The sound of music meets Mat’s ears as he steps off the train upstate. Helen sits in the driver’s seat of a car he doesn’t recognize, with the speakers blaring. She makes a big show of tapping her wrist where a watch would be if she were wearing one, which she isn’t.

“I’ve never seen you drive,” Mat says, tossing his bag into the back seat.

“Buckle up, cowboy.” Helen shifts the car into gear and peels out of the dirt parking lot, leaving a cloud of dust behind them. “You’re late.”

“The train was delayed. I tried to call you.”

“Oh, no one has service up here.” Helen says it in a neutral way, as if it’s totally normal and not at all distressing. She must be kidding.

The verdant, open landscape is a contrast to Mat’s normal views, in the city. Despite the bucolic setting, his anxiety about the audition bubbles up through his chest; no matter how many times he tries to swallow, a sour taste haunts the back of his mouth. He hasn’t eaten all day, but it’s too late to fix that. He expected to breathe a sigh of relief once he was out of the city, with some mileage between himself and his recent failures, but that relief hasn’t come yet. His worries are far from over.

Mat switches off the radio and turns to face Helen. “Okay, spill. You haven’t told me anything about the audition. Why all the secrecy? We’re in the middle of nowhere. This looks like the kind of place you’d come to dump a body, not put on a show.”

Helen flashes him a mischievous smile but doesn’t respond right away. The wind is tossing her brown hair about, and in spite of the dusty country road, she looks glamorous behind the wheel of the car, her lithe, dainty frame at odds with her aggressive driving.

After a dramatic pause, Helen rolls up the windows, as if even the trees might eavesdrop. “We’re on our way to the Colony,” she says.

“The Colony?” A wave of nausea crashes over Mat. “Wait, the Artist’s Colony? You’re kidding. Helen? Are you kidding? This is huge. What’s she like?”

“The Artist isn’t here, calm down. She’s off in Sweden, creating an art installation using live wildflowers. She hasn’t even announced its precise location. People either have to find it before the flowers die, or no one will see it.”

Mat nods with reverence. “Have you met her?”

“No. Cori is her protégée. She’s running rehearsals, sort of an ad hoc director.”

“Oh.” Mat tries not to sound deflated. “What exactly is it you’re rehearsing?”

“The Artist is mounting her first full-scale production in ages,” Helen explains. Mat withholds a gasp. “This is a pre-production workshop, to see if the whole idea has legs. It’s all very experimental, developmental.” Helen wiggles her fingers at him. “You get the idea.”

“Oh.” Mat is not getting the idea. “A workshop. Upstate. Without the Artist? Couldn’t we have done this in the city?” He looks around the empty landscape for emphasis.

“A workshop for now,” Helen says. “Who knows what will come of it? I mean, it’s the Artist! Anything is possible. I can’t go into the details, but it’s being staged in a really cool space. You’re lucky I was able to get you an audition; the timing could not have been more perfect. Another dancer had to drop out because he broke his ankle rushing to catch the subway.”

“Wow.”

If Mat can’t land this sorry excuse for a gig, it’s truly over for him as a dancer. A month ago, he would have turned his nose up at the very idea of something this far off Broadway, even with a legend like the Artist involved. Ballet has five positions, but as a dancer, Mat now finds himself in a sixth: desperation.

“That’s all I can tell you for now. If you get cast, you’ll find out everything at the first rehearsal. If you don’t, well…none of it will matter anyway.”

“What do you mean, ‘if’? Do you not think I’m good enough to get it?”

“Sure, sure, of course you are, but don’t act like you know it. Cori doesn’t respond well to excessive self-confidence.”

That won’t be an issue, of course; Mat has none to spare.

“Wait,” he says after a moment, “I heard something about the Artist staging a new show last year.”

“Nope. Totally fell apart, never saw the light of day. This will be different.”

