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HENDERSON BALLET, CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN, NYC
“One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four…”
The ballet class of six (seven if you count the instructor) sweltered in the cramped dance studio. The AC unit has totaled and while repairs are being made, it would have taken three more days to fix.
The last two classes have been held under considerable agony from the July heat. The current instructor, blonde and imperious, was not letting up.
“Stop!” The instructor’s sharp voice echoed across the walls. “Your foot placement was incorrect. We have gone over this how many times now? Again.”
“Hernandez, your knee isn’t straight. How many more times do I have to tell you?” She barks. “Again!”
“Jennings, don’t you cheat. I can see you hanging your leg on the railing. Again!”
Again and again, the students sweat, growl, and toil under her watchful eye.
“Alright, that will be all for today. You’re free to go.”
The rushing patter of feet towards the door followed. The blonde woman did not blame them.
“Chloé, don’t you think you’re being way too hard on them?”
Chloé still preferred to be called the second part of her first name, which was once her first name. It was Lisa Hamer, the resident choreographer. A promising dancer whose career was cut short by injury, forcing her to give up a budding career in one of the country’s biggest ballet companies to, in her own words, “teach ballet to the poor kids of her neighborhood”. The Frenchwoman felt sorry for her.
“What did they expect from a French ballet education?” She idly remembered how excited the students were at first when they found out she was French.
“Still, you’re running them ragged.” Lisa says. “There won’t be much left of them when I actually teach them the actual dances.”
“If these kids are gonna do ballet, they don’t have the luxury to do it for fun,” Chloé’s response came out colder than she intended. “If ballet is the path they chose to get out of their situation, they ought to do better. I expect it from them.”
They part ways. She was not an avid conversationalist. Not anymore.
The dance studio was a 30 minute walk from her shabby Bed-Stuy apartment. It was only after moving out did Chloé realize how bike-averse New York was. It was car everything. The walk home, and the subsequent climb up four flights of stairs drains her considerably.
Fresh out of the shower, only after drying her body and hair did Jeanne-Chloé Roques fall head first into the pillow, already passing out. She slept badly that night.
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She stares out of the window the next day, bone-tired. Sleep has not come easily these past few nights. Having lived on the streets for over a year, Chloé knew firsthand normalcy was not something easily frequent, much less maintained. Ballet class was not due again for another day. The blonde woman groaned. Ballet was one of the few things keeping her mind off of her miserable situation.
It had been 7 years since she lost everything and 4 years since she told her mother to go fuck herself.
She had long decided it was better to not think about whether it was something she would come to regret.
A trip to the local Starbucks did not give her peace. New York is the jewel of America, a concrete jungle built on slums, she realizes. Paris, at least, had the idea of keeping the slums out of sight, in the outskirts of the city. It was a scheme that long preceded her father’s tenure as Mayor.
Chloé thought about her mother. She could just go back to the Ritz Carlton, just a bridge and two neighborhoods away, fall to her knees and beg for forgiveness, and accept going back into the gilded cage her mother had her in those three years. The thought was sometimes overpowering, even in her worst moments. But she persevered. To make certain of her separation, Chloé even changed her name: Jeanne-Chloé Roques, severing all ties with her old life.
There are times she thinks she got lucky.
The clamor woke her up, as it did the poorfolk reclining next to her.
“Cops!” Screamed one tramp. “Cops are here!”
True to his word, the NYPD had sniffed out their current encampment and were in the process of clearing them out. The barking of K-9 units signaled them closing in. Chloé gritted her teeth. All of New York’s homeless shelters have been filled out for the night.
She wasn’t going to get hit with the slammer, and get repatriated by her mother like a lost pet, end of story.
Gathering all of her stuff (sans her sleeping bag, it was an acceptable sacrifice), Chloé took off. It wasn’t, however, a clean escape.
“Hey, STOP RIGHT THERE!”
A pair of cops, noticing her brisk exit, are now on her trail. The blonde’s heart leapt out of her chest as she tried to cut off her pursuers. In her panic, she found herself in a brownstone townhouse, having leapt through the door past a shocked tenant, nearly knocking him over.
