From morning until afternoon, she followed the dance company's schedule, then spent the late afternoons in private lessons with Eugene Han. She went back and forth only between the rehearsal room and the dormitory, living a life that drained even her soul.
On the weekend afternoon, she headed to Café Müller as Rory had told her to. It had been a while since she had gone out anywhere properly, and she was a little excited. Café Müller stood beside the river running through downtown Oxpin, past a street musician playing an accordion.
She had not realized it at night, but in the daytime, the unobstructed view was surprisingly beautiful. Wooden and stone buildings stretched along the riverbank. As she slowly looked around the shop and stepped inside, she spotted Rory running toward her, calling her name.
As promised, he handed her a beer and a pretzel. While she sat in one of the tables set out on the street and ate, he stopped serving and took a seat across from her.
“Don’t you need to work?”
“Nope. Dad and my brother said they’d run the shop today, so I’m allowed to play.”
Ah. So that was it.
She let out a dry laugh as everything fell into place. The reason he had seemed so relaxed from the day they first met was that the shop was a family business. He really was a kid full of surprises—and talent.
“If you want to work, just say so. If you’re my friend, they’ll let you work here.”
“If I get kicked out of the dance company, I guess I’ll have to come here….”
“Hey, don’t even joke about that.”
Still, knowing she would not starve to death in a big city eased her mind. As she watched the sun slowly set, she and Rory chatted about the dance company, though most of it was pretty pointless.
Then she remembered what she had seen the day before. No way. Even if it was Rory, she could never bring herself to say something like that out loud. Just as she was nearly finished with her beer, Rory stood and beckoned to somewhere. He said he would show her something cool, so she followed him without thinking much of it.
Café Müller occupied the first floor of a three-story building, and Rory’s family lived directly above it on the second floor. He led her up the stairs and kept going until they reached a ladder leading to the roof. Before she knew it, she was following Rory up the old wooden ladder.
“Wow….”
A breathtaking view spread out before her, so beautiful it seemed unreal, and a gasp escaped her. The river glowing with sunset had looked wonderful from the shop, but from up here it looked even more like a painting.
More than anything, she thought the location was incredible. So this was Oxpin. What she had seen until now had not been the real city at all. The feeling it stirred in her was different from what she felt when looking out over the beautiful countryside where she had grown up.
She sat on the roof with the pretzel Rory had given her in one hand and admired the scenery for a while. Then, for some reason, a question she normally would never have asked came to mind.
“Rory.”
“Yeah?”
“What do you like about my dancing? Ah, never mind. You don’t have to answer.”
Embarrassed by her own question, she changed her mind and waved her hands, but Rory’s expression grew deliberately serious.
“Honestly… I can’t explain it.”
“What? You’ve been giving me false hope this whole time.”
“That’s not what I mean. I knew when we first met.”
“Because of the bandoneon?”
“Yeah. There’s something about you. I’ve never seen anyone dance the way you do.”
“What could it be? I want to know too. You can see it, right?”
“Yeah. It’s definitely there.”
“So I just have to work myself to death like I am now?”
“Your body doesn’t lie. I guarantee it.”
“Honestly, I’m not even sure I have any talent.”
“You’re a genius. Don’t doubt yourself.”
Rory answered so quickly that he seemed like a machine that automatically produced an answer whenever a question was entered. How wonderful it would be if everything came as easily to her as it did to him. She was not a child of one or two years old, yet his words both reassured and annoyed her.
She felt she was probably coming off as narrow-minded by comparison, but there was nothing she could do about having such limited capacity.
“But why am I always the one getting corrected? I’m not going to believe you anymore, Rory Lawrence.”
Stung by sheer stubbornness, she shot him a sideways glare. Rory merely stretched his lips into a small smile.
Oh, come on. The sight of it melted her heart, disarming her completely. Then, in an instant, he seemed to move closer. Something soft brushed her cheek and was gone almost immediately.
“Believe me, Gina.”
She lost her words and stared at him. Behind Rory, sitting and looking at her, blinding sunset light spilled across the sky.
The weekend that had felt so short passed, and the next day choreography practice with Lily resumed. Apparently thinking they had established enough of the opening, Lily moved on to the latter part of the routine, which included a considerable amount of male-female duet work. She lined up the dancers and seemed to think for a moment before beginning to pair them off. Gina felt the same way, but she knew the girls all hoped Rory would be their partner without even having to ask.
“Gina Grinnell, Peter Green.”
Oh my God. Gina could hardly believe her ears at Lily’s voice. What kind of cruel twist of fate was this? She turned irritably toward Peter. He moved to stand beside her with a face like he had bitten into something rotten. As if I’m happy about it either.
When she looked toward Rory, he was standing beside the dancer who showed the most promise in ballet among the women. Lily had eyes, so it was the obvious result, but Gina still felt unfairly miserable when her own partner failed to measure up.
