“Look!” Alex says again. “See the Moulin Rouge? That was one of my favorite movies.” She points to the windmill on top of the famous Paris cabaret. Her smile is infectious.
“Me, too!” Zack and I exclaim in unison.
I, for one, have never been to Paris. Once off the freeway, the city is, in a word,
amazing
. I feel like I’m at Universal Studios or something—everything looks like an old movie set. There are women in five-inch heels leisurely walking lanky Great Danes along with a sack of baguettes tucked under one arm. Flower shops on the corners overflow with roses in every shade, along with lilies and tulips and every other beautiful, tasteful flower. Men in trim-cut suits are running down the street, clutching their cell phones and briefcases, and still looking as agile as Baryshnikov as they rush by. Paris, like a grand ballet, seems expertly choreographed, with each dancer and player knowing just their part, how much to shine and how much to contain. It’s breathtaking.
And all I can think about is how much I wish my boyfriend, Vince, were here, too, his arm around me, protecting me.
“Paris is
so
cute,” the Texan girl behind me coos to her twin sister. “Isn’t this just the
best
?”
This elicits more eye rolls from Alex and Zack. I do have to admit, the twins
are
a little grating. Their squeals are disorienting, making it hard to shake off the feeling of dread that descended over me as soon as my flight from San Diego pulled off the runway.
I’d be mortified if anyone knew this, but if someone had asked me five hours ago how I was feeling about coming to Paris, I would have ended up sobbing face-first in their lap. Maybe because I was flying over a strange black ocean I’ve never seen before, or maybe because I was dehydrated, or cramped from sitting still for so long, but I woke up a few hours after takeoff, shuffled to the bathroom to pee, and ended up bawling my eyes out over the little sink. All I wanted to do was to turn the plane around and go right back to San Diego where I belong.
But back on solid ground, and a little high on the adrenaline of so many new things at once, I’m feeling excited, if unsettled.
Even if you end up hating Alex, Zack, those twins, everyone,
I think with a deep, decisive breath,
don’t forget that this is a chance of a lifetime. You came here to dance. You came here to land a UCLA scholarship. Don’t forget why you’re here. Dance is first. Everything else is second.
For a moment, I get anxious all over again, remembering that, unlike the rest of these kids, I have a dance audition to prepare for.
“This is the Lycée,” announces Mme Cuchon from the front seat as she pulls over in front of an impressive stone building. I look up. Several stories high, the Lycée looks more like a fortress than a high school. I recognize it from the Lycée’s glossy recruitment brochure. Like the buildings around it and all the buildings we’ve passed as we got deeper into the crooked streets and alleyways of central Paris, the Lycée is built from brushed stone bricks in the washed out gray-tan color of centuries past. Every time I couldn’t sleep over the past few months, I would get up, turn my light on, and look over the orientation materials from the Lycée again. And yet the Lycée itself is more majestic than I ever could have predicted.
“Your host families will meet you here and take you back to your respective homestays to get settled,” Mme Cuchon explains as she pulls forcefully on the parking break. “Then we’ll meet here tomorrow morning for an orientation session and your first day of classes.” With a jerk and a shudder, the van stills, and we pour out into the soupy heat of the street, pulling our suitcases and backpacks through the heavy iron front gates of the Lycée.
In the large foyer, we sort out our luggage and greet the group of French people, our new “parents” and “siblings,” waiting and smiling hesitantly at us as we come in. Mme Cuchon directs me to my host mother, a middle-aged woman with a thick gray pageboy haircut and dressed in a silk, salmon-colored suit. She kisses me dutifully on each cheek, and I laugh self-consciously.
I didn’t know they really did that! A year from now, will I be kissing everyone like that when I meet them?
“This is Mme Rouille,” Mme Cuchon says. “
C’est Olivia
,” she says to Mme Rouille.
“Bonjour, Olivia,” Mme Rouille says with a tight, formal smile. The way she says my name sounds beautiful and exotic—Oh-LEEV-ee-AH. I can’t help giggling.
I can’t tell if I am going to always have to address my host mother as
Madame
, which seems very formal for someone whose standing in for my mother, but for the time being she doesn’t offer me anything else to call her.
