Tiny Pretty Things
I’m okay after I ran off and hid in my room, but nothing can interrupt the flow of those words and their hold on my mind. Which is why it takes me a few moments to register the loud knocking at our door at one o’clock in the morning, when the dorm should be all silence except for roommate whispers or secret hookups.
    “Bette?” Eleanor says, and it’s her voice, sleepy and soft, that breaks through the loop. Then the harsh knocking and our RA calling out my name, louder and louder.
    “Jesus, what’s going on?” I say, and get myself out of bed and to the door. Eleanor moves more slowly, rubbing her eyes and grumbling about the time and the noise. Our sour-faced RA is at the door when I open it, and she rubs her knuckles as if the incessant knocking has caused her an injury.
    She does not look pleased.
    Then again, neither do I.
    “Your mother,” she says.
    “You can’t send her away?” I say.
    Eleanor is awake enough to scoff behind me.
    “So not my job,” our RA says, and she stomps off, slamming the door to her room behind her and probably waking up the students who didn’t already stir from all the knocking. A few people have opened their doors, and others are shuffling behind them. The gutsier ones take the elevator right after me and come down to the parents’ lounge on the first floor, though Eleanor tries to motion them away and Liz threatens them with bodily harm. It’s useless: my mother always puts on a show, and they know it. Besides, these girls have been waiting a decade for my downfall. They wouldn’t miss it for the world.
    She’s right outside the elevator when the doors open, moments away from heading up without permission: steely, skinny, mouth in a line so straight I could use it as a ruler. My mother. She smells like red wine and rare steak and the angry kind of sweat.
    “Bette,” my mother says, her lips tight and too pink from Chanel lipstick, which has been hurriedly drawn on over red wine–stained lips. The T s in my name land hard. She pulls me past the front desk and toward studio C. The three other elevators open with a ping. More students pour out. She doesn’t seem to notice, or care. Someone laughs, but the cowards mostly hide near the elevatorbank or chat up the front-desk guard, waiting to hear whatever she’s come to say to me. They are too far away to smell the booze on her breath or to see the unfortunate pit stains that have ruined her couture gown. But they’ll be able to hear every slurred word. “Next time, please tell me the truth about how your audition has gone.”
    My mother doesn’t raise her voice. Not ever. It’s more powerful all low and practiced anyway, and she knows it. Even when the vowels are long and loose and the words slip on top of each other, she stays in control of the volume. We’re WASPs; we don’t shout.
    “It’s not like I’m some understudy, Mother,” I say. I do not let my voice break, but my eyes are filling with tears. During the last winter ballet, I was the only Level 6 girl, besides Cassie, to dance a soloist part. I was the Harlequin Doll, cast with the Level 7 and 8 girls. I try to remember that feeling, but my mother erases every inch of it.
    “I’d already called some very important people to come see you perform, Bette,” she says. “You said your audition went well . I took that to mean you were ready to be seen. When your sister—”
    “You want to take it up with Mr. K?” I say. “I killed it. He smiled. He ever smile at Adele? At anyone? He was practically beaming.”
    “Maybe it was because he was laughing at you. Did you ever consider that?” she says. I try to remember she would never say this if she hadn’t been drinking, but I know that’s not true. She keeps that pink Chanel smile on her face and her eyes don’t leave mine. She’s not that drunk. There is not a pinch of sadness or regret in the words coming out of her mouth.
    Eleanor and Liz slink out of the late-night shadows. Our unspoken

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