Agent Bristow-Vaughn
Cadet
hay!!!! i'm back!!!! sorry it has been so long... this year has been really bad for me... i wont bother all of you with the details... but i have a new chappy for you... so enjoy... and please tell me what you think
this chapter is dedicated to Don, who passed away last monday morning... may he rest in peace.
Chapter 7
“And prepare, and push! And again, and push! Better… and one more? Faster this time. Prepare…”
Vaughn prepared for the pirouette, fixing his eyes on a pair of china ballet shoes that hung on the opposite wall of Miss Perry’s attic ballet studio. He felt as if he had been looking at them for years, even though he had never even seen them before 3 o’clock that afternoon, when he had turned up for his privet lesson, only to be told by Miss Perry that he should have been there at 2:30 to warm up properly.
“It’s a waste of your parents money if the first twenty minuets are lost,” she had told him as he followed her up a narrow, uncarpeted staircase. The loft had been converted into a ballet studio with a mirror and a barre along one side. The opposite wall was covered with photographs and ballet memorabilia. “You should be quite aware that you should do all your stretching exercises before we even start. I’m sure Norma Fitzgerald taught you that.”
Norma Fitzgerald’s name had hung between them for a second. Vaughn had remembered briefly how pale her face had looked against the hospital pillow, and had tried to think about something else.
“Well, you’ll know in the future.” Miss Perry had concluded. “If I’m teaching when you arrive, warm up in the room downstairs with the piano, it has the biggest floor space. I’ll show you where it is on the way out.”
Faster this time she’d said. But Vaughn’s T-shirt was already soaked with sweat, and his muscles were aching. He glared at the china ballet shoes, put his right arm and left leg in position, pushed off with his arm in a clockwise position, turned twice on the ball of his foot as fast as he could, and fell with an inelegant thud onto the floorboards. Embarrassed he sprang up, ignoring his muscles’ protests, and again assumed the pirouette preparation position. “Sorry,” he panted. “I slipped.”
“You didn’t,” said Miss Perry dryly. “You weren’t remotely on balance.” Vaughn had discovered that the cheerfulness that she used for the Big Girls class didn’t continue on to her private lessons. Imprisoned with her in the attic, he had been assailed for the last hour by a purposeful voice, punctuated by a ferocious bark when he did something stupid. “And you didn’t whip your head around properly. Don’t make excuses, Michael, it wastes everyone’s time.”
“Sorry.”
“And so does saying sorry all the time.” She leaned on the barre. “Look. If we’re going to work together, we need to get a few thing straight.”
Vaughn relaxed his position, feeling apprehensive.
The mirror reflected Miss Perry’s back view. Her auburn curls were gathered into an untidy ponytail. Unwilling to look at her face while she lectured him, Vaughn looked in the mirror at the curls and at her slim arms resting gracefully on the barre. “You have to understand that you will be competing against boys who have trained full-time for five years, and those who have preformed regularly and won competitions.” She paused. “Michael, look at me.” Bashfully, he did so. “You have a god given talent. But god can’t help you put that talent to use. If you want to pass the preliminary audition, you have to make the selectors eager to see you again, they’ll have to invite you back to the final audition. Do you understand?”
Vaughn nodded, his apprehension deepening.
“However good you are technically,” she continued, “they wont take you if they don’t like the way you perform.”
While she’d been talking Vaughn had been aware of his heart beating. Her words brought the audition much nearer to reality than it seemed on the page. And they exposed the frightening depths of his inexperience. He wasn’t conscious of performing, ever. He just did his class and went home. When he had the feeling, no one except himself and miss Fitzgerald was ever aware of it.
“The fact is,” said miss Perry, puckering her eyebrows. “It’s not what exams you’ve done or who your teacher is that makes the American Ballet Academy see potential in you. It’s your own unique combination of technique and artistry – your performing ability.”
Unexpectedly, because he’d never thought about it before, Vaughn understood. “It’s all about having confidence, isn’t it?”
Miss Perry nodded her head. “It most certainly is about having confidence. And as long as you go on pretending you slipped, you’ll never get the confidence to do double pirouettes in public, whether it’s on stage or at the audition.”
