Page 27

Nothing ever came from talking in the witching hour, in the sea of tears and grief. So she wiped her own with the back of her hand and got up.

“We didn’t live together for very long, and it doesn’t matter.” Even as two lies in one sentence left her lips, the phone rang. Its shrill call, the timing of it, and the universe conspiring against her once again meant only one thing. Helena was worried and Helena was on the other end of the line, spending fortunes and wasting lifetimes on transatlantic phone calls. The least Juliette could do was answer. The most—apologize for hanging up abruptly earlier. But she had nothing left in herself to give. As she stepped out of the spare bedroom, a parting shot of, “Seems to me she still lives here,” was the last thing she heard out of the tiny closet and the woman huddled there.

Things did not change because Juliette had witnessed Katarina going through a waking nightmare. Things did not change because Katarina was miraculously less abrasive. She wasn’t. And yet the air had shifted.

It could be that they were heading into the first leaf showers of fall, and fall in Paris meant a special state of being. To most Parisians, it meant the slow meander toward winter, toward the end of the year. To Juliette and every other dancer, fall was the most wondrous season. One of being busy. One of running from class to rehearsal. One of watching young ballerinas from the corps painstakingly studying the call board, searching for their names.

On an early Tuesday, after a very light yoga class, Juliette found herself looking up at the call sheet that encompassed four shows and smiling.

Francesca was not messing about. They had barely started working onSwan Lake. The costumes weren’t designed yet, andwith a second main female lead, they’d have to bring something new to the table, something different from the ones the company used when they staged the production last.

And yet, here was the ballet. On the board. And here were the three names, one under the other, with Katarina’s following her own and Gabriel’s bringing up the rear of the top billing. This made it official. Not that their first week of stumbling through the bursts of rehearsals was not official, but this felt real.

Behind her, a gaggle of corps dancers oohed and aahed at the board.

“Vyatka inSwan Lake?” A giggly voice could barely hold the girl’s excitement.

“I wonder which part she is dancing, since Jett is Odile and Odette.” The reply was polite and thoughtful. Juliette wondered if it was perhaps one of the soloists showing a greater familiarity with their Étoile, having had joint rehearsals and participating in the same productions.

A decidedly masculine guffaw sounded somewhere to her side, and Juliette inwardly cringed for what would follow.

“No idea, but Lucian-Sorel hates her. Bianchi, too. Everyone does. And there is no old crone part inSwan Lake, so there must be some kind of mistake.”

Well, cringing was no longer an option, as Juliette’s vision went red at the edges. She turned slowly and witnessed an almost cartoonish change of facial expression all around her. She had been right about the second girl speaking being a soloist. Marie Charles. She was dancing one of the smaller individual parts inDon Quixote, and Juliette remembered their evening tutoring sessions from years ago. She had been a nice kid and had grown into a decent dancer. Her face was a picture of horror and mortification, solidifying Juliette’s good opinion of her.

However, Juliette had been wrong about the male voice. Michel Duval. Fucking Michel was leering at her from his six-foot-something height, very pleased with himself.

Why did Francesca keep him? Sure, competent male dancers were hard to find, and Michel wasn’t necessarily bad. He understudied Gabriel for most productions and even had principal parts here and there, mainly during second lineup tours. But was he worth this aggravation when the most he brought to the table was harassment, gossip, and disrespect? Juliette loved ballet, but misogyny thrived in its wings, and no matter how drafty said wings were, the dust of it could never quite be aired.

For a moment, she stared directly at him, willing him to say something. He did not. If anything, his glee at his own remark only intensified. Juliette opened her mouth?—

“How does that saying go? Violence solves nothing? Apparently it’s correct, because here you are. Whole and hearty and thoroughly unafraid to spew hate. Your continuous presence at Garnier seems to be immune to the power of my violence, Monsieur Duval. Or maybe I didn’t draw enough of your blood.”

The voice managed to both raise the hairs on the back of Juliette’s neck and for some strange reason dump an entire bucket of butterflies in her stomach. Which should have been a disgusting image, except Katarina was a vision.

Still in Juliette’s ankle-length trousers and white shirt, the sleeves rolled past her forearms revealing pale skin and blue rivulets of veins, she carried her usual small bag with a change of clothes and a rather dreary-looking bouquet. If one could call the few well-past-their-prime flowers that.

And yet she might as well have held a scepter. Michel blanched. Marie and the other girl turned even more pallid, their eyes huge, their gazes fleeting from one ballerina to the next, to the next. Oh, this would be the talk of the company in no time.

“Ah…” Michel obviously had not forgotten the slap, and if Juliette looked close enough, his cheek still sported the scratch, now almost healed. Flustered, and visibly afraid, he wasn’t ready for round two.

“Quite a comeback there, Monsieur Duval.”

Katarina, while a head shorter, seemed to tower over Michel, who was now a rather pathetic shade of puce. Since blood had been mentioned and before it could be shed again, Juliette took it upon herself to intervene.

“Class starts in five minutes. I assume thecorpswill be joining us?”

Her deliberate focus on the word, despite him being almost a principal, would give Michel something to think about. After all, she had flashed her power in this building and this town a few weeks ago, and while liberating a defecting Soviet ballerina was a feat, demoting a troublesome dancer to corps would not be quite as big of an undertaking. By the look on his face—now a shade of purple, all puffed up in obvious anger—he knew it too.

Juliette took a few steps, expecting Katarina to wait for her, but she was already marching toward the classroom where the pianist could be heard warming up.

Short of running after her, which would be extra humiliating, Juliette had no recourse except…

“Katarina!” Several heads turned and stared, save the perfectly coiffed blonde one that Juliette was actually calling for. Still, in what could be seen as a concession, Katarina slowed down her stride, allowing Juliette to catch up with her.

“And now everyone will gossip about me chasing after you.” Juliette could not hide the annoyance in her tone and did not care who heard it.

Katarina, unperturbed per usual, gave her a sideways glance.