You're So Sweet (10 page)

Taylor stared at Mr. Briggs, completely confused. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Like … drop out?”

Mr. Briggs sighed. “Sometimes in life we are pushed into doing things at a certain time, in a certain way, just because everyone else is. It's not always the right thing to do. If you think that you could be spending your time better working at something else, Taylor, then I think you should do it. Dropping out of high school doesn't mean you aren't ever going to go
back
to school.”

“Yeah.” Taylor digested this slowly. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense. “And like — I could go back? If I wanted to?”

“Of course,” Mr. Briggs said. “You could come back here next year, or work online, or take adult education classes when you are older. There are so many options.”

Taylor thought. Inside her, hope rose.
It would be so awesome. To not think about homework, and not worry about failing everything all the time. And then I could work harder at dance, and I would be really good …”

“You should talk to your mother about it. Tell her to give me a call.”

“Okay.” Taylor got up to leave.

“If you have any ideas, or just want to talk, come and see me or give me a call, all right?”

“Okay. Thanks.” Taylor left. She had a lot to think about.

Taylor walked around to the bus stop. Everyone else was already waiting there, and Michael and Chloe ran up to tell her how awesome her performance had been.

“Good job,” Alexandra said, nodding at her. Taylor smiled. A “good job” from Alexandra meant it really had been good. She rose up on
demi pointe
and back down again, blushing.

Julian came running up late, and gave her a hug. “Good job, Tay,” he said.

“Thanks!” said Taylor.

Taylor lay on the floor as she waited for class to start, listening to her iPod with her sweat towel spread over her face. She could feel the heat of her face, and exhaled, pushing the towel away from her mouth. “Are you dead?” Keiko asked above her.

“Yes, yes I am,” Taylor answered. She could feel her back bones press into the studio floor, the grains of dirt sticking to her back.
If I didn't go to school, maybe I could take more classes in the morning with the Youth Company students.

“Well, Mrs. Demidovski wants you in her office, so you'd better get undead.”

Taylor jolted up. “Why? What? Why does she need me?”

Keiko shrugged. “I don't know. She just told me to get you.”

Taylor got up and threw her sweat towel on the place on the floor that she wanted to stand to save her place, and walked quickly to the office. It wasn't just Mrs. Demidovski there, there was also Mr. Demidovski, and Julian. Gabriel ushered her in and closed the door behind her. She met Julian's eyes, but he shook his head slightly. He had no idea why they were there, either.

“Sit down,” Gabriel instructed.

Taylor sat. Behind her, Gabriel tapped on his computer and pretended he wasn't there.

“You like Mr. Demidovski to coach you?” Mrs. Demidovski asked finally.

“Um, yeah, of course,” Julian said quickly. Taylor nodded.

“You not maybe want someone else to coach you?” Mr. Demidovski asked.

“It is a great honour!” Mrs. Demidovski hissed at them. “Mr. Demidovski was one of the great dancers, and then he is the great teacher. He coached so many in the good companies now, so many they say: ‘Thank you Mr. Demidovski, I cannot do without you'.”

Mr. Demidovski stared directly at Taylor. She could see her face reflected in his large brown eyes. “We give you so much at the academy,” he said.

“Why you hate Mr. Demidovski?” Mrs. Demidovski snapped at her. “We give you every opportunity.”

Taylor leaned back as the Demidovski's leaned forward, focusing on her.
Of course it's my fault
, she thought.
Couldn't possibly be the perfect Julian's fault.

“I'm sorry,” she said politely. “I don't understand. Me and Julian
do
want to be coached by you, Mr. Demidovski.”

“Yeah,” Julian chimed in. “We for sure do.”

Mrs. Demidovski silently handed Julian a letter, and he and Taylor read it together.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Demidovski,

I hope this letter finds you in good health. I have always greatly admired the fine training that Vancouver International Ballet Academy gives its students, and in the recent Spring Seminar that several of your students attended, two in particular caught my eye. I am writing to ask your permission to coach them on their variations for competition, since I of course do not want to interfere with any training they are currently receiving. The students I am inquiring about are Taylor Audley and Julian Reese, who have both also expressed an interest in studying with me. Please get back to me at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely, Theresa Bachman

Oh crap.
Taylor looked up, her cheeks flushed slightly with guilt. “Well, you see, she like asked us, and then we said, ‘maybe,' you know? We didn't mean we didn't want to study with you.”