They drive past a meadow, and Mat squints to see if there are real live cows ambling about, but the meadow is empty, save for a sign advertising pick-your-own apples at a nearby orchard. What is Helen doing here? She’s better than an out-of-town workshop. Look at her: basically made for the stage, with her impossibly high cheekbones (not to mention the high arches of her feet) and her oversized head that makes her visually pleasing on stage. She’s the same height as Mat, which means that she’s the perfect partner for him, both on stage and off. They could’ve been a Broadway power couple, if either of them were performing on Broadway or interested in the opposite sex. Minor details.

When Mat and Helen met, they had both been trying to find a foothold in the New York dance scene and had landed jobs so far Off Broadway that they’d basically ended up in New Jersey: cast in a miserable holiday show for children. Because of their height, they were relegated to the role of dancing elves, though at least that was better than being the back half of a red-nosed reindeer. The only thing that got them through the catastrophic production was each other, and the belief that there were better jobs in their future. Somehow, that future has continued to elude them. Still, if Helen has traded in summer stock for livestock, maybe she knows more than she’s letting on.

Mat leans his head out the window in the hope that the rush of air will soothe his churning stomach. A bug flies into his mouth, and he spends the rest of the ride coughing it up. He grips the armrest as the car flies up a steep hill, catching glimpses of the property through the tall pine trees that separate the Colony from the road. It isn’t until they pass through a circular stone infinity gate that the house appears in all its glory.

“Well, hot damn,” Mat says under his breath. It’s straight out of a travel brochure: the sandstone walls, the diamond-lattice windows, the slate roof, the lush gardens. Its beauty puts Mat on edge after the grit of the city. He’s too much of a mess for a place like this.

“I know, right?” Helen says. “Okay, don’t freak out, but did I mention that the whole cast is going to be staying here?”

They roll up to the house, and in a single motion Helen throws the car into neutral and yanks up the parking brake with a loud grind. He hasn’t even noticed that she was shifting until now.

“I can’t believe that you…know how to drive a standard.” It isn’t where he planned on taking that sentence. He can’t turn down the audition just on account of cohabitation, though the idea of dancing, eating, and living with the same people, day in, day out, is harrowing. But there’s no point in resenting Helen for hiding details from him, given that he still hasn’t told her he’s been fired from his last job.

Getting fired is the scarlet letter of the dance world. One day a guy gets fired; the next everyone hears that he’s “hard to work with”; and then it’s “Hey, whatever happened to that Mat guy?” Actually, it would be worse than that: if Mat stops getting work, no one will even wonder where he’s gone. And that’s not exclusive to Mat; that’s showbiz, baby.

“Cori taught me. Shall we?” Helen is already out of the car, heading toward the house before Mat is even unbuckled or has a chance to ask how Helen knows Cori.

He rushes to follow, but she holds up a hand. “You can’t come in yet. You have to go to the studio to meet Cori.”

“I can’t even put my bag down?”

“She would find that presumptuous.” Helen continues down the walkway to the front door, gesturing in the direction of the opposite pathway. “Merde!” she says. It means “good luck” in ballet and “shit” in French, and both feel applicable to Mat right now.

He lugs his bag down the path leading past the main house. As he rounds the corner, he sees what appears to be a barn, nearly as large as the house itself. Despite the size, Mat didn’t spot it from the car, thanks to the obstructed sightlines. It’s almost as though the barn has appeared out of the mist. Mat tries to hum “Brigadoon,” though no one is here to laugh at his joke—nor would they, since he’s mistakenly humming “How Are Things in Glocca Morra?” which is the wrong fictional village, but he’s too nervous to realize his mistake.

The pathway ends at the barn’s sliding door. There’s no bell, and the idea of knocking on such a large door feels absurd, but in the interest of manners Mat gives it a try. He waits and then, after hearing no response from within, shoulders his bag and heaves the door sideways.

It slides open to reveal a smooth, painted wall where Mat expected open space. The wall looks newer than the rest of the barn, constructed of modern drywall, unlike the rugged wood of the barn itself. At the base of the wall is a tiny door with a brass doorknob. Mat crouches down and considers its size; if needed, he could fit through it on his hands and knees, though it’s better suited for a rabbit or similar entity. This will be the most undignified start to an audition he’s ever experienced, and given Mat’s recent track record, that’s a low bar.