“You’ll be living in an apartment not far from Mademoiselle Penelope in the seventeenth arrondissement,” says Mme Cuchon. “Though I don’t see her host mother yet.
C’est strange, n’est-ce pas?
” She looks around among the quickly scattering students.“Anyway, you two girls might walk together to school in the mornings this year.”
“Penelope must be PJ,” I think, watching the tall, lonely girl twist a strand of her long blonde hair around her finger as she waits on the front steps. No family has claimed her.
“
Alors
, Olivia, you must be off now,” Mme Cuchon prods me toward Mme Rouille’s waiting cream-colored Mercedes. “The Opera is expecting you at one o’clock for your placement audition.”
“Today?” I say, trying not to show my dismay. Is she crazy?
I’ve barely slept—my head is swimming from fatigue. I’ve been prepping for this audition all summer—for the advanced class at
L’Opéra National de Paris
, what everyone in the dance world calls “The Opera” for short. It will most certainly provide me with the training and credentials for the scholarship that I want—no,
need
—to win next year. But I thought I’d at least get a good night’s sleep before it happened!
“
Oui
,
cherie
,” Mme Cuchon confirms. “Your mother wants you to be able to begin with the advanced class right away. There’s not a moment to waste. Good luck this afternoon!
Bon chance!
”
Ah, my mother. Of course. When it comes to me winning the UCLA scholarship, my mother is right—there’s not a moment to waste. She must have implored Mme Cuchon to schedule my audition the moment I got off the plane—not realizing that I might have people to meet, or sleep to catch up on.
Mme Rouille and I stop very briefly at her apartment so that I can put on my leotard and tights and throw my toe shoes into my dance bag. The apartment is located inside a gorgeous, stately limestone building with spiraling stairs leading up to a different apartment on each floor. An elderly concierge, complete with a little tasseled cap, greets us and takes my bags from me, disappearing into a back hallway with them.
Mme Rouille lives on the fourth floor, so we take the little wire-cage elevator up. The concierge, like a miracle, has already left the bags by the front door and disappeared again.
A maid, also in uniform, opens the door for us and scurries ahead with my bags while Mme Rouille does a cursory tour of my new home. We’re also greeted by three adorable miniature poodles yapping at our feet.
I coo in delight. I’ve always wanted a dog! When one of the poodles pees on my foot, I don’t care in the slightest. These dogs are just the cutest little puppies in the world!
“
Elise
!” Mme Rouille bellows when she sees the little puddle and the drops on my flip-flop. The maid reappears and wipes my foot and the floor aggressively with a hot, soapy towel. I look up at Mme Rouille, laughing. She shrugs. I hope she knows that I don’t mind. What’s a little dog pee among new friends?
“Seriously,” I tell her. “I, like,
looooove
dogs. My mom won’t let me have one. I’ll walk them, whenever you want. Every morning!”
“
D’accord,
” Mme Rouille accedes, perhaps more to get me to shut up than anything else. The dogs bark their agreement, and it’s settled.
Mme Rouille’s apartment is not large, but it is very fancy, crowded with furniture and Baroque in its over-decoration. It’s almost scarily clean. The polished hardwood floors gleam as though they were still wet from being scrubbed. Every piece of crystal in the gargantuan chandelier in the living room flashes reflections of the light streaming through the spotless, opened window panes.
Mme Rouille quickly explains to me that she’s just finished having her apartment repainted. That’s why the light green walls of her son’s room—the room where I will be staying—are bare. She hasn’t hung his posters back up yet.
“Thomas lives in
le dortoir
now,” Mme Rouille says, a little sadly. “He is too busy studying to be a
docteur
for to visit his
maman
. He’s brilliant, my son.” At the French word for
doctor
her voice brightens with pride a bit. “You can make this room your own, if you want.” Then she bustles out, clearly not one for long conversations.
I want to flop down on the twin bed and close my eyes for at least the next twelve hours, but my audition awaits. Growing agitated, I choose my favorite leotard, a new black one with halter straps and a sweetheart neckline, to wear for my big moment.