“All right. Women, make sure you match your jump timing. Men, focus on your balance so no one gets hurt.”
The duet centered on lifts, with the men hoisting the women into the air. Most of what Gina had learned here so far had been unfamiliar, but movements performed with a partner were stranger than anything. Putting her dismay aside, she began practicing with Peter, but every time she was lifted into the air, she lost her balance. She had thought she had steeled herself with the determination to do well, but when she still could not manage it, she grew frantic. Meanwhile, the others were successfully completing the movement again and again.
“Gina, Peter! You’re going to get hurt!”
They were attempting the lift again when their timing went badly out of sync. She realized something was wrong while they were in the air, but they both lost their balance and went tumbling across the floor. She nearly landed hard on her upper body and suffered a serious injury, but she quickly twisted backward and landed safely. Lily, who had been holding her breath, called out urgently when she saw it.
To demonstrate for the dancers, Lily immediately partnered with Rory and performed the lift. It looked beautiful and flawless, both technically and visually. Gina felt suddenly depressed at the sight of a level that seemed utterly beyond her reach.
“We can’t change partners now. You’re both capable of doing this. The problem is that the two of you aren’t in sync.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t know if we can get this ready for the performance. I’m very worried about both of you.”
“We’ll try, Miss Burnett….”
After practice ended for the day, only Gina and Peter remained from the entire company to hear Lily’s reprimand. Even after Lily left the rehearsal room, Peter stood there for a long while, his face stiff with wounded pride. No matter how much she disliked him, Gina felt she should at least talk to him once, so she approached him as he cleaned up.
“Peter.”
Peter lifted his head at her call, and his face plainly showed how unpleasant he found her very existence. Something she thought she had grown used to still left a significant scratch on her heart when confronted so starkly. But what else could she do? She could not afford to fall any further behind, so she continued.
“I’ll jump a little faster at the beginning, so you should—”
“Who do you think you are, teaching me? Why don’t you just worry about yourself?”
His utterly baseless hostility left her speechless. Peter brushed past her coldly, and the two of them continued to glare at each other until the end. Rory watched them, then gathered his belongings and came over.
She was in too foul a mood to show him anything good, so she told him she was fine and practiced alone in an empty rehearsal room during the break.
Then she remembered her practice with the man.
She had been so dispirited over the lift with Peter that she had no idea how much time had passed. It seemed like the appointed time had long since gone by, and panic seized her. She hurried out and ran to a rehearsal room on another floor.
“You’ve gotten soft.”
The man she saw as soon as she entered was standing in the middle of the floor instead of at the piano. She flung her bag aside and went up to him.
“I’m sorry.”
“What delayed you?”
“There was a part I couldn’t do during choreography practice… I stayed behind to practice for a while, and that’s why I’m late.”
“So you want to become perfect in that short amount of time.”
“No one is perfect from the beginning.”
She did not know whether he meant it as comfort or a lecture, but his words—which she thought she had grown somewhat accustomed to—struck her chest with unusual force today.
It felt as though he were telling her she was destined to remain ordinary forever, that she possessed nothing more than ordinary talent. Her mouth turned bitter, and anguish filled her heart. With the weight of several stones pressing down on it, she took hold of the barre.
Principal Rory had said that the body did not lie, so it had to be true. But was the same true of her talent? Lost in a tangle of thoughts, she finished practicing. Then she saw the man turn and walk away, leaving her exhausted behind.
What had given her the courage then? Even while gasping for breath, she clenched her fists and opened her mouth.
“Mr. Han.”
Her heart was already pounding relentlessly. Without warning, she ran at the silent man who had turned back toward her. After a running start, she bent her knees and launched herself into the air. Without showing the slightest surprise, he slipped his hands neatly beneath her hips, where they joined her waist, and lifted her.
After the successful lift, her body spun twice in the air, feeling so light it seemed unreal. This was it. In the strange exhilaration of having accomplished something, she felt his strong arms skillfully wrap around her waist and set her down on the floor.
Even after doing it, she felt no different than before she had tried. Only now did she feel as if she had finally awakened to the sensation of a movement that was perfect in every way.
A strange youthful defiance entered the face of the man, still flawlessly arrogant and perfect without a single blemish. There was one thing she still wanted to ask.
“Was she not perfect from the beginning, either?”
“Lily Burnett.”
“No. She was perfect.”
Had she wanted him to lie to her, at least? At that moment, it felt as though steel needles had sprouted all over one corner of her heart. Helplessness before a talent she could never reach, mixed with a strange, aching emotion that made her heart burn, surged up inside her.
Was it envy? Or spite?
After he left the rehearsal room, she felt an inexplicable rage boiling hot inside her. She did not know why, but tears simply came.
She wiped her damp cheeks with her bare arm and started the metronome again. Truly, it felt as though tonight would be endless.