You're So Sweet (15 page)

Lux shrugged. “It isn't even decided that he will go to RBS — he made it sound that way, but it isn't. I really have no idea. I guess I'll wait until after competitions.” Lux looked at her foot, moving her big toe up and down out of her shoes, trying to air out her blister. “I'm going crazy. Gonna go find Nat and see if we can rehearse somewhere. Nice seeing you.”

With that, Lux disappeared out the door.
Lux is possibly the most hyperactive person I have ever met.
Alexandra put her shoes down and went to shower.

As they walked into the hotel, Julian couldn't stop thinking about how nervous he was. The hotel was full of people who were obviously competitors, and Julian couldn't stop looking at them, trying to imagine what they danced like, how good they were. Taylor turned to him and gave him a quick hug. “See you tomorrow then?” she asked. “Unless you want to hang out with me and Keiko, I think we're gonna go to the pool before bed.”

“No you aren't,” Charlize said firmly. “You need some sleep, Taylor.”

“I'll see you guys in the morning,” Julian assured them, spotting Tristan across the lobby. He walked across, feeling extremely self-conscious. There were so many dancers, and even though logic told him that they probably didn't even notice him, emotion made him feel like they were watching and scrutinizing his every move. He finally reached Tristan's side. “What's up?” he asked. “Why are you behind here? Hiding from your mother?”

“No. Well, yes, but no.” Tristan picked up his mug of tea and stood up, and he and Julian started heading to the elevator. “Guess who I just met?”

“Please say it was Joss Whedon.”

“Who's that? And no, Nat and Lux Amdahl.”

“Who are they?”

“Amazing. Lux and Nat Amdahl,” Tristan said, with an air of explaining something to a not-too-bright child, “are both competing this year, at this competition, which means that Lux will probably win junior girl and Nat will almost certainly win senior boy. We don't have a hope because they are both brilliant. Nat is going to the Royal Ballet School in the fall.” The elevator stopped and they both got off, walking down the hall until they reached the right room.

“RBS? That is so sick!”

“They're both amazing.” Tristan inserted his door key, the green light flashed, and they went in. “I already called this bed.” Tristan pointed at the bed near the window.

Julian shrugged and dumped his suitcase on the other one, pulling out his laptop. He checked his email — nothing from his dad. He hadn't heard from him since Christmas, and he wondered if he should be worried. He deleted a bunch of spam, and was about to delete one more when he noticed the subject line;
Satyagraha
. Apparently his mom's new email address was
[email protected].
He opened it.

Hello dearest Julian,

I'm doing well, I feel like I'm in a good space. Busy busy busy as usual, you know me, I work too hard. That's the price of caring about other people too much — you neglect yourself. I've started training as an acupuncturist you'll be pleased to know, so that's been truly fascinating. If the West only ever woke up to the higher enlightenment that defines the East, I know we'd see magic happen.

Luigi and I have parted ways I'm afraid, I just couldn't deal with his materialistic mindset anymore. You know how it is. I'm too altruistic and sensitive and I hate it when people let themselves be tied down by greed. And his control issues! He wanted me to just be HIS with a capital H. I have to be free to experience
life
.

Anyway, Luigi won't be paying your homestay fees anymore — I understand you probably feel angry at him, babe, but Luigi has always been petty. So I suppose you'll have to let your father know you will be staying with him again.

Be good to yourself.

Julian stared at the screen.
Crap.
Now what was he going to do? He couldn't go back to not dancing and staying with his dad, he would never be a dancer that way.
Why Satya? Why did you have to get rid of him before I graduated? Just one more year and a bit, that was it.
He'd liked Luigi, he was a nice quiet man, and he had been surprised and grateful when Luigi had offered to pay for his homestay bills. But then Luigi had probably thought he was the exception to Satya's swiftly rotating relationships, had thought that he would be in Julian's life for a long time. Satyagraha had a gift of making people feel like spending money the way she wanted them to. While she didn't particularly care if Julian went to the academy or stayed with his father, it would have pleased her for Luigi to pay her son's way.

