The Year My Sister Got Lucky Read Online Free Page B

bun is coming undone, rebel curls crowding around my ears in a most attractive way.
    Okay. It’s bad.
    “Pardon me, sir.” I smooth my hair and drop in a curtsy, as I have been taught. All I really want to do, though, is blurt out Michaela’s bombshell from last night. “I’m kind of spazzing out,” I want to say, as I might to a teacher in my junior high, who would want to hear all about my “issues at home.” But the great Claude Durand thinks excuses are for the weak and clumsy. Excuses are not for future ballerinas, especiallyif we expect to grace the stage of Lincoln Center one day, which, truth be told, we all do. We wouldn’t be here, at Anna Pavlova, otherwise.
    So I simply glide over to the spot behind Trini and rest my hand on the barre, remembering to keep my neck long and straight. “Like a duck,” Claude tells us — meaning a swan, of course. We’ve learned how to decipher his mangled English over the years.
    Trini angles her head toward me as Alfredo starts playing Beethoven. “You okay?” she asks out of the corner of her mouth. Trini and I have perfected the art of talking during class without our lips moving.
    I lean forward and whisper, “Later.”
    Claude lifts his silver-handled walking stick and brings it down hard on the shiny wooden floor. Thud. “Allons-y,” he commands, still watching me slit-eyed. “Pliés.”
    Automatically, I shift my feet into first position — heels together, toes pointing outward — and bend slowly, slowly at the knees. Then I rise up, letting my arm follow in a swoop. My stomach is still in knots, but I’m soothed by the thought that, in the studio next door, Michaela is doing the exact same thing as I am. Every dance class, no matter what the level, begins with pliés. Down, up, down, up. I feel a burning in my calves — I didn’t have time to stretch earlier — but the motion is so familiar, so built into my body, that it’s a little like breathing. Alfredo’s fingers fly over the keys, and the music washes over me,along with the sunlight, warm and sweet. I’m already half forgetting about Fir Lake.
    This is why I love to dance.
    Claude is counting out the beats, banging his walking stick on the floor for emphasis. “ Et one — et two — et what is this ugliness?”
    I freeze, assuming he means me, but, no, his latest victim is beautiful Hanae Murasaki, who is the best Lower Intermediate dancer — the Michaela of our class. There is a small swell of joy in me, and in all the girls, I’m sure. It’s like we’re nine movie villains, rubbing our hands together and cackling, “Bwah-ha-ha!” Ballet dancers pretend to support each other, but when it comes down to it, we’re forever waiting for the star to get sick as a dog so the understudy can take over. I feel a flash of sympathy, though, when Claude taps Hanae’s shoulder blades and hisses, “ Alors, Mademoiselle Murasaki, why do you stand like une bossue ?”
    Only a handful of us girls speak French — I studied it in junior high, and know how to say hello, good-bye, and where are the toilets? — but, thanks to the great Claude Durand, we all understand the word for “hunchback.” Because we’ve all been there. If we dare to let our shoulders droop even the tiniest bit, it’s over — we’re Quasimodo.
    But — but — if we stand up straight and carry ourselves with a bit of grace, there is the chance thatClaude will call us by our full names, and we will glimpse a slice of heaven.
    Which makes all the pain and humiliation worthwhile.
    Kind of.
    Miraculously, I get through the barre exercises — élevés, piqués, rondes de jambes, attitudes, arabesques — without Claude screaming at me. By the time we all gather in the corner for jetés, I’m pleasantly sweaty and feeling pretty good about myself. We’re supposed to cross the floor in jumps, one by one, and I’m last in line. Renée Jackson, the tallest girl in the class, is first, and I watch her take off, the ribbons she