He considered. “I need to dance in front of an audience, don’t I?”
“Yes, you do!” she agreed laughing. “How do you feel about performing a pas de deux with Sydney Bristow, in the show we do at Christmas?”
Vaughn’s insides leapt. A pas de deux, a dance with a female partner, wasn’t just holding hands. It was the real, classical thing.
“And if it turns out ok,” she went on, “I think we might enter it in a competition, with a solo from you and one from Sydney, too. Would you like that?”
Vaughn was astonished. “Are you serious?”
“Competitions are a great boost to one’s confidence,” said miss Perry, “ and good practice for auditions too”
“Have you…” he stopped, breathed, and began again. “What does Sydney say?”
“Oh, she’s willing! And she’s my best girl, so don’t worry. She wont let you down.” She looked at her watch. “Can you stay and start the pas de deux now? She’s arranged to come at four o’clock.”
When Sydney came in, for a few mad moments Vaughn couldn’t control what was going on in his insides. His heart jittered about, losing its tempo. His stomach released a crowd of butterflies. He busied himself with his bag, drinking from his drink bottle, re-packing his towel.
She looked gorgeous. Surly on Thursday she hadn’t looked that gorgeous? Or had he been too nervous to notice? And how could he suddenly think someone he’d known for years looked gorgeous?
She didn’t greet him, or even look at him. “I’ll just keep my t-shirt on for a few minuets,” she told miss Perry, “but I am ready to start. I warmed up at home.”
Her hair was swept into a neater bun than she’d had on Thursday, and there was a thin pink ribbon tied around it. Her eyes looked bigger and more noticeable than usual. She must have been wearing eye make-up.
He watched her tie her pointe shoe ribbons, his insides still jittering. Why had she put eye make-up on? Why had she dresses so carefully, and put the ribbon in her hair?
“Now, let’s do a short barre, then we’ll get going,” declared miss Perry. “I’ve got some perfect music.”
They took their positions at the barre. Vaughn was behind Syd. He could see the bumpy bones at the top of her spine and the soft down at her hairline. He, of course, had already done an hour’s class and the effects of the showering and the body spraying he’d done this morning had long since disappeared. And he was going to be closer to her in a minuet than he had ever been to any girl.
After some plies and other stretching exercises, miss Perry called them into the center of the room. She instructed Vaughn to stand with his arms stretched out sideways, and Sydney to stand behind him in the same position. “As close to him as you can Sydney.”
Sydney shuffled about two centimeters nearer. “Touching him I mean poppet,” said miss Perry tolerantly.
It was a strange sensation. Vaughn couldn’t see her, but he could feel her soft skin and hard bones, and her breath between his shoulder blades, where the neck of his singlet ended.
“Now Sydney, put your hands on his wrists and hold on lightly.”
Sydney did what she was asked. Her touch was almost invisible. He tried to control his breathing.
“Michael, bend your knee. Keep your back as straight as you can.”
“But if he bends his knee he’ll have to lean forward,” protested Sydney. “And I’ll fall over.”
“you wont,” miss Perry assured her, “if you lean against him.”
Vaughn saw what miss Perry was doing. It was all about confidence, as she’d said. “put all your weight on me,” he said to Sydney. “Just lean on me.”
At first she couldn’t “I’ll fall,” she insisted.
“No you wont,” said miss Perry. She knelt and adjusted Vaughn’s foot. “Get a good knee bend Michael, and press that foot into the floor, then Sydney cant possibly fall.”
Slowly they got her to relax her weight onto his back. She had to retain some tension to maintain her position, but he could feel that he was supporting most of her weight.
“When you first start, of course it feels strange,” explained miss Perry. “So what we’ve got to do is build confidence between you two. You have to remember that the pas de deux is about masculine and feminine roles, blending beautifully together. If either partner looks unsure whether there supposed to be the supporter or supported, the audience is distracted and the whole thing is just embarrassing.”
When she was satisfied with the leaning exercise, miss Perry asked Vaughn to stand behind Sydney’s shoulder. She stood back and scrutinized them. “Michael, could you help Sydney take her balance, on pointe?”
