Free Breaking Big by Penny Draper Page B

was…necessary. A step in the process. I cleared it with Mr. Acton first, you know. I’m not a complete idiot, much as you would like to think so.”
    That surprises her. “Mr. Acton actually let you do that?” she asks.
    I sigh. Why doesn’t she go away? “Look, if you must know, rehearsal wasn’t going well. Yeah, yeah, just as you predicted. So you were right. And I was a mess. We thought it would help.”
    Odette stares at me. “So why are you here? Practicing?” She makes it sound like a dirty word. “If Mr. Acton likes the fact that you’re an idiot, why bother practicing?”
    “Will you cut it out with the idiot business?” I’m practically yelling now. “Here’s the thing. This was supposed to be my big break. I wanted to do it right, okay? So I stopped fooling around, and look where that got me. I always thought I was a pretty good dancer, but if you take away the fooling around, it turns out I’m not as good as I thought I was. Not good enough for the company anyway. So I have to practice. Happy?”
    “Ah, he finally sees the light,” Odette says sarcastically. Then she frowns and turns to go. She looks kind of sad.
    “What?” I say. “What’s the matter?”
    Odette sighs. “At least you have something unique. You’re a dancer and an idiot. I’m just a dancer. If my rehearsal didn’t go well, I wouldn’t have anything to add to the mix. Only technique, and if it doesn’t measure up, I’ve got nothing.”
    Oh boy. Where is Dr. Cam, psychoanalyst—heavy on the psycho —when you need him? What do I say?
    “Ummm…”
    “Don’t even try, Rob! Don’t think this is true confessions or anything, because it’s not. It’s reality. I have to be the best, because technique is all I’ve got. Charis has passion, Sybille’s romantic, and Johanna can do young and innocent. Mavis plays the comic. Everybody else has this other layer, but I just dance.”
    “Maybe you have another layer but haven’t found it yet?” I suggest weakly.
    “Oh, shut up,” Odette says fiercely. “Your balance is wrong on the double tour—that’s why you can’t do it, you know. That’s what you’re practicing, right? Watch me.”
    Odette pulls off her sweats, does a couple of stretches, then faces me. Feet in fifth position, plié, then…she flies straight up in a perfect double tour.
    “How did you do that?” I ask, aghast. “Girls don’t do double tours!”
    “Like guys don’t dance on pointe, right? Except when they do. You’re being an idiot again, Rob.” She prepares, then does a second perfect double tour .
    I want to cry.
    “I’m a dancer,” she says. “I can do any step I want.” She crosses the floor, grabs my arm and drags me to center. “You’re a mover.”
    I groan.
    “Nothing wrong with that. When you’re moving straight and fast, you eat up the floor. Your problem is when you try to turn. Think about it. What are your best moves?”
    “Grand jeté, cabriole…”
    “Yeah, the steps that move you full steam straight ahead. What are your worst?”
    “Well, double tour , of course…” I think about it. “And pirouettes.”
    “Right,” she says firmly. “All the moves that require rotation. Whenever you try to turn, your brain gets twisted. Your idiot side tries to get creative or something, I don’t know. And it means you miss the most important part of the whole jump.”
    “What’s that?” I ask suspiciously.
    “The snap. Watch me again.” Fifth position, plié, and she’s soaring.
    Then she looks at me. “Did you hear it?”
    “Hear what?”
    Odette sighs.
    Maybe I really am an idiot, because I haven’t the faintest idea what she’s talking about. I watch her go to the desk and tear a sheet of paper off a pad. She sticks one corner of the paper under the leg elastic of her leotard so that it dangles down between her thighs. Then she goes to the middle of the floor, takes fifth position again, pliés and shoots into the air. What sounds like a shot rings out