Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Justin stood in front of the dressing room mirror and checked his costume for the umpteenth time. It was fine, he knew it was fine, but checking it gave him something to do with himself.
But tonight he was nervous as fuck. This was Lincoln Center, for god’s sake.
He readjusted the waistband of his tights yet again and tried not to think about all the legends who’d danced on this stage before him.
Rudolf Nureyev. Mikhail Baryshnikov. Arthur Mitchell.
And, as Alice had squealed the first time she’d emerged from the wings and taken in the huge, sumptuous theater, “This is where they filmed Center Stage!”
Alice was nervous, too, which was unusual enough to be disorienting.
In his years of dancing alongside her, he’d never known her to be anything but frankly confident, but in tonight’s company warm-up class, she’d been quiet and serious, not at all her normal gregarious self.
Now, on either side of him, Ricky and Matty were putting the final touches on their hair and makeup in similar silence, only speaking when they needed to.
Justin thought about what Peter had said in that first, tense class after the video went viral: they’d all worked really hard for this, and they wanted it to pay off.
He was lucky—really lucky—that he’d been allowed to come along for it.
The woman who was responsible for that luck was out in the audience now, or perhaps milling around in the grand lobby waiting to take her seat. She’d walked him to the stage door, assuring him that she didn’t need to keep an eye on him as he did his makeup, warmed up, and got into costume.
“But I promise I’ll be watching once the curtain comes up,” she said, and he’d felt an odd mix of nerves and comfort at that.
“I’ll try to make it worth the price of admission.”
“My ticket was free, so that shouldn’t be hard,” she smiled.
He chuckled, and an awkward silence settled over them. Katarina and her girlfriend came down the stairs from the plaza and he and Ivy nodded in greeting.
“You coming in?” Kat asked as she pulled the door open. “It’s freezing out here.”
“Yeah, just a sec,” Justin said.
He looked back at Ivy, who was fiddling with the knot in her coat belt and looking up at him through her long lashes.
She’d worn a dress and a pair of short, high-heeled boots for opening night, and curled her hair into big, rolling waves.
Behind her glasses, her makeup was more pronounced than usual, and it was hard not to notice her mouth when her lips were painted a deep, matte red.
She looked nervous, and even prettier than usual.
“Well, chookas,” she said. “Or as I think they say here, merde?”
“Why don’t you cover all our bases and tell me to break a leg, too?” he said with a weak chuckl. “And… Thank you. For helping me get here.”
“Thanks for letting me help,” she said. She smiled up at him, the same warm, intimate curve of her lips she’d given him yesterday, after he’d told her the whole miserable story.
That smile did something to him, made him feel like he’d earned something rare and precious, and for a moment he let himself stand in the freezing air and bask in it.
They were standing close, and he could see faint freckles across her nose and smell the perfume she must have sprayed on for the occasion.
Something velvety and floral that for some reason made him think of a still summer morning and a tree full of birds.
He let himself breathe it in, and for a moment he forgot to be nervous about the theater and its huge stage and its 2000 red velvet seats.
She kept smiling, looking up at him like she understood him, like they were a team and they’d already won.
Before he could think better of it—he didn’t want to think better of it—he had extended one arm and pulled her into a hug, one arm curved around her shoulder in a brief, professional gesture of thanks.
He felt her sway slightly in her towering heels, but she wrapped both arms around his waist, steadying herself, and a second later, he felt her small, warm body go soft against his, her muscles relaxed under that impossibly fine coat.
Heat rushed through his body, fiercer and more urgent than any warmth that might have radiated through her coat.
It lit up his bones, that heat, turning what should have been a brief and professional hug—perfunctory, almost meaningless—into something else entirely.
He wanted to bask in this, too, wanted to wrap his other arm around her shoulder, or bring his hand to the back of her head and sift his fingers through her hair.
He could have sworn she’d been gripped by the same urge, too, because he felt her ribcage shift against his body as her breath seemed to go short.
But then a couple of corps dancers came jogging down the stairs, and he and Ivy leapt apart. The other two stepped between him and Ivy to pull the door open, and she tucked her hair self-consciously behind her ear.
