by Suzanne Hart
How could I know?
Right now I felt like I didn’t know anything. I had no idea what was going to happen to me.
5
James
I rushed across town to the dance studio Neil had mentioned Nancy volunteered at. Last week had been crazy. After getting the job of a lifetime with an impossible contingency, I had no choice but to spend the entire week with my head in deep, trying to figure out how I was going to make it out of my lie. As I came to a stop at a light, I let myself wonder if I would take that back if I could. But that question was far too complicated. I wasn’t a liar, but I was a believer in doing whatever it took to achieve my goals. I wanted this company. I needed this company to fulfill my parents’ vision. And, if my uncle really could keep it from me because of something as trivial as my personal life, then the lying about it was just as trivial, even if it landed me this huge opportunity. And, either way, as soon as I got myself a woman to play the part, at least until the company was officially signed over, it wouldn’t be a lie anymore.
But all that made me wonder where Nancy played in. I couldn’t deny the way that she made feel, her smile, her eyes, her body. She made my heart pound like a teenager just at the thought of her. There had to be a reason I could never get myself to stop thinking about her in the years that I knew her brother. There had to be a reason why just the sound of her name made me feel things I hadn’t felt in a long time. This felt big. And if I was going to do this whole engagement thing, I had to tell her what was happening. I pulled into the parking lot of her dance studio. My plan was to take her out to dinner and come clean about all of it.
I cut my engine and stepped inside the small, one story building, a bell ringing as the door shut behind me. There was no one sitting at the small front desk. I stood for a minute or so, letting the music from the studio drift towards my ears, looking around. The front desk area was flanked with brightly colored walls. There were framed pictures of different dance classes of all levels on the walls. One of the pictures was of many older women--- teachers, I presumed, including Nancy.
She was posed in a one piece with her leg high in the air. There was a smile on her face feigning ease.
The music suddenly cut off and I could hear Nancy’s voice. “All right, kiddos. That was really nice, but you know what? I think we need to do that again!”
I didn’t want to pry, but I couldn’t stop my curiosity from taking over. I wandered towards the open door and peered into the small dance space. Nancy, who matched the young girls in her pink tutu, didn’t even see me in the mirror. She was completely focused on her class. She started the music again and the girls got into their first pose. A smile lifted the edges of my lips as I watched the little bodies move. Nancy carefully walked through the small crowd, counting. Her calm, light voice kept them going.
At one point, she stopped the music and turned her attention on a girl in the middle of the floor. “Hey, Lexi.”
The girl locked eyes with Nancy.
“Look at me,” She said. “Do your arabesque.”
Lexi nodded and then contorted her body in such a way that her back leg was up and her hands extended. “Okay, remember what I said about your back knee.”
But Lexi didn’t move.
I noticed another one of the girls was giggling, her hand over her mouth.
Lexi was turning red.
Nancy seemed to ignore it completely. She darted across the floor and got on her knees so that she was on Lexi’s level. She physically moved her knee where she wanted to be. She then stood up and went back to the mirror. “Hold…” She started snapping, “Six, seven, eight,” and then, “Okay now rest….” The girl put her leg down. “Okay and arabesque.” The girl resumed the same position.
Nancy nodded. “Amazing!” Her smile faded when she turned to the girl who had been laughing. “Brie.”
Her little eyes widened. “Yes, Ms. Abrams.”
“Do a triple pirouette.”
She just stared back, her eyes wide in terror.
After a long, almost unbearable pause, Nancy said. “We all have our own struggle. This is a team. You shouldn’t be making anyone feel otherwise.”
With that she counted off and started the music again. Eventually, Nancy noticed me standing there. At first she was surprised, and I could almost see the slight blush on her face, but it was obvious to me, even in that moment, that her focus was on the students. She ran them through that little routine a couple more times. It wasn’t until the parents started showing up to pick up their kids that she came and stood next to me. I couldn’t help but feel at least a little lucky that I got a moment alone with her. She looked so cute, so capable and so authoritative all at the same time.
“So, you’ve graduated to full on stalking,” she said just as the last parent left with their child. She stepped back in the studio and started stretching. It was hard not to stare at those lines her body made.
“You’re not all that hard to find.”
“How did you even know I taught here?”
I shrugged. “Neil told me once.”
She nodded, pursing her lips at what I said, then sat down with her legs crossed. The light reflected off the bright, aged hardwood of the studio, making her skin glow.
I stared across the room at her, but she just looked back at me expectantly. She patted the ground next to where she was sitting.
I raised an eyebrow. “You can’t be serious.”
“You came to talk right?”
I smiled. “I guess you could call it that,” I said as I took a step towards her.
But then she frowned, her eyes going straight to my shoes.
“What?”
“You have to take them off.”
I grimaced. “You can’t be serious.”
She cocked her head to the side. “I have little girls here walking around with nothing but satin shoes on. Have some respect.” She said in a voice that told me she was only feigning anger.
