Josie had been about to sit down, but instead, she stood still and said, “What?”
“Ah ...” Kevin was rubbing his nose with his hand. “I’ve got a brother. And his family. Baby. All that. I’m the designated Auckland housing provider, as Mum and Dad live just this side of the Coromandel. Too far to commute. And then there’s the whole ‘North Shore mortgage’ thing. Reasons, eh. So I need the flat.”
“Oh,” Josie said blankly. “Well, maybe you can ...” She trailed off. “We’ll find something nice, I’m sure,” she told Chloe more firmly. “Bound to be something, isn’t there. How soon?”
“Six weeks,” Chloe said just as Kevin said, “Three months.” Chloe said, “As soon as I can be out. No sense hanging on.”
“Wasn’t there some fella,” Koti asked the air, “who chucked the girl out of her house with her aged father, and then tied her to the railroad tracks or some such? That’s you, cuz,” he told Kevin. “Good work.”
“Except I don’t have an aged father,” Chloe said. “Just a son. Sad, except when you consider that Kevin’s within his rights, as it does happen to be his house. But one thing about dancers ... we land on our feet.” It sounded brave, anyway.
“Really? You have a son? And is that what you are?” Kevin’s sister—Noelle?—asked, the first words she’d spoken. “A dancer? What kind of dancer?”
“Ballet,” Josie said. She still looked upset, as if it were up to her to fix Chloe’s life. Exactly like always.
“Retired,” Chloe said.
“You don’t look old enough to be retired,” Kevin said. “Even from ballet.” Somehow, he hadn’t sat down on the floor with his mates. He was next to her, in the last open chair at the dining table, which was glass and black lacquer, nothing like the Campbells’ antiques.
“Miss Chloe’s the most beautiful dancer ever,” Charlie said. “You can look up videos of her online and everything. That proves it. She’s like she’s on strings when she dances. Like she’s floating. She was famous.”
“Thank you, love,” Chloe said. “Auckland Ballet,” she told Noelle. “‘Famous’ is relative. And as to why I’m retired—it’s a long story. These days, I have a dance school, and Charlie’s one of my pupils. Amelia went through the program as well for several years. That’s how I first met Hugh.”
“When he didn’t pick us up,” Amelia said. “Me and my friends. He forgot twice.”
“Oi,” Hugh said. “Have I forgotten anything for the past ... well, six months? At least?”
“Not so far,” Amelia muttered darkly.
“There you are, then,” Hugh said. “I’m improving. That’s the important thing. And you’re helping me.” He stood up. “In my parental role, then—time to go home. You coming, Josie, or are you here a bit longer?”
“Coming,” she said. “Early call tomorrow, alas.” She looked at Chloe and said, “All right? I could pop by tomorrow evening, maybe.”
“Of course,” Chloe said. “That’d be good.”
She would have stood up herself, but Kevin said, “Don’t go. Please. Stay a bit longer.” And she was so surprised, she did it.
Once Kevin said it, he had to wonder why. She barely wanted to know him. Of course she didn’t. He was turfing her out of her home. Her and her son.
Except that there had been that moment on the stairs. The way she’d drawn in her breath, the movement felt as much as heard, when he’d got an arm around her and swung her down. The whipcord strength of her, and the impossible lightness. The way she’d hovered there, not pulling away, as if she felt it too. The heat. The burn.
It had only lasted a minute, but it had been a good minute.
The others said their goodbyes, other than Koti, who said, “I’ll go set up the electronics, then. As I have opposable thumbs,” and took himself cheekily into the lounge to get started. And when Kevin came back into the house from seeing the others off, Chloe was clearing up the dining room with his sisters, moving around the table with all that fluid grace. It was what Charlie said—she moved like she was floating. And Kevin could have looked at her forever.
He should go unpack the boxes in his bedroom and bathroom. He knew it. Instead, he asked Chloe, “Cup of tea?” There, that was neutral.
“Thanks,” she said, sounding surprised. “If you have something herbal.”
He scratched his chin and looked around. “Uh ... I forgot. The food’s not really unpacked.”
She laughed. “Never mind, then. What can I do?”
