Page 39 of Barre Fight
Alice and Justin had spent the last thirty minutes blocking their pas de deux, walking through their steps so that the lighting designer would know where to find them and when, and how much light to shine on them as the dance progressed. They were in costume, Alice in a sky-blue leotard with thin straps, and Justin in matching tights. A rehearsal pianist sat alone in the pit, waiting for Peter to cue her again.
Justin looked decidedly less jetlagged than he had yesterday. Last night he’d followed her uptown to a highly rated Southern restaurant in Harlem, and they’d enjoyed a delicious meal she’d never be able to find in Sydney. As they ate, they’d traded notes on what they’d seen at the museum, and she was once again surprised by what seemed like his genuine appreciation for the Matisse. This time, she’d managed to talk about it without mentioning her bedroom. What a stupid, embarrassing thing to bring up unprompted.
They’d arrived back at the hotel by 8:30pm, exhausted and sated, and when she fell into bed, she dreamed about the candied sweet potatoes they’d split. She’d probably be dreaming about them for the rest of her life. This morning, she’d knocked on his door and they’d repeated their bagels andcoffee from yesterday, then walked down to the theater for company class and his stage rehearsal.
“Alice, make sure you’re as far downstage as you can get here without losing the light,” Peter said, standing near the lip of the stage and mimicking the choreography with only his upper body. “That way Justin really has to run to get to you.”
Alice nodded and stepped forward to the edge of the pool of warm pink-yellow light. A few minutes later, Peter cued the lighting designer and the pianist, the house lights went down, and Alice and Justin started the pas de deux from the top. Ivy watched as they moved together, slowly and synchronized at first, and then they drifted apart, their bodies claiming half the stage each, before rushing back together into a series of lifts that entangled their bodies. At one point, Justin lifted Alice’s outstretched horizontal body, and she arched backwards, grabbing hold of her own feet until her body formed a ring around his torso. Slowly, she slid down the length of his legs until he released her gently onto the floor, standing in a circle of her.
It was everything Ivy had always loved about ballet. The movement was so sublime, so improbable and otherworldly, but the bodies performing it were still profoundly human. Up this close, she could see every vein in Alice’s biceps, every hair stuck to Justin’s sweat-sheened forehead. In the almost-empty theater, with only the piano playing, Ivy could hear everything, too. The scuff of Justin’s shoes against the dance mat. The sound of Alice’s body arriving on the floor. His ragged breaths as the piece came to an end. Ivy watched as he stepped into a deep lunge and Alice stepped up onto his front thigh, extending her leg behind her in an arabesque as he held her steady at the waist as the light faded slowly to black.
“Beautiful, beautiful,” Peter said, as the house lights came up.
Beautiful doesn’t begin to cover it, Ivy thought. She raised her hands, about to applaud wildly, then stopped herself. She needed to be professional. She watched as Alice and Justin exchanged notes, Alice fluttering her hands and marking out the choreography in question and Justin watching her intently, nodding as she spoke. The choreography was demanding and there was barely a break for either of them, and the lights must have been hot as they bounced off the black dance mat, because Justin’s bare shoulders were glistening with sweat. His chest heaved as he talked with Alice, his chiseled stomach sawing in and out as he caught his breath. Ivy watched the two of them marking a moment where they completed the same port de bras, Alice facing downstage and Justin facing upstage. Justin’s powerful back rippled with the movement, his smooth skin glowing under the lights, and Ivy’s mouth was suddenly very dry. Desire pulsed low in her abdomen, and she averted her eyes.She needed to be professional.
She was about to stand and go in search of some desperately needed water, when she saw someone walking down the aisle, apparently towards her.
“Are you Ivy Page?” the new arrival asked. She was a pale woman in her forties, her dark hair pulled up in a twist above a chunky wool scarf that she was peeling off as she looked expectantly at Ivy.
“Yep. I mean yes. I mean, that’s me,” Ivy said. Real professional. She took a deep breath and pushed the image of Justin’s sweaty naked torso out of her flustered mind.
