The Saint of Petersburg (Dancing Dream #3)

by Leslie DuBois

“Well, things are a little different now, don’t you think? Surely, you are more important than some music video, right?”

  “I guess?” Now I was really confused. I felt like something was definitely getting lost in translation even though we were both speaking English.

  I shrugged off my confusion and started changing into my street clothes. Unfortunately, because my checked luggage was still lost, I had to rely on whatever Raffaele had packed for me in my carry on. And, of course, it was only the white dress.

  Chapter 16

  Strange Ways

  The lights were dimmed romantically at Damian’s loft apartment. Soft music played in the background as the flickering glow of candles made the air seem to sway to the music.

  As soon as I walked in the door, Damian hugged me tightly. Without a word we began swaying back and forth to the Wagner overture that played in the background. I was usually not a big fan of Wagner. I found his music a bit too grandiose and overbearing but this song was different. It was the overture to Tristan and Isolde. It was lush, rich, moving and romantic.

  Damian twirled me around his spacious loft apartment which had very little furniture, probably for this reason. I was sure he danced around his apartment all the time. Tonight, he spontaneously created what felt like a ballet infused pasodoble as we danced. It was perfect. I almost wanted to stop and write down the steps. But with Damian, we never really needed to document every move. When I danced with Damian, the choreography just came naturally.

  Suddenly, he stopped, kissed me gently on the lips and said, “I love you, Sonya. I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you.” He released me then walked away. “I love the way you smell. I love the way you smile. I love the way you walk into the room and don’t realize that everyone is staring at you. I love the way you move with me when we dance. I love everything about you.”

  “I ... I love you, too,” I said timidly. It was like I couldn’t find my own voice. Something seemed to be up with the whole Karlesky/Karleskaya family. I didn’t know why first Natalia, and now Damian, was acting so strangely. I felt like something was going on, but I had no idea what.

  “Stay with me tonight.” It was less of a request and more of a statement. All I could offer as a response was a weak nod.

  Damian rushed back over to me like a bull toward red. I thought he’d start kissing me hungrily, but he didn’t. He paused right in front of me and brushed his thumb across my lips. After moving the strap of my dress, he tasted my shoulder as if he wanted to savor every ounce of me. Then he swept me up into his arms and cradled me as he led me to the bed.

  After ripping off his shirt, he lay on top of me as his hands expertly worked my dress off. Just then my phone started buzzing. We both tried to ignore it at first, but it didn’t stop. It was one of Will’s reminder alarms.

  “One second. Don’t move. Let me just turn that off,” I said sliding out from under him.

  “Will?” Damian asked as I dug my phone out of my purse. I think that was the first time I had heard Damian actually use Will’s name. Usually, he just called him the “basketballer.”

  I nodded. “It’s still set on Rome time. It’s a reminder for me to eat.”

  With the passionate moment gone, I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at my phone.

  Damian put his shirt back on and said, “Do you remember what I told you after he cheated on you with Veronica? When we were in my hotel room in Rome?”

  I shrugged. I had tried to block that time of my life out of my mind. I did remember hiding out from the paparazzi for a couple of days in Damian’s hotel room. I even remembered throwing myself at him in the middle of the night. But he didn’t take advantage of me like I thought he would.

  “I will be understudy to no man,” he said by way of reminder. I vaguely remembered him saying something to that effect. “Either I am everything or I am nothing.” He poured himself a glass of what looked like vodka. After swallowing it in one gulp he said, “Do you still love your ... husband?” He almost choked on the word husband. I could tell it was really difficult for him to say out loud. In fact, I don’t think he had ever referred to Will as my husband

  “Damian, I --”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” He poured another glass of vodka and drank it quickly. “I’m leaving tonight and I’m not coming back.” He grabbed his leather jacket off of the counter and headed for the door.

  Leaving? He was leaving? He had just gotten there. I totally didn’t understand his new strange ways.

  “Damian? What’s going on?”

