by Lynn Turner
“I do not want to talk about this, Zachary.”
“Zachary? Are you shitting me, petite?”
Her speed-walk into the parking lot out back was comical, since she was riding with him to his mother’s house for dinner.
“That is your name, oui? Just like Mina is my name, and how I would appreciate being addressed in public.”
He looked around the near-empty parking lot. It was six o’clock, but daylight streamed through the trees and a persistently overcast sky. Security was locking up. Other than the two of them, there was just a guy tossing his gym bag into his trunk and getting into his car. A few stragglers were smoking something that smelled illegal across the street, but they weren’t paying them any attention. She tugged on the passenger’s side door handle, to no avail. Cursing, she spun around, looking thrilled to see him standing right behind her.
“I am not shitting.” Leaning against the door, she crossed her arms over her chest. “I just don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
“No,” he said. “Not okay.”
“Putain!”
“Sticks and stones, petite.”
See, this was supposed to be the part where she crinkled up her cute little nose and called him an ass in her sexy pissed off voice. For the record, she didn’t.
Instead, her eyes locked with his.
Her hands balled into fists.
She shook like a leaf.
And though she’d been walking fast, unless she’d also done fifty jumping jacks in the last sixty seconds, she shouldn’t have been breathing so damn hard.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Unlocking the car with his keyless entry, he opened her door and shuffled her in, then jogged around to the driver’s side, sliding in and closing the door. Keening noises roiled in her throat, building, but staying obediently put as she looked to him for… What? Permission? Oh. Starting the engine, he hiked the volume as the radio came on, then checked their three, six, and nine o’clocks for any potential onlookers.
“We’re good, petite. Go ahead and let her rip.”
So, she did.
She ripped.
And ripped.
Then ripped some more.
No words, just noise. She screamed until the tears he’d seen in her eyes a few times during her non-speech to the kids finally streamed down her cheeks, until her tightened fists relaxed, until she fell back in her seat, boneless and damn-near hoarse. He kept his face forward the entire time, checking his periphery, giving her a moment. She needed that, he sensed. To have someone with her so she wouldn’t be alone, but space to exorcise whatever demons plagued her. Wordlessly, he handed her some tissue from the center console, sneaking a glance to ensure she was okay. A minute later, she flipped open the sun visor mirror and started touching up her face.
“Oh no.” He flipped it back up. “Uh-uh. We’re not about to just ride off into the sunset after a screaming banshee just crawled out of your throat into my car. Talk to me, petite. For God’s sake.”
The minute hand on the console changed again. And again. God, this was torture.
“Mina,” he said softly. “Please?”
That brought her head around quick, her eyes mapping his face then falling to his hands gripping the steering wheel. He hadn’t even noticed he was doing it.
“You’re…asking me?” She looked incredulous.
Okay, that was fair. He did make a habit of demanding things from her—in the studio, on stage, and the few times he was lucky enough to have her in his arms. Leading. Maybe it was time to let her do that.
“I’m asking, petite.” He let go the steering wheel, letting his left hand fall to his lap, his right resting between them, palm-up. “I’m asking you to trust me with this—with whatever is hurting you.”
She stared at his hand.
“How about some collateral?” His voice was low, earnest. He was beginning to understand her more, that sometimes she needed a full minute to process things. “How about I tell you this doesn’t freak me out? That I wasn’t holding onto the steering wheel because I thought you were crazy.”
She lifted her eyes to his. Go on, they telepathed. I’m listening.
“How about I tell you it’s because I used to scream just like that when I was a kid, into my pillow, until Carmen and Manny took me home? That I used to wet my bed for a year after?” Her soft palm slid over his, and his fingers curled automatically around her hand. “I was eleven before I woke up to dry sheets, because, for all the heroes I’d made up in my head, there was at least one monster. I’d have the most…vivid dreams. Lots of kids have monsters under their beds.” He swallowed his hammering heartbeat down. “One of my monsters tried to come into mine.”
