The Saint of Petersburg (Dancing Dream #3)

by Leslie DuBois

  I might have been a horrible wife up until this point. But all of that was about to change.

  Chapter 19

  Hospital Visit

  I barely had time to pack before the next flight out of Saint Petersburg was heading out. I just threw some clothes in an overnight bag and hopped in the first taxi I could find. It didn’t matter what I was leaving behind. I didn’t really want it anyway. All the dance costumes and my collection of programs would have just reminded me of Damian. I wanted to leave thoughts and feelings for him behind.

  There wasn’t a direct flight from St. Petersburg to Sacramento leaving for another two days. I didn’t want to wait two days to get to Will so I booked a flight to Los Angeles and then another one to Sacramento. Altogether, I was out over two thousand dollars in plane tickets. I’d have to use a credit card to get back to New Jersey if things didn’t work out.

  Once I got to the hospital where Will was, I stood outside his door for a few minutes. After focusing on the gauze around his wrist, I didn’t know whether I wanted to vomit, faint, or whether my heart was just going to pour out of my chest. Julia was right. This was my fault. It was all my fault. I couldn’t believe I had left him alone. And all because I wanted to explore my feelings for Damian. Why didn’t I realize what an unreliable loser Damian was earlier? I could have stuck by Will’s side and none of this would have ever happened.

  I swallowed back tears and took a few deep calming breaths. I didn’t need to be a hysterical mess when I talked to him for the first time. That wouldn’t help the situation.

  “Hi, Will,” I said as cheerily as possible as I entered the room with a bouquet of flowers. Yeah, the cheery tone just came off as creepy and odd. It didn’t feel natural to talk to someone who just attempted suicide as if we were about to play a card game.

  Will turned his head and looked at me strangely. It was almost as if he didn’t recognize me. I wondered if he was sedated or something.

  “I brought you some flowers,” I said awkwardly when Will didn’t respond. I placed the plastic looking airport flowers on a table and then stood there. I think I actually twiddled my thumbs for a few seconds. I didn’t know people actually did that.

  “Why are you here, Sonya?” And that was it. Those were the first words he had spoken to me in four weeks. I think those words hurt almost as much as seeing the bloodstained gauze around his wrists.

  “I’m here for you,” I said with tears in my eyes. “I’m here ‘cause you need me. And I’m not leaving until you’re better and we can be a family again.” I don’t think I had ever referred to the two of us as a family. I knew that was what he always wanted. But I don’t think he realized it because he didn’t mention it. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all.

  Will looked away and stared out of the window. “I do need you. Too much I think.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Remember our first date?” he asked, changing the subject.

  I nodded.

  “I told you I didn’t like myself very much. And I didn’t. But when I’m with you, I do. I think I’ve become too dependent on you. You were my everything.”

  What did he mean “were?” Why was he using past tense?

  “And I can be again. That’s why I’m here. I want to help you, Will.”

  Will shook his head. “I know you think you want to help me, but I need to be able to help myself.”

  “Will, what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, I can’t depend on you for the rest of my life. I’m saying I need to get well before we can ever have a healthy relationship.”

  “This is Julia talking isn’t it? She’s turned you against me.”

  “No, Sony, it’s me. I can’t believe some of the things I’ve done just because I was so obsessed with keeping you all to myself. Do you really want someone like that? Can you honestly say you’d be happy with me for the rest of your life?”

  “I ... I ... “

  “Someone I love once told me that if we’re meant to be together, she’d be back.”

  I wept inside a little thinking back to how I’d told him that back in Rome. That was the start of all of this. It was my fault. I had crushed him so devastatingly that now he couldn’t even be near me during his recovery process.

  “Let me get well. Then we’ll take it from there.”

  I don’t actually remember the rest of our conversation. I think I inquired about his doctors. I took a look at the slit marks on his wrists. Both of his wrists. He was serious about this. It wasn’t a cry for help. He actually wanted to die. I’d had hard times in my life. Growing up in Venton Heights, there were times when we had no food and we’d eat ketchup and crackers for days. There were days when I was teased so mercilessly by the other kids in the neighborhood that I thought my life was the absolute worst existence in the world. But things had never gotten so bad for me that I contemplated ending it all. I had no idea what it was like to be Will. I didn’t know what it felt like to be so overwhelmed and trapped by your own despair that you felt the only way out, the only way to end the pain, was to end your life.

  I left the hospital in a daze. I had given up my whole life to be with him. I gave up dancing with the Russian Ballet. All I wanted was him. But I was too late. He didn’t want me anymore. What was I going to do with my life now? After crying my eyes out in the waiting room for two hours, I grabbed my stuff and headed back to the only place I knew as home. I went back to Venton Heights.

  Chapter 20

  Coming Home

  “Mommy, I’m coming home.”

  “Sonya? What’s wrong baby? Are you okay?”

  I nodded even though I knew she couldn’t see me. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s just ... It’s just that Russia is not what I want anymore.”

  “But the Russian Ballet is what you’ve been working toward since you were eight years old. What changed?”

