The Unraveling - Softcover

Hamrick, Melanie

 
9780593638163: The Unraveling
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593638166 ISBN 13: 9780593638163
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

A ballerina spirals into a world of lust and luxury in this new addictive novel by Melanie Hamrick, author of First Position.

Jocelyn Banks has always felt like an outsider in the ballet world. She was raised in rural Louisiana, taught to scrap and hustle for the life she wanted. And ever since Jocelyn found ballet, she has been able to take her life into her own hands. After years of success at the North American Ballet, she is now on a hiatus to enjoy life in London.

But in an instant, Jocelyn’s world is turned upside down and she’s forced find a way back into the ballet world. But the ballet scene in London is completely different from the one in America. It's not just talent and drive that will move you forward; if you don't secure a sponsor to pay your salary, you will go nowhere. Jocelyn manages to score a donor, which is crucial at the Royal National Ballet—but the hardest part is yet to come.

Jocelyn is unable to break through her emotions, afraid that if she does, she’ll be flooded with feelings she can’t afford to have. But something about her sponsor, the charismatic Alastair Cavendish, sets a fire in her. What she feels when she’s with him is raw and real. If she goes down this precarious path, she knows she’s doomed to fall into an intoxicating spiral of self-sabotage. But the lust and magnetizing lure of power and prestige keep clawing at her, ultimately forcing her to choose between desire and duty.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Melanie Hamrick is a mother, a ballerina, a producer, a choreographer, and a writer. Born and raised in Virginia, Melanie began dancing at a young age. Her career as a ballerina spanned over sixteen years with American Ballet Theatre. While traveling the world with her family and for work, Melanie has always carried novels and notebooks with her. Her passion for reading and dance inspired her to write her first novel, First Position.

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Chapter One

Four Months Earlier

Ipinch the skin on my inner thigh between freshly manicured fingers. Blood rushes through my legs as I watch the dancers onstage. It's nearly killing me to be in the audience, trapped in the middle of my row. I can't tell if I'm claustrophobic or if I'm afraid I might lose my mind and climb onstage. Am I jealous I'm not up there, or am I just not ready to be a spectator?

As if he can read my tense mind, Jordan puts a hand on my knee and gives it a gentle squeeze. He asked if I was sure I wanted to come to The Nutcracker tonight and I acted like he was ridiculous for asking. But, as usual, it looks like he was right. It's the snow scene and I notice a young woman in the back line of the corps de ballet. Her ribbon has come slightly untied. I can't take my eyes off her. I'm worried for her. She dances as if she doesn't notice, but I know she does, and I just know she's freaking out about how much trouble she will get in. She's wondering if it will hold until the end of the scene or if it will completely untie. She'll be in trouble either way. They will take money out of her paycheck.

I feel bad for her but also annoyed. If I was up there, that would never happen to me.

I close my eyes to block out the beautiful shapes onstage.

The act ends and the curtains come down. I burst out of my seat like a rocket and say to our friends, "Let's go get some drinks."

"Thank god," says Artie, not bothering to lower his voice, leading the way out of the aisle. "I love being a person who goes to the ballet, but I hate being at the ballet."

"I don't know how those girls do it, it looks like such hard work. I can barely do my mile a day." Jane pulls a cigarette out of an old-school case and lights it with a match.

We burst out onto the street, fresh, icy air and dusty smog draping around us. It's not until we're out there that I realize how claustrophobic I felt inside. Out here there's a chaotic din I can get lost in. It's New Year's Day, and since Christmas was only a week ago, the streets are still strung with twinkling lights and everyone in London is in that postholiday haze where mulled wine seems like a perfectly fine way to welcome the early afternoon.

I've never had the classic Christmas holiday, since I was raised by a woman who didn't seem to understand the concept of childhood, much less indulge the idea of magic that's necessary to keep an eight-year-old girl excited with visions of sugarplums. This year was the most festive I've ever been. On Christmas Eve, Jordan and I went to Jane's house, where she and her partner, Emily, made an elaborate-and very English-meal of beef Wellington, roasted root vegetables, buttery potatoes, and trifle for dessert. Artie was there with his brand-new girlfriend, Julia, whom he has already dumped for being too intellectually plebian.

We went through about a case of wine and spent the night taking turns switching out the records on her vintage Victrola. It was a cozy scene of cashmere and pinot noir, and actually roasting chestnuts on a roaring fire. Something I've only heard in the song. I felt like I was in a Christmas movie for a few minutes.

