"Don't even think about telling me how much money you spent today," I say to Maven on the block before the Academy, too many bags between my fingers and on my forearms.
Maven too, carries my bags, two or three for himself but the rest for me. He smiles at my comment, bumping me playfully on the shoulder. "You know what I'm going to say."
I do, only because he's repeated himself ten times already today, as have I.
After buying eight pairs of dance shoes among other products from the first store, I knew all too well what Maven was going to say at every stop following that. It started with the leotards this morning, continued into the shoe section, and then far into the afternoon. He told me to get whatever I thought I might need, whatever I might want, at each store we went to. I told him I didn't want extra, frivolous things, that he shouldn't be spending so much of his family's money on me, though I had agreed to go out with him knowing what I was getting into.
Sighing, I say, "I know. That it's fine; it hardly matters. You're happy to do it, and I need new things anyway." I scowl at him.
My words are a collection of the arguments he's given me throughout the day. Wherever he's held a credit card, whether it be at a checkout or the table for the late lunch we ate, he's said those things to me over and over. And I've continually rolled my eyes at him and worn a doubtful smirk all day long.
Surveying the colorful and dull, plastic and paper bags, I'd guess the Calores lost somewhere around two-thousand dollars to their new dancer, but I could be off by a few hundred. I have to trust Maven when he's said his father won't care. Otherwise, my heart starts to beat a little fast at the thought of a fight between Maven and his father, myself in the middle of it.
In all honesty, I'm surprised at myself for being able to thoughtfully spend so much money in a single day. Our initial stop at that crazy dance emporium was easily where I racked up the most debt to Maven—sometime during our adventures today, I clarified that he didn't expect me to pay him back—between the leotards, tights, shoes, and a couple pairs of warmup pants.
We ate lunch and continued for a regular shoe store, where Maven coerced me into buying new Converse after looking down at my old ones. The rest is a blur of leg warmers and ballet skirts, a variety of pants and shirts, and a pack of hair ties found throughout five different stores, capped off by a custom pointe shoe fitting in a shop edging into southern Manhattan. Soon enough, I'll be blowing through four, five pairs of those suckers a week.
"Exactly. And fine, if you insist: I won't tell you how much I spent."
We stop at the end of the block, the Academy the first building on the next. An angry red hand scowls at us on the crosswalk's other side, one of the millions of the lights in the city. The day's come and gone, giving into another night. The lights are glaring, coming from buildings and electric billboards, and it's strange, being this deep in the city instead of watching it from afar.
A dozen others gather at the beginning of the crosswalk, talking loudly in their own groups. The city isn't just bright, but it's also noisy. Very noisy indeed, much louder than I recall it being the last time I was in the thick of it at night years ago.
Though I try my hardest to hold onto my slippery anger for Maven's wealth—not Maven, but his money—it's easy to let it go, or at least neglect it for a while when I'm here, in the glittering and shiny street with these happy and loud people. I wish I didn't, but I love it: the organized chaos a bustling city brings. I almost feel like a tourist now that it's nighttime, with my hoard of bags and a set of eyes unable to stay focused on something for more than a few seconds.
But I still don't like the bags.
The light's stuck on red, and I tap my foot, unsure of what else to do. The bags continue to be a weight—metaphorically and physically—and I turn my attention from everything else to Maven, who stares at his shoes, apparently uninterested in the city. Why would he be? He's lived in the center of it all his life and has the luxury of picking and choosing when to appreciate it.
Stop it. Just . . . stop it.
"You know I have my reasons for why I don't like you buying all of this for me," I say, straightening my spine and bringing my heels up off the ground to get my mouth closer to his ear. The words are spoken quietly, though the people around me could care less as to what I'm talking about. "I'm not used to this sort of life for one, and—"
The red hand flicks to a white walk sign, and I start across the street, a pace ahead of Maven. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, how much about my life I want to reveal to the boy I met, truly met, this morning. I already told him how I ran away from home.
Curse my legs, because he's by my side again in the blink of an eye.