“Let’s see.” He went into the kitchen and opened a carton at random. “Pots and pans.”
“Do you have a place you want to put them?” she asked.
“Not especially. Wherever you think.”
“I’ll stay a few minutes,” she said. “Who knows, maybe you’ll help me load the truck when I move.”
“Ah, yeh.” There was no good answer to that, so instead, he went to work on another box. “Success.” He held up a packet. “Tea. Black licorice.” He made a face. “Or maybe not. Belongs to the girls, eh. I could have something more normal down here as well.”
“Nah, close enough,” Chloe said, and Kevin filled the jug and hit the button, feeling ridiculously happy.
“What sort of ballet do you teach?” his sister Noelle asked Chloe. She’d been unpacking canned goods and arranging them neatly in the pantry. “Is it something anybody can do?”
“There’s only one sort,” Holly told her. She was leaning against the kitchen bench, and Kevin wanted to tell her to get busy, but he didn’t want to have a family argument in front of Chloe, so he kept his mouth shut. “Ballet is ballet. And of course not everybody can do it. You have to be talented.”
“Not necessarily,” Chloe said calmly. She was down on her haunches now, light and lithe in that ice-blue sweater, her camisole dipping, but not showing much beyond skin like warmed ivory. Her breasts were small and high, and he could tell she wasn’t wearing a bra. And there was nothing about her that he didn’t like.
He should stop looking at her. He knew it. He didn’t. He did give her the cup of tea, though.
She went on, “I have the kind of classes you’re thinking of, Holly, for girls—and some boys, too, who are serious about ballet as a career, or at least want to make a go of it. Mostly young ones, of course.”
“Why of course?” Kevin asked.
“Because if you haven’t found a spot by eighteen or so,” Chloe said, “it’ll be a hobby. Could be like rugby that way.”
“Exactly like rugby,” Kevin said, smiling at her again, because he couldn’t seem to help it.
“But I have girls, and women, too,” Chloe went on, “who are just doing it for fun. For fitness, partly, but also because they want to use their bodies more fully, to learn to move more beautifully. If you’re interested,” she told Noelle, “we offer the first beginners’ class at a reduced rate, so you can come and see if it’s for you.”
“You’re not—” Holly said, then broke off. “I mean,” she said to her sister, “you probably have to be more ballet shape.”
Kevin could see the telltale red creeping up his youngest sibling’s chest and into her cheeks. “Noelle’s shape is fine,” he said. “Chloe just said she wouldn’t be training for a career. It’s for fitness. It’s for fun. She’s all good.”
Chloe seemed to grow larger, somehow. At least, Kevin had to look at her, and so did his sisters. “Even professional dancers,” she told Noelle, her voice steely as she didn’t look anywhere close to Holly, “aren’t all shaped like me. There are more muscular girls, curvier girls. There are slim boys as well, and ones built ... well, not like your brother, but call them ‘bulkier.’ And if you’re doing it for fitness ... if everybody had to be a certain shape before they even set foot in a gym or pulled on a pair of trainers, who’d ever do it? And who’s to judge?”
“If people would laugh, though,” Noelle said, casting a quick look at her twin.
“Nobody will laugh,” Chloe said. “Everybody’s a be
ginner. That’s the idea. We don’t tolerate attitude anywhere in our school, and we don’t accept rudeness. The point is to get better yourself, not to be better than anyone else. What I want at my school is willingness to learn. Willingness to practice, to take it seriously, to respect ballet’s traditions and to try your best. If you’re willing to do all that, or at least to have a go, I’d love to have you. Saturday morning at ten and Tuesday at six. Those are my grown ladies, the beginners. There are no prizes and no trophies. Only hard work and love of ballet. Come join us, and you’ll see.”
Noelle’s soft mouth was quivering, and Holly looked abashed, Kevin saw with a quick look. She’d finally started unpacking dishes, too, so that was good. He said, “That’s good, then, Noelle. You go on and do that. I’d offer to do it with you, but I think that’d just be embarrassing.”
“Men are more than welcome,” Chloe said, but she had some sparkle in her eye now. “Good flexibility training for rugby, too, I’d say.”
