Page 9 of Barre Fight
“Exactly. And I have no idea when this is all going to be over.”
“I know. But it’ll blow over soon enough. It feels like it’s an eternity while it’s happening, but sooner or later they move on to the next thing, the next piece of gossip, the next viral whatever.”
“Yeah, but not before you get fired.”
Marcus sighed. “Well, that didn’t last forever either, did it?” Peter had offered Marcus his job back, along with the other dancers he’d fired for violating the no-dating policy, though Marcus had chosen to retire and go to uni for physiotherapy instead of going back to the company. Now, he and Heather were happily and publicly married with a baby, the picture of the kind of romantic bliss Justin had never imagined wanting for himself.
“Mmm,” Justin said, noncommittally. The kettle dinged and he poured the steaming water into his French press.
“Peter seemed pretty stroppy yesterday, but I don’t reckon he’s going to fire you. Especially right before New York, it’d mess up all the casting.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he can’t make my life hell until then.” Justin thought about what his boss had said yesterday, about how he and the administration had a plan. A plan to make Justin grovel, probably. He wanted to pace again, but instead he cradled the phone against his ear and pressed the plunger down, taking a deep breath and inhaling the scent of fresh coffee.
“Well, let’s hope this dies down and whatever damage control he has in mind isn’t too intense. Either way, hang in there, and remember that there are plenty of us who know the three-dimensional version of you. We’re here if you need us.”
Justin closed his eyes and let his friend’s words sink in, thinking about those missed calls from his mum and his aunt. Missy had dropped by last night to check on him, too. He had his people, and his people had him. He didn’t need anyone else. He certainly didn’t need the approval of strangers on the internet, or of nosy newspaper journalists who splashed his moment of weakness all over their websites for clicks. And as for Peter, well, Justin did need his approval, but?—
His phone vibrated against his shoulder, and he picked it upand looked at the screen. Speak of the devil. “Hey, Peter’s on the other line.”
“Oh, shit,” Marcus said quickly.
“Yeah. Thanks for checking in, I appreciate it a lot. I’ll let you know what he says and, uh… good luck with sleep regression.”
Marcus laughed, a loud, humorless bark, and hung up. Justin took a deep breath, then picked up his boss’s call.
Three hours later, still sweaty from company class, Justin knocked on the pale wood door to Peter’s office. February in Sydney was always oppressively muggy, the air thick and sticky, and this year was especially bad. Australian National Ballet performed at the Opera House, but all the rehearsal studios and administrative offices were around the headland on one of several converted finger wharves that had once housed dozens of warehouses. There was something magical about being able to look out the studio window and see the ocean sparkling right there, and knowing that it was sloshing beneath you as you did your developpés. The high ceilings in the studios meant that Justin never worried that his pas de deux partner was going to hit her head on a ceiling fan, and when there was a cross breeze to be had, they could open the doors on the sides of the studio and let the harbor air in. But it also meant that in the stuffy, airless depths of summer, the studio became one huge sweatbox. The air in Studio B had been dense with perspiration by the time they’d started petit battements, and grand allegro had felt like leaping through a heavy mist. At the end of class, Justin’s leggings were soaked, and his T-shirt had been clinging uncomfortably to his back.
But heat at the back of Justin’s neck right now had nothing to do with grand allegro. Since yesterday morning, he’d been dreading facing Peter alone, and now the moment of truth had arrived. Peter had requested he report to his office immediately afterclass, and Justin hadn’t even taken the time to splash some cold water on his face before coming here. When Peter called for him to enter, Justin pushed the door open and stepped into the blessedly cool office.
And came face to face with the woman who was responsible for all that dread. Ivy Page was sitting on the small couch against the wall in Peter’s office, perched under the triptych of framed posters from Peter’s first three seasons at the helm of ANB, one of which featured Justin and Heather in costume forGiselle.
