Finding Center (2 page)

Zed

I hate those stupid things that fly around online about lessons of love, usually printed on some bullshit picture of a couple dancing through a field of daisies. Love’s messy and imperfect. Love’s most monumental in its smallest moments.

But experience, not love, tells me how to help Aly wind down when she’s spun up.

Like today, when I came home, late after a long day running theater camp, and found Aly watching tapes of her performances and making a list of every fault she could find. I know my fair share of ballet—understatement of the year—and I can’t see half the faults she swears she sees.

So, now, in the middle of the night, we’re heading back to the dance studio to give her someplace to unwind from whatever low-oxygen high altitude place her mind went. Even though she danced all day, she needs to dance now, with just me there. So I’m going to the place that reminds me of everything I lost six years ago. Because I love her, and because I know this will help her.

Aly uses the reflection in the train window to pull her hair into a bun. When the train shifts across the tracks, she loses her balance. I catch her by her upper arm, my grip tight and sure. Her hand lands on my shirt, her fingers curling against my sternum. She exhales through parted lips, a motion I can’t help noticing, and she throws me a wicked smile.

I turn my face away from her, hiding my own grin. “Stop.”

“I’m not doing anything,” she says, but her voice is low and teasing. It’s a welcomed distraction from the tightness in my chest.

District Ballet Company moved recently to a new space up in the northwest by American University, between Tenleytown and Friendship Heights. We get off the Metro and trudge up to the glass facade and the over-stylized script in the window. Aly shakes the keys out of her pocket, her mouth parted in concentration as she lets us into the dark building and disarms the alarm.

She suddenly feels far away from me, though the same distance remains between us. She flips on the lobby lights and hits the elevator button. When the doors open, she steps into the elevator at precisely the right time. Her comfort in this building the antithesis of mine. I hate that every time I come here, there’s an itch in my chest I can’t scratch. I try to tell myself it’s just a different type of theater, just like
my
theater, but it doesn’t help.

The elevator ride up is quiet, but she turns back toward me, leaning her head on my shoulder, playing with the hem of my shirt. The tightness in my chest eases for a brief moment. I wonder if she knows how hard it is for me to be here. Sometimes I think about telling her, but I don’t know what I expect her to do with that information. And I wouldn’t want to lose this—just her and me and ballet. The original trifecta.

On the main floor, she disappears immediately to change. I press the handle of the door down slowly and let myself into Studio C. For a moment, the power of the place wrenches me back in time: the Marley floor beneath my feet, the music skipping through my veins to restart my heart and remind me why I live, the sanded and polished rail of the barre beneath my palm.

The air smells at first like the harsh cleaner they use overnight after the dancers leave, the mops trying to disinfect away the pain and frustration of the day’s classes. I stand still long enough and the acidity fades, leaving the stench of sweat and blood to sink through my nose and down onto my tongue. This used to be church for me, the years left in these floors and dreams left at the barre like confessions.

When I take a step toward that dancer’s version of a church pew though, a jolt of pain snaps through my left leg. I have to stop suddenly, gritting my teeth against the physical pain, and the mental one. A kick in the ass reminder that this hasn’t been my world since I left in one of the least graceful falls ever made.

Six years ago, Aly and I were in a car accident that ended my career, and put hers into a tailspin. She managed to pull herself back from the abyss. These days, my abyss feels like a fake leg, less than half the weight of my old one, with not even an ounce of my previous finesse.

Ballet is hers now. I remind myself that the piano’s mine and in the corner of the room, the oak bench welcomes me home. Sheet music for Balanchine’s
Jewels
waits for me, making my heart twist. I danced this twice in my career, both times in the corps, watching Aly in the spotlight. It’s a ballet well suited to her: crisp, daring choreography dripping with elegance and charisma.

“Jonathan picked
Jewels
as one of the two fall ballets,” Aly says, startling me from where she’s stretching by the barre, a worn pointe shoe held straight over her head. She turns her foot to the side, frowning at herself in the mirror. “He started observing us for casting today.”

“Okay,” I say slowly. I don’t look at her reflection. I just look at her.

