The Muse
The Muse
Chapter One
The soft soles of ballet slippers swished on the hardwood
floors. Fantasie-Impromptu filled the room, trickling out of the
open second-floor window of Ballet Theater of New York.
Every morning began like this, with company class, with groggy
faces and tired bodies. Movements turned robotic from constant
repetition. It was only during center exercises that the real
dancing began.
Today was different, however. This morning, the dancers walked
into the studio, fresh and alive. The first exercise, pliés, was
danced with the grace of Swan Lake, legs were crisp during tendus
and dégagés. By the current exercise, rond de jambes, sweat beads
trickled down foreheads and fell in droplets to the floor. All of
this was due to the man who sat at the front, arms folded across
his chest, looking out at the company of dancers as they warmed up
in preparation for a day of rehearsals. Every so often, he would
look down, scribble something in a notebook with a thin black and
gold pen, and then look back up with the same boredom in his
eyes.
He was William Darcy, the ballet legend, the one in the
company’s old promotional poster hanging in the lobby downstairs.
William Darcy, who had now assumed a new title as BTNY
Choreographer in Residence.
He was casting. This class was his audition. All of the dancers
knew it; all of them wanted a part in his next piece, the one the
critics were already buzzing about, the one that had yet to be
choreographed.
The music ended, and the dancers brought their arms down to the
finishing pose, holding their heads still longer than usual before
sighing and relaxing. The ballet mistress nodded and began
demonstrating the next exercise, frappés.
From the back of the room, on the barre against the wall,
Elizabeth Bennet slowly mirrored the teacher’s movements with her
legs, committing the exercise to memory. It was her sixth month in
the company, but her stomach still fluttered throughout class.
Every morning when she entered the studio, she saw her idols,
Caroline Bingley and Louisa Hurst, standing there in leg warmers
and pointe shoes, and now, Elizabeth was dancing with them.
The exercise began and the ballet mistress slowly paced around
the room offering corrections to the dancers. She walked by
Elizabeth, staring with an arched eyebrow and then paused. The old
woman tapped Elizabeth’s right hip twice.
“You’re sinking.”
Elizabeth pulled her torso up to correct the misalignment of her
hip. With just a raised eyebrow, the old teacher nodded and
continued on. Elizabeth’s heart pounded. Although she had been in
the company for six months, this was her first personal correction
from the ballet mistress, who recognized no one except for her pet,
Caroline Bingley. It took a while to establish oneself at the
venerable company. With a concealed smile, Elizabeth took this
correction as proof that she might perhaps be on her way to
belonging here.
Class proceeded uneventfully. William Darcy remained grave at
his seat in the front, scribbling notes, and staring indifferently,
seemingly unaffected by any of the dancing. Many of the dancers
tried to catch his eye during reverance, but he refused to
acknowledge them. Sighing, he looked down to his notebook and
frowned. When class ended, he stood and nodded curtly to the ballet
mistress, to the dancers, and then strode out of the studio
silently.
William Darcy took the stairs rapidly, heading straight to the
office of the Associate Artistic Director, Charles Bingley. Charles
and he had been good friends during their days in the company. They
had entered the company at the same time, and while William had
rose up the company ranks faster, they had remained close.
“Hey Will,” Charles said, smiling and leaning back in his chair
when his friend entered his office. “How was class? What’d you
think?”
William sat down in one of the old leather chairs on the
opposite end of the desk. “Terrible. They’re hopeless.”
Charles laughed. BTNY was not only one of the best companies in
the city, it was also one of the oldest and most highly regarded in
the country. Some of the best dancers in the ballet world were
counted amongst its ranks. Corps members in BTNY were fit to be
soloists in any other regional ballet company. Both William and
Charles knew they were wonderful, but William, in his dry way,
always loved getting the best of his friend.
“So,” William smiled, “when can I start?”
“Tomorrow if you want. Most of the dancers will be rehearsing
Giselle today until three.”
Nodding, William opened up the manila folder on his lap. “I
suppose you’ll insist that Caroline dance the lead.”
Charles laughed. “I won’t insist, but I’m sure she won’t leave
you or me alone until she does.”
“She’s a fabulous dancer, but I don’t know about her for this
piece...”
“I know what you like, Will. She’s got the technique. Perhaps
with coaching, she can give you what you want.”
William stared absently out of the window behind his friend.
“You can’t tease warmth out of stone, Charles.”
Shrugging his shoulders, the Associate AD looked to William. His
sister would throw a hissy-fit if she wasn’t cast in this piece.
She would run to the Artistic Director, Sir William Lucas, and
threaten to quit and join New York City Ballet, as she always did.
In appeasement, Lucas would cave. It was no use fighting Lucas or
his sister. He had tried it several times already and lost. Charles
loved his sister because that was what family duty called for, but
as administration, he saw her as a pebble in a pointe shoe.
“Will, please...” Charles insisted quietly.
William managed a terse smile. “So Caroline for the A cast and
Louisa Hurst for the B cast. And them,” he said, throwing the
roster of headshots on the table. A few faces were circled in
red.
Charles sighed and smiled warmly at his friend. No one in the
company understood him better, watched out for him more than
William. It had been that way since day one, and it was still that
way over fifteen years later. Charles plucked the headshots up off
the desk and flipped through them, nodding in approval.
“I’ll send these up to Lucas. He okays anything I do, so I’ll
post something on the boards today.”
“Thanks, Charles,” William said, standing and stretching out a
hand. Charles shook it and grinned.
“It’s great to be working together again, eh, Will? Does being
back here inspire any nostalgic feelings?”
“A few. Being back with all of the neuroses and egos, who
wouldn’t feel nostalgic?”
Charles laughed and patted his friend on the back. “If you
thought it was bad when you were a dancer, you should see what it’s
like on the administrative side of things. Good luck, Will. You’re
going to need it.”
William shook his head at Charles and smiled. William Darcy had
talent; he didn’t need luck. Leaving the office, he headed to the
studio to work out some of the choreography before tomorrow’s
rehearsal. Downstairs, a few stray corps members were stretching
and gabbing in the hallways, warmers and T-shirts pulled on over
their leotards and tights. Their chatter faded as he breezed past
them and into Studio B, the one without windows, before he closed
the door with a decisive and resounding thud.
Elizabeth Bennet was one of those dancers, bent over her legs,
stretching out the kinks in her thighs. Her sister, Jane, exhaled
slowly.
“So that’s William Darcy. He looks younger than in the
pictures.”
“Did you see his face during class? He could be one of those
human statues that perform for the tourists in Times Square. He
didn’t blink once throughout adagio. I watched him the whole time,”
Elizabeth commented.
Jane Bennet was Elizabeth’s older sister. Unlike her sister,
Jane had forsaken college and entered the ballet world early, at
eighteen. This marked her third year as a BTNY corps member, and
lately, she had been allowed to perform a few soloist roles.
Jumping up and down next to them, in an attempt to warm up her
feet, was Charlotte Lucas, no relation to Sir William Lucas. Along
with Elizabeth, she, too, had entered BTNY that year, although she
had danced for three years previously at Atlanta Ballet.
“I wonder who will end up in his first piece. Think Bingley will
weasel her way into it?”
Jane giggled. “William Darcy doesn’t seem like the kind to be
moved by her threats.”
Caroline Bingley was currently the reigning queen of the
company, and perhaps the most revered principal dancer in the
country. Still a young and brilliant dancer, she had several years
ahead of her in an already illustrious career. The prima was a
whirlwind and virtuoso. Her movements were bold and crisp, her
technique flawless. With long legs and flexible hips, her
extensions and fast feet made her an early favorite with audiences.
She had spent only a few months in the corps de ballet before
soaring up the ranks of the company and settling at prima ballerina
only three years into her career, at twenty-one.
Of course, there were other factors behind this speedy ascent.
Caroline and her older brother, Charles, came from old New York
money; their parents and grandparents had concert halls, museum
wings, and colleges named after them. Besides being a famous
principal dancer, she was a darling of the New York social scene,
dated Hollywood actors and Italian models, and often appeared in
the pages of the New York Times society section.
Elizabeth was now dancing in the same room as she and their
paychecks displayed the same company name, although Elizabeth was
sure the number of digits was vastly different. Bouncing up,
Elizabeth announced it was her lunchtime and headed down to the
locker room to fetch her tuna sandwich and apple. When she
returned, a gaggle of dancers had amassed before the message board.
Mr. Bingley had just posted the cast for William Darcy’s first
piece. Elizabeth practically whooped with excitement when she saw
her name there, third from the top of corps members, right above
her sister, Jane’s.
From across the room, Jane beamed and flashed her two thumbs up.
Elizabeth grinned back, winked, and then accepted the
congratulations of a few friends. She glanced over to the door of
Studio B, heart fluttering at her acceptance into the piece of the
legendary William Darcy.
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At ten minutes before the start of rehearsal the next day, the
door of Studio B flung open and William Darcy stood in the doorway.
His sharp features fell into a disapproving frown, and he scanned
the hall outside the studio.
“Dancers in my piece, I start at three sharp,” he ordered,
silencing the chatter in the halls. Before disappearing back
inside, he frowned once more.
One of the other corps members, Katherine James, raised her
eyebrows. “I have a friend in San Francisco Ballet, who says he’s a
real hard-ass, a stickler for discipline and all that.”
“I’d let him discipline me any day,” giggled another dancer, a
brunette named Lydia Lopez.
“Seriously, Lydia,” Katherine warned, “she said he made at least
one dancer cry in every rehearsal.”
