AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“D’you really think that’s wise? With all that the mardy old bag said to you yesterday?”
I did a fact check. “Peter’s class is good. This new one isn’t. If Madame’s looking for an excuse to expel me, it’s going to happen anyway. I might as well stay with Peter as long as possible.”
And that is what I did, heading straight for Peter’s lesson the next day. As soon as I arrived in the studio, it was clear that our old teacher was irritated by the decimation of his class. All the best dancers, bar me, and I warmed to him for saying so, were gone. Those of us who were left got more individual attention, and there was plentiful room at the barre, so no need to turn to avoid kicking anyone. But despite these benefits, there was a sense of missing something, of an opportunity passing by unnoticed.
The next lesson on my timetable, pas de deux – partnering class – was also taught by Peter, so I lingered by the small upright piano, grinding my feet in the rosin box, pondering the wistful sadness that had pervaded the day. Had I been too quick to dismiss the new teacher? If he was starting a new school, and I was being ousted from this one— The thought stream was interrupted.
Will Hearst, the most annoying student in college, appeared in the doorway wearing his trademark trackies-and-socks combo. He constantly flouted the school’s dress code. I’d never seen him in tights or ballet shoes. His insistence that we were friends because we’d known each other when younger was only matched in idiocy by Peter’s insistence that we still partnered one another in this class.
As the only two students doing the teacher program in our year, we were often flung together, and I suspended annoyance to help him with the resulting paperwork as that part of the course gave him some difficulty. Today, however, his grin told me he was on top form, short brown hair all spiky and irritating as he strolled across the studio.
“You’re in so much trouble,” he sang, and I saw that he had the morose Ukrainian in tow, all in black again, and bee-lining for me.
“You are to be in my class,” stated the stern man. “Why are you being here?”
“I decided to stay in this one,” I said, interested by his unusual vowel pronunciation. I liked the way he spoke. I liked the odd little dent on the bridge of his nose, the imperfection somehow smoothing away the intimidating effect of his haughty demeanor.
Peter had been listening. “And she was right to stay here. You can’t just waltz in and interfere with the training schedule of my dancers, Zolotov. It’s clearly not in their best interest.”
They faced one another, and the air grew charged, prickly and unpleasant like Will’s hair. Zolotov – I only just resisted the temptation to say the name out loud, to experience the pleasing repetition of sounds again – was the taller of the two men, looking down at Peter from on high.
“Surely they should train with many different teachers, learn more methods, be pushed in new ways?” he countered.
“But you’re not a teacher, are you?” remarked Peter. “Being a dancer does not automatically qualify you to teach. I don’t believe this sort of experimentation should be allowed on our students.”
“You were a dancer,” I said to Peter, feeling the need to point out hypocrisy.
“Yes, Amalphia, but I am an experienced teacher now.”
“You weren’t when you first taught me.”
“It is the now we are concerned with here,” he snapped. “This is not straightforward guest teaching. The new school is a research facility. It all sounds decidedly suspect.” He turned to Zolotov. “You’re just the front name, chosen to lure susceptible young people in.”
“This? It is simply not true,” replied Zolotov. “Some scientific study is to take place for funding, yes, a small amount each day. I am concerned only with the teaching of ballet, to the highest standards, to those with talent.” He turned to me, his eyes, which apparently I was looking directly into again, seemed to smile, though his mouth remained serious. “Please, it is your choice. Do one class to try.”
“And what about your girlfriend in red?” I asked. “Is she also concerned with teaching ballet to the highest standards?”
“My colleague,” he corrected, “runs the research. She is now back in Scotland with her studies.”
Facts: it was my last year of college. Then, much as I didn’t like to think about it, there would be big changes. Performing, if I could get Madame to arrange an audition for me at the company associated with the school. And if I could cope with the stage fright. Teaching, if I couldn’t. Acting, maybe? I didn’t know what work I would eventually manage to get and do, but this different and new teacher might help prepare me for it. He might help me be as good as I could be.
“You should totally do it, Malph,” said Will, barging into my thoughts for the second time that day. “We’ve done lifts this morning, and I’ve got that fat girl.” Annoying. “Bevan’s got Simone. That’s worth seeing.” Interesting. “I’m Amalphia’s partner,” he told Zolotov, and my patience for his interruptions ran out.
“Well, there’s a good reason not to do it,” I blurted. “Three pas de deux classes a week with you is plenty. The constant chat is bad enough, but the smell… no. It’s too much.”
I’d gone too far. Will strode away to the other side of the room wearing his ‘shut off from everyone’ expression and began to warm up, surely a pointless exercise given that he’d just done class.
Aleksandr Zolotov took my hand in both of his. “Ah, but you will work with me. Everyone else is already in pairs, and I do not think I am smelling so bad? You would have noticed this on the day we meet, the day you are not saying sorry for banging into me?”
“Why would I apologise for something that wasn’t my fault?”
He inclined his head as if conceding the point, then turned swiftly and left. The assumption that I would do his class was clear, and correct.
“Don’t let yourself be swayed by a handsome face and charisma,” Peter urged. “He’s very keen to get you into his class. He has quite a reputation, you know. He’ll be steering you in the direction of his bed next.”
I decided it best to walk wordlessly away from such extreme nonsense and headed across the studio to Will, no longer the most annoying man in the room. I laid my hand on his arm, apologised for the inappropriate blurt and explained that it was only salt-and-vinegar crisps he smelled of. “Maybe a mint would help?” I suggested. “I’m surprised one of your many girlfriends hasn’t mentioned it to you before now.”
“Never gonna let that drop, are you, Treadwell?”
