Strip. Andrew Binks

my bedroom in the basement, I lay in the dark and wondered what it was they liked about going out. Was it the intermission? Seeing their friends? The same reasons they went to church? Or was it a chance to drink cocktails? I figured the husbands went to make the wives happy, and the wives went to dream of princes. As I dozed, I wished I lived in that world where no one spoke and everyone was beautiful. I slept and dreamt of feathers stuck to women, and closed lips miming secrets, while dancers with rock-hard thighs flew through the sky, their tights full of sticky mints.

      Intermissions, for dancers who happen to be sitting in the audience, are the side-shows of life, where egos bow and grovel to be noticed. Since they aren’t up onstage, they make sure everyone around knows they should be; the females wear their buns twice as tight, with enough makeup to ice a wedding cake, while the men wear corduroy pants just as tight, stretched over their butts, belts snug, and walk bolt upright, waddling with toes pointing in opposite directions like ducks. Then they’ll voice their opinions, refer to the stars by nickname—Misha, Rudi—and hope someone notices.

      At intermission, Bertrand’s much-spoken-about Madame, Madame Talegdi, reclined on a bench in the foyer, stretching like a Siamese cat and inhaling cigarette smoke to her toes. If there was attention to be had, it would have to find its way to her, as far as she was concerned. She looked me over like she was about to eat a big steak and didn’t know where to begin. She was strong, lean and dark. With her dyed-black hair pulled tight to a knot, and her even, capped teeth, you could squint and believe she was a twenty-year-old señorita. Up close, she was an aging Hungarian woman, maybe with a dash of gypsy blood. But her presence filled the foyer. People pointed and whispered; whether they recognized her or not, she was alluring. Blowing that smoke everywhere, she made sure she was noticed. The attention was justified. When I saw her dance in Quebec City I understood. Her legs were rock hard, her ankles were a little thick from two infants and a newborn she hauled around. But she could stay on pointe forever. One afternoon the girls in her small company ran from the room, in tears, because she had shamed them by doing thirty-two fouettés without moving, not travelling so much as the diameter of a dime along the floor.

      Louise and the girls sat at her feet and Bertrand and Jean-Marc, Bertrand’s nemesis, sat beside her. Louise strained to maintain a graceful seated posture, despite her full chest. If she leaned forward she was just way too luscious—a no-no for dancers though no doubt pleasing for any civilian straight males in the theatre. Other, thinner dancers in the lobby would look down on her, but she would smirk because in the end she had the best of both worlds. The Company would have called her “heavy” until she showed signs of anorexia. Someday, in the real world, her body, and all the other shapely ballerina’s bodies I had known, would be appreciated. Until then, they’d have to settle for some crazed taskmaster’s petrified idea of beauty.

      Next to Louise, the other girls appeared to be corpses. Maryse, a buck-toothed and anorexic stick, ignored me outright. Bertrand admitted she could dance but then mimicked her overbite when she turned her back to him. She was all knees, elbows, shoulder blades and grey skin. She snacked on raw celery out of a baggie.

      The other female, Chantal, came across as stern. She looked in my direction, but her eye-line just managed to graze the top of my head. When I phoned Rachelle to fill her in on the Company, and described Chantal—legs crossed tight, back bolt upright—Rachelle predictably said Chantal needed to be fucked. This was her solution to most women’s attitudes. Chantal had the perfect dancer’s body and profile. She stretched her feet in her shoes, and showed off her perfect arches.

      Jean-Marc, the one who had brought Bertrand and Louise head to head, sat beside Madame, and presented a huge, toothy, open smile when we were introduced. Bertrand’s jealousy of Madame’s attention to Jean-Marc showed up as disdain, and Louise’s jealousy of Betrand’s jealousy registered as fury. Jean-Marc was lean and muscular with veins splitting his biceps. Madame referred to them as his telephone cords. He had a big jaw, and a perfect space between his two front teeth. He looked around the room with eyebrows raised in a Je suis innocent way. With a body like that, I’m sure he’s had no trouble making his way to the top. That didn’t occur to me those few months ago. I still believed it was about talent.

      Did Madame sense I would jump her protegé in a second? It turns women on, to think their man is attractive to boys like me. It can also be a big fat insult that no one, including their boyfriend, is noticing them.

      Madame finally diverted her attention from her audience in the foyer of Place des Arts. She seemed content that she had been seen by all. “Bertrand tells me you would like to contribute your talents to our little company. He says you can dance.”

      Bertrand frowned, but I was growing used to having to prove myself.

      “At last we can remount Rimbaud,” Louise said. “Madame has created a ballet after the French poet.”

      “It’s a masterpiece,” Chantal added, toward the space above my head.

      Madame pretended to have caught someone’s eye. She drew on her cigarette, waved, and shook her head at Chantal’s flattery. Like any faded ballerina, she would have killed to be back onstage at Place des Arts. You could almost taste the desire.

      “We are taking Rimbaud to New York,” said Madame. “Harlem. Three nights. It needs at least six strong dancers.” Her exhaled smoke settled around our little group. “As usual Bertrand will partner Louise. He will be our Rimbaud. Jean-Marc will work with Maryse. They make an ideal match.” Jean-Marc puffed up. “I think you might be a good partner for our Chantal,” proclaimed Madame. “You would make a perfect Verlaine: jealous, in love and always in Rimbaud’s shadow.” Chantal tightened her knees, sat even straighter, and curled her lip as though the one person who could turn her into the next Alicia Alonso, and make her dreams come true with the snap of her fingers, had just cut an extremely foul fromage.

      My time had finally come. This is what I had needed. Not a ballet factory like Montreal, but a small company where I had time to focus on being brilliant. Montreal was short-lived, perhaps another stepping stone along the way—the way to New York.

      Three

      The arms extended just enough, relaxed never, are open to cradle the most precious air, like an angel holding the earth, or releasing what has entered the body—by way of the trunk and the back—through the arms and out the hands toward the heavens. To feel a mere fraction of this, for yourself, slowly push the air away with the back of your hand.

      Bertrand called their little group un equipe. Every time we met in Montreal, he never stopped his crazy chatter until he returned to Quebec. I didn’t need convincing; I wanted to prove I could overcome anything. I tried not to think of Daniel over me, big hands on my back, soaking me with sweat on our second-last night. If he just got cold feet and planned to return, then the break would make our reunion that much better. And ignoring him would make him want me even more; he’d see what a hit our little company was—New York—and how I was not a threat to him, and how serious I really was about my dancing, then he’d want me. I wasn’t going to mope around Montreal and envy the ones he danced with, choreographed for, had cigarettes with, disappeared for—or to—his fucks and tricks and protegés. I had my own life to live. I tried so hard not to think of Daniel.

      Empty pockets, empty bank account, and stuffed on another bus with all my crap, I’d show him. Dry heater in my face. Frosty late September morning air, a prelude to winter, raced down from the Les Laurentides in the north and across the highway to Quebec City. On that ride I must have dozed. I saw the boy, me, walking through the ravine in a yellow raincoat, matching yellow hat, black galoshes, my tight pink fists holding a crumpled painting of dancers, the colours running and fading in the rain. My mother told me to show the class what a wonderful artist I was. How proud I should be. The cold autumn sleet rushed me along, the wind splashed me into puddle after puddle. Coat, hat, boots filling with icy October water. Paint washed away. Up and rush. Hands red with blood and paint and chill and pebbles in the flesh. Up and rush. Up and rush. Hot and damp in yellow. The yard was empty. Everyone was dry in the warm brick building. The heavy door gave quickly and I tumbled into my seated teacher and class, gathered for their rainy day story. Bloody nose, snot and