Page 15 of Barre Fight
Grew up in the country — where? NSW? Family still there? Mentioned his mum, physio mentioned aunt, cousin
Got into dance because a local teacher thought he had good feet and offered him free lessons (how did teacher find him?)
Joined company at 18, promoted fast — standout corps member in early footage, his timing is perfect, his feet really are amazing
Heather Hays: Good pas de deux partner, “handles you gently, but makes sure you feel safe and secure, which is a hard balance to strike… and always makes sure he’s got fresh breath and fresh armpits before rehearsal, which more men should do”
Re: story Ricky Wu told about getting him out of his shell in school - fact check!
Dr. Sharon Murphy: No major injuries, he takes preventive care seriously, has never missed a bi-weekly check-in
Coffee order: macchiato w. one sugar
Lunch preference: veggies, whole wheat pasta, extra cheese
Left hip is slightly stronger than his right, right hip more flexible and giving him trouble lately. Dr. Murphy wants him doing 20 reps of lunges and external rotations with heavy theraband, avoid high passés and grand battements.
Usually talkative in physio, now surly (surly most of the time, tbh)
Seems to enjoy grand allegro, esp. when doing it with Ricky Wu and Matt Holmes (twice this week they messed around after company class, trying to one-up each other, v. competitive, in a friendly way)—try to interview them next week?
Doesn’t seem to enjoy adagio, grimaces on left side (grimaces a lot, tbh)
“Hello? Helloooo? Earth to Ivy. Do you read me, Ivy?”
Ivy vaguely registered that Luke was calling her name, but she didn’t look up from her notepad. When you grew up in a small house with two boisterous younger brothers, you got pretty good at blocking out noise so you could concentrate. She shook her head and made a quiet humming sound she hoped her youngest brother would take as an invitation to leave her alone, and kept writing.
Likes: Foam rolling before class (weird), half-Gatorade/half-water during rehearsals, Under Armour (has worn UA bike shorts or leggings 4out of the last 5 days).
Dislikes: Me.
“Ivy. Ivy. Hey, Ivy. Hey, hey, hey,” Luke said, punctuating each word by poking his finger into her shoulder.
“OI, IVY!” another voice bellowed from across the room, and Ivy jumped and finally looked up.
“What?” she asked George. She glared up at her middle brother, who had outgrown her when she was ten and just kept growing. He stood in the doorway, his head nearly brushing the top of the doorframe.
“Lunch is ready,” he shrugged, and he loped out of the living room.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Luke said, giving her one more jab. She slapped his hand away and dropped her pen and pad onto the couch next to her. Luke peered across her lap and turned his head to try to read her notes.
“Ooooh, who’s Justin Winters, 33?” he asked, in the kind of sing-songy voice he’d once used to tease her about her high school crushes. Ivy was reasonably certain he didn’t behave this way at his big boy office job, but something about being back under their parents’ roof turned him back into a child.
“Just someone I’m working with on a work project,” Ivy said with a sigh, standing up. Although “working with” wasn’t exactly right. She was more workingathim, or working despite him. He’d barely acknowledged her existence all week, even though they’d spent almost every day together. Well, in the same room, at least. He hadn’t tried to stop her from following him all over ANB, but he also hadn’t given her much to work with. She’d managed to get some information about him out of some of the dancers, and Dr. Murphy, and she’d pulled some early footage of him from the company’s video archives, butJustin himself was stonewalling her. He’d told her he wanted to do things the hard way, and he was making good on that. It was hard to write about someone if you didn’t know them. And it was hard to get to know someone who didn’t want to be known.
Ivy knew that if she got really desperate, she could go to Peter and tell him that Justin wasn’t cooperating, but she didn’t want to get the guy in more trouble. And she didn’t want Peter thinking she couldn’t figure out how to do her job. So she’d just keep showing up and shadowing him and hope that, soon enough, she’d have enough to write up a profile of him for the company’s email list. Her plan right now was “7 Things You Didn’t Know About Justin Winters.” As in,7 things ANB wants you to know about Justin Winters that aren’t about his right jab.
At this moment, though, she didn’t have seven things that readers would be interested in. She didn’t even have two. They wouldn’t care what he put in his water bottle during class, or what brand of shorts he wore to rehearsal. They wanted to know where he came from, what made him want to dance, what made him tick—and why on earth he had punched that guy in that bar.
She wanted to know that, too. So far, Justin was a mystery to her. He was jovial and chatty with his colleagues in class and rehearsal, though when it came time to dance, his expression grew serious and focused, as if he’d forgotten anyone else was there. It reminded her of that lyric fromA Chorus Line, like all he needed was the music and the mirror. And sometimes, when the class was split into groups and Justin was standing at the side of the room, waiting for his turn to dance, she thought he caught him looking at her, a grudging curiosity in his eyes. But then she’d try to make eye contact with him, and the expression would vanish. He’d go back to glaring at her like she’d ordered the last bowl of whole wheat pasta at the cafe.
Who was Justin Winters, 33? Honestly, Ivy only had the faintest idea.
“What’s the project?” Luke asked, heading out towards the back deck and pulling his work phone out of his pocket to check the screen. She followed, marveling for the millionth time at the fact that, even if he acted like an annoying baby brother—often—he wasn’t a baby at all anymore. He was a tall, muscular 23-year-old, with a real job that required a crisp suit and a nice pair of shoes.
“It’s a profile of a dancer at ANB. Or it’s trying to be,” she added.
“Doesn’t sound so different from what you were doing at the paper,” Luke said, sliding the back door open. The smell of barbeque smoke wrapped around them both, the smell of hundreds of Sunday lunches at her parents’ house. Since Ivy had moved out after uni, it had become a weekly tradition for her to come home on Sundays and see the family, and now that the boys had both moved out too, it was often the only time the five of them were all together.
