PETIT BATTEMENT by Mandy Lange

Molly’s pas de chat is born of force, timing, and intensity. A blink of respite at the pinnacle of the leap, when chaos slips into calm. A gentle return to plywood. She rotates her heel, chafing against her too-small slipper. Works her turn from the back leg. 

Another, another. Anything to stay out of the trench the two blue lines dug into her.

“Pirouettes en dehors!” Regina calls from the corner of the studio. 

  The piano recording plinks and twinkles. Girls linger in front of the mirrored wall, reluctant. Their senior showcase looms. Final dance performance before they age out and get absorbed into the real world. Most of them will use the training to become yoga instructors at best, languishing at the studio above their town’s rundown resale shop, but for Molly, dance has always meant more.

Beside her, Isabella adjusts her thin legs into a diamond. Perfecting her reflection. Molly traces her own shape in the mirror. She never studies it that closely. When stationary, she’s a mess of wandering curls, nervous eyes, wide thighs. When dancing, she transcends these traits.

The girls line up, taking turns wielding gravity, winding their spins. 

Molly goes. Spirals inward, toward her rooted leg. Her weight transfer is off.

“En dehors, Molly! Outward!” Regina snaps. “Again!”

A few girls snigger over the music. Molly paces back to center, index finger twitching. Raises her leg in passé, spins on her toes toward it. Regina squints at her.

Encore Voland has standards, even for small town Indiana. Two hours of class each weekday. Weekends encouraged. Background in jazz, ballet, contemporary. Good attitude, solid grades. Scholarships if you’re poor or exceptional. Molly’s the former. Regina, owner and teacher, has a background in nutrition. Consults her dancers twice a month, lest one of them fall prey to body dysmorphia, the devourer of ballerinas. 

“Dance is about contrasts,” Regina says over the music, eyes trailing Molly as she retreats. “Utilize both ends of the spectrum: freedom and discipline. Next!”

The dancers are mostly fluorescent under the hanging studio lights, but a lone window spills a streak of late daylight into the room. Molly steps into the strip of sunset, glances to the outside. Her gift and her curse is her ability to hold a pose.

#

“I’ve taught you for six years. Worked with teenage girls for twelve. Don’t lie,” Regina says. 

Her beaded earrings sway eerily over organized paper mounds on her heavy, ancient-looking desk. Voland’s studios are spacious and open, and Regina sacrificed office space as a result. The brass trophies lining the shelves are organized by height and rank, but there’s too many of them. They can’t help but look cluttered and overbearing in such a small space.

Molly sits across from her on a purple bean bag, her fingers twitching. The dancers call this seat the plum. Molly’s sat here on a hundred simpler occasions, listening to Regina preach about the dangers of microwaved meals. 

“How far along are you?”

“A few weeks.”

Regina reminds Molly of a falcon, perched on the dead tree outside her bedroom window. Beaky snarl. Graceful dive. Deadly strike. Easy to see how Regina puts the fear of God into anorexics. 

“Well?” Regina’s at the edge of her seat, neck high, ready for flight. “What are you going to do about it?”

A framed portrait of Encore Voland, Acro Class of 2017 is nestled among the trophies beside Regina’s head. Little girls celebrating, kneeling into one another. Regina grinning over them. Family. 

“I want to perform my solo,” Molly says. She digs her nails into her palms. 

Faceless trophy dancers leer at her from the shelves. 

“This is a breach of self-control I did not expect from you.” Regina’s nails are long, sharp as she taps them on her desk. “I understand you don’t have the most… wholesome home life. But you know I expect my students to rise out of such circumstances.”

Molly plunges her nails farther into her skin.

“Please,” Molly begins, “I–”

“What are you going to do about it?”

Molly stutters, “I… want to keep it.”

“Really.” Too much venom in Regina’s glare. Molly looks away. Out of the small corner window, a red Camaro cuts through the gray parking lot, grayer sky.

“Is someone forcing you into this? The… father?”

“He’s not involved.”

“Your father?”

“He doesn’t know. Please–”

Regina puts up a hand, her feathery eyebrows bristling. 

“You cannot perform. You’re seventeen! I run Voland with integrity and I won’t risk my reputation to defend your recklessness.” Regina faces the window, searching the sky for a moment, then turning back. “However…”

Molly’s fingers go taut. 

“I would be loath to prevent a scholarship student from finishing her program. As long as there is no visible sign of a bump, you may participate. I’ll be able to help you with that.” Regina cocks her head. “Fair?”

Fingers fall free, and Molly springs off the plum.

“No showing. Okay.”

She leaves with a list.

