Turning Pointe by Locke Katherine

Author:Locke, Katherine [Locke, Katherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Carina Press
Published: 2015-04-10T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Zed

Twenty minutes before our first performance, I find Aly outside of her dressing room, stretching in her red leotard and black tights, her hair sticky with hair spray and her makeup turning her into a creature of the stage instead of the girl I know. When I sit down next to her, her mouth tilts into a smile though she keeps her earbuds in and stays bent over, her feet flexing in her pointe shoes.

“Ready?” I ask her, holding my toes. My lower back aches from the rehearsal this morning. Adrian and I spent most of our time this afternoon lying on our backs watching Dutch news even though we can’t follow a single word. It looked intense, though. Now I’m regretting not doing something low impact like yoga to keep limber.

Her head rolls to the side to look at me. “Yes. Am I ever not ready?”

Excellent. We’re in extreme, all the guards down, full-on prima ballerina mode.

“Let me do the work,” I remind her, keeping my voice low. She managed to work through the pain in her knees and shins this morning and afternoon, but she spent the last two hours icing them in her own hotel room with a cool cloth over her eyes. The hyperextension in this pas de deux really took its toll on her.

She ducks her head back behind her arm so I almost miss her words. “It’s my ballet too.”

I know this but I don’t know how to explain what I meant so I don’t reply at all, just stretch quietly next to her before Johan tells us he wants us by the curtains. Standing in the wings and watching the rest of the company finish up the variation from Sleeping Beauty, Aly leans into me and I slip an arm around her. We haven’t talked since our walk yesterday, but maybe we don’t need to. Maybe we just need this, to dance. We’re meant to be dancers as much as we’re meant to be together.

I believe that.

The curtains fall and the audience applauds. While we wait for the cast to take their bows, Aly rises on pointe, finally as tall as me, and bounces a little bit on her toes, rolling her shoulders.

The other dancers brush by us, but it’s already like we’re out on stage by ourselves, standing in our own spotlight like we’ve always wanted. We’ve shared a stage before, but nothing like this, not since we were at school. Our first professional pas de deux together, and God, I want it to be perfect.

“Ready?” It’s her turn to ask me.

And it’s stupid to keep pretending we’re not hurtling toward what’s inevitable the same way we’re hurtling toward the stage. I press my hand against her face and bend my head, kissing her once, swiftly and surely. At first, she’s stiff, but then she softens, kissing me back the same way she dances: defiant, sure, determined to be in charge.

“Merde,” I whisper to her, so she has to brush the smile from her face before she slips out behind the curtain and the music starts.

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