  I closed my eyes to seal in the tears. My heart ached. I wanted to vomit. I felt like my belly was doing grand jetés.

  “I just want to come home, Mommy. Can you pick me up from the airport at eight tonight?”

  “You’re coming all the way from Russia? Today?”

  “No, I’m in California right now. I had to see ... “ I decided against telling her about Will. I didn’t want her to find out about everything over the phone. We had a lot to talk about. “I’m flying in from California tonight,” I said simply.

  My mother took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m supposed to be working, but I’ll tell them I need to leave early.”

  “No, no. That’s okay. I’ll just take a taxi. I have some money saved up.”

  “Sonya, where’s Will? What’s going on? Did you break up? Are you getting a divorce?”

  I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. For all I knew, we could already be divorced. I couldn’t remember where I put the papers Will had given to me.

  “Oh, sweetie. I’ll be there to pick you up okay?” My mother said.

  I walked around the Newark airport in a daze. I barely remembered even grabbing my luggage. Every time I thought of Will lying in that hospital bed, my eyes filled with tears, blurring my vision. That’s probably why I didn’t recognize the person holding a sign that said “Ballerina Girl.” I looked again a little more closely and suddenly recognized Tyrell Fitts from my old neighborhood. I dropped all my luggage and ran into his arms.

  “What are you doing here?” I said through tears.

  “I ran into your mom. She told me you were coming in tonight. I volunteered to pick you up.” He hugged me tightly. “What’s going on Ballerina Girl?” he asked, holding me at arm’s length. He wiped a tear from my cheek with his fingertips, and then kissed my forehead.

  Ballerina Girl was his nickname for me since I was a kid. For a long while, I thought he only called me that because he didn’t know my real name. It wasn’t until I went through all that drama with the Bitch Brigade that I found out he’d actually had a crush on me since the fifth grade
.

  “I’ve had a rough couple of months,” I said.

  Tyrell bent down to pick up my luggage. “Tell me all about it.”

  Tyrell didn’t take me straight home. We went to an Applebee’s and sat and talked for a while.

  “Wow, that is a lot,” he said once I finished telling him about the last few months in Italy and Russia.

  I felt kind of bad for bumming him out. I hadn’t seen him in over a year and the first thing I did was dump all of my problems on him. I didn’t even ask how things were with him.

  “So how are things in Venton Heights?” I asked, trying to take the focus off of me.

  Tyrell smiled shyly. I saw the trademark dimple he had in his left cheek. “You don’t really want to know about Venton Heights. Not after having an exciting life in Europe.”

  “No, I do. I do want to know what’s been happening. I talked to my mom once in a while, but she was never able to fill me in on the neighborhood gossip. How is LaPorscha?”

  “Pregnant as usual,” Tyrell answered. “That’s nothing new.” He cleared his throat as if he wanted to say something important but was a little nervous. He picked up his fork as if he was going to start in on his steak again, but then set it back down. “I’m working on my GED,” he said finally.

  “Really? That’s awesome.”

  “You inspired me.”

  “Me? Really? Why?”

  “You had a dream. You reached for it and didn’t let anything get in your way.”

  “So what’s your dream?” I asked, trying not to blush too much at his compliment.

  He stared at his plate of food again as if he was embarrassed to speak. “I like cars,” he said finally. I really didn’t understand what that had to do with his GED but thankfully he continued. “My cousin and I restored a car we picked out from the junkyard and sold it for three times what we paid for it.” He paused for a moment. “It was the first time I’ve made money legally. It made me feel ... proud. I felt proud that I could actually tell my mother where I got my money without lying.”

  “But you don’t need a GED to fix cars,” I said. It was probably a stupid thing to say. Even after all this time, I still said stupid things. That was something no amount of time would ever cure me of.

  Tyrell wasn’t offended or anything though. Instead he said, “I don’t want to just fix cars. I’m dreaming bigger than that. I want to own a company that fixes cars. And I don’t just want my GED. I want a business management degree as well.”

  “College? You want to go to college?”

  “Hey, don’t sound so surprised.”

  “No, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that after my experience in schools there is no way I’d spend an extra day in a classroom by choice. I don’t understand you people that enjoy school.”

  Tyrell smiled. “It’s not that I enjoy school exactly. It’s a means to an end. In order to reach the goal I want, it’s something I have to do. I mean, did you enjoy cleaning that dance studio all those years?”

  I shook my head thinking about the many early mornings spent cleaning mirrors and mopping floors. No, I didn’t enjoy cleaning the studio. Especially mirrors. I still hated to clean mirrors. But I did enjoy what it enabled me to do. I loved getting to the dance studio at the crack of dawn, cleaning for a few moments and then spending the rest of the morning dancing. Looking back, it was all worth it. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

  Chapter 21

  A Welcome Home

  I knew something was up when Tyrell kept checking his cell phone and then circled the block before parking the car. I assumed he had been communicating with my mother and that she was planning on having a Welcome Home cake for me or something. But it turned out to be something a little more than that.

