The Unraveling

Chapter One

Four Months Earlier

Ipinch the skin on my inner thigh between freshly manicured fingers. Blood rushes through my legs as I watch the dancers onstage. It's nearly killing me to be in the audience, trapped in the middle of my row. I can't tell if I'm claustrophobic or if I'm afraid I might lose my mind and climb onstage. Am I jealous I'm not up there, or am I just not ready to be a spectator?

As if he can read my tense mind, Jordan puts a hand on my knee and gives it a gentle squeeze. He asked if I was sure I wanted to come to The Nutcracker tonight and I acted like he was ridiculous for asking. But, as usual, it looks like he was right. It's the snow scene and I notice a young woman in the back line of the corps de ballet. Her ribbon has come slightly untied. I can't take my eyes off her. I'm worried for her. She dances as if she doesn't notice, but I know she does, and I just know she's freaking out about how much trouble she will get in. She's wondering if it will hold until the end of the scene or if it will completely untie. She'll be in trouble either way. They will take money out of her paycheck.

I feel bad for her but also annoyed. If I was up there, that would never happen to me.

I close my eyes to block out the beautiful shapes onstage.

The act ends and the curtains come down. I burst out of my seat like a rocket and say to our friends, "Let's go get some drinks."

"Thank god," says Artie, not bothering to lower his voice, leading the way out of the aisle. "I love being a person who goes to the ballet, but I hate being at the ballet."

"I don't know how those girls do it, it looks like such hard work. I can barely do my mile a day." Jane pulls a cigarette out of an old-school case and lights it with a match.

We burst out onto the street, fresh, icy air and dusty smog draping around us. It's not until we're out there that I realize how claustrophobic I felt inside. Out here there's a chaotic din I can get lost in. It's New Year's Day, and since Christmas was only a week ago, the streets are still strung with twinkling lights and everyone in London is in that postholiday haze where mulled wine seems like a perfectly fine way to welcome the early afternoon.

I've never had the classic Christmas holiday, since I was raised by a woman who didn't seem to understand the concept of childhood, much less indulge the idea of magic that's necessary to keep an eight-year-old girl excited with visions of sugarplums. This year was the most festive I've ever been. On Christmas Eve, Jordan and I went to Jane's house, where she and her partner, Emily, made an elaborate-and very English-meal of beef Wellington, roasted root vegetables, buttery potatoes, and trifle for dessert. Artie was there with his brand-new girlfriend, Julia, whom he has already dumped for being too intellectually plebian.

We went through about a case of wine and spent the night taking turns switching out the records on her vintage Victrola. It was a cozy scene of cashmere and pinot noir, and actually roasting chestnuts on a roaring fire. Something I've only heard in the song. I felt like I was in a Christmas movie for a few minutes.

Jordan and I woke up miraculously bright-eyed the next morning, if tired. He made pancakes and coffee, I made mimosas, and we curled up to watch The Shop Around the Corner. Later in the afternoon we went to a pub where a live Irish band was playing festive music and drinking as much as the rest of us. We drank pints of Guinness and ate fried food and-well, let's just say I'm not surprised no one knows I'm a ballerina. I have packed on a healthy ten pounds. I look a little prettier, actually, the unfamiliar weight adding a softness to my features I've never seen. I've been about fifteen pounds underweight my entire life. For the holiday season, it feels nice to indulge and even to see myself this way, but I have a feeling that once the lights are taken down and Jordan starts talking about weekends in Mallorca, I'm going to feel differently about the new ratio between my waist and my hips.

"Can you imagine being a ballerina?" asks Artie. "I feel like your whole life just winds up being about sacrifice. I mean, life is for buttered bread and perfect crème brûlée! And wine as-as luscious as velvet. Life is not for anorexia and discipline. Maybe a little recreational anorexia, but ugh, discipline."

"You poets drive me mental," says Jane. "'Wine as luscious as velvet.' Jesus Christ." She drags on her cigarette. "Not that I don't agree, but what a pretentious fuck you are."

