You're So Sweet (3 page)

“You must … use the music, feel the music,” he explained. “Your arms, they must be like the butterfly, flying over the water — here, rotate.” Mr. Demidovski got up to move Anna's arms in the right way, running his long thin hands over her back as he moved her muscles. “The back, here must hold, here must open — and give. You must always be giving the heart, the love to the audience. Yes, Anna, this! You must always do the work this way.”

Julian attempted to look fascinated, along with the rest of the class. He giggled — Angela was leaning as far forward as possible without falling forward, her mouth hanging open and her eyes popped, as she stared at Mr. Demidovski. As soon as Mr. Demidovski finished speaking, she began to try and replicate Anna's movements while staring in the mirror. She was unsuccessful. Mr. Demidovski's eye drifted over her, and Julian distinctly saw him wince before he hurriedly turned back to his selected group.

“You — this — come here, please; Mr. Demidovski wishes to speak to you.” Mr. Demidovski said, gesturing impatiently in Julian's direction. Julian's stomach gave a lurch, and he half-rose out of his slouch against the wall before he realized that Mr. Demidovski was actually talking to Taylor. He rested against the wall again, annoyed with himself, and wondering if anyone had noticed his mistake. He looked around, trying to look casual; no, they were all intently concentrated on Mr. Demidovski's words as he corrected Taylor. Julian wondered if he could get away with just sitting down since he wasn't dancing anyway.
Better not risk it
. Almost everyone else seemed to be working on Taylor's correction along with Taylor.

“… you have the beautiful body, the beautiful hair, body suit, now you must make it the beautiful dance,” Mr. Demidovski was explaining as he made Taylor repeatedly
develope a la seconde.
“No hip! Mr. Demidovski said no hip, no clunk, must be very smooth like ice cream. You must listen to Mr. Demidovski.”

Taylor's face was flushed with effort as she tried one more time, slowly drawing her foot up her leg and unfolding her working leg. She managed to bring her leg to its full extension without her usual hip shift, and shyly smiled in relief.

“Yes, this is the way you must work. The other way, it is cheap. That way you are maybe sold at the dollar store. Here this is maybe the Bay, Sears — you must work to be the one of a kind, an original, people pay much money for you. Understand?” Taylor nodded throughout Mr. Demidovski's speech, and as soon as he was done she went quickly back into her position, smiling happily.

Julian looked at the clock; they were almost halfway through the class, and still only the first group had received any attention at all. Mr. Demidovski hadn't even changed groups yet, and Julian was getting cold from doing nothing after
barre
— now even if Mr. Demidovski did call on him he wouldn't be warmed up. The others were all marking it on the side, but there wasn't really enough room for Julian to work, he decided after a second's glance around. He felt — he didn't exactly know how he felt. Sad? Disappointed?
Seriously, picking Kageki over me? Kageki is good and stuff, but he's seriously short, and he doesn't have as good a body type as I do.

“Julian!” hissed Jessica, elbowing him in the back. Julian came back to his surroundings with a start — Mr. Demidovski was frowning at him, and the whole class was staring at him. Julian smiled at Mr. Demidovski, slightly embarrassed, and quickly untangled himself from the
barre
, managing to knock over someone's water bottle in the process.

“You must pay attention during class time,” said Mr. Demidovski, no longer bothering to look at Julian. “Otherwise you waste your classmates' time, you waste the teacher's time, you waste your time, and you waste your parents' time and money.” Julian felt his face turn bright red.

Mr. Demidovski continued, and Julian spent the rest of the class in a miserable blur.
Why was I so stupid
?
Now I'm probably never going to get a correction from Mr. Demidovski. What if he takes away my scholarship because he thinks I'm not working hard enough?
At last it was the end of first class. “What do we have for second class today?” Julian asked Tristan as the girls put on their
pointe
shoes.

“
Pas de deux
class with Mr. Yu? Like we always do on Wednesdays?” answered Tristan, grinning at him. “Dude, I swear, you are so spacey sometimes.” He went off to practise his
pirouettes
and talk to Alexandra.

