Camillia is not her usual self today.
The first day in the theater usually bubbles with excitement. The dancers can imagine it properly for the first time: the rows of faces in the audience. The music floating up from the orchestra pit. The heat of the lights and the deafening applause.
The rest of the dancers chatter excitedly as Madame Ophelia and I lead them through the backstage corridors, giggling and whispering as we pass the stars’ dressing rooms. And none have more reason to be excited than Camillia—she has the biggest part. The most to gain.
Yet she trails behind the others, barely listening to whatever her partner David is droning about in her ear. Her eyes skate along the scuffed linoleum floor, the flyers pinned to cork boards fluttering as she walks past.
Her shoulders are
