Ripped

by Lisa Edward

  “Lovely to see you, too,” Jaz said with a grin. “And you must be Ophelia.” Jaz held out her hand to the young girl who turned bright pink but grinned from ear to ear.

  She nodded and took Jaz’s hand as if it were fragile and may break.

  “Hi, I’m Baxter. Your mom’s told Jaz all about you and how much you love to dance.”

  I didn’t think it was possible, but her pink flush turned to a darker shade until her cheeks were scarlet.

  Janice showed us to her office. As soon as we stepped through the door, I relaxed further. This was how I had imagined the woman. The chairs were big and over-stuffed so you sank into them. The mahogany desk proudly wore scratches and dents to show its age. It was a stark contrast to the gallery.

  “I don’t usually conduct meetings in my office; I usually go to the boardroom, but it’s so uncomfortable.” She sank into a tapestry upholstered armchair. “I feel with you two, I don’t need to uphold the pretense.”

  I chuckled, and Jaz rested her warm palm on my knee. “We’re so glad you agreed to see us,” Jaz said. “We were wondering if you’d be interested in perhaps hosting a fundraising performance for us?”

  Ophelia sat forward in her seat. Maybe if Janice wasn’t keen then at least Ophelia was on board.

  Janice leaned back into her chair, her fingertips bridged under her chin. “I’ve heard the rumors about the show.” Her gaze dropped to her lap for a moment before lifting back toward us. “You know I’m not a fan of Mikhail, I’ve made no secret of that fact.”

  We nodded in unison. “Bax is one of the understudies now for Mikhail. Perhaps we could perform here, just the two of us.” Jaz suggested.

  I could see from the corner of my eye Ophelia was nearly bursting at the seams with excitement. I held my breath. This was the only plan we had. If it failed, if she said no, then there was no Plan B to fall back on.

  “This may not be a smart business move,” Janice said on a grin. “But for some reason I want you to succeed. Not just the show, but the two of you personally.” She looked over at Ophelia with so much love in her eyes. “I think we should do it. What do you think?”

  Ophelia sprang from the chair with the grace of a gazelle and into her mother’s lap. “When, Mommy? How soon can you arrange it?”

  “Ah, about that,” I piped up. “It will need to be within the next five days.”

  I’D NEVER understudied and I have to say, I was not a big fan. I was grateful to Jaz for getting my foot in the door and the cast and crew were all awesome and so welcoming, but standing in the background marking out the routine was even more frustrating than sitting in the audience watching Jaz dance with Mikhail.

  At this close a range and from a different angle, I could list at least twenty things he did wrong with every run-through we had. His foot positioning was appalling—no wonder he nearly dropped Jaz every time he lifted her over his head in arabesque. He wasn’t balanced. All his weight was on his front leg and when he raised her above his head, he held her too far forward. The result was all of his weight and all of her weight were off-center, and he struggled to maintain the position without toppling over.

  The guy was a menace, and if Jaz managed to get to opening night without being dropped and cracking her head open or breaking a bone it would be a fucking miracle.

  It was time for a break, and the dancers who had actually been dancing were wiping their brows and fanning themselves, hot and sweaty from exerting themselves for the last hour. I was still fresh.

  Pierre had agreed to let me understudy alongside Robert, but that didn’t mean I would actually get to dance. Whenever Mikhail needed a little time out, Robert was called in to take his place so one of the creative team could take notes on their stage positioning.

  Jaz came over, her cheeks flushed, her hairline damp. She looked gorgeous.

  “What are you grinning at?” she asked, a cheeky smile gracing her strawberry lips as we sat on the floor, our backs leaning against the wall.

  “I’m just thinking how your flushed cheeks and glowing skin after dancing reminds me of how you look after another form of exercise.”

  She bit her lip and climbed onto my lap. “You don’t say.”

  “I do say.” I kissed the tip of her nose. “And it’s really, really hot.”

  Her lips were on mine, her body pressed hard against my chest. “I like having you here,” she panted before smashing her mouth back down to mine.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, if you two are going to be making out every chance you get, I’m going to have to rethink our friendship.” Tiffany’s shadow hung over us.

  “You’re just jealous,” Jaz joked.

  “Damn right I am.” She sat down beside us. “You’ve got a hot stripper man—of course I’m jealous.”

  “I don’t strip any more, remember?” Just the mention of it made both Jaz and me tense up.

  “No, but you’ve still got the moves.” She did an exaggerated body roll to emphasize her point, pulling the cheesiest, unsexiest face I’d ever seen. Jaz burst out laughing.

  I shook my head at how ridiculous Tiffany looked. “Well, unfortunately, you don’t have the moves—that was horrendous. I’m scarred for life.”

  She threw her head back, laughing. “I think I’d make an awesome stripper. Maybe I can get a job swinging on a pole if this show goes under.”

  Jaz’s phone pinged with a message, and we looked at each other expectantly. We’d been waiting to hear back from Janice for two days, and I was beginning to worry that she wasn’t going to come through for us. Jaz crawled from my lap over to her bag and pulled the phone from the side pocket, the broad grin on her face telling me it was good news.

  “Saturday evening,” she said, still reading the message. “We have rehearsals until four and then we’ll quickly go home, change, and go to the gallery by six.”

  I nodded. That should work. “What does she say?”

  “Hmm …” She gnawed on her lip, still reading, then put down the phone. “She’s arranged a cocktail party for her friends. There’ll be an area for us to perform one number.” She frowned. “Which routine do you want to do? The opening act where we say goodbye? That’s a touching piece.”

