Tiny Pretty Things Read online

  “Okay,” I say, not sure how to respond to that.

  “Bette’s a bitch, you know. She’s, like, empty. Seriously empty. And you know she’s the one who wrote that message on the mirror. I’d recognize that too-pink Chanel lipstick anywhere. She can’t get enough of it. She thinks it’s so cute.”

  “Really?” I say, even though I know it was her.

  “Be honest . . . come on. You can tell me. You know you think it was her. We all know.” Will is trying to look concerned, but he isn’t hiding his eager smile. “It’s her signature. Trust me. Any and all pranks lead back to her.”

  The confirmation makes sense. And it gets me wondering: if she wrote the message on the mirror, then she must’ve left the picture of Henri and me, and my stolen medical report in the Light closet. I ponder confronting her. “Why does she act like that?”

  “I can’t even say that it’s ’cause Bette’s so damaged. Or blame it on her messed-up family. The one thing about this place”—he looks all around, ready to share his secret—“is that it brings out the worst shit. The worst shit in all of us. Even I’ve done stuff I’m not proud of.” He moves the icepack to his other knee. “Maybe it’s ballet. I don’t know. There’s only room for one star. And everybody else doesn’t matter. They blend into the background, like stage ornaments. Bette has always been that star here. Set up by her sister. A legacy, a done deal. Well, until you came around. I like it. You’re different.”

  There’s that word again. “Because I’m black?” I straight out ask, hating that being different can be a code word for being black, for something that isn’t white.

  “No”—he shakes his head and adds a laugh—“because you’re not the type to take someone down just to be on top. Your dancing is, like, that good. You don’t need to. Not desperate. Not Bette.”

  “Then why does everybody love her?” I ask. “Even Alec.”

  He releases the longest sigh I’ve ever heard. “They’ve been together forever. Since we came here. I’ve been stuck with them as a couple since I was six.”

  I imagine Bette and Alec as six-year-olds, blond and little and perfect for each other, and my stomach twists. I don’t want to compete with her in another arena; it’s already too much in the studio and onstage. I’m being so stupid. He and I don’t match. I should stop this crush. Stay focused.

  Will talks more about them as kids. I picture Mama’s wall of photos of me: fuzzy curls, brown skin, sun-kissed cheeks, little hippie dresses caked with mud and sand, and Mama’s paint all over my hands. I’m not the girl who’s supposed to be with him. I don’t look like I fit perfectly by his side, like Bette. Alec and I are mismatched puzzle pieces.

  “I know he . . . thinks the world of you, Gigi.” He’s working his face into gentle kindness, but he’s bitter and pleased right under the surface. His eyes are bright and the edges of his mouth keep twitching up. “What’s it all like?” he asks.

  “What’s what like?” I look at him again, confused.

  “Having him like you?” he says.

  I don’t have an answer. I don’t understand the look on his face. I try to say something. Nothing but a weird mutter comes out.

  The phone at the desk rings. An RA comes down the hall and grabs it from the desk. “Gigi, your aunt is coming up,” she says.

  “Just be careful here. Careful with Alec. Careful with everybody,” he says, then leaves me sitting there, head buzzing with all his revelations and the echo of a warning, along with the trail of his too-flowery cologne. A chill settles in to my stomach.

  Aunt Leah appears in an elevator. “You ready, kid?”

  She hugs me, squeezing my arms, rocking back and forth—like always. Her hair smells like Mama’s curls, full of shea butter and citrus. In this moment, I miss home and Sunday morning breakfasts, the smell of my dad’s coffee, and listening to him read the paper to my mother while she sketches.

  Aunt Leah signs me out and we walk to the subway. She holds my hand, just the way she did when I was a little girl, and I let her. Her hand looks just like Mama’s—thin brown fingers and two freckles in one of her smooth, round nail beds.

  I can smell the park and wish we could go there instead of to Mama’s doctor friend, who agreed to examine me on a Saturday. Mothers push strollers. The smell of roasted chestnuts wafts from the vendors as we near the subway entrance. We enter the station. Aunt Leah squeezes my hand to get my attention. “Lost in a daydream? You’re quiet today. Too quiet. How’s school? Ballet? Boys?” She swipes me through the turnstile and we wait on the platform for the next train. “Are there even any straight boys?”