Julian shrugged and dropped to the floor, stretching his turn-out with his face pressed to the floor so he didn't have to look at anybody. The floor actually felt pretty good on his hot face, as long as he didn't think about all the sweat it was covered in from the Youth Company, who had just been in rehearsing their contemporary piece.

Mr. Yu came in with a huge scowl on his face, and everyone immediately went quiet. They eyed him warily. He strode to the front of the class, and stood there for a second. “Mrs. Demidovski,” he announced with a heavy sigh, “would like to watch you today. So be good.” He went to the side and dragged a chair from the side of the room to the front, and banged it down beside his chair. He eyed the space between the chairs for a second with his head cocked to one side, and then pushed the two chairs carefully farther apart, to the giggles of his students. Then he went and carefully escorted Mrs. Demidovski in, his face pained.

“Tallest to shortest, girls' line front, boys' line back,” said Mr. Yu with impatience. “Quickly, quickly!” They assembled in seconds, already having their places memorized. “Tristan, take Anna, take Grace, take … Alexandra.”

Julian was next in height, and he tensed, hoping he got partnered with good people to make up for last class.

“Julian — take Taylor …”

Taylor gave Julian a huge grin as she joined him, and he smiled back at her a second late as he waited for Mr. Yu to assign him more partners. But Mr. Yu just moved on to the other boys, giving them all three partners, even little Michael, and giving Tristan and Kageki each one more partner when he realized he was going to have two girls left over.

“Yay! Now we get lots of practice together.” Taylor grabbed Julian's arm and led him to a clear place on the floor.

Julian looked over to where Tristan was practising a promenade in
attitude
with Anna. “Why do you think he only gave me one partner? I mean, I'm totally cool with it, but it is a little weird, right? Look at Kageki and Tristan's partners — they're barely going to get to work at all.”

Taylor shrugged innocently, looking like a six-year-old as she brought her hands and shoulders up to her ears. “I don't know. Maybe he wants you to have a chance to really concentrate? Oh, shh, look at Mr. Yu now.”

As Mr. Yu went through the exercise, Taylor and Julian marked it, with Taylor murmuring directions to Julian. As the class ran through the exercise a couple times without music to rehearse, Mr. Yu walked through the class, barking and hitting corrections. “Anna, hold your back. Jonathon, you laugh one more time, outta my class. Out.”
Thwack
. “Keiko, hold your belly! You are some old grandmother? You have many, many children?”
Thwack
. Taylor winced and adjusted her
attitude
position. “You a dog? You have to go pee?” Mr. Yu asked her, peering into her face.

“No,” Taylor squeaked, trying to hold her balance. She wiggled Julian's arm, and he looked at her, confused. Taylor fell off
pointe
.

“You are partnering,” Mr. Yu lectured her. “This is not solo dance, this is
pas de deux
. If you want to leave, practise solo, let me know — I am sure there is nice studio upstairs, empty, you can practise all by yourself.” Mr. Yu walked off.

“What did he mean by that?” Julian asked Taylor.

To Julian's surprise, Taylor glared at him. She looked like she was about to cry. Stepping back on
pointe
, she gave him her hand again. “When you stand too close — like this — I have to lean back and then I fall over. And when we turn, you have to move
with
me — otherwise I tilt, or can't move, or fall over. Okay?”

“Okaay,” said Julian, drawing out the sound. “I've got it, I'll try — we're both learning here, okay?”

They worked on the combination in silence for a few moments. After a bit Taylor was still falling over, but she smiled at him when they finished, so he supposed she'd probably forgiven him. Having only one partner should have meant that Julian had more time not working than the other boys, but Taylor made Julian go over each exercise with her on the side until their turn, and after. By the time the class was almost over, Julian was more exhausted than he usually was from working with three partners. Finally it was the end, and after bowing to Taylor and Mr. Yu, and Mrs. Demidovski, and George, Julian grabbed his water bottle and prepared to flee.

Mr. Yu grabbed Julian by the shoulder and spun him around. “Mrs. Demidovski would like to have a talk with you,” he said quietly. Julian looked apprehensively at Mrs. Demidovski's back as she exited the studio. “Not now, go get changed quickly and come up, talk in office,” Mr. Yu clarified. Julian nodded and ran downstairs.