Not sure what to do, Vaughn placed his feet and held out his arm. Sydney took hold of it with both hands and raised herself on her toes. Her weight bore down on his arm, which shuddered. He put out his back led to steady himself. Sydney, looking very serious, found her balance and stayed there.
Her cheek was no more then fifteen centimeters away. Her hands rested on his wrist and forearm. But she was only using him as a prop, not leaning all her weight on him this time. Vaughn put his other arm out for balance, and, raising his head, looked at their reflection.
Even though she was on pointe, the top of her head came about half way down his forehead. He was amazed that he was tall enough. She had turned her face to the mirror too. Her lips twitched.
“Don’t you look good!” exclaimed miss Perry pleased.
She made Sydney raise her leg in an arabesque and she asked Vaughn to support her waist. Aware that he’d never touched a girl’s waist before – in fact he, he didn’t think he’d touched anyone’s waist except his own – Vaughn did so. Miss Perry walked all around them, working her mouth.
“ Can you do a penche Sydney? As high as you can.” Sydney raised her leg, lowering her torso. “Support her Michael. That’s right. How does that feel Sydney?”
“Fine.” Sydney lowered her leg and straightened up. “I can balance better with him there. I can get my leg higher.”
Miss Perry smiled with satisfaction. “Excellent now listen to the music.”
They worked for the hour and twenty minuets. Sydney’s leotard started to stick to her body and her cheeks developed reddish blotches. The back of Vaughn’s neck got so hot in the end that he accepted miss Perry’s offer of a hairclip to pin his ponytail up against the back of his head. It didn’t matter what he looked like, he reasoned dimly. It only mattered that he was working harder then he had ever worked, doing the best thing in the world.
After the class he sat on the floor with his back against the wall, utterly exhausted. This was what it was like to work in a performance. This was what real, paid dancers did everyday of their lives.
The clip hurt the back of his head. He took it out and gave it back to miss Perry who laughed. “You better keep it. Though of course…”
“I could get my hair cut.”
She spread her hands. “Did I say anything?”
They went slowly downstairs and miss Perry opened a door to a large room containing a piano, a sofa covered by multicolored throw and a lot of plants. “Warming up room,” she said. “Remember Michael, half an hour early next time!”
“When is next time?” Sydney asked her.
They followed miss Perry into the kitchen, where she consulted a crowded notice board. “Wednesday? Six o’clock? Both of you? And solos next Saturday, Michael at three, Sydney at four?” she said, scribbling. “Isn’t this exciting!” she put down her pen and looked at them happily. “Oh Michael I meant to ask you. Have you sent off for your ABC application yet?”
“No.” he couldn’t tell her that he hadn’t, strictly, got permission to fill it in.
“Well, you’ve got a while before it needs to be in.” she settled herself against the worktop and folded her arms. “Tell me how your parents feel about ballet school?”
“Er… I’m not sure about my step dad. But my mother doesn’t object to it because she used to be a dancer herself.”
Miss Perry’s neatly plucked eyebrows went up. “Really?”
“She sent me to miss Fitzgerald because she had been her teacher too,” said Vaughn “and she still works on shows sometimes. You know, amateur dramatics and stuff. These days she mostly makes costumes.”
“Really?” she said again. “Do you think she would mind if I called her?”
“No, not at all.”
The heat in Sydney’s face had subsided, but sweat had smudged the make-up around her eyes. There was a little frown between her eyebrows. “Have you done a lot of shows before Vaughn?”
After their conversation upstairs, miss Perry knew the answer and wanted to be the one to surprise Sydney. “You wont believe it.” She told he “but Michael has never preformed in public!”
Sydney turned to Vaughn. “Why not? Male dancers are really rare.”
“In amateur dramatics?” teased Vaughn “I don’t think so…”
“No, in musicals and pantomimes” said Sydney “and ballet teachers always put on a show once a year for the parents”
“Well miss Fitzgerald didn’t”
There was silence. Miss Perry picked up the pen she had been scribbling with and began to twist it between her fingers. “Did miss Fitzgerald ever send anyone along for ballet school auditions?”
