Chapter One #2
It’s like she died that day too. The day her husband’s ship disappeared.
Like the woman standing in front of us isn’t even real anymore.
She’s just a ghost.
Hours and dozens of customers—and tasks—later, Aven and I have devolved into a half-hearted, age-old argument. I should be thrilled to see some fight in her, however I can only fidget, picking my cuticle to shreds, as she badgers me behind the counter in between customers.
“No, no, absolutely not!” I insist, voice rising to a shrill level.
The man inching around the perimeter of the shop jumps, his hands empty.
By the sight of his glossy boots and well-cut suit, I doubt his pocketbook is empty, though he’s given no indication he plans to buy anything.
Watching him sniff products for the last half an hour has thinned my patience.
I curl my lip at him, and he skitters out the door, finally leaving us in peace.
Normally, Aven would admonish me for scaring off a customer, but she only sighs.
“You promised—” Aven’s strained reply catches me off guard. The two of us lean against the marble top, into the slanted light of afternoon, painting itself in strips across the shop’s tiled floor.
I falter. Swallow. How can I deny her? But how can I listen at a time like this? “That was before, and it doesn’t matter now.”
And it doesn’t. Life matters. Death matters.
Not this ridiculous dream I should be well shot of at my age, with my lack of skill.
I’m not meant for The Red Clover, and it’s not meant for me.
There are more important things to worry about.
I search Aven’s face for understanding, but she offers me none—only a pointed stare.
If Sélie weren’t off delivering an order across town, would she take my side?
Or would she give in to Aven? I wish I could give in, but how?
“I don’t care about dancing anymore.” I lift my chin, shrug. Meet the challenge and push it back to her, as gently as I can. I wave one hand nonchalantly.
When she grabs it, I startle. Her fingers are so cold, and so strong I wonder where the strength is coming from—she’s not been eating a thing. Even her wedding ring is loose. It catches the light, and I look quickly up at her face instead.
The dullness in her gaze has been pushed aside—however weakly—by a flicker of something fierce. “You have to try. You deserve it.”
“I don’t want to anymore. I don’t want to dance.
” But it’s a lie, and of course, Aven knows it.
She knows me better than I know myself at times.
She knows how I both love and hate to make deliveries to the Clover, how I enjoy slipping into the dark theatre to catch a peek at the ballerinas practicing on stage.
To imagine I am one of them; I revel in my voyeurism.
It is safe. It costs me nothing apart from a heart full of yearning.
When I can tell she’s unconvinced, I attempt a different tactic. “I’ll try another day. Or in a few months when you’re…more settled.”
Aven lets go of my hand, and I imagine what she’s not saying:
I’ll never be settled. I’ll never be happy. I’ll never be okay.
She shakes her head, not letting me get away with that either.
“No, you won’t. You’ll just keep putting it off like you have been for years.
Then one day, when you’re very, very old, you’ll regret it.
Well, I won’t let you. You promised you’d audition—you chose a day on New Year’s, wasn’t it?
Just a random date in the future. Well, I may be a shell of a person, but I didn’t forget the date—it’s today.
You promised me. You can go now. Sélie and I will close up. ”
“I don’t have my slippers….” But even as I say it, she gives me a look.
“We brought them—” Aven gestures to the cloth bag hanging on the pegs where our aprons live when we’re not wearing them. I didn’t even notice it this morning. They’d snuck it in.
“Of course.” I sigh, giving up. Giving in. I can deny her nothing right now. The truth is I would do anything to help her, even if that means playing along with this and getting her mind off of everything, if only for a while.
I reach for a cluster of empty brown glass bottles, to clear them away before I head out, but she shoos me.
“I’ll clean up,” she says, glancing at the clock on the wall. “Sélie will be back soon. You go, before you’re late.”
“I wouldn’t be late—” I clamp my mouth shut, reading her. I sigh again. Of course, they made arrangements behind my back.
“Julian will be expecting you.”
My lip wobbles and I bite it hard, stopping this display. Ridiculous.