“Yeah,” Julian nodded. “Don't worry, we really want to study with you —”

“Mrs. Demidovski does not worry!” Mrs. Demidovski snapped. “If you want to waste much money studying with teacher who does not know how to teach, is your business. We do not care.”

Gabriel opened the door of the office, and Julian and Taylor exited, both making their way downstairs instinctively, away from the upstairs studios. They could hear the piano music start, and Mrs. Castillo begin to lead class in the right studio. Mr. Yu was shouting something at the younger students in the left studio. Taylor walked down the hallway with its many mirrors, and through to the stairs of the change room, Julian following her. She went into the girls' bathroom, and wiped her eyes which had already teared up, trying not to mess up her eyeliner. She felt someone watch her, and looked up. It was Julian. “This is the girl's bathroom,” she informed him, hearing her voice break. “And you should get to class.”

“Sorry,” Julian said automatically. He came farther inside and sat on the sink counter. “So, what are we going to do?”

“I don't know,” Taylor said honestly, also climbing up onto the counter. “What do you want to do?”

“Have privates with Theresa,” Julian said without thinking.

“Well, the Demidovskis can't stop us from studying with one of the greatest ballet dancers in Canadian history.”

“Yeah.”

Taylor added more sparkles to her eyelids and fixed the clip in her hair. “I wonder how much she charges.”

“Oh!” Julian said, slapping his forehead. “I never even thought about that!”

“Well, we can just ask her,” Taylor pointed out. “So, you want to do this?”

“Yeah,” said Julian. “I'm in.”

“Let's go to class then.” Taylor jumped off of the sink counter.

“So, you agree with me?” Julian clarified. “You want to have privates with her?”

“Yes,” Taylor said, starting to smile. “Want to shake on it?”

“Yes,” Julian said, grinning. They shook: slap Taylor on top, slap Julian on top, side, side, fist clasp, jazz hand. “We are sooo cool.” They headed upstairs to class.

After class, Taylor walked out with Julian, Tristan, Kageki, and Keiko. “Let's go get bubble tea,” Julian said suddenly. “We haven't done that since summer.”

“That's because it's cold out,” Tristan pointed out. But they started heading in the direction of Daun's anyway.

“Chinese buns …” Taylor said, walking faster. “Good idea, Jules.” They walked to Duan's and sat down in a booth, getting Kageki to order for them because it always came faster if he did it. The owners of Duan's didn't like the Caucasian students at the academy, always serving them last and trying to give them “good deals” that cost more than the original price.

“Smile,” said Keiko, digging out her camera. Taylor grinned and flashed two peace signs at the camera, and then Keiko took a picture of everyone's food. Taylor started to giggle.

“What?” Keiko asked.

“This was a fun day,” Taylor explained. “Oh, geez, do you realize it's almost time for auditions?”

Tristan nodded. “Me and Alexandra have planned which ones we are doing and everything,” he explained. “We're carpooling.” He looked at Julian. “You decided if you want to come with yet?”

Taylor thought quickly. “Or he can just come with us,” she said quickly. “Cause we'll probably have more room.”

“I'm not sure,” Julian answered. “We can probably just wing it a little closer to the time, hey? I mean, it's not like it's tomorrow, they're mostly after YAGP, right? I don't even know if I'm doing any auditions.”

“Let me know soon, though,” Tristan prodded warningly. “Otherwise we might end up taking other people and not have a seat for you.”

“Well, you could still just come with me,” Taylor repeated.

“Guess what?” Keiko whispered to Taylor as the boys began to discuss something Mr. Yu had said during men's technique class. “Look.”

Taylor looked over to where Keiko was looking. “Where?”

“Outside the window.”

Taylor looked. Outside the window, Angela was walking, alone. Taylor giggled.

“What?” Tristan asked, suddenly paying attention.

Keiko pointed.

“Why does she even go to the academy?” Tristan said, disgusted. “She's
so
bad. Like, how did she even get accepted?”