“I’m Sasha, from theStar. Do you have a moment?” She extended her hand and Ivy shook it automatically.
Right, Sasha Frederick, from theNew York Star. Ivy had sent her multiple emails in the last few weeks, trying to get the other woman to bite on her press releases and commit to a fewstories about ANB’s performances. She’d sent yet another follow-up right before she left for the airport; maybe it had actually worked.
She smiled at Sasha, then cast a look over her shoulder at the stage, where Alice and Justin were still working. Justin’s skin was still glowing under the lights. She turned back to Sasha and cleared her throat.
“I was just about to step out for some fresh air. Why don’t you join me?”
She and Sasha walked out of the theater and into the cavernous lobby—more gilt, more crystal, and a view of Lincoln Centre Plaza. At either end of the enormous space stood a giant marble statue of a voluptuous naked woman.The only fat women allowed at the ballet, Em would have joked.
“I have some questions that weren’t addressed by the press release,” Sasha said crisply, as soon as the theater door had swung shut behind them, and Ivy had to squeeze her shoulder blades together to stop herself from drooping in disappointment. She knew that tone. She’d used it herself, when she was preparing to ask someone questions they weren’t going to like. Questions they hadn’t addressed in the press release because they didn’t want to answer them. Sasha Frederick was not here to provide friendly, fistfight-free coverage of ANB’s run at Lincoln Center.
Ivy folded her hands in front of her body and gave Sasha the kind of obliging smile she’d been on the receiving end of many times in her years at the Sun. It said,I like you, but mind my boundaries. Or, if it came to it,I’m smiling, but don’t fuck with me.
“We’re making some of the dancers available for interviews tomorrow morning, so perhaps between that and the release, you’ll get what you need,” she said.
“Are you making Justin Winters available?” Sasha narrowed her eyes.
“I don’t think so.”Translation: Absolutely not.The only dancers they were letting talk to the press were Alice and Katarina, who could be trusted not to say anything foolish and who wouldn’t be asked any questions about fistfights.
“I’d love to speak with him anyway. I have some questions about that video from a few weeks ago.”
I’m sure you do,Ivy thought. “That won’t be possible, I’m sorry. He’s rehearsing right now, and then he’s got a full schedule until we open tomorrow.” Sasha didn’t need to know that Justin’s schedule mostly involved accompanying Ivy to another restaurant tonight, and anywhere else she felt like going.
“If you can find some time, I’d really appreciate it,” Sasha insisted, her tone a little sharper now.
“Ms. Frederick, the video is old news by now. Justin is here to dance, he has the full support of the company behind him,” Ivy said.As well as a full-time minder, she didn’t add. “I’m sorry, but he’s not available, and even if he were, I don’t see any point dragging an unfortunate incident back into the headlines.”
Sasha pressed her lips together, clearly frustrated, and Ivy felt a small thrill of victory. She’d won a round. But then Sasha’s composed, tenacious expression dropped slightly, and she looked more than frustrated—she looked despairing. “And there’s no wiggle room on that?”
“No,” Ivy said firmly. And then, because Sasha really did look defeated, “Why do you even want to write about this?”
“I’m trying to get our audience to click on ballet stories,” Sasha replied, her slightly raised voice bouncing off the empty lobby’s marble floor. She glanced around, and continued more quietly, but no less insistently. “I want to write about dance, but if there isn’t sex or violence or drugs, or ideally all three, no onecares. My editors certainly don’t. You know how this business is: conflict sells. And this is a ballet story with real conflict. I don’t want to exploit Mr. Winters or expose him, I just want to know what happened that night. And if along the way I can get our readers to care a little about ballet while I’m doing it, well, mission accomplished.”
Ivy let out a heavy sigh of recognition and gave Sasha a smile, a genuinely empathetic one this time. She remembered that feeling, of trying to convince everyone around her to care just a little about this thing that mattered so much to her. Like she was trying to feed people Brussels sprouts but had to dress them up as brownies.
“I get it,” she told Sasha. “I really do. I know you want to write a story with teeth. But there aren’t any teeth here.”