  “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

  “Damian, please. Just give me some time to work things out in my head. We can be together. I know we can.”

  I rushed to the door and tried to block his path.

  Shaking his head he said, “No, we can’t. This isn’t going to work. Stay in Russia. Go to the States. Do whatever you want. But do it without me. We will never be happy together.”

  He pushed me aside gently and walked out of the door. I was too weak to fight it. I couldn’t grab on to his pant leg and scream why, why, why like in the movies. I couldn’t move at all.

  I felt sick to my stomach. I had no idea what all of this meant. It wasn’t like I was sure Damian and I would have a secure future together or not, but I thought our time together would last longer than a day. What about our careers? Of course, he didn’t need me. He had a successful career as a choreographer for Hollywood and several big time recording artists. But did he even consider me? I was on the way to making a name for myself, but I still needed him. Did he think of that at all? No, he only thought of himself.

  Now I was even more confused and alone. My husband had just served me divorce papers and the man I supposedly left him for had now abandoned me in a foreign country.

  Slowly, I gathered myself together and stumbled to the bed. I had to lie down to keep the room from spinning. But I still had the Russian Ballet right? I still had my dream career.

  As the tears began, I realized that didn’t matter anymore. What good was it to dance with the Russian Ballet if I had no one to share it with?

  I tried to stay awake until three in the morning so that I could call my mother. I desperately needed someone to talk to. But the need to sleep was too strong. When I woke, it was nine a.m. Which meant it was one a.m. in New Jersey. I knew my mother would be sleeping. She needed to sleep even more than I did. She was still working two jobs trying to pay off debts. Will had offered to pay her bills for her several times, but she always refused.

  Will. The thought of him tore at my soul. I missed him so much I didn’t know what to do. I was too embarrassed to turn around and go running back to him. I didn’t want to tell him that I was wrong and he was right all along. I should have stayed away from Damian. It would have been for the best. I wouldn’t be in this situation right now.

  And what situation was it? Things weren’t that bad. I was dancing with the Russian Ballet. Sure, I was alone, but I was an adult. It was time I grew up and learned to handle things on my own. No Will or Sasha to fall back on. Just me.

  I stood up and went to the bathroom. Tears streaked my stage makeup. In a rush to see Damian, I hadn’t finished taking it off.

  I felt so stupid now. For almost a year, I felt that my success was directly linked to Damian. I felt I would be nothing without him. But I proved otherwise last night. I danced in St. Petersburg Russia next to Natalia Karleskaya and I held my own. More than that, I was great.

  After washing my face, I stared at my reflection. No more tears over men. It was time to live for me.

  Chapter 17

  The Intermission

  My first show with The Russian Ballet was actually the last show of their season. They were now on holiday for the entire summer. Many of the dancers returned to their home countries. Some joined other companies. A few stayed behind to help plan the next season. I wasn’t sure where I would fit in. I wasn’t officially a part of the company, though I h
oped to be getting that invitation at any point. I decided to stay in St. Petersburg and take a few classes. I thought perhaps my presence around the city would influence their decision to offer me a contract. Thankfully, Will still left me plenty of money. He had seen my miniscule paychecks firsthand and he wanted to make sure I was taken care of.

  “I am so sorry to be leaving you,” Natalia said one afternoon as we had tea. She had been stopping by Damian’s apartment every day just to chat. “I’ve gotten a wonderful invitation to dance in Sweden.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll be fine here for a few weeks. There are still a lot of touristy things I’d like to do.”

  “I know! Why don’t you come with me? We could dance a duet!”

  As tempting as that was, I really didn’t want to go to Sweden with Natalia. Weird, huh? A year ago, I would have crossed a desert on my knees just to be by her side, but honestly, lately she had started to make me feel slightly uncomfortable. It was like she was acting a bit too familiar with me. As if she felt I was a part of her family. I wondered if Damian had bothered to tell his mother that we were not an item. I didn’t feel it was my place to break the news to her.

