The Calling (2 page)

“We've bought it and have had the utilities turned on. We needed a place to perform.”

“Who are you?” the man on her left asked again.

“My name is Miki—actually Michaela O'Ryan. My friends call me Miki.” Maybe if she acted normal, acted friendly. “I take dance lessons in that building on the corner. Modern dance. I hope to be a professional some day. With Nancy Spanier or—or—” Now she was babbling.

The director reached for her hand. “I'm pleased to meet you, Michaela O'Ryan. Irish, I suppose, with your red-gold hair. You're supposed to have green eyes. Are those contacts?”

Miki started to breathe again. He was flirting. She could handle flirting. “No, my father had blue eyes. I know it's unusual.”

The boy on the left spoke. “I like the way you look. I like you. My name is Romney.”

“Kyle.” The boy on the right introduced himself.

“Are you twins?” Miki asked.

Romney giggled. “You could say that. Are we twins, Kyle?”

“Twins,” Kyle agreed, as if that was a new idea to him. “Yes, we're twins. And this is Barron.” Kyle gave Miki the director's name.

“Primavera.” The small girl with long black hair had joined them. She lay her hand open to her right and pulled another young woman up to meet Miki. “Rima.”

“Why do you all—well, except for Kyle—” She smiled at him. “Why do you have such unusual names?” Miki asked, hoping that wasn't a rude question. But she looked at Barron as if to show she was no longer afraid, and, after all, he'd asked a direct question. “Are they real? I mean, are they your birth names?”

Barron smiled. “I'm afraid so. Somewhat old fashioned, perhaps, but we like them.”

“We have two choices,” Primavera said, looking at Miki, but directing her voice at Barron, “but we need another dancer.”

Barron stared at Miki again. “Stand up.”

Miki hoped her legs would support her. She didn't dare disobey the order. And it was an order.

She pushed against the worn plush cushion and stood, trying not to wobble. “I don't know.” The idea of dancing with this group was both exciting and frightening. She hadn't had time to think about it. She liked to think about things. She didn't make decisions quickly.

“You probably wouldn't have time for your classes.” Barron reached out and turned her around slowly. “Come up on the stage.”

“I'm still in school—a senior.” Miki followed Romney into the center aisle.

“No problem,” Kyle said from behind her. “We never start rehearsals until about five or later. We're like most performers. We stay up late and sleep through the day.” He laughed and the others joined in. The group seemed so close—like family.

“What are you called?” Miki paused before she climbed the steps to the stage.

Primavera looked at Barron, who nodded. “We call ourselves The Theater of the Dead. We're pretending to be vampires.”

“Oh.” Miki laughed. “I remember, Paris once had a Theater of Vampires. But shouldn't you be called Undead, Theater of the Undead?”

Primavera laughed. “Perhaps.” The rest of the troupe joined in the laughter.

Miki was glad they all seemed to have a sense of humor about what they were doing. And being vampires explained the fact that everyone wore black; that their hair was black or dyed black; and that their faces were made up to look so pale.

“We work on the trapezes.” Rima pushed the red velvet swing so the bar came closer and closer to Miki. “Have you ever done that?” There was a challenge in Rima's eyes. If Miki wasn't mistaken, it was a challenge Rima hoped she either wouldn't take or wouldn't win. She could see that Rima didn't want her to join the troupe.

“No, but it looks like fun. May I try?” Miki accepted the open challenge from Rima and perhaps from the whole troupe. She'd be working with a real troupe. How could she not make a decision like that in a split second? Of course, she wanted to be a part of a real dance troupe. It was what she'd worked her whole life to achieve.

“Of course.” Barron shaded his eyes and looked toward the small room in the balcony that housed the light boards. “Elah, some stage lights again,” he called.

A tall man walked onto the stage from the wings. He seemed older than the rest of the troupe. His face was long and lean, and his dark blue eyes were smudged underneath as if mascara—no more like ashes had been rubbed around them. His mouth was a thin slash of crimson.

The director stared at him. “Elah, why aren't you on lights?”