The four dancers paused, considering this as they glanced over
to the studio.
“How old do you think he is?” asked Charlotte.
“Thirty-five,” Katherine answered, “retired at thirty.”
“And at the rate he’s going, he’ll have a heart attack and die
by the time he’s forty,” Elizabeth said.
“Liz!” Charlotte whispered, looking towards the open door of the
studio. Lydia and Katherine smiled.
Elizabeth nodded towards the studio. “Well, shall we?”
The girls filed into the studio where a few others dancers were
already doing pliés and relevés to warm up their feet. William
Darcy stood in the corner, fiddling with the stereo, gazing in the
mirror at the group that had just entered. Taking a quick head
count, he was several dancers short and missing a prima. He sighed
through his teeth. To William, the principal was supposed to set
the tone for the other dancers; if she arrived late and lacked
discipline, then surely the younger dancers would follow her
example.
By three o’clock, all dancers, except Caroline, had arrived. Not
one to go against his own policy of punctuality, William commanded
one of the corps girls to shut the door and then looked out at the
line of hesitant faces staring back at him.
“You,” he said, pointing to Jane, who straightened under his
scrutiny. “You’ll come out on stage from there.” He pointed to the
front, left corner of the room.
As he proceeded to direct the dancers to their opening spots,
Lydia leaned into Elizabeth. “Nice introduction, huh? Guess he
doesn’t like formalities,” she whispered.
“You, there will be no voices except my own in rehearsal. Got
it?” He frowned at Lydia and Elizabeth. Embarrassed, Lydia nodded
and looked down.
The door creaked open and the light titter of Caroline Bingley’s
laughter was heard before she stepped in.
“...I’ll call you,” she chirped to someone in the hall, before
stepping into the studio. All eyes froze on her. Flashing a wide
smile, she set her bag down in the corner and strolled to the
middle of the room.
“You’re late,” William said, glancing at the clock in the
back.
Caroline smiled. “Sorry about that.”
“Rehearsal starts at three, Ms. Bingley. Not when you decide
you’d like to show up. I expect you to be on time from now on,” he
said sternly, watching the smile melt off her face.
Caroline Bingley had not been ordered around since her first few
months in the company, nine years ago. Had this been any other
ballet mistress or choreographer, Caroline would have offered a few
choice words, quit the piece, and left the stunned room to their
own devices. But this was no ordinary choreographer. Dealing with a
man like William Darcy called for more finesse. Caroline had no
desire to ruin her chance to appear in his piece. Their combined
fame and talent would probably make this work equivalent to
Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments or Tharp and Baryshnikov’s
Cutting Up. The allure of rekindling what they had begun several
years back also factored into Caroline’s deference.
“Right, sir,” she said saluting, with a smile warming the
features of her face.
A few of the dancers giggled. William’s face remained frozen in
a hard stare. Caroline shirked back, allowing him to finish placing
the rest of the dancers. He showed them the first steps, offered
corrections and suggestions, and then positioned them in their
formations. Elizabeth found herself in the back row, all the way
stage right.
Caroline, whose entrance came later than the corps de ballet,
stood off to the side, yawning and leaning with both elbows on the
barre.
Midway through a pas de bourre, William Darcy looked up at her
reflection in the mirror and stopped mid-step. The dancers looked
at him in confusion as he turned around.
“Ms. Bingley, off the barre.”
Caroline’s jaw dropped, as she could only stare at William. “I’m
sorry?” she replied. Surely, he couldn’t be ordering her around,
the biggest star in the company, like some summer program
apprentice.
“I said quit leaning on the barre,” he growled. “It’s
unprofessional.”
Straightening herself, Caroline raised her chin and replied
saucily, “Mr. Darcy, I believe leaning on the barre is not
specifically forbidden in my contract. Perhaps you should discuss
it with Charles.”
William reddened. Caroline Bingley may have been it in the
company now, but prima ballerinas came and went, and he was a
legend. He was also the choreographer, highly acclaimed by the
critics, one who could name his salary to artistic directors,
probably up there in the ranks with Nuryev and Baryshnikov, and
there was no way in hell he was going to let this little snot defy
him, prima, best friend’s sister, or not.
“Ms. Bingley,” he said, his voice lowered in a chilling
monotone, “your contract is the administration’s concern, not mine.
In my rehearsals, I have my own rules. If you don’t like it, I
welcome you to discuss it with William Lucas.”
If there was one thing everyone, including Caroline, knew, it
was that Lucas would choose Darcy over her. Caroline might be
great, but William was golden. The two stared at each other in a
momentary standoff. The only sounds were the ticking of the clock’s
second hand and a few stray voices that rose up from the street.
The dancers’ eyes darted from the choreographer, his face frozen in
indifferent calm, to Caroline, whose eyes flashed with
insubordination. Finally, Caroline turned away in a silent huff,
conceding to William.
Elizabeth stared at the scene, marveling at the choreographer’s
contained power. Even Mr. Lucas could not force such obedience out
of the prima. None of them had ever seen Caroline Bingley silenced
so thoroughly and without histrionics or threats, just a slicing
glance of those dark eyes. Although she had done nothing wrong,
Elizabeth shrunk into herself, vowing never to do anything that
might warrant those eyes to look at her that way.
“The opening sequence. Again,” William barked, confident that
Caroline would give him no more trouble. Counting the rhythm
loudly, William paced back and forth, slowly inspecting the
dancers.
“You, elbows up.”
“Right side. No, your other right!”
“Glissade, not pas de bourrée.”
He had marked the steps twice already and was exasperated that
the dancers hadn’t yet picked them up. He ordered them to go
through the sequence again, threatening that he would keep them as
long as it took to get it right, union rules or no.
Stopping at Elizabeth, he stared at her feet.
“You, heels down.” The steps, however, were too fast for
Elizabeth, and she had to sacrifice a succinct landing after the
jump series in order to move on to the subsequent pas de bourrée.
“If you value your Achilles tendon, you’ll get those heels on the
floor after you jump,” he said.
Furiously trying to keep up, Elizabeth missed a step, pausing to
see where the others dancers were so she could catch up.
“Don’t stop!” he growled.
Elizabeth frantically caught up just as the sequence ended. She
saw William look heavenward before he yelled to all the dancers,
“Once more, until everyone gets it right.”
Too afraid to sigh in exasperation, the dancers walked back to
their initial spaces, panting and tired.
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Despite it all, rehearsal ended promptly at five o’clock and the
sweaty, exhausted dancers flung off their pointe shoes and trudged
back to the locker rooms. Charles greeted them as they left,
smiling broadly in encouragement. After they had all filed out,
Charles rushed into the studio.
“Well, how’d it go?”
“Fine, except for your sister.”
“What’d she do this time?”
“Came in late, lounged on the barre, openly challenged me.”
Charles shrugged. “Sounds tame for her. She challenges
everyone.”
Narrowing his eyes, Darcy glared at his friend. “Her behavior
isn’t professional, Charles. She acts like a child. Do me a favor,
and tell her to cut the crap.”
“I’m not telling my sister anything of the sort! She’ll rip out
my insides and feed them to the vultures,” Charles joked.
Darcy shook his head and removed the CD from the stereo. “Who’s
the one you’re seeing?”
“Jane. Jane Bennet. The tall one with the blonde hair. She’s
good, no?”
Darcy shrugged. “She has potential. Nice body, but a little
blank in the expression.”
Charles tsked and shook his head at his friend. “You’re too
critical. She’s lovely, a beautiful dancer. The most fluid adagios
you’ll ever see. And she’s a wonderful woman. An angel!”
“I suppose you’re just two smiling fools when you’re together,”
William said wryly.
“No, actually, we’re not.”
“You know you shouldn’t get involved with the dancers.”
“Why not?” Charles protested, “It never stopped you when you
were in the company.”
“It’s one thing being a dancer, and another when you’re on the
administrative side of things.”
Charles frowned in response.
“Take it from experience. If she hasn’t asked you for a better
part yet, then wait. It’s coming,” William quipped.
“She’s not like that, Will. I’ve dated women like that. Jane
isn’t one of them.”
William was doubtful. “Just be careful, Charles. Dancers in
corps de ballet will do anything not to be in the corps de
ballet.”
Charles stared at his toes, considering his friend’s words.
Having known William for close to fifteen years, Charles knew that
sometimes the best response to the man was none at all. The two
remained in silence for a time before Charles smiled and spoke.
“But, hey, I’ve been dying to know what you think about the
corps. They’re pretty good, aren’t they?”
Charles smiled, eagerly seeking the approval of his staunchest
critic. As the Associate Artistic Director, one of Charles’ duties
was to oversee auditions and choose new members for BTNY. This
meant the corps de ballet, future stars of the company and ballet
world, was under his jurisdiction
William returned Charles’ smile with a more muted grin and
nodded slowly. “They’re acceptable. Strong technical dancers, most
of them. But, it’s obvious you were the one who chose them.”
Charles laughed. “And why is that?”
“They all reek of that Balanchine standoffishness that I
loathe,” William explained, knowing his friend trained at School of
American Ballet, founded by George Balanchine. “Their faces are
dead. Bent elbows and wrists. They have no expression,
Charles.”
“And here I thought you were ‘following in Balanchine’s
footsteps’,” Charles teased, quoting a recent article in Dance
Magazine.
“The man was a brilliant choreographer, and I respect him
artistically, but he had a horrible sense of casting. All limp and
dull dancers.”
