I was sure he’d just been knocked out, but the head injury was worse than it looked.
The night became a blur of sirens and ambulances and weeping parents.
The moment my dad told me Michael was gone was imprinted forever on my heart and soul.
Not dead, but “gone.”
I spent the summer healing from a lame broken wrist. My mother repeating over and over again, “At least you’ll still be able to dance.”
Finally, I’d actually yelled at my own mother to shut up. “I guess it’s all okay, because I can still dance? Michael’s dead. He never gets to live again, or go to college or finish growing up or get married, or anything. He’s my best friend, don’t you get it!”
I’d slammed out of the house and trudged to the church cemetery where I went to go talk to my best friend. I didn’t know what else to do. Every time I’d had the slightest problem about anything I’d talked to Michael.
All my dreams of our life together, our happy family, disappeared that night. The night we were so brainless I wanted to stick a knife in my chest. The only time we’d ever done anything that stupid.
Now I stared down at Michael’s grave covered in snow and told him, “It’s not fair. So many other people get away with stupid stuff all the time. Why us? Why did God take you away from me?”
I plugged my ears, hearing my mother’s platitudes in my head, “Sometimes the good die young,” or “We don’t know God’s plan.”
She was right about that. I had no idea what to do with my life. So I did the only thing I could think of. I ran away from my home town. Staying in Snow Valley was claustrophobic and cloying. My heart ached with a hundred pound weight every time I drove past any place in town; the gas station, the library, Mr. C’s burger joint, the creek, the high school, movie theatre, Michael’s parents’ house where his banged up car sat dark and solitary in the side yard. His father couldn’t bear to part with any of his son’s possessions.
I couldn’t stand to be here any longer. Because Michael was tied to everything in my life. How could I ever move on?
So I went crazy again. According to my parents.
I cancelled my scholarship to Montana University, applied to a dance company in New Orleans, and moved two thousand miles away to a place that was so different it would help erase Michael’s face haunting my dreams.
After just a few months, New Orleans’s dark under-life of spiritualism called to me and I found myself wanting to call up Michael’s spirit. I needed to know that he didn’t blame me for that night. For getting him drunk. For not taking care of him in so many ways. For being so very stupid.
I hadn’t had a meaningful date in three years. And there had only been two of those.
I kept myself aloof, danced every day, ate barely enough to sustain life—until my muscles were hard and my body almost broke. But I was being rewarded. I moved up the ranks in the ballet company corps de ballet to demi-soloist.
Unfortunately, Michael didn’t find me in New Orleans. His ghost never appeared or spoke to me; no matter how much I paid Madame LeBlanc.
And then I was angry because he didn’t talk to me. “I thought you loved me,” I’d whisper angrily to my apartment window overlooking the row of pink and blue shotgun houses of the city.
An old newspaper blew down the dirty street.
Michael’s grave was dead and silent, too.
I felt nothing.
And that made me angry. I missed him. I wanted assurances that he didn’t blame me. That he forgave me for that terrible night.
And then my anger made me guilty all over again.
“Did I truly love you?” I whispered into the icy Montana winter. It was so quiet a chill crawled up my neck, like cold fingers.
“Hey!” A voice called out.
My chin jerked as I rose to my feet. It was the man in the wool overcoat. Close now. Too close. I could see his eyes staring hard at me, as if he was trying to figure out if we knew each other. His brow furrowed when he ran his fingers through that thick brown hair.
I blinked away the memory of Michael. It wasn’t Michael. Of course it wasn’t. Michael was dead. Forever.
“I’m sorry,” the young man said. “Gates are closing now, it’s after four-thirty.” His gaze swept over me. Taking in the black striped leggings, my oversized baggy button-down shirt under the dirty-white jacket, bright red scarf thrown carelessly over my shoulder, sneakers untied, laces dangling. Dangling like me on a precipice.
His expression grew concerned as he took a step forward. “Are you okay?” he asked.
It was probably my frost encrusted wild hair that made him worried. My eyes cut away to gaze off into the woods. My heart was thrumming, my muscles tense.
