Variation: A Novel

Mtn2Creek: Man, I’m glad I never did ballet. That looks like torture, not training.

The sun peeked over the horizon, changing the white walls of my bedroom to delicate hues of pink and orange as I opened my eyes. My room had the best view of the sunrise.

But Hudson was right. I preferred sunset, preferred the anticipation of those hours when I’d been able to sneak out to see him, or sneak him in here. The irony wasn’t lost on me that we’d gone from completely concealing our friendship to faking a romance.

I groaned in frustration, realizing I wanted to see him, that my eyes had been open exactly fifteen seconds and I was thinking about him.

Sadie huffed in my ear and wiggled closer.

Right, she was why I’d woken up. “Another half hour. Come on, you know you can hold it.” I threw my arm over her back and snuggled into my pillow.

She. Licked. My. Face.

“Another fifteen minutes?” I begged. Sleep had become my greatest friend, and maybe, if I was being honest, a coping mechanism that was quickly turning into addiction. In unconsciousness, there were no ankle injuries, no rehabs, no decisions to be made about how hard to push myself and when. There were endless possibilities and zero consequences.

The mattress jostled me as Sadie jumped down, shaking her head and jingling the newly minted tags—one for her vaccinations and the other with her name and my number—on her new pink collar at a decibel my head immediately disliked.

“Five minutes?” Was I seriously negotiating with a puppy?

She whined from the door, warning me to get out of bed now or clean up the mess she was going to bless me with.

“Okay, okay.” I forced myself out of bed and shucked off my pj’s, then slipped quickly into my usual morning workout gear, sliding my phone into the side pocket of my leggings. An object in motion stays in motion. That’s what my mother always preached, and the Rousseau girls were never allowed to stop moving.

Sadie pranced, and I opened my door as quietly as possible so I wouldn’t wake Anne. She’d been up late with the planning committee for the Company gala. The Fourth of July was only a month away, and she was in crunch mode.

There was no point tiptoeing down the hall when Sadie took off at a run, her nails clicking against the hardwood as she bounded down the front stairs. I detoured only long enough to snag a bottle of water from the refrigerator, then walked Sadie down the long central hallway, past the dining room, office, and family room to the back door, groggily remembering to put in the alarm code before opening the door.

Sadie leapt across the porch and raced for the grass.

I closed the screen door quietly, then settled onto the outdoor love seat and twisted the bottle open. Hydrate, that was always the first order of the morning. I chugged half the bottle down despite the morning chill and checked on Sadie, who was happily sniffing around the bushes. She hadn’t run yet, and always came back when I called her, but our relationship was only a week old, so I wasn’t exactly counting on her to be a paragon of puppyhood.

It was beautiful out here, the clouds reflecting the pink of sunrise from the storm that had passed yesterday. Only when I’d nearly finished the water did I open my phone and take it off Do Not Disturb. Three text messages popped up: two from Eva and one from Kenna.

Kenna: If you don’t call me back I’m going to send out a search party.

It was too early for the guilt that came along with that one, so I opened the next.

Eva: You should def shoot some rehab content tomorrow. People need to see you’re still alive.

Eva: Might be good to correct some misinformation too.

I sighed and clicked on the Seconds video she’d sent accompanying the message. The app opened on my phone, and a video from a popular dancer started playing.

“So let’s talk about the four reasons dancers are injured. First, physique.” The video transitioned to a dancer I was mildly acquainted with falling after he’d come back too soon after his third knee replacement. “Second, technique.” I winced as a dancer inappropriately distributed her weight in an arabesque and rolled her ankle. “Third, mishap.” A pas de deux went incredibly wrong and the man dropped his partner. “And fourth, overuse.”