Charles laughed again, more amused than offended by his friend’s
characteristic grouchiness. “Okay, but what about...what about
Lydia Lopez? She’s fabulous. Fiery and quick feet. A real
Firebird.”
“Yeah, and a dead face that’s painful to watch, even if she is
fast.”
“She’s young, Will! You have to grow into that kind of
expression.”
Charles shook his head. “Okay, okay. There’s Jane’s sister,
Elizabeth Bennet. She’s one of the best incomings we’ve had in a
while.”
“Oh, and I suppose Jane Bennet had absolutely no influence on
your opinion of her whatsoever,” William said dryly.
Charles started in mock offense. “You may not know this, but I
can formulate an opinion on my own.”
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Elizabeth was halfway down the stairs before she realized she
was missing her water bottle. Face drenched with sweat, throat dry
and burning, she decided she needed it desperately and turned back
to the studio.
Voices wafted out from Studio B.
“Oh, and I suppose Jane Bennet had absolutely no influence on
your opinion of her whatsoever,” came a deep voice she recognized
as William Darcy’s.
Elizabeth froze and looked around her. The hallway was empty and
deadly silent. She feared taking another step, in case they caught
her listening in on a conversation that she shouldn’t have been
hearing.
“You may not know this, but I can formulate an opinion on my
own,” said Charles.
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes, becoming immediately suspicious of
the two men talking about her sister.
“Which one is she anyway?” asked William.
“Little bit darker hair than Jane, but shorter.”
Eyes widening, Elizabeth then realized the two men were speaking
of her. Two impulses ripped through her: the impulse to about-face
and flee down the stairs, and the impulse to tiptoe closer to the
open door and listen to what the assistant artistic director and
infamous choreographer were saying about her.
“There are four dancers by that description.”
Charles sighed. “She’s the one with the...” He said no more.
Elizabeth frowned. “With the what?” she whispered urgently.
“Oh. Uh huh,” came the reply from the choreographer. “She
doesn’t put her heels down in the jumps. She’ll get Achilles
tendonitis in a couple of years, and you’ll be out of a
dancer.”
Elizabeth started. She clutched onto the wall for support and
felt her heartbeat spike.
“I can talk to her about that. That’s a habit easily fixed.”
“And this,” William paused, “you don’t find that a problem?”
Elizabeth’s heart thundered in her chest, terrified and
desperate to know what “this” meant.
“She’s curvier than the other dancers, yes,” Charles said.
Elizabeth’s jaw fell open. She glanced down at her chest, what
“this” meant.
“But she’s thin,” Charles continued. “Not a typical ballerina
body, yes. What’s the problem? You cast her.”
“It was either her or Anne Boroughs. And you know how I feel
about her. Besides, Charles, this is a contemporary piece. BTNY’s
repertoire is seventy percent classical. The crux of it is she’s
too short for Sugar Plum, and Clara doesn’t have tits. She’ll hit a
dead-end in the corps and be back in some suburban dance studio
teaching pre-kindergarten ballet by the time she’s twenty-five. A
bad investment.”
“Oh, Will, come on. She’s not that...”
Elizabeth’s face burned. Her mind went white, her heartbeat
crashing in her ears. She felt a lump of anger well up in her
throat, and she resisted the urge to spit a string of curse words
out into the empty hallway.
Chapter Two
Forgetting her water, Elizabeth spun on the balls of her feet,
tiptoeing back to the stairway before she charged down, storming
into the locker room. She muttered curses under her breath. Jane
and a few other dancers in the room cast her quizzical glances,
which she ignored. Stripping off her leotard and tights and yanking
her hair out of the bun, she strode over to the showers and turned
the water on cold. Elizabeth stepped in, feeling the freezing water
fall over her shoulders and neck. She shivered, her breathing
ragged.
It was always the male choreographers and directors who had
hang-ups about dancers’ bodies. She had been told by enough of them
to go on a diet, get a breast reduction, wear sports bras - all
that, for a B-cup! By real world standards, Elizabeth was small,
but the ballet world wanted their girls thin and flat. Elizabeth
was trim, but her hips and breasts had been a plague all of her
dancing life. No matter how well she danced, it always came down to
that- her body.
Just as she made it into BTNY, they were ready to retire her. So
much for a sense of belonging. Forget the dancing; it was all about
the body. Even for a supposed “artist” like William Darcy. What
bullshit! Turning off the water, she stalked across the room.
Charlotte lounged on the bench by the lockers, winding a
band-aid around a bleeding blister.
“What’s up, Liz? You look like you’re ready to kill,” Charlotte
asked. In their six months of friendship, Charlotte had discovered
Elizabeth, for all of her vigor, possessed a simmering temper when
provoked.
“If one more freaking man tells me my boobs are too big, I’m
going to go ape-shit!”
“Too late,” Katherine teased from across the locker room.
“Your boobs aren’t big, Lizzy,” Jane said, gazing around the
door of her locker over at her sister. “Who told you that?”
“Oh, only every male choreographer I’ve ever worked with. You
know, it’s never the women. Never! It’s like they’re obsessed with
perfect little flat-chested waifs. I’m an okay dancer, for God’s
sake, but it’s always about the body,” Elizabeth raved into her
open locker, searching for her underwear.
“Okay, and who said something this time?” Charlotte asked.
“William Darcy. ‘Too short for the Snow Queen and Clara doesn’t
have tits!’ He also said I had a shelf-life of twenty-five,”
Elizabeth said, her hands trembling with anger. “I overheard him
talking with Charles.”
Charlotte frowned and wrapped her arm around her friend’s
shoulders. “That’s because he hasn’t seen you really dance, Liz.
Today was an off day. Don’t worry. And look who it’s coming from. A
man who retired at thirty.”
Elizabeth’s face softened. She leaned her forehead against her
locker and groaned into its depths. “Man, I just hate that though.
Why is it always about my chest?”
“There’s always the old toothbrush-down-the-throat diet,”
Katherine joked again. Elizabeth turned and rolled her eyes.
Jane smiled and squeezed her sister’s shoulder. “Charles thinks
you’re great, Liz. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Besides, William Darcy doesn’t sign our paychecks,” Charlotte
added. “And he cast you, didn’t he?”
Elizabeth smiled, her anger ebbing. She sighed and rolled her
neck, stretching out her shoulders. After a few moments, she looked
at Jane and grinned. “I suppose Charles couldn’t really fire me.
Kind of hard to sack the sister of the woman you’re trying to bag,
huh?”
Jane’s face went scarlet. “Elizabeth Bennet,” she mouthed,
putting a finger over her lips with the sweet strictness of a
kindergarten teacher.
Elizabeth laughed and finished dressing, her dark mood
dissipating. Katherine grabbed her bag, slung it over her shoulder,
and bid them all goodbye. A chorus of goodbyes followed her
out.
“How absurd,” Elizabeth laughed once she had left.
“What is?” answered Charlotte.
“The whole situation back there. I felt like I was in some scene
from ‘The Young and the Restless.’ Like there should have been some
camera panning in on my livid face, and I should have said
something like, ‘I’ll get you, William Darcy, and your little dog,
too.’”
Charlotte laughed. “Lizzy, what are you talking about?”
“Don’t you think it’s ridiculous? Who says things like that? Who
overhears things like that? It’s like something out of a daytime
drama.”
Jane shook her head. “You’ve been watching too many soap operas.
Come on, Liz. Get dressed. I’m starving.”
“Okay. Hold on, I still need to go back and get my water bottle.
Hopefully, I won’t hear anymore of William Darcy’s nasty opinions.”
Elizabeth shook her head and then smiled, in spite of it all.
The lights in the studio were still on, but she heard no voices
coming from within. Hesitantly, she entered and spotted William
Darcy by the stereo, scribbling into his notebook. He looked up,
alerted by the squeak of her sneakers on the wood floor.
Elizabeth met his gaze, but her expression remained unchanged.
Anger had melted away all of her intimidation, and she breezed into
the studio, heading for the opposite end where her water bottle
stood in the corner. Looking into the mirror, William followed her
with his eyes. She bent down and swept up the bottle in her hand.
Before turning away, Elizabeth raised her eyes, glittering and
cold.
“See you tomorrow, Mr. Darcy,” she said flatly, her lips turning
upwards in a smile, but her voice, with its monotone timbre, lacked
any kind of ingratiation. It was a tone he was not used to from
anyone, especially those in the corps de ballet. Spinning around,
she strode out of the studio, leaving William to consider her tone
for a few seconds, before he turned back to his notes.*With the
dancers now acclimated to his demands for punctuality, William was
free to stride into rehearsals at exactly three o’clock, knowing
that they would all be there waiting for him. He refused to be
present in the room waiting around for a stray corps girl.
When placing the dancers or guiding their moves, he noticed they
all shirked in fear of him. He preferred this. Fear and
intimidation were the seeds of discipline. William Darcy saw no
need to become best friends with his dancers like Charles did; he
just needed them to perform. Girls cast their eyes down when he
grasped their shoulders to move them over a few feet. They nodded
meekly when given corrections. He even seemed to tame the beastly
Caroline Bingley, rendering her mute, but still haughty, during
those two-hour rehearsals.
To praise a dancer was to spoil her, so believed William Darcy.
Once a dancer received too much praise, she became like Caroline:
lazy, defiant, undisciplined, and arrogant. He never bestowed
compliments, only silence. But that did not mean that William was
blind to a good performance.
William trusted Charles’ opinion. With his friend at the helm,
the corps de ballet had been transformed into an assembly of
technically sharp dancers. Perhaps too sharp for William’s taste;
he preferred dancers who danced, not simply dancers who could
perform the steps without mistake. Nevertheless, the quality of
dancers had improved in the years that he had been away from New
York.