I glance at her cigarette case and think she's also a bit of a pretentious fuck. Not that I don't like her. I do. But it's sort of the Le Creuset pot calling the Alessi kettle hot.

Artie bumps her with his shoulder indulgently and takes a cigarette from her case.

I look at Jordan. His expression means You still haven't told them about your old life?

I smile and give a slight shake of the head. He smiles back.

It's true, I haven't. I've artfully dodged any questions about my past, managing not to admit my seedy Louisiana upbringing, my gold-digging mother, or my lifetime in ballet slippers.

My phone buzzes in my clutch and I take it out to see a text from Sylvie and a missed call from an unsaved and unfamiliar number. I ignore the random call and focus on the text from Sylvie, my closest friend and the person with whom I've shared the most secrets and the most contention. If it weren't for the fact that we've hooked up, I'd say she's like a sister.

I open the message.

Happy New Year's! Only a few more shows of Nutcracker! I wish you were here-the new principal they hired to replace you is insane. She's such a diva. I swear she won't last the year.

I laugh reading it and then put it away, saying to Jane and Artie, "You know, I used to be a ballerina."

A gust of cold air.

"Shut up. When you were a kid?" asks Artie.

"Oh my god, of course you were, look at you with that absurd waifish body of yours."

She should have seen me in New York.

"No, not only as a kid. I only left the ballet about five months ago."

"Seven months," corrects Jordan kindly.

"Seven?" I ask. "Huh."

I take a drag of Jane's cigarette.

She takes it back and says, "How do we not know this? We've all been attached at the hip ever since you two moved to London, and yet this didn't come out? I feel betrayed."

Artie is gaping at me. "I feel betrayed. And guilty for saying how much I hate the ballet."

I laugh. "It's fine."

"Why did you quit?"

I feel Jordan's protective energy waft over me. "She's just on a break. I think she'll go back when she's ready."

Artie and Jane have a hundred more questions as we walk down a cobblestone street lit by gas lamps, meandering in the lawless way we often do until we stumble upon some great little cocktail club or speakeasy.

Jane and I clutch each other and giggle as we try to stay upright in our stilettos. Since leaving the stage and joining the audience, I have learned that they always overpour-and overcharge for-wine at the theater. And then I drink way too much.

Tonight, it's a cabaret that we find.

"Oh, I've heard of this place! Let's go in here," I say. "I've been dying to go."

It's true, but I'm also feeling the heat rise in my cheeks as their questions threaten truths and feelings to rise up and take me over, and a cabaret is exactly the sort of distraction that can save me.

I'm absolutely right. As soon as we step through the doors of Josephine's, we are taken away to the rich, decadent world of America's Jazz Age. My vintage fur coat and beaded Oscar de la Renta dress are perfectly in theme, and I wish-for not the first time lately-that I really could travel in time.

My mind starts to wander and I desperately regain control of it. We need drinks. Stat. I still have a headache from last night's cocktails, but I don't care. I just need to feel less.

Jordan leans toward me. "You okay? We can always go back to our place."

"I'm fine," I say, with the biting tone I can't seem to leave out of my voice lately. I smile to lessen the impact, but I don't feel like it works. He gives me an affectionate squeeze anyway.

"What would you like?" asks Jordan, impervious.

"Something strong. Sazerac."

He hesitates, but he never tells me what to do, so he orders one for me. I notice he gets it made with the highest-quality whiskey they sell, trying to save me from tomorrow's hangover.

And then I hear my name. "Jocelyn?"

I turn to see the source, suddenly remembering with blistering clarity how I had heard of this club.

"David," I say, with an impossibly warm smile, masking the fact that I could not be less excited to see him.

"Oh my god, you look absolutely gorgeous," he says, coming to me and putting an arm around me. "I love how you look so good with some weight on you. I can never pull off having extra pounds on me."