“Is everything all right?” Tristan asked, stepping out of the bathroom and seeing Julian sitting there motionless.

Julian forced himself to look up and smile. “Yeah, of course.”

“Cool,” said Tristan, taking a flying leap onto his bed. “Let's see if there's anything on cartoon network. Oh look, Disney Channel reruns are on!

“I think I'm going to try and sleep,” Julian said quietly. He got into his bed and pulled the covers over his head, but the temptation of Disney was too hard to resist and he poked his head out, watching, half-asleep as Selena Gomez tried to do magic. “Why is her brother so lame? If I could do magic I would be awesome.”

Tristan laughed. “Yeah. You are also the dude that told me that if you ever choreographed a full-length ballet it would have samurai in it and it would be set to a combination of Radiohead, Coldplay, and Jakob Dylan.”

“What's wrong with samurai?”

“Nothing. Nothing's wrong with samurai, just saying …”

The morning started at 6:00 a.m. again for Alexandra. She needed to get up, feel her body moving to make sure that it felt right, that she was in control of it. She went to the small hotel fridge, took out a Happy Planet smoothie, and sat down on the bed to drink it and wake up. Today she could do anything — she hoped. She finished her juice and started to do the first parts of her hair and makeup.

Beth rolled out of bed, rubbing her eyes. “You up already, Alexandra?”

“Yeah.”

“Want to go downstairs to get breakfast?”

“Okay.” They quickly got ready and then went downstairs. Being alone with her mother felt weird for Alexandra. She wasn't quite sure what to say. She wished that Justin was there, too.

“Are you excited?” Beth asked. She seemed genuinely curious.

“Yes,” Alexandra shrugged. “A bit nervous.”

Beth shook her head. “I don't know how you can do this,” she admitted. “I could never to up on stage and do what you do. I don't know how I gave birth to you and Emma.”

Alexandra shrugged. “I don't really get scared,” she said. “Just, worried if I don't feel like I am the best, or if I'm not ready. If everything's perfect, then it's so much fun.”

Beth shrugged. “I didn't even like speaking up in class.”

“This isn't like speaking up in class,” Alexandra said impatiently. “It's completely different. It's telling a story, and it's awesome. I don't like talking in class, either.” They walked down to the breakfast area.

“Are you feeling ready, then?” Beth asked.

“Yes,” Alexandra said firmly. “I am. I think.”

Taylor couldn't stop moving when they got to the theatre. Julian finally grabbed her by the shoulders and held her in one place. “Tay. Stop it. You're making me seasick.”

“Okay, okay,” Taylor agreed. The second he let go she began to hop up and down on the spot. “I'm so excited! I'm so excited! It's finally time!”

“Taylor, please save some of that energy for your dances?” Charlize requested. “Come on. Calm down and start doing your makeup.”

“Okay, okay, okay.” Taylor sat down in front of the mirror. “Can I put on blue eyeshadow?”

“No.” Charlize sat down beside her. “Here. I'll do it.” She began to expertly brush on the shades of brown and white eyeshadow.

Kaitlyn went online, staring at the YAGP website. There were pictures of previous winners scrolling on the top of the page,. She so badly wanted to be there. She just wanted to try to win. “Kaitlyn,” Cecelia called from downstairs. “Come here.”

Kaitlyn ignored her mother, clicking to the list of past winners. She knew most of them.

“Kaitlyn! What are you doing up there?”

“Coming,” Kaitlyn answered, annoyed. She went downstairs.

“What were you doing?”

“Stuff.”

“Well, I thought that you could start getting ready for your summer school auditions,” Cecelia said impatiently. “Come on, you need to do something. You have just been moping about all day.”

“I wanted to go,” Kaitlyn muttered under her breath.

“What was that?”

“I said I wanted to go to competition!”

“No, you didn't,” Cecelia said firmly, getting angry. “You agreed with me that it was best to stay home, because you were going to lose. Don't you dare say that to me now.”

“Fine,” Kaitlyn said. “I'm going up to my room.”
I didn't say that. You tricked me into saying that.

“Write down what you need for each audition, Kaitlyn. And the dates.”

