This is a mystery about ballet. FINNALY a novel that has to do with ballet! Fellow ballerinas unite!
go gentlish please!
Chapter 1:
The opening
Sasha Gilda Joyce Amber stood at the stage door, struggling for the fair to enter.
“Why they make the dancers pay, I’ll never know.” She complained throwing the two dollar bills into the tin and nodding at the man who opened the door for her.
Sniffing deeply she walked down the concrete steps to her dressing room, which she shared with five other girls. The smell of rosin, paint, old moth-eaten costumes and coffee filled her nose. “Ah the smell of a theater” she said pushing the swinging door open. No one was there yet. She sat down in the corner, Pulling off her street clothes and putting on her leotard, leg warmers and a black stretchy shirt. The door slammed.
A young woman with flaming red hair rushed in, her face red from the cold outside. “Hi” Madeline Richshards yelled throwing her tie-died tote down on the counter and tearing off her coat.
“Hey Madi” Sasha said, tying the ribbon of her skirt tight, double knotting it. Madi yanked her pointe shoes from her bag and pulled them onto her feet. She opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by a voice that sang over the loud-speaker, the bubbly stage-manager, “All dancers to stage please, all dancers to stage for warm-up please!” Madi swore loudly, and pulled her I AM A STAR! Tee-shirt on over her black leotard. The two ran up the concrete steps, jumping onto the stage, as Ms. Larding the ballet director/teacher was pulling black pole barree’s onstage. She waved the girls over, and they ran over helping her to carry barree’s onstage. Slowly the other dancer’s trickled onto stage. Max, Sasha’s friend walked over to stand beside her, stretching slowly his arms behind his head. Sasha took several deep breaths as the warm-ups began, the plie’s the tondu’s and petite battements. In between exercises she slowly examined the people around her: Madi, Sall, Tommy, Max, Nina, Niles, Shawn, Freddy, Bella, Thorn, Shiloh and so many more. She felt so sad that soon this show would be over, and she would leave to go on tour with NYC ballet company, Dancing as the Première ballerina as the sugar plum fairy in The Nutcracker.
~
“Sissonne ouverte battue” Ms. Larding shouted as Tommy, Madi and Sall ran across stage in-time with the music.
Sasha moved forward and readied herself in b-plus.
She soared to the middle with some smooth glissades then began to beat. This is the life, she thought as she glanced at the people beside her. Max was rising into the air, his legs acting as scissors in mid-air. Max, the only one joining me on the tour she thought as her feet moved like clockwork, without sub-conscious thought. Max the one I have had a crush on for years. Max, the only one that I really, REALLY would care about leaving. She shook herself, she couldn’t let her mind wonder in the middle of a exercise, she scolded herself and continued down the floor, her battue’s perfect. Her body a rigid line, and her face red from the heat of the lights, the overwhelming fact that tonight, she would dance her lead role, her first lead role in-front of a packed house.
~
Sasha brushed the soft brush across her cheek, leaving a red mark on her dimples. She rubbed it with her thumb, the red powder blending neatly in with her creamy skin. Her best friend, Nina was brushing foundation across her neck and face with a practiced hand. “Jet`e pas” Nina mumbled going over the step she always stumbled over in the chorus dance. “Jet`e fondu de cot`e” her feet were moving over the wooden floor, brushing neatly. Once she had gone over the sequence four times, she turned to Sasha, “so do you have your solo memorized?” she said laughingly, (Sasha had learned it by the second rehearsal) Sasha frowned and pulled a fine-tipped eye-shadow brush from her red velvet make-up bag.
“Yes, I hope” she shuddered at the thought of mixing up the pas de deux she danced with Tommy, “I hope…”
~
As the girls in the dressing room slowly pulled on their costumes, sprayed their pointe shoe ribbons with hairspray and wound bun-covers over their buns, Sasha slowly mounted the stairs; she heard two voices arguing from the hallway off the staircase. “You will do what I say!” a voice, Sasha recognized as a pompous young man named Thorn Likeeses “no” another voice sobbed, to contorted by pain to be known. Sasha hurried away, up the steps, away from the crying young woman, and pompus Thorn,
That poor girl. She thought, her heart beating slowly then fast, then slow again. If it was me I wouldn’t know what to do. She came up behind Madi, who was streaching against the wall, talking to one of the boys in the stage crew, her long white romantic lace gown bunched up in the back. Sasha walked past them, as Madi tossed her head, smiling a winning smile, one that could make a man do anything she wanted them to.
“Ready?” Nina whispered as the two girls stood in the wings, adjusting their midnight blue tutus. Sasha nodded, and tied the silver cloak around her neck.
“Let’s do this”
They stepped on stage, and Sasha felt her heart leap into her throat as she pranced on stage, ready to face the audience, in her first lead role.