  I laugh. “Of course,” I say. “That’s a stereotype.” I think of Alec and Henri, how they’re pushed by Mr. K to exude that extreme Russian masculinity. And I think about Will, and the flack he gets for being gay. The fact that he might never dance the lead role, not at the conservatory. No matter how good he is. I worry that maybe some people would say the same about me.

  “And how are you feeling these days? You know, in class, after intense exercise?”

  “Fine. Normal.” I keep my answers short. I hear the worry in her question. My parents call me enough with their anxieties. “I’m fine,” I say as the subway train approaches. The noise drowns out her follow-up questions.

  We travel down to Times Square. People zoom by and fill the streets and sidewalks. I get bumped from the left and right, trying to stay in step with Aunt Leah. Billboards blaze with thousands of lights. I gawk at the Broadway theater signs. I still haven’t seen a show. I haven’t seen much of the city, in fact—just the area surrounding school and Aunt Leah’s Brooklyn apartment. She keeps asking me to do things with her, to explore, but class and rehearsals keep me busy. And Alec, too, of course. But she doesn’t know that.

  I follow her through the throng of people. Men and women hold out goods for me to buy and others ask for change. The crowd has a frenetic pulse and the tide pushes us both into the heart of Times Square. We turn off Broadway. When we approach the doctor’s office, I can already see the machines, feel the cold chest goop, the iodine making its way through my veins.

  My palms start to sweat and my heart races. This is my first doctor’s appointment since I left California in August. And that was just a checkup before leaving for the conservatory.

  “It’ll be over before you know it,” Aunt Leah says, patting my back. “I promise.”

  Once we’re inside, I block out everything.

  “Your aunt will wait outside the door while you change into the paper gown,” the nurse says. “Then Dr. Khanna will be right in to see you.” She pulls the crinkly paper garment out of a drawer, laying it on the examination table. I cringe at the sight of it. It doesn’t cover a thing.

  “Make sure the open part faces front,” she reminds me, then closes the door.

  After I’ve undressed, the doctor comes in, and then Aunt Leah. “You want me in here, love?” she asks.

  I nod. She takes a seat along the perimeter of the room.

  “Hello, Giselle. I’m Dr. Khanna,” the man in the white coat says. He rubs his thick black beard.

  I bunch my top closed before shaking his hand.

  “Nice to meet you,” he says, while warming up his stethoscope. “So you’re a ballerina?”

  “Yeah,” I answer.

  He motions for me to uncross my arms so he can listen to my heart. “May I?”

  I clamp them to my sides so the paper top doesn’t open. He places the cold stethoscope against my skin.

  “Your heartbeat is accelerating. Are you nervous?”

  I nod.

  “There is no need to be. You must’ve had these exams a million times.” He pats my shoulder. I’ve had one every six months since I was born.

  “Please relax.” He grabs the tube of goop from the counter. I smell the latex as he nears. He squeezes out a dollop. “You’re goin
g to have to open your gown a bit more.”

  My cheeks flame. I look at the ceiling and let my arms drop. The gown top opens and I feel the cool air on my breasts. He spreads the goop on the top of my chest. Whenever he comes too close to my breasts, my stomach clenches. Then he places electrodes—they look like mini suction cups—on my chest. He pushes buttons on the machine beside the examination table.

  The screen lights up like a computer and I see my heartbeats flash in peaks and valleys. Numbers flash, and the machine makes a squishy sound, a whooshing that reminds me of a San Francisco breeze, only electrified. The doctor makes small talk about ballet and the last show he’s seen—Swan Lake—but I hear nothing but the machine’s whooshes. I try to stay calm, so I don’t get in trouble. If my heartbeat is too irregular, he’ll say I can’t dance. That my heart is having trouble. That it’s too much of a risk. That it’s too dangerous.

  I hear my dad’s deep voice: “Bean, you have to be careful. You’re not like everyone else. And that can be good and bad.”