Christ.

I have to admit that David, though a total bitch, is a strikingly beautiful dancer. I know him from my old company in New York, North American Ballet. He and I have never been particularly close. He's a gossip who loves good drama and gravitates toward it, bailing on anyone the second they might need him. I don't need friends like that.

I shouldn't be surprised to see David here in London. I did see when we were looking up which Nutcracker show to watch that he was guesting for the season. He's English, and they love having him back here. I purposely avoided his Nutcracker show, but I have terrible fucking luck.

"I took some time off," I say, accepting my drink from Jordan and letting the plume of absinthe in the glass rise and sting my nostrils as I sip.

"Well, girl, you definitely look better with tits."

I want to be clever, but instead, I am struck silent and uncreative as I wince a nasty smile at him and roll my eyes. He's unfazed and turns to Jordan.

"Is this Jordan?" he gushes, holding out his hand. "I think we may have crossed paths once or twice. You're the artist Jocelyn left her hard-won career for?"

There's something about the way he asks this question like he and I were ever close. Jordan is an artist, an extraordinary painter, who has managed to catch global attention lately. As Artie said in his most recent write-up on him for the Guardian, "Despite the maddening crowd's constant insistence that things like paintings are dying at the altar of modernity, Jordan Morales manages to keep our attention."

But there's also something about the way David says artist that makes it sound like he's saying, You're the guy with the fingerpaints, right?

"Nice to meet you, David." Jordan never takes the bait. "I've heard a lot about you."

They hold each other's gaze for a moment, David seeming to glean that whatever Jordan's heard, it's not all good.

"Yes, yes." David snaps his fingers at the bartender, who reluctantly comes over and takes his order. "Bottle of Krug."

No please, no thank you, no sorry for snapping my fingers at you like a dogcatcher in an old movie. I forgot how obnoxious David can be.

The bartender nods. I look apologetically at her, but she looks at me like I'm part of the problem. And I am. Just by my proximity to him, I'm guilty.

Jordan looks irritated, and I know it's on my behalf. He knows that running into another dancer from New York is the last thing I want right now. And it really is.

I just know David is going to text everyone in NAB about how I've gained a bunch of weight and how I'm just hanging around London with some guy, throwing my life away.

"I'm here with some friends you should meet," says David to me now, fully bounced back from the moment of discomfort. "Come over and join our table."

The club is clearly on an intermission between acts, and there's a deeply thrumming exotica beat coming out of every hidden speaker in the place.

I look across the dark room and see the group he points out. To my surprise, I recognize one of the women.

But I turn away, not wanting her to spot me. I accept a glass of champagne from David. I have two drinks now, and somehow it still doesn't seem like enough.

My phone buzzes and I assume it's Sylvie again. I pull it out and see it's an unknown number. I ignore it and put it away.

The girl does see me and as soon as she does, she heads over to us.

"Arabella," bursts David. "Meet Jocelyn Banks."

"Jocelyn." She leans in, and we do the obligatory double air kiss. She smells of booze but also like she just bathed in rose petals. "Yes, yes. I already know this gorgeous creature, David. This is who I was telling you about tonight! I was telling David, I said there's a girl from New York that I've been watching at open classes for a few months who is just fantastic." Her words are drenched in a strong, sexy Spanish accent. She smiles big. With her magazine-worthy, messy black hair, petite stature, and buttery olive skin, she's like a green-eyed Penélope Cruz, especially in her role as Maria Elena in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

"Oh my god! I should have put two and two together. I knew Jocelyn was in town somewhere. I guess I just didn't think she'd be out impressing people with her prowess. Silly me!" David practically shouts. "Well, you two need to exchange numbers." He turns to me. "Jocelyn, Arabella is a principal at the Royal National Ballet here. She danced in The Nutcracker tonight."

"I was just there," I say. "It was great." I try to place her in the show. "Oh, you were the Snow Queen, weren't you?"