Stunned, Justin stared at the woman whose shitty clickbait article had blown up his weekend, and maybe his whole career. Whose first review of him had been so cruel he’d memorized it, and still thought about her words every time he had a bad rehearsal, every time he doubted his abilities.
The air-con in Peter’s office suddenly felt non-existent as Justin looked across the room at her, and the heat at the back of his neck flooded his entire body. Ivy Page stared back, gaze steady and determined behind her round gold glasses as she looked up at him from the coach. Her light brown hair, streaked with blonde, was brushed over one shoulder. She wore a knee-length red sleeveless dress with a wide belt at the waist, and her usual sky-high heels. Justin breathed heavily through his nose as though that dress were a flag and he a bull, but she held his gaze, her chin tipped up with her usual self-assurance. Despite his scowl, her moss-green eyes were bright and expectant, ready to see whatever she wanted to see and write it up in her newspaper for the whole city to read.
“Justin,” Peter said from behind his desk, after they’d stared each other down for what felt like five full minutes, neither of them apparently willing to break the standoff. “Please take a seat.”
Justin narrowed his eyes at Ivy for a moment, and she repliedby glancing down at the notebook on her lap. Resisting the urge to scoff victoriously, Justin pulled out one of the chairs opposite Peter, and sat, facing his boss as though the couch were unoccupied. For a long moment, no one said anything. Justin looked at Peter expectantly, wondering if his boss’s grand plan for dealing with the negative press was to extract an apology from Ivy for what she’d written. Justin wouldn’t accept it, but if that’s what it took to get him off Peter’s shit list and secure his place on tour, it would have to suffice.
Peter cleared his throat. “Justin, let me begin by saying I am relieved that you were unharmed in the fight at the Stoned Crow last week, and that so far, the other man involved has decided not to press charges.”
Justin’s stomach roiled.The other man involved?The guy who started the fight, Peter should have said. A fight that Justin had never sought. All he’d wanted to do the other night was have a drink with his colleagues. Just like, when he was a kid, all he’d wanted to do was take ballet classes. The fight had come to him. But the video made it look like Justin had started it.
“However, your behavior has created a significant problem for the company,” Peter went on. It wouldn’t have been a significant problem if the woman sitting three feet to his right hadn’t made sure everyone with an internet connection had seen the video, Justin thought. But he sat in silence and let Peter finish his grim soliloquy. If his boss was about to kick him off the New York tour, Justin would rather he rip the Band-Aid off fast.
“You know how strongly I feel about creating a culture of respect in this company, and in the ballet world at large. I spent my entire dancing career witnessing what happens when a company values talent over respect, and I know what kind of a message it sends when a leader turns a blind eye to bad behavior from their senior dancers—especially the men.”
Justin knew, too. He thought about the stories that leakedout of New York Ballet under its former artistic director, Heather’s old boss, who didn’t care if his male dancers did drugs and trashed hotel rooms on tour on Saturday night, as long as they showed up and danced a perfect Apollo on Sunday afternoon.
“We’re getting a lot of calls from the press about this incident.”
Justin shot a glance over at Ivy Page. Was she here to interview him? Did Peter want him to tell his side of the story to Poison Ivy, to bare his soul to a journalist and the rest of the world to make all the inconvenient press coverage go away? Fat chance. Even if he was willing to talk to a journalist about what happened the other night, he was never, ever going to tell Ivy Page about it.
“The membership department is also starting to hear from subscribers who want to know if this is the kind of behavior we accept from our dancers. There are rumblings about a campaign to press people to cancel their subscriptions unless we take action.”
Justin’s stomach clenched. No ballet company could afford to piss off its subscribers; without regular, reliable ticket sales, ANB would be screwed.
Peter was silent for a moment, regarding Justin thoughtfully. Justin willed himself not to shift in discomfort again. His boss had a penchant for zero-tolerance policies—everyone in the company remembered how seriously he’d taken Pas de Don’t—and Justin braced himself for whatever hammer Peter was about to drop.