  “All right, dear. Well, I’ll be sure to stop by as soon as I get back. And I’ll ask the directors what is taking them so long with your invitation to the company. I am absolutely positive you will be receiving a contract.” She stood and I followed her to the front door. After giving me a hug, she said, “And I’m going to call my son again to find out why he’s left you all alone here. He should be with you, taking care of you.”

  I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. Was she just another person who just assumed that I couldn’t take care of myself because of the anorexia? I took a deep breath and just decided to let it go.

  “I’ll see you in three weeks,” I said to Natalia in perfect Russian.

  Her eyes grew large. “You speak so well already. You are so good with languages just like Damian. You two really are perfect for each other.”

  I held in the urge to roll my eyes and just gave her a fake smile. Damian obviously hadn’t told her how he dumped me.

  St. Petersburg really was a gorgeous city. I didn’t think many Americans realized how much beauty and history there was on practically every street corner. I know I didn’t realize it growing up. I kind of just assumed all of Russia looked exactly like Siberia. But once my obsession with Natalia Karleskaya started, so did my obsession with everything Russian. I read so many tourist books about Russia and St. Petersburg in particular that I could easily get a job as a tour guide if this whole ballet thing didn’t work out.

  At first, being a tourist in my dream city was fascinating. I lived in Rome for almost a year and I had only seen maybe two of three tourist attractions. The DiRisio Academy of Dance barely gave us time to eat, let alone see the city. After just a week in St. Petersburg, I had already seen every single house Peter the Great had ever lived in, built, or was connected to in any way. By the second week, I also added all the museums and every monument possible. By the third week, I opted to just sit by different fountains of bodies of water and just think. What was I thinking about? How lonely I was.

  After three weeks alone in my dream city, I was miserable. My dancing was fine. Nothing extraordinary, but the directors of the Russian ballet were pleased with me so it couldn’t have been bad. I should have been ridiculously happy. My dream had come true. I was dancing with the Russian Ballet. But I wasn’t happy. I was lonely.

  I kind of felt Anna Marie was getting tired of me calling. She had her own life in Italy with Raffaele. She’d chat with me on the phone as long as possible, but before I knew it, Raffaele would whisk her off to some fashion show or something.

  Russian was a very difficult language for me to learn. I picked up Spanish, Italian, and even French pretty quickly, but for some reason I just couldn’t wrap my head around Russian. It didn’t have the romantic rhythm that Spanish and Italian did. At least not when I spoke it. When I tried to speak Russian, I was sure I sounded like a cat with a hairball. I probably should have concentrated a little more on the language as I was growing up instead of memorizing the birth and death dates of different kings and the names of the most famous architects.

  I missed Will.

  There, I said it. I missed my husband. Sometimes I couldn’t even remember what we fought over. But then I would watch a recording of Damian and I dancing together and I’d remember. The passion we shared on stage had to be real, right? Will had prevented me from figuring out if Damian was the one for me or not. He had taken away my right to choose.

  Did that mean we had to get a divorce though? So soon? Couldn’t we work it out? Every day I stared at the divorce papers willing myself to sign them then quickly telling myself not to. It was my own little tragic ballet playing over and over again in my head. I just couldn’t figure out whether I was at the intermission or the finale.

  Chapter 18

  A Call in the Night

  When I heard my cell phone ring in the middle of the night, I first assumed I was dreaming. After the fifth ring, however, I wildly grabbed for the phone and answered it.

  “How can you do this to him? You’re killing him!” a panicked, angry, female voice on the phone said to me.

  “Who is this? Killing who? What are you talking about?” I asked, instantly awake and suddenly panicked as well. Racking my brain as to not only who she was but who she could be referring to, I plopped down on the couch in Damian’s living room and started chewing my thumbnail. Unfortunately, my mind immediately went to Will. Though I tried to forget, Will had actually tried to kill himself two years before we met.