#

A month passes with careful, sustained movements. Molly maintains the flow of motion without faltering. Pineapple for breakfast, every day. Canned, because it’s cheapest. She chokes down tuna, which Regina insisted upon, and hard-boiled eggs. No vegetables, lest she bloats. Her stomach is sunken.

Isabella’s more talkative than usual, both in class and out. Since her prep school ends earlier than public, she dutifully gives Molly rides to and from Studio Voland. The girls rehearse skills in isolation, preparing them for the task of choreographing their own solos. After a grueling practice– Helicopters, Windmills– Isabella drives Molly home, a bag of pretzels between her knees. 

“My uncle’s coming in from Minnesota for the showcase. And my boyfriend from State will be there. Have you met Colin? You’d love him. Will your dad be able to take off work?” Isabella shoves three pretzels in her mouth before Molly can answer. She tosses the bag over, talking with a full mouth. “Want some? I’m freaking starving. Windmills make me famished.”

Molly’s hand is in the bag before she realizes what she’s doing. She brings the pretzel to her mouth, melts the salt on her tongue. It’s the best thing she’s ever tasted. Her body lurches, cries out for more. But before she can eat it, she crushes it in her fist. Sets the bag back on Isabella’s knees. 

She tunes out Isabella for the rest of the journey. Directing herself to the blurring road lines, the purple horizon, the proper footwork for a fan kick. The pretzel crumbs sog in her palm before long. 

#

 Home is the double-wide she shares with her dad. It’s a sedentary lump in the back of the mobile home park. Separated from the neighbors by hobbled trees and tiny lawns. Her dad’s already there, decompressing into the sofa, by the time Isabella drops her off.  It smells like a microwaved meal. Salisbury steak. 

“How’s the Dancin’ Queen?”

Molly cringes, recovers. She heads to the kitchen immediately for her tuna. “Fine.”

He redirects his attention to the White Sox, resting his bones after a day of physical labor, working furnaces, melting iron. Molly’s used to the tired silence and finds herself thankful for it lately.

“What’s with the fish and egg craze?” His eyes are still locked on the game.

Molly opts for honesty, at least in part. “New diet for the showcase.” 

The White Sox batter swings, misses. 

“A diet? Why? Nothin’s wrong with you!”

“You say that, but…”

“I mean it. You got your head on right. Unlike your mother.”

Foul ball. 0-2. Molly traces absentminded circles around her belly button. Empty, yet occupied. 

“Meant to ask. Any change left over from the shoppin’ this week?” He says it casually enough, but the tremble in his tone gives him away.

“Sorry,” Molly says. “Eggs are expensive lately.” The leftover money has already been stuffed into a ziploc bag and wedged under her mattress. 

On television, the batter watches a pitch sail by his knees. Strike three. 

Her dad falls asleep on the couch before the game ends. Molly sneaks out the screen door, catching it to prevent a slam. Frogs call from the pond over muffled arguments from the neighbors. She’s barefoot in the dark patch of grass, barely enough space to call a yard.

The night breeze on her skin takes Molly to a summer touch, whispers, shivers. Sensations her body hasn’t felt since he moved back to the city. Right now, her future’s a silhouette. She will fill in the details after the showcase. Find him. Be a family. She could revisit every sensation, and more, if she pushes through. 

Molly twirls. Renversé and leaps, fingers and toes grasping at stars.

#

Before class, Regina evaluates Molly’s stomach, ensuring she’s on course. Still eating gritty fruit for breakfast, pungent tuna for lunch, raspberry tea before bed. 

Molly chews her cheek, lifts her shirt, places her hands under her ribs. Flat. 

Regina announces headsprings and roll ups, her voice echoing through the space between the mirrored studio walls. The studio is silent except for the scuffling of slippers as the girls spread out to work.  

Molly plants her feet then her hands on the cool floor. For a moment she finds the feeling of equilibrium as she presses her hands and head into the ground, lifting her legs in the air. But the moment she inverts herself, blood rushes to her head. She can’t catch her balance. Jams her toes into the floor.

The jerky landing catches Isabella’s attention as she finishes her own headspring. She tightens her bun, frowns at Molly in the mirror. 

Molly shakes her head, forces herself to try a forward roll up. Tucking her head between her knees is easier. But her stomach twists. Dark speckles swim through her vision.

Regina’s sharp gaze finds Molly, eyes gouging her torso. Her voice rises powerfully. “Discipline makes you a dancer, ladies. Mistakes will happen. But with an eye to perfection and relentless refining, adversity can propel you to greatness.”

Isabella snorts.