Beaten, I peel off my apron and smooth down the skirts of my off-white dress.
Did Sélie convince me to skip my fullest crinolette this morning because she knew I’d be dancing?
Everything feels wrong, though—my stockings itching the tops of my soft thighs; the nervous dampness under my arms; the feeling that I could vomit any moment now.
I hover at the door, shifting my weight from foot to foot, a warring within me. To dance, to do anything except dance. And also—should I be leaving Aven?
She looks up, bottles clanking as she tidies the counter, and still I wait, uncertain, studying her.
Her face like faded petals, her hair a deep brown-black, her eyes blue, blue, blue as the sky on a rich, summer night, and aged a century in only a month.
Her lips are chapped, split in the corner.
She hasn’t worn lip stain or rouge in weeks.
But she lifts the corners of them now, half-heartedly. Trying.
“Go, on, Corliss,” her voice firm. “I’ll be fine.”
Before I can argue—you shouldn’t be alone—Sélie returns, empty basket slung over one arm, cheeks rosy, the faintest dusting of golden freckles across her fair skin.
“Oh, good! I caught you,” she exclaims, pulling me in for a hug. “Good luck. You’ll be wonderful.”
Traitor. I murmur some kind of sound, feel their eyes on my back as I take the bag with my ballet slippers, leave the shop, and head to the Clover without an order.
When we do have one, my sisters make certain I’m the one to deliver it every time, a generous yet embarrassing gift I can’t bring myself to refuse.
I cross the street, trying to calm my nerves, squeezing the bag of slippers.
“Get away there, you!” a woman hollers, tossing a bucket of dirty water at some miscreant children hassling her.
She misses them by a mile, and they run off, giddy with power.
Harmless really, but I throw her a sympathetic look anyway.
She only glares in return and I drop the unusually friendly smile I had offered and glare back twice as hard, moving past her.
More shouting, more laughing, a fiddle player on a corner. I weave in and out of people as my heart patters with fear—a fear I know is real, despite telling myself it’s foolish. I try to put my mind at ease; to think of something else, to ground myself, here, in the physical world.
The Pins is never quiet, never a meek nor mild town.
It is always folks bustling down the the streets and through the square, vendors yelling, gulls screeching, boys running.
But this time of day, when the afternoon creeps toward night, when the golden light spills warm and colors my skin apricot, when the salty air leaves my lungs refreshed, I love it most.
Yet not even its chaotic beauty soothes me on the way to the dance theatre.
It doesn’t matter how unfocused I am, my feet know how to get there.
The Red Clover springs into view, and I stop abruptly, my skirts swinging around my legs. Someone bumps me, making me fumble, barely an apology thrown at me, but I pay them no mind, my focus only on the building, the sign, the advertising posters peppered out front.
The first time I saw ballerinas, I was eleven.
My sisters and I had been living and apprenticing with Aunt Mavis for several months.
Sélie was set with the task of plucking chamomile flowers in the back room while Aven worked with Mavis on a new recipe.
The whole shop had been hot, sticky, so that sweat beaded on our foreheads.
Though I was happy to finally be with a guardian we all liked—even in some ways had begun to love—I longed to be outside, exploring The Pins, reading one of my favorite books, doing almost anything but what I’d been told to do—mixing up oil and coarse sugar to soften the skin.
I pouted silently as I whipped the large spoon around the mixture, my fingers greasy, my arm aching from stirring.
“Corliss, dear.” Aunt Mavis’s tone was always curt, even if the words themselves were kind. “Take this package to the dance hall. The Red Clover.”
I fought within myself, but finally, my curiosity to see the theatre as well as my desire to get out of the shop defeated my rebellious nature. I cleaned off my oily hands, took the package she handed me, and listened to her strict instructions to return right away with the full payment.
“Yes, Aunt Mavis.” I gave her the most innocent smile I could muster.
She scoffed at me like she was neither amused nor fooled, though I caught the edge of her mouth turn up as if in spite of itself. “Get going, and don’t dawdle. You know where it is?”