All the nerves in my body vibrated with the need to disappear.
“You don’t look so well. Your face is turning blue—”
A whimper sounded in my throat. Gulping it down, my eyes burned. I was mortified that a stranger had caught me here, vulnerable, red-eyed with grief.
And then I did the only thing a sane girl could do. I jumped to my feet and took off running.
Chapter Two
I MAY HAVE BEEN SMALL-BONED and super skinny, but I was a dancer, which meant I had muscles of steel. Which also meant that I had a huge head start before the man behind me gave a cry and took chase.
Of course, I wasn’t a long distance runner and even dancing had its limits for stamina—and speed. Besides, his legs were a whole lot longer than mine.
He was fast closing in on me. Despite the fact that he was wearing a long wool coat and black dress shoes. Who wears dress shoes in the middle of the week anyway? In a snow-filled cemetery?
I picked up my pace. Clouds of white huffed from my panting mouth. Just as he was about to descend on me, I whirled around and stuck my finger out like I was a schoolteacher reprimanding him. “What? Are you a stalker?” I practically yelled, waving my hands around. “Or some kind of crazy in your slacks and polished wingtips?”
He was so calm it was infuriating. A tiny wrinkle of a frown formed between his eyes. As in blue. Really blue. Not pale or weak, but a deep blue like the clearest ocean. Sparkling like cut glass.
Which made me realize just how close he was standing to me. And how I wanted to smooth away the funny little wrinkle between his ocean eyes.
Immediately, I felt totally stupid. It must be this place, the graveyard. The spirits under the earth reaching out and making me crazy. Someone else had blue eyes, too, and the memories were flooding me, taking over the last sliver of the sane part of my brain.
The guy in his perfect shoes meant for a Sunday sermon or a business meeting at the Trump Towers in Chicago—not Snow Valley, Montana, gave me a small, pacifying smile. Like he had to calm a rabid dog.
I took a step backward, my finger still wagging. My gesture reminded me of how I reprimanded my annoying younger brother, Sam, when he messed with my CDs or toe shoes back in middle school.
“Um, I’m not actually following you,” he said. “Although I can see how you might mistake my actions. I didn’t mean to interrupt your solitude or visit to your—your, um brother? Friend?” He gestured behind him, unsure . . .
My shoulders shook as I huddled in my jacket. Being in the cemetery must be freaking me out. I knew I was totally overreacting, but I couldn’t stop trembling. I should have been wearing boots. Snow galoshes.
Maybe I wasn’t shaking with rage.
Maybe I was just freezing.
I realized then that I couldn’t feel my fingers. The tips were turning blue. My fair, lightly freckled skin was practically thin as paper, almost translucent. I might have been muscular from a life-time of ballet, but I had no fat on me, just like an Olympic athlete. My physicality caused me to feel the cold extra hard every winter. One reason I loved living in New Orleans was due to its humidity and sunshine and warmth. I wasn’t cut out for snow and cold eight months a year. I shouldn’t have been born here. I shouldn’t have known Michael.
/> If we hadn’t met he’d still be alive.
Michael used to say that he could see my veins underneath my skin, and he’d trace them with his finger—right before he kissed me.
“Are you alright?” the young man asked again, his voice proper and cultured, just like some of the British dancers I’d met.
I blinked. “Why—why shouldn’t I be alright?”
“Well, you never answered my question. And you look lost. May I direct you somewhere in town?”
He was so stiff in his magnificent wool coat, his language so proper, I almost wondered if I was imagining him. Instead, I tried to wiggle my frozen fingers as I gave a quick, sharp laugh. “I’m certainly not lost. I’ve lived here all my life. Well, not at the cemetery, obviously. But here. In Snow Valley. Good old Snow Valley.”
Now I was rambling. What an incoherent mess I was. And I had to dance tonight. The Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker. A Christmas tradition. The small town ballet studio put the ballet on every year and begged me to come home to dance. I’d put them off for three years and guilt finally won out. The Nutcracker performance was the only reason I’d come home a week earlier than I’d first planned.