“Stop slouching, Isabella,” Regina snaps. She claps her hands. “Swinging. Now!” 

The girls form a line. Molly moves to the back of the queue, stomach twisting.

“Remember, arches! Circles! Turning without any extraneous rotation!” Regina instructs. 

Molly scrunches up her face, willing the spots swirling her vision away. She takes her turn finding her toes. Spinning. The motion is slow and uneven.

 “You’re not committing to the turn, Molly!” Regina barks.  “It’s your weak core. It shows, in dance, when you are weak! When your movement isn’t driven by strong emotion! It’s pointless! Dead! And worst of all, it’s obvious!”

Molly’s throat burns, her vision ripples. The studio becomes too bright, too much, and before she registers what she’s doing, she dashes to the door, stumbles across the lobby, crashes through the door to the bathroom. Pineapple chunks. Sour. 

Fatigue overtakes her. Fingers too numb to pull her to attention. She trembles, and the vibrations are more terrible than silence. 

“Molly?”

Isabella’s outside the stall. Molly takes a breath. 

Finds a thread of balance, clings to it. Gets herself to her knees, then feet.

Shaking, but standing. She opens the stall door.

“Molly, what the hell’s going on with you?”

Isabella’s shoulders are rolled forward, hands loose at her sides.

“I’m fine.” The words are staccato. No depth in them.

Molly sets her hands on the sink. Stares into the dirty mirror. Longs to wipe it clean with graceful swipes, to buff out her haunted features.

Dance is about contrasts. Waxing baby, waning stomach. 

She doesn’t know how to transfer the weight, to maintain her balance. The spots in her vision unfurl, and Molly passes out.

#

The nurse’s teal scrubs drag under of her thick-soled trainers. Her cherried cheeks and blonde curls are too sincere for a woman holding a plastic cup of urine, and she assures Molly that she’ll be back in a jiffy as she scoots through the bulky door. A framed poster of giraffes, a mother and a calf, hangs over a frumpy chair that her father had occupied for only a few minutes before heading back to the mill. Can’t afford to take a full day off when he has to pay an ambulance bill.

 She tugs at her scratchy green gown, itching to move off the rough sheet. Exhausted, but too nervous to sit and wait. She refused all offers of hospital food, popsicles, Jello. In an attempt to be clever or discreet, the nurse planted brochures on the bedside table: Breastfeeding 101, Your Cycle: Your Superpower. Molly ignores them.

She climbs out of bed, and her feet meet the ground with a refreshing steadiness. The longer she’s still, the more nervous she becomes. She works out her worry by practicing ​​Petit Battement. Pushes her standing leg into the floor, flutters her other leg back and forth. Control. Repetition. It’s beautiful, comforting.

The door bangs open; the nurse rolls in a steel cart. She’s in the room before Molly lands on two feet again. 

“Oh!” The nurse exclaims. Warm smile. “You’re a dancer, then? No wonder you’re such a dainty thing!”

She reviews the privacy laws due to Molly’s age. 

“You fainted, huh? That can happen a lot in the early days. Mind if I take a look?” Measures her stomach and announces she’s thirteen weeks along.

“When did you last see a doctor?”

“I don’t.” 

“Does your father know? Do you have support?”

No. “I have… a nutritionist. Helping me,” Molly murmurs.

The nurse frowns. “Well, honey… I’m concerned. You’re awfully tiny for approaching the second trimester. Is the nutritionist advising you to eat enough protein? Vegetables?”

Molly winces. “It’s a strict diet. For my showcase.”

“You need to gain weight, not lose it, sweetheart. You’re going to have to decide what it is you really want.” The nurse looks very serious, an expression that doesn’t suit her ringlets and cheerful demeanor. Then she claps her hands as if it’s settled. “Let’s take a listen.”

Molly lies back on the exam table. Fingers scuff the stiff paper lining. Crackling. She stares at the lines on the ceiling. Diamonds. Pliés.

The nurse grabs a tube and knobbed wand from one of the steel drawers.  Molly’s fingers tense.

“Just relax, sweetie.”

The nurse rolls up Molly’s gown. Despite all Molly’s efforts, there’s the slightest swell of a rising belly. 

At the touch of the wand to her stomach, the heartbeat fills the room. Percussive, strong. A familiar wildness to it, like ​​Petit Battement. Little beatings. 

Tears fall, hot and fast. The nurse drops Molly a tissue, blinking hard. She grabs Molly’s hand, steadies her as she sits up.

Molly’s discharge papers are ready, and she puts her leotard back on. She waits in a plush lobby chair for her father to pick her up.

