Page 22 of The Unraveling

I say goodbye and then get off the call and go inside, where Arabella is checking her makeup in one of the many mirrors.

“Sorry, I had one of your cigarettes,” I say.

“What’s mine is yours, darling. Mi cáncer de pulmón es su cáncer de pulmón.” I get the gist of what she says and smile politely.

“Come on. They said you could take class this morning. You can borrow some of my ballet warm-ups. I keep most of it at the theater in my dressing room.”

I follow her out the door thankful that what I grabbed the night before from Jordan’s were those pointe shoes, ballet shoes, and some leotards and tights. My heart is pounding at the idea of dancing again. I didn’t think Arabella would call immediately. I thought I had a few days at least. But I’ll take what I get right now.

Open classes are one thing, but dancing with a company—that’s a whole other level. Especially when, suddenly, my whole life and Mimi’s seem to depend on it. My thoughts swirl sickly as I do mental calculations. Even if I get taken on to dance with the Royal National Ballet—and that’s a big if, even with my talent and experience—then with Mimi’s bills, I will still be scraping together the money to eat and live.

And on top of all of this, I pushed away Jordan. Jordan, who would at least be able to keep me calm in this storm. Plus, he’s about to do a show that his agent says will make him a millionaire by next tax season. Maybe I should go back to him.

I cringe as I realize I just thought that. Oh my god, what’s wrong with me?

There’s always a latent fear lying beneath my skin. A fear that I am my mom. That I’m just one bad day—or one young retirement—away from drowning financially, living in whatever shithole I can afford, sleeping with anyone and everyone who might be able to get me further in life.

I am not my mother. I am not Brandy Banks.

It’s good I’m not with Jordan. I need to be able to stand on my own. I have to figure things out without someone else to depend on.

I can’t lean on him. And right now…I really can’t. The fact that I can’t—and even that I’m having to lean so hard on this stranger, Arabella—really scares me.

Arabella links her arm through mine. “I’m sure they’re going to love you,” she says. “The only thing is…you’re going to need a donor.”

“A donor?”

She reels, looking astonished. “You don’t have donors in the U.S.?”

“I mean, we do, but no one really talks about it. And I never even met mine. The company always emphasized the importance of donors. And we were frequently told to behave well because of the donors, but they were kind of like an out-of-sight boss for me personally. But that really didn’t have anything to do with other dancers. Some formed close relationships and enjoyed perks. But I—well, I guess I was lucky and just got to focus on dancing.”

She nods slowly as we keep walking. “Well…it’s a bit different here. I’ll tell you that.”

“Different how?” I had stupidly assumed with all the government funding for the arts in England and Europe that it wasn’t much of a thing here.

She exhales. “It’s a whole game. It’s a whole part of the job.”

What I know for a fact about donors is that they essentially invest in dancers. The more we succeed, the more they do. It’s like the stock market, only instead of numbers, it’s us. It’s our bodies. Our careers. Our lives.

I take a deep breath. To my donor in New York, I was a tax write-off. But I’ve heard horror stories about the experience for some girls. Not only do you feel a bit like a puppy being paraded to find an owner, but some feel they are treated like a high-end escort. Especially when it’s a man. I take the hair tie from my wrist and pull my hair up off my neck and shoulders and immediately feel myself cool down. I’ve suddenly become very hot despite the chill outside. I tie it up in a messy bun.

“If I’m honest with you,” says Arabella conspiratorially, “I kind of love the game. There are still very strict rules about donors and dancers. You’re obviously not allowed to sleep together and it’s meant to be all very protected. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find a few benefits from the whole thing. My donor is named Cadence Montgomery—her family like invested in Harrods or something like this, and dios mío is she rich!”

She practically screams the last word and I laugh. “How rich?”

“So rich. And she takes me to all these events where there are other rich men! I haven’t paid for a meal in two years. I had a boyfriend paying my rent until last week. Which is why the extra room.”

“What happened?”

She rolls her eyes. “It was kind of a fucked-up story actually. His wife is a quite important political figure. I’ll stay quiet to protect her anonymity,” she says, putting a finger to her lips playfully. “And when she found out he was sleeping with me, they apparently had this huge fight, the fight turned to lovemaking, and then it turned out that the whole thing brought the spark of spicy stuff back into their love life. They would talk about me in bed; she would say, Tell me what you did with Arabella.” She says this part in a bad English accent. “So eventually, they got the idea—maybe she did, maybe he did, I don’t know—that they should invite in the real thing. Me!”

“They…she found out he was cheating with you and then she invited you to, what, a threesome?”

“Not just one,” she says, “we did it for a few months actually. But then it got messy.”

“I see,” I say, not used to feeling like the prude in the room. “Well, at least they didn’t kink-shame themselves.”

She smiles again. “I’ll introduce you to some people. We’ll get you sorted out.”

---