  “This is Julia.” The only Julia I knew was Julia Maddox, Will’s sister. My heart crashed against my chest walls. This was about my husband. I tried not to imagine what could have happened.

  Julia hated me. Well, she couldn’t really hate me as she barely knew me. I think more importantly she hated the idea of me. You know that idea that her brother could date and later marry a black girl. In her eyes, it just wasn’t the Maddox way. But according to Will, their parents would have loved me if they ever had the chance to meet me. Not the case with Julia. The first time she met me at her house in New Jersey, she and Will got into a screaming match about my race with me sitting just in the next room. She didn’t even attend her only brother’s wedding even though I’d sent her a special invitation and told her we’d pay for the plane ticket. Julia had never actually spoken more than five words to me ever. So, if she was calling me, there had to be some sort of emergency. Oh God, Will. What did you do?

  “What’s wrong? Where’s Will?” I said, leaping from the bed.

  “You know his emotional state. You know he doesn’t take change well. He’s never been alone. He had our parents all his life and then he had me.”

  “You mean when you weren’t drunk off your ass.” She had some nerve yelling at me for the way I treated her brother when she hadn’t done any better. How many times did Will have to tuck her into bed or pick her up from some bar or even bail her out of jail? She wasn’t considering his emotional state then.

  “You little bitch. I have no idea what he ever saw in you. And now it’s too late.”

  “What do you mean too late? What’s wrong with Will?”

  “He tried to kill himself. And it’s your fault.”

  The phone slipped from my hands. I collapsed to the floor. I could barely breathe as tears clouded my vision. Patting the floor around me, I searched for where I had dropped the phone.

  “Is he ... Is he ... ?” I couldn’t even bring myself to say the words.

  “He’s alive ... barely. He almost didn’t make it. He really meant it this time,” she said matter-of-factly

  Three years ago, Will had tried to kill himself before. I never asked for any details, but I knew he had taken some pills. I guess in Julia’s mind, the last time was more of a cry for help. Something was different about this time.

  “What did he do?” />
  “He cut his wrists. Both of them. I found him unconscious in the bathtub.” Julia started crying. When she composed herself a little she said, “I knew he didn’t sound right the last time I spoke to him. I was worried so I flew out to California to see him. I stayed with him for a week. I couldn’t help him. I tried so hard. Why wasn’t I enough?”

  “Where is he?” I asked as I tried to get dressed with one hand. “I’m coming. Tell him I’m coming.”

  “He doesn’t want to see you. He doesn’t want anyone.”

  “I don’t care what he wants. I’m his wife and I’m going to see him.”

  “Oh really? You’re his wife?” she asked. Her voice suddenly changed from despair to disdain. “Since when? If you cared about him at all you would have seen this coming and you never would have left him. This is your fault. You stay away from my brother.” Then she hung up on me.

  In a way, she was right. I should have seen this coming. I should have seen the signs and noticed that his compulsions were getting out of hand. He was slipping further and further into uncontrollable despair. I shouldn’t have left him in that condition.

  Julia had every right to be mad at me. Her brother could have died all because I was being selfish and worrying too much about my career instead of the man I had made a vow to. But, I didn’t let Julia’s attitude deter me. I simply hung up the phone and finished getting dressed. While I ran around Damian’s apartment stuffing my belongings into a bag, I dialed every former teammate of Will’s I could think of trying to get information as to Will’s whereabouts. All I knew was that he was playing for a summer basketball league somewhere in California. I couldn’t remember the team or the city. It could have been San Diego, Sausalito, Sacramento, or Santa Clara. I wasn’t sure.

  Finally, I got in contact with Will’s old Lottomatica Roma coach and learned that he was with the Sacramento Kings. According to his coach, Will had played in three games and was doing really well. He couldn’t believe Will would try to take his own life when there was the prospect of signing with an NBA team at the end of the summer. But I knew the truth. Will’s emotional problems didn’t come from his basketball career. They came from me. It was my fault because I had left him alone.