Typical Day
Heather Greyswan wakes up to her alarm at 8:17AM. She used to set her alarm for 8:15AM, but she shaved two minutes off her morning routine after adopting an even simpler hairstyle (bun, only one scrunchie, and three barrettes). At 8:18AM, Heather is out of bed.
As she stands up, she feels a tiny strain in her hip, the same strain that's been bothering her for the past two-and-a-half weeks. Heather hasn't told anyone about it yet. She grimaces, and all her biggest fears flutter through her mind. She pushes them to the side and focuses on her morning shower, after which she makes a pot of very dark roast coffee.
She sweeps her hair into the bun and drinks her cup of coffee slowly, savoring every sip. Heather prefers to rehearse on an empty stomach; it's otherwise just a lot of jumping and running to do with a bunch of food sloshing around inside her. And anyway, at this point, Heather's body is accustomed to skipping breakfast. She doesn't even feel hungry. (Or at least, that's what she tells herself.)
At 10:00AM, Heather walks into the studio, where she changes into her warm-up sports gear. Meeting Darcy Dancer, her closest friend in the company, they stretch each other out and warm up. Heather and Darcy are some of the newest recruits to the company.
"Did you hear anything about casting?" Heather asks. Darcy is quiet for a moment, but the look on her face tells Heather that she knows something.
"What is it?"
"I got called in yesterday to meet with our director. He said he didn't want to tell everyone yet, but the company's going under. Something about low ticket sales and the building lease being up. They're gonna fold."
Heather is shocked. This had happened often when she was first starting out in her career, more than five years ago. But it's been two years of steady work now. Everything was getting so much better—she'd even made her car payments for multiple months in a row.
"The director told me he found me a place with another company. It doesn't pay much, but it's a step up in my career. And there's nothing for me here."
"But what about me? What did he say about the rest of us?"
The director said nothing about them. That's how this works. Every ballerina fends for herself. Suddenly, Russkin himself—the director—pokes his head through the door to the studio's warm-up space.
"Are we all warm in here? Let's get started."
Like she did with thoughts of her hip injury, Heather pushes aside any thought of what Darcy just told her. Now's her time to dance, and she can only do that with 110 percent of her energy focused. Taking a deep breath, Heather throws herself into her rehearsal for the next three hours, executing perfect pirouette after perfect pirouette.
At "lunch" break (which is really just a banana), Heather focuses her attention on stretching her hip out some more. Much to her dismay, she was feeling a slight twinge during rehearsal, even when she was simply standing at second position. Mid-stretch, one of the company's choreographers bursts into the room.
"Hello, everyone! How are we today? Gather 'round."
The girls, and the few male ballet dancers (known as danseurs), drop what they're doing and crowd around in a sweaty, huddled mass of bodies.
"Some things have come up within the company, internally, that, well, um...it's best that everyone does their very, very best and puts their best foot forward in the few shows we have left—"
The whispers grow louder. "Oh no," thinks Heather. Darcy was right.
"—because, after this tour, the company is shuttering. We'll do all we can to find new positions for you, but...well, we can't make any promises."
The choreography immediately launches into the nitty-gritty of the new routine, in what seems to Heather an obvious attempt to avoid answering questions from the dancers about the company's future. Before she knows it, though, Heather's lost in the challenge of the routine. She was always like this—from a very young age, she trained herself to dance out all her anxiety and stress.
It isn't until after rehearsal ends around 6:00PM and she's at her apartment cooking dinner that the reality of the situation dawns on her. She sits down to a large dish of pasta with a carefully-measured tablespoon of olive oil to drizzle on top.
"In two months, I'll have no job," thinks Heather, tracing circles with her finger around her bum hip. What then?
More auditions. Ugh.
Heather trudges to her bedroom. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she reaches for the Tiger Balm on her nightstand, liberally and vigorously rubs it over her aching muscles, and then, exhausted from the day's rehearsal, passes out at 11:00PM.