"And you're proud," he states plainly. "You like to do things for yourself."
Yes. Mom's had to ask Will for an extension on rent payments more times than I can handle remembering, my family can't afford to take Gisa to the hospital for her wrist, and my pickpocket "salary" makes up a good percentage of the Barrow family income.
I don't mind taking a hack at Tiberias Calore's bank account. Well, however many accounts he has. But Maven's called me out. It stings my pride to accept all these pretty shoes and shirts conscious of the fact that I could never buy them for myself. He's rich; fortunate. I'm penniless; unfortunate. In allowing Maven to take me out shopping, I'm acknowledging a great divide between us, being dependent on somebody else.
Though I've had more fun today than I've had in a long time, a jaded, shriveled-up part of me is crying out to drop the bags right here.
Instead, I clench my fists around the straps as we reach the other side of the intersection. "You'll never know what it's like," I whisper barely loud enough for him to hear. "To worry about money."
I don't know how much Cal's told Maven about me. My partner hasn't mentioned my bad habit of pickpocketing or my sister's incident on Wall Street, though he'd be a fool to reveal Cal shared such intimate details with him. So for now, I'll keep it there. That money's an issue, that money's a sore spot.
"Oh, never say never," he returns, gazing up at the buttery-yellow buildings lining this block and those after.
Skeptical, I raise a brow. I almost stop in the middle of the street, even busier than it was this morning, if only to make a point like Ann did in the lobby. But cement sidewalk pounding at my feet, I allow Maven to keep walking towards the Academy's front doors, waiting for him to finish his train of thought.
"Empires rise and fall. It happens in fairy tales, it's happened plenty in history, and it happens every day in New York City. Stocks crash, owners make bad investments . . . businessmen are ousted for fraud. Not saying my father is one, but I'm just . . . saying. Don't think that any of our fates are sealed. Your's certainly isn't."
Maven gives me a wink as we step under the marquee. I travel ahead of him for the revolving door, but not before I half-turn my head over my shoulder. "You've been reading far too much classic literature, Maven."
A faint chuckle sounds behind me as I use my fists to propel the door forward, bunched around straps of bags.
I can't disagree with Maven, though I must say that the chances of his family going bankrupt are pretty low. Yes, it does happen, but it's hardly the sort of thing Maven could predict. Then again: I never could've guessed two weeks ago that I'd soon run away from home to chase my idiotic dream of dance.
The Academy's round-the-clock current of air conditioning doesn't fail as I step fully inside, greeted by an empty and quiet lobby.
Home.
No. I shake the word away like it's something explosive. Maybe when it comes to dance, but never an actual home. Nothing more than a place to stay, until I get my situation at home resolved with my parents.
"I've said it already, but thanks," I say, twisting around towards Maven, who's passed through the doors. "I had a nice time today."
He smiles in return, the warm light of the lobby glittering in his eyes. It appears everyone from today's auditions is long gone, aside from any lonesome maids finishing up their shifts; security guards; and the members of the Calore family, wherever they might be. The auditorium doors remain ajar and far off, a vacuum steadily hums away.
Those are the only signs of life. Maven and I stare back at one another for a moment too long, as inanimate as the marble and stairs and chandeliers.
"I did as well," Maven says, breaking the oddly heavy air. "It was nice getting out of the building during auditions. This week at the Academy's always too hectic and it's not like I have any control of the judging, so . . . yeah, it was nice."
"I'm sorry," I blurt, perhaps against better judgment when we're in the Academy, fifty yards from Tiberias Calore's office, "about that. I don't see why they couldn't add a judging spot."
Maven laughs it off with a chuckle, like it would be so difficult to change the system. Add another row to the judging sheets or whatever. After hearing him talk today about ballet, I have no doubt he's qualified.
