Page 33 of Barre Fight
Now, he’d toured enough that it felt routine, and nothing about it felt glamorous. The flight from Sydney to LA was one of the longest in the world, and when they landed, they hadonly a few hours to stretch their legs before getting back on the plane to New York. By the time they arrived, they’d spent almost 30 hours in transit, and his body was simultaneously exhausted and antsy from all that sitting still. When the plane finally landed at JFK, he wanted to stand up and cheer.
Instead, they all trudged off the plane, through customs and immigration and baggage claim, and out into the arrivals hall, where a large bus was idling outside, grey clouds of exhaust billowing into the frigid evening air. Justin and the other dancers opened their suitcases and pulled out their coats, and a passing airport worker stared as Katarina Antonov, a fellow principal dancer, bent at the waist, her legs perfectly straight, and retrieved her jacket.
People had been regarding the dancers with open interest since they boarded in Sydney, especially once the pilot announced that today the plane was playing host to two dozen dancers from the Australian National Ballet. When dancers traveled in groups they tended to attract curious looks, because even in regular clothes, without a leotard or a pointe shoe in sight, they stood out. Their long necks, their splayed feet, their ropey arms, it all set them instantly apart from regular people. They couldn’t hide their differences even if they wanted to—especially when they went and bent in half like Kat had just done.
Matty sidled up to him, swaddled in a giant puffy white coat that made him look like the Michelin Man.
“You reckon you’re gonna be warm enough?” Justin asked sarcastically.
“Probably not,” Matty grumbled, looking out the sliding glass doors apprehensively. “Should have bought the matching pants.”
“Not safe, mate, someone would try to pick you up and plop you right in their hot chocolate.”
“Shut up and go get your buddy,” Matty said, pulling the jacket’s enormous hood over his head and cinching it shut until only his eyes and nose were visible. He lifted one puffy white arm with difficulty and gestured at the crowd of exhausted looking dancers and staffers. They were pulling on coats and hats and assembling themselves into pairs—Matty buddied up with Ricky, Alice with Kimiko, Kat with her corps dancer girlfriend—to make sure no one got left behind. On the outskirts of the crowd was Ivy. She was wrapped in a dark blue coat that tied at the waist and was winding a long white scarf around her neck.
Justin approached, pulling his suitcase behind him, and noticed as he came closer that she looked surprisingly fresh and well-rested.
“Hi,” she said, with a small smile. They hadn’t talked much on the flight over, because despite Justin’s promise to Peter—that Ivy wouldn’t let him out of her sight—it had been too late to book her a seat right next to his. In LA, they’d been too tired to say more than a few words to each other. Justin wanted nothing more than to fall into his hotel bed and rest his weary, unused body. But right now Ivy looked ready to attack her long list of New York sights, probably starting with a musical or three. Eyes bright above her soft-looking scarf, cheeks flushed, her hair pulled into a perky ponytail, she was the picture of excitement.
“You look, um, nice. Rested.”
“Oh, thanks,” she said, adjusting her scarf. “One of the few advantages of being short, I guess. I can sleep on planes. How was your flight?”
“I’m not short. Didn’t sleep a wink.”
“Sorry to hear that. But you’ll sleep well tonight. Now, let’s see if my coat can stand up to the dreaded New York cold I’ve heard so?—”
She stopped talking abruptly when something large andwhite barrelled past them, catapulting itself through the sliding doors and onto the waiting bus, leaving a large suitcase abandoned on the footpath. Matty apparently wasn’t willing to spend a second longer out in the freezing air than was absolutely necessary. A moment later, his face appeared in one of the bus windows, and he pointed frantically at Ricky, and then at his suitcase. Justin watched as Ricky rolled his eyes, then walked out of the terminal to retrieve his friend’s bag and load it into the belly of the bus, shaking his head the whole time.
