Strip by Andrew Binks Page A

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.
    â€œAt last we can remount Rimbaud ,” Louise said. “Madame has created a ballet after the French poet.”
    â€œIt’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.
    â€œWe 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.

 
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    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.
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    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