Free LUKA (The Rhythm Series, Book 2) by Jane Harvey-Berrick Page A

outside, and we were all in these tight, constricting costumes, dancing on concrete. For eight hours. One of the other dancers ended up with shin splints. Like I said—gruesome.
    I showed up when I was supposed to, learned the steps and kept my mouth shut.
    Being a backup dancer on this show wouldn’t be a lot different, but at least I’d be treated professionally. I hoped.
    Kathryn was Arlene’s right-hand woman, assistant choreographer in all but name, and the company’s Dance Captain.
    The D.C. is the person who’s responsible for maintaining the show’s choreography/movement, and teaching new cast members like me when they come into the show. Some D.C.’s are part of the ensemble, some aren’t. Looking at Kathryn, I guessed that she fell into the second category.
    “I usually audition the swing dancers,” she said, raising her eyebrows, “but Arlene’s word is the 11 th Commandment around here, so . . . you’d better be as shit hot as she says you are. We’ve got one other new dancer today,” and she pointed at a tiny brunette girl who was sitting on the floor doing stretches.
    “Hi!” she said, waving at me and smiling. “I’m so glad that I’m not the only new kid on the block. I’m Alice.”
    “Luka,” I smiled back, reaching down to shake her hand.
    Kathryn clapped her hands together.
    “Okay, no time for chat. Let’s get started.”
    She led us out to the stage and I heard Alice gasp. I felt like doing the same. The theater was huge. It was the biggest stage I’d ever danced on, with a set of complicated hydraulic lifts that moved scenery around. Then row upon row of raked seating in rich red velvet, reaching back into the shadows, with two tiers of circle seats and four private boxes, edged with brocade curtains.
    It was one of those moments that I’d remember when I was old and gray and no longer performing.
    Kathryn smiled at our stares.
    “It’s really something, isn’t it? It’s one of the newer theaters in London, not quite a hundred years old yet, but she’s a beauty. Everyone has played here from Charlie Chaplin to Judy Garland. We didn’t even close during the war.”
    She spoke as if she’d been there personally, although she’d have to be 90, not 40.
    “There’s a lot of history and now you’re part of it . . . don’t let me down! I’ll teach you three, maybe four numbers today. There are 17 in total; 14 with backup dancers. So by the end of the week, you should be good to go.”
    Alice threw me a worried look.
    Kathryn took us through a pretty good warmup, so that reassured me that she knew what she was doing. Stretching thoroughly before and after a show is the best way of avoiding injury—quite a lot of dancers do yoga, too, although I’m not one of them. There’s always ice on hand, as well. You get injured, get the ice on.
    I needed it today.
    I thought I’d gotten lucky with Alice for a partner: beautiful, so supple it made me imagine all the positions that we could do in bed. I’m a guy—I can’t help thinking like that. But after she’d trodden on my toes five times and kneed me in the balls twice, I was feeling a lot less enthusiastic.
    “Sorry!” she whispered, for the hundredth time.
    “You’re ballet trained, aren’t you?”
    I grunted as she elbowed me in the ribs by accident. Again.
    “Is it that obvious?”
    To me, yeah, it was blindingly obvious. Ballet teaches turn-out—feet turned out and hips open. Ballroom is feet and knees facing front and we move more naturally. Which was why every other step she was crashing into me.
    After a full morning of rehearsing, I was so over it, and Kathryn wasn’t happy either, spitting into her cellphone at someone—probably whoever sent her Alice.
    “Do you hate me?” Alice asked, biting her lip as I sat on the stage to cool down with a bag of ice over my shin where she’d kicked me repeatedly during the first number Kathryn was teaching us.
    “Nope, but my balls have gone into hiding,” I