Thus, William could not take Charles’ words lightly, “She’s one
of the best incomings we’ve had in years.”
He hadn’t noticed anything remarkable about Elizabeth Bennet in
company class or rehearsal. She was petite, with a lackluster body,
far too soft-looking, not enough musculature. Her jumps, while
acceptable for professionals, were muddled and not at the level of
the other corps de ballet members. Yes, she was good. They were all
good. But one of the best incoming dancers? William thought
not.
Then he had a chance to study her in his second rehearsal. She
still fumbled through the jump sequence, but William allowed his
eyes to look further up, ignoring her legs and focusing solely on
Elizabeth’s torso. From the movements of her upper body, he would
have never been able to tell how much she was struggling. Her arms
moved through the port de bras gracefully, her head placed just
where it should be, and her face radiating a focus not seen in
dancers ten years older than she. William observed her, his
eyebrows furrowed critically.
“You, in the back,” he called out, pointing to Elizabeth,
“switch with her.” Suddenly Elizabeth found herself in the front of
the diagonal formation that opened the piece. Rather than the
self-satisfied look of a promoted dancer, there was a cold
reticence in her eyes. She sharply strode to the front, avoiding
his eyes, no pleasure on her face at all.
“From the beginning,” William commanded, walking over to the CD
player to restart the music. He crossed his arms over his chest to
watch. Four corps members bounded on stage, in a series of
fast-paced jumps, merging and rebounding to somehow form the last
diagonal formation.
“You,” he said, nodding sternly to Elizabeth, “you need to close
your glissades more definitively. Attack the descent.”
Elizabeth tried as he suggested, spending less time up in the
air, and focusing on closing her legs coming down.
“Now you’re short-changing the jump. Try again.”
Elizabeth looked blankly at herself in the mirror and jumped
again.
“No,” Darcy said, waving his hand. “Okay, everyone from the
beginning.”
Frowning, Elizabeth looked at herself in the mirror. How was she
supposed to know what he meant if he simply barked orders at her,
without demonstrating? She raised her hand.
“Excuse me, Mr. Darcy,” she said, trying to infuse her voice
with as much politeness as possible, “would you mind showing me the
exact rhythm you want for that phrase please?”
He blinked a few times and stared at her. Did she realize at all
whose time she was wasting? He had only two months of rehearsals,
only three days a week, only two hours each. He had three movements
to choreograph and clean, and this little corps dancer wanted
private lessons. He shook his head, amazed at the lack of
discipline in dancers these days.
“No,” he said flatly, “go back there and figure it out for
yourself. That’s what professionals do.”
Elizabeth’s gaze remained on his for a few silent moments before
she averted her eyes to the side of the room. Straightening her
spine, she retreated from the center of the studio to stand at the
back.
So William Darcy wanted to insult her professionalism? Since
when was asking a valid question unprofessional? She felt the
pressure of pent-up anger press against her chest. She knew others
were staring at her, some in sympathy, some just to stare. Ignoring
them, Elizabeth lifted her chin and put her hands on her hips,
waiting for the music. It began, and she silently counted out the
two bars before she bounded out once again into the opening
sequence.*
Rehearsal finished with William proclaiming, “The piece will be
a failure if you all don’t start learning how to look more alive.”
Not a positive end to two hours of grueling drills. A few dancers
trudged out. Caroline Bingley was the first to grab her face towel
and water and storm out in a huff. Elizabeth stayed behind.
She had no clue what Mr. Darcy had meant. Attack the descent,
but don’t short-change the jump. Was she supposed to defy gravity?
In the back of the room, Elizabeth studied her glissade in the
mirror. A few other dancers were honing steps around her as well,
but the choreographer’s eyes alighted on her. She noticed him
pacing slowly towards her, like a tiger waiting, waiting before it
bounded out for the kill.
“You’re not jumping enough,” he said, when he was no more than a
few feet from her. She tried again and he shook his head. “It’s not
from your legs. It’s from your hips.”
Elizabeth placed her arms akimbo and looked down in frustration.
Head still down, she raised her eyes up to the choreographer. “I’m
sorry, I never learned how to jump from my hips.”
Annoyance flashed across his face. He was the choreographer; he
taught them the steps of the dance, not how to dance. He saw
Elizabeth raise her chin, not in conceit like Caroline, but in a
gesture that he could only interpret as a challenge. Her glittering
eyes narrowed slightly. He knew then that she thought he was
talking bullshit and that he, too, had no clue what “jumping from
the hips” meant.
He met her challenge flatly. “Don’t go for height. Go for
movement. Imagine someone’s carrying you across in the air. Both
legs out.”
Unlike Caroline or even Lydia, Elizabeth did not have the
quickness of feet to be a virtuoso jumper. She tried once more, and
the impatient look Mr. Darcy gave her indicated he was ready to
give up and leave her to her own devices. Elizabeth cocked her chin
up again and looked him square in the face, in a wordless challenge
to him to show her the right way.
Sighing, he strode behind her and grabbed her waist. “Glissade,”
he ordered.
She bent her knees and jumped. His hands were strong but light
on her back, lifting her slightly off the ground. Elizabeth pointed
both toes in the air, and she felt the pressure of his hands on her
sides, guiding her back down to the floor. She alighted, feet
landing decisively into fifth position. He had barely moved her off
the floor, and yet the dynamics of the jump felt completely
different. William saw recognition in her eyes, and saying nothing,
smugly returned to the CD player.
She tried it a few times herself, and he watched her in the
mirror wordlessly. Before shucking off her warmers and exiting the
studio, she cast him one more look, cold, resentful for the help.
It made him pause, his temper instinctively flaring, but before he
could respond, she turned and was gone from the studio.
“Partnering a woman was like making love to her,” a teacher had
once told William’s class. They had been teenagers at the time, and
most had blushed furiously at the sudden reference to sex.
“You need to touch the woman gently, but not too gently that she
feels abandoned. You need to be strong, but not too strong, or
she’ll feel overpowered and uncomfortable. Good partners were
usually good lovers, and vice versa,” his teacher had said. William
had never forgotten that advice.
Was it the chicken or the egg, he wondered? Had he bedded so
many dancers because he had been a good partner? Or had he become a
good partner by sleeping with so many women?
In any case, he always thought of that statement before he
touched a woman on stage or in the bedroom. The thought had been on
his mind, too, as he had placed his hands around Elizabeth Bennet’s
waist and lifted her.
In his experience, the same truth held for women - the ones who
let themselves be partnered were usually the ones who melted,
molded, and danced under the sheets, the ones who blushed,
flinched, or stiffened when a dancer touched her on the floor, were
usually the ones to shrivel up in bed.
Elizabeth Bennet, he had noted, had eased into him, allowing
herself to melt into his hands. He had grabbed onto her suddenly, a
move that would send many principal dancers flinching, and yet her
spine had remained firm. She had not started at all when he put his
hands on her slick skin.
A small detail, but one that would stay on his mind for the rest
of the evening.
PRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT="
Jane and Elizabeth Bennet waited for the last taxi to whiz past
them before they jaywalked onto Columbus Avenue. They were
discussing the recent intrigue between Jane and Charles
Bingley.
“Have you slept with him yet?”
“No!” Jane replied, reddening. “And I wish you wouldn’t imply
stuff like that in front of the others. They’ll talk.”
“Okay, fine. Have you at least kissed him?”
By the blush on Jane’s face, Elizabeth knew she had. “Oh!
Details! When? Where? How was it?”
“It…it was in his office. Just last week,” Jane glanced sideways
at her sister. “And it was really nice.”
Elizabeth squealed and squeezed her sister’s shoulder. “This is
so exciting. So are you together officially or what?”
Jane shrugged. “I don’t know what we are. He’s taken me out for
that one dinner. We’ve kissed once in his office. He smiles at me,
but then again, he smiles at everyone.”
“But he smiles at you differently, Janey. Like a goof. It’s
almost pathetic, really.”
Jane sighed. “I’m sure everyone will think I’m just trying to
get a promotion out of him.”
“Don’t worry about what they say. People in companies get
together and get married all of the time. Hell, we’re the only
people we have time for,” Elizabeth encouraged. “Besides, do you
know how lucky you are? Sex! With a real man and not some plastic
toy! God, how long has it been...?”
Jane gawked and pinched her sister’s arm. “Lizzy!”
“Oh, come on! Like that hasn’t been on your mind? How long has
it been for you?”
By now, Jane’s features were scarlet. “I...I don’t think I have
to answer that.”
“Well, you definitely haven’t gotten any in the six months we’ve
lived together.”
“Must we discuss this in the middle of the street?”
“Fine, fine.”
Elizabeth and Jane walked in silence and descended into the
subway station. Once they had passed through the turnstiles, Jane
began again, “He wants to meet Mom.”
Elizabeth stared at Jane in horror. “Have you warned him?”
“I tried to change the subject.”
“Prevent that meeting at all costs, if you ever want to see him
again.”
Jane frowned at her sister, but said nothing in response. Both
girls were not looking forward to their mother’s visit in a few
days. It would be her first time in New York City, and she was
coming prepared with two cans of mace, a rape alarm, a fancy money
belt with hidden zippers, and two different guidebooks. Fan Bennet
had always been slightly neurotic, a trait which had only
intensified after her divorce from their father a year ago. Now in
addition to that, she was needy, snippy, weepy, and bossy. And she
was coming to stay in their cramped apartment in Harlem. Fan had
planned a detailed itinerary of her New York trip, and she expected
both daughters to escort her, seeing to her every need.
