Chapter Three
I walked into the studio with what I hoped was a neutral expression. On my lunch break, I'd done the natural thing and Googled Ethan Langley to find out everything I could about him.
He was good.
Not justâ"wow, he's pretty cool,"âbut insanely talented. I looked like a sham compared to him. I hadn't been able to find anything about his personal history, but judging by the videos I'd seen, the fact he wasn't dancing with a company was insane.
My stomach twisted with nerves. I was practically belittling him by having him instruct me. I was a ballet peasant compared to what I'd seen in the video of his own end of year performance. Mr. Langley wasn't here yet and I picked at my nails. I wanted to get this over and done with; I wanted to know how horribly embarrassed I was going to be by the end of it.
Dancing poorly in front of the whole class was one thing, but I'd watched Mr. Langley's videos and I had to admire him. When I messed up in front of him it was going to be a personal hell. I couldn't kid myself into thinking I didn't care what he thought. He knew what he was talking about.
The door opened a minute later and I straightened my back, gaze darting to his tighted up bum for only a second. I'd been right. It was perfect.
He was silent whilst he gave me a once over. I knew he was looking at my dimensions, seeing what I could do with myself, but my skin didn't understand that and it burned under his appraisal. I might not be a good dancer, but I put in the work and I had the body to prove it. "Let's start with the basics," he said.
The expression he wore screamed of distaste and I wanted to slap it right off his pretty face. I wished he'd been ugly as fuck. I wanted an excuse to hate every part of him. Unfortunately, he was a flawless looker and dancer.
I stood at the barre and followed his instructions, cheeks burning red as I wondered what awful thoughts he was having about my technique. "Plié from first," he barked, mouth returning to a hard line after the word had left his mouth. "Tendu."
I groaned when he kept going. "Can't we not use the French words? My ballet teacher just called them squats, it made everything far more amusing." If we were going to have to spend hours together I couldn't deal with them being filled with one word commands only.
He stared in what I assumed was horror before grimacing. "I'll write you out a dictionary of the proper ballet terms to memorise."
I rolled my eyes, but continued to follow instructions. "So, how long have you worked here?" I could make conversation and do the basics. The silence was killing me.
"You're supposed to be focusing."
"I'm a chatterbox. I can't spend however long this lesson is going to be listening to my own breathing, it's torture. Even if we're reciting ballet terms to each other it'd help." I cast a glance over my shoulder and revelled in his irritated face. If he wanted to hate me then it wasn't in my prerogative to grovel until he liked me.
"Posture," he snapped, forcing me to look back in the mirror at my reflection. "And two years now."
"You don't need an actual teacher's like degree to work here, right? How old are you? Do you have to pass a ballet test or something?"
It was a tired breath that he let out and I smirked. I almost considered letting him get on with job and improve my ballet, because I definitely needed it, but I refused let this be a walk in the park for him whilst he sent his disdainful glares my way. I'd never had to deal with being looked down on before coming to Briarwood. It turned out I didn't deal with it very well.
Besides, I was genuinely curious to the answers to these questions. Especially the age one.
"I didn't go to university for a proper teacher's licence, no. I did not have to take a ballet test to teach here. I am twenty-four."
He'd gauged my ability level now and approached. "Your posture could be better." His gaze moved from top to toe and he stood to my side to get a better angle. "Your bum sticks out a bit."
I took his advice in stride and attempted to fix my position. I knew I couldn't be too far offâthis was something I'd been working on ever since I started dancing ten years ago. He watched me carefully, the distaste replaced with concentration, before shaking his head.
His hand was completely professional as he pressed it first against my stomach, and then against my bum, to correct my stance.
He gave a nod. "Better. Work on keeping it like that."
I nodded myself, hating the way I wanted more than that impersonal touch.
"Now, let's see your arabesque."
The lesson went on much the same. Mr. Langley critiqued my form after I demonstrated different moves for him and he did it in a way that Maggie had severely lacked.
