Page 69 of Pas de Don't
Opening night was cloudless and cold. The wind whipped off the harbor and buffeted Heather on her way to the stage door of the Opera House a few hours before curtain. She made her way through the winding concrete corridors to the dressing room, feeling a familiar nervous energy buzzing through the building, just like it did before a big show at NYB. Around her, dancers stretched and chatted in hushed whispers, and she spotted a costume assistant doing some last-minute adjustments on a tutu that, until yesterday, had been Kimiko’s. It would now be worn by some other member of the corps.
The entire company had been distracted since Peter announced that two more dancers were fired for violating Pas de Don’t. The corps had been out of sync in the first act peasant dances, and yesterday, they’d run one of the second act scenes so many times that one wili burst into tears on stage. The only upside to the pall that had fallen over the company was that no one had noticed that, when Heather wasn’t dancing, she was distracted and listless—or if they had, they’d probably chalked it up to her dismay over Kimiko and Ricky’s dismissal. Not to the fact that she’d woken up every morning for the last few days with a deep, empty ache between her ribs, one that only intensified when she arrived at the theater and found Marcus wasn’t in company class.
Several times a day, she picked up her phone and considered texting him. But what would she say? They’d made their choices,the reckless ones and the responsible ones, and now they were living with the consequences. At least they’d ended it before anyone else found them out.
Heather took solace in the fact that every opening night—every performance, really—was guided by routine, no matter how nervous or heartbroken she was. She’d prepare for tonight the same way she’d prepared forGiselletwo years ago, the night she’d been promoted and Jack had proposed. A company class on stage, then back to her dressing room to eat, shower, and do her hair and makeup. In the first act, her hair would be in a low bun with small flowers pinned into it, accentuating Giselle’s youth and innocence. During intermission, once she’d taken her hair down and collapsed in the mad scene, she’d marshal it back into another sleek low bun, this time with her hair covering her ears. As she always did, she applied her stage makeup in a strict, fixed order, then put on her first act costume, followed by legwarmers, trash-bag pants, and whatever else she could to stay warm without rumpling her pale-yellow skirt. The familiarity was comforting, grounding. But she wasn’t the person she had been that night at Lincoln Center anymore. She wasn’t even the person she was when she’d arrived in Sydney a month ago.
Heather looked at her reflection in the brightly lit mirror, turning her face and blinking quickly to check her false lashes were even and firmly glued on. Her cheekbones were accentuated by contouring and heavy blush, and her lipstick made her chin look especially pointy.Stage face,she would have said a few weeks ago.Heart shaped,she thought now, looking approvingly in the mirror.
At least Marcus would be in the audience tonight. She’d woken up without him every morning for the last few days, but tonight he’d be out there in the dark, watching her from a safe distance. The thought comforted her as she sprayed her temples once more to be safe. She grabbed her first act pointe shoes, and a spare pair she’d set in the wings in case the first pair died unexpectedly, then noticed a missed call and a voicemail on her phone.
She frowned as she picked it up. It was the middle of the night in New York, and Carly had already called to wish hermerdea few hours ago, as she’d been getting ready for bed. “You’re Heather Fucking Hays, okay?” she’d said. “Kill it and text me when it’s over.”
Heather swiped and saw an alert that made her stomach lurch.
Missed call from: Jack
Heather hadn’t heard a word from Jack since he’d shown up at Carly’s apartment all those months ago. He’d ignored her in class, lavishing attention on Melissa and acting as if the last seven years of their lives had never happened.
Before she could stop herself, she hit play.
“You fucking slut.” Jack’s voice, drunk and belligerent, filled the dressing room, and her stomach lurched again. “I knew you’d fuck your way to the top down there. It’s just what you do, isn’t it?”
Heather hit stop and dropped the phone on the dressing table as if it had burned her. She stared down at the screen, heart pounding, trying to make sense of what she’d just heard. How had Jack found out about Marcus? She thought quickly of all the people who knew: Alice, Izzy, Marcus himself. That was it. The ballet world was small and gossipy, but none of those people would have told anyone who could have spread the news back to Jack this quickly. Surely if the word was out, she would have heard about it first?
As she racked her brain, fingers numb with panic, Heather saw a series of Instagram notifications on the screen, and dread churned her stomach. She swiped them open.
@balletfanatics: Check out this stunning impromptu outback pas dedeux featuring @NYB’s @heatherhays and @australianNB soloist @MRCampbell! So dreamy! Captured by @ElodieDupont in Sydney’s Blue Mountains. #pasdedeux #balletinthewild
Above the caption was a slightly shaky but crystal-clear video of her and Marcus dancing at the campsite. Who the hell was Elodie Dupont? She clicked on the woman’s profile and saw a huge follower count sitting above a grid full of koalas, tents, and views of the Blue Mountains. That French couple had filmed them from their tent, and they’d captured it all: the dance, the kiss, everything.
Heather’s heart began to pound when she saw how many thousands of likes the post had already gotten in the hour since it was posted. Ballet Fanatics was a huge account, with followers all over the world. Horrified, she checked her other notifications, and saw that the video had been shared a dozen times to other ballet accounts.
“Damnit, damnit, damnit,” Heather breathed. They were both going to be fired. Marcus’s career was over. Peter was going to put her on the first plane back to New York tomorrow. There was less than an hour until curtain....If Peter had already seen the video, would he fire her now? Understudies had gone on with less notice than this. Even if he let her dance tonight, her reputation would be destroyed by tomorrow.
Fuck your way to the top. It’s just what you do, isn’t it?
There was a knock at the door and Heather jumped, nearly dropping her phone again.
“Come in,” she said shakily, fully expecting to see Peter when the door opened. But a second later, Alice slipped into the dressing room. She was in full ballet peasant gear, a pale green bodice and a matching knee-length skirt with a little white apron on top, and her hair was in two braids wrapped over the top of her head. Under her heavy stage makeup, she looked almost as horrified as Heather felt.
“You’ve seen it?” Heather asked, but she knew the answer. Alice nodded grimly. “Please don’t say you told us so.”
Alice’s face softened with sympathy. “Hey, come on. I would never. I’m not here to gloat.”
Heather nodded, fighting back tears. “Does Marcus know?”
“Yeah, I just talked to him. He’s, uh...well he’s not in a good way. And he wanted me to tell you he’s not coming tonight.”
“What?” Heather whispered, the last remnants of her hope draining out of her.
“He just...can’t face it. You saw how hard it was for him to come here and take class this week. And now...after everything he’s lost in the last year, he said he just can’t. Peter’ll probably call him into his office first thing tomorrow.”
And fire him. All that work Marcus did, all for nothing. Heather wanted to scream. She wanted to find Peter and beg him not to, tell him they were over, that if it meant Marcus could keep his job she’d leave the theater now and never come back. She gripped her phone and tipped her head back so the tears wouldn’t ruin her makeup.
“Alice, what do I do?”
“Do what you came here to do. Dance. If I’ve learned anything in the last year, it’s that if you can dance, you should dance. Because you never know when it’s your last time.”