“I heard the Demidovskis made her pay International fees,” Kageki said, coming back with the bubble teas and buns. “Even though she's Canadian — because her parents are in Romania?”

Taylor sipped her strawberry bubble tea happily, chasing the tapioca balls with her hot pink straw. “I don't think Mr. Yu's corrected her, like, once,” she said. She felt the cold chill her body, but the sugar made her happy. She lay her head on Keiko's shoulder, and they all sat quietly finishing their bubble teas and buns.

Alexandra Dunstan

No, I can't go see Marianas Trench perform today, I do ballet therefore I do not have a life :(

Alexandra liked a lot of things that tended to disturb normal people: Catholicism (especially during the inquisition), William the Conqueror, MCR, the smell of sweat, and fixing her messed-up feet were a few. Particularly when they had huge water blisters. She sat on her quilt, a project she and her best friend at the time had made the summer before they had entered grade seven. She still loved the quilt, but hadn't talked to the friend in years. She couldn't remember how it was that she had ended up with the quilt. She stuck a disinfected needle through the skin of her toe and let the not-water seep out, dabbing it away with a Kleenex.
There, that's the last one.
She stuck her feet off the side of the bed into a large bowl of salt water to disinfect them and turned back to the book she was reading. In a quite matter-of-fact way it was called
The Pointe Book.
Which it was. Alexandra liked to read casually, she found it comforting reading about the different makes of
pointe
shoes and the short anecdotes from the dancers who wore them. Without this book, she might never have known that Pavlova's shoes were Capezio, or that the Royal Ballet liked their students to wear Freeds.

“Lexi, where are you?” Beth came through the door of Alexandra's bedroom, receiving the full benefit of her raised eyebrows. “Don't look at me like that. Where is your suitcase?”

“I'm not going.”

Beth stared at her. “What do you
mean
you aren't going?”

Alexandra shrugged, staring at her mother and taking her feet out of the salt water. She felt a ripple of fear through her stomach and tried to ignore it. “I told you. I can't take that much time off.”

“You are going to miss going to Mexico so you can make a point?”

“Mom, it's not about making a point. That's a whole week you're asking me to take off. A whole week of no classes, rehearsals — how am I supposed to catch up? Competition is almost here, I'd have to miss auditions, and I'd probably get kicked out of June show. I'm not going.”

Alexandra had never seen Beth look so angry before. “Alexandra Noelle Dunstan, you are going to come with us, or we will pull you out of dance faster than you can breathe.”

“Really? Would you really do that? How would you explain to everyone then, when I said I had to quit dance because you guys pulled me out after this many years of work?”

“I would tell the truth,” Beth said, her face suddenly extremely ugly from the combination of anger and trying not to cry. “That you are a bulimic, out-of-control mess, and that you needed to get some perspective on life.”

“That's not fair,” Alexandra whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I
want
to go. But I can't take that much time off!”

“Lexi, is this really what you want? To be the sort of person who would miss meeting her relatives for fear of missing a week of dance? This is the only time everyone can come!”

“Mom!” Alexandra looked at her, wishing she would just get it. “Don't you understand? I won't have a part in June show. I'll lose at competition. Everything will be screwed up!”

Beth thought for a moment. “Fine,” she said finally. “You can stay by yourself. But when they come for my birthday in June, you had better be perfect the entire time they are here. Your family wants to meet you, and most of them haven't seen you since you were a cute little girl. I don't want their opinion of you to change.” She left, and Alexandra lay face-first on her bed, her hands holding her stomach. She felt sick, but she knew the confrontation had been unavoidable. An entire week! And it probably would end up taking longer.
They will decide to go on a road trip, or someone will get sick or something stupid.
Lying on her side, she reached out and rescued her book, and started to read about how Paloma Herrera wore nothing on her feet to protect her from her
pointe
shoes. Alexandra bit her lip. She wore toe-pads, and spacers to separate her feet, and usually toe tape if she had a nasty blister (which was almost always).
All right, up. Time to go to school.
She sat up and put on her socks, set
The Pointe Book
down in order to pick up her backpack full of textbooks, and went downstairs. She wanted to eat the doughnut Justin had left on the kitchen counter, but it had too many calories and after her mother's comment she didn't feel like throwing it up. Instead, she grabbed a banana and ate it on the way to the bus stop, the cold air making it taste sweeter.

