And at the same time, I didn’t. My wig had never slipped during my original season, not once. I’d kept it pinned so tightly that it might as well have been epoxy-bonded to my scalp. This time, it had slipped so often that it was a miracle no one had seen. I’d allowed my personal feelings to get in the way of my dancing. I’d brought Dominic to Los Angeles in the first place. Sure he was my husband, and I loved him, but I could have left him behind. Before we’d known about the snake cult, it would even have made sense. The Be-Well was cheap. It still cost money. I’d brought him with me anyway. Why?
Was it because I had already known that I’d outgrown Valerie? Had I come here to try again for the spotlight, or had I come to bury her?
Someone knocked on the ceiling. I looked up. Malena’s head was protruding from a hole that hadn’t been there before. She’d moved a tile aside to make room, and was watching me with a dubious expression on her face.
“How much of that did you see?” I asked.
“Most of it,” she said. She paused before admitting, “All of it. Damn, girl, you know how to say the wrong thing at the right time. You’re going to be lucky if he doesn’t drop you on your ass during the next show.”
“He wants this too much to do that,” I said. I understood her concern. The Argentine tango was all about connection between the people dancing it. We had to sell the idea that we were hopelessly in love with each other, and that wasn’t going to be easy when Anders didn’t even want to be in the room with me.
Every time I started to feel like I had a handle on something, however insignificant, it got pulled right out from underneath me. There was probably a moral in that somewhere. If I ever found out what it was, I was going to knock its teeth right down its metaphorical throat.
“Anyway, your grandmother’s outside, and she said I should tell you she has the you-know-whats.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Malena. You’re in the ceiling. You’re dangling from the ceiling like some sort of weird bat. Do you really think this is the time to get coy about saying the words ‘counter-charm’ out loud?”
Malena responded by wrinkling her nose. “Well excuse me, Miss Knows-Everything. She’s in the alley. She said to tell you.”
“Right, and thank you for that.” I paused. “Why are you in the ceiling? You could have come in the door.”
“I wanted to wait until I could get you alone. Troy and I are doing a contemporary thing this week, and our choreographer wanted some time to work with him one-on-one, so she told me to go eat some ice chips and really try to embody my character.”
Contemporary dance routines were the most likely to come with weird, depressing, and outright morbid backstories. “Cancer dance?” I guessed.
“Thankfully not this time. It’s about eating disorders.” Malena smirked. “Troy has to pick me up like eight times, and catch me six more, and pretend I’m completely weightless for the whole routine. I figure that counts as payback for him being a total tool earlier this week.”
“Revenge is a dish best served with trust falls,” I said. “Did Grandma give you a charm?”
“She did,” said Malena. “Dominic has his, too. So it’s down to you, party girl.”
“On my way,” I said, and started for the door.
When I looked back at the ceiling, Malena was gone. Nothing lingered for long in places like this one. There wasn’t time.
Slipping out of the theater during the day was easier than I’d expected, thanks to the absence of both my choreographer and my partner. There were supposed to be security guards around, but since they were mostly to keep overeager fans from getting into the theater, they didn’t really pay much attention to dancers who were trying to get out.
The alley behind the theater was empty. I let the door swing shut behind me as I took a careful step away from it. “Olly olly oxen free,” I called softly.
A shadow peeled away from the wall behind the dumpster, stepping into the light and resolving into my grandmother. “Malena said you were having a fight with your partner,” she said.
I sighed. “Okay, wow, are we trying to set the land speed record for gossip out here or what? I said some things I didn’t mean, Anders took them in the worst way possible, everything is awful, I’m going to try to fix it tonight. I don’t want him getting eliminated if there’s anything I can do about it.”
“Just keep your focus and keep the faith, baby girl. I don’t want him getting eliminated, but I’m a little more focused on keeping you among the living.” Alice dipped a hand into the pocket of her motorcycle jacket and withdrew a long silver chain. “Catch.”
The metal was a glimmer in the air as she flung it in my direction. I reached up and snatched it, opening my hand to reveal a small silver disk engraved with a spiral of runes I didn’t recognize and couldn’t read. “What do I do with this, and what do I owe you? I thought these weren’t going to be ready for days.”