“Read this.” The nurse presses a pamphlet with a bulleted list on the cover into Molly’s hand. Eat When You’re Expecting: Foods to Try and Avoid. “Good luck with the baby. And… don’t stop dancing.” 

Molly’s fingers twitch. She stares at the words without reading them.

#

Molly’s return to class is slow.  She doesn’t want to miss any more practice before the showcase. Regina expects them to perfect their routines, selecting individuals to workshop bits of their planned solos. While another dancer performs her piece, Molly practices enveloppé side by side with Isabella, legs straight and high, in unison. 

“How are you feeling?” Isabella’s voice is sweet, careful.

Molly brings her leg back to passé, silent. 

Isabella tries again. “What’s your solo costume like?”

Molly never bought the black jeweled outfit she’d been saving for, and knows now that she never will.

“Well, mine’s two-piece,” Isabella presses on. “Mom thinks it’s too sexy. Colin’ll go nuts–”

Molly’s concentration snaps. She slumps. Catches herself. 

“Molly! From first!” Regina calls.

She tries to recover. Joins her heels, toes opposed. Her core is uncooperative. There’s seething, frothing inside her. Threatening the back of her throat. Fighting to come up and arc beautifully onto the floor.

Plant foot. Grow tall. Face forward. 

Arms float up, inner thigh pulls. 

Knee back, toes rise. 

“Good,” says Regina, moving on.

Molly lands her leg and wobbles, but manages to keep her footing. She tells Isabella she has to talk to Regina after class, asks her to wait a few minutes before driving her home. Isabella agrees.

When the other girls filter out, Molly returns to the wide studio. The scent of lemon floor polish engulfs her. Regina swipes a rag across the barre, lost in smooth rhythm, hips and long earrings swaying. There’s a lightness to her Molly has never seen, but when she catches sight of Molly in the mirror, it’s gone. Regina goes rigid, upright.

“What is it?”

Molly steadies herself. Balls her hands into fists, releases them.

“I’m not doing the diet anymore. It’s not healthy for the baby.”

Regina nods, lips barely upturned. “Then you’re choosing not to perform. It’s no fault of mine.”

“I’m thin enough to dance. No one will know. There’s only one week left–”

“A week is more than enough time to risk bloating. To ruin Studio Voland’s reputation.” Regina’s voice is low, lethal.

“It’s not like I’m going to eat junk–”

“It’s not about that, Molly! You know this. A diet is discipline. Command. Taking control of your decisions. I sought to teach you that. But it’s clear you’d rather pretend you’ve done nothing worth correcting. It’s clear a crucial lesson can’t compete with the wanton whims of trailer trash.”

Molly laces her fingers together. The studio stretches before her, too wide, the barre too long, the ceiling too high. 

“Get out. Forget the showcase.”

Molly backs up. Bumps the door open, hits someone. Isabella. 

Her eyes are wide, arms folded tight. “You’re pregnant?”

Energy blooms, and Molly’s fingers grind into each other. A lecture from Isabella is the last thing she needs. She barrels out of the lobby.

Molly’s tears fall hot again and she makes it out into the parking lot, tripping over broken pavement and cracked dreams.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Isabella shouts, bringing Molly to a stop. “You’ve got rings under your eyes! You’re messing up your turns and stick-thin. What are you eating?” She takes a deep breath. “I can drive you to the clinic–”

“It’s none of your business!” Molly snaps. “I don’t need you to fix me!”

Tears streak Isabella’s pale face. “Then let me drive you home, at least. Please.”

There’s a twinge in Molly’s ribs. She can’t walk home, can’t resort to calling her father.

The double shoulder collapse. Shoulders lead, head follows down. It’s a gorgeous move when performed; less so when done out of necessity. 

#

Dress rehearsal, three days before the showcase. The girls are preened, primed. The air smells strongly of hair spray. Molly tries, fails, to keep her fingers steady as she comes in the back door to the theater.

She ventures down the dark halls to the theater. Molly’s on the schedule to rehearse, Regina hadn’t erased her name from the color-coded lineup of rehearsal times. She passes dancers in a variety of colorful getups and headpieces, frantically finding shoes and slippers. Molly’s outfit is stripped down to the basics: an old black leotard, tan tights.

Her quiet fingers find her stomach. The inward curve of it gnaws. She ate an apple and a microwave meal this morning. But her full stomach does nothing for her dizzy nerves, short breaths. 

