Chapter 30 - The Teacher at the Audition
Anya’s audition took place on a Saturday morning in a building with windows too high for anyone to look outside while warming up.
I went because she asked.
Not as her manager.
Not as someone who could promise a result.
As her teacher.
Her mother sat beside me with a bag containing sandwiches, safety pins, and the kind of worry that had no useful place to put itself.
“She didn’t sleep,” she whispered.
“Neither did you.”
She smiled faintly.
“No.”
Anya stood near the studio door, stretching more than she needed.
I called her over.
“You’ve warmed up.”
“I know.”
“Then stop trying to rehearse certainty.”
She looked at me.
For a moment, I saw myself.
Not at fourteen.
At the gala.
At Lincoln Center.
At every mirror where I had asked my body to erase the possibility of being judged.
“What if they don’t choose me?” she asked.
“Then you will still dance tomorrow.”
“That’s easy to say.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “It’s harder to believe.”
She nodded.
I adjusted a loose strand of hair after asking permission.
Then she went inside.
Through the glass, I watched the candidates line up.
Some had expensive warm-up clothes.
Some wore things carefully repaired.
Bodies did not reveal bank balances as reliably as people hoped.
The teacher began.
Anya listened.
When she danced, she became less anxious.
Not because she stopped caring.
Because the work gave her something specific to do.
Her mother gripped the sandwich bag.
I kept my hands folded.
At the end, the panel spoke privately with selected students.
Anya was one.
She emerged with shining eyes.
Then she looked at me and became careful.
“I might get a place.”
I smiled.
“That’s wonderful.”
“I’d have to leave the summer program here.”
“Yes.”
She swallowed.
“Are you really okay?”
“No teacher should make you responsible for her fear of losing you.”
The words surprised me as I said them.
They were for Anya.
They were also for myself.
That afternoon, I returned to my own rehearsal.
I had been cleared to increase certain work gradually, with continued review.
The permission was specific.
I intended to respect it.
Rossi watched while I marked a phrase.
He stopped me after sixteen counts.
“What are you doing?”
I looked down.
“The phrase?”
“No. The face.”
I blinked.
“You are apologizing to the room before the movement finishes.”
I laughed once.
“I thought you only criticized tempo.”
“I’m versatile.”
We worked for an hour.
No grand return.
No punishing proof.
One phrase becoming clearer.
When I finished, I was tired in a good way.
Alexander met me outside with two sandwiches.
I looked at the bag.
“Is everyone feeding dancers today?”
“Should I be threatened?”
“Only by safety pins.”
We ate on a bench.
He told me about a difficult operations meeting.
I told him about Anya.
For once, neither of our days required the other to rescue it.
Then my phone rang.
Camille.
Duval had responded to our revisions.
Some terms had improved.
Others remained unacceptable.
He was willing to separate a private family copy from the production proposal.
For a fee.
A real one.
Less than the value of the larger deal.
More than the cost of pressing a button.
I closed my eyes.
I disliked paying to hear my mother.
I disliked pretending he had acquired the archive for nothing too.
We would examine the price and rights carefully.
Then Camille’s voice changed.
“There’s another issue.”
I sat upright.
“A clip has been posted publicly.”
“By Duval?”
“We’re verifying the source.”
“What clip?”
“Your mother speaking about the work.”
I opened the link.
There she was.
The blue sweater.
The tired face.
A sentence cut loose from everything around it.
My daughter is not ready to understand what this demands.
The caption did the rest.
ELENA ROSTOVA’S PRIVATE DOUBTS ABOUT HER DAUGHTER’S FUTURE.
For a moment, I could not hear the city.
May you like
Only my mother’s voice.
And the terrible possibility that somebody had found exactly the sentence that could make me stop dancing.