"Trust me: Cal's good, and you'll see it soon enough. I'll be where he is in two years." Something about his face tells me he doesn't think it himself. "Anyway. I can watch and judge dancers for the rest of the year, though I might not get a score sheet." Another wink. "I'm always here, living and breathing dance. Getting out, remembering I live in the largest city in America, was nice. If anything, I feel sorry for Cal: he's been stuck in the auditorium most of the week."
I pinch my lips together and nod, not quite believing Maven after his admission from earlier and my own experiences with my parents. But I don't say more, reluctant to push the subject when we still don't know one another very—
"Speak of the devil," Maven says under his breath, head angled to my right. In an instant, his faint smile becomes a tad bigger, warmer. I can't tell if it's natural or not.
Though the grating click of tap shoes is not to be heard, my shoulders tense up, and I wish I could blame it on the bags hanging off my arms.
In spite of all Cal's done for me, pulling strings behind the scenes more than once—twice—I don't . . . care for him. And I really don't want to have a run-in with him this late, when my defenses are poor and tired. He didn't tell me who he was the night we met after I told him about who I was, a dancer been robbed of her dream, and it bothers me, how he's been manipulating things this whole time. Between the poster and calling me out after I fell onto the stage.
Yet . . . I decide quickly, maybe . . . maybe he kept quiet on the street for my sake, having figured it would be better if I didn't know who he was. It would only lead to jealous, pungent anger after all. That's why Cal was so closed-off about himself on our walk, asking questions and nodding, but never offering up anything more than a moniker that turned out to be a nickname. He did it to protect me, if that makes sense. He intended to give me a job but never let me know who he was, though I was bound to put the pieces together sooner or later.
And like I said before, the poster was an opportunity that I had the option of taking or leaving, and embarrassing as it was when he asked if I was going to audition—
When Cal comes into my line of vision, my plastered smile is more of a cringe.
Maven's brother stops before us, and I force myself to maintain somewhat of a gaze on him, even as Maven himself says, "All done with auditions?"
Cal nods. "Yeah. We'll have to tally the scores from today tomorrow morning, but other than that, we're finished." As if he's just now noticing the mass of bags Maven and I each hold, Cal drops his eyes to my hands, then Maven's. "Where have you two been?"
Simmering, "We've been out shopping all day. It wasn't my idea. In fact, we argued quite a bit over how much he should be spending," I say.
His eyes dart up to mine for a brief moment before returning to the bags, probably wondering how much of their father's money, exactly, Maven spent on me. Me too, Cal.
"It wasn't her idea," Maven repeats. "I wanted to get to know my new partner before our lives are consumed by dance again, and I figured she could use some new dance things, since it's been so long since she last danced in a studio. You'll get along with her well, Cal. She's a Mets' fan."
I don't miss the smirk that briefly flashes on Cal's face.
"Always and forever." I'd cross my arms if I could, for the illusion of looking smug. My cap is tucked away somewhere in one of the bags, discarded after I got sick of taking it off every time we came to a new store. "But it's getting late. I should leave you two be and get a good night's rest," I say bluntly, wanting to avoid painful small talk with these two brothers.
"Alright. Can you manage the extra bags upstairs?" Maven holds up his arms as a visual. "Otherwise I'll let Cal help you. I need to go pick up my backpack from my father's office."
No chance in Hell. "Thank you," I start, "but I'll be fine on my—"
"That's a lot of bags," Cal notes. "I don't mind helping. Here," he says, moving towards his brother to take bags off of his hands.
My eyes go wide.
<><><>
The doors to the elevator start to glide close as I watch Maven hike up the stairs towards Tiberias's office, the lobby growing smaller and smaller as metallic silver takes over my field of vision. That, and a familiar head of black hair out of the corner of my eye.
A moment ago, though it feels like it took hours, I watched Cal take bag after bag from Maven, who excruciatingly separated mine from his one by one. I stood next to them idly, struggling to keep my face calm, steady, and not red before I walked ahead of Cal to the lift.
With a smooth sound, the elevator doors seal us inside, though I'm not afraid of the close quarters.
More like nervous of being in them with Cal, who I'm still trying to understand.