She was also coming to one of their Nutcracker performances. No
doubt she would sit in the audience with pen and paper in hand,
writing down corrections for her daughters and criticisms of the
other dancers. If Fan met Charles, she would certainly take it upon
herself to share those opinions. She had done it in the past with
other artistic directors; Charles’ experience or position be
damned, she would do it again.
It was for this reason, among many others, that Jane had avoided
confessing the relationship to her mother. Unfortunately, she had
let it slip to Charles that Fan would be in town for Nutcracker.
Jane knew what their mother was capable of saying. There was no way
she was letting Charles meet Fan Bennet.
PRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT="
Elizabeth stood in the wings, rising up and down on the tips of
her pointe shoes. Louisa Hurst as the Snow Queen was propped up in
the air, her King and ex-husband, Bill Hurst, gingerly balancing
her over his head with one arm as he walked off stage. The audience
applauded, and Elizabeth waited for the first high wind notes of
the Waltz of the Snowflakes. The other dancers in the wings shifted
nervously, too, pinching each other’s arms and whispering “Merde”
for good luck.
No matter how many times Elizabeth performed, the pent-up
excitement and nervousness of dancing on stage never failed to
affect her. They were in the final week of a seven-week run of
Nutcracker, but tonight her heart raced even faster, her hands
clammier than usual. Tonight, her mother had come all the way from
Michigan to watch her and her sister dance.
With her cue nearing, Elizabeth inhaled deeply, cast off her
everyday persona, and prepared to become a Snowflake. Dancing on
stage was such a vastly different experience than dancing in a
studio. The perspective was much broader, the stage stretched out
several yards into the wings, and the mirror in front was replaced
with rows and rows of faces. Lights could blind and drain a dancer.
Grooves in the floor could trip her. Dancing on stage was like
walking through an intersection blind. The dancers needed to have
the steps, the music, the sequence of the dance etched into their
muscles. Their heads needed to be free of doubt, free of anything,
really. The dance needed to be automatic, the ultimate
nothingness.
Inhaling, Elizabeth leapt on stage. Bodies whizzed by. She heard
pages of sheet music being turned by the orchestra. On stage, a
dancer whispered through her teeth, “Slow down, Maestro.” A bead of
sweat tickled Elizabeth’s temple as it rolled down her skin. She
counted out the one-two-three rhythm of the waltz, the steps coming
from her body in time to the tempo.
The dance continued, formations made, poses struck. The final
sequence of the dance, of the act, was upon them. Elizabeth braced
herself for the fake snow, confetti, and glitter that would fall
from overhead to make it seem as if it were really snowing. She
hated this part. In the dance world, effects like this were an
occupational hazard. Elizabeth had slipped too many times to count
on the silver confetti, and one dancer had to be pulled from the
Waltz of the Flowers in Act Two when a piece of glitter fell into
her eye, and she couldn’t open it.
The snow fell, and Elizabeth and the rest of the snowflakes
posed in their formations, then spun on the balls of their feet to
run off stage, one after the other, in a haze of white tulle and
confetti.
Act One was over. Everyone in Act Two kept running off of the
backstage area, and into the dressing rooms, where many would
change in order to dance in other parts of the ballet. Elizabeth
simply had to get dressed and wait for her mother at the front of
the theater. Helping Jane brush the glitter out of her bun and hook
up her pink tutu for Waltz of the Flowers, Elizabeth stayed
backstage only until the second act began, then gathered her things
and headed for an empty seat in the back of the theater.
PRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT="
“Oh, Janey, you were so wonderful. The most beautiful one up
there. And you, too, Lizzy,” their mother gushed when they were
outside after the performance. Jane and Elizabeth carried matching
bouquets of carnations, supplied by their mother. “But, who was the
girl in front of you in Waltz of the Flowers, Jane? The very tall
one with the ugly feet. She was absolutely turned in(1) the whole
time, and the ugliest smile I’ve ever seen on a dancer.”
Fan Bennet was a typical backstage mother. She had also been a
dancer when she was young, but was forced to give it up by a
despotic father who believed dancing was a silly hobby that
wouldn’t pay the bills. Fan had decided on the day Jane was born to
give her daughter what Fan herself had been denied: a chance to
dance professionally. A year later came Elizabeth, and Fan’s
determination was solidified.
She had enrolled them together in ballet lessons when Jane and
Elizabeth were six and five, respectively. She had pushed them
incessantly, forcing dance videos and books upon them every
Christmas, fighting with their teachers to put them on pointe
early, despite their teacher’s insistence that the bones in their
feet weren’t yet fully developed. She had stayed through their
dance lessons, observing through the tinted window of the lobby.
For performances, she had been a staple backstage, always available
to sew pointe shoe ribbons, help a dancer with her fake eyelashes,
or offer words of good luck before the show began. Fan was, at the
same time, beloved and resented by all.
Behavior like this had always embarrassed Jane and Elizabeth as
children, but it seemed that even when the sisters had grown up and
become professionals, their mother would still be their mother.
“…and Louisa Hurst was in rare form tonight, I must say. She
could barely hit the turns in Sugar Plum Fairy variation…”
Both girls sandwiched their mother as they walked through the
courtyard of Lincoln Center, listening silently as she offered her
comments on everything from the dancing, to the lighting, to the
orchestra.
In the dark, two figures hurriedly walked up the steps towards
them. As they got closer, to both Jane and Elizabeth’s horror, the
figures revealed themselves as Charles Bingley and William Darcy.
Charles’ face lit up upon seeing Jane, and his eyes darted to the
petite woman with frosted blonde hair standing next to her.
“Jane, Liz! Wonderful performances tonight,” Charles exclaimed,
smiling mostly at Jane.
“Thank you,” Jane replied, her eyes shifting over to her mother.
Fan read Dance Magazine often enough to know both men. Her eyes lit
up, and both Jane and Elizabeth cringed.
“Oh my! Charles Bingley and William Darcy in the flesh,” she
cooed. Elizabeth inhaled slowly, bracing herself. She would leave
the introductions to Jane, who made them swiftly and
professionally. Charles smiled and shook the elder Ms. Bennet’s
hand vigorously. William remained further back, not offering a
hand, nod, or smile. He simply looked over his shoulder at the
stream of taxis whizzing by. Elizabeth wasn’t sure whether she
should be livid or grateful at his indifference.
“Mr. Bingley, I was just telling the girls about my opinions on
Clara’s costume. Don’t you think it would be much better, if
instead of...”
Elizabeth’s face burned in the cold evening air. Charles
listened politely, nodding in agreement every so often. Still,
Elizabeth couldn’t bear to look over to Jane, who she knew was
probably even more mortified. By this time, William Darcy, not even
bothering to hide his distaste, stared in open-jawed revulsion at
Fan Bennet. He had one eyebrow cocked, his whole face a portrait of
disbelief.
“...that way, she’ll be able to get her arabesque higher just
before Waltz of the Snowflakes. Really, her arabesque was too low.
What do you think, Mr. Bingley?”
Charles nodded, the obliging smile never leaving his face. “I
think that might be a good idea, Mrs. Bennet. I’ll have to discuss
it with Sir William Lucas, of course, but perhaps we might be able
to work something out for next year.”
Elizabeth saw William gawk at his friend and roll his eyes
heavenward. She quickly snapped her head down to her sneakers, the
pounding of her heart drowning out the traffic. She had never been
this humiliated by her mother. Did Fan Bennet have no shame? In
front of her were two of the most important figures in contemporary
American dance, and she was speaking to them as if they were Mr.
Bates, their teacher back in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
“Oh, and Mr. Darcy, it’s an honor to meet you, too,” Fan
chirped. “No! No, no, no, no, no,” Elizabeth’s mind screamed. This
needed to be stopped immediately.
“Okay, Mom, I’m sure Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy must be on their
way back to the theater. Probably busy with
post-performance...things,” Elizabeth interrupted before William
could make any reply.
Charles smiled, and William turned to walk away.
“Not at all!” Charles insisted. “I just forgot my glove in the
theater.”
William halted and again glared at his friend, a look that was
not lost on Elizabeth.
Fan giggled and turned her attention back to the choreographer.
“You know, Mr. Darcy, I had the biggest crush on you when you were
still dancing. Oh, but don’t tell my husband. Well, he’s my
ex-husband now. Oh, but then I guess it really wouldn’t matter if
he knew, now would it?”
William knit his brow as Fan tittered away. Mrs. Bennet
continued, “And now you’ve become something of a famous
choreographer. Good, good. My daughters are wonderful dancers, Mr.
Darcy. I think they could give your choreography a little bit more
oomph.”
Elizabeth couldn’t bear to look at his face, instead turning to
the traffic rushing up Columbus Avenue. Now her mother was
soliciting them and insulting William Darcy’s choreography at the
same time. Wonderful. Could this get any more humiliating?
It could.
“I do believe they’re already in my piece,” he said. “In the
corps.” He stressed the word corps, giving the comment an edge that
made Elizabeth snap her head up and glare at him. Fortunately, her
mother did not catch the bite in his tone.
“Oh, wonderful! Well, perhaps you’d like a few suggestions
on...”
This time it was Jane’s turn to interrupt. “Well, Mom, we’d
better be getting back home. Uh, you know how unsafe New York can
be late at night.”