My stomach dropped to the porch as I appeared on the screen, going into the eighteen turns in the Giselle variation. Turn it off. Scroll. Now. It didn’t matter that my brain threw out every warning—I couldn’t look away, my gaze locked on the train wreck that ended my season . . . and maybe my career. There it was, the second I’d faltered, lost my focus when I’d thought I’d seen him in the empty seat. The video didn’t catch the sound of my tendon popping, but my brain filled in the audio just fine as I screamed and my castmates rushed to carry me offstage.

“Principal dancer Alessandra Rousseau had already had one Achilles repair, and rumor around the Company is she knew she was injured and went on anyway. That decision may have cost her a dream career.” The video transitioned back to the original poster. “So what do you think? Was this mishap? Technique? Physique? Or overuse? Let me know in the comments.”

The little witch tagged us.

Like a masochist, I opened the comments.

Ballet4Life97: Definitely overuse. So stupid of her.

Ryandnzx: Could be physique. She looks a little out of shape.

Ballet4Life97: Good point, those costume seams are screaming

Dancegrl6701: A second achilles tear? May as well fill her spot. She’s not coming back.

OnPointe34: No shit right? Get out of the way for a corps member

CassidyFairchilde1: She could make it back.

Dancegrl6701: Sure, if she wants to teach. But dance? No way. Not as principal.

NYFouette92: From what I hear, they’re already replacing her.

Bway11te: how do you throw a career away like that?

ReeseOnToe: Shame. She’s ballet royalty. Hope she heals

Tutucutex20: Fucking idi*t Play stupid games and all that.

Bright2Lit: Even if she comes back, she’ll never be 100

WestCoastPointe: Met her once. Pretentious and arrogant

OnPointe34: Really? Figures. Most nepo babies are

WestCoastPointe: Company’s better off without her. Trust me. Diva.

I closed out the app and fought to breathe through the crushing, sharp pain blooming in my chest. Formal reviews in the Times had nothing on the casual viciousness of the internet.

Sadie plodded up the steps and climbed into the chair, her paw barely missing my thigh as she completely consumed my personal space and made herself at home, turning in the tight space and collapsing across my lap.

I sank my fingers into her fur and drew one breath, then another.

May as well fill her spot. She’s not coming back. As hard as I tried to let the comments go, that one stuck an ice pick in my soul and left a mark. Why would Eva send me something like that? Didn’t she realize I was already well aware of what people were saying?

“I can’t even escape myself out here,” I muttered as my heart rate slowed. Wouldn’t matter where I went, the internet could follow. It was one of the reasons I hadn’t wanted a damn Seconds account.

May as well fill her spot. She’s not coming back.

Yes, I was. It was as simple and as impossible as that. “Let’s get some breakfast.”

I took Sadie inside and fed us both, then hit the gym. The only person telling me what I could and couldn’t do was me.

“Hey, are you—” Anne peeked in through the open studio door, fully dressed for the day in white linen shorts and a blue polo, holding a small silver picture frame. “What are you doing?” She kicked off her sandals and walked in.

I swept my right foot forward back into first position, keeping my left hand on the barre. “Rond de jambe. What does it look like?” I repeated the move, tendu to the front, pointing my foot, then drawing it out to the side, then back before bringing it back to first again.

“It’s seven a.m.” She studied the movement of my foot. “How long have you been in here?”

“Started my workout at six.” I repeated the move, testing my Achilles with each flex and point of my foot. The pain was minimal, whatever that meant. “Cardio on the bike, Pilates machine, everything the doc prescribed.” No demi-pointe.

“Turnout looks good.” She walked over slowly, eyeing me like I was a wild animal poised for flight. “What else have you been doing?”

“I warmed up with the fouettés from Swan Lake.” Forward. Side. Back. First. The motions were muscle memory after decades in the studio, but my ankle wasn’t quite getting with the program.

“Ha ha. Very funny.” She folded her arms. “Do you do this every morning?”

I nodded. “While you’re asleep so I avoid the lectures.”

“Alone?” There was a definite purse to her lips.

“Sadie keeps me company now.”

The golden lifted her head in the corner in response to her name, then went back to chewing on her toy.

