"So!" she spat at Julian. "You take off when you want, and come back when you want and you expect me to say I'm glad to see you! Bah! Do that one more time and out you go! Who is this girl with you?"
Julian gave the old hag a charming smile, and quickly put his arm about her. "Madame Zolta Korovenskov, may I introduce you to Miss Catherine Doll, the wonderful dancer I've been telling you about for months and months--and she is the reason why I left without your permission."
She looked me over with very interested gimlet eyes. "You come from some nowhere too?" she whiplashed. "You've got the look of another place, like my black devil here does. He's a very good dancer, but not as good as he thinks Can I believe him about you?"
"I guess, Madame, you'll just have to watch me dance and judge for yourself."
"Can you dance?"
"As I said before, Madame, wait and judge for yourself."
"See, Madame," Julian said eagerly, "Cathy's got spirit, fire! You should see her whip her leg doing fouettes. She's so fast she's a blur!"
"Ha!" she snorted, then came to encircle me and next she gave my face such a close scrutiny I was blushing. She felt my arms, my chest, even my breasts, then put her bony hands on my neck and felt the cords. Those audacious hands roamed down the length of my body while I wanted to scream out I wasn't a slave to be sold in the marketplace. I was grateful she didn't put her hand on my crotch as she'd done to Julian. I stood still and endured the inspection and felt all the while a deep, hot blush. She looked up to see it and smiled sarcastically.
When she'd done and I'd been physically appraised and evaluated, she delved the depths of my eyes to drink up my essence. I felt she was trying to absorb my youth with her eyes and drain it from me. Then she was touching my hair. "When do you plan to marry?" she shot out.
"Sometime when I'm near thirty, maybe, or maybe never." I answered uneasily. "But most certainly I'm going to wait until after I'm rich and famous, and the world's best prima ballerina."
"Hah! You have many illusions about yourself. Beautiful faces don't usually go with great dancers. Beauty thinks it needs no talent and can feed on itself, so it soon dies. Look at me. Once I was young and a great beauty. What do you see now?"
She was hideous! And she couldn't have ever been beautiful, or there'd be some evidence.
As if sensing my doubt to her claim, she gestured arrogantly to all the photographs on the walls, on her desk, on the tables, bookshelves. All showed the same lovely young ballerina. "Me," she proudly informed. I couldn't believe it. They were old photos, brownish in color, the costumes outdated, and yet she had been lovely. She gave me a wide, amused smile, patted my shoulder and said, "Good. Age comes to everyone and makes everyone equal.
"Who did you study with before Marisha Rosencoff?"
"Miss Denise Danielle." I hesitated, fearful of telling her about all the years I'd danced alone and been my own instructor.
"Ah," she sighed, looking very sad, "I saw Denise Danielle dance many times, such a brilliant performer, but she made the old mistake and fell in luv. End of promising career. Now, all she do is teach." Her voice rose and fell, quivering, gaining strength, then losing it. She pronounced "luv" with a long `u," making the word sound foreign and silly. "Big-head Julian says you are a great dancer, but I have to see you dance before I believe, and then I will decide if beauty is its own excuse for being." Once more she sighed. "You drink?"
"No."
"Why is your skin so pale? Do you never go in sun?"
"Too much sun burns me."
"Ah . . . you and your lover boy--afraid of the sun."
"Julian is not my lover!" I said between clenched teeth, shooting him a fierce look, for he must have told her we were.
Not an element of our expressions missed the keen observation of those ebony-bead eyes. "Julian, did you or did you not tell me you were in luv with this girl?"
He flushed and lowered his eyes, and had the decency to look embarrassed for once. "Madame, the love is all on my side, I'm ashamed to admit. Cathy feels nothing for me . . . but she will, sooner or later."
"Fine," the old witch said with a birdlike nod. "You have a big passion for her, she has none for you--that makes for sizzling, sensational dancing on your part. Our box office will overflow. I see it coming!"
That was, of course, the reason she took me on, knowing Julian had his unsatisfied lust and knowing I had a smoldering desire to find someone else offstage. Onstage, he was everything beautiful, romantic and sensual--my dream lover. If we could have danced through all our days and nights, we could have set the world on fire. As it was, when he was only himself, with his glib and often smutty tongue, I ran from him. I went to bed each night thinking of Paul prowling his lonely gardens, and refused to let myself dream of Chris.
I was soon ensconced in a small apartment twelve blocks from the dance studio. Two other dancers shared the three small rooms and one tiny bath with me. Two floors above, Julian shared an apartment with two male dancers in rooms no bigger than those we three girls had. His roommates were Alexis Tarrel
l and Michael Michelle, both in their early twenties, and both just as determined as Julian to become the best male danseur of their generation. I was astonished to find out Madame Zolta considered Alexis the best, and Michael next, and Julian third. I soon found out why she held him back--he had no respect for her authority. He wanted to do everything in his own way, and because of this she punished him
My roommates were as different as night and day. Yolanda Lange was half British, half Arab, and the strange combination made for one of the most exotic, dark-haired, sloe-eyed beauties I'd ever seen. She was tall for a dancer, five eight, the same height as my mother. Her breasts, when I saw them, were small hard lumps, all large dark nipples, but she wasn't ashamed of their size. She delighted in walking about naked, showing off, and soon I found out her breasts mirrored her personality--small, hard and mean. Yolanda wanted what she wanted when she wanted it and she'd do anything to get it. She asked me a thousand questions in less than an hour, and in that same hour told me her life story. Her father was a British diplomat who'd married a belly dancer. She'd lived everywhere, done everything. I immediately disliked Yolanda Lange.
April Summers was from Kansas City, Missouri. She had soft brown hair, blue-green eyes; we were both the same height, five feet four and a half inches. She was shy and seldom did she raise her voice above a whisper. When loud, raucous Yolanda was around, April seemed to have no voice at all. Yolanda liked noise; at all times the record player or the television had to be turned on. April spoke of her family with love, respect and pride, while Yolanda professed hatred for parents who'd pushed her into boarding schools and left her alone on holidays.
April and I became fast friends before our first day together was over. She was eighteen and pretty enough to please any man, but for some strange reason the boys of the academy didn't pay April one whit of attention. It was Yolanda who made them hot and panting, and soon enough I learned why--she was the one who gave out.