“I should go,” she said hastily. “I’ll find you after, okay?”
And before he could reply, she’d turned away and hurried up the stairs and out of sight, leaving him by the stage door, the cold February evening no match for the simmering want he could no longer pretend he didn’t feel.
A loud dinging sound from the box above the dressing room door interrupted Justin’s reverie, and he jumped. His nerves came jangling back, shoving thoughts of Ivy out of his mind.
The stage manager’s voice crackled through the speaker, letting them know they had ten minutes until curtain.
Ricky and Matty stood, and the three men looked at each other in the mirrors.
“Well, chookas, boys,” Matty said, with a firm nod, and together they trooped out of the dressing room and made their way to the stairs that lead to the stage.
The wings smelled like they did in every theater, like hairspray and rosin and the stale sweat that clung to costumes after they'd been worn hundreds of times.
Justin stood by one of the barres that had been set up at the back of the wings, still in his leg warmers, and listened as the house lights went down, extinguishing the loud buzzing of hundreds of people on the other side of the gold velvet curtain.
A few minutes later, the stage manager called places, and two dozen of his colleagues set themselves in the wings, the women in glittering white tutus and the men in matching silver brocade jackets above their white tights.
Last to leave the wings were Ricky, Matty, and Kat, whose pas de trois formed the core of this sparkling neo-classical piece.
Justin watched as they burst onto the stage and launched themselves into the choreography, and a few minutes later, Alice arrived beside him, wearing a zip-up fleece jacket over her minimal costume and legwarmers pulled up to her mid-thighs.
“You ready for this?” she murmured.
“Bit late if I’m not,” he deadpanned.
Alice puffed out her cheeks and nodded, letting out a long, slow exhale.
“You right?” he asked. She was usually cheerful and chatty, and this quiet, intimidated Alice was throwing him.
“Yeah. I’m just having girl trouble.”
“Oh,” he said unhelpfully, watching as Ricky, Matty, and Kat performed a particularly difficult bit of partnering and lifting. He’d danced Matty’s part in this ballet a few years back and had been very relieved when the season ended.
“Izzy sounded really weird on the phone today, and it’s freaking me out,” Alice said, jiggling one of her legs like she was trying to shake out her discomfort.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Justin said, even though he was sure of no such thing.
He thought of Ivy, sitting out in the audience with the rest of the company staff, her green eyes bright with wonder and delight like the first time they’d approached the theater together.
That hug at the stage door… If they hadn’t interrupted, would he have pulled her even closer? Would she have kissed him?
What would it be like to kiss Ivy Page? What would her lips feel like grazing over his?
What would the soft crush of her mouth taste like?
The intrigue of it, the sudden racing need to find out, made his pulse pound in a way that had nothing to do with the fact that, five minutes from now, he and Alice would be alone on that stage in front of hundreds of the world’s most discerning ballet goers and the dance reviewers Peter was so desperate to impress.
“It’s just… I’m worried she’s unhappy and not telling me. And her happiness is everything, you know? She’s everything.” Alice’s leg was still now, but her face was creased with worry. “I bought a ring.”
“That’s huge,” Justin said, eyes wide. “Congrats.”
“Nothing to congratulate me for yet, especially if she doesn’t say yes.”
Justin glanced back at the stage, where the corps had gathered in a semi-circle behind the trio and the music had swelled as they entered the final, lavish moments of the ballet.
“I’m sure she will. And if she’s unhappy, she’ll tell you.
Izzy doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman to keep her feelings to herself.
” An understatement, based on what Justin had seen of her.
Izzy was effusive and loud, prone to wearing head-to-toe hot pink and lovingly teasing Alice, then reassuring her with exuberant displays of public affection.
“That’s true,” Alice allowed.
“Call her when we’re done tonight,” Justin said.
“I bet it was just one off day. That happens, right?” he speculated.
Having never dated someone for more than a few months, he couldn’t really say for sure if off days were something that happened in long-term relationships, but Alice nodded like he was right.