“Ah,” he said, “but are you teaching the class? That would be what I’d want to know.”
“Sadly, no,” she said. “I do the more technical classes.”
“Shot down,” he said with a sigh, and she laughed, and so did Noelle.
Chloe finished putting the last fry pan away, then stood as gracefully as she’d done everything else, picked up her baby monitor from the kitchen bench, and said, “I’d better be off upstairs. Thanks for the tea. It was good to meet you girls.”
“Even though we’re making you move,” Holly said.
“Ah, well,” Chloe said lightly, “life happens. I can hold that against your brother, maybe. I can hardly hold it against you.”
Kevin said, “I’ll walk you out.”
“That’s all right,” she said. Her voice was still light, but the diva in her was strong all the same, the steel visible once more. “Thank you for dinner.”
She walked out, and he watched her go and thought, Bloody hell. What do I do now? And couldn’t, for the moment, come up with a thing.
Kevin didn’t see Chloe for the rest of the week, and he had to wonder if she was avoiding him. How did you chuck a woman out of her accommodation and convince her to let you into her life and her bed? It was a puzzler.
On a blustery Saturday, he gave Noelle a lift to her ballet class. To support her, that was why.
She plucked disconsolately at the snug blue T-shirt she was wearing over black leggings. “Maybe this is stupid,” she said, and he could feel her nerves jangling all the way across the car. “I should ... do something else first. And then try ballet later.”
He had a feeling he knew what that meant. “I should lose weight first,” she was really saying.
“Nah,” he said. “That isn’t what Chloe said. The class isn’t about being pretty, it’s about using your body to the max, pushing yourself. Because it’s fun.”
Wait. Was he supposed to say she was beautiful? But then being beautiful would be the point, and surely that was exactly wrong. “I meant what I said,” he decided to say instead. “If you want me to do it with you this first time, I will. As it happens to be the only Saturday for months when I could make that offer, you may want to take me up on it.”
“Except you’d actually be good at it,” she said glumly. “Holly would, too. I should just go to the gym instead. Could we go home? I’m sorry. I just ...” She heaved in an audible breath. “I don’t think I can.”
What did he do now? It was harder being a brother to the twins than the rest of them put together. He had one other sister, Colleen—the only sibling older than him—but she’d always been the confident, relaxed, no-nonsense sort, like their mum. He’d assumed that was how girls were, once. He’d learned better.
He stopped at another light on Lake Road and looked absently at the veg stand, where a sign was flapping in the gusty wind. He had time to say something bracing, something helpful. If he could think of it. “Holly’s not the one coming out and doing it, though,” he finally attempted. “You are. And you know, everybody’s overcoming something. All the time. Me, for instance. I was never very fast growing up. It was a problem.” Personal story. Overcoming adversity. That was the ticket.
“I’m not going to believe that,” Noelle said. “You’ve always been fast. Everybody knows it.”
“You think so because you’re ten years younger than me, and you don’t remember.” Traffic was moving again, which meant he could tell his story and be done. It would work or it wouldn’t. “I’m fast now because I worked hard to be. I always liked being a winger. Running with the ball, busting tackles, getting to tackle myself—it was my favorite thing. And then when I was thirteen, my coach told me I had too much weight on, and that I didn’t have enough explosive power, either. I was too slow, and I wasn’t going to be starting.”
“But you were a star,” Noelle said.
“No. I wasn’t. I thought I was first-rate, but turned out I couldn’t stand up to the real competition. That was a shock, eh. So I had to choose. Try to be the best, or give up and accept that I wouldn’t be.”
“So you decided to try?”
He grinned. “Nah. Came home and had a blubber into the pillow, is what I did. I was embarrassed, now that I look back on it. Felt like the end of the world, but it was really about that, about being embarrassed. What happened was, I told Dad the next day that I was quitting. And he said, ‘Right, then. You can be a lazy quitter if you like. I can’t stop you. Or you can be somebody who tried his hardest. You want to be a lazy quitter instead, though, that’s your choice.’ Not much choice at all, once he put it like that.” He sighed. “Dangers of being a redhead. The best part, too. Sometimes you need a bit of temper to get you over the top, and we’ve got it.”
