Free You Can’t Fall in Love With Your Ex (Can You?) by Sophie Ranald Page A

corner from work – work! Actually
being paid to dance! Having made it into the company! – that we’d happily
ignored the damp, the intermittent hot water and the mouse we’d seen scurrying
along the skirting board on our first night there. It was only a matter of
time, we told ourselves, until we were promoted, or one of us was, and then
we’d move somewhere better, together like the Three Musketeers, sharing our good
fortune.
    But
we were still waiting. We’d seen our contemporaries move on, some promoted,
some decamping to other companies and even other countries, some giving up
ballet altogether and training as dance teachers, finding modelling work, or
just quietly vanishing.
    “But
we’re still here,” I said. “That has to be a good thing, right?”
    Mel
knew me well enough to read the thought behind this random remark.
    “Sure,”
she said. “You’re only twenty-one. Heaps of time yet. Only freaks make soloist
at our age.”
    “Freaks
and naturals,” I said gloomily, draining my glass. “Is there another bottle?”
    “Best
not,” Mel said. “Marius is coming to watch morning class tomorrow, remember?
You don’t want to be stinking of booze as well as fags.”
    “I’ll
shower before bed,” I said, contemplating the prospect of ten minutes under a
trickle of water with enthusiasm as lukewarm as it would be. I levered myself
off the sofa, assessing a new click in my left hip, twin to the one in my
right.
    “See
you later,” I said.
    “Laura,”
Mel said. “Just a second, before you go…”
    I
paused, a sinking feeling in my stomach. She was going to say Felix had asked
her out. Or something else – something worse.
    “I
didn’t want you to find out tomorrow with everyone else,” she said. “But it’s…
They only told me today. I’ve been promoted. First Artist, from tomorrow.”
    “Mel!
How did you keep that quiet all day? When did you find out? My God, that’s
incredible, I’m so made up for you.”
    I
bent over and gave her a hug. I was pleased for her – of course I was. But I
was also horribly, bitterly envious. The jump from being a mere Artist, as we’d
been since we joined the company, to First Artist wasn’t huge – it didn’t mean
masses more money or starring roles or anything like that – but it meant Mel
was being considered for better parts, perhaps even for understudying a soloist
some time soon. It meant she was highly thought of – more highly thought of
than me.
    “I’m
going to be a cygnet,” she said, starting to giggle. “I can’t believe it! I
thought it was never going to happen and now it has.”
    “It
has,” I said. “And you bloody deserve it too, you work so hard.”
    I
sat down again, even though what I really wanted was to go to bed and try to
sleep, try not to think about it. “Tell me everything – what did they say?”
    Mel
put her feet up on the sofa, hugging her knees. “God, it’s freezing in here. I
swear, my entire pay rise is going to go towards having the heating on more
often. Anna called me in – you know what she’s like, I was terrified I was
going to be sacked, and the way she started it really sounded like that. She
went on and on about the importance of good technique, how that underlies
everything and without it there’s no point carrying on – you know, the usual
lecture. And I stood there saying, ‘Yes, Anna. I understand,’ over and over,
and trying not to cry.”
    “Then
what?”
    “Then
she said she hoped I’d take on board her comments, and I realised I wasn’t
going to be sacked, because what would be the point if I was. And then she said
she’d expect me in rehearsal room eight for Swan Lake tomorrow
afternoon. And I said, ‘But that’s the cygnets, isn’t it?’ And she said yes,
and that I could pick up the official letter about the promotion on my way out.
And then I did cry – I felt like such a div.”
    “I’m
sure everyone cries,” I said. I needed to be more enthusiastic,