Chapter 5

Solange

After the lighting walk-through, I sat down in the house and changed my shoes.

"Opening night's tomorrow," Nadine said, stopping beside me. Her tone was casual, almost offhand. "How are you holding up? Nervous?"

"I'm all right," I said. "There's some nerves, but nothing I can't manage."

"Nothing you can't manage." She repeated it slowly, as though tasting the phrasing, then let out a quiet laugh. "The first time I went onstage as a principal, I was so nervous I showed up at the theater three hours early. I didn't even know what I planned to do with myself that early — the makeup artists weren't in yet. So I just sat alone in the dressing room and did nothing. Just sat there."

She paused. "You're already doing better than I was."

I wasn't sure why Nadine was telling me any of this. A little flustered, I dropped my gaze and went back to working at my shoelaces. "How did that performance go, in the end?"

"Not well," she said, without a moment's hesitation. "I came in on the wrong count. But I danced through to the end." Her expression was entirely calm as she said it — nothing like her usual severity. "Keep your head level. Even if you miss a count, even if you fall, it's not the end of the world. What matters is how you dance after."

I looked up at her. She turned her head and met my eyes, and there was something in her gaze I couldn't quite name — not expectation, but something more layered than that.

I looked away and gave a small, quiet sound of acknowledgment, the closest thing to a reply I could offer to everything she'd just said.

"Have you ever thought about dancing Swan Lake?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "Always."

It was almost the role I wanted most — and nearly the reason I had chosen to stay with NYM Ballet, a mid-sized company, in the first place.

"Then dance well tomorrow, no matter what happens." She paused. "The company has plans for a world tour of Swan Lake next year. Nothing was confirmed yet, but there was a development with the investors tonight." Another pause. "If your Giselle tomorrow is outstanding, I'll give serious consideration to casting you as Odette."

Odette.

I went still for a moment. Swan Lake had always felt impossibly far away — the highest ceiling of everything I allowed myself to dream. From the day I first set foot in a studio, Odette had been the dream I lived with, the one I never let myself reach toward directly, not because I didn't want it, but because the distance was too great to make wanting it feel like anything other than a waste. And now Nadine had said it aloud, in the most matter-of-fact voice, and she hadn't said "perhaps" or "if the timing works out" — she had said "serious consideration."

Standing there in front of her, I felt something settle in my chest, strange and almost too quiet to be joy — like a light source that had always existed somewhere far off, suddenly drawn so close I didn't know how to look at it directly.

What had lived only in the abstract now had the shape of something real.

"I'll give everything I have tomorrow night," I said. "I won't waste this."

Nadine rested a hand briefly on my shoulder, then turned and walked toward the backstage corridor and was gone.

I packed the rest of my things into my bag, but my mind was still turning over what she'd said.

Swan Lake. A world tour. Odette.

Any one of those three things on its own would have been enough to keep me up all night. Gathered into a single sentence, folded behind a single condition, they produced in me a particular kind of joy — the feeling of something long-imagined finally coming within reach.

I was standing up, bag in hand, when a young stagehand I recognized but couldn't name approached me holding a bouquet wrapped in pink tissue paper — white tulips, a dozen or so stems bundled close together, petals tight and full and clean as milk, catching a faint warmth from the theater lights. The stems had been bound neatly with kraft paper and thin cotton twine, simple without being sparse, and there was something about the whole arrangement that I could only describe as restrained elegance.

"Solange," he said, holding them out to me. "Someone asked us to pass these along to you."

I took them.

Looking at the flowers, I felt a small, unexpected wave of emotion. White tulips were my favorite, and I had mentioned that to Tyler once — told him that if my first principal performance made it to curtain call, I was going to buy myself a bouquet of white tulips as a reward. Tyler and I had always been long-distance, which meant flowers were rare to begin with, and when he did send them, they were usually red roses. This felt different, and the surprise of it came mixed with something bright and fluttering that I couldn't quite settle.

I took out my phone and called him.

He picked up after two rings. Behind him was the noise of a bar — bass-heavy music pressing down on the voices around him — and I had to hold the phone close just to make out his words.

"What is it?" he asked, loudly.

"Tyler," I said, the question already out before I'd thought it through, "did you send me flowers?"

"What?"

"Tulips — white ones," I said. "A stagehand just brought them over and said someone had arranged for them to be delivered. It wasn't you?"

"Tulips?" he shouted back. He clearly hadn't caught it. "What did you just say about tulips?"

His confusion was answer enough. He hadn't sent them. He didn't know anything about it. "Never mind," I said quickly. "I got confused. It's nothing."

"Oh." A beat. "Is that all, then? Anything else?"

I glanced down and noticed for the first time a small card tucked into the bouquet — folded once, cream-colored, its corners pressed sharp and clean. I slipped it free with one hand and opened it. The handwriting inside was neat and unhurried, written in fountain pen.

Looking forward to tomorrow evening's performance.

In the lower right corner, a name: Valentin Radu.

I read it twice in my head. The name carried a faint echo of familiarity, though I couldn't place it — someone must have mentioned it at some point. But that could wait. What I actually wanted, right now, was to tell Tyler.

"Tyler, Nadine spoke to me just now," I said, and I could hear the excitement rising in my voice before I could contain it. "She said if I perform well tomorrow, she's considering me for a principal role in an upcoming world tour. Guess which production."

A brief silence on his end.

"I don't really follow the ballet stuff," he said. "Is it that one — Swan Lake or whatever?"

"Swan Lake — Odette," I said. "I never even let myself think about it before—"

"That's good," he said, cutting me off. "Look, if there's nothing else, I'm going to go."

"Wait," I said, just fast enough. "Tyler, I'm sorry about tonight. I said I'd stay with you and then I disappeared. I'm sorry. After the opening tomorrow — that bar you've been wanting to go to, I'll go with you. I promise."

"Sure," he said. "Fine."

The line went dead. Faster than I'd expected, fast enough that I didn't have time to say anything more.

I stood there looking at the darkened screen. There was something sitting in my chest — not quite unease, but not quite calm either. I turned the card over a few times, read the name again, and thought I might remember where I'd heard it, but the memory wouldn't come fully into focus. I folded the card and tucked it into my wallet.

I shouldered my bag, gathered the tulips carefully in both arms, and walked through the empty theater toward the exit, fishing in my pocket for subway change as I went. When I pushed open the side door, the night air hit me directly — cold enough that I flinched and pulled my shoulders up involuntarily.

The car was already there. The same black Rolls-Royce from earlier, the same driver standing at the curb, and as I came through the door he stepped forward and opened the rear door for me. "Miss Sinclair," he said, "there was a logistical error on the theater's end this evening that caused you unnecessary inconvenience. It's only right that we see you home."

I considered it for a moment, then didn't argue. I put my phone away and got in.

It was nearly ten o'clock by the time I got back to the apartment. Margot was already asleep, the rooms dark. I didn't turn on any extra lights — just washed my face in the dim, let my hair down, and sat on the edge of the bed to check that my morning alarms were all set. Once I was sure, I turned my phone face-down on the nightstand, lay back, and closed my eyes.

The words on the card came back to me.

Looking forward to tomorrow evening's performance.

So was I.