As he got changed, his mind buzzed with a million different reasons why Mrs. Demidovski could want to talk to him and none of them good. Were they taking away his scholarship? Did Mr. Yu say that his room was so messy that he wouldn't keep him in his homestay anymore? Were his grades too bad to stay in the Super Achiever's Program? (He crossed that one off the list — he'd scraped a B average in term one, and the first day of term two was too soon to be failing.) Had somebody died? Surely they would've pulled him out of class if someone had died. Maybe this was just some sort of new student — middle of the year checkup?

“What are you in a hurry for?” asked Tristan. Julian almost groaned out loud. Couldn't he do
anything
here without it being commented on?

“Mr. Yu said that Mrs. Demidovski wanted to talk to me. Is that bad?”

“Depends,” said Tristan, taking the question seriously. “Could be. But I doubt it.”

Julian took a deep breath and then hurriedly wiped off as much sweat as he could reach with his towel, pulled on his shirt, did up his runners, and started out the change-room door.

“Backpack,” said Tristan, holding it out.

“Geez … thanks. See ya tomorrow.” Julian grabbed it and ran up the stairs.

The office door was open, and Julian stepped in, holding his backpack awkwardly in one hand. “Sit down, sit down,” said Mrs. Demidovski, gesturing him toward a seat.

“Thanks,” said Julian nervously. Mr. Demidovski was there, too, but he wasn't paying attention to them — he was just talking to Gabriel about some papers. He still made Julian nervous, though.

“You are doing well, happy here?” Mrs. Demidovski asked.

Julian nodded. “Yes, I really like it here.” He shifted his position on his chair, his legs feeling too long for the small office.

“You are friends with Taylor?” Mrs. Demidovski asked. Mr. Demidovski came and sat down beside them.

“Er, yeah?” said Julian, unsure of the correct answer.

“Girlfriend?” Mr. Demidovski asked, giving him an understanding smile.

“What? Oh, no,” said Julian, not sure if he had understood him correctly. “Taylor's not my girlfriend. But we're friends.”

Mr. and Mrs. Demidovski looked at each other, and Julian shuffled his foot under the chair uneasily, trying to remember any rules about dating being in the student handbook. He was pretty sure it had only said “no public displays of affection.”

“You both signed up for festival doing two
pas de deux
together. That is correct?” Mr. Demidovski asked.

Julian paused, slightly unsure. “I think Taylor's mom might have signed us up?”

“Classical and contemporary …” mused Mr. Demidovski. “Who did your contemporary
pas de deux?
” Mr. Demidovski asked suddenly. “Leah? Se-kuuu-ya? Who did for you?”

Julian's mouth fell open. “Uh, we haven't really, I mean, we haven't done it yet. Learned it.”

“Must start now.” Mr. Demidovski nodded firmly to himself. “Mr. Demidovski will coach you for the classical.”

Julian looked at him in amazement. “Really?” he said excitedly. “But …” His face fell as he remembered Tristan telling him how much privates with Mr. Demidovski cost. “I can't actually afford it. Me and Taylor — we were just going to sort of work on it ourselves?” Mr. Demidovski snorted in disbelief. “And so I think we'll have to do that, but it was really awesome of you to offer …”

“Taylor, will pay hers.” Said Mr. Demidovski confidently, waving away Julian's objections. “So, for you, can be free.”

“Wow, thanks,” said Julian. He got up a little shakily, his legs betraying him after a tiring day. “That is really, really coo— nice, of you. Thanks, Mr. Demidovski, thank you, Mrs. Demidovski.”

Mr. Demidovski waved Julian's thanks away. “But you must work. Make me proud, make the school proud, yes?”

“Yes,” Julian agreed.

Mr. Demidovski inclined his head toward him. “Have a good night.” Mrs. Demidovski smiled and nodded at him.

Julian exited the office, closing the door behind him as quietly as possible. He gave a start of surprise — Tristan was standing in the hall waiting for him. “No ride today, so I thought I'd wait and we could bus together,” he explained. “Soo ... how was it?”

Julian just grinned.

“Okay, let's ditch this place so you can tell me about it,” Tristan said, shooting an uneasy glance at the office door. He swung open the door. “Come on, loser.”