Me too, I think. But I don’t need to say it out loud; I’m pretty sure they can tell from the look on my face. I turn around to see if he’s still there, but the hall has emptied out, and there are only a handful of students left.
“We will go soon,” Madeleine explains. “Mom is worried about missing the train home,” she adds with a laugh. It takes me a second to get what she means. It feels like a lifetime ago that I ran out of her car to find the train station locked.
“Oh!” Vivienne says, placing her hand on my arm and squeezing it. I can tell she has something important to say. Once again, I curse my terrible French. Instead, she fishes inside her bag, pulls out a small envelope, and hands it to me. Her eyes sparkle with anticipation as I open it to find two grainy, sepia-toned photographs with frayed edges. They both feature the same dark-haired young woman. In one, she is standing on a cobblestoned street, posing in front of a building with two other girls. The next is a portrait of her standing in first position and wearing a ballet costume—pointe shoes, a short cardigan, and a long, stiff tulle skirt.
Vivienne starts to speak quickly with grand arm gestures, but then she realizes that I don’t understand much. I need Louis. It’s so much less fun to do this without him. Giving up, Vivienne turns to her daughter and says, “Dis à Mia.” Tell Mia.
So Madeleine does. “We think, this is…the girl, hmm, you know, our ancestor.” She doesn’t sound quite as excited as her mom. Vivienne points to the back of the second photograph, and I flip it over. There’s an inscription in beautiful cursive handwriting.
élise Mercier,
Opéra de Paris, 2 février 1880
I gasp. “C’est vraiment elle?” I ask Vivienne. Is that really her?
She grins and nods at the same time. “élise Mercier, ton arrière-arrière-arrière grand-mère.” She squeezes my hand, making sure I understand her. And I do. This is my great-great-great-grandmother: a ballerina standing in front of the Paris Opera. In this moment, it doesn’t even really matter if she was painted by Degas. This photograph feels like a treasure of its own.
“Mom found this in the attic after your visit,” Madeleine explains in French as Vivienne watches for my reaction. “She thought maybe it could help you find the Degas painting.” She looks to her mom, and then quietly adds, “If there is one.”
The thought warms me up inside. I want to call Mom and say I told you! Even more so, I want to let Grandma Joan know that she was right. But most of all, I want to push the crowd out of the way, throw myself in Louis’s arms, and tell him to strap on his helmet. Because whatever crazy adventure we embarked on the day we met on the school steps is only just beginning.
THE NEXT DAY, the showcase already feels like a distant memory. From now on, it’s just one straight line to the final performance, and it’s becoming very real. I’m feeling tenser in class, and it’s obvious that my classmates are as well. There’s less chatting before the instructor arrives, bigger circles under our eyes, and fewer smiles. And it’s not just that the show is coming up in two short weeks: our first fitting with the costume team from the Institut de l’Opéra de Paris is today.
After class, I head to the lower level of the school, below reception, to the costume department. On my way, I do what I’ve done pretty much every time I’m in this part of the building. I stop by the information board and zoom in on the call sheet for the next day’s rehearsals. I run my finger on the paper, my heart palpitating, though I know exactly what I’m going to find: Mia Jenrow—me, me, me!—next to the name of Odile. It never gets old. I gaze at the call sheet for a moment, my confidence boosted for another day.
A few minutes later, my hands tingle with anticipation as a woman named Valérie hands me a black beaded corset with a tutu attached at the waist. I immediately think of it as my costume, but it turns out I’m wrong. Excitingly so.
“Myriam Ayed wore this in the last production of Swan Lake,” Valérie tells me, her eyes sparkling.
My jaw drops. “Myriam Ayed wore this exact costume?”
“Don’t worry, it has been cleaned,” Valérie says with a small laugh.
I squeal. “I’m going to wear Myriam Ayed’s Black Swan costume!”
Next to me, Audrey is receiving the same careful consideration from one of Valérie’s colleagues. She rolls her eyes at me. I gather that her White Swan costume was also worn by Myriam Ayed, but Audrey is too cool to get excited about that.