He tries the brass knob, but the miniature door is locked. Standing up, he brushes himself off and wonders aloud, “Now what?”

“What are you doing?” Helen calls.

Mat spins around to see her leaning out a window in the main house. He waves his arms to indicate the general absurdity of it all.

“Go around!” Helen points to the side of the barn.

Mat stalks in that direction and finds a normal-sized door with an identical brass doorknob. He tries the knob, and this door swings open.

Mat expected the inside of the barn to smell like animals, but the sharp tang of fresh paint hits him instead. The lights are off, but the interior of the barn is painted a stark white and the windows along the roofline are covered in thin muslin, so Mat can make out the sparse contents of the room even in the near darkness. It’s a single continuous space. Aside from shelves along the exterior walls, the only piece of furniture, if it can be categorized as such, is a barre in the middle of the room.

Mat grits his teeth and wishes he’d taken the time to resew the elastics on his ballet shoes; he could have done it while waiting at the train station. He should have gotten a haircut too, though not at the train station. When properly styled, his hair is one of his best features: blond, thick, and a bit curly if the humidity is right, a lot curly if it’s wrong. Now here he is, with lousy shoes and shaggy hair, and even the weather can’t save him.

The rest of the room is empty, but the shelves run along each wall, up a staircase, and around the room again on the catwalk above. While Mat is intrigued by their contents—boxes and stacks of different forms of media—the most pressing issue is to warm up his body before the audition. From the way Helen spoke, he expected Cori to be waiting for him, so he’s grateful for the time to prepare.

Mat digs through his bag for a pair of ballet shoes and fishes out a once-white pair discolored by countless swipes across dirty dance floors. He pulls them on and discovers a frayed hole around the big toe on the left shoe. He rubs his toe against the floor to see if it catches, and, in response, his toe pokes further through the hole.

“You little shit,” Mat says—to the shoe, his toe, and himself.

He turns to face the barre and closes his eyes, then stretches his arms out in front of him, rotating them until his shoulder joints pop to relieve a bit of his tension. He opens his eyes, and jumps back.

A tall woman stands before him. Her most striking feature, after her dyed-blonde hair set in perfect ringlets, is the colors of her eyes: one blue, one green. As she sweeps her hair back into a clip, she considers Mat in a way that makes him feel more self-conscious than startled. The very air in the room is changed by her presence.

“You must be Cori,” Mat says. Given her role as the director of the Artist’s new show, Mat assumed she’d be older, but she looks his age. She’s smart, he thinks, to pivot to directing already; the mid-thirties are a wasteland for dancers.

“Terpsichore. Helen said I would find you here.” Cori’s gaze travels down Mat’s body to the floor. “You have a hole in your shoe.”

Mat looks down, as if he doesn’t know already. He moves his left foot behind his right in a pointless attempt to hide the hole. “Right, sorry about that.”

Cori is wearing a long, flowy sweater, closer to a cape than a cardigan. She reaches into a hidden pocket and pulls out a roll of white athletic tape. “Shoe, please.” She extends her hand toward Mat.

“Oh, that’s okay.” He burns with embarrassment and puts his right foot on top of his left to hide the hole more thoroughly.

Cori’s hand remains in front of him. With no alternative, Mat removes his filthy shoe and hands it over. She tears a square of tape and slips it inside. “Better?”

Mat slides his shoe back on and wiggles his toes around. “Perfect, thank you.” He can’t even feel the tape. “It’s a beautiful studio.”

Cori is already walking away. “The Artist took great pains to ensure that the floor was totally flat. Uneven floors are a hazard for dancers.” She sets the tape on a shelf at the end of the room and puts her sweater on the shelf as well.

“Aren’t most floors flat?” Mat asks.

“Not at all. Many floors are quite dangerous. You might not notice, but danger is all around you. Why, you could twist an ankle at any moment in most studios! But not here.” Cori smiles blankly, as though she thinks it’s required. “Shall we?”