“Not that I can remember” said Vaughn “I supposed she must have years ago. But she’s old now, she just does… did… her teaching, that’s all.”
“Hmm…” miss Perry said twisting her pen, frowning “perhaps if the ABC had seen you earlier… and then of course there are local and national ballet companies, which perform for the public. You might have gained useful experience in one of those.”
Vaughn was bewildered. Miss Fitzgerald had never mentioned the possibility of auditioning for anything, or entering a competition, or joining a youth ballet.
“Do you send people for auditions?” he felt compelled to ask miss Perry, conscious that the simple mischance of going to miss Fitzgerald had quite possibly ruined his life. “it seems so unfair. I mean, maybe if I had come to you from the start, and done shows, and competitions, I’d…”
She put the pen down, “no I haven’t sent anyone actually” she slid her eyes momentarily over to Sydney. Vaughn understood that she’d never had anyone good enough to make it though the audition. But with Sydney standing beside her – silent, watchful, trusting – she couldn’t say it aloud. “Anyway you can’t dwell on what might have been Michael, you’re doing the audition now.”
Vaughn nodded uncomfortably. He had been babyish and regretted it. He had done it in front of Sydney too.
Sydney turned to miss Perry. “Talking of competitions,” she said, “for the pas de deux, will I have a tutu?”
Vaughn remembered miss Fitzgerald telling her girls that a tutu had to be earned. “What’s the only thing worse than a bad dancer?” she would ask. The whole class, including Mr. pope and Vaughn would yell together, “A bad dancer in a tutu!”
As miss Perry opened her mouth to speak, the phone beside her notice board began to ring. What ever the person on the other end of the phone had said had made her face go very serious. She put her hand on her forehead. “I know,” she said.
Vaughn took a step nearer. Miss Perry caught hold of his arm, just above his wrist. She said yes and no a few more times before she hung up.
“Michael…” she let go of his arm and put her palms to her cheeks. “That was miss Fitzgerald’s daughter. I saw her at the hospital last night and asked her to let me know if there was any news.” She blinked “I’m afraid it’s the worst news.”
Vaughn’s chest hurt. He put his arms around himself involuntarily. The pain was like being stabbed. He heard his own fat breathing and miss Perry’s sniffs as she tried to control her tears.
His head felt fuzzy. His brain, too weak to absorb the idea that miss Fitzgerald might be dead floated around in his useless search for words.
“Wha… wha…?” was all he managed to say. Unsure of his legs, he leaned on the wall and sank to the floor.
Miss Perry’s tears oozed over her lower lids. “I’m so sorry Michael,” she said “I know you loved her.”
Vaughn hardly heard. Fragmented memories flashed through his mind. This was it then. The next rung on the ladder he’d imagined, reaching up into the sky. He looked up at miss Perry.
“She used to say ‘talent will out’. Do you think she was right?”
He went on looking up. His eyes stinging. He felt crushed by an invisible weight and elevated by an invisible force at the same time. The decision about his future had slipped out of his hands. Wherever miss Fitzgerald was she would understand.
“Yes I do,” said miss Perry crouching down beside him. She gripped his arm. “Believe in her Michael, like she believed in you.”
Vaughn’s heart began to pump. His legs still felt like jelly, but he got up, took the magazine page with the ABA audition information on it out of his bag and spread it on the table. He needed miss Fitzgerald’s help one last time.
With her words in his head, mum and miss Perry’s encouragement and Sydney by his side, he would get on stage at last. He would win the competition, and pass the audition, and live his dream. It was within his grasp, and he would do it.
“I want to write a letter,” he told miss Perry. “Now.”
From a draw she took a notepad and an envelope. “I’ve got a stamp too if you need it” she looked at him with approval. “Put my address on the letter, if it helps avoid complications.”
Vaughn took his pen out of his pocket and wrote the letter to the ABA. He asked them to send him an application form. He signed it, put the letter in the envelope and copied the address from the page on to the front of the envelope with a shaking hand.