For Fan, paranoia outweighed flattery. Starting slightly, she
nodded in agreement, completely forgetting her previous train of
thought. “Yes, yes. They live in Harlem. I tell them it’s really
not safe, but do they listen? I’m sorry, Mr. Darcy. We’ll have to
chat later.”
“Yes,” he sneered.
Keeping her eyes averted, Elizabeth grabbed her mother’s arm and
pulled the woman away. Jane followed with the other arm. “Well,
goodnight Charles. Goodnight, Mr. Darcy,” the older sister called
over her shoulder.
“Did you ever see such handsome men? And I hear they’re both
loaded...” were the last words William heard Fan Bennet say before
her daughters yanked her around the corner and out of earshot.
Charles smiled to William. “Nice lady,” he said.
William snorted in response.
“She meant well, at least.”
“Well, I’ll give her one thing,” William said, turning and
making his way to the theater. “I’ve had all kinds of dancers sidle
up to me for roles, but that woman holds the distinction of being
the first mother who’s tried that trick. Wonder if she’d sleep with
me if it meant her daughters could get a better part.”
“Oh, Will!” Charles exclaimed. “Just because their mother’s like
that, doesn’t mean they are.”
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Charles paused and watched his friend as he walked a few feet
ahead of him. Shaking his head, he followed. The William Darcy of
five years ago would have laughed, cracked a few jokes at the old
woman’s expense, and then invited Charles out to some newly opened
lounge in SoHo. Since William’s return to New York City and the
company, Charles noticed just how rarely his friend ever smiled.
William had been brazen, often arrogant, but always magnetic. Now,
he reminded Charles of unused, unpolished silver. He had not seen
much of William in the five years the choreographer had traveled
across the country, creating dances for different companies. Had
his friend changed so much in that span of time?
Charles frowned, wondering at the change, hoping it was merely
the culture shock of returning to New York City in winter.
Both men crossed the courtyard and headed back into the theater,
its crystal chandelier still glittering from inside the tall
windows of the lobby.
Notes :
1. Turned in- Being "turned in" or "turned out" refers to the
line a dancer's feet or hips make. A dancer who is completely
turned out will have her feet in a 180-degree line, with both heels
touching. A dancer who is completely turned in will have both feet
parallel with each other. In ballet, having 180-degree turnout is
ideal.
Page 3 of 4
Chapter Three
William was in the center of Studio B, staring at his feet,
thinking of what came next. He had reached a dead-end. He didn’t
know how to get his dancers off stage and get the principal dancer
on stage. Well, it wasn’t really a matter of not knowing how; it
was more like he suddenly didn’t care. Every so often, utter
indifference overpowered William. Did it really matter? He could
have his dancers clip their toenails on stage, and the critics
would call it a brilliant feat of post-modern dance. For once, he
wanted them to rip him apart, give him something to prove. As it
was, this piece felt like all of the others - pointless.
The door creaked open, interrupting his thoughts, and Caroline
Bingley slinked into the studio.
“Hello, William,” she said, purposely dropping her voice to a
husky drawl. He turned his head to acknowledge her.
“Caroline.”
In her street clothes, a beige Calvin Klein turtleneck with
tight Seven jeans, she walked over to where he was standing.
“I haven’t said a proper hello to you yet,” she said.
He stared down at her, with no intention of saying anything.
Caroline’s bleach blonde hair hung down around her shoulders.
“I was wondering if you wanted to come over tonight. To catch
up.”
William knew exactly what she wanted to catch. “I can’t.”
“Tomorrow, then?”
“You know why I can’t, and that’s the end.”
Caroline frowned. “Don’t worry about Charles. He’s a big boy. I
think he’ll understand if his sister wants to be a big girl.”
William folded his arms across his chest and stared down at her.
“There are other reasons besides Charles.”
“All of which I’ve heard before and none of which are
convincing,” she said. William tsked and walked away towards the
stereo. It had been this way for almost as long as William could
remember - blatant overtures that he had spent three years
avoiding. But in one post-cast party’s drunken haze, he had allowed
himself to be seduced. An action he was still paying for seven
years later.
“I’m trying to choreograph here, Caroline,” he said sharply,
encouraging her to leave.
“Can I be of any assistance?” she inquired, snaking her way over
to the far corner of the room where William stood with his back
turned towards her.
“No. I choreograph alone.”
Caroline huffed. “You’re too uptight for your own good,
William.”
Raising his eyes to the mirror, William glowered at her
reflection. “I’ll see you on Friday, Ms. Bingley.”
Caroline chuckled, knowing when to admit defeat. She raised the
corner of her lip. “No strings attached, William. Call me if you
change your mind.”
She breezed out of the studio quietly, leaving William annoyed
and more disoriented than when he began. Scratching his head, he
tried to regain focus on the piece. How would he get the dancers
off stage? He found no way to integrate the corps, which functioned
in this piece like the Chorus in a Greek tragedy, into the pas de
deux of the two lovers. He had not even begun to sketch out the pas
de deux in his head. His vision was of something primal, sensuous.
The dancers would slink, arch, and twist themselves into knots and
somehow right themselves. But he didn’t know where to begin and
simply stared at his rigid posture in the mirror.
The New York Times had called his works “fistfuls of raging,
repressed desire.” While he did not set out consciously to create
dance brimming with sexuality, it came out inevitably. It was his
trademark. No matter what the subject, time period, music, or
costuming, there was always touching, always longing gestures,
always the suggestion of sex. Audiences loved to be titillated. But
recently William’s works had become darker, infused with a sexual
energy that edged on licentiousness. The more he choreographed, the
less release he found. After five years of the same consistent
thread running through all of his creations, William found himself
strung so tightly that he wanted nothing more than to simply slump
to the wooden floor, close his eyes, and give up.
He approached the mirror and studied his face. Fine lines had
emerged around his eyes. Twice in the past month he had yanked out
a stray gray hair from the mass of dark brown waves on top of his
head. William frowned. He had grown old. Once he could no longer
dance, he felt the heaviness of time dragging down the skin on his
face. The wrinkles didn’t show now, but give them a few years. He
sighed and sunk into the chair at the front of the room, unable to
envision anything.
After several minutes of white thought, William saw visions of
his younger self bolting down the diagonal in a whirlwind series of
leaps, turns, and beats of the leg. As a dancer, he had been a
completely different person - cocky and brash. He had smiled more.
Definitely had more sex. There had been nothing more exhilarating
than catapulting himself three feet off the floor in a grand jeté,
whirling around in a quadruple pirouette. Nothing more gratifying
than the explosion of applause after a perfectly executed
variation. And now it was gone.
In envisioning his younger days, William suddenly thought of
Elizabeth Bennet. Why she should have popped into his head at that
moment, he couldn’t be sure. He thought of her dancing. She was
still clumsy in some movements, but she danced with a fierce,
simmering energy. Of course, her dancing was tempered by the
delicacy required of ballerinas, but in her eyes he saw a passion
for expression that he, too, had once felt. Elizabeth Bennet, he
could plainly tell, loved to dance.
William rose again and paced towards the center of the room. She
definitely had a strength for balancés, those rocking steps done in
a waltz rhythm. Perhaps less vertical movements and more horizontal
would work better in this section. He attempted an impromptu phrase
of balancés and piqués, and ending with a series of chaînés. It fit
with the music; it would work. Suddenly, William had direction. He
got out his notebook and scribbled down the steps, envisioning
their execution by a petite corps de ballet girl with a penchant
for haughty lifts of the chin and a pair of cold, glittering
eyes.
PRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT="
It was the closing night of Nutcracker. As such, the entire
company, administration, and staff would be present at the cast
party afterwards. Elizabeth was relieved to have the ballet finally
over. Nutcracker may have been a favorite with audiences for its
kid-friendly content and holiday theme, but most dancers detested
the ballet. Elizabeth thought that Tchaikovsky must have written
the score after eating one too many candy canes. The music was much
too chipper, especially the second act, the dancing uninspiring and
disjointed from any kind of story line. At BTNY, they had been
working on the ballet since October, which made nearly four months
of the same music, the same steps. Elizabeth looked forward to
moving on to the spring repertoire. The company would be performing
Giselle, not one of her favorites, but at least not Nutcracker.
With a company of tired dancers, tonight’s cast party promised
to be tamer than usual. Sir William Lucas had hired a jazz quartet
and rented out a restaurant by the theater. It would be mellow, a
relaxing way for the dancers to wind down from four months of Waltz
of the Flowers.
Backstage after the last performance, Elizabeth slipped into the
dress she always wore to these parties, a simple navy gown with a
gracefully low neckline. She had bought it on sale at Century 21.
Tonight marked its fourth appearance, and she wondered when someone
would notice that she always wore the same gown to these
events.
As she had only performed in Act One, Elizabeth arrived early at
the restaurant. The reception was already alive with music. About
one quarter of the company was there, mostly staff and
administration. The rest had been in the second act and would come
as soon as stage makeup was removed and buns taken out. Slowly,
that night’s performers began trickling in. Jane appeared in a red
Chinese-style gown, cut high in the neck, but hugging her lean
body.
“Hey, Lizzy. You look gorgeous, as always.”
“In the same dress, as always.”
“No one will know,” Jane said, smiling.
Seeing a tall, blonde man weaving his way through the guests
towards them, Elizabeth looked down and mumbled to Jane under her
breath, “Charles Bingley, incoming,” before he appeared before
them.
“Hello, Liz. Jane, you were wonderful tonight. Congratulations
on one more Nutcracker out of the way.” he said, a radiant smile
lighting up his face.
“Thank you. You too, Charles.”
