Page 53 of The Unraveling

“You know I was kidding. You can be loud as you want. I don’t care.”

“I’m sorry if it was—”

She takes my jaw in her hand and says, “I don’t care!” She gets up, still fully naked, and goes over to the window. At the top of her lungs, she screams, “I just came, motherfucker!”

I crack up, saying shhh! but not really meaning it.

We slip into T-shirts and Arabella makes popcorn, and we fall asleep on the couch watching Sliding Doors.

I watch the main character’s life split in two, all because of one small decision. Where, and how many times, did my life split?

What if I’d never gone to that restaurant in Vienna and met Jordan?

What if I’d gone to a different bar here in London, never met Alistair, when I thought he was Max?

What if my mom hadn’t gotten in the car that night, or had left the house a moment later?

It’s a dizzying rabbit hole.

I was supposed to go into that bar that night. It’s what gave me the courage to tell Alistair to choose me. And in my last wakeful thoughts, I make a promise to the universe that I’ll do anything for him to say yes.

Chapter Seventeen

It’s Sunday afternoon. The matinee show of Swan Lake is about to begin.

It’s officially the end of my third week back to work. The first two weeks were brutal, learning a slightly different version of Swan Lake than the one at NAB, back in New York. Not to mention the ego death of not being the Swan Queen. It has been humbling, to say the least.

The loudspeaker comes on in the soloist dressing room I share with six other girls, letting us know it is our fifteen-minute call to places. I look at myself in the mirror and do a final check of my makeup. The fake eyelashes enhance my dark eyes so much they almost look like a doll’s eyes. My lips are perfect little bows. My cheeks a flushed pink.

My mirror in the dressing room looks a bit untidy, but to me it’s an organized mess. I know my hairpins are lying underneath my headpiece and that my MAC concealer is beside the water bottle where I mix them a little together to get the right texture for stage. And my lipstick is beside the banana I was munching on as a reminder to touch up my lips after eating it.

My pointe shoes are divided into two piles. Two pairs selected for today’s show and ten pairs as backup for the show and our rehearsal week ahead. Two photos are taped up on my mirror. I put them there after my first show back. One of Sylvie and me when we were eighteen in Paris for the first time, both of us in all black, laughing under the Eiffel Tower. The other is of Mimi and me at my very first recital. I’m wearing the ugliest little bright blue tutu and a tiara on top of my head—I can still remember how it pinched. She is giving me a big hug and beaming with pride.

It’s my favorite photo. I’ve had it up in every dressing room since I became a professional ballerina.

In one of the drawers, I have a picture of my mom and me. I’ve been going back and forth about putting it up. But it just doesn’t feel right. Beneath that picture is a picture of Jordan and me. I know I shouldn’t look at it. It’s like salt on a wound, but I can’t help but take it out every now and then.

As I place my headpiece on my slicked-back hair, Arabella comes waltzing into our dressing room.

“Jocelyn!” she coos. “Come out with Cynthia and me tonight, we’re going to celebrate your first performance week back with some deliciosas tapas.”

“Yeah—um, I’d love to, but are you sure…Cynthia wants to?” I look around just to make sure she’s not in the room. She’s already left for the stage.

“Claro, of course. Cynthia’s not like that; she knows I love everyone. I’m like the female version of Luca, maybe.” She laughs. “I don’t mean any harm, she knows this.”

I think she’s flattering herself a little bit, but she’s probably not wrong.

“All right,” I say, using hairpins to secure my flower headpiece.

I’m dancing a pas de trois this afternoon as one of Prince Siegfried’s friends.

“By the way, what are you doing here?” I ask. “You must be exhausted from playing the Swan Queen last night.”

Obviously, I’m slightly jealous. Being the principal means you get to focus on only being the principal and not dancing every show. You get to be exhausted.

“I’m here for a massage. It’s Benjamin on today as the massage therapist and I was not going to miss a chance at those magic hands rubbing me down.” She winks. “I must be off. I’ll see you tonight!”

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