Reserved for the Cat

La Augustine’s patron will buy her an emerald bracelet and take her to Maxim’s. Everyone there will make much of her and she’ll have enough champagne sent to her table to bathe in it. She won’t do badly out of this, and if she is wise enough to do all of the exercises she can, she won’t lose anything. Just a few performances. The tabby cat’s tail twitched. She might even end up with a new patron.

The brownie smirked. And so might Ninette. Get a patron in the first place, that is, not get a new one.

The only betrayal of the tomcat’s sudden anger was the increased twitching of his tail. She won’t need a patron after this.

The brownie snorted. She’ll get one. Like it or not, she’ll get one. She certainly wants one, and this performance should net her one. And as for her not needing one, don’t count your chickens before the eggs have hatched. She’s not an etoile yet.

She will be. The tomcat said it with passion. She will be.

The next morning at class, as always, everyone from the coryphées to the etoiles had their noses in the papers, looking for a mention in the reviews. The instructor had not yet arrived and girls were doing their warm-ups over spread-out newsprint, chattering like a flock of sparrows. The papers went from hand to hand, Ninette was certainly not immune, and discovered that in most of them, the matinee reports were mostly full of La Augustine’s injury, and her performance rated only “Sujet Ninette Dupond was called upon to replace the etoile and managed a creditable, if sometimes naïve, interpretation.”

“You are damned with faint praise, Ninette,” laughed Jeanne LaCroix, another of the sujets. It was not a nice laugh, but Jeanne was not a very nice person. “By hook or by crook” seemed to be her motto for getting ahead. One expected a certain amount of that backstage, but Jeanne seemed to take delight in it. She never let an opportunity pass to make another feel small if she could help it.