“Is your mother still in town?”
Both sisters colored, remembering the humiliating scene from the
week before. “No, she did us the favor of leaving after a weekend,”
Elizabeth said dryly.
“Oh, no. She was charming,” Charles insisted.
“Try living with her for eighteen years. The charm wears off
real quick.”
“She seemed to know quite a lot about the ballet.”
“She used to dance when she was young,” Jane explained.
“And she has ten years of experience finagling her daughters’
way through the dance world. She’s a pro,” joked Elizabeth.
Charles laughed.
“You always say it like it is, Liz, no matter how
devastating.”
Elizabeth winked and smiled back. “I’ll take that as a
compliment.”
“I couldn’t mean it otherwise,” Charles smiled, but then shifted
his eyes to her sister. “Mind if I steal your sister away?”
“Only if you bring her back before it’s time to go.”
Charles smiled and offered his arm to Jane, who wove her own
into it. The two sauntered off to a private corner of the
restaurant, leaving Elizabeth to pluck a glass of wine off of a
tray balanced on a waiter’s open palm.
She raised the glass to her lips, scanning the room. Lydia had
passed up the party for a new nightclub in the Meatpacking
District, Katherine was nowhere to be seen, and Charlotte, who was
famous for her primping, was probably still backstage with the
curling iron. Elizabeth sighed and figured that the buffet table
would have to keep her company for the time being. As she continued
to gaze around the room, her eyes alighted on the figure of William
Darcy listening to Sir William Lucas and Caroline Bingley blab on
about something, but strangely, his eyes were fixed firmly on her,
stormy in their intensity. Elizabeth quickly looked away, folded
her arms across her chest, and took a long sip of wine.
Slowly, so as not to be noticed, she let her eyes rove back to
where he stood. He was still staring at her. This time, Elizabeth
let her gaze remain on him, and for one heightened moment, they
stared at each other. Finally, Elizabeth spun slowly on the heel of
her shoe and walked away to a corner of the room where William
Darcy would not be able to cast a critical eye upon her.
As she criss-crossed through huddles of partygoers, Elizabeth
realized that her heart was beating nervously. Even outside of the
studio, William Darcy’s eyes still brimmed full of condemnation.
She wondered what it could have been now - not putting her heels
down as she walked? Perhaps a less than ramrod posture? Frowning,
she muttered, “Screw it” and emptied the rest of the drink down her
throat.
Glancing once more to where the choreographer stood, Elizabeth
flushed when she saw him continuing to stare. She turned away
angrily. Rubbing her nose, Elizabeth made sure she didn’t have any
food stuck to it. Nothing. Elizabeth shirked even further back into
the crowd, heading over to the buffet table.
Sir William rattled on to Caroline Bingley about the line-up for
the spring season. As William paced slowly by, the director had
stopped him and dragged him into the conversation. Parties soured
William’s mood and he preferred to pass the time pondering how much
he hated them. Nevertheless, William admired and loved the artistic
director like a father, and so entertained the older gentleman. Sir
William had been the artistic director during William’s rise to
ballet glory, and had sustained him through his knee injury and the
demise of his career. But the man, with his affected hand gestures
and penchant for gossiping, could grate on the nerves. And Caroline
Bingley - nothing else needed to be said about her. He needed to
escape.
“...and Darcy’s piece is going to be it, Caroline dear. It’s
going to be it. It will make you the next Gelsey Kirkland. And if
you and Darcy here will ever just get together like I’ve been
saying, it will be the best PR the company’s seen in years.”
Caroline laughed and scratched William’s bicep playfully with
her long nails. Sucking in his breath, William stiffened and drew
back his shoulders in an instinctive defensive reaction.
“Excuse me,” William said, patting Sir William on the back. At
events like these, William regretted giving up alcohol four years
ago. He recalled his younger dancing days, when he used to put away
glasses of champagne and martinis, when parties like this had been
fun. William headed to the buffet, hoping that if alcohol couldn’t
save him, perhaps food and a solitary corner could.
Although if he were completely honest with himself, he would
also admit that several seconds earlier he had seen Elizabeth
Bennet retreat in that direction.
For reasons that puzzled him, the corps girl had occupied his
thoughts more than corps girls usually did. Her dancing, while
gracious, was not stellar. She was simple - just some girl from
suburban Michigan. He had checked her file. And while she was
certainly pretty in a girlish kind of way, she definitely lacked
the sophistication of the women he usually dated. So, he knew it
could not have been admiration of her talent, nor could it be the
intrigue of sex, that attracted him.
He stared not to admire, but to observe. There had to have been
some particular reason why he had choreographed nearly a minute of
the first movement while thinking only of her. There was also an
excellent explanation as to why he hadn’t been able to peel his
eyes off of her during tonight’s performance. After countless
Nutcracker performances, he couldn’t explain why this particular
woman had grabbed him. Perhaps she resembled some old friend or
distant relative?
Thus, he stared. And when he saw her pull back into the confines
of a dark and isolated corner, in an immediate reaction, he
followed.
Elizabeth saw the choreographer break away from his companions
and head in her direction. She observed the way he walked, his feet
rising and landing on the stone tile, how he kept his shoulders
high and pulled back, one hand in his pocket, his eyes focused down
intently. He was heading right towards her. Panicking, Elizabeth
turned around, plucked up a plate, and pretended to be absorbed in
the tray of fruit. William Darcy slid right up to her and surveyed
the food as well. When she realized her folly, Elizabeth’s stomach
lurched.
They stood shoulder to shoulder in silence, both inspecting the
fruit platter. Elizabeth stabbed a few pieces of pineapple with a
toothpick and dropped them on her plate. She could see from the
corner of her eye that William Darcy was oblivious to anything but
the food. She doubted that he even recognized her without her
leotard and bun. His self-absorption came as welcome relief, and
Elizabeth sighed to herself. It was foolish to think he had crossed
the room to purposely seek her out.
Just as she was about to back away from the buffet, she heard
him speak.
“You’re in my piece, but I don’t know your name.” Of course,
William knew her name, but he very well couldn’t let her know
that.
His voice, when not fighting for authority over the music or
filled with boredom or disdain, caught her by surprise. It
reverberated richly in the several feet of space between them.
Elizabeth looked up at him and replied, “Elizabeth Bennet.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding but keeping his focus straight ahead on
the fruit. He darted his eyes to the right where Elizabeth’s neck
craned past him to the center of the room. It was the look of a
woman planning her escape. William Darcy detested small talk, and
small talk with a corps member was unthinkable. They could have
nothing of worth to say, but he felt compelled to get a few more
pieces of information out of this Elizabeth Bennet. William needed
her to disappoint him: an overeager personality, nervous giggling,
or the overuse of the words “like” or “you know,” anything that
would situate the young woman firmly into the brackets of “young
and silly corps girl” so that he could get on with the business of
being a serious choreographer and not some obsessed old man.
With a bland look, he turned to fully face her. She only turned
her head in response, staring back at him with a look of equally
feigned indifference. “And when did you enter the company,
Elizabeth?” He said it as if he were an uncle asking his little
niece what she got from the Easter Bunny.
“About six months ago,” she answered, popping a grape in her
mouth. The answer elicited no response from William; he continued
to consider her face. She wore no makeup except for mascara and
lipstick, slightly inappropriate for an affair such as this.
However, she had pretty features and smooth skin. Upon closer
examination, William concluded she didn’t really need any other
makeup, black-tie gathering or no.
Waiting for him to fill in the next obligatory piece of the
conversation, Elizabeth raised her eyebrows and the corners of her
lips. She turned her shoulders, and they were now both facing each
other.
With Elizabeth wearing that gown, it was inevitable that
William’s gaze would fall lower. She was a petite woman and he
towered over her. The difference in height and the cut of her dress
afforded William with a lovely view, one he wasn’t normally treated
to at these parties. Most dancers were completely flat-chested.
Over the years, William had learned to shut off his desire for a
nice pair of breasts, but tonight, Elizabeth’s were reminding him
that he was not yet totally desensitized. He couldn’t take his eyes
off of her décolletage. Discerning where his eyes roamed, Elizabeth
flushed and narrowed her eyes.
“You seem to be enjoying yourself, Mr. Darcy.”
Inhaling sharply, William nearly choked on the pineapple he was
chewing. He coughed for a few seconds and cleared his throat.
“I mean,” Elizabeth said, smiling slyly, “isn’t this a great
party?”
Holding a closed fist over his mouth, he cleared his throat. “Do
you really think so?”
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows and turned her face to the crowd.
“I do, yes. Do you not like cast parties, then?”
“After so many of them, no. Same food, same company, same
conversations...”
“Hmm, then maybe we shouldn’t converse. I wouldn’t want to
subject you to such predictability,” she said, a smile of
disapproval on her face.
“Hm,” he grunted in response. Looking away, she rolled her eyes
to no one in particular and looked back at him. The choreographer
wore a severe look as he perused the crowd. A waiter breezed by
them holding a try laden with wine glasses. Elizabeth stopped him
and chose a glass of red.
He stared at her as she brought it to her mouth and sipped
lightly. Licking her lips, she gazed out to the crowded restaurant,
hoping her silence would provoke him to leave. Elizabeth was sure
she had offended him. Why he hadn’t walked off in a huff, she
hadn’t figured out yet. The silence dragged on for a full minute,
the din of the room engulfing them. Shifting uncomfortably,
Elizabeth glanced up at the choreographer, only to find his intense
gaze squarely on her mouth. She started and frowned. Yet, he did
not look away except to raise his stare from her lips to her eyes.