Mina gasped and shuddered, her eyes mirrors of his pain. “Zack, I—I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” She winced. “I feel…stupide. I shouldn’t- “
“No.” He squeezed her hand. “That’s the point, petite. You should. Okay? You can’t keep carrying everything on your own, letting it bottle up like that. You wanna know the ugliest monster in my head? Foster Mom Number Three. She was wearing the skin of a good guy, like the villains in Scooby Doo.” Angling his head, he studied her face. “What does your monster look like, Mina? No monster is too small. Tell me. Let me help you rip the mask off the son of a bitch.”
Her laugh had cracks all through it. Pain dripping through the humor, washing away some of the madness. Taking a deep breath, she let it all go. “My monster is…the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. She wears a feather crown, and a tutu so shiny with diamonds, so full of feathers that, when she dances, she looks like an angel floating in the clouds.”
“Odette,” he said. “From Swan Lake.”
“Oui, I’ve wanted to play her since I was six, since my very first ballet, when papa gave me that crystal swan.” Her smile had the same hint of sadness she’d worn at her apartment when she’d shown him the figurine. “Every time I look at it, as much as I feel love for my father, and comfort at his memory… it tortures me, too. Taunts me.”
“Because you think you can never have it.”
She nodded.
He ached for her, his free hand curling into a fist. “You can’t really believe that, can you? You were incredible as Giselle. You have the speed, the stamina, the precision… Not for nothing, petite, but you’re intoxicating to watch. It’s what made me come to Paris for you.”
“So then, why? Why is it, no matter how many roles I dance, how much I succeed, how much I improve, when I go out for the Swan Queen, it’s always, ‘Désolé.’” She’d deepened her voice, screwing her face up like a stuffy old man. “‘I’m sorry, chère, you’re just not the right fit.’”
Zack sighed. “I—can’t answer that, not with any kind of certainty. I can’t explain why some choreographers are obsessed with this antiquated notion of uniformity, when other art forms seem to be evolving much faster.”
She sniffed. “It is so unfair, to see dancers I’ve bested, get the role I’m rejected for.”
Jesus. That explained why she was always looking in the mirror. Second-guessing. Obsessing. But the normal tendency of a dancer to find something to improve upon had fuck-all to do with this. No, one of the most gifted ballerinas in the world was having a mental breakdown because she couldn’t measure up to a standard no amount of rehearsing could meet. And it made his blood boil.
“It is unfair,” he said. “It’s bullshit, but if you let it, it’ll drive you nuts. Besides, what’s the alternative? You stop?”
“Non! M-my heart beats for this. If I could not dance, I think something inside of me would die.”
Releasing her hand, he lifted her chin, seeking her out. Checking for that constant, driving hunger that made her eyes so powerfully compelling. She didn’t let him down.
“For so many dancers, the Swan Queen is the endgame,” he said. “You are nowhere near that yet. It can happen anytime. It will happen. No one persists like you do and fails. I believed what you said to those
kids in there. They believed it, and I know you believe it too, or you’d have run right back to Paris after our first rehearsal.”
“I do,” she whispered. “I do believe it.”
“That’s it, then, petite,” he murmured, kissing her eyelids. “Little by little. Okay?”
She nodded stiffly, because he still held her chin hostage.
“Good.” Nuzzling her nose, he let her go. “Let’s start with dinner.”
Chapter Eighteen
Zack gave her a safe word.
Pineapple.
Then, he told her that Carmen and his aunts were like the Sanderson Sisters from Hocus Pocus on a good day, and the four horses of the apocalypse on a bad day…right before he walked her through the front door.
En fait, it was wide open when they arrived, and Mina found herself plunged in the middle of an intense conversation as soon as she stepped through it.
“Why’d you put cheese in this, Carmen? You know I’m vegan since I had that stomach flu!” someone complained—from the kitchen, Mina assumed.
“For the last time, Yara, you are not vegan, you’re lactose intolerant.” Carmen sounded exasperated. “The cheese is vegan.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t have to make it on my account. Cagar más arriba del culo, okay? Tastes like crap on a cracker, you ask me.”
