Prima Donna Read Online Free Page A

spent two months in rehearsal
for this, damn near busting her lower back perfecting that killing sequence of tiny jumps at the beginning of the second act. Besides, the critics had loved her, lauding her vulnerable naivety and
fluidity of line.
    ‘Actually, we’re not using your understudy. And her name’s
Ingrid
, by the way.
Non
. The tour has become too high-profile now. We need a star, not just a
dancer.’ He paused for a beat. ‘We’ve asked Ava Petrova to guest.’
    ‘What?’ Pia shrieked again, outraged. ‘No! You can’t be serious.’
    ‘But I am,’ he said, quietly delighted to have scored a victory for once. ‘The Bolshoi was happy to accommodate our request when we explained you were indisposed.’
    ‘
Filho da Puta!
’ she swore furiously.
    Ava Petrova had been her most avowed enemy all through ballet school. If Pia had been the darling of the Escola do Teatro Bolshoi no Brasil, Ava was the uncontested star of the Bolshoi’s
‘mother’ academy in Moscow, and the two girls had been forever pitched against each other in ballet competitions. Usually it was Ava who came out on top. What thrilled audiences left
judges cold – not to mention there was a prevailing mood among the ballet world’s dignitaries that young Soto needed to be kept in check – and if Pia was the bad girl of ballet,
showing off with her gymnastic
ballon
and ethereal grace, Ava was its head girl: tiny, terrifying and technically, clinically brilliant.
    ‘This will come back to bite you on the ass. Everybody’s only coming to see
me
. She’s like a tin robot compared to me. They’ll demand their money back. The
ticket office will be so overwhelmed they’ll . . . they’ll go on strike.’
    ‘Pia, you exaggerate your importance to this ballet and to this company,’ Baudrand said solemnly. ‘Your flagrant flouting of the rules cannot go on. You may be an exquisitely
gifted dancer, but you are still not bigger than this company. I hope you will use this time to reflect and come back wiser and humbler.’ He put the phone down to Pia, who was still huffing
and puffing like the big bad wolf.
    She was right of course. Even with Ava Petrova standing in, Pia Soto’s withdrawal from the prestigious New York tour would be a PR fiasco. But the girl had to learn her place. The Board
had insisted he take her to account on this. For all the youthful vigour and cool new profile she had brought to ballet’s stuffy image, it was still very much a world run by staid
traditionalists for whom even a diagonal arm position was considered radical.
    Pia stared at the phone in fury. She couldn’t believe he was reacting like this. She’d got back in time, hadn’t she? She hadn’t forfeited her contract with
him
.
And what about all the money that had been raised for the charity? She’d helped raise nearly a million dollars for homeless kids! How could he ignore that?
    A cheer welled up from the crowd below. She was sitting up in the VIP stands, along with the other competitors’ wives and girlfriends, and she looked down at the banks of spectators lined
up. Very few of them, it seemed, owned hairbrushes.
    The roar from the lined-up machines (like quad bikes on skis) was deafening, as the finalists revved their engines manically, giving voice to the gallons of testosterone pumping through them.
The crowd cheered even harder, urging them to bring it on.
    Pia covered her ears with her hands as she checked out the line-up. Andy was in the middle, dressed in his favourite ‘lucky’ black and yellow suit. His helmet was already on but he
still had the visor up. He looked up at the stands to wave at her, his hand stalling in mid-air. Pia thought he looked uncharacteristically nervous.
    She blew him kisses back, encouragingly, and he nodded at her before slamming his visor down. Her hands flew back up to her ears as the flag came down and the race began. There was a mad
scramble for space as the line-up immediately converged