“We shall,” Mat responds, in order to mirror Cori’s energy, but he just sounds absurd. Mat is close to crazed even at the best of times, while Cori floats around the room. “Thank you for seeing me,” he says. “I know this is a bit peculiar.”

“Peculiar is what we’re known for here. You came highly recommended by Helen.”

“You can’t account for bad taste.” Mat forces out a laugh, but Cori only cocks her head.

“Nothing is as valuable as a kind word from a friend,” she says.

“That’s beautiful. What’s that from?”

“Life. Right now. You can save it for later if you like.” Cori shakes her hands in the air as though to shoo away further attempts at conversation. “Let’s dance.”

She flips on the lights and picks up a remote from the shelf. When she presses a button, music fills the room from unseen speakers. A solo cello line floats out; it’s a familiar melody, and Mat is about to comment on the composer when Cori presses another button. The cello continues, but a piano joins in, playing a different composition altogether. At first the combination is cacophonous, but after a few seconds the two pieces blend together in an unexpectedly harmonious way.

Satisfied with her choices, Cori sets down the remote and addresses Mat. “The new show is about a lot of things. One of the most important ideas is the collision between two disparate entities that shouldn’t be together and yet create beauty, even in their chaos.”

Mat feels a little tension leave his body. Does Cori trust him already?

“Name two types of movement,” she says.

“Um…ballet and tap.”

Cori makes a disgusted face. “No tap, absolutely not. The Artist has had a strict ‘no tap’ rule ever since Shirley Temple became a Republican.”

Mat didn’t even bring tap shoes with him; he has no idea why he said that.

“I asked you to name two types of movement,” Cori adds, “not two types of dance.”

“Right.” Mat pauses to think; the tension in his body rises again, but he soldiers on. “Ballet and…yoga. No, wait—ballet and jogging? I don’t know.”

Cori claps her hands together. “Let’s do it.” She speaks as if this isn’t an audition at all, as if creating art isn’t any more complicated than breathing. Mat has never imagined that it could be easy. Lately, “unemployed” and “broke” have been much more relevant words.

“Do what?” he says cautiously. “Ballet and yoga? I’m not sure that’s a thing.”

Cori shrugs. “Let’s make it one. Or let’s try. If it doesn’t work, I’ll never tell.”

If it doesn’t work, Mat won’t be around to tell either.

Cori approaches the barre and places a hand on it. Even that one movement indicates a whole world of motion within her body. “Okay, we’ll start simple. Fifth position, demi, demi, grand plié. Then we’ll do a classic port de bras, front and back. Repeat, but from first position. Fold forward, hands on the ground, step back to high plank, and move through vinyasa. Low pushup, up dog, down dog, finish back in first position.”

“Easy enough.”

Mat takes his place at the barre opposite Cori. Without counting them in, she begins the combination and catches him off guard. He’s a beat behind at first and rushes to catch up, but as their movements synchronize, he feels a familiar calm wash over him, the simple reassurance of getting down to work. He tries to stop thinking about how his fate hangs in the balance of these steps.

“Vinyasa!” Cori shouts. The music has increased in intensity, loud and driving—not typical ballet warm-up music, but this isn’t typical ballet. Cori narrates their steps even though they’re already in perfect harmony, her voice chant-like, blurring with the strains of music. “Kumbhakasana, chaturanga, urdhva mukha svanasana, adho mukha svanasana.”

Mat doesn’t know how long Cori wants them to hold each position, but he follows the music, and her too, without realizing it.

When Mat dances, he exists entirely inside himself. Though dancing is part of performing, the two are not one and the same. Performing exists any time one person moves and another watches, but dancing can be a solitary act. Though Mat is trying to dance, he senses Cori’s evaluative gaze at certain moments, and then he switches to performing. He soon realizes, however, that she’s not interested in a performance, so he reverts back to dancing as fast as he can. He focuses on his energy, the way it flows out of his body into the room, the way the air tugs at him as though guiding his movements through space. The universe and Mat are at one when he dances—really dances.

Cori calls out ideas as they move: “First position again, no vinyasa, second position.”