  My old neighborhood Venton Heights was just a collection of rundown looking brick apartment buildings. In the center of the A block of buildings there was a concrete slab that used to have basketball goals but the police had them removed, claiming that they contributed to loitering. Now kids had to travel a neighborhood away if they wanted to play ball. Anyway, that concrete slab was nicknamed the “party pavement” and everyone in the neighborhood now used it to host barbecues.

  Considering I lived in the D Block, I knew immediately what was going on when Tyrell started guiding me toward the A block. But I still wasn’t completely prepared for what happened.

  The chain link fence around the party pavement was decorated with twinkle lights. A huge Welcome Home banner hung from the back board of the former basketball hoop. And when I walked around the corner nearly half my neighborhood yelled “Surprise!”

  There’s something you should know about me if you don’t already. I cry a lot. I cry when I’m happy, when I’m sad, and everything in between. Sometimes just thinking of a Chopin song that I had an especially good routine to made me cry. So seeing this gesture from a group of people who I had no idea even knew I existed really kind of sent me over the crying edge.

  “What’s the matter, baby girl?” my mother said, embracing me.

  I took a couple of short breaths and tried to get control over my emotions. “It’s just that ... It’s just that ... I didn’t know you cared.”

  “Are you kidding? Everyone here is so proud of you.”

  “Really?” Through the tears, I looked at the people who made up my neighborhood. Sure some of them were just there for the free food and music, but some of them looked truly happy to see me.

  “Excuse me. Excuse me,” a little voice said after tugging on the end of my sweater. “Can I have your autograph?” she asked holding up a pen and a composition book.

  “You want my autograph?” I wiped away the last few tears and stared at the little girl. She couldn’t have been any older than nine or ten. Around the same age I was when I started dancing.

  She nodded. “I’m in summer school and we have to write a report about our hero. You’re mine.”

  I smiled. I couldn’t believe I was a hero to someone in my old neighborhood. I honestly had no idea that any of them even knew what ballet was. I guessed I underestimated them.

  ~***~

  Where there were black people and music, dancing was inevitable. Not that I minded. I actually liked sitting back and watching everyone’s moves. In fact, I was taking some mental notes for future choreography. I wasn’t as uncomfortable as I used to be around spontaneous dancing. I never had confidence in my abilities to street dance. Oddly enough, it was my time in Italy that gave me confidence with hip-hop. It was dancing with Damian. Great now I was thinking of that jerk.

  After a few moments, my mother sat next to me and wrapped her arm around me. I rested my head on her shoulder and said, “Something tells me you had a lot to do with the people around here following my dance career.”

  She nodded. “A little. A friend at work was able to find footage of all your shows on something called YouTube.”

  I giggled a little at the fact that my mother said YouTube as if she thought it was some fantastic mysterious thing.

  “So, on my nights off,” she continued, “I would invite some of the neighborhood kids over to see what you can do. To show them what they all can do with a little determination and hard work.” She kissed the top of my head. “I’m so proud of you. And I’m so happy you’re home.”

  Though I was happy to see my mother again after so long, I still couldn’t say that I was happy to be home. I had worked nearly all of my life to find a way out of this place. Now I felt like I was right back where I started.

  Looking at her watch, my mother said, “I’m so sorry I’m not going to be able to be here for your first night back. But I gotta head back to work.”

  “Really, Mom? You can’t take one night off?”

  “I’ve got bills to pay.”

  “Mom, I can pay your bills. Will and I --” I was about to tell her that Will and I had money saved, but I wasn’t sure there was even a Will and I anymore. And I didn’t have much money on my own. Not after
what Sasha had done. In fact, I was broke again. I was completely back to where I started.

  “And what about you and Will? What’s going on with you two? I thought you were happy.”

  I sighed. “It’s a long story.”

  She looked at her watch again. “You want me to go in late so we can talk about it for a while?”

  “I don’t really want to talk about it actually. You go on to work. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  After she kissed me goodbye and left, I focused my attention back on the dancing crowd. For the most part, it was the run of the mill bumping and grinding but many of them actually had some pretty good moves. I felt like I could have been watching a Step Up movie. There was so much raw natural talent out there. Who knew what these kids could do if they had a little training and opportunity? Unfortunately, I couldn’t train anyone in this kind of dance. While I was more comfortable with hip-hop, I still wasn’t skilled enough to teach it. I was a ballerina at heart. Now if any of these kids wanted to --.

  Hold up. What did I just see? I sat up straighter and focused my attention on a little girl who completely stood out. Unless I was so jet lagged I was hallucinating, I could have sworn the little girl just did a leg grab turn on pointe. And without pointe shoes! She was on her toes in sneakers. Not impossible, but highly technical. I knew some professional dancers who couldn’t do something like that. A leg grab turn was when a person basically did a vertical split while turning on one foot. It took incredible flexibility and balance. And to do it on pointe without pointe shoes was virtually unheard of.

  For the rest of the evening, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Sure I felt like a total creeper, but this girl had something. Not only did she have great musicality, but for someone with no formal training, she had awesome technique. I mean, great balance, fantastic flexibility, and the arch in her foot was amazing.