way her hands shake when she unsnaps her wallet.

“Small tea, one orange tea bag, one vanilla. I’ll pay for both.”

Her tea order hasn’t changed in the four years since I’ve seen her, or the eleven years I’ve known her. Her voice is a little smaller, a reflection of her body. But she still likes to taste things vibrantly. And she’s the only one ordering a hot drink in the late July heat.

In the last memory I have of her, she’s stretched out next to me in bed, wearing nothing but a smile. She glowed, on and off the stage. This girl, at the counter now, is anything other than bright. She moves dully. She used to lean on counters and flirt, regardless of who was at the register. She hasn’t flipped her hair once. Everything I know is in the past tense.

I almost say her name, almost call out to her against all my better instincts. Then they ask her for the name for the cup, and I hear her say, “Aly.”

I
watch her in the sea of girls called into the audition room.
It’s easy to follow her.
She’s all legs and square shoulders and collarbones.
Her hair’s got so much hair spray in it that it looks dark.
She walks away from me
,
her pointe shoes slapping the floor.
Just before she goes into the room for her audition
,
she yells over her shoulder
, “
It’s Alyona
,
not Aly.
But you can call me that if we both get in.
”

“Cheer up, miserable.” Roseanne grins at me. She picks up a cup and writes a
Z
on it. “The usual?”

“Thanks,” I tell her, distracted. I hand her my credit card and she rolls her eyes. I smile a bit, the routine comforting me. “Just swipe it, Rose.”

“As you wish,” she teases me. I sign the receipt and step as gracefully as I can to the end of the counter, where they put everyone’s drinks. I used to move gracefully. I used to know the word
grace
to the center of my bones. Now I seek it every day and fall short, inevitably, every day. I lost grace.

Aly may have lost her sparkle, but she didn’t lose grace. She stands perfectly still, her eyes fixed on her phone as she scrolls down the screen. Everything about her is still long, elegant lines, everything a ballerina should be.

Of course. She was—or is—the youngest principal dancer in Philadelphia Ballet history. One of the youngest in American ballet. She was born to dance. So was I, but I guess terrible things happen to terrible people. I stand heavily on my left leg. The bite of the prosthetic into the stump of what used to be my knee is punishment for my thoughts.

For four years, I wanted nothing more than to run into Aly, to find out what went wrong and how we lost everything on the side of the highway that day.

Standing so close to her, I wish I could be invisible. I want to sink away. My heart aches from her proximity. If I’m terribly quiet, if I don’t move, she won’t see me. And then we can pretend this never happened. That in a world of seven billion people and a country of almost four hundred million, we ran into each other in a city where neither of us should have ever been.

Then Carmen, the barista, says, “Hey, Zed. How’re you doing today?”

My hands unfurl as Aly’s head snaps around. I keep my eyes trained over the counter. If I look at her, I will stop seeing her in pieces. I will stop seeing her as a braid, thin arms, nimble fingers, big eyes in a pale face. I will see all of her, all over again. If I look at her, I will fall to pieces and I don’t know that I can put myself back together again. The last time literally almost killed me.

I force a smile onto my face and into my voice. I sound tense and hollow even to my own ears. “Alright. What’s up?”

“Busy morning,” Carmen says, wiping off a steam wand. “How’s summer camp?”

“Over, thank God. I couldn’t take another moment of it. My hearing still hasn’t recovered.” For a second, it’s just Carmen and me, bantering about the music camp where I’ve taught two summers in a row now. “Only a few weeks left before the usual mayhem begins.”

“I’ll miss your face in here.” She gives me a flirtatious smile and a wink. My stomach turns. Normally I flirt back, but I can feel Aly’s eyes burning into me. I shrug and smile at Carmen. She gives me a puzzled look but shrugs it off. She’s not surprised by my moods. No one should be at this point.

Carmen puts a cup of hot water with two tea bags on the counter. “Tea with vanilla and orange for Aly?”

I can’t help turning to look at her now. She’s always been the type of girl people’s eyes follow, even when she tried so hard to disappear. Willowy, with only the hint of curves at her hips, legs that go for miles. Her eyes are still that electric blue that used to make my heart stumble about like a drunken gawker. She stares, her lips parted. I used to know that space so well.

Four years ago, she’d be tucked under my chin. I’d kiss her and she’d taste like her tea, both citrus bright and vanilla mellow. She liked to slip her fingers against my scalp and hold me in place when she kissed me. I remember this. I don’t remember the accident’s details, but I remember her. I couldn’t forget, even if I tried. Even when I tried.

She doesn’t move. She had no idea, then, that I live and work here. She didn’t come to D.C. looking for me. I wait for the feeling of relief. Instead, disappointment creeps up my throat and I swallow it back. As though my motion released her, she steps forward, takes her cup and stands there stupidly. We haven’t broken eye contact. I don’t want to lose her again, and I’m afraid my eyes are telling her that despite the way I can’t feel my hands and the way sweat gathers on my forehead.

“Miss, you’re in the way.”

I blink. A portly, middle-aged guy stares at her. At my Aly. At...no one’s Aly. He’s trying to reach his drink on the counter, and she’s still staring at me.

She takes her cup, steps backward and blows on the surface of her tea. I wonder if she gets the memories too, if the bright, unfocused world fell back into her head when she saw me. It’s fucking stupid to think I know anything that goes on in her head, though. I didn’t even back then. I say her name too soft for her to hear, but her eyes follow the shape of my mouth.

She steps backward again. If I didn’t know her, if I didn’t know every single way this woman ticks, I would have missed the very slight shake of her head. But I see it, and I respect it. I can’t follow her. I lost that privilege a long time ago, and I thought I’d come to peace with what we both did back then. Now, again, walking away from me is all of my regret and all of everything I ever thought I wanted out of life.

I watch her, though, as she retreats out of the café. What’s she doing in D.C.? I hadn’t heard that she left Philadelphia Ballet. Maybe she’s down here dancing with a local company or maybe it’s her rest weeks between seasons. I don’t know the ballet schedule anymore. I’ve deliberately avoided thinking about it for four years. My thoughts run away from me, down a wormhole into the past, full of questions I won’t ever get answered.

Carmen calls my name twice and raises her eyebrow. Her gaze rakes over to the door and the thin blonde woman hurrying down the street. She looks back at me. “Am I going to see you two on Craigslist’s Missed Connections tonight?”

I shake my head. “No.”

I tip her and Roseanne more than I usually do so I don’t have to explain. Aly and I were a Missed Connection years ago. It’s too late and they don’t archive that shit.

Don’t miss

SECOND POSITION by Katherine Locke

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