"I heard you liked my dance," I remark instead of asking another question, though I have plenty of questions with the air of mystery surrounding Maven's brother. Yet after an entire day's worth of shopping, I feel burnt out and uninterested in searching for answers at this late hour.
Leaning into the wood paneling of the wall, I look up at the ceiling to see my reflection in a gold-tinted mirror, cut into squares. I assure myself I'll get my answers later, find out if any of my theories hold true.
In the glass Cal's face looks down—or up, perhaps—at me, his eyes burnished in the yellow light. The rest of his tanned, sharp features take on a similar effect, dully glazed like there's a film covering his face. His simple black clothes, no different than the ones he appeared in on Sunday, are turned brown, along with his hair.
And the bag straps don't do anything to hide the muscles on his arms, crossed. While Maven takes on a lean form like most in our field, Cal's strength takes on an outward appearance, though he still holds himself as a dancer just as I noted when I met him.
"I did. Everybody did," he replies, crossing one ankle over the other. To my pleasure, he doesn't wear tap shoes, but ordinary, unremarkable street shoes. "I thought you might be good when I saw those fouettés . . . but not that good."
"Good enough for what?" I ask and slice a chuckle out of a breath. "You took an awful big risk in calling me out onstage. You saw me do a few fouettés, but that's it. Wouldn't it have been embarrassing for you if I had shown up and utterly failed?"
I shouldn't act this way towards him, but I can't help it when I'm still so confused.
"They were really, really good fouettés."
Turning my eyes from the mirrors to Cal, I glare at him instead of his reflection. He has this vague, amused smirk on his face, and the near-foot height difference isn't helping my temper right now.
But he sees my annoyance, not something overly hard to spot, and his smile fades into neutrality. "I had a feeling, Mare. No, I didn't think you'd end up as my brother's partner, but I didn't think you'd end up as an understudy either. After hearing about what had happened on the street . . . you deserved the chance, whether or not you could stand up in pointe shoes. I wasn't thinking about how it would make me look."
I stare at him for a moment, blankly and almost with unfocused eyes. The elevator chimes each time we hit a floor, yet the sound is far away and murky. "I figured out why you didn't tell me who you were on the street. You're right: I didn't ask. But if I had known, I would've stopped talking to you then and there. And I definitely wouldn't have marched four miles to Midtown to inquire after a maid's job."
Cal nods, chin dropping near his sternum. "You were already so bitter. I didn't want to add to your problems."
My problems. I have to contain my laugh, when they've hardly gone away since my audition. "Little did you know the job you got me would nearly kill me," I say, but in a joking tone. Cal opens his mouth, but I continue on. "Don't worry. Maven already told me they're adding a very much needed beam up there."
The elevator chimes one last time, indicating we've arrived on the tenth floor. The doors reopen and Cal gestures for me to leave first. What a gentleman, I almost say, but I restrain myself from using too much sarcasm with Cal.
I also consider curtsying but force myself out the doors and into the hallway.
Cal doesn't waste any time in following behind me, stepping out and coming to my side. My feet eat up the patterned carpet in a hurry as I walk faster than I need to, my room down a ways.
"I've heard you're not a bad dancer yourself," I say, though not a bad dancer isn't the phrase Maven or Lucas used in their descriptions of Cal. "When your dad's the company's owner, I'd think you'd be pretty . . . decent."
We continue down the hall, our voices and footsteps the only sounds. Anybody else who's already moved in for the season is either fast asleep or still out. It makes for a quiet evening. The doors are all closed and locked, even the A.C. put on a quieter setting.
"Careful. You wouldn't want to oversell my abilities," he says, laughing to himself. I laugh too, terrified to uncover how good of a dancer Cal actually is. "I've been training to be a principal dancer for the Academy since I could walk, and now here I am. I've put in my hours and paid my dues, but there's nothing more to it."
"And what are your hours? Ten, twelve a day now that you've graduated?"
He gives me a crooked grin. "Something like that. What are your hours?"