The music flows on until they become nothing more than two moving figures against a tapestry of sound. The world outside the barn fades away. There is no lost job, no empty bank account, no distant city. There is nothing but music and movement. Cori and Mat dance with no breaks, moving from one combination to the next. They push the barre away from the center of the room after they’ve warmed up. Without its aid, incorporating yoga poses into classical ballet becomes more difficult, so they expand their vocabulary. They slide from ballet steps in French to yoga positions in Sanskrit to everyday movements in English. They pace circles around the room as they build each sequence, marching in time to the music.

“Tombé, pas de bourrée, glissade, jeté.” Mat’s hands approximate the movements.

“Yes, yes. Then we land, step step. Sauté on your left leg, bring your right knee up, bind the toe. Padangusthasana. Relevé.”

“Drop the leg, then we run backwards, turn, forward, turn, backwards.”

They toss choreography back and forth like banter, and then they begin the combination. Wind rushes across their faces as they fly through the space, the bounce of Cori’s curls keeping the tempo.

As they reach the end of the sequence and resume marching, the music stops. Their footsteps slow until they stand stock-still, the barn silent except for their audible breath.

Cori looks at Mat. “I guess we’re done.”

Mat nods, chest heaving.

Cori pushes back the sweaty curls that have fallen loose around her face. “Tell me, why are you here?”

“Helen said you had a dancer drop out. You agreed to let me audition at the last minute.”

“Not how,” Cori says impatiently. “Why?”

Mat shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “I need a job.”

“They don’t understand you at home. They don’t appreciate you.”

Her sudden attempt at psychoanalysis, despite its abruptness, sounds familiar to Mat, but it doesn’t fit him. He wouldn’t use the word “home” to describe his apartment, nor does he think of himself as unappreciated. He’s an acquired taste, perhaps, but so is red wine.

Without assent or disagreement from him, Cori plows on. “You carry around a copy of a novel from a hundred years ago, but you never finish it. You think that if you have a book, you’ll never be bored, and if it’s unfinished, you’ll never die.”

“What make you think I’m afraid of death?”

“What makes you think you aren’t?”

“Is this still part of the audition?”

“No, the audition is over,” Cori says. “You have impeccable technique and energy, but you ignore your partner sometimes, and you rush.”

Mat’s heart plummets. Cori flips the lights off and walks toward the door without waiting for him.

“Just something to work on,” she continues. “You can come into the house now.” She calls back over her shoulder, “Welcome to the orchard.”

Mat stands in stunned silence. What’s the orchard?

A noise startles him from the catwalk above. Mat looks up, but with the lights off he can’t be sure that he didn’t just imagine the sound. He calls out, but no one responds.

After a few moments he grabs his stuff and rushes to the main house, without noticing that the book is missing from his bag.

Have you ever been fired, or developed feelings for your boss’s brother, or accidentally maybe joined a cult? Mat Cox has.

When he’s ostracized from the NYC dance scene for crossing a powerful director, Mat takes a last-ditch stint in an experimental show upstate to try to make a name for himself with a famous yet reclusive performance artist—not knowing that the show will upend everything, including his love life. Staged at an abandoned shopping center and featuring an indoor orchard, The Folly of Harvest promises to revive Mat’s career, but a new set of worries awaits him among the apple trees. When Folly’s director seems bent on destroying not only the show but the cast itself, Mat must find a way to wrest control away from her and save not only his career but those of his fellow dancers and, more importantly, the friendship of the only person he should have trusted all along.

This novel began as a NaNoWriMo project in 2016. Now, years later, nearly nothing remains of the original draft in the current manuscript, but my goals are still the same: above all, to entertain the reader—I feel most like a writer when I make someone laugh. The book is also an exploration of art itself, diving into the question of ownership and the creative process. Mat’s journey, however, eventually transcends the roles of art and artist to examine the most daring project of all: life. Mat is not alone in the novel: he has allies (a trusty best friend and a problematic love interest) and antagonists (a chaotic director and a combative cast member), but in the end he will have to accept that he alone must choose his path in this world.