Page 5 of Count Down

The orchestra begins to play, and the curtain rises. A few men dressed as warriors enter the stage. I open the program to try and make out the synopsis in the dim light. I’ve never actually seenLa Bayadérebefore.

I haven’t been to see a ballet since I was a kid. I feel an odd tightening in my chest as I remember how magical it was sitting in a dark theater, hearing the orchestra and waiting for the dancers to appear.

Fuck. I didn’t anticipate these feelings. I thought I was over it.

When I was two years old, I was abandoned. Nobody knows anything about my biological parents. I don’t remember anything from that time. Domenico Barone found me sitting in an alley behind one of his clubs. He took me home to his wife Marguerite and they took care of me while they tried to find out who I belonged to.

They had a son the same age as me, Mateo. I guess we got along from the start. Like brothers. By the time Domenico and Marguerite realized they weren’t going to find my real parents, they’d gotten used to me being around. They tried having me stay with another couple one night and I guess Mateo threw a fit. They brought me back and raised me like one of their own from then on. We have three younger siblings, too: Damien, Raine, and Dario.

Domenico is now the Boss of the Barone Syndicate. Mateo is the Underboss and will always be the heir. That’s fine. It suits him. Domenico’s uncle Leo is the Consigliere, the Barone’s head consultant. He started training me before I was a teenager, preparing me to take over his role as Barone hitman.

But Marguerite took me to the ballet. None of her other kids, including her daughter Raine, were ever interested in going. But I liked it. I enjoyed having time to spend with Marguerite, just me and her. She was kind and made me feel like she was really my mother. I looked forward to our trips to the ballet together.

She always got us seats close to the stage. There’s something about the way my thoughts are flowing now that reminds me of her. Sitting in a dark theater with the live music, watching the shapes shift and melt, creating patterns in space that disappear moments later. I realize how similar it is to the way my mind works when I’m waiting for a target. But my chest feels tight. I feel like I have to force myself to breath. I feel… anxious.

I don’t think I ever really understood the stories very well, but I enjoyed trying to piece together my own while I watched. I even took ballet classes until I was 12.

That’s when a car jumped the curb of the sidewalk, striking Marguerite while she was walking with Mateo. She died in the ambulance ride to the hospital. She and I were supposed to go to a ballet that night. This is the first time I’ve been to one since then.

I stopped taking ballet and stopped going to see them. Domenico would have let me keep taking classes, but it wasn’t the same without Marguerite. Part of why I loved it was sharing it with her.

I see DA Nicoletti get up from his seat and shuffle up the aisle to the balcony exit. People don’t normally get up during a performance. There’s intermission for that.

I follow Nicoletti but keep a distance between us. He heads down the balcony stairs to the lobby. I follow. The stairs are wide, but twist down to a landing. The final flight of stairs leads from the landing into the lobby.

The stairs are steep and carpeted. The building is old, built well before the International Building Code dictated how deep steps needed to be to make them safe. It’s surprising how much a small change in stairs can mess you up. You can take a flight of stairs and make one step just a quarter inch higher than all the rest and one out of five people will get tripped up by it. Not enough to injure them, but enough that they need to grab for the rail.

I’m sure there have been accidents on these steps before. They’re steep. The carpet is beautiful, with intricate patterns that make it hard for your eyes to distinguish each step. But they’re old and ornate enough that nobody would want to change them, even though I’m sure people slip often. In the right circumstances, someone could trip and die.

I see Nicoletti at the other end of the lobby when I get to the bottom of the stairs. The lobby is empty, most of the ushers have taken a break or gone in to watch the performance.

Even the bar that Nicoletti approaches at the other end of the lobby is empty. He bangs on the counter and calls for service. When a bartender arrives, Nicoletti orders a drink. I turn behind the stairs and head to the men’s room so that Nicoletti doesn’t see me.

After a few minutes in the restroom, I come back out. Nicoletti is swirling the last of his drink in a tumbler. Maybe a scotch. The lobby is so empty that I have to head back up to my seat to avoid any suspicion.

A couple of minutes later, Nicoletti returns to the balcony and heads back to his seat. He’s a bit slower, slightly unsteady even. Maybe he had more than just the one drink.

We don’t think about taking out every District Attorney. Nicoletti is particularly unfriendly to organized crime. He makes a lot of claims, gets a lot of headlines, most of them about how he’s tough on crime and not afraid to take on the mob. He’s as dirty as every other politician, maybe dirtier. He pretty much runs his own organized crime made up of mid-level politicians and corporate dealings. So, I get why he doesn’t like the competition.

The house lights fade up in the balcony as the intermission begins. I busy myself looking at the program until Nicoletti and his wife have reached the stairs heading to the lobby. I follow them, again from a distance, watching for any further vulnerabilities.

This time, the lobby is packed. It’s easy enough for me to keep an eye on Nicoletti and stay hidden in the crowd. Nicoletti has another couple of drinks before the lights flash and the chime rings for the rest of the performance.

4

GINA

I standat the wings of the stage, waiting for my cue. I check that my headpiece is securely bobby-pinned to my hair. I turn to Lexi, just behind me. She smiles and gives me two thumbs up. I force a smile back at her.

I can’t help but wonder if my mother and father have come to tonight’s show. They have season tickets to Philadelphia Ballet Theatre. It’s the last night we’re performingLa Bayadére. This is our last show of the season. My parents always come to the last show in the run. I could always count on that. But the argument I had with my father today makes me wonder if he’s too angry to show up. Will he still be here to support me?

My dad has been hounding me to find arealcareer since I finished high school four years ago. I graduated a year early, and right out of high school I joined PBT. I know my father would rather I went to college followed by law school. He’s the District Attorney for Philadelphia. His father was the Chief Justice of Pennsylvania. He’s made it clear that he wants me to follow in those same footsteps, even though I’ve never shown any interest in becoming a lawyer. Sometimes I wish I had a brother or a sister, just so maybe they would become the lawyer and my father would leave me alone.

Today my father asked me if I was going to be promoted from corps de ballet to soloist. I told him I didn’t know. The company didn’t plan to make any announcements until after the season was over.

He told me that if I didn’t make soloist, I’d have to quit dancing and find a real job. I teach a few pilates classes as well, but he doesn’t think that counts. Not that he knows anything about the dance world, but my father thinks four years in the corps means I have no future as a dancer. He told me that it was cute when I was younger, but now I should give up my “hobby” and do something worthwhile.

I blew up on him. He shouted back. I don’t think either of us heard any of the other’s words through all the yelling. But the anger was clear. My mother said nothing and stayed out of it. As usual.