Girl Through Glass by Sari Wilson Page B

face is longer, his features more angular. Small red dots on his nose. There is something wrong with him. After all these years, this is the clearest thought she has coming face-to-face with the boy who plays the Prince.
    Christopher puts on a smile that Mira has seen in kids who know how to act around grown-ups. He kisses Ms. Clement on both cheeks.
    â€œHey.” He nods at Mira, who is hanging back. “So you’re the new Flower Princess. How old are you?”
    â€œEleven. I’ll be twelve in April.”
    Ms. Clement says, “Mira is quite good, if young. But, dear—you remember, you once were so young!”
    â€œHa-ha.” Christopher laughs a grown-up laugh.
    Up close—she is within a few feet of him now—his neck is long and taut. As he laughs, he does so with a girl’s delicacy that makes her look down.
    â€œOkay, dear, go and get changed. We have Mira for another half an hour. Then we can go over your part. You remember it, I hope?”
    Christopher picks up his shoulder bag and moves toward the boys’ dressing room, in some dim corner of the studio. “I never forget it,” he says.
    While Christopher changes, Mira and Ms. Clement go over the opening again. Ronde de jambe , port de bras, développ é. These are the movements from the beginning of The Wounded Prince, in which the prince comes upon a girl dancing in a forest clearing. She is supposed to be gathering food for her mother but has forgotten her errand. And Mira does feel someone watching her—from the studio doorway. She instinctually raises her chin and doubles her effort. When she finally peeks, she is surprised to see it is not Christopher, but a small man with a neat mustache leaning against the doorjamb. He clears his throat.
    â€œMaurice! What a surprise!” says Ms. Clement.
    â€œPlease,” he says. He bows his head. “I heard there was a new Flower Princess. I had to come see her.”
    â€œWell, meet Miss Mira Able. Mira, this is Maurice Dupont . . . who is a very generous man.”
    The three of them in the doorway: Mira, her teacher, and the man. His suit is charcoal-colored and he wears a red folded handkerchiefin his breast pocket. Mira walks over and holds out her hand. He takes it in his tangle of bony fingers. He gives off an odor of talcum powder and spicy cologne. He stares at her with very black pupils. Her face feels like it is burning.
    â€œI enjoyed watching you.”
    â€œThanks,” she says.
    â€œYou understand movement.”
    Where has she seen this smile, these teeth, small and even, like little stones lined up on a ledge?
    She remembers dimly, a face like this one. It comes back to her—the male dancer’s feline face and the ballerina’s sinewy arms. He was there that night at the ballet, when her father still lived with them. The cardboard shoulder that she leaned on, the pale face crossed with a black mustache, and the smell of something sweet and also something sour. Her mother had worn her hair long over a green dress. Her parents had held hands. That same night: holding this little man’s shoulder and shouting Bravo! He had brought her closer to the dancers than she had ever been before.
    Ms. Clement is looking at them.
    â€œYou helped me see—at Giselle —onto a chair—”
    â€œDid I? Was it that most amazing performance? Kirkland and Baryshnikov? Never another like that.”
    Ms. Clement is watching Maurice.
    â€œWell, of course, I like to be useful. To help the little ones.”
    Mira has no idea what is happening. She just knows she wants the little man to look at her again in that way he just did, the way that makes her feel more visible than she ever has.
    Just then, Christopher brushes past the man and comes into the studio. He’s in his rehearsal clothes—white T-shirt, black tights. His hair is carefully combed back off his face, and he wears a bandanna tied around his neck. In his