Molly makes her way backstage and sees the rest of her classmates. They smile politely, perhaps unaware Regina has forbidden her to be here. A few of them are watching Isabella from the side of the stage, dancing to a croony pop song. Molly joins them, watching as Isabella rolls around in a rubied two-piece, unraveling in shimmering contortions, sweeping her legs beneath her. She ends her dance with a wide-legged spiral leap. Flawless finish, proud smile. As if she’s always known she’d land upright.

Isabella walks offstage, spots Molly. Her eyes light up. Their bare shoulders brush.

“You’re on,” she whispers.

She spots Regina, seated in the middle row of the auditorium. She gets to her feet when Molly walks onstage.

“I thought I told you not to–”

Molly turns her back, and the music starts.

Most girls choose pop songs. Brass voices, poetic hooks. Molly never finds much significance in words. Her story is instrumental, strings and piano. A song nobody knows, a song only she can feel. Memories are her music. 

Five, six, seven, eight… It begins with a lifted hand, stage left. A turn, a retreat, all the way to stage right. A spin back and the hand lifts again, reaching this time. 

Laughing shoulders. The motion of tugging a weed from the grass beneath her window. This is her recreation of him. How she chooses to remember it all.

The pas de chat. A quick kiss of air, landing in fifth position. Again. 

She jumps, higher, somehow suspended at the crest for the longest, briefest of moments. Finessed feet, practiced landing. 

Then, pirouettes. As many as she can. Momentum hurling in one direction. She allows herself to lose equilibrium, abandoning ballet posture, form. Her body is a wheel, unstoppable.

Until met with an equal, opposite force. 

When she falls, it’s a reverse slide. She bends backward, reaching all the way to the ground. It requires extreme strength not to crumble, to look to the sky as her head, neck, shoulders lower to the floor. She tries to make the slide look graceful, unaffected, but it’s wrenching to perform, to feel his abandonment all over again.

She rocks on the floor, side to side, culminating in a seated double arm collapse. Hands around her middle. Folded. Lingering. 

Then, slowly, her arms ascend. She pulls herself up without putting weight on her knees, without buckling, without breaking, all the way to her toes en pointe. 

The girls clap softly backstage. Isabella whoops. Molly’s chest heaves, feeling light, powerful, as she holds the pointe pose. From the seats, Regina’s face flashes with a triumphant grin, her beaded earrings flailing. 

There’s a sharp bite of pain low in Molly’s back.

It gnaws, steadily wrapping around her front. Molly draws herself down slowly, heels touching the floor with grace. The pain crunches around her core again, ferocious this time, and Molly clutches her stomach. 

The lights are too bright, voices too loud. She’s running, frantic steps past shiny dancers, dragging her feet across linoleum. Her heartbeat skips tempo, the pain strikes over and over with fierce conviction. She’s in a hallway, thrusting herself through echoed noises to a door, any door to lead her out, away. Agony is a fist around her middle, squeezing. She careens into an open room, only vaguely aware of the scent of floor polish.

For a moment, she’s in the studio. It’s all still a dance to her, the diet, the heartbeat, the people in her life. But she can’t harness gravity, can’t center herself. The hurt is all-consuming.

Molly knocks into something– a broom– and sinks to her knees as dust floats up, engulfing her. Deep seeds of understanding begin to dawn, and through the tiny particles Molly sees the pink streaks on her tights, sliding down her thighs almost prettily, in the way a dancer might glide weightlessly, nothing holding them down–

“She’s here! In the supply closet!”

“Get Regina!”

“MOLLY!” Red sequins shimmer into Molly’s vision. 

Arms, tears, another contraction. Isabella’s fingers find Molly’s. Limp, motionless. She holds them together all the same.

#

 Encore Voland’s senior class of lyrical dancers perform in their showcase. The girls pour honed hearts into two-minute solos. They dance with a freedom born of discipline. Regina Voland claps and smiles. Snaps pictures for her wall. 

Molly doesn’t show.

She’s at the studio. Bare feet sticky on wood. Didn’t bother with the lights. The window dumps moonlight onto the floor, and it’s enough. Sore, slow, she approaches the mirror. Gazes at the contours of her reflection. Force, timing, and intensity have burned the sharp edges away.

She finds the sturdy grain of the barre, flexes her fingers, grips it tight. Lifts herself onto her toes, pressing through pain. Gentle, delicate, unforced. Not as straight, not as tall as before.

She hovers, hesitating.

Then her leg angles, a poised pendulum. It sways, back and forth between grief and joy, anger and acceptance, chaos and calm.

Mandy Lange lives and writes in Michigan. She has written for The Washington Post and recently won the Writer’s Playground Short Story Competition. When not writing, she’s chasing her children through the woods on their fixer-upper farm. You can follow her on Instagram.​