chapter 5

Kia pulled toa stop in the circular driveway in front of Lillian’s parents’ house.

“So are we going to eat in front of the TV to see if we’re going to be on the show?” Kia asked.

“We?” Lillian shook her head.

Kia had decided that if the company got on the show, she was going to put her cooks in charge of her food truck and follow Lillian to Portland to be the Reed-Whitmer Ballet Company’s official influencer, which probably meant hanging out with the dancers and trying to get Lillian to go dancing and take flaming shots.

Lillian got out of Kia’s car. “Eleanor says we will have a civilized dinner.” Lillian imitated her mother’s arch tone.

“You and your mom aren’t going to do that whole cold-staring thing are you?”

“Cold-staring is how Eleanor shows love,” Lillian said, dropping her voice as they approached the wide steps leading into the formal entryway.

Kia knew not to say that Eleanor wasn’t that bad. Lillian had made it clear she didn’t want to hear it. Kia and her father, Lillian’s uncle Carl, were like wild parrots to Eleanor: delightful, colorful, occasionally annoying, always free to be themselves. Kia did not get to compare that experience of Eleanor Jackson with the woman who raised Lillian to dance Odette and Odile on the stage of the Palais Garnier.

“So are you excited?” Kia laced her arm through Lillian’s.

About having dinner with her mother? Not really.

About the possibility of getting on The Great American Talent Show? Not really.

About the very real possibility that tomorrow she’d have to tell her dancers the truth: the Reed-Whitmer Ballet Company was done? That one broke her heart.

“It’ll be fun.” Kia squeezed her arm as they mounted the steps.

“Fun is where…” Lillian tried to remember Eleanor’s opinion on fun.

Fun was the birthplace of mediocrity? Fun was laziness in disguise?

“Come on.” Kia pulled her through the front door.

Lillian’s parents and Uncle Carl were already seated in the dining room. Seven empty seats remained at the end of the table. There were probably deep-seated emotional reasons her parents furnished their house to look like an 1800s mansion, but it was a little extra.

Kia made her way around the table, hugging her father, Eleanor, and Lillian’s father, Erik, and then pulled up a seat. Lillian hesitated for a second. Should she hug her parents or just sit down? It seemed like something you should know. Not a difficult family decision.

“Well, have a seat, Lillian,” Eleanor said.

“What’s for dinner?” Kia unfurled her linen napkin. “You know I could’ve brought my new Cheetos-crusted hollandaise corn dogs.”

“Oh, Kia,” Eleanor said with a tolerant affection she never showed Lillian.

“I’ve been thinking of painting the Serendipity in the colors of Greece,” Uncle Carl said. “I’ll be sailing to Lesbos in the spring.”

They’d obviously been in the middle of a conversation.

“Blue and white are good colors for a yacht if you have to live on a yacht,” Eleanor said. “It’ll be beautiful.”

Carl was her favorite brother. He was also her only brother, but she loved him like a favorite. Her bright, yacht-sailing parrot.

“Not blue and white. Pink, red, and orange. The colors of Lesbos,” Uncle Carl said. “The girls will love it.”

The girls were his six or ten Cavalier King Charles spaniels.

“Oh Carl. Dogs are colorblind,” Eleanor said.

Lillian checked her phone surreptitiously. Half an hour until the results of the second-round auditions. Half an hour until she found out whether the Reed-Whitmer Ballet Company went on the show or shut down. If it was shut down, her dancers would stay in touch with each other. They’d say they’d stay in touch with her, but they wouldn’t.

The caterer Eleanor hired for any meal that wasn’t protein and wheatgrass delivered a plate of fish to Lillian’s place mat.

“Don’t be nervous,” Eleanor said.

“I’m not,” Lillian said reflexively.

This was her life. Everything she’d worked for. Living up to her mother’s legacy as the first Black dancer in the Julian Gienerva Ballet. Eleanor had made it a generation earlier. What excuse did Lillian have? If they’d rehearsed more? Had she been strict enough with the dancers? With herself? In minutes, the season’s competitors (and her future) would be announced.

“It’s not a tragedy if the company doesn’t get on that television show.” Eleanor pronounced that television show like she was talking about someone’s mistress. “If you don’t get on the show, I’ll talk to Jean-Michel at the Studio de Danse. You know they’ve been wanting you for a visiting fellowship for years. You can teach.”

Teachwas the faithless relative of that television show.

“I teach,” Eleanor added.

Eleanor taught after dancing leads until forty. Miraculously old for a ballerina. Kia shot Lillian a look that said, Can we just enjoy our sustainably sourced sea bass?

“Thanks, Mom,” Lillian said. “I’m sure Jean-Michel is very nice.”

“He’s a monster. But the precision he demands out of his dancers…” Eleanor’s voice was as smooth as polished mahogany. “He can watch twenty dancers at the same time and catch every flaw.”

“If you don’t get on the show, you and Kia can sail to Lesbos with me,” Uncle Carl offered. “Lillian, you can find the perfect woman.”

“I don’t speak Greek.”

“The language of love is universal,” Uncle Carl said.

Lillian flashed back to Portland and the first-round auditions and the blue-haired woman with the fake name. Lillian usually didn’t remember her hookups much after the fact, but she didn’t laugh with them either. She’d laughed with the blue-haired woman. If that woman lived in LA, Lillian might break her no-second-night rule. Just this once. It’d feel good to laugh and then wash this night away with the best semi-anonymous sex she’d ever had. Blue would know her body even better this time. Lillian snapped her focus back to the table.

“What about my dancers?” Lillian had not meant to burst out. “I’m not just doing this for myself. What about Imani, Pascale, Elijah, Jonathan, and Malik?”

All the days she ran them through eight hours of rehearsal, the hot LA sun blazing through the studio windows. They lived half their lives in hotels while they toured. Pascale was always in search of a new hairdresser to straighten her mushroom cap of processed hair. Elijah was always researching gay bars and then not going because, like Lillian, he had no time for a personal life. Lillian’s personal life was burying a succession of houseplants and trying not to know the last names of the women she slept with. Her dancers had community with each other, but they’d given up the same things Lillian had.

“El, you need to let Lillian relax,” Uncle Carl cut in.

“Relaxation is distraction, and distraction is the first step to failure,” Eleanor said reflexively.

Lillian shot Kia a look that said, See?

Carl pressed a perfectly manicured hand to his chest. “How were we born of the same mother?” He turned to Lillian. “You need to swim free, my little puffin.”

Kia grinned at Lillian. She was going to call Lillian little puffin for the next month.

“The point is,” Eleanor said, “these shows are just corporate advertisements. Every week is sponsored by a different product. This week they’ll flaunt themselves for Downy dryer sheets. Next week it’s Washington Mutual. Lillian is too good for this. Lillian, darling, you’re a star. You’re a comet that comes once in a generation.”

Lillian’s phone alarm vibrated in her pocket. She took it out and set it on the table. She had the discipline to control her hands so they didn’t shake.

“This show just wants people who’ll cry on TV,” Eleanor said.

Lillian touched her phone to wake up the screen.

“It’s beneath you,” Eleanor added.

Lillian held her breath and looked. She read the list twice. She expanded the screen to be sure she’d read correctly. She couldn’t meet Eleanor’s eyes.

“We made it.”