Tiny Pretty Things Read Online Free PDF Page A

think it through. I need space to get ready for it all.
    The elevators have cameras going, so I take the stairs down eleven flights to the first floor. I don’t want anyone to know I’m out of bed. I’m a bit breathless as I tiptoe to my secret place, passing the administrative offices, through the lobby, and dashing from hall plant to hall plant, hoping not to be spotted by the front desk security guard. The whispers from earlier follow me, buzzing in my ears and my head as if the parents and other dancers were still standing there, mocking me.
    The black girl. The new girl. She’s no Sugar Plum Fairy. Her feet are bad. Her legs are too muscular. Her face won’t look right onstage. It should’ve been Bette. Bette’s sister was luminous, you heard Mr. K say it. Gigi could never be that.
    The ghost words push me forward. I walk as quietly as possible down the hall. The ballet conservatory is at the back of the Lincoln Center complex, in one of the beautiful buildings that makes up the performing arts center. The first time I walked along the promenade, it seemed impossible that there was a place that housed it all: dance, theater, film, music, opera, and more. The studios on the first floor are glass boxes that let in light. I let my fingers graze along the cool panels as I pass.
    I hold my breath and duck past the nutritionist’s office. Her charts and scales and cold metal examining table provoke hysteria, and the tiny woman wields the power to boot a dancer out of the conservatory for falling underweight. It’s enough to keep me eating, that’s for sure.
    I jump when I catch sight of Alec slipping out of one of the studios. It’s the middle of the night, practically. Our eyes meet. I open and shut my mouth like a fish, and start to mumble out some explanation for why I’m down here. He smiles like he’s not going to tell anyone.
    “What are you doing up?” Alec says, grabbing my hand and leading me to a dark spot in the hallaway from a camera. The gesture means nothing of course. He belongs to Bette, whose face is porcelain and smooth and whose words and expressions are so carefully chosen they are always dead perfect. My hair is frizzy and wild and I never say the right thing. I hope my hand isn’t clammy.
    “They’re always watching,” he whispers. “You’ve got to know where to hide.” His body is close to mine. He smells good, especially for someone who’s been dancing all evening, and I take an illicit breath of his woody deodorant and the sweetness of new sweat making his forearms glisten in the dark.
    “I like to dance at night,” I say, trying to remember how easy talking used to be back in California. “I go to the locked-up studio. The one in the basement.” I don’t know why I tell him this.
    “Just came from a late-night workout myself,” he says.
    I try on a smile and force myself to hold onto Alec’s eye contact. Secretly, I’m wondering about him: why he dances, what he dreams about, what kissing him might be like. I’ve never really been this curious about a boy before. Boys are distractions. Well, to ballerinas. Not to normal girls.
    Bette’s boyfriend, I say in my head, even as I take note of how wide his shoulders are, how I can make out the shapes of the muscles under his tights and hoodie. There’s something so romantic about a ballerina couple. You can’t help admiring their beauty and symmetry when they walk down the hall together. Long limbs and blond hair and a graceful ease that can’t be denied. And onstage, I bet the audience can sense that they’re together.
    I mean, obviously.
    “You won’t tell on me will you?” I try to flirt like girls in the movies.
    “I won’t tell if you don’t, Sugar Plum Fairy,” he mock whispers. There’s nothing sinister in the words, no threat. If anything there’s a laugh underneath it all. I smile back. I’m not sure anyone has really smiled at me for the entire month I’ve been here. Though he’s always been so nice