Elizabeth added bizarre and creepy to her list of the man’s faults.
It was time to end this awkward encounter.
“Excuse me, Mr. Darcy. I’ve just spotted a...” she began before
the booming voice of Sir William Lucas interrupted her.
“Hungry old man, coming through!” he laughed to no one in
particular. “Darcy! I was wondering where you ran off to. I see we
had the same thing in mind.” The round man wagged his eyebrows at
the food. “Oh and hello, Miss Elizabeth. Enjoying yourself, I
hope.”
“Yes, thank you, Mr. Lucas. This is a wonderful spread. You’ll
have the fattest dancers in New York if you keep on with buffets
like this.”
“Ho ho!” Lucas said, rubbing his generous stomach. “We’ve
already got the fattest artistic director, eh? Well, Darcy, don’t
just stand there staring. Get some food! Elizabeth, I’ve known this
boy for almost twenty years, and he gets more and more miserable at
every cast party we throw. He doesn’t dance, he doesn’t talk. He
just stares.”
Elizabeth looked away from the Artistic Director and raised her
focus to William Darcy. A smile melted her features. “Mr. Darcy
seems to be a very...eager observer of things,” she commented,
casting her eyes away for a brief moment.
William’s face colored at the veiled reference to his earlier
observation of her cleavage.
“Yes, yes, very eager. But he should save that for the studio.
Not parties!” Sir William piled several strawberries on a plate as
he spoke.
Once again, Elizabeth smiled. Sir William’s teasing manner
emboldened her, and she looked straight up into the smoldering gray
of William Darcy’s eyes. “Mr. Darcy is certainly a keen observer in
the studio as well. He picks up all mistakes, no matter how
miniscule.”
William blinked and straightened his posture. Being a
connoisseur of the art himself, William recognized her sublimely
veiled disparagement. “I’ve always supposed, Ms. Bennet, that to be
a successful artist not only involves creative inspiration, but
also an eye for perfection.”
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows while sipping her wine, sensing
the barb behind the platitude. “And you are, of course, successful
because you excel at both,” she countered.
William bristled and arched an eyebrow at her. To his shock, she
mirrored him, adding a lopsided, knowing smirk to her features.
Sir William turned back towards them, his plate loaded with
fruit, cold cuts, and mini-quiches.
“Yes, yes. That is all well and good. But this jazz band didn’t
come cheap and no one’s dancing yet!” Lucas pouted.
Elizabeth’s stomach flopped inside of her, knowing a comment
like that would only be followed with an encouragement to get out
on the floor.
“The music’s wonderful, Mr. Lucas. I’d love to dance, but I have
a huge blister and these heels are killing me. You’ll have to
excuse me,” she remarked, ending any suggestion of dancing that the
director might have made.
Sir William looked down at Elizabeth’s feet. “You women do have
a way of torturing yourselves, don’t you? Pointe shoes, high heels.
You know in China, they bind their feet up to give themselves high
arches. It’s really quite ridiculous. What you girls do to your
feet!”
“Lucas, they ended that practice almost a hundred years ago,”
William said dryly.
“Ho, ho. So they did! What do I know, I’m just an old man,
eh?”
Elizabeth saw William inhale in irritation and take a long sip
from the tumbler. Sir William, too, noticed his silent chastisement
and winked towards Elizabeth. In a hushed whisper, he joked,
“William, you see, holds a very high opinion of his opinions.”
Looking to the choreographer, Elizabeth frowned in response. The
tall man gazed out into the crowd, away from them. In all of his
severity, William Darcy, she had to admit, was an extremely
handsome man. He looked like a Calvin Klein model, magnetic in his
stormy sulk. Yet, she thought his surliness, not only towards
herself but towards the happy-go-lucky director, simply rude. He
may not have enjoyed the company, but to plainly reveal it, showed
a lack of manners more appropriate in a toddler than a grown man
accustomed to gatherings like these. Turning back to Sir William,
Elizabeth smiled.
“I hope you’ll excuse me. I just saw a few dancers who I wanted
to congratulate. Enjoy the rest of the party.”
“You too, darling,” he replied, smiling at her.
William returned his gaze down to Elizabeth. For a flash of a
second, she held it with a glare of her own and then turned away.
William watched her leave, the image of her eyes seared into his
own. They were hazel with a darker brown band around the pupil,
framed by brown lashes, not long, but naturally curled, and
expressive eyebrows. Eyes that crackled with something, he couldn’t
tell what, though. A look like that could only mean two things:
come hither, or fuck off.
As Sir William continued to mumble something about the
mini-quiches, William focused his gaze on Elizabeth Bennet standing
across the room. His breathing, he noticed, had quickened, but he
was not angry.
She stood, laughing with a group of soloists. A principal dancer
came up to the group, and he saw Elizabeth smile hello and offer
the woman a congratulatory kiss on the cheek. William watched her.
Normally, ambitious corps de ballet members tried to ingratiate
themselves with older dancers. There were always one or two of
them, the social butterflies, who cared more for company politics
than the dance.
He sensed none of this in Elizabeth. She didn’t fawn, and
because of it, they accepted her as an equal, turning to her for
opinions and laughter. She commented when she needed to, never
interjecting a response simply to be noticed. Another principal
dancer, a respected colleague during William’s dancing days, pulled
Elizabeth from the group to introduce her to his partner, a dancer
with New York City Ballet. She chit-chatted with them before spying
her friend, the tall girl in his piece, and excusing herself.
Elizabeth ebbed and flowed with corps dancers, principals,
staff, and musicians alike. William stood in the corner with a
half-empty glass of ginger ale.
“You must be lonely, over here all by yourself,” came a voice
whispered into his ear. He jerked his neck around to see Caroline,
the stem of a champagne glass held delicately in her fingers.
Clenching his jaw, William turned back.
“Alone, but not lonely.”
Caroline stepped around to join him on his right side, missing
the hint. “One too many cast parties, William?”
“Perhaps.”
“Great minds think alike. These people are so boring.”
“Not all of them.”
“Oh, no?”
“No. The company has improved since I last remember.
Caroline laughed a throaty laugh. “And so now you like these
things? How the great William Darcy has changed! And whose company,
may I ask, has changed your opinion?”
Nodding his head over to the far end of the room, he replied,
“Hers.”
Caroline followed his gaze. There were only two people over
where William had indicated. The really tall girl in the corps, and
the short one with the boobs. Caroline frowned.
“The giraffe?”
“No. The other one, Elizabeth Bennet.”
Caroline’s frown morphed into a look of shock and then disgust.
“Her? She’s in the corps de ballet, William.”
He shrugged and kept his gaze to the far end of the room. When
Caroline saw she would get no further reaction from him, she
chuckled and patted his shoulder. If William enjoyed the company of
corps dancers, then she would let him to it. “I don’t know what
they did to you in San Francisco, William...”
Turning away, she shook her head and made for the bar.
“Jane’s nuts if she doesn’t think politics belongs in the ballet
world. Tell your sister she’s crazy.”
“Charlotte!” Elizabeth groaned. “Jane’s not with him to score
better parts. You know she doesn’t think like that.”
Charlotte shrugged. “But others do. I’m sure Charles does. He’s
been in the business long enough. How do you know he’s not using
Jane?”
“For what? Her money? Or maybe it’s all that influence she
wields,” Elizabeth remarked dryly.
“That’s not what I mean. Maybe he thinks she’s sleeping with him
just for a better part. How much you wanna bet she gets
promoted?”
“If she does, it won’t be because she’s dating Charles Bingley,
Charlotte.” A hint of defensiveness crept into Elizabeth’s voice.
Her sister was a good dancer and would succeed without having to
hit the casting couch.
“Liz, you know I think Jane’s great. But other people...”
“I don’t really pay attention to what other people say.”
Charlotte gave her friend a doubtful look and frowned. “You
cared about what Mr. Darcy said the other day.”
“That’s different. That wasn’t gossip. It was a comment about my
career made by a choreographer. Of course, I’m going to care about
that.”
Charlotte nodded slowly, concealing another disbelieving look
from her friend and scanned the room. “So then I’m sure you won’t
care that he’s staring at you again.”
Elizabeth snapped her head past her friend to where the
choreographer stood alone in the far corner of the room. She met
his stony eyes and quickly averted her own. “I think I pissed him
off. I said some things back there that I probably shouldn’t
have.”
“He doesn’t look angry,” Charlotte reasoned.
Elizabeth glanced over to him again and then back to her friend.
“It’s a shame a man that hot can be so utterly creepy.”
“I don’t know about creepy, but hot, yes. A bit old though,
no?”
“He’s old and rude and arrogant like you would not believe. You
know what he said to me back there? ‘I’m a great artist because I’m
creative and have an eye for detail.’ Implying that I don’t.
Jerk.”
Charlotte shrugged. “It’s not like he doesn’t have anything to
brag about.”
“For someone with so much to brag about, he has terrible
manners. He shouldn’t come to parties if all he’s going to do is
glower the whole night.”
Glancing once more in his direction, she caught William staring
at her again. He casually looked away and began pacing slowly
around the edge of the room. Seeing that, Elizabeth pulled her
friend to the center of the restaurant, behind an enormous flower
arrangement. For the rest of the night, Elizabeth ensured she was
always engaged in conversation, never alone, and thus never exposed
to horrible possibility of another conversation with William
Darcy.
Chapter Four
Elizabeth had a fear of lists. They always, inevitably,
disappointed her. The unfeeling white computer paper, t