Sydney was watching him. She was sitting on a chair in the corner, her head relaxed against the cushions. A shockwave spread through his body. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes gleamed with unshed tears, but there was no doubt about it. She looked unsettlingly, disturbingly pretty.
this chapter is dedicated to Don, who passed away last monday morning... may he rest in peace.
Chapter 7
“And prepare, and push! And again, and push! Better… and one more? Faster this time. Prepare…”
Vaughn prepared for the pirouette, fixing his eyes on a pair of china ballet shoes that hung on the opposite wall of Miss Perry’s attic ballet studio. He felt as if he had been looking at them for years, even though he had never even seen them before 3 o’clock that afternoon, when he had turned up for his privet lesson, only to be told by Miss Perry that he should have been there at 2:30 to warm up properly.
“It’s a waste of your parents money if the first twenty minuets are lost,” she had told him as he followed her up a narrow, uncarpeted staircase. The loft had been converted into a ballet studio with a mirror and a barre along one side. The opposite wall was covered with photographs and ballet memorabilia. “You should be quite aware that you should do all your stretching exercises before we even start. I’m sure Norma Fitzgerald taught you that.”
Norma Fitzgerald’s name had hung between them for a second. Vaughn had remembered briefly how pale her face had looked against the hospital pillow, and had tried to think about something else.
“Well, you’ll know in the future.” Miss Perry had concluded. “If I’m teaching when you arrive, warm up in the room downstairs with the piano, it has the biggest floor space. I’ll show you where it is on the way out.”
Faster this time she’d said. But Vaughn’s T-shirt was already soaked with sweat, and his muscles were aching. He glared at the china ballet shoes, put his right arm and left leg in position, pushed off with his arm in a clockwise position, turned twice on the ball of his foot as fast as he could, and fell with an inelegant thud onto the floorboards. Embarrassed he sprang up, ignoring his muscles’ protests, and again assumed the pirouette preparation position. “Sorry,” he panted. “I slipped.”
“You didn’t,” said Miss Perry dryly. “You weren’t remotely on balance.” Vaughn had discovered that the cheerfulness that she used for the Big Girls class didn’t continue on to her private lessons. Imprisoned with her in the attic, he had been assailed for the last hour by a purposeful voice, punctuated by a ferocious bark when he did something stupid. “And you didn’t whip your head around properly. Don’t make excuses, Michael, it wastes everyone’s time.”
“Sorry.”
“And so does saying sorry all the time.” She leaned on the barre. “Look. If we’re going to work together, we need to get a few thing straight.”
Vaughn relaxed his position, feeling apprehensive.
The mirror reflected Miss Perry’s back view. Her auburn curls were gathered into an untidy ponytail. Unwilling to look at her face while she lectured him, Vaughn looked in the mirror at the curls and at her slim arms resting gracefully on the barre. “You have to understand that you will be competing against boys who have trained full-time for five years, and those who have preformed regularly and won competitions.” She paused. “Michael, look at me.” Bashfully, he did so. “You have a god given talent. But god can’t help you put that talent to use. If you want to pass the preliminary audition, you have to make the selectors eager to see you again, they’ll have to invite you back to the final audition. Do you understand?”
Vaughn nodded, his apprehension deepening.
“However good you are technically,” she continued, “they wont take you if they don’t like the way you perform.”
While she’d been talking Vaughn had been aware of his heart beating. Her words brought the audition much nearer to reality than it seemed on the page. And they exposed the frightening depths of his inexperience. He wasn’t conscious of performing, ever. He just did his class and went home. When he had the feeling, no one except himself and miss Fitzgerald was ever aware of it.
“The fact is,” said miss Perry, puckering her eyebrows. “It’s not what exams you’ve done or who your teacher is that makes the American Ballet Academy see potential in you. It’s your own unique combination of technique and artistry – your performing ability.”
Unexpectedly, because he’d never thought about it before, Vaughn understood. “It’s all about having confidence, isn’t it?”
Miss Perry nodded her head. “It most certainly is about having confidence. And as long as you go on pretending you slipped, you’ll never get the confidence to do double pirouettes in public, whether it’s on stage or at the audition.”
He considered. “I need to dance in front of an audience, don’t I?”