Alexandra ran up to school, unwrapping her coat and her scarf as she walked, hurrying. She was going to be late
.
She half ran up the stairs, ducked into the bathroom to smooth out her hair, and then slipped into her classroom. Grace had saved her a seat. Mr. Angelo stopped speaking for a moment. “Glad that you could join us, Ms. Dunstan.”

“Sorry.” Alexandra hung her coat on the back of her desk chair so that it would dry and pulled out her notebook, quickly writing down the date. Mr. Angelo was talking about Macbeth again. Alexandra thought he might need psychiatric help; every other grade eleven English class in the school had done Macbeth in one term, but it was second term and Mr. Angelo was still going. Alexandra didn't know how much more Shakespearean blood-bath analysis she could take. She began to write M
ACBETH
in large, loopy cursive writing.

“Alexandra,” Mr. Angelo called her. “Could you read Lady Macbeth for us?” Alexandra nodded and took the offered book from James Wong, who sat to her left. He pointed to the line where she was to start reading.

“‘Consider it not so deeply.'”

She waited for the cool boy opposite her to finish reading Macbeth's part. He took longer than needed, acting it out to laughter from the class. Alexandra bit her lip, trying not to giggle. He was one of the theatre kids, and reading aloud was pretty much why he showed up to class.

“These deeds must not be thought/After these ways; so, it will make us mad,” Alexandra enunciated clearly, in her best speaking voice. She looked at Mr. Angelo, and he nodded that yes, she could sit down. Alexandra sat, carefully not looking at everyone. She didn't like speaking in class at school; she never really knew what everyone thought of her, or if they thought of her at all. She began to draw a flower in her notebook growing out of the name Macbeth as Mr. Angelo continued to speak. She liked Shakespeare; she had a feeling that he didn't take himself too seriously. And he had a great sense of humour. She zoned in, listening as Anna spoke up to answer one of Mr. Angelo's many discussion questions.

“Well, I just think that was dumb,” she was saying. “If Macbeth believed that, he must've been stupid. Did he grow up under a rock or something?” Alexandra put her head in her hands and rubbed her forehead. Eight-thirty in the morning and she already had a headache.

“Lexi, what do you think?” Mr. Angelo asked.

Alexandra looked up. “Um — I think that Macbeth was misled, but that it was ultimately his own fear at being nobody that made him crazy.” The bell rang, and Alexandra got up, shoving her journal back in the bag as she got up for her next class.

“Hey, Lexi,” Grace asked, leaving Anna and hurrying to catch up to Alexandra. “Do you think I could copy your homework for Bio?”

“Uh —” Alexandra thought. She didn't think they wouldn't be doing much in Bio today … “Sorry, Grace, I'm going to the Dance Centre to rehearse.” She turned around and left Grace standing there, looking confused.

Alexandra fled down the winding staircase and out of McKinley, trying not to grin. Grace would get a zero on her assignment, and she knew that Mr. Ng would let her hand it in late if she told him that she had been rehearsing, because he never messed with Super Achiever students. He had once told them that he had hadn't wanted to be a biology teacher. In answer to what would he like to be instead, he had informed him that he'd like to be a hockey player “but then I can't stand up on skates and I'm skinny, so that wouldn't have worked,” he had added mournfully.

Alexandra kept putting weight on her left foot and then taking it off again as she rode on the Canada Line. Her ankle was hurting again, sudden jabbing pain without warning, and she couldn't tell whether it was going to be okay on
pointe
today or not. It kept getting better and then worse again, and she couldn't seem fix it. She'd been putting Tiger Balm on, but it didn't seem to do anything. She'd gone to the physiotherapist with her mom; the physiotherapist said that Alexandra needed to strengthen her feet and calves and advised her to use a Thera-Band every day. A few weeks after that, Alexandra had gone to St. Paul's Hospital by herself to get it X-rayed. It showed that a tendon had been seriously overstretched, and the doctor advised her to take at least six weeks off.