“Madison’s gunning for the principal roles,” she continues, her voice edged and cool.

I’ve seen Madison here. She’s full of herself and talented enough to back it up. I’m not surprised she’s gotten under Aly’s skin. But I suspect half of Aly’s anxiety tonight is constant fear that Jonathan’s going to yank the rug out from under her feet and suddenly decide she’s not worth the money he pays her. It’s a stupid fear, but there’s not much use trying to rationalize with Aly about this. I’ve tried.

Jonathan and Aly had spent years eviscerating each other at Philadelphia Ballet, but he’d been the one to pull her from her leave of absence and make her an offer she couldn’t refuse at his new company. He’d seen her—well, issues—and agreed to work around them. Without him, she might not be dancing. She might not be here at all, a thought that makes my fingers curl against the ivory keys.

I take a deep breath and run two fingers down C, the spine of the piano, the center, a place to which I return. She found District Ballet. I found teaching and piano and it’s been good enough. Not everything I want or need, but good enough. We all learn how to breathe underwater.

“Play, Zed.” Aly’s whisper carries across the studio. If I look at her right now, it’ll be impossible to follow through. Her words already sent a shiver down my spine.

She speaks, I obey. Always. Because love.

I start to play the
Stravinsky Capriccio for Violin and Piano
, the music for
Rubies
, and under the weight of her glare, I smile. I raise my voice and call back, “I like this ballet.”

“Of course you do,” she says, running through her warm-up quickly. “It’s subversive and witty. It pokes fun at itself. It’s the ballet version of you.”

“Taking that as a compliment.” I dive into the second movement, frowning at the music.

I glance over at her, her body slowly relaxing from anxious rigidity into the fluidity that makes her one of the best ballerinas in the US. She comes off the barre and takes her place in the middle of the room. She steps forward, swinging her legs out behind her as she proceeds and then recedes on the stage. The piano picks up and she charges forward toward her own reflection, stage smile pinned up to her face.

I shake my head and pull my hands off the keys, making her stop and turn toward me. “What?”

“
Rubies
has this Turkish belly dancer-received-pointe-shoes-from-her-prince vibe,” I remind her. “You’re dancing this like it’s
Emeralds
. Where’s the seduction? Where’s the playfulness?”

“I didn’t come here to dance playfulness. I came here to dance because my mind is...” and she twists her hand outward from the side of her head, fingers still elegant and poised. Neither of us is good with words. We never were. It’s run us into trouble a time or two. She pops a hip and I raise my eyebrow. “I just want to dance.”

“If you’re going to rehearse something you’ll be dancing this fall, you might as well actually dance it correctly.”

“You sound like Jonathan.”

Definitely choosing to ignore that comment.

I slide off the bench and limp to her. My leg’s really bothering me today. Maybe it’s being here. Her gaze skips downward and she starts to open her mouth but I interrupt. “Start from the beginning.”

She pads backward and rises on pointe. I count off the steps for her and she begins the movement where she’ll be surrounded by the corps. Three steps in, I stop her, my hand on her hip. “Pop this out more and soften here.” I run my fingers across her ribs. She catches her breath but curls away from my touch. I ignore my own body’s responses at the flush on her skin and sheen of sweat across her face.

“And lower your arm. You’re inviting me to come dance with you. I want to think that you’ll probably kill me but I can’t not dance with you. You’re too much.”

She returns to her starting place. “I’m always too much.”

“Who’s dancing the pas de deux with you?” My voice slices through the air, nails against the chalkboard and she stands still, staring at me in the mirror. I try again, softer. Any jealousy’s on me, not her. “Yevgeny?”

“Yes.” She relaxes a little.

My eyes run down the curves of her body, the way she practices lifting her chin and batting her eyes at the mirror. She’s still holding back though. “You can do this, Aly. Flirt.”

“I’m not flirtatious,” she says, throwing me a mischievous look.

I relax a little bit, rolling my eyes. “Yeah, right. Very believable.”