  I was diagnosed as a baby, had surgery, but didn’t really understand it all until I was four years old and trying out dance for the first time. My parents enrolled me in all the classes: jazz, tap, and ballet, but in a particularly jubilant tap class where we ran around clicking and stomping our metal-clad feet on the ground, I turned red and fell to the ground. The teachers didn’t think anything of it, just gave me a glass of water and told me to sit the next one out, but they let my parents know I was all worn out when they came to pick me up. I remember Mama scooping me right up and taking me straight to the hospital, not even waiting for my dad to follow or get in the car. He had to take a taxi to meet us there. I read Highlights magazine for hours and wailed when the doctors put cool metal tools against my skin.

  It seems like a long time ago, but I’m the same little girl right now.

  Dr. Khanna clicks a button. I can’t hear my heart anymore. “Okay, all done. Good job, Giselle. You can get dressed and come to my office where I’ll print out your EKG results.” He lets me get dressed alone, and when I go to his office, he’s all business and I’m myself again: covered up and calm.

  “Well, Giselle, I don’t think I need to remind you that your ventricular septal defect is quite serious if not watched,” the doctor begins.

  I don’t know why he doesn’t just call it what it is. The hole in my heart is bad.

  “Today your heart shows a bit of distress, so I recommend you lessen your stress levels and decrease strenuous activities—”

  “I have to dance,” I say.

  “Approximately how many hours a day do you dance?”

  I run through all the hours in my head: morning ballet, character and repertoire, and rehearsal. “About six hours.” After my answer comes out and I see the look on their faces, I know I should’ve lied.

  “Well . . .” He pauses. “It’s quite unusual for someone with your condition to be as athletic as you are. It’s almost dangerous, Miss Stewart. You should be checking in with the nurse after each block of dancing.” He shakes his head. “Six hours . . .” He hands me the EKG report, telling me to give it to the nurse at school for my file. I fold it and put it in my pocket, planning to do just the opposite. Someone is nosing around in her office. Someone has looked in my file. Nothing is safe.

  “But I’m not leaping and jumping the whole time—sometimes we’re just at the barre or stretching,” I say.

  “Still, that being said, you need to make sure you are being careful. With you doing so much exercise on a daily basis, even when you’re not, you could still have a palpitation. It’s risky behavior for someone with your condition.” He gets up and walks to his shelf. “I’d like you to wear a heart monitor.” He flashes a small device that reminds me of my dad’s stopwatch.

  “I . . . I don’t want to wear it,” I blurt out.

  “Gigi . . . ,” Aunt Leah starts, her face full of shock and disappointment at my outburst. “If the doctor says you have to, then you do.” She addresses Dr. Khanna. “I know her parents will fully be behind this.”

  “I’m afraid she really needs to,” Dr. Khanna says, setting the monitor. “Just to be safe.” He pushes buttons and I hear a chirp. He explains how to turn it on and off and he attaches it to my wrist.

  My attention wavers in and out as I think of wearing this around my wrist, having to explain it to Morkie, having to make sure it doesn’t beep during class.

  I fight angry tears as we leave the office. My new monitor firmly in place around my wrist. Aunt Leah and I don’t speak the whole trip home, and when we get to the dorms, I give her the smallest pinch of a kiss on the cheek and then practically sprint to my room. I face-plant on the bed, feeling the monitor press into my wrist, and stare at my little butterflies for a while, glad June’s out for the moment. I can’t trust anyone with this.

  I won’t be different from the others. I won’t let it be the next thing that makes me stick out. Black girl. Black girl with a heart monitor. Black girl who has to be careful. Black girl who shouldn’t be a dancer. I get up, take off the monitor, and tuck it into my desk drawer, where no one will ever find it. Where I can forget it even exists.

  17

  Bette

  I CAN’T STOP LOOKING AT the snow falling outside the windows. There’s a kind of perfect symmetry to the first snowfall coming in the first week of December, on the first night of dress rehearsal. I had a pill just an hour ago, so my focus is intensely directed wherever I decide to put it, which right now is on the tiny white glimmers of hope whirling outside the massive picture windows in the Koch Theater lobby. Guests drift by, and I feel their curious eyes on me, wondering what one of the dancers is doing out here, instead of getting ready.

