Chapter One
“Who was it? Who was the girl that missed her cue?”
His thunderous face glares around the room, and I shrink back against the wall. The girls on either side of me inch away as if my guilt is catching. We are all terrified of Rufus Kingsolver.
It was me. I’m the girl who missed her cue earlier, and then during the final number I pirouetted half a second too late. Now I’m going to feel the excoriating wrath of the theater owner.
Let me just die now, please, I beg silently.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Mr. Kingsolver searching the face of every dancer in the room. He doesn’t know our names, but why would he? We’re only the chorus, and if he wants us for anything he just says you, and points.
I should step forward and raise my hand, admitting my mistake like the grown-up I am supposed to be, but I can’t. When I’m in trouble it’s like I’m a little girl again, stammering and blushing and feeling like I’m going to vomit. I feel guilty even when I haven’t done anything wrong, like when Jaime’s leg warmers were stolen. As soon as I heard her yelling in the dressing room I could feel the guilt shining out of my face like a lighthouse beacon, even though I hadn’t touched them.
I hear the word I dread.
“You.”
Blood roars in my ears. I can feel everyone looking at me. I’ve got my eyes fixed on my fingers, which are twisted into a snarl.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” Mr. Kingsolver demands.
I flinch, then drag my eyes upwards. They start at his shoes. Large black leather shoes, polished to a dull sheen. Long legs in black trousers. A wide black belt with a silver buckle. A broad chest in a blue shirt.
He’s young, surprisingly young to own a big theater in the West End. The other dancers and I have guessed his age at twenty-six or twenty-seven, which is only six or so years older than I am. His presence and manner make him seem much older.
When I don’t answer, he raises his eyebrows as if to say, Well? I’m waiting. His eyes frighten me the most. They’re hard and blue, the same crisp shade as his skirt. I feel like I’m going to burn up from their intensity.
No one moves. I’m holding my breath. I can’t be fired from this job. I can’t. It’s the one thing I have that’s mine. I exist only in the orbit of this theater. When I’m here, my legs clad in nylons, applying my stage makeup, I’m happy. When I’m onstage, and all there is, is the music and the sweet burn of exertion and the glare of the hot lights, I’m me. My parents don’t understand that. No one does, except maybe some of the other dancers. Though, they have other things. Boyfriends. Nightclubs. University. When I leave the theater I’m nothing, just another girl on hard cobbled streets and the underheated train, and I count the minutes until I can come back to myself here once more. This is it for me. This is all I’m allowed to have.
Mr. Kingsolver speaks in a low growl. “Make one more mistake,” he says, holding up a forefinger, “and you’re fired.”
If I look away it will only make him angrier. I force myself to look at him even as he grows blurry in my vision from tears.
He turns to the director at the front of the room. Gregory might hire us, direct us and be our real boss, but everyone has to defer to Mr. Kingsolver in his theater. Ten minutes ago, when I got offstage, Gregory took me aside privately and pointed out my mistakes, telling me I need to do better. Even one mistake is too many when there are hundreds of people in the audience who have spent upwards of eighty pounds to see one of the most popular musicals in London. I understand, but I also want to defend myself and say, It’s not like me. I’m a good dancer, you know that.
“For god’s sake, Gregory, give your dancers some discipline.” Then Mr. Kingsolver slams out of the room again.
Gregory closes his leather-bound notebook, looking out over a sea of cowed heads. My gaze drops to the floor and I can breathe again, but they are short, painful breaths.
“All right.” Gregory sighs, as if he’s had a long day. “There aren’t any more notes this evening. I’ll see you all at five tomorrow.”
The twenty chorus dancers and I file slowly out of the room. I feel a few hands on my shoulders and whispered commiserations, but my head hangs low.
Before I get to the door I glance at Gregory. His mouth is a thin, rueful line, and he turns away when he sees me looking. I’ll get no reassurance from him. If Mr. Kingsolver fires me, there’s nothing he’ll be able to do.
I’m one of the last of the company to leave the theater after I’ve taken my makeup off and changed into my street clothes. At a quarter past ten I step out into the chilly air. It’s technically spring but winter hasn’t yet released its icy grip, so I huddle into my fluffy pink jumper and white jacket as I walk south toward Charing Cross station. The theatergoers are still on the streets, queuing outside restaurants for a late supper or heading to a bar for a nightcap.
The tears start to burn my eyelids as I board the train. It’s always hard, leaving the lights and tumult of the theater behind, but tonight it’s especially distressing. I lean my head against the glass and watch the street lamps flicker past. I don’t care that I’m crying now, fat tears sliding down my cheeks and plopping on my collar. Feeling like I’ve disappointed someone is the worst feeling in the world.
By the time the train pulls into my station twenty minutes later I’ve wiped my cheeks and taken a few deep breaths. If my parents think I’m upset about something they’ll start on about the theater not having “long-term job prospects,” and all the other things they like to say.