“I thought you only worked out once a day, not twice.” A hint of disapproval slid into Anne’s tone. “You have to take it easy on your ankle or you’ll . . .” She sighed. “Train yourself into the ground.”

“This is easy. I’m used to being in the studio ten hours a day.” I wasn’t taking baby steps; I was barely crawling from where I wanted—needed—to be.

“If you tear that tendon again—”

“I know!” I dropped my hand and yanked off my split-sole slippers. “I’m well aware that if I push and it snaps again, I’m done.” One. Two. I tossed them at my canvas ballet bag beneath the windowsill as I crossed the studio floor. “But if I don’t push, don’t fight to heal, I’m done too. They’ll replace me, Anne. There’s always someone waiting in the wings. Charlotte danced my part all of five minutes after they carried me off the stage that night.” I snagged my Hydro Flask and my phone off the windowsill, then opened it to Eva’s text message and handed it to Anne.

“You are irreplaceable,” Anne said gently. “There is no one capable of taking your spot, Allie. You’re a once-in-a-decade talent.” She glanced down at the phone. “What is this?”

“Watch.” I sat on the floor and stretched my warm muscles between drinks of water, cringing when I heard the content creator’s voice.

“This is bullshit.” Anne crouched in front of me. “Allie, tell me you know this is bullshit.” Her eyes searched mine, and when I didn’t respond, she scrolled down. “And please tell me you didn’t read through these heinous comments.” She closed the app and put my phone on the floor. “Why would Eva send something like that to you?”

“I’m sure she thought it would motivate me to hit the workouts harder. Which it did.” I put my feet into a butterfly stretch, sole to sole, then tugged my ankles toward my torso. “After it cut me into bite-size pieces.”

“People say stupid shit when there’s no accountability for running their mouths,” she muttered.

“It was both physique and overuse.” I released the stretch. “My Achilles never fully healed after the accident, and I refused to slow down even when it became apparent I needed to. I had every intention of rehabbing post-Nutcracker season, but then Vasily offered me Giselle, and all I could think was . . .” My shoulders dipped.

“You wanted to make Mom proud. I get it.”

“Yeah.” But she didn’t. Once Anne quit, the pressure evaporated off her shoulders, only to be redistributed between Lina, Eva, and me.

Now there were only two of us to carry it, and if I broke, it would leave only Eva.

“Speaking of Mom.” She sat in front of me. “I looked through the pictures in their room last night.”

“Feeling nostalgic?”

She handed me the five-by-seven frame. “Something wasn’t sitting right about Lina.”

“You mean the part where she hid an entire pregnancy from us? Or the part where she never mentioned she’d had a baby and given it up for adoption?” I glanced at the photo, noting Mom’s and Lina’s bright smiles, their heads leaned together in front of the lit-up poster advertising Don Quixote. “What am I missing, here? Mom went to San Francisco to see Lina perform. We all knew that.”

“They’re in full winter coats.” Anne sat up on her knees and tapped the glass at the top of the frame, where the poster read March 3-13.

“Oh.” I looked over the picture again, searching for any sign of Lina’s pregnancy under the thick puffer jacket and finding none. “She would have been seven months pregnant.”

“Right.” She took out her phone, pulling up the internet. “And I remembered that I’d been on spring break from NYU that week and Mom wouldn’t let me go with her. Said she needed the one-on-one time to get Lina’s head on straight because she was only in the studio company. She was disappointed that she wasn’t an apprentice yet, let alone corps.” She turned the phone around to show me the cast for that season. “Lina isn’t on it.” She flipped back a few programs to the fall. “She’s here.” Flip. “And here.” Nutcracker. “Even there—‘Lina Rousseau, Studio Company.’ Then she disappears. Mom brought that picture home, but Lina isn’t listed in the program.”

“They staged the picture.” My heart started to pound. “Mom knew about Juniper.”

Anne nodded. “Get dressed.”