Jordan and I woke up miraculously bright-eyed the next morning, if tired. He made pancakes and coffee, I made mimosas, and we curled up to watch The Shop Around the Corner. Later in the afternoon we went to a pub where a live Irish band was playing festive music and drinking as much as the rest of us. We drank pints of Guinness and ate fried food and-well, let's just say I'm not surprised no one knows I'm a ballerina. I have packed on a healthy ten pounds. I look a little prettier, actually, the unfamiliar weight adding a softness to my features I've never seen. I've been about fifteen pounds underweight my entire life. For the holiday season, it feels nice to indulge and even to see myself this way, but I have a feeling that once the lights are taken down and Jordan starts talking about weekends in Mallorca, I'm going to feel differently about the new ratio between my waist and my hips.

"Can you imagine being a ballerina?" asks Artie. "I feel like your whole life just winds up being about sacrifice. I mean, life is for buttered bread and perfect crème brûlée! And wine as-as luscious as velvet. Life is not for anorexia and discipline. Maybe a little recreational anorexia, but ugh, discipline."

"You poets drive me mental," says Jane. "'Wine as luscious as velvet.' Jesus Christ." She drags on her cigarette. "Not that I don't agree, but what a pretentious fuck you are."

I glance at her cigarette case and think she's also a bit of a pretentious fuck. Not that I don't like her. I do. But it's sort of the Le Creuset pot calling the Alessi kettle hot.

Artie bumps her with his shoulder indulgently and takes a cigarette from her case.

I look at Jordan. His expression means You still haven't told them about your old life?

I smile and give a slight shake of the head. He smiles back.

It's true, I haven't. I've artfully dodged any questions about my past, managing not to admit my seedy Louisiana upbringing, my gold-digging mother, or my lifetime in ballet slippers.

My phone buzzes in my clutch and I take it out to see a text from Sylvie and a missed call from an unsaved and unfamiliar number. I ignore the random call and focus on the text from Sylvie, my closest friend and the person with whom I've shared the most secrets and the most contention. If it weren't for the fact that we've hooked up, I'd say she's like a sister.

I open the message.

Happy New Year's! Only a few more shows of Nutcracker! I wish you were here-the new principal they hired to replace you is insane. She's such a diva. I swear she won't last the year.

I laugh reading it and then put it away, saying to Jane and Artie, "You know, I used to be a ballerina."

A gust of cold air.

"Shut up. When you were a kid?" asks Artie.

"Oh my god, of course you were, look at you with that absurd waifish body of yours."

She should have seen me in New York.

"No, not only as a kid. I only left the ballet about five months ago."

"Seven months," corrects Jordan kindly.

"Seven?" I ask. "Huh."

I take a drag of Jane's cigarette.

She takes it back and says, "How do we not know this? We've all been attached at the hip ever since you two moved to London, and yet this didn't come out? I feel betrayed."

Artie is gaping at me. "I feel betrayed. And guilty for saying how much I hate the ballet."

I laugh. "It's fine."

"Why did you quit?"

I feel Jordan's protective energy waft over me. "She's just on a break. I think she'll go back when she's ready."

Artie and Jane have a hundred more questions as we walk down a cobblestone street lit by gas lamps, meandering in the lawless way we often do until we stumble upon some great little cocktail club or speakeasy.

Jane and I clutch each other and giggle as we try to stay upright in our stilettos. Since leaving the stage and joining the audience, I have learned that they always overpour-and overcharge for-wine at the theater. And then I drink way too much.

Tonight, it's a cabaret that we find.

"Oh, I've heard of this place! Let's go in here," I say. "I've been dying to go."

It's true, but I'm also feeling the heat rise in my cheeks as their questions threaten truths and feelings to rise up and take me over, and a cabaret is exactly the sort of distraction that can save me.

I'm absolutely right. As soon as we step through the doors of Josephine's, we are taken away to the rich, decadent world of America's Jazz Age. My vintage fur coat and beaded Oscar de la Renta dress are perfectly in theme, and I wish-for not the first time lately-that I really could travel in time.

My...

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Verlag
Penguin Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593638166
ISBN 13 
9780593638163
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
352
Kontakt zum Hersteller
BERKLEY
https://www.penguin.com/?s=BERKLEY

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