Noctua Review XII

sticking her feet into fifth when she spins out of her turns.

She talks until the last piece of the castle has been cleared away, the last branch of the cardboard painted trees has been cut down, the huge rocks made of carefully-placed papier-mâché have been relocated to rest alongside the painted baroque ceilings of opera sets. She talks until the men have finally swept the stage, have told her goodnight, have left her alone on the polished, worn wood. She walks slowly through the emptied stage, blue and red reflecting off of the tiaras the girls have placed haphazardly on folding tables offstage, the leftover light glinting on the false rubies. This is the same place, hours before the show, that they often practice on the bar, legs raising up and resting on it. She is nearly perfect, she knows this, at most exercises.

Walking by the cool metal, she lets her hand drift over it, squeezing and holding with a knuckle-white grip.

The stage opens, through a black-painted door, to a hallway flooded with yellow light and the remnants of cigarette smoke. She waits and waits outside it until the air is clear from the sound of soft-passing ballet slippers, until the lobby’s grinding noise slows. She has learned her lesson about surrounding herself with adoration. Sometimes it hurts more than nothing, she thinks, and the smiling burrows deep into her so that she has to say something, anything, to stem the praise. Old women pointing her out to their grandchildren, young dancers asking for her signature on their playbills. Or, lately, the photos. The hundreds of photos. No, it’s better to hang back. To avoid telling people, knowingly, that yes, she is shorter than she looks onstage, and yes, she has been dancing here for almost 15 years. Years and years and years.

Stepping through into the sweaty air, she follows the row of paintings hung along the wall, portraits of famous opera singers from the 1900s, turbans on their heads and mink heads on their shoulders. Her calves, still straining from the jetes, ache, but she does not stop to rub them.

She passes the makeup room, door ajar to reveal a few girls rubbing the lipstick from their mouths in the illuminated mirrors. When she pauses, 57