I WALKED TO THE FOUNTAIN on Monday with a creeping sense of dread, but for the wrong reasons. The anxieties stacked up inside me like layers of rock sediment, or maybe Dante’s Inferno (Dante the thirteenth-century Italian poet, not Dante the twenty-first-century Manhattan drug dealer, although both of them brought to mind circles of hell). On top, the most all-consuming, was the Showcase cast list, which according to tradition would be posted on the bulletin board outside the auditorium after lunch, at the beginning of sixth period. I was fresh out of pointe class with Ms. Adair, and the way she’d treated me had made my blood pressure spike. It wasn’t that she’d been cold or cruel, like I’d worried she’d be; it had been worse—she’d been extra nice, complimenting my form in front of the class, asking me to demonstrate a high arabesque, even commenting that my ribbons were laced perfectly. To anyone else I probably looked like a teacher’s pet, but I had the distinct feeling that she was just killing me with kindness to set me up for a crushing blow she already knew was coming.
Underneath that, of course, was my fear of seeing Liv—or Dave, or Ethan . . . pretty much anyone except you (though I’d even been relieved to have had pointe class that morning so that you wouldn’t be there, just to put off having to talk about any of the other three for a while). I’d lived the rest of my weekend in a sort of bubble, keeping my phone mostly silent, doing homework and helping my dad cook, watching dance movies on cable. I did check every few hours to see if Liv had texted, but amazingly, she never did. I knew she was alive, though, because she’d posted a photo on Saturday, of a toddler face-planting on a Slip’N Slide, accompanied by the hashtag #currentmood.
At the bottom of my pile of worries, throbbing faintly but unmistakably, was my right ankle. Something was wrong; it wasn’t just sore, and no amount of ice over the weekend had made the gnawing pain go away. That should have been my first priority, I knew that, but it felt like denial was the only option. I couldn’t stop dancing, not with Showcase and potential company auditions coming up, and telling anyone I was injured would only ensure that I would be taken out of the running. I couldn’t imagine my parents not freaking out, since apart from a stable income, my health was the biggest thing we fought over about ballet. I’d had this Alvin Ailey poster above my bed since I was nine that pictured a beautiful dancer clutching her shoulders, facing the camera, in the middle of an acrobatic grand jeté. I loved it because she didn’t look perfect and prissy; her face was almost in anguish, her hair flying out wild above her. To me, she looked like passion incarnate, but every time my mom saw the poster she’d say, “Look at that gorgeous body! I bet her joints are crumbling.”
In class that morning my ankle had throbbed, but keeping it warm with an Ace bandage and leg warmers had kept the discomfort hovering just above tolerable. For the time being, I could shove it out of my mind. Unlike the drama with Liv.
I wasn’t sure what the dynamic would be when we all met for lunch. It seemed possible that Dave wouldn’t be joining us after the disaster that had been our collective first impression. You had texted me at two A.M. on Saturday morning to say that Liv was safely asleep in her bed and Ethan was passed out on the couch, but that was all I knew. So when I stepped into Lincoln Center proper and saw everyone, including Dave, clustered in our usual spot, interacting in a way that didn’t seem (at least to the naked eye) openly hostile, it was a pleasant surprise. The weather had gotten nicer, too, so that the ice had melted into a slushy sheen on the pavement, and coats could be left partially unzipped without fear of frostbite.
“What up, girl!” Liv yelled when she saw me. She was sitting on the bench between you and Ethan, who was busy annotating one of his scripts with a mechanical pencil. You were wolfing down a hotdog and Liv was clutching a diet soda in one hand and her phone in the other. Dave stood in front of you, looking fine from behind in his bomber jacket and skinny jeans. When Liv called out, he turned and waved, shielding his eyes from the bright winter sun. I couldn’t tell if he was smiling or grimacing. I wasn’t sure if I was, either.
“Hey,” I said cautiously, sliding onto the bench next to you.
“Hey!” You raised your eyebrows. “I didn’t think you were coming. You didn’t reply to any of my texts.”
“Oh, sorry.” I’d left my phone off since 10:15, when pointe had started. “You know Adair and vibrate.” She had an ear like a bat, able to detect faint buzzing in a packed duffel from twenty feet away.
“Yeah, well, check your shit,” you said in a low voice.
“Check what?” Liv asked, peering into her bag, which was Mary Poppins–sized, the better to hold the entire drawer’s worth of makeup and up to four half-finished Smartwaters she carried on her at any given time. “Cast lists won’t be up for at least another forty minutes.” She fished out a lip balm and glared pointedly at Ethan. “Apparently they’re being guarded like the fucking Oscar ballots.”
“No special treatment,” Ethan said, without looking up from his script. “People would talk.” He smiled to himself and moved his right hand to Liv’s legging-clad left leg. Dave looked at the ground. I unzipped my duffel and slipped my hand in, searching for my phone.