  Everyone else is backstage, but they’re not missing me. Besides, Mr. K isn’t even here yet, so there’s no rush, no need to give in to the anxious flutters flooding my system, no need to fan the fire by forcing myself to stay in the totally cramped dressing rooms.

  I used to love dancing at Lincoln Center, but Alec has kind of ruined it for me. Usually, he’d be out here with me, or we’d be holed up in a dark corner exchanging backrubs and ballet gossip. Alec can gossip with the best of them, and always has the juiciest news from the trustees and teachers. When Mr. K’s divorce went viral a few years ago, he was the first to know. Which meant I, of course, was second.

  No sign of Alec today. He really hit the off switch this time. Avoids my texts, calls, nudges on social media. I faked sick and avoided the Lucas family’s annual Thanksgiving Day dinner at his Hamptons house, even though my drunk and pissy mother almost had a heart attack about it because we had to have dinner at home for once. Will was all too happy to blast pictures of himself waiting for the jitney to head out there.

  I try not to think about it as I use the windowsill as a makeshift barre, extending my leg, pressing my nose to my knee. Passersby wrapped in scarves and puffy coats and knee-high boots barely glance in, uninterested. I can’t compete with the magic of the flurry of a first snow, even in my full Snow Queen regalia.

  I check my cell for the millionth time. Thinking maybe Alec will text something other than “Good luck tonight.” Something more like, “I miss you. I made a mistake. I should’ve never broken up with you.”

  I toss my cell phone into my bag, not caring if the screen breaks. There’s nothing from Adele either. She’s on a plane headed to Berlin for a dance gala exhibition. My mother hasn’t even called to wish me good luck. She said, over Thanksgiving dinner, there’s no point in getting all excited about something that doesn’t really matter. Then she asked Adele to pass the sweet potatoes. Adele had a pained look on her face the whole time, and kept apologizing for my mother, which only made it feel worse.

  Not to mention, I can still feel those sweet potatoes on my hips. I ask my mother not to make them every year, but every year she still does because Alec’s little sister, Sophie, l
oves them, and I have no control over the deliciousness of maple syrup and marshmallows masking the actual taste of vegetables. I have so little sugar otherwise. Just the look of the casserole beckons me: that autumn-orange color, the sweet swirls of mush drooping from the barely there burned clouds of marshmallows. I shiver, running my hands over my hips, my thighs, imagining the sugar attaching itself to me just because I dared to delight in the memory of that airy, sweet succulence. I want to take another pill, will away the thoughts. But I took the last of them earlier.

  Digging in my bag, I pull out my phone again. Still nothing from Alec. I text my dealer. Really, he’s not mine, but rather this guy who lives in the neighborhood and makes a killing off desperate ballerinas. I know I should stop. I’ve seen it all before. Too much time hanging around the company dancers’ apartments with Adele, watching them balance all the stress and pressure with a mix of cigarettes, pills, diets, pain meds, and tiny salads. But I need this right now. I ask him for more Adderall and to surprise me with something a little stronger. He likes the flirty subtext of my message, and I know he’ll give me a few things for free.

  After the dealer distraction, I can’t help but give in and text Alec. I miss you.

  Then, of course, I can’t take my eyes from my cell phone. I do halfhearted pliés and can just make out my reflection in the window: wrapped in white and silver. He’d still think I was beautiful, I think. Maybe.

  My phone dings in response. You’ll do great, B, he texts.

  Not enough to give me hope, exactly, but more than enough to make me want him immediately.

  Can we talk? I type in quickly, before I have a chance to worry about it sounding needy.

  There’s no response. My heart turns into a brick and drops to the floor. Every other December dress rehearsal since we were little, Alec has shown up with a bouquet of paper roses and a kiss. Even when he was too little to know how good it made me feel, he’d put a hand on each of my cheeks, and hold my face before going in for that first dress-rehearsal kiss. Even at twelve, the guy knew what he was doing.