Read an Excerpt

From Chapter One

Willow

I dance because Mother says I'm her prima ballerina. City Ballet Company? Please. I'm going to New York. Soon I'll be the youngest professional dancer in American Ballet Theatre. Mother says so.

Rosella

I dance because money won't buy my spot in City Ballet. I want this so bad I'll do anything. I get whatever I want.

Dia

I dance to feel beautiful. But all of a sudden I've grown. Not taller or fatter. But now I need a big bra and my hips are huge. I have to cover up and hide everything. Otherwise they won't let me dance anymore. I know it.

Margot

I dance because I always have. What else would I ever do?

Elton

Most guys don't dance, but I like to. None of my friends get it. Who cares? Ballet makes me strong. Besides, I like hanging out with so many girls.

Clare

I work half an hour at the barre and an hour on the floor, six days a week. I stretch every sinew and sweat from every pore, proving I'm in control. This is our dream: me, my mom, dad, and grandpa's. We dream that I'll be a dancer in City Ballet.

I let go of the barre, press my salty lips to my towel, and breathe in my sweat.

Willow pitty pats her face dry.

Elton wipes up where he dripped.

"Here, Clare."

Rosella hands me my toe shoes.

"Thanks."

"And now move to the floor room,"

says Madame.

Little girls pour out of the dressing room, racing for the barres we've stepped away from.

We hurry with our class down the hall to the floor room and watch the adult class end.

"How sad," whispers Rosella.

The men and women are like twenty years old.

A few could be thirty or forty.

Who knows?

They don'tuse pointe shoes.

Their bodies sag.

Bits of fat bounce on their bones.

Their tights and leotards blare color.

Half of them can barely stumble through combinations.

Their instructor with the little goatee must be sick to his stomach after trying to teach them.

Why are they even here?

Why do they smile?

I shrink back as they brush by to leave.

The guys get extra time to stretch while we girls drop down against the back wall.

Without our flat shoes on, we are a row of feet, bulging in tights spotted red and brown with blood.

The holes we cut let us peel the fabric back from our toes.

The tights tug up loose skin and coagulated blood.

"Huhhhhh!"

We grind our teeth and blink back the stinging pain.

Blisters pop.

Clear liquid runs.

Fresh blood oozes.

Gauze, tape, moleskin, and spongy pink toe caps hold the skin and blood in place.

"Hppp!"

We hold our breath and stretch the tights back over our toes.

Our feet slip into satin shoes with stiff shanks, hard boxing, tight elastic, and slippery ribbons that wrap and end in hard knots.

The frayed edges are crammed out of sight.

We stand.

A row of bound feet rises to its toes.

"I'm looking for a four/four piece,"

Madame says to the pianist, the old guy that's here everyday, that no one ever talks to or really looks at.

"No, not that one," says Madame.

She shuffles through his music.

Rosella and I lean against the window.

A breeze tickles a couple stray hairs against my cheek.

I press them back into place and look outside.

The Cascade foothills snug up close against my grandpa's town sitting low in the valley.

Mount Rainier is peeking out of the top of the clouds hovering above us.

It looks huge.

"I'm definitely fat today, Clare," says Rosella.

"You are not," I whisper, and look away from the window.

She turns sideways and stares at herself in the mirrors that cover the wall.

They show the truth every second we are in this room.

But even so, some girls can't see themselves for real.

"Yes, I am," she says. "Fat."

I shake my head.

Even her neck looks skinnier today.

"Okay, class."

Madame claps, and we walk out to the floor.

None of us is fat.

Or we wouldn't be here.

There are only sixteen positions in City Ballet.

Sixteen positions make the company.

How many in my class?

How many in the conservatory?

How many in western Washington dream like me to be one in sixteen?

We stand perfectly still.

Madame chants the combination.

"Demi-plié, pas de chat, changement, relevé."

I try to mark the steps by barely moving my hands.

We catch the words being fired out of her red-lined lips.

My mind is frantic to gather each sound.

"Begin," she says.

The pianist plays an intro.

I dip down and leap, switch feet and rise on pointe.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

And then flow into the steps we memorized last class.

The choreography is graceful, then strong.

It's like I'm melting, then getting zapped with electricity, then flowing across the floor.

To the final plié.

I got it.

Every single step.

I hold my arabesque.

Madame weaves through the class making adjustments to form.

I'm at least four whole inches taller than all the girls, and a couple inches taller than all the boys, except Elton.

He's still taller than me, at least.

Why didn't I inherit Mom's shortness instead of Dad's tallness?

And why the spastic growth spurt this summer?

My ankle wobbles, and sweat outlines my eye.

Madame raises my foot.

Her eyes measure every edge of me.

Please, don't notice the four inches.

She moves on.

Her cane taps along the floor.

"Good, Margot."

I peek at her in the mirror.

Margot's only five-foot-two.

I lose my balance and drop the arabesque.

We're sliced and divided into little groups.

If we're performing, it's as a group of individuals, each dying to be noticed for something good.

I land my triple pirouette.

Madame doesn't see it.

If we're waiting our turn, we're watching to see if anyone fails in any little way.

Willow misses a tendue.

Madame doesn't see it.

We're sliced and divided.

Dust.

Steamy sweat, like a pot of chicken soup.

Oak floors.

Pine rosin.

Sour breath from deep inside.

We breathe it all in rhythm.

Here is the moment when the music flows into my bones, and I don't have to think of the steps, and I don't have to count the movements, and it really feels like I might actually be dancing for a few seconds.

I'm a pale dust mote swirling on a warm sunbeam.

I leap and float, land deep and rise to step and spin in the shaft of light, showing everyone who I really am.

It's like I'm turned inside out.

With a great sweeping bow, we thank Madame, silently, but for the brush of shoes on wood, and then we bow to ourselves in the mirrors.

Even if we failed most everything today, at least these bows let us pretend we're real dancers.

Madame once was.

A dancer.

We all know she was great.

Her black-and-white photos line the back wall.

She was a soloist, then a principal dancer in a European company.

She lived it, every person's dream in this room.

So even though she's the typical ballet instructor --

tough, harsh, and scary --

we respect her for what she was and what she can do for us now.

I snatch my flat shoes from the row against the wall.

It's easy to find the biggest pair.

"Can you come over today, Rosella?"

She works at landing a triple pirouette and nails it.

and rush down the hall.

I can't keep growing taller.

I've got to stop.

I can't lose control and be pointless like poor Dia.

Everyone bustles around the dressing room.

Chiffon skirts, shoes, and ribbons flutter as we metamorphosize back into girls and cover up our leotards and tights with jeans and T-shirts.

"Rosella!"

I bang on the stall.

The toilet flushes.

She comes out wiping her lips Copyright © 2004 by Lorie Ann Grover