Alexandra had rolled her eyes at that advice: it was what doctors always said. “Take some time off, rest it.” If they really didn't know how to fix it, they asked you to consider quitting dance in favour of swimming. No, there was no way that Alexandra was going to take some time off right before competition and
Coppelia
casting. There was no realistic hope that the Demidovskis would understand if she took few weeks off, either. They would think she was just being lazy, stupid, or both, and it would definitely affect her future casting. She hadn't told her mom about the visit to St Paul's; Beth would have insisted that Alexandra follow the doctor's advice. She had been on a good-mother kick recently, and Alexandra really didn't feel like yet another argument. She got off the bus, signed in, and paid at the front desk of the Dance Centre, then took the elevator up and thankfully stepped in to the huge, empty studio. Suddenly she could breathe properly again. She dropped her bag at the side and did a spontaneous and messy
jeté
across the floor, landing horribly and not caring. She laughed as she straightened up; her ankle was feeling better today. The clock ticked, and Alexandra got to work. She had an hour before she had to get to her first class of the day at the academy.

Alexandra hurried out of the building, the sweat on her body turning cold the moment she went outside, making her shiver inside her coat. If only she could get her
pirouettes
cleaner — it seemed to be that she could never land the last one if she made it a quadruple, and a triple was just too lame for a finishing
pirouette
. She frowned as she thought of Kaitlyn; she'd done nine and landed them effortlessly the other day. And Kaitlyn was two years younger than her … the bus came and Alexandra got on it, making her way absently to a clear seat and taking her phone out of her pocket.

As she passed the meth head sitting in the bench in front she noticed her body.
Nice
, she thought admiringly.
Nothing like meth to make you skinny. Too bad it kills you, too.
She watched the girl out of the corner of her eye, admiring the line of her slim shoulder blades. Suddenly the girl turned around, and Alexandra quickly dropped her eyes to the floor.

“I like your eyes,” said the girl, leaning forward to see Alexandra better and nearly toppling out of her seat in the process.

Alexandra gave her a small and what she hoped was a discouraging smile and started playing with her phone.

The girl turned around in her seat to face Alexandra, gazing fascinated at her eyes with their sparkly eyeshadow and eyeliner. “Sparkly …” she said, clutching the back of her seat in excitement. Her thin, white, hands were like small claws, and Alexandra shivered.

“Hmmm,” Alexandra replied. She reached in her bag for her Tylenol since her legs were aching, and then thought better of taking it out.
Pills are pills.
She sighed and wondered if the meth head was going to stay on the bus long, She didn't show any signs of moving.

The girl lost interest in Alexandra for a minute, and took off her left shoe. She looked at it warily and then suddenly decided that it was dangerous and kicked it under her seat. She turned back to Alexandra. “What's your name?”

“Ale … Lexi,” Alexandra said quickly.

“So pretty … like sparkles. You're
pretty
,” said the girl, tilting her head from side to side. She began to rock from side to side every time she tilted her head, first slowly and then faster. At that moment the bus driver called out the stop name. To Alexandra's surprise, he got up out of his seat and walked up to the meth head.

“Hey, you,” he said loudly, trying to snap her out of her rocking trance. The girl ignored him. “You said this was your stop. You said you were getting off at Hastings,” he continued, a little louder. The whole bus turned around to watch, and Alexandra blushed, wishing she could move. The girl was still facing her so everyone was also staring at Alexandra. “You've been on this bus for a whole loop now, time to get off,” said the bus driver, more for the other passengers' benefit than the girl's since she was obviously not listening to him. “Come on,” he said, grabbing her by the arm. “Off you go.” At this the girl woke up and started screaming expletives at him. “Yes, right,” said the bus driver, unmoved. “Do you want me to call the police? Didn't think so. Now off you get.” The girl got off, still screaming and now starting to cry.

Alexandra stared after her in fascinated horror. “Wait,” she choked out, “she forgot her shoe …” But it was too late, the bus driver was pulling out and the girl was running down the street with one shoe on, the shoelaces flapping as she went.

“Next stop is Granville and Georgia,” the bus driver called out. “Granville, next stop.”

Alexandra got out her bottle of Tylenol and took two extra-strength tablets, swallowing them without water. The passengers around her stared at her suspiciously, and Alexandra slumped down into her seat, embarrassed. She plugged in her iPod, not wanting to feel them staring at her, listening to Noah and the Whale play “5 Years Time.”