She bends over, shaking out her hands and then each of her feet. When she straightens, she lets go of that last edge of restraint. Even dressed in white tights and a navy leotard, she dances like she’s dripping in the red of the costumes. She’s fire and glitter, a star exploding, a girl you want to touch even though you’re pretty sure she’ll sign your death certificate. She’s both Persephone and Artemis, innocent and on the hunt. A few years ago, she spun apart at her edges, fraying in a public meltdown that made even mainstream papers. I’ve seen her dance a hundred times since then, and this is the first time I can see the way her feet, wrapped and bleeding inside satin shoes, stitch her wild manic mind back together.

She slides up to me, her smile sharp, and laces our fingers together. She rises on pointe, swiveling her hips a bit. “You’re staring.”

It’s hard not to smile in return. Not like I try very hard. “I know.”

She tilts her chin up, her mouth by my ear, and whispers, “Do you remember this part? Where the music gets saucy and I do all those pique turns?”

Her body brushes against mine. My eyes follow the line of her leotard, skimming over her heart. Over the slight shadow between her breasts. I want to touch her. “Yes.”

“Dance it with me,” she says, tugging at my hand. I knew she’d ask.

“Aly.” Standing here, in the room with her dancing a ballet I love, seems unusually arduous tonight. Not arduous, I correct myself.
Tempting.

“Zed,” she mimics my warning tone. “I know you can do it.”

“Can, and want to,” I whisper, turning so my mouth is against her hair. She smells like hair spray and the resin she rubs onto her shoes. It’s a combination only a former dancer could love. “Please, Aly.”

I don’t know what I mean by that.

I narrow my eyes as she drops my hand and slides back across the floor. The tension hums like an electric current as she tucks stray strands of hair into her bun, her eyes trained on mine. Even without music, when she dances this time, it’s like the spotlight hits just the two of us, the rest of the world evaporating into darkness.

The sound of her pointe shoes striking the floor is hardly noticeable over the sound of all the blood in my body rushing south. Whatever resistance I had evaporates into the air, mingling with her sweat and the sound of the air leaving my lungs. The flush climbs up her chest, over her throat. She dances closer, her hips leading her body.

“Tell me, Zed,” she says, her fingers trailing over my chest as she turns a circle around me. “Could I? What if here, in front of the mirrors, is where I want you?”

Trying to inhale, I close my eyes. It’s easier to resist her if I can’t see her. “Now? This is where we’re doing this?”

She laughs. “Why not?”

Of course I’ve thought about sex in a ballet studio. I spent most of my adolescence watching this girl parade around in front of me in a leotard and tights. Of course I thought about fucking her against the barre. It’s the only place I had any context for her back then. But we aren’t teenagers running around Lyon School of Ballet after hours anymore.

“This is where you
work
,” I whisper, watching her in the mirrors walk away from me toward the windows overlooking the street. “Aly, don’t—”

What little restraint I have erodes as she starts to dance again, hearing music I can’t begin to understand. A dance entirely her own, all long legs, angles and the languid curves of her arms. When she turns, her eyes are closed. She’s otherworldly.

She crosses the room and then stops, lifting her left leg to touch my heart with the point of her shoe. Without thinking, I tug the edge of one ribbon wrapped around her ankle. When I glance up, she’s fighting back a smile and she lowers her foot, trading it for her right. I tug the ribbon free off this ankle too and when she steps close to kiss me, it’s both an invitation and a reward. The heat of her body fills the minuscule spaces between us.

“You’re a terrible influence,” I whisper, my tongue flicking at the spot below her ear. Her hands find my waist; her fingers that a second ago were graceful and open are now tense and wanting.

“You’ve been saying that for thirteen years,” she retorts. “Prove it.”

If I didn’t like challenges, I’d have stayed far away from Aly years ago.

Leotards and tights are really fucking inconvenient. We stumble, tangled in each other, her arm stuck in the spandex. She yanks at my shirt and I pull it over my head, tossing it far out of reach. I laugh as she kisses my throat and I tug down her top over her shoulder, a little harder than necessary. The stitching tears, a wild sound that fills my hearts and pauses my mouth. Aly grins with teeth against the base of my throat, her fingers twisted in the St. Anthony’s medallion around my neck.

“You owe me a leotard,” she says.