Justin chuckled, then turned to Ivy, who was giggling. It was a pleasant sound, albeit one he’d barely heard in the weeks he’d spent around her. Not a sound he associated with someone so fierce and serious, either. They queued up and pushed their suitcases into the bus, and Justin stuck close to Ivy, just as he’d promised he would. He climbed aboard behind her and gestured her towards a window seat, knowing she’d want to see the city as they drove to the hotel, and she thanked him, her face still bearing the traces of that giggle. Not a sound he was used to, but one he wouldn’t mind hearing again.
The bus ride into the city took over an hour, the bus inching through Manhattan traffic and catching what seemed like hundreds of lights. The dancers who hadn’t been to New York before pressed their noses to the windows, looking up at the lights and the buildings—“the taxis are really yellow, like in the movies!” Alice shrieked at one point—and Ivy did the same, turning her head from one side of the bus to the other so she wouldn’t miss anything. On Justin’s first tour to New York, he’d found it twice as overwhelming as he found Sydney. The traffic, the noise, the crowded footpaths, it all made his skin itch. Surely there were places in New York where you could find green and quiet and solitude, but not when you were on tour with a ballet company. Or when your not-babysitter seemed determined to visit the busiest, most popular sights in the city.
Finally, the bus pulled to a stop outside a hotel with warm golden lights studded around the covered entrance and a welcoming hunter green carpet spread across the footpath. Justin remembered the Truman from last time, and he figured it must be a go-to place for touring companies that were performing at Lincoln Center: Clean and comfortable, but hardly fancy, and a six-block walk from the theater. Or in Matty’s case, a six-block run, Justin thought with a smile as they all straggled off the bus and into the lobby.
Once again, the crowd of dancers in the lobby attracted curious looks as fellow patrons zipped up their jackets and prepared to walk out into the cold. Once again, Justin was reminded that ballet dancers wore their art in their bodies, their necks and shoulders sculpted every day by the barre. Everything about them, from how they held their heads as they walked to how they unpacked their coats, was made by ballet, and it made it impossible to hide what they were. Even if Justin had wanted to deny his difference, it had hung all over him his whole life, living in his muscles and bones. Unmissable and unhideable.
Ivy stood at the back of the crowd, letting the dancers approach the reception desk and receive their room keys first. Two by two, they took their keys and luggage and headed for the lifts, and soon it was just Justin and Ivy alone with Peter and a few other staff members. The man behind the front desk took their names and scanned his computer screen, clicking his mouse around.
“Page and Winters…” the man said, almost to himself. Then he looked up with a wide, brochure-quality smile. “Good news. We were able to put you in a double room.”
“A… double room?” Justin asked. “Like with two double beds?”
When Peter had said Ivy would need to keep a close eye on him, surely he hadn’t meant when Justin wassleeping. Hesnuck a quick sideways glance at Ivy and saw that her posture had stiffened beside him, as if she was having the same thought.
The man’s smile dipped slightly, perhaps because Justin and Ivy were staring across the counter at him with matching roo-in-headlights expressions.
“No, a queen bed,” he said, and Justin felt his stomach flip over and his eyes widen even further. They weresharingaqueen bed? But then the man spoke again, barrelling on as if he’d realized Justin was panicking. “Each of the rooms has one queen bed. And there’s an adjoining door between them. Rooms 661 and 663. Here.” He slid two paper keycard envelopes across the counter quickly, as if he wanted to end this interaction as soon as possible.
Next to him, Ivy extended her hand and took hers, the motion looking rote and distracted.
Justin eyed the man warily. “Adjoining door,” he repeated.
“Yes,” the man nodded, his smile replaced by an expression that said he was supposed to care about Justin’s concerns, whatever they were, but it was late and his shift was nearly over. “Is that acceptable?”
“Yes,” Ivy squeaked. She swallowed and then said, in her usual pitch, “yes, that’s perfectly acceptable. Double room is fine. Thank you.”
And then, without a glance at Justin, she pulled up the handle of her suitcase and made for the lifts. Taken aback, Justin gave the man a quick nod of thanks, snatched up his key, and hurried after her. By the time he caught up with her, the doors were opening on the far lift and she was halfway inside. He slipped in behind her, and the door slid closed with a quiet rumble.