“Davin is on lights. I was having some problems, and he's helped me figure them out. I don't like this idea. She won't work out.” The man studied Miki and frowned. He had been listening to their conversation and now he had voted before he watched her dance.

Miki swallowed hard. The way the man stared at her made her shiver and doubt herself again.

“We're short two women,” Barron said. “She can try.”

His word must have been the one they followed, since Kyle pushed her toward the swing, and Primavera held the bar out to her. This was the first time Miki had seen anyone's hands. Primavera's nails were long, pointed, and painted black.

All the troupe had a punk look about them, and punk was out. But maybe they hadn't heard. Or maybe they didn't care. This was their image—Vampire Punk. Miki smiled inside, since she didn't dare smile at anyone around her. Suddenly they all seemed so serious, and now two of them were against her. One openly, one in secret, at least for now. She needed to concentrate on dancing, not on who liked her, who wanted her, who didn't.

“We'll do some improvisation to the music. Move however you like, let the music take you,” Barron instructed. “We always start a new piece with improv, then set it later.”

“Maybe she'd better watch for a minute, since she hasn't used the swing.” Primavera moved—floated—to the other swing. She beckoned to Kyle to lift her.

“You're right.” Barron lifted his hand, music filled the stage, and a blue spotlight hit them.

The melody was strange, eerie, haunting. But it captured Miki's imagination immediately, and she wished she didn't have to watch. She needed to dance.

Primavera sat on the swing, but instead of pumping it herself, Kyle leaped up behind her. He placed one foot on either side of her hips, against the rope, and pumped the swing by bending his legs slightly and pulling on the ropes.

As soon as they floated slowly back and forth, he twisted and leaned to the right, one foot on the bar beside Primavera, one pointed into the air.

Primavera tumbled off the high, black swing, keeping both hands on the bar to sway freely. Then she lifted herself, pushed up off the bar, and centered her waist across it. With arms stretched forward and legs behind, she swung, looking like a blackbird, balanced perfectly.

In one movement she stood. The switch was done so quickly and smoothly, Miki hardly knew how she had managed it. Now she leaned to the left, a mirror image to Kyle.

With an intense bass note from the music, Kyle centered on the bar and reached for Primavera. Leaning backward across his arm, she dangled her head and long hair down, exposing her slender, white throat.

Kyle's mouth stretched into a smile and he bent to—to—Miki could think of only one word. They were pretending to be vampires. Kyle stretched to feed.

The music stopped abruptly. Kyle and Primavera leaped to the stage gracefully and stood before Miki. Primavera pointed to the red velvet trapeze. Romney moved into place to lift Miki up.

Miki knew it was silly, but her stomach twisted and churned, knowing now the troupe expected her to imitate this dark ancient ritual transformed into modern dance.

Three

R
OMNEY'S HANDS, WARM
on her waist, lifted her gently, as if her weight were that of a small, feathered bird.

“Your shoes.” Romney giggled.

Miki felt her face heat. She didn't dare look at anyone. She wore rain boots she had found on sale at the London store on Chelsea Avenue. She must look like a duck on a wire.

Carefully lifting each foot in turn, while clutching the soft velvet ropes, she let Romney slip the boots off. She heard them clunk as he tossed them off the stage. Her feet were bare inside the shoes so she was ready to dance.

She was glad she hadn't changed out of her leotard. And at least she had shrugged off her London Fog raincoat, leaving it on the theater seat, along with her umbrella. How could she have forgotten the boots? Nerves do funny things to performers, she excused herself, then concentrated on the music that floated from the speakers.

Lifting her weight, she lowered herself to sit on the bar.

Romney leaped onto the bar, and she could feel the inside of his muscled legs hug her shoulders as he pumped to set the swing in motion. She straightened her legs, leaned back, and pretended to be a child again.

How do you like to go up in a swing? Up in the sky so blue?
She remembered the poem by Robert Louis Stevenson she had loved.
Up in the air I go flying again
—
Up in the air
—
and down!