Maggie had laughed in her jolly manner and told me that I just needed to be a bit straighter, or have a better line. That kind of thing was so abstract that I never knew whether I was changing myself in the right way or not.
Mr. Langley was very to the point. He knew how to describe the body in a crystal clear manner and he wasn't afraid to simply adjust my position with his hands to reflect what it was supposed to look like. When I appraised myself in the mirror after he'd modelled me I could see the immediate difference.
"Your basic posture isn't as noticeable when you're doing the fast moves like in your routine for your audition. It was choreographed cleverly, by the way." I scowled at the implication I'd basically cheated my way in. "But when you have to contend with the slower moves of a full performance it'll be obvious."
I nodded and attempted to perform the arabesque in the way he'd shown. It wasn't a big difference from how I'd done it, but subtlety was everything here.
"You need to keep practising." He checked his watch. "How long do you want these sessions to be?"
"Erm, I mean it's up to you? I'm not exactly being swarmed by friends begging me to hang out at all hours, in case you hadn't noticed."
"I hadn't." There'd been nothing but seriousness on his face all lesson. "We can stay for another half hour if you like and try and put some combinations together."
"That'd be cool." I wasn't about to say yes, please, like I knew he wanted.
He put together a basic combo and I followed his lead, keeping my posture as close to the way he'd taught me the entire time. After a few runs through, he sighed. "Did your previous ballet teacher really not teach you anything?"
My dancing had, so far, inspired physical pain, laughter and apparently a deep set irritation. They weren't the emotions I'd been hoping for. "I would dare to say that in the past ten years she has accomplished something."
Ethan scowled and demonstrated his moves again. He was the most graceful man I'd ever seen and I watched him carefully, taking in every detail of his movements. "You see." He snapped me from my trance, coming to a standstill. "It's different. You don't do it correctly."
I scowled back. My patience could only take so much, and his had apparently already snapped. You don't do it correctly wasn't the same quality of guidance he'd been giving me at first.
"I am quite sure that it cannot be that bad." I had to practically grind my teeth together to hold in some colourful language.
"If you are not willing to listen to my instruction then don't be here." He folded his arms and I willed myself not to be distracted. No matter how much of a stuck-up dick he was, I still hadn't gotten over the shock of how gorgeous he was. I prayed that would wear off in the next couple of days and I could thoroughly hate him like I wanted to.
I folded my own arms. "You don't want me here anyway."
"No, I don't, but I'm under instruction so long as you want to learn." It stung far more than I'd ever admit to anyone.
"Why?" It was a simple enough question, but I at least deserved to know why he hated me so much.
"Because you're not up to scratch. Bringing you in, in the last year of school, is stupid. If they had a scholarship that was from the very beginning of school then sure, but at the moment you're just to fill a quota. They obviously had a place to fill and someone who was at the correct standard could have had it. I was part of the recruitment process this year and I turned down plenty of people far better than you because we didn't have the space." He shrugged. "So I don't approve of you being here. Someone better could have been."
His argument was flawless in one way, but he was picking it with the wrong person. "Well they picked me and I'm here. There's nothing I can do about it, but I'd rather not face disgusted looks on all sides just because I took an opportunity that was offered." I snatched my cardigan from where it hung on the barre. "Go and glare at Mrs. Mellier for giving me a spot, don't hate me for taking it."
I stamped out of the room with clenched fists and a shiver of pride running down my spine. There was a small chance he'd come to the next lesson feeling appropriately guilty.
Once out of the studio, I hung about round the corner until I heard the door open and close again. Mr. Langley had left almost straight away.
After waiting a couple of minutes longer to make sure he wasn't coming back, I slipped back into the studio and redeposited my cardigan on the barre.
My body was going to feel it tomorrow, but I was determined to perfect everything that Mr. Langley told me, even if I thought he was a bit of a jerk. Becoming the best ballerina in this place was bound to teach him some kind of lesson.