"Kress, Nancy - Dancing on Air" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

Caroline says, "What about the last two weeks of the season?"
Mr. Privitera says, "I'm sorry, dear."
He walks to the door. He puts his hand on the door. He says, "Oh, at least you won't have to be burdened with that dog anymore. Now that the madman's been caught, I'll have John notify the protection agency to come pick it up."
Caroline raises her head. Her fur all stands up. She smells angry. Soon she runs out the door. Mr. Privitera is gone. She runs to the offices. "John! John, you bastard!"
The office hall is dark. The doors do not open. John is not here.
Caroline runs up steps to the offices. She falls. She falls down some of the steps and hits the wall. She lies on the floor. She holds her hind foot and smells hurt.
"Angel," she says. "Go get somebody to help me."
I go to the lounge. One dancer is there. She says, "Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't know that anybody -- Angel?"
"Caroline is hurt," I say. "Come. Come fast."
She comes. Caroline says, "Who are you? No, wait -- Deborah, right? From the corps?"
"No, I'm not ... I haven't been invited to join the corps yet. I'm a student at SAB. I'm just here a lot ... Are you hurt? Can you stand?"
"Help me up," Caroline says. "Angel, Deborah is safe."
Deborah tries to pick up Caroline. Caroline makes a little noise. She cannot stand. Deborah gets John. He picks up Caroline.
"It's nothing," she says. "No doctor. Just get me a cab ... dammit, John, don't fuss, it's nothing!" She looks at John hard. "You want to take Angel away from me."
John smells surprised. He says, "Who told you that?"
"His Majesty himself. But now you've decided whatever you thought I was doing so privately doesn't matter any more, is that right?"
"It's a mistake. Of course you can keep the dog. Anton doesn't understand," John says. He smells angry.
"No, I'll just bet he doesn't," Caroline says. "You might have picked a kinder way to tell me I'm through at City Ballet."
"You're not through, Caroline," John says. Now he smells bad. His words are not right. He smells like the man who takes Caroline's purse.
"Right," Caroline says. She sits in the cab.
Deborah steps back. She smells surprised.
"I'm keeping the dog," Caroline says. "So we're in agreement, aren't we, John? Come on, Angel. Let's go home."
* * * *
We go to class. Caroline cannot dance. She tries and then stops. She sits in a corner. Mr. Privitera sits in another corner. Caroline watches Deborah. The dancers raise one hind leg. They spin and jump.
Madame holds up her hand. The music stops. "Deborah, let us see that again, _s'il vous plais_. Alone."
The other dancers move away. They look at each other. They smell surprised. The music starts again and Deborah raises one hind leg very high. She spins and jumps.
Mr. Privitera says, "Let me see the bolero from _Coppelia_. Madame says you know it."
"Y-yes," Deborah says. She dances alone.
"Very nice, dear," Mr. Privitera says. "You are much improved."
The other dancers look at each other again.
Everybody dances.
Caroline watches Deborah hard.
8.
Deborah's face looked like every Christmas morning in the entire world. She grabbed both my hands. "They invited me to join the company!"
My suitcase lay open on the bed, surrounded by discarded clothes I wasn't taking to the bioenhancement conference in Paris. My daughter picked up a pile of spidersilk blouses and hurled them into the air. In the soft April air from the open window the filmy, artificial material drifted and danced. "I can't believe it! They asked me to join the company! I'm in!"
She whirled around the tiny room, rising on toe in her street shoes, laughing and exclaiming. My silence went unnoticed. Deborah did an _arabesque_ to the bedpost, then plopped herself down on my best dress. "Don't you want to know what happened, Mom?"
"What happened, Deborah?"
"Well, Mr. Privitera came to watch class, and Madame asked me to repeat the variation alone. God, I thought I'd die. Then _Mr. Privitera_ -- not Madame -- asked me to do the bolero from _Coppelia_. For an awful minute I couldn't remember a single step. Then I did, and he said it was very nice! He said I was much improved!"
Accolades from the king. But even in my numbness I could see there was something she wasn't telling me.
"I thought you told me the company doesn't choose any new dancers this close to the end of the season?"
She sobered immediately. "Not usually. But Caroline Olson was fired. She missed rehearsals and performnces, and she wasn't even taking the trouble to prepare her roles. Her reviews have been awful."
"I saw them," I said.
Deborah looked at me sharply. "Ego, I guess. Caroline's always been sort of a bitch. So apparently they're not letting her go to Saratoga, because Tina Patrochov and a guest artist are dividing her roles, and Mr. Privitera told Jill Kerrigan to learn Tina's solo from _Sleeping Beauty_. So that left a place in the corps de ballet, and they chose me!"
I had had enough time to bring myself to say it.
"Congratulations, sweetheart."
"When does your plane for Paris leave?"
This non-sequitur -- if it was that -- turned me back to my packing. "Seven tonight."
"And you'll be gone ten days. You'll have a great time in Paris. Maybe the next time the company goes on tour, I'll go with them!"
She whirled out of the room.
I sat at the end of the bed, holding onto the bedpost. When Deborah was three, she'd wanted a ride on a camel. Somehow it had become an obsession. She talked about camels in daycare, at dinnertime, at bedtime. She drew pictures of camels, misshapen things with one huge hump. Camels were in short supply in St. Louis. Ignore it, everyone said, kids forget these things, she'll get over it. Deborah never forgot. She didn't get over it. Pers had just left us, and I was consumed with the anxiety of a single parent. Finally I paid a friend to tie a large wad of hay under a blanket on his very old, very swaybacked horse. A Peruvian camel, I told my three-year-old. A very special kind. You can have a ride.