After rushing up several staircases did Chloé allow herself to slump bonelessly against the wall, defeated. She can’t run anymore. All her strength has left her. Her mind is a mess. She can’t go on like this why is it all gone so wrong the cops are gonna come up any time now her life is over一
Chloé did not hear the creaking open of a door. “Why don’t you come in?”
It was the first peaceful night she has had in months. Mrs Henderson, a retired ballet choreographer, had offered her refuge that fateful night. Chloé’s own background in ballet shone forth in their conversations, and thus the job offer at the older woman’s little dance studio came. It wasn’t even due to Chloé’s own experience or lack thereof: the shortage of ballet instructors in the area was simply too much. All of this was little over two years ago.
Throughout their talks, Chloé never spoke about who she really was.
At this point, the French girl was more afraid Mrs Henderson would find out about it anyhow.
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Chloé had to learn how to keep her head down by necessity.
After a lifetime of having to be on top, having to be the biggest, most recognizable face, it had backfired horribly on her. For the first few months, the buzz was relentless. The tabloid mills with their hordes of paparazzi were working non-stop to catch even the slightest sliver of “news” of Audrey Bourgeois’ dictator-wannabe daughter. All of which further strengthened Audrey's grip on her.
Passing through a neighborhood on the way home 一 one of many she passes en route. She quickly came upon a gaggle of Italian-Americans seated on a front porch chatting and laughing animatedly. The American stereotype of the wiseguy was on full display in all its rank crudeness. Chloé’s only prior exposure to Italians was Lila Rossi (or whatever she goes by now) and even then her constant two-facedness and lying was much more preferable to this.
Fuck. I should have crossed the street earlier…
She kept her head down and tried to walk past them.
“Hey beautiful!” One of them called after Chloé, stopping her dead in her tracks. “Yeah, we heard of you. French girl teaching dancing in the hood. Real reverse Emily in Paris shit.”
Another piped up. “Why don’t you come over here and teach us sumthin’ special?” His hands quickly shift into a lewd gesture, whereupon his friends immediately howled in laughter.
Chloé knew then she was not gonna take this lying down.
“You know, I saw a lot of Americans in Paris back when I was there.” She turned the tables. “You know why no one ever questions why Americans expatriate?”
“Why?” One of them was dumb enough to set himself up. Chloé merely smiled.
“Because you’re either there to teach English or to fuck underaged girls. No inbetween.”
“Motherfucking bitc一” The hoodlums were actually insulted enough to get off their ass. Chloé was gearing up 50-yard dash out of there when she was distracted by the door opening behind the goons.
“Ey! What’s going on ‘ere?”
The voice belonged to a man nearing 30, rudely handsome in looks. His hair was licked back. A dark suit jacket over a bright red dress shirt and black pants was his ensemble.
“Oh hey Joe,” One of the goons replied. “Was about to give this frog-eating slag a piece of our mind.” Chloé frowns. What a quick turnaround from the catcalls.
The man, Joe, to his credit, did not look amused. “Get your ass inside,” He all but ordered. “That means all of you. You got work.”
Grumbling, not before throwing dirty glares towards Chloé’s direction.
“Miss Bourgeois,” greeted Joe. “Glad to see you’ve come by my workplace.”
Chloé stills. “Who are you and why the fuck do you know who I am?”
“Joseph Furio, at your service,” The man mockingly bowed. “To answer your question, I learned of you from your mother, Miss Bourgeois. She’s asked my boss to ‘keep an eye’ on you. I’m just the guy he assigned to the job.”
Chloé scrunches her nose in disgust. “My mother doesn’t associate with… people like you.”
“Everyone associates with everyone in high society, Miss Bourgeois.” Furio seemed to have much thicker skin than his subordinates. “Being a member of high society here… gives you a long arm. Who do you think occupies the front rows of boxing events? VIP booths in concerts? It’s the same for your mother’s fashion shows. It’s the courtesies we show to one another… this one’s no different.”
Chloé silently takes in the information. It seemed her mother’s claws were around the city itself, still threatening to clamp around her at any moment's notice. But Chloé isn’t known for capitulating easily. “Then you tell my mother I’ll say the same thing to her as the last time.”