We hop back into the Mercedes and set off for the ballet academy. I steal another glance at my host mother.
Madame Rouille is impossibly put together, unlike the moms I know in Southern California who live in flared jeans and tank tops. She’s obviously very rich, with her posh apartment and her live-in maid. Looking at her, wanting her to like me, I resolve to shed all my grotesque American habits as soon as humanly possible. My feet, for example. Sticking out of my flip-flops are dry, callused toes covered in spotty, chipped hot pink polish. No Parisian wears flip-flops, I’m sure. Dance has made my feet as mangled enough as it is—the least I could have done was get a pedicure before I left.
I was too busy saying goodbye to Vince, I guess. I didn’t have time to properly prepare for my swanky new lifestyle.
“This neighborhood is called
Ternes
,” Mme Rouille states in a nasal, snooty voice as we drive along a wide street called
Boulevard de Courcelles
. “It’s a very elite area of Paris. Full of good families.” Mme Cuchon had told us that our host families would speak to us in French, but Mme Rouille addresses me in English only. It seems like she has nothing much to say to me, in either language, at all. At this point I’m feeling so weary and overwhelmed that I don’t really mind.
Located on the outskirts of Paris, the Paris Opera Ballet School houses the best young dancers in the world. They live and breathe ballet and have to be absolutely committed to a life of dance.
Today I’m trying out for the non-residential program of the Paris Opera Ballet School, the program that allows the students to go to regular school but also get top-notch ballet training. Best of all, classes are at the Opéra Garnier, right in the center of Paris.
“
Pour les danseuses avancées
,” the young teacher’s assistant guides me toward a group of ballerinas gathered to one side of the basement studio.
I should be a shoo-in, but when I see the other girls, I’m nervous. They are teeny—the size of twelve-year-olds—and each of them wears a simple, long-sleeved leotard with pink tights and pink toe shoes. Since I abhor pink (I always have) and hate the way bright colors take away from the technique I’m cultivating as I practice, I always go to ballet class in all black. And being from California, long sleeves feel binding and hot. I immediately see, however, that my cute halter leotard, my black leggings, and black pointe shoes make me stand out, even before I’ve had a chance to show off my dancing.
I smooth my bun and take a place in the front of the group. I relax my face so that I’m smiling—just a little—and cock my head to the right, and to the left, so that my body draws a clean line through space. I keep my fingers soft and never let my face show how tightly I’m hanging on to keep my center.
The ballet matron’s face is stern while she watches my dancing. She finally breaks into a grin when I leap into my final grand jeté, my legs doing a full split in the air before I land softly onto the wooden floor of the studio, chalky with ballet resin.
When the music ends, I mop my forehead and wait for the matron’s decision. Long ago, in my auditions for everything from
The Nutcracker
to the avant-garde student productions at San Diego State (my mom never lets me miss an opportunity to perform), I learned to keep still while waiting to see if you’re in. One tiny movement, the tiniest bit of fidgeting, and the other girls know how badly you want it, how unsure you are that you really deserve it. Let them crack into your insecurity once, and it takes forever to get it back. I wait, frozen, my face impassive.
“
Oui
!” she calls as she points to me and has her assistant check off my name on her master list. Mme Rouille, fanning herself on the sidelines of the hot studio, gives me the first smile I’ve seen yet from her. Happy to have pleased her, I finally let myself beam back. A huge flood of relief and elation warms my whole body.
I can’t wait to tell Vince how I nailed it. Two years from now, I’ll be at UCLA right alongside him, just like we’ve always planned. It’s real now. It’s happening!
Back at the apartment, the first thing I do (after stretching and cooling down my muscles, of course) is adjust the time on my travel clock. As soon as the numbers change to 5:00 P.M.—8:00 A.M. in California—I want to run out and call Vince from one of the payphones on the Champs Elysées. Driving down the famous boulevard on the way to the Opera earlier, I saw a large block of France Telecom phone booths just across from the Arc de Triomphe, and as far as I can gauge, that’s a quick walk from Ternes. I’m not yet comfortable enough with my host mother to ask if I can use her phone, even if I’m using a calling card. Besides, I want to talk to Vince in private.