“Yes, you do!” she agreed laughing. “How do you feel about performing a pas de deux with Sydney Bristow, in the show we do at Christmas?”
Vaughn’s insides leapt. A pas de deux, a dance with a female partner, wasn’t just holding hands. It was the real, classical thing.
“And if it turns out ok,” she went on, “I think we might enter it in a competition, with a solo from you and one from Sydney, too. Would you like that?”
Vaughn was astonished. “Are you serious?”
“Competitions are a great boost to one’s confidence,” said miss Perry, “ and good practice for auditions too”
“Have you…” he stopped, breathed, and began again. “What does Sydney say?”
“Oh, she’s willing! And she’s my best girl, so don’t worry. She wont let you down.” She looked at her watch. “Can you stay and start the pas de deux now? She’s arranged to come at four o’clock.”
When Sydney came in, for a few mad moments Vaughn couldn’t control what was going on in his insides. His heart jittered about, losing its tempo. His stomach released a crowd of butterflies. He busied himself with his bag, drinking from his drink bottle, re-packing his towel.
She looked gorgeous. Surly on Thursday she hadn’t looked that gorgeous? Or had he been too nervous to notice? And how could he suddenly think someone he’d known for years looked gorgeous?
She didn’t greet him, or even look at him. “I’ll just keep my t-shirt on for a few minuets,” she told miss Perry, “but I am ready to start. I warmed up at home.”
Her hair was swept into a neater bun than she’d had on Thursday, and there was a thin pink ribbon tied around it. Her eyes looked bigger and more noticeable than usual. She must have been wearing eye make-up.
He watched her tie her pointe shoe ribbons, his insides still jittering. Why had she put eye make-up on? Why had she dresses so carefully, and put the ribbon in her hair?
“Now, let’s do a short barre, then we’ll get going,” declared miss Perry. “I’ve got some perfect music.”
They took their positions at the barre. Vaughn was behind Syd. He could see the bumpy bones at the top of her spine and the soft down at her hairline. He, of course, had already done an hour’s class and the effects of the showering and the body spraying he’d done this morning had long since disappeared. And he was going to be closer to her in a minuet than he had ever been to any girl.
After some plies and other stretching exercises, miss Perry called them into the center of the room. She instructed Vaughn to stand with his arms stretched out sideways, and Sydney to stand behind him in the same position. “As close to him as you can Sydney.”
Sydney shuffled about two centimeters nearer. “Touching him I mean poppet,” said miss Perry tolerantly.
It was a strange sensation. Vaughn couldn’t see her, but he could feel her soft skin and hard bones, and her breath between his shoulder blades, where the neck of his singlet ended.
“Now Sydney, put your hands on his wrists and hold on lightly.”
Sydney did what she was asked. Her touch was almost invisible. He tried to control his breathing.
“Michael, bend your knee. Keep your back as straight as you can.”
“But if he bends his knee he’ll have to lean forward,” protested Sydney. “And I’ll fall over.”
“you wont,” miss Perry assured her, “if you lean against him.”
Vaughn saw what miss Perry was doing. It was all about confidence, as she’d said. “put all your weight on me,” he said to Sydney. “Just lean on me.”
At first she couldn’t “I’ll fall,” she insisted.
“No you wont,” said miss Perry. She knelt and adjusted Vaughn’s foot. “Get a good knee bend Michael, and press that foot into the floor, then Sydney cant possibly fall.”
Slowly they got her to relax her weight onto his back. She had to retain some tension to maintain her position, but he could feel that he was supporting most of her weight.
“When you first start, of course it feels strange,” explained miss Perry. “So what we’ve got to do is build confidence between you two. You have to remember that the pas de deux is about masculine and feminine roles, blending beautifully together. If either partner looks unsure whether there supposed to be the supporter or supported, the audience is distracted and the whole thing is just embarrassing.”
When she was satisfied with the leaning exercise, miss Perry asked Vaughn to stand behind Sydney’s shoulder. She stood back and scrutinized them. “Michael, could you help Sydney take her balance, on pointe?”