“Good thing I didn’t ask,” Carmen said flatly. “And I told you to speak English, none of that New Yorican español. You’re gonna make the poor girl’s head spin when she gets here.”
Yara huffed. “She’s gonna have worse problems, she eats this. Cheese doesn’t even stretch—watch…” (Silence.) “Looks like glue.”
“Someone should put glue in your lipstick,” Carmen snapped, and cackling filled the house.
Mina’s hand flew to her mouth. Whatever it was couldn’t be so bad. It smelled delicious. The entire house smelled delicious, like she could lick the walls in any room and have a five-course meal.
Zack pulled her back against him with his big hand on her abdomen. “In case you didn’t catch all that—they talk pretty fast—Titi Yara thinks mamá is out of her depth,” he murmured in her ear, sounding amused. “She was cooking all day, trying to impress you.”
Impress her? After her blunder at the recreation center, Mina felt guilty that Carmen had gone to so much trouble. Hopefully she’d be able to get Carmen alone and apologize…Zack pressed a lingering kiss to her neck that made her body clench, and she spun away from him.
“Zachary!”
“What? You’re already out of the bag, kitten.”
She flayed him with her eyes, whispering through her teeth. “I will slap you.”
“I believe you.”
A blur whizzed past them, stopped, then doubled back.
“Tio!” a cute little boy yelled.
Zack’s entire face brightened. “This is Isaac. Say hello, Isaac.”
“Hello, Isaac,” the little one parroted, grinning wide.
Mina couldn’t help her smile. “Hello. How are you, Isaac?”
“Good,” he said politely, but he was obviously eager to talk to Zack. “I got a C on my quiz at summer school today. Mami said I have to tell you, so you can talk senses to me.”
“You mean ‘talk sense into you.’” Zack looked very stern.
Mina hid her amusement behind her hand again.
“What did I tell you about Cs?” Zack asked.
Isaac’s eyes lit up. “Cs are common, but Bs are bad ass, and As are aaaaaa-mazing!”
“Mijo? You better not be teaching that boy to curse again!” Carmen’s voice rang out.
Isaac darted behind them and out the door, faster than anything Mina had ever seen.
Then Carmen yelled again. “Stop stalling! Bring Mina.”
Zack shut the door, removing his shoes. Following suit, Mina tried not to stare at all the family photos on the walls, and on every flat surface of furniture as he led her through the house. In the sitting room, something tall and shiny stood out among the trophies and baubles behind the glass of an antique display cabinet.
Mina gasped. “Is that…?”
Zack’s grin practically split his face in half, and he moved to open one of the cabinet doors. Lifting the golden-hued statue carefully, he extended it toward her.
“Oh!” She couldn’t possibly…could she? Oh, but she had to. When might she get another chance? With both hands, she accepted the polished statuette with reverence, turning it over and over in her hands, stroking the wings on the lady’s back. “It’s beautiful,” she murmured. “So heavy.”
His eyes danced over her face. “It is. You’re groping six and a half pounds of sexy Emmy award right there.”
Mina exhaled heavily. “I wish I could whistle. I’d do it right now.”
“I’m filing that away as a rare and interesting fact.”
She rolled her eyes. “What’s she holding?”
“It’s an atom. The lady is the designer’s wife, his muse. He intended it to symbolize television as art and science.”
“It’s so strange. Seeing it up close.” She traced the inscription with her fingers. “I knew you’d won, but now it feels…real. Ah!” She thrust it at him. “Take it back…I feel like I shouldn’t hold it too long.”
“It’s nice.” He accepted the statuette and replaced it in the cabinet. “But we’re real. The work—that’s real. Pretty statue or not, I never want to lose sight of that.”
She met his gaze, unable to hide her admiration.
“Thank you, petite.”
“For what?”
“For what your eyes just told me.”