Kaitlyn walked up to her room and sat on her bed. It was so stupid; Mr. Moretti had kept changing what variation he wanted her to do every day, and now she couldn't go to competition. If he had just let her rehearse only the variation that she had wanted to do, she was sure that she would have won.

Julian was waiting in the wings beside Tristan. It was almost time for their solos. “You'll be okay,” Tristan said, sounding worried. Julian realized that he must look as nervous as he felt.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “It'll be fine. Fine, fine, fine …”

“Just don't think about it as an audition or anything,” Tristan advised him. “Just go out there and treat it like a show. All those people, they're just there to watch you, not to judge you. Okay?”

“Okay.”

The bell rang, and a poised female voice announced: “Julian Reese, from Vancouver, Canada. Vancouver International Ballet Academy.”

Julian ran on, smiling and looking not nervous at all. But then he stumbled on his first step.

“He's nervous,” Kageki commented, standing next to Tristan.

“Yup,” Tristan said, watching him worriedly.

“Does he go to your school?” Nat asked, stepping up behind them.

Tristan jumped. “Um, yeah. That's Julian.”

Nat watched for a few minutes. “He's a bit shaky, isn't he? Oh dear. He just almost fell on that
pirouette
.”

“He's good,” Tristan said angrily. “He's just nervous. This is his first big competition.”

“How old is he?” Nat asked, frowning.

“He just turned seventeen. Like me.”

Nat sighed. “Look, I'm sorry that you got offended about me teasing you over having never done a big competition before, okay? I was just joking. I can be a bit harsh sometimes. I like to think that's part of my charm.”

“Huh.” Tristan turned back to the stage, watching Julian. Beside him, Kageki watched, looking back and forth between Nat and Tristan as he tried to figure out what they were talking about.

“Of course, if you're easily offended, I can understand why you'd be upset. My apologies.”

“I don't think this is the time. I need to go over some stuff, sorry.” Tristan walked over to the rosin box and rubbed some more into the bottoms of his shoes, and then began to test them out,
pirouetting
carelessly with his arms out to the side.

Nat followed him over. “Look, I'm sorry.”

Tristan looked at him, considering. “Okay,” he said suddenly. “But only because Alexandra showed me some clips of your variations at last year's competition and you were really good.”

Nat laughed. “Okay. Valid.”

Alexandra was waiting with Taylor and Keiko before their variations started, when she noticed that something was wrong. “Has anyone seen Kaitlyn yet?” she asked, worried.

“No,” Taylor exclaimed.

“Me neither,” Keiko agreed.

“Should we try and find out where she is?” Taylor asked.

“No,” Alexandra answered. “There's no time. Look, they're about to start.”

“I'll call her after I finish my variation,” Taylor decided.

Alexandra nodded. She stepped out
en pointe
, practicing her
pique
turns. The place where her big toe rested in her right shoe suddenly felt a little soft, but there wasn't enough time to change shoes. It would be good for
pas de deux
, though; softer shoes were usually better for
pas de deux
work.

“Kaitlyn Wardle, Vancouver, Canada,” the announcer called out. “
La grande pas classique
.”

The man with a clipboard full of papers who was in charge of sorting all the dancers out backstage looked around. “Are either of you Kaitlyn?” he asked.

They shook their heads. “Kaitlyn doesn't seem to have showed,” he said into his headset.

“Taylor Audley, Vancouver Canada,” the announcer said after a pause. “Kitri, Act 1.”

Taylor ran on, and Alexandra turned back to her own work, hearing the music in her head and going through everything that Mr. Demidovski had said to do in her privates.

After Taylor had finished, she ran outside to call Kaitlyn. She thought that she had done well, but it was hard to tell sometimes. She wasn't quite sure. It had felt good, she hadn't fallen, but who knew if it was what the judges wanted? She frowned; Kaitlyn wasn't picking up her phone. She pressed call again. And again. And again. She finally left a message; “Hey Kaitlyn, call me if you get this? We're worried about you … you just missed your variation. What happened? Call me back, babe. Kk, bye.”