Not sure what to do, Vaughn placed his feet and held out his arm. Sydney took hold of it with both hands and raised herself on her toes. Her weight bore down on his arm, which shuddered. He put out his back led to steady himself. Sydney, looking very serious, found her balance and stayed there.
Her cheek was no more then fifteen centimeters away. Her hands rested on his wrist and forearm. But she was only using him as a prop, not leaning all her weight on him this time. Vaughn put his other arm out for balance, and, raising his head, looked at their reflection.
Even though she was on pointe, the top of her head came about half way down his forehead. He was amazed that he was tall enough. She had turned her face to the mirror too. Her lips twitched.
“Don’t you look good!” exclaimed miss Perry pleased.
She made Sydney raise her leg in an arabesque and she asked Vaughn to support her waist. Aware that he’d never touched a girl’s waist before – in fact he, he didn’t think he’d touched anyone’s waist except his own – Vaughn did so. Miss Perry walked all around them, working her mouth.
“ Can you do a penche Sydney? As high as you can.” Sydney raised her leg, lowering her torso. “Support her Michael. That’s right. How does that feel Sydney?”
“Fine.” Sydney lowered her leg and straightened up. “I can balance better with him there. I can get my leg higher.”
Miss Perry smiled with satisfaction. “Excellent now listen to the music.”
They worked for the hour and twenty minuets. Sydney’s leotard started to stick to her body and her cheeks developed reddish blotches. The back of Vaughn’s neck got so hot in the end that he accepted miss Perry’s offer of a hairclip to pin his ponytail up against the back of his head. It didn’t matter what he looked like, he reasoned dimly. It only mattered that he was working harder then he had ever worked, doing the best thing in the world.
After the class he sat on the floor with his back against the wall, utterly exhausted. This was what it was like to work in a performance. This was what real, paid dancers did everyday of their lives.
The clip hurt the back of his head. He took it out and gave it back to miss Perry who laughed. “You better keep it. Though of course…”
“I could get my hair cut.”
She spread her hands. “Did I say anything?”
They went slowly downstairs and miss Perry opened a door to a large room containing a piano, a sofa covered by multicolored throw and a lot of plants. “Warming up room,” she said. “Remember Michael, half an hour early next time!”
“When is next time?” Sydney asked her.
They followed miss Perry into the kitchen, where she consulted a crowded notice board. “Wednesday? Six o’clock? Both of you? And solos next Saturday, Michael at three, Sydney at four?” she said, scribbling. “Isn’t this exciting!” she put down her pen and looked at them happily. “Oh Michael I meant to ask you. Have you sent off for your ABC application yet?”
“No.” he couldn’t tell her that he hadn’t, strictly, got permission to fill it in.
“Well, you’ve got a while before it needs to be in.” she settled herself against the worktop and folded her arms. “Tell me how your parents feel about ballet school?”
“Er… I’m not sure about my step dad. But my mother doesn’t object to it because she used to be a dancer herself.”
Miss Perry’s neatly plucked eyebrows went up. “Really?”
“She sent me to miss Fitzgerald because she had been her teacher too,” said Vaughn “and she still works on shows sometimes. You know, amateur dramatics and stuff. These days she mostly makes costumes.”
“Really?” she said again. “Do you think she would mind if I called her?”
“No, not at all.”
The heat in Sydney’s face had subsided, but sweat had smudged the make-up around her eyes. There was a little frown between her eyebrows. “Have you done a lot of shows before Vaughn?”
After their conversation upstairs, miss Perry knew the answer and wanted to be the one to surprise Sydney. “You wont believe it.” She told he “but Michael has never preformed in public!”
Sydney turned to Vaughn. “Why not? Male dancers are really rare.”
“In amateur dramatics?” teased Vaughn “I don’t think so…”
“No, in musicals and pantomimes” said Sydney “and ballet teachers always put on a show once a year for the parents”
“Well miss Fitzgerald didn’t”
There was silence. Miss Perry picked up the pen she had been scribbling with and began to twist it between her fingers. “Did miss Fitzgerald ever send anyone along for ballet school auditions?”
“Not that I can remember” said Vaughn “I supposed she must have years ago. But she’s old now, she just does… did… her teaching, that’s all.”