  That sounded perfect. I still had the music recorded and we could wear any dance clothes—it didn’t need to be done in the actual costumes from the show. Things were all falling into place and even if I didn’t get the opportunity to dance with Jaz on stage, I would at least get to dance with her at the fundraiser.

  We raced home from rehearsals, showered and changed our clothes, and were on the train by five. My nerves had been on edge all day, and I stared out the window as the scenery blurred by, taking in nothing and everything at the same time. I hadn’t performed a serious routine in front of anyone in years except for Jaz and a few people who had seen us practice together. There was so much riding on this—the show, Jaz’s career, and my own. It all boiled down to this one performance. If Janice’s friends liked what they saw, they would invest. If they didn’t, then they would walk away and I would have failed yet again.

  It was a heavy load to carry.

  “We’re going to be great,” Jaz said, squeezing my arm.

  I turned to look down at her, her heart-shaped face upturned, her eyes full of confidence. Even when I had stopped believing in myself, she had never given up on me. Of all the people I’d ever met in my life, Jaz had been the only one who, no matter how far I had strayed off course or how much of a fuck up I’d become, had helped me find my way through with her patience and belief in me.

  The gallery was buzzing when we arrived. Men in suits and women in designer cocktail dresses sipped champagne and nibbled on canapes as waiters in tuxedos weaved through the crowd with silver trays. Janice had done a wonderful job of changing the entire mood of the gallery. Soft lighting and piped classical music gave the minimalist space a warmer atmosphere.

  “Oh, thank goodness you’re here,” Janice said with a slightly panicked look. “I t
hought for a moment I was going to have to put on a show myself.”

  “I’m sure Ophelia could do it,” I said jokingly. The young girl sat in a corner, watching the goings on with wide-eyed awe, and beside her was Tiffany, keeping her company.

  Janice laughed. “She’s talked about nothing else but this cocktail party for days. I had to let her come; she would never have forgiven me otherwise.”

  We were shown into the office so we could prepare, giving Tiffany and Ophelia a quick hug as we passed. Changing out of my street clothes, I pulled on my bike shorts and commenced stretching out my muscles, going through my ritual warm-up.

  There was a soft knock on the door. “Come in,” Jaz called, and Ophelia poked her head into the room. “Hi, Ophelia. You can come in and keep us company. Is Tiffany with you?”

  She shook her head. “She’s just getting a drink and socializing.” She beamed at Jaz, and then looked at me in my bike shorts and nothing else and turned scarlet.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Jaz said with a laugh. “He won’t bite.”

  I winked at Jaz. She knew all too well I could bite—her inner thigh had the teeth marks to prove it. Her eyes flared at me, and she put her hand over her thigh, knowing exactly what depraved thoughts raced through my mind.

  “So you want to be a dancer?” Jaz asked as she sat with her legs straight in front of her, her chest on her knees in a hamstring stretch.

  “More than anything.” The little girl sighed. “All my life I’ve dreamed of being a ballerina.”

  I turned my face away so she wouldn’t see my smirk. All her life was only ten years, and I doubted the first three or four she would have known what a ballerina was.

  “Ever since Mom took me to my first ballet lesson when I was two and a half, I knew it was what I wanted to be.”

  I raised my brow. She’d started young and to still be committed was admirable, but was she any good? It was a long, hard road to become anything other than a weekend dancer, I knew that all too well, but I didn’t want to crush her dreams. “I’m sure if you keep up your passion for it, you’ll make it,” I told her as encouragingly as I could.

  “Do you really think so?” Her eyes widened with hope.

  “Sure,” Jaz said. “I started young, too. You’ll make it as long as you never lose your love for dance, because if you do it will become a chore. It has to come from in here.” She tapped her chest. “And never let anyone tell you you’re not good enough.”

  There was a lesson in that for all of us. I’d been guilty of letting others get into my head instead of listening to my heart and following my dreams.

  Performing on a white-tiled floor while people stood around, eating and drinking, was a new experience for me. Even though the lights had been dimmed and a spotlight rigged up, we could still see the faces of the crowd scrutinizing us as we stood in position, ready to start. Tiffany was in the front over to the left. I could see her talking to a gentleman who looked more interested in her cleavage than watching us, but if he had deep pockets then he could ignore us for all I cared.

  “Fuck, tell me again why I’m doing this,” I whispered into Jaz’s ear as I stood behind her, trying to contain my trembling.

  “Because you’re the most awesome person I know,” she replied. “And I couldn’t love you any more than I do right now.”

  There was no time to be swept away with emotion, so as the music began to play I channeled all the love I felt for Jaz into the recital. The piece we were performing was a pas de deux, a dance of two lovers who were being ripped apart. I knew that feeling all too well. As Jaz’s body moved with mine, the faces in the audience disappeared. There was only the two of us, just like there had been when we’d danced this a hundred times before in our apartment. The music coursed through my veins and I let my movements flow, always aware of where Jaz was and how I could support her and partner her so that she shone brighter than any star. We knew each other so well, both our limits and strengths, and complemented each other perfectly.

  After we danced the story of our farewell and expressed the sadness of us needing to part, the final position was a simple embrace with Jaz in my arms, her head resting on my chest. We held the pose. I could feel Jaz’s heartbeat racing against my chest as the audience showed their appreciation with clapping and calls of “bravo.” Jaz raised her head and held my gaze for a moment before turning out of my arms to stand beside me, her hand resting gently in mine. With a sweep of her arm, she curtseyed low and I took my cue to bow. My heart soared. It may have been a simple demonstration of what the show promised to deliver, