Page 33 of Second Position (Astor Hill #2)

Gen

I feel the urge to rub my nose as I steady my arms, trying to get through my eleventh fouetté, my jaw ticking with the intensity needed to hold my smile.

I practice what one of the older girls taught me my freshman year—putting my tongue on the roof of my mouth.

My muscles feel weaker than usual and my arms twitch with every rotation.

I know the tired ache in my core is because of the time I’ve been spending with Grant.

Ever since he touched me in the woods, told me he’s been wanting for months, we’ve barely left each other's side. I can practically hear my mother chastising me in my head: Genevieve what has gotten into you, you can’t get through fifteen simple turns .

She’d say that, knowing these turns are not simple in the least.

When I move to pointe on my sixteenth turn, my leg wobbles and I lose my balance, dropping my other leg to stabilize myself.

“Geneviève! Twenty single foot relevés!” My body's muscle memory takes over, having followed this exact instruction after not landing my fouettés since I was barely a pre-teen. Sweat beads at my temples after getting halfway through the set and exhaustion causes my eyes to lose focus of the movements my legs are making. It takes me a second to realize the thick french accent the command belonged to wasn’t my instructor’s.

There, in all her glory and much to my instructors dismay, is my mother, a scowl firmly plastered across her face.

The faux tan on her skin stands out against the stark white of her pantsuit.

Arms crossed, her eyes glare at me like lasers as she observes my technique.

A few of the dancers who were stretching on the floor mats by the wall while I worked through my solo now scatter away, like mice who just spotted a predator.

I finish my final relevé and grab the towel off the bar a few feet behind me, wiping it across my face. I catch the grimace my mom makes in the reflection of the mirror and my hand clenches around the damp towel.

“What brings you here, maman?” I ask, my voice coming out more exhausted than I intended.

“Well, you don’t answer a single call in weeks.

I was hoping to see that you were busy with dance, but that seems to not be the case.

” My mother’s heels clack against the wood floors of the studio, the sound causing me to grind my teeth.

She squints her eyes as she runs her gaze across my body, clearly dissatisfied.

“What have you been eating?” Her voice isn’t mean but medical, devoid of all feeling.

As if she’s trying to comprehend why I look so out of shape, an insane thought to have seeing as I’m a high performing athlete—a professional ballerina, for god’s sake.

I inhale a small breath through my nose, knowing the only thing worse to my mother than gaining a pound or not hitting a perfect sequence of turns, is losing control .

“You're distracted. What’s distracting you? What could be more important?” Her thick accent causes the hushed words to come out in a frenzied angry huff that only I’d be able to decipher.

I bite my inner cheek doing my best not to scream, my hand squeezing the bar so hard my palm burns.

Of course, she’d come on the first off day I’d had in months.

Of course, she’d miss every day prior to this one where I hit my fouetté sequence without missing a beat.

As if on cue there’s a single knock on the dance room door and a voice that instantly blankets the tension in the room.

“Bad time?” Grant’s wearing a sheepish grin, sporting his training attire, clearly having driven here from practice. I can practically feel the steam coming off my mother, the sight of a nameless boy far worse than anything else she could’ve imagined.

My mother crosses her arms and raises her eyebrows.

“Well, you’ve already interrupted, so please, continue.” Her rudeness barely phases Grant, who looks between the two of us. I glance between him and the door frantically, trying to get him away from my mother's wrath.

“You must be Mrs. Dupont?”

He’s about a foot away from her now, his height and bulk completely dwarfing my mother, making her appear much less intimidating than usual. She looks at him skeptically, her eyes pinched in suspicion.

“And you are the one who distracts my daughter so much she can’t do a simple turn?”

Her gaze shifts to me now, burning with a mixture of embarrassment and resentment.

It says: if I were to be in your position I’d never miss a turn, never have an off day.

And this is how it’s always been for my mother and I.

This unspoken competition—whether it be dance, our looks, my father’s attention—it’s always felt like she gains something when she can succeed in shaming me like this.

Grant winces, finally noticing the energy in the room. “I’m Grant Fielder, ma’am.” He extends his large palm toward my mother to shake, and she eyes it as if it’s lined with filth.

Jean’s lurking presence becomes more apparent when he lets out an exaggerated cough, murmuring Fielder Foods in Grant’s direction.

“Of Fielder Foods…?” Grant says, blindly following Jean’s lead with an air of confusion. I give Jean a look of thanks and he mouths good luck , before beelining back out the door. If it’s one thing my entire ballet company agrees on, it’s to steer clear of my mother.

Mom’s eyes widen, registering the gravity of who he is, and she grasps my hand tightly—a signal that she’s pissed I didn’t warn her more than a sign of maternal instinct.

Her smile is forced, like she’s the one performing, but instead of her trying to play off failed fouettes, it’s a failed first impression.

The beautiful lines of her face twitch beneath the strain.

What my mother and I differ in complexion, we make up for in our similar lithe frames and high cheekbones.

I’ve heard hundreds of times how I have my mom’s smile.

She’s so beautiful, elegant in all the ways a ballerina should be, but even so, it’s hard to take it as a compliment considering I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her genuinely smile.

It’s always performant in one way or another.

“And so handsome!” My mother squeezes Grant’s arm and I can’t help but shut my eyes in embarrassment. Grant seems over the moon though, as if he personally achieved the task of winning my mother over, not his family name.

“I wasn’t expecting to meet you, Mrs. Dupont. Would’ve changed after practice, otherwise,” he explains, his smile timid and good and safe. His smile is everything my mother’s is not and it has me wanting to shield him from her.

I pull out of my mother's grasp grabbing Grant’s arm, trying to casually pull him toward the door.

“Now might actually not be the best time?—”

“Nonsense.” My mother interrupts shouldering her shiny new designer bag.

“What brings you to see my daughter, Grant?” Her face is controlled the way it always is when she’s putting on the mask I’ve come to be so familiar with.

The one she wore anytime she met a friend's parents, or one of her current husbands' many business colleagues. The mask that somehow shielded her from the whispers and lies. The one that’s shielded her from me.

“I was actually going to ask her to dinner. I knew today was going to be a long one for her,” he says, and the fact that he remembers my rehearsal schedule, to the point that he can perceive how intense it will or won’t be, has my heart swelling with appreciation.

He looks down at my completely trashed pointe shoes and I see a slight flicker of recognition move across his face that only an athlete of our caliber would understand. That today I worked my ass off. And yet I still didn’t perform the way I wanted to.

I brush the thought away, focus on Grant showing up here to take care of me after a long day.

“Salad, I hope.” My mother gives him a knowing wink, and I think she hopes Grant will play off of her the way Will has in the past, picking at me indirectly with light hearted banter.

When I was younger, I would tell myself it was a strategy to appease my mom so he could get her out of our presence as quickly as possible, but as I got older and saw the way Will’s family spoke about him while he stood there, I realized this was just how he was raised.

And now, I wonder if it ever even crossed his mind that it wasn’t okay to do, or if it was just another way he kept me on his hook.

Grant’s jaw sets, sending a little thrill through me because he didn’t like that comment. He didn’t like that comment, and it’s written so clearly across his face, even my mother is awkwardly laughing, trying to lighten the mood.

“Gen’s an athlete. In order for her to keep training as hard as she has been, I had much more than a salad in mind.” His voice comes out stern but not unkind, and I can see my mother is embarrassed.

“Of course! It was a jest.” She slaps Grant's arm lightly and he gives her a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes but seems to soothe my mother's ego. “I’m just leaving, but speaking of dinner?—”

I breathe through my nose hoping that what’s coming isn’t actually what’s coming.

“Ken and I would love to have you both for dinner.” I wince, but Grant’s posture is comfortable and relaxed as always.

“Absolutely. Just tell us when.” His voice is the amber color of honey and it almost tricks me into thinking dinner with my mother wouldn’t be so bad.

“Parfait!” She gives his arm another playful tap and quietly, as she passes me, says under her breath, “Practice!” Then, she slips out the door.

“She seems…. sweet?” Grant gives me a half smile and I feel myself let in my exhaustion now that my mother is no longer in the room. My shoulders seem to deflate as I give a tired sigh.

“The sweetest,” I grimace as I slump down to the ground, pulling off my pointe shoes and revealing the bloody mess that is my feet.