“Well, how can I say no to that?” I slipped off my shoes and crossed the floor in my socks, sitting down next to her. It felt a little reductionist, sitting on the floor of some dance studio with her, yet oddly intimate.
“So,” she said, resting her hands on her knees. “What interest do you have with this little old studio?”
“Not the studio, but you. I was wondering if I could surprise you with dinner.”
I saw her eyes widen at first, but then she put that expression away, as if to hide it from me. “I’m not dressed for dinner.”
I raised an eyebrow. It was hard to believe that someone as beautiful as her could ever feel like they weren’t enough. “You’re fine.”
When she hesitated, I said, “We can stop somewhere and get you something if you really feel that strange about it.”
She laughed at that, the sound ringing through the empty room. “No, that won’t be necessary.” Then she stood up, turning to look at herself in the mirror before turning back to me. “I’d actually love to have dinner with you, but there’s a recital coming up and I have to paint the sets.”
I tried not to look so visibly disappointed, but in all honesty, my heart dropped. Why was it so hard to get this girl in a room?
“It has to be tonight?” I stood up and got closer to her, putting an arm around her waist. She was so tender, so slight in my grip. I didn’t want to let go.
She turned to stare at me. There was no doubt she heard the disappointment in my voice. But she nodded, “I’m really sorry. It’s this Sunday and we have to start the dress rehearsals on Wednesday and I have to work all the other nights, so tonight is the only night.” She gazed up at me with those big, almond eyes that were impossible to resist.
“No one else can help you?”
She shrugged. “That’s what happens when you’re the volunteer.” She squirmed out of my grip. “You get the grunt work.”
I knew I wanted to take her to dinner and I knew that she wasn’t going to just drop this whole set-painting t
hing so that she could go with me. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her here to work by herself. So I said, “You know, I could probably help you.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
I nodded. “We could make a date out of it.”
She smiled, that familiar pink rising to her cheeks again. “Okay fine. Let’s go.”
She then led me through the dance studio to a small room off to the side. We went through the door and she turned a bright, white light on, revealing what looked like a miniature house, a bunch of paper mache trees and several other spare pieces of wood. Both my eyebrows shot up at the sight of it. I couldn’t believe she was really planning on painting this entire thing by herself. “You think you’re up to it?” she asked.
I rolled up the sleeves of my shirt and nodded. “Of course.”
“Okay.” I watched as she opened what looked like an industrial cabinet on the far back wall, revealing several cans of paint. She took a couple of the cans out, an assortment of paint brushes, and some pans. She took her hair tie out, letting her wavy hair fall around her, before bending over and tying it up even tighter. I stared at her with narrow eyes, realizing that I could watch her do this practically forever.
The next thing I knew, she had pulled out two paint rolls and handed me one. “All right, let’s do this.” She said.
I smiled at her, grabbing the roll from her. “What’s first?”
She pointed at the house. “That. The whole thing needs to be this egg white color. And then I wanted to add flowers on top of that.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Ambitious.”
She shrugged. “If I’m gonna do something, I wanna do it right.”
I watched her put the roll in the paint, pushing and pulling it to cover the pink sponge in white. It wasn’t until I saw her put the first line of paint on the front of the little house that I joined in. ’All right.’ I said to myself. The truth was that I had never painted anything in my life. In fact, the closest I had gotten to doing any kind of manual labor was sweeping the floor of my college dorm once. I felt awkward and out of place trying to mimic her easy movements. It was completely out of my comfort zone.
I could feel her staring at me before she said, “James.” She put her hand on top of mine, fixing my form so that I could get an even coat. I could hardly control the way that my body reacted to her touch. But I put that away. Now was not the time. I wanted to help her get this done as soon as possible.
After another five minutes of silence, she asked, “So, how is Neil doing?”
I chuckled. “He’s your brother. Wouldn’t you know?”
She shrugged, dropping the roll in the paint again before saying. “Yeah, I guess I meant, how are you guys doing?”
“We’re good. He’s good. It’s nice to have him back.”
She nodded. “Yeah, you guys have been friends for a while.”
I let out a chuckle. “He’s a good guy… but I’m sure you already knew that.”
I saw her smile out of the corner of my eye. “Yeah, he’s been there for me.”
“What do you mean?”
She sucked in a breath. “Well, I’m sure he’s already told you about this. But our parents weren’t really around. He’s the one that made sure I had everything I need; my lunches for school, bus money, clean tights. He’s been to more of my shows than my parents have.”
“So it wasn’t your parents, then? That got you into dance?” I asked. I want to peel apart every layer of her, know all of her. Right now the only thing I knew about her was that I wanted her body
She chuckled. “God no! They’re both in medicine. They thought it was a joke.”
“But you stuck with it?”
“Someone told me early on that I had talent… and I believed them.” She stopped, lost in thought.
“You do,” I said. I knew I was supposed to be helping with the set, but it was hard to keep myself from watching her.