The hallway ends, a new one beginning at my left. We begin down it.
I raise my eyebrows, more than reluctant to tell him I was only practicing for about ninety minutes a day before this week. "This week?" I ask, bending his question. "I've spent every minute of daylight this week on my roof, reviewing tap, jazz . . . et cetera," I trail off.
"You hardly need the review. You're already a threat to Evangeline, and you haven't had professional instruction in months," Cal argues, stopping past me as I pause at my door, shifting bags so I can reach for the key shoved in my back pocket.
I bob my shoulders up, a pathetic shrug, weighed down by numerous bags. "Maybe in ballet, but . . . I watched her from up in those rafters before I fell. She's a great dancer, and you're lucky to have her as a partner. Trust me, I plan on spending all weekend reviewing modern dance technique because it's nowhere up to par with my ballet."
The door to my room unlocks and pushes open under my fingertips. I leave the door that way, venturing inside a few feet to fumble for the light switch. Cal waits at a polite distance outside, probably finding it inappropriate to come in before I turn on the lights.
"One second," I murmur, dragging my hand across the wall in attempt to feel something resembling a light switch. "Damn lights."
"You shouldn't be worried," Cal says, leaning against the door frame. "Even if you are as rusty as you claim, which I doubt, you'll catch up soon enough."
I find the switch and tap it on. "I hope," I say with a nervous huff, setting my bags by the couch in the living room. "Though these summer classes only last for around six weeks, right? Maybe I'll get myself kicked out of them early and pick up more ballet."
Cal doesn't take what I say as a question, so I assume I could technically drop my extra classes. "Effective, but not nearly as much fun." He pushes off from the doorway and walks a few paces into my living room to set down his share of bags. "Hip hop, contemporary . . . you get to throw yourself all over the place and no one will yell at you for it. Ballet's just of hours of rehearsal and taking hit after hit from Elara and the others as they correct you over and over again."
I raise my brow, but not for the reason he's thinking. Elara was the woman in Tiberias's study with Tiberias himself and her two sons. She wore a yellow sundress that clashed with her forbidding eyes. Maven's eyes. But not Cal's eyes.
Tucking the newfound piece of information away, I perch myself on the armrest of the couch while Cal stands with the bags at his feet. "If you're a match for Evangeline, then you're good at ballet. But you don't like it?"
He looks down at me, even more so than when I was standing. Cal shrugs and turns his head over his shoulder at the wide-open door, apparently concerned that somebody will overhear.
A hot second goes by of silence before Cal loosens a breath and turns back to face me.
"No, it's not my favorite. There's nothing wrong with ballet, but it's too strict for my taste."
I smile, thinking about how I'm the opposite. I struggle with the genres that don't have clear, defined lines and rules for me to follow; it's why ballet's always come naturally. I had to work harder, longer on hip hop and the little contemporary I've tried, though compared to the other girls at my old studio, I was still better than most of them.
"It wouldn't be very good for your fellow dancers to hear about how you don't like what you're the best at, I suppose," I say in a muse, balancing my chin in my palm and my elbow on my knee as I cross it. I try to slouch a little, mimicking what I think of contemporary dancers. Lazy. Ridiculous. "What's your favorite kind of dance, then?"
Don't say contemporary. Don't say contemporary.
God, I hate contemporary. I don't know why, but there's something about the bent legs and arms and slowness of it that do nothing but mock ballet, an art form sculpted over hundreds of years. It's too wild, too unpredictable. I danced contemporary for half an hour for a year when I was twelve or thirteen, but dropped it as soon as I could after I figured out how useless it was.
"Contemporary," he says.
I feel a strange urge to slap a hand on my face, hard. "Never got it," I say, shaking my head. "Ballet makes sense. Tap makes sense. Jazz and even hip hop usually make sense. Contemporary doesn't."
He and I give each other wacky grins, shaking our heads, not understanding each other in the least.
"Maybe someday I'll teach you," Cal finally says.
I continue shaking my head. "Goodnight, Cal."