Tempted to stick my ice-cold fingers in my mouth to warm them up, I shoved them deeper into my pockets, instead, and glanced around for the parking lot.
“I appear to have lost my car . . .” I finally said, my cheeks warming with embarrassment.
“It’s easy to get turned around,” he said. “I’m headed back to the church, but if you follow that snow-covered sidewalk just beyond the big oak there, it will take you directly to the parking area. I think your car is the only one left in the lot.”
“Thank you,” I said primly, glancing at the darkening afternoon.
“Would you like me to walk you back?”
“Oh, no!” I said, horrified. “Snow Valley is probably the safest town in the country. I know everybody.” Except you, my mind whispered.
His crystal-like blue eyes looked into mine. Chills ran down my neck. Once again I wondered what kind of guy wore this sort of wardrobe in December in Snow Valley? All other Snow Valley males dressed in snow parkas, ski caps pulled over bed hair, and hiking boots when they didn’t have their mucking boots on.
“You’re lucky,” he said. “I’ve only met a few folks so far from church. New to town as of a month ago.”
I took another step backward. The cemetery was completely deserted now. His words raised gooseflesh on my arms. My car was the only one left in the parking lot. I wondered if I should make a break for it. Could I run faster than him? Those legs in the dark gray slacks were mighty long.
“I’m James Douglas,” he introduced himself, and then paused while I mused on the idea of whether a stalker would give his true name. “What’s yours?” he asked next, despite the fact that I hadn’t made any kind of a welcoming gesture.
I continued to retreat closer to the sidewalk hoping it wasn’t covered in slippery ice. “Um, just call me the Sugar Plum Fairy.”
And then I fled again, racing to the parking lot, slip-sliding on patches of ice while I flamed at my silly girly-ness.
As I shoved the key into the ignition of my car, I shoved James Douglas out of my mind. I had to get ready for tonight, and I was late. I had to focus. Costume, stage makeup. Warm-up—which would take time with how bitterly cold I was. No dinner until afterward, even if my stomach was already growling.
Flicking on the headlights I roared out of the empty parking lot to the still open gates of the cemetery.
My last thought before I turned onto Main Street was to wonder why James Douglas was going to the church. On a Saturday night? Pastor John wouldn’t be there. He’d be home prepping for his sermon the next morning.
Should I call the police?
“You’re losing it, Jessica,” I said with gritted teeth. Crackers and some herbal tea were in order. I didn’t need to pass out tonight on stage for lack of nourishment to my silly brain cells.
When I returned to New Orleans I needed to schedule another visit with Madame LeBlanc.
No, make that a shrink.
Chapter Three
I FLEXED THE ARCH OF MY FOOT, rising up on my toes as I tightened the satin ribbons around my calf, snug just as I liked them.
The crisp, pink tutu was zipped and pinned around my hips. Heavy stage makeup applied, hair sprayed like a helmet, a glittering crown of silver on my head. Drops of makeup glitter sparkled along my arms, neck and décolletage.
I’d been so distracted at the cemetery I hoped I could remember all the steps. This was a dance I’d first learned in high school and had performed right here in this same concert hall. Madame Dubois, my old instructor, was thrilled I was finally back to perform it again—especially now that I was a professional dancer.
My jetés were faster, my toes lighter and quieter on the wooden floor, my arabesques higher, but my current mental state was a mess.
I should not have gone to the cemetery today. A foolish trip when I had this performance. I would have prayed for help to quiet my mind, but I’d stopped praying three years ago when Michael died. I’d never received peace or absolution, despite my tears. Besides, I’d prayed a lot when I moved to New Orleans and had worn out my knees trying to get answers from a silent god.
I fluffed out my lacy sleeves then rubbed my arms. I was still cold despite cranking up the heater in my car and drinking a gallon of hot herbal tea on the way to the theater.
My muscles needed to be warmed up now. I hoped I didn’t pull something out of whack.
