Chapter Text
Victor was the one who had found the photographer-dancer on the Internet, the one who contacted, arranged and was paying for her to be here. She had wondered what the gift would be when on her birthday she had just been handed a card that read “you’ll see, love Victor.” She was expecting something outrageous, but not this. Apparently the young woman had been contracted to spend two weeks in Russia, splitting her time between the ice rink taking photographs of figure skaters and spending the rest of her time at Lilia’s dance academy.
At first she declined being photographed, there was no good reason and she could not dance as beautifully as she once had. Instead, she spent the time that was blocked out for her photographs fixing the young women’s dreadful hand positioning during anything, had nobody told her it was what completed her lines? As the first week finished up all of the photographs were turning out gloriously, both of the ballerina and figure skaters.
It was Victor who convinced her to get them done. Over FaceTime because of course his honeymoon overlapped with the event he had arranged. “There’s no good reason for you not to Lilia. You always complain that there are no pictures of you and your partner, and there are hardly any pictures of you period. Phoebe was going to do this for free when I mentioned your name, you’re still a legend! Give the kids something to look at besides that one, horrendously old, horrendously lighted, Swan Lake photograph.”
She did hate that photograph. “Dancing is harder than it was, Victor.”
He rolled his eyes at her, “has she even blinked any time she saw your braces. Wear them in the photographs, no matter what you say they don’t actually ruin your lines. Let the kids know that too.”
She relented and agreed to photographs, but didn’t tell her almost-son how her ever worsening hypermobility was only one of the reasons dancing was harder. There were partner presentations in a few days and that always made the grief for her own missing other half worse. It was just her luck that the photographs were scheduled in the afternoon to the morning of the presentations.
Phoebe, the photographer, grinned when she walked in. “Thank you for agreeing to do this Mrs. Baranovskaya. It’s truly an honor, is there anything in particular you want to get on camera?”
“Not particularly.”
If the other woman noticed her sour attitude she pretended not to, “that’s fine, but if you think of anything don’t be afraid to ask, and don’t be afraid to say no to my requests either.” Idle chatter was made as several photos were taken, until the chatter turned to the presentations this morning, “some of the pairs I photographed have been really looking forward to this, it’s wild how ballerina marriages work so differently depending on where you are. It’s also probably smart they have to get approved. Most ballerina marriage partners I’ve met I’ve been really happy, but I can see, particularly with actual kids, that they might get hitched too young. Three, two, one, and up!”
She went up and when she came back down was asked the question she had been waiting for, “do you have a ballerina marriage partner?”
Lilia took a deep breath, restraining herself from snapping at the young woman, and asked herself how she wanted to answer. “In my day we just called them partners.” Then, an idea sparked, "I did, how many subscribers did you say you have?”
“2.35 million, why?”
“I had a partner. We danced together for nine years, he died of AIDS. When I returned the company would not let me speak about it, the crisis was still ongoing and homophobia was still high. If you would let me, I think it’s time to reveal my secret and to honor his memory.”
The photo shoot continued, but instead of idle conversation they made tentative plans for the livestream. During a break she called Victor, who put Yakov on the phone. “If I’m revealing my secret, I want to reveal his. Do you want to talk about your partner?”
He knew instantly what she was talking about, “let me think about it,” was his response. Two hours and 15 minutes later she got a text that simply read “yes.” She then texted Phoebe, “Yakov will join us.” The message was thumbs up’ed.
Two days later she found herself sitting in front of a camera, waiting for it to go live. She was sitting beside her ex-husband, and they were going to talk about their dead partners. It was after school hours and neither of their businesses were going to be running for the rest of the day. Apparently one of his juniors had laughed in Yakov’s face when he suggested working with a different coach this evening, as if the girl would miss the livestream. The story had made her smile, sometimes Yakov needed to be taken down a peg or two. Phoebe gave them a countdown, and the livestream started. She moved to sit in the chair on Lilia’s right.
“Hi everyone! So, most of you probably know who these people are, but for those of you who don’t this is Mistress Baranovskaya, or Lilia Baranovskaya and Coach Feldman, or Yakov Feldman. They were once married and both had extremely successful careers; Mrs. Baranovskaya was a principal dancer at the Bolshoi Ballet for over two decades and Coach Feldman was a well decorated figure skater, most notably receiving an Olympic gold. Parts of this livestream will touch on eating disorders, suicide, the AIDS crisis, life ending illness, and grief. If any of these topics aren’t for you we recommend you leave the livestream and come back to watch an edited version of this that will be posted in a few weeks.”
There was a beat of silence before Yakov cleared his throat and started talking, his voice wavered and his eyes watered and he kept going. When Lilia spoke her voice did not quiver and her tears did not flow, but it was still thick with emotion. In a scant few hours their partner's stories would be known to the world. Perhaps, in a few months, they could have Phoebe back to talk more.
Later Lilia danced both parts of one very special variation for the camera.