Why can’t you act your age?
Be sensible, Abby. Dancing isn’t a real job.
You need to be more responsible. You’re not a little girl anymore.
Sometimes I don’t think you live in the real world.
When I open the front door I stand in the silent hall for a moment. The house is dark, so my parents must have gone to bed already. Upstairs I stop in the doorway to my room. It’s painted plain white and there are two rectangular pillows on the bed where there were once frills and lace and a dozen scatter cushions, and two dozen stuffed animals. The shelves have lots of empty spaces between the paperback novels.
This is not how I want it to look. I came home to this a year ago. “There you go!” my mother said brightly, folding up the plastic drip sheets. “It was becoming too silly to have you sleeping in a pink room at your age. I’ve put away all your toys and things, too. They’re in the box room upstairs for now, but we can have a garage sale and get rid of them when the weather is finer.” Then she smiled at me like she’d done something I should be grateful for.
I couldn’t sleep that night. It felt like I was in a cell, not my own, comforting bedroom. My room had looked the same since I was four years old. It looked like how I felt on the inside, and she’d gutted it. Even now, a year later, it still feels like sleeping in a stranger’s room.
I leave my bag on the floor and walk quietly upstairs. The box room is uncarpeted and chilly, and I open several cartons before I find the one I want: all my stuffed animals. I begged my mother not to have a garage sale, and she has relented so far. I scoop them out in armloads and lay down on the floor with them. They are my pillows, my warmth and my comfort. I breathe in their furry softness and close my eyes.
* * *
“Abby. What are you doing up here?”
I wake with a start and see daylight. My head is pillowed on Mr. Snuffles and I’ve got my arms wrapped tightly around Chubbles the rabbit. I’ve slept all night on the box room floor. As I look up at my mother my sense of safety and warmth evaporates. Her mouth is twisted with the words she’s holding back.
“I was just, uh, looking for something. When I got home.”
“I see.” Her voice is breathy, like she’s annoyed, and she begins scooping up all my toys and putting them back in the box. She even pulls Chubbles out of my arms.
“Are you still in yesterday’s clothes?” she calls after me as I push past her and head downstairs. “Abby, I wish you’d take better care of yourself.”
In the kitchen I pour a glass of strawberry milk. It’s what I have for breakfast every morning but I can still feel my father frowning at me over his newspaper. I glance at the front page and grimace. War. The economy. Politicians lying. I don’t know how people can bury themselves under a tide of bad news first thing in the morning.
My mother comes in and looks hard at me. “You haven’t read the brochures yet.”
There is a pile of glossy flyers on the table, each one stamped with a college crest. She wants me to take a course in marketing or bookkeeping. My grades in high school were decent, and I could probably get in, but taking a course in something I dislike, and then—worse—getting a job with deadlines, performance reviews and presentations? I grip my glass and force myself to breathe slowly. “I didn’t have time yesterday.”
She purses her lips. “Will you have time today?”
My parents want me to study so that I’ll have something “to fall back on,” as they put it. They don’t think dancing is a real job. It doesn’t seem to matter to them that dancing is something I’m good at, or that it makes me happy.
Do the other dancers feel pressured by their parents? I should ask them, but I’ve always felt too shy to get to know the other girls.
“Abby! I asked you a question.”
I jump. Why can’t she let up? If I get upset I’ll make more mistakes tonight, and Mr. Kingsolver will surely be watching me like a hawk. His warning rings in my ears. “Make one more mistake and you’re fired.”
What about all those other times I didn’t make any mistakes? What about all those times I was perfect? I’m a good dancer. I’ll be fine as soon as I can find a way to stand up to my parents. I can do it. I’ll find a way. Somehow.
I glance at my mother, who is frowning at me across the counter, and feel myself wilt. Today is not that day.
“Soon. I promise.”
As I leave the kitchen I hear my mother muttering to my father about my “excuses.”
It’s a warm, sunny morning, so after my shower I change into a baby-pink leotard and gray leggings and take my yoga mat and e-reader into the back garden. My routine takes forty-five minutes and I force myself to concentrate on the stretches and poses.
After I’ve finished I pick up my e-reader and lie on my tummy. I flick to my favorite story, a middle-grade book set in a magical realm with talking horses, and start to read. I know it by heart, and the lines of fluffy prose are soothing, almost hypnotic. I need this now. Nothing else is going to make me feel relaxed before I have to head for the theater and Mr. Kingsolver.
My dad comes out into the garden after lunch. “What are you reading?” he asks, weeding dandelions out of the flowerbed.
I look at the pony story on my e-reader. “It’s Pride and Prejudice,” I tell him.
He nods approvingly, which means I’ve avoided yet another lecture. The back of my neck prickles and I’m worried he’s going to look over my shoulder at the screen, so I roll up my mat and go to my bedroom.