“Which is?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
Furio has the gall to smile at that. “Loud and clear.” He turns on his heel to depart, not before throwing her a self-satisfied smirk. “See you around, miss.”
Chloé was left on the sidewalk, flabbergasted. This was such a nauseating surprise that she didn’t even have the energy to properly process what she had learned. She stomps off, mood brought down.
In her peripheral vision, Chloé sees a pawn shop. Nothing spe一
*THUM*
A strange pulse washes over Chloé, like a sudden chill. Something she hasn’t felt… since…
No…
It can’t be. She left that life behind.
Still, the sensation persisted. A pull. A tug. Something was drawing Chloé to the pawn shop that was beyond all reason.
The same thing that brought her and Pollen together…
Absent-mindedly, she crosses the street and enters the establishment.
Items galore, of all shapes and sizes, gather haphazardly on all the shelves. The blonde idly wonders what even drew her here in the first place.
It was when her eyes locked in on it.
A hematite ring.
The kind of luck-granting charm that is mostly associated with hippies and spiritualists, packed in paper packaging. A cheap, useless trinket to the eyes of many, but to Chloé it was humming, almost vibrating, with a strange, barely perceptible energy. She couldn’t look away from it, as if in a trance.
“How much is it?”
“A dollar. Real cheap.”
The decision was quickly made. Paying for the ring, Chloé shoved it rather roughly in her purse and shuffled out. She couldn’t have walked any faster.
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Finally home , thinks Chloé, as she opens the door to her apartment. It was a gulf of difference from the first-class imperial suite she once lived in at the Le Grand Paris. At least the door isn’t stuck anymore.
She makes her way to the mirror of her bathroom. Leaning on the sink, she takes in her appearance.
In the years succeeding her exile from Paris, she had grown a foot and a half taller rather gracefully into a woman, but the positives end there. No more expensive beauty treatments and spa days. Her hair was stringy and all bangs. Hamer once said to her (jokingly) that she resembled hippie Jenny from Forrest Gump, and now she cannot help but agree. Life on the streets was wearing Chloé down and the rings around her eyes are proof of that. Sometimes she would put on mascara just to watch her tears make ugly dark tracks on her cheeks.
Chloé is tired.
This is the real her now. Struggling to stay afloat.
Suffering builds character suffering builds character suffering builds character suffering builds character suffering builds character suffering builds character suffering builds character一
It does nothing for her.
Chloé lies down on the bed. She would want nothing more than to sleep. Her eyes slowly close一
“Put me on.”
一only to snap open.
Whatever - whoever - that was, it was loud. Loud enough for her to almost tumble out of her bed.
The blonde woman stares. Stares at the infernal trinket that she knew not what possessed her to buy. It seemed to stare back at her, as if it had eyes of its own.
“Let me out.”
Chloé’s eyes enlarge in fear. The ring was what she had suspected it had been.
A Miraculous.
If it’s really a Miraculous, why isn’t the Kwami showing itself? Why is it speaking from within the ring like some cursed prisoner? What Miraculous is this anyways? It wasn’t a part of Ladybug’s collection.
It made no sense. None of this made any sense.
But it didn’t stop Chloé from tearing the paper box open. Now, the ring sits in the palm of her hand, as if waiting一
“Put me on.”
Chloé is losing control. Her breathing, her heartbeat… everything. This isn’t Ladybug, her former object of admiration, offering her the Bee Miraculous for her to fulfill her dreams as a superhero. This is the path to hell, on which her own past good intentions are still there, open and waiting.
She picks up the ring anyways, the hematite circle just barely hanging near her left middle finger.
“What’s in it for me?”
The words tumbled out of her but she pushed on.
“I know what you want me to do but…” Stumbles Chloé. “I have to know… if there’s more to this than just you telling me to put you on and suddenly everything might go right?
“I didn’t suffer for 7 years - SEVEN YEARS! - for things to change so quickly, like nothing even happened! What if this isn’t real!? What if this is all in my head?!”
“WHY NOW?” Tears are streaming down her face. “What am I getting out of this?!”
Chloé heard it immediately: a garbled near-chuckle crawled across her chilled spine like a death rictus, dancing between amusement and mockery.
“You’ll see.”
There was no choice left, was there?
Chloé slips on the ring.