She'd had no swing as a child, of course. There was no room in an apartment for a swing. A memory surfaced. Going home with a girl in third grade who did live in a house. Who did have a yard. A swing. A family.

Tears sprung easily to Miki's eyes. Her emotion came from the music, she told herself. The notes ranged low and lonely, deep and dark and full of denial.

Instead of expecting her to turn and flip—the seat was too low—Romney spun off to the side of the bar, indicating that he meant to lift her, pick her up, and set her spinning onto the stage. She let the music take her, forgetting that she had an audience, an important audience. She bent and swayed, lay on the floor, rolled, stood, then ran lightly to the trapeze and grasped the bar.

To her surprise, she was able to roll onto the bar and seat herself, cling to the side and dangle sideways. She felt her braid loosen and her own long hair dangle. The slight breeze floated it back and forth across her face. Her fingertips brushed the stage.

She righted herself, pumped with her legs, leaning back again. Romney, who was on the floor, found room to slip onto the swing with her. Like two small children, they leaned and flew. Up and up and up. Down and down and down. The motion took her breath away, but she put her head back and laughed silently, delighted with the sensation.

As the music slowed they let the swing slow of its own accord. Then to her surprise, startling her, Romney leaned toward her throat, which she had exposed by leaning back farther and farther.

She felt her whole body tense as his long hair brushed her cheeks. His kiss on her throat was warm and moist and too familiar to come from a stranger.

To her relief, Barron called. “Enough, Romney. You were brilliant as usual.”

Romney straightened, then leaped to the floor. He stopped the swing and lifted Miki. She could not look at him, but stared at her bare feet, thinking only that she was glad she had polished her nails soft seashell pink, only the night before. Would she have to paint them black now?

“Michaela—such a beautiful name—I will call you that. You were lovely. I am surprised that you've never worked on the bars before. You have a magic about you that can't be taught, that can't be learned. You have to feel it, and I can see that you feel the music and the mood of the dance.”

Miki looked up to catch the black eyes of Primavera. She saw no jealousy there, as she might have expected. Instead there was a warm acceptance in her smile.

Primavera stepped forward and hugged her, sending her sweet gardenia scent around them both. “We are sisters, Michaela. Welcome to the Theater of the Dead. You were truly lovely. Your coloring, so different from ours, will set you apart. We will feature you in your own dance.”

Scarcely able to breathe, Miki accepted the compliment, the magnetic pull toward Primavera that made her hug back. What had happened when she slipped through that door into this theater? She was a person who didn't like to be touched, who let other dancers touch her only because she knew touching in modern dance was necessary.

“Sisters.” Rima also stepped forward and hugged her. Her long black hair brushed Miki's face, and her musk-based perfume floated darkly around Miki. Rima hadn't looked directly at Miki as Primavera had, so Miki couldn't be sure her actions were sincere. She continued to sense that Rima didn't like her, didn't approve of her being in the troupe at all.

Miki stepped back and tried to regain her composure. But it was difficult. She felt drawn to this troupe in some strange, atavistic way. As if she had known them before, been a part of their—their—family at some time in the past and was only now remembering their love.

On one level this frightened her. On another she welcomed and craved it with all of her heart. She didn't know if she was magic, as Barron had suggested, but she did think some kind of magic was being worked before her eyes.

She looked at each member of the troupe, who were now gathered on the stage around her, seeing, feeling, that strange magnetic pull toward them. Until she looked at Elah.

There was no love, no acceptance in Elah's dark blue eyes. There was the jealousy she felt was more common among dancers, and something else. Something more. For some reason, she felt that Elah hated her. Why? And hate was such a strong word. He didn't know her any better than the rest of the troupe. Why would he hate her? Was hate the emotion she was seeing? Was it her imagination?

Could she win him over? Could she change that look in his eyes? She didn't know, but for now she chose to look away and try to ignore him. He spun on his heel and headed offstage, which made him easier to forget.

“So you will join us?” Barron smiled. “You will be a member of our family?”

He used the magic word. Not group or troupe. Not cast or club or gang. But family. How could she resist? She didn't think she could say no even if her life depended on it.