She didn’t say anything, so he went on. “I went back to my coach and asked him what to do. Got a diet plan, and a plyometrics program to make me faster. I still work at it, though, every day. But by the end of that season? I was starting.”
There you were. Motivational.
“Which meant the other guy was on the bench,” Noelle said.
“Yeh. That was what it meant. No matter what you’re aiming for, there’ll always be other people who want it. You’ve come top of the class in school, right? When you take that spot, somebody else below you’s missing out. What are you going to do, step aside and give it to them? No. You do your best, and they do theirs, and you push each other. But if you give up, what’s your best? You’ll never know. If you think you may like ballet, try it. Why would you let anybody stop you? Bugger the lot of them. It’s not their life.”
They were across the road from the Arts Centre now. He said, “I can turn around and drive home, or I can take you there. Time to decide.”
“Take me there,” she said. “And if I cry ... don’t let me quit. Please.”
“No worries,” he said, though he wouldn’t exactly be able to stop her. He pulled into the carpark with a hearty prayer of thanksgiving, and Noelle hopped out and said, “Right. I’m here. I made it. I’m going in.”
“See you after,” he said, “and you can report. Best of luck.”
She gave him a brave thumbs-up, and he gave it back to her, then got out of the car more slowly and thought, You can either be a lazy quitter, or you can be somebody who tried your hardest. And went inside.
It wasn’t nearly as quiet this time around. Music and chatter came from all directions, and he passed two art classes this time, plus some kind of toddler gym thing that featured a bunch of kids standing in a circle, waving a gigantic sort of colored parachute. Didn’t seem like great fun to him, but then, he wasn’t a toddler.
He didn’t know if Chloe was even here, but he was going to find out. Her turf, her choice.
He passed the room where he’d seen Chloe before and saw a variety of women, looking to his eye like any fitness class anywhere. Noelle saw him and gave a wave, then tugged at her ponytail.
She’d be all right. Nerves were normal. The price you paid for risk,
that was all, and risk was life.
He went on, followed piano music down the passage, and came to another room. A dozen or so girls, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old, stood silently around the edges of room, every one of them in a black leotard, pink tights, and black skirt, with their hair in a bun, as if it were a uniform. Which it probably was.
And Chloe in the center, saying ... words. French words. One after the other, while she stepped, dipped, and twirled with impossible lightness on the tips of her toes, in pink shoes that tied with ribbons around her slim ankles. She was wearing a pale-blue sweater and skirt today, her dark hair lying close to her head in its jagged little cut, a contrast in every way to the black-and-pink girls around her. She stepped, pointed her toes—no, her feet—moved her arms, and turned circles, all of it perfectly coordinated, and the girls traced the movements with their own bodies and frowned in concentration. Then Chloe stopped, pressed a button to restart the music, and began to lead them through it.
Kevin didn’t stay. He had a feeling it wasn’t permitted. Otherwise, the doorway would be full of people, because who wouldn’t want to watch that? Instead, he went out to the building’s entryway, which was lined with benches, sat down in the midst of a dozen or more chatting mums, plugged earbuds into his phone, pulled out this week’s exercise book, and began to watch game film and take notes.
It was what he’d told Noelle in his motivational speech, but it was also true. Nothing came easy, however it might look. Whether it was selection for the match-day twenty-three on your Super Rugby team every single week or the much tougher selection for the All Blacks, it was never a foregone conclusion. There was always somebody else, or several somebodies, in contention. And he wanted more than selection. He wanted to start. In two weeks’ time, he’d either be wearing the Number 11 jersey running out against the Chiefs or he’d have busted a gut trying.
The toddlers came out first with their parents, parachute-flapping finished, and then, in another wave a half hour later, the teenage girls. Little groups of them, chatting and laughing. Black leotards and skirts, pink tights. Half of the mums got up and left with them. Kevin took his earbuds out, closed his notebook, leaned back against the wall, crossed his ankles, and waited.
Just Say Yes (Escape to New Zealand Book 10) Page 4
