“Boring.”
They both laughed and Grace help Boh get to her feet. “Come on, let’s grab something to eat before we go home.”
Boh and Grace shared a walk-up apartment in Brooklyn and had done so since they were both in thecorps de ballet. Now that they were both senior dancers, they could have afforded their own places, but they enjoyed living with each other and saw no reason to change.
They ate at a small diner on the way to the subway, then huddled down together as the train took them home. September and the heat of the New York summer had quickly faded and as fall began, the leaves were falling and a cold wind from the north was swirling around the city.
At home, their cat, Beelzebub, a darkly malevolent tabby, was waiting for them to feed him, wandering between their legs, yelling until Boh dumped a bowl of kibble on the kitchen floor for him. “Fiend,” she said fondly, scratching his ears as he ate his food.
Grace had a date, and so, after commandeering the bathroom for an hour, she called goodbye to Boh, who was reading in her room. The apartment was silent after Grace left, and Boh reveled in the peace of it. She loved being alone, away from other people, the long hours of exercise and practice a strain on her introverted side
She loved ballet, every part of it except the public side. Boh had been raised to be quiet, the silent child at the dinner table, the only-speak-when-spoken-to daughter. The youngest of five, Boh had often been forgotten by her wayward parents, who only had children because it was expected of them in their Indian American family. The moment she was sixteen, Boh had taken the money she had saved from her part-time job at the local Dairy Queen and caught a bus to New York City. She had lived on fellow dancers’ couches until she was accepted into her ballet school, then stayed in the dorm rooms, where she had met Grace.
Now in her own place, her family a distant memory, Boh was as content as she had ever been—apart from one glaring thing. Lately, she had experienced fatigue for many days in a row. Days turned into weeks, and finally, last week she had been to see her doctor. She had anemia, probably, her doctor told her, hereditary. “A mild version, thank goodness, and we can treat you.” The doctor smiled kindly at her as she read through her notes. “I already know the answer to this, Boh, but could you see yourself taking some time off?”
They had both laughed, but they both knew there waszerochance of that. “I’ll take any pills, eat anything you say I should, but that’s the one thing I can’t do. I will get as much rest as I can, I promise.” Boh told her, and the doctor had to be satisfied with that.
Boh got up now and went to run a bath. She thought herself lucky that her naturally introverted nature meant she rarely went out at night, preferring to stay home and read or watch movies. She and Grace would sometimes cook for each other, healthy, made-from-scratch meals from recipes they found on the Internet, otherwise a usual diet of salmon or chicken with steamed vegetables was their mainstay.
Despite the rumors of eating disorders plaguing the ballet world, it was less prevalent than expected and the NYSMBC had strict policies on nutrition. “Fit, healthy bodies of appropriate weight for age and height” was the mantra. When a dancer was suspected of developing a disorder, they were given three strikes to help combat it, and support to beat it. If the dancer didn’t do their part, after three sessions with the company counselor, they were dismissed from the company and sent to a treatment center. The company’s chief executive, Liz Secretariat, an ex-prima, enforced that rule fiercely, and chastised any teacher who made the dancers question their body shape.
Of course, it didn’t mean the dancers couldgorgethemselves, but now, when Boh broke off a large piece of dark chocolate and put it on a plate to enjoy as she soaked in the bath, she didn’t feel guilty about it. She downed two of her prescribed iron tablets with some orange juice and grabbed her old half-buried-beneath-paperbacks copy of her company guidelines. She still didn’t know whether she was required to report her illness if it wasn’t serious. She would rather not. It would just mean the company watching her closely and she could do without that right now.
She wished Kristof, the company’s art director, would make up his mind about which ballets to perform. It made rehearsals stressful when they were running through six or seven different combinations to vastly different music. All of the dancers’ feet were wrecked, but Kristof seemed to work Boh harder than the rest. While they caught their breath, he would tell Boh to run through a set of leaps and jumps, basic steps that even the apprentices knew.
After the sessions, he would keep her longer to tell her about every single step she had performed, what was wrong with it, what was wrong with her. Boh had a thick skin and she would automatically filter out the nonsense and concentrate on the stuff that she could learn from.
Of course, when Kristof was in an extra-spiteful mood, even her thick skin couldn’t escape his barbs. That, she knew, stemmed from her refusal to sleep with him. More than once he had come onto her, and every time she said no. It wasn’t just that she had no interest in him sexually, but the thought of his hands on her body made her feel sick.
She knew some of her fellow dancers found him attractive, and looking at the man with an unbiased eye, she knew he was a handsome man. Dark hair, dark brown eyes, a square, strong jaw … yes, Kristof Mendelev was a catch.
But she loathed his personality, his arrogance, even though his high opinion of his own talent was justified. Boh was so aware of the important of confidence tempered with humility that she couldn’t abide conceit.
Serena, her fellow dancer and nemesis, would scoff at her. “You’re too soft, Dali. This isballet—it doesn’t get more cutthroat than this.”
“And yet, still, I made principal without having to resort to being a bitch,Serena,” she would shoot back to the amusement of the other dancers.
Her hated of Serena went deeper than being rivals for the leading roles. Boh knew she had the edge—but so did Serena, and that made the other woman antagonistic. Not only that, but Boh suspected Serena of being racist. Boh was the first Indian American to become principal in their ballet company, and the company had made much in the media of her ascendance. Serena, an Upper East Side princess, had mocked the interviews and photo shoots, but Boh knew it was only out of jealousy.
Serena was a thorn in her side but not a big one. As Boh soaked in the tub, she tried to concentrate on her book—the new Paul Auster—but found her mind wandering. Today she had received a letter from her oldest sister, Maya, telling her that their father was seriously ill and not likely to live another six months.
Boh tested her heart and felt nothing. Nothing for the man who’d ignored her for the first seven years of her life, and then, on her eighth birthday, the day they had moved into a new apartment and she had her own room for once, the day he had crept into her room for what he would call their “Special Secret Time.”
No, she felt nothing for the man who had abused her. She had told only one person—Maya—who had slapped her face and told her never to tell. Boheme knew, at that moment, that her father had done the same thing to her sister.
Bastard.
She had written back to Maya.
I’m sorry for the pain it causes the rest of you, but really, he gets what he deserves. You know why.
Boh.
There had been no reply and now Boh pushed the memories of her father away.You,she thought,you are the reason I have no heart, no passion for a man. You.
She hauled herself out of the cool water and studied her naked body in front of the mirror. Tall, lean, with skin the color of milky coffee, she nevertheless had full breasts, something Serena mocked her for too, but she never worried that she didn’t fit the preferred dancer body type. It wasn’t such a big deal, nowadays.
She dried herself off and changed into her worn but comfortable pajamas, slipping into bed and switching off the lamp. It was only10 p.m. but she didn’t care. Sleep was ambrosia to her, especially now.God, I am middle-aged at twenty-two,she thought to herself, but soon her eyes closed and she fell into a peaceful sleep, woken only by Beelzebub padding his paws onto her back in the early hours.
