Infatuated

One: The Man in Versace

There was nothing better than the feeling of slipping on my pointe shoes.  Tying the silky ribbons around my ankles; knotting them into a little, promising bow.

This wasn't the first time I'd done it by any stretch.  They were just another pair of shoes in my wardrobe; they had been since I was twelve.  I could remember the exact moment my parents disapproved of my passion for ballet, but that made it all the better; a forbidden love that wasn't so forbidden.  They could keep me from pointing my toes when I sat on the couch, or practicing pirouettes in my bedroom mirror before leaving for school.

They'd both been heartbroken that I chose this; that I decided to risk everything to move to London and become a professional ballerina.  So far, things were working out fine, but not as perfect as I'd hoped.  I'd come at eighteen and auditioned every year for numerous companies, at nineteen making it into a small but promising company.  I was paid a pittance, even as second lead principal.  They said I was too young and inexperienced to be the first principal, and so I settled.

However, all of this auditioning was just a practice for me.  I knew I wanted to be in the Royal Ballet of London, and I wanted it more than anything else in the world.

Now, at twenty, I realized this was probably my only chance to get in.  I'd promised my mother, after my father died when I was seventeen, that I wouldn't be in England for more than three years if I didn't make it into the Royal Ballet.  She'd huffed and agreed, believing I would never make it in.  I thought I would.

This was it.

"Willow de Poitier?"

A man popped out of the door, looking at me eagerly.

"It's Willa," I murmured.

"Right.  We're ready for you, miss."  He greeted me with a cordial toothless smile, opening the door and allowing me to step into the room.

I was calm, but not nervous.  For some reason, I'd never had much luck in life--except for one little superpower.

I never got nervous.

"Hello, Ms. de Poitier?" an older man said.  He spoke in a French accent, and wore some seriously old-locking spectacles, with a chain on them and everything.  He looked up at me.

"Yes," I responded.

"Willa.  What a lovely name," a woman remarked.  She was in her thirties, sitting in between the two men.  She spoke in a British accent, and looked up at me with apparent interest.

"Thank you," I replied.

"Now, miss, these pictures are nothing short of perfection, but we'd like to assess you in person," the younger man who'd let me in said.  "Would you mind beginning with the five positions?"

I waited in each position, my arms extended in different ways, my feet arranged effortlessly underneath me.  I was almost within my nature.  I just breathed, and looked at a hole in the wall. 

"Very good.  And you will be...dancing for us today, is that correct?" the woman asked.

I nodded.  "Yes."

The younger man stood up, and took the CD I'd sent in.  It had my absolute favorite Chopin Nocturne, in B-flat Major.  I performed a solo to this piece in my dance company, and was possibly my favorite dance.  I figured, if I loved this dance, the judges would too--and if not, it wasn't meant to be.

Okay, maybe I was freaking out a little more than that.

The music began playing, and that was that.