The thought of a potential injury annoyed me. I could ruin my ballet career—or seriously set it back a season—for nothing. Because I succumbed to the pleadings of my home town. I shouldn’t have felt obligated. I should have kept saying “no.” This sick feeling in my gut was making me crazy. I never felt it in New Orleans. No one bothered me there, haunted me, looked after me, or pried about my feelings.
Today had brought it all back. Made worse by that annoying man. With the blue, blue crushed-glass eyes. Tall and solid—and comforting. Why would some strange guy have an aura of comfort surrounding him?
Annoying and bothersome, that’s what he was. When I’d been trying to have a moment alone with Michael!
I grimaced and one of the stage hands, whisking Clara’s golden sleigh dusted in fake snow behind the curtains, gave me a startled look. I tried to smile, but I’m sure it was completely insincere.
“Oh, bother,” I muttered, pacing the floor. I stepped into the box of rosin to grind my toes and the soles of my feet with the sticky crystals.
That’s when it hit me. The reason I’d been trying to communicate with Michael. I’d been hoping for another stupid miracle. To know that he didn’t hate me for not stopping him from getting behind the wheel of his car that terrible night. Murder was an unforgivable sin. Hadn’t I learned that at some point during Sunday School or Summer Bible School?
A sudden fizz of nerves rose up my throat. Act II was about to begin. The audience, so attentive during all the dances of Act 1, was shuffling their programs beyond the curtains, eager for the special numbers like the Russian dance.
I shouldn’t be nervous. I could do this dance in my sleep, right?
The Sugar Plum Fairy dance was, by some critics’ opinions, a silly dance. The most dramatic solo of The Nutcracker, but performed by a character who had no connection with any of the others, least of all, Clara, the girl who is whisked into a magical dreamland where her nursery comes to life to perform for her on her journey to find her beloved lost nutcracker.
The Sugar Plum Fairy dance was the most anticipated and exquisite dance of the ballet, but difficult to truly connect with the audience because her character wasn’t developed at all. She was like a dream, an empty character.
“Pardon me,” a voice said behind me. One of the female dancers looked at me pointedly, then dropped her eyes to the box. I’d been standing there daydreaming like an idiot.
I jumped o
ut, trailing white powder. My cue was nearly here.
The music changed, and I flung myself out through the curtains.
Forget everything I ordered myself.
I tried to wipe my mind. Just do the steps.
The lights were bright and a cold sweat broke out on my forehead. That was odd. The lights should help warm me up. The man’s face from the cemetery broke through my memory again. Damn him! My legs felt as though they were suddenly crafted from wood, but I pushed through it.
Relax, Jessica. It’s only Snow Valley—not the San Francisco Ballet Company.
I forced my brain to repeat the steps: Ten series of small, delicate steps against the music Tchaikovsky wanted to sound like raindrops. The violins plopped, the notes dropping to a pool of water as I did quick brushes with my toes. Then I spun, staying en pointe throughout until the rear arabesque. Demi-pliè . . . en pointe, hold. Arms overhead, delicate, hooooold. A quick intake of air and then I performed the series of turns across the stage; a brief pause for another string of quick brushes, tiny steps, not too fast, up and down, neck erect, posture perfect.
The final jetés back to center. Leaping, in control. I was almost done. And then I could crawl back into my bed in my sweats with a bowl of butter-less popcorn and Christopher Reeve in the DVR to watch Somewhere in Time. First time I ever watched I sobbed in Michael’s arms. And then he’d kissed me as tenderly as Christopher Reeve had kissed Jane Seymour. Cradling her face in his hands.
The lights swirled a rainbow of colors. There was Clara, hands folded, sitting in her beautiful decorated sleigh. There were the dancer’s playing Clara’s parents, and the dreamland sets surrounding me.
The music playing through the speakers was slightly brash, an edge of grating tin from the less than professional sound system, but I tried to ignore it, and hear the music I’d known since childhood and played on my sound system while leaping about my bedroom and doing arabesques down the hallway to the kitchen.
Christmas in Snow Valley Page 41