A mischievous smile crossed her face as she returned my gaze. “You’re just saying that because…”
“Because what?” I leaned into her too.
“Because you like me.”
I chuckled. “You have no idea.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just that I’ve always had a crush on you.”
She cleared her throat. “You have?” I could see the wheels turning in her head.
“I have.”
“Does Neil know about us?”
“Is there something to know?”
She opened her mouth, but then closed it again. Just when I thought she’d say something, anything; just when I thought she was going to give something away, she turned back to the house and kept painting. “I don’t know.”
6
Nancy
I clutched that stupid paint roller as hard as I could to mask the fact that I was shaking. God, James made me so nervous. It took everything in me to look away from him, something that was necessary if I actually wanted to get this set painted. But God he was so dreamy. And he’s had a crush on me for as long as he’s known Neil! That was unbelievable for me.
I kept dipping the roll in paint and coating the house, over and over again. I tried to remember the first time that I saw him, but I barely could. I must have been so preoccupied with something. I shuddered to think of all the wasted time, because he really was completely gorgeous. My heart thudded in my chest and I couldn’t stop smiling. He liked me. He really liked me. How lucky was I?
Once we finished the house, we moved on to the trees. The trunks had to be brown and the leaves green. I was experimenting with different shades, mixing all the paints together. I sloshed the colors into different pans, smearing them around with my brush. The wood shop was quiet except for this; the sounds of the paint sloshing, the swooshing of the brushes in the pans, the crunch as they rubbed against the paper mache. I could hear his breath and mine as we went back and forth, taking turns dipping our brushes. There was a little grunt from him as he stretched to reach something high up, a sigh from me as I flexed my neck. It wasn’t long before that room started to feel smaller and smaller. Suddenly, he was everywhere. There was no space between us. I could feel him, hear him, smell him, and boy was it hot.
His arms flexed as he stroked the tree trunk, pursing his lips in concentration. It was the way that he stepped back to examine his work, a furrow in his brow, the way that he accidentally touched me here and there. We broke into a nervous laughter when he accidentally nicked my butt with a paint brush. Eventually, we had made it through almost half of the dark forest, and I was starting to think that a dinner date with him tonight would actually be feasible.
“I think we’re out of green,” He said, gesturing at the pan.
I nodded and went back to the cabinet. But when I opened it, I noticed that the only cans of green paint left were on the top shelf.
He was next to me before I could even say anything. “I got this.” He said.
But I knew that one of them was open. “Okay, but wait.”
“No, don’t worry.” He said.
My eyes widened as he reached for the can. James threw his arms at it, stretching, but the can slipped off the shelf. I gasped as it came crashing down to the ground, the paint splattering all over him. He grimaced as in less than a second he was suddenly covered in a thick coat of green paint.
“Oh My God!” I knew that this was no laughing matter, but I also knew what James looked like, standing right in front of me with his fancy shirt ruined. His tall frame was almost covered in a coat of paint. A smile tugged at the corners of my lips, but I had to keep the laughter away.
“Fuck,” was the only thing he could say.
I could only last until he swiped a bit of green paint off of his face, letting it splatter to the ground. By then I burst into a fit of laughter. There was nothing I could do. “I’m so sorry,” I managed to say. “But you just look… so… cute.”
He started laughing with me, his laugh lines deepening.<
br />
“Let me uhm… I can get you something,” I said as I glanced around me. I saw a towel hanging on the edge of the industrial sink in the back corner of the room. I grabbed it and came back to him. But when I started to wipe his face with it, he scrunched his nose. I only smeared the paint more. “Oh God I’m making it worse.”
He chuckled, and then grabbed my hand. “Don’t worry. I don’t think it’s gonna work.”
I grimaced. “But you’re covered.”
He glanced around him. “Do you have a sink, or a shower? Or something?”
I blinked. “Yeah.”
I grabbed his arm and led him back through a short hallway. There was a little alcove with a window that overlooked a parking lot. It had a sink and a shower.
“Ah, perfect,” he said. He reached around me and turned it on.
My eyes widened. “But what about your- …”
Before I could finish my sentence, he grabbed the hem of his shirt and lifted it over his head. My eyes widened at the sight of his broad chest and his washboard abs. I could see the cut of his muscles as they disappeared into the rim of his jeans. I gulped, goosebumps forming on my skin at the sight of him. I knew I shouldn’t have been staring, but I didn’t know how not to. “Okay, I guess you could do that,” I muttered. I stepped back as he took off his pants too. He hung them over the sink so that they were out of the way of the water.
I sucked in a breath, but I looked before I could stop myself. My heart was in overdrive at the sight of him half naked. I could see his bulge hanging from the inside of his briefs. His legs were like two strong beings emerging from either side of his underpants. His thighs were hardy, strong, the muscles cut and visible under his tanned, even skin. I bit my lip as he faded under the water, scrunching up his nose. The streams of water washed over his face and body, taking the paint down with it. “Why do you have one of these anyway?” He asked, his eyes closed.