Claiming her hand, he led her through a formal dining room that looked like no one ever used it, it was so pristine. Photos were in abundance there, too, and Zack was in at least half of them. One of them caught her eye as they were about to leave the room.
“Is that Camila Morera?” she gasped.
The dark-haired beauty was older than Mina in real life, but much younger in the photo, wearing a strapless gown that showed off her incredible shoulders. Next to her was an equally young, leaner, tuxedo-clad Zack…with considerably more hair. Wincing, he turned the photo face-down and gently prodded her with a hand to the small of her back. But Mina planted her feet.
“Oh mon Dieu, it is her! You used to date Camila Morera?”
“No. Our mothers are friends. We did the old program at the rec center when we were kids, and I took her to prom.”
“What’s the difference?”
“You jealous, petite?”
“Of you, oui.” She enjoyed the flash of surprise on his face. “She’s one of my heroes. When I was in Third Section, I saw her in an interview for the New York City Ballet. She said, ‘Breasts is not a bad word. I won’t apologize for having them, and I’ll never powder my skin again to look lighter.’”
He smiled.
“What?” She asked.
“I was just thinking, you’re what Camila Morera was to you, to so many young girls, and you have no idea.”
He said it with an intriguing blend of awe and amusement, like everyone in the world knew exactly who she was, and she was still trying to figure it out. It might have seemed patronizing, if it was up to her brain to sort it out, but her heart was in it, too, absorbing the warmth in the spaces between the words until it grew plump and content.
Heartwarming. That’s what it was. She wasn’t sure what to do with all the warmth emanating from him and washing over her. Dieu, his eyes were so gorgeous from this close, a sea of warmth. Her entire being vibrated with the urge to leap from her body and swim in it.
“Mijo!”
Her heart jumped into her throat.
Zack bent his head, whispering in her ear. “Pineapple. Don’t forget.”
The second they stepped into the kitchen, they were swarmed, and it was all Mina could do to keep up.
“No wonder we never see you anymore, cariño!” said a woman who looked like a younger Carmen with blond highlights
in her hair.
“Titi Yara,” Zack said affectionately.
“Sí—que linda. It’s her eyes, so serious,” another aunt swooned.
“Titi Ana.”
Oh. He was identifying them for her.
Ana was tiny—shorter than Mina but hugged like a bear. “Not serious,” she mused. “You’re an old soul, aren’t you? If you told me you were a hundred years old, I’d believe you.”
Mina yelped.
“Nice tush, too,” said the one who’d just pinched her butt. Her skin was deeper than the others, her hair short and nearly as curly as Mina’s.
“Titi Isabel.” Zack’s lips twitched.
Isabel angled her head, presumably to get a better look at Mina’s…tush. “What is it, linda? Pilates?”
Mina already felt dizzy (it was more likely the strong scent of rum wafting into her nostrils than the eccentric aunts). “Eh, I-I train approximately six to ten hours a day…”
“Probably genetic,” Isabel concluded dismissively.
“What’s the matter with you?” Carmen snapped. “She’s not a prize horse, okay? Come, linda.” She pulled Mina from the fray. “You need to eat.”
“No!” Yara dove for the counter, grabbing one of the casserole dishes dotting the counter top and plopping it into the sink.
A small, elderly woman standing at the sink, whom Mina hadn’t noticed before, turned to scowl at Yara.
“Lo siento,” Yara said. “But it’s a matter of life and death!”
Mina’s laughter surprised even herself, and everyone turned to look at her. “I’m sorry.” She shifted her weight nervously. “I’m sure it’s delicious. Everything smells delicious, really.”
“It smells like a mixology lab in here.” Zack gave the elderly woman a pointed look. “Abuelita, normal families drink coquitos for Christmas, or at least have a reason to—”
“I do not need any old reason to celebrate, nene.” An enormous smile spread over her kind, time-worn face. “It’s enough you’re here. Anyway, the doctor says I have to watch my blood pressure, so I use coconut cream liqueur—no dairy. It’s flaco, skinny coquitos, okay? You’ll like it, it’s healthy.”