“Hmm…” miss Perry said twisting her pen, frowning “perhaps if the ABC had seen you earlier… and then of course there are local and national ballet companies, which perform for the public. You might have gained useful experience in one of those.”
Vaughn was bewildered. Miss Fitzgerald had never mentioned the possibility of auditioning for anything, or entering a competition, or joining a youth ballet.
“Do you send people for auditions?” he felt compelled to ask miss Perry, conscious that the simple mischance of going to miss Fitzgerald had quite possibly ruined his life. “it seems so unfair. I mean, maybe if I had come to you from the start, and done shows, and competitions, I’d…”
She put the pen down, “no I haven’t sent anyone actually” she slid her eyes momentarily over to Sydney. Vaughn understood that she’d never had anyone good enough to make it though the audition. But with Sydney standing beside her – silent, watchful, trusting – she couldn’t say it aloud. “Anyway you can’t dwell on what might have been Michael, you’re doing the audition now.”
Vaughn nodded uncomfortably. He had been babyish and regretted it. He had done it in front of Sydney too.
Sydney turned to miss Perry. “Talking of competitions,” she said, “for the pas de deux, will I have a tutu?”
Vaughn remembered miss Fitzgerald telling her girls that a tutu had to be earned. “What’s the only thing worse than a bad dancer?” she would ask. The whole class, including Mr. pope and Vaughn would yell together, “A bad dancer in a tutu!”
As miss Perry opened her mouth to speak, the phone beside her notice board began to ring. What ever the person on the other end of the phone had said had made her face go very serious. She put her hand on her forehead. “I know,” she said.
Vaughn took a step nearer. Miss Perry caught hold of his arm, just above his wrist. She said yes and no a few more times before she hung up.
“Michael…” she let go of his arm and put her palms to her cheeks. “That was miss Fitzgerald’s daughter. I saw her at the hospital last night and asked her to let me know if there was any news.” She blinked “I’m afraid it’s the worst news.”
Vaughn’s chest hurt. He put his arms around himself involuntarily. The pain was like being stabbed. He heard his own fat breathing and miss Perry’s sniffs as she tried to control her tears.
His head felt fuzzy. His brain, too weak to absorb the idea that miss Fitzgerald might be dead floated around in his useless search for words.
“Wha… wha…?” was all he managed to say. Unsure of his legs, he leaned on the wall and sank to the floor.
Miss Perry’s tears oozed over her lower lids. “I’m so sorry Michael,” she said “I know you loved her.”
Vaughn hardly heard. Fragmented memories flashed through his mind. This was it then. The next rung on the ladder he’d imagined, reaching up into the sky. He looked up at miss Perry.
“She used to say ‘talent will out’. Do you think she was right?”
He went on looking up. His eyes stinging. He felt crushed by an invisible weight and elevated by an invisible force at the same time. The decision about his future had slipped out of his hands. Wherever miss Fitzgerald was she would understand.
“Yes I do,” said miss Perry crouching down beside him. She gripped his arm. “Believe in her Michael, like she believed in you.”
Vaughn’s heart began to pump. His legs still felt like jelly, but he got up, took the magazine page with the ABA audition information on it out of his bag and spread it on the table. He needed miss Fitzgerald’s help one last time.
With her words in his head, mum and miss Perry’s encouragement and Sydney by his side, he would get on stage at last. He would win the competition, and pass the audition, and live his dream. It was within his grasp, and he would do it.
“I want to write a letter,” he told miss Perry. “Now.”
From a draw she took a notepad and an envelope. “I’ve got a stamp too if you need it” she looked at him with approval. “Put my address on the letter, if it helps avoid complications.”
Vaughn took his pen out of his pocket and wrote the letter to the ABA. He asked them to send him an application form. He signed it, put the letter in the envelope and copied the address from the page on to the front of the envelope with a shaking hand.
Sydney was watching him. She was sitting on a chair in the corner, her head relaxed against the cushions. A shockwave spread through his body. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes gleamed with unshed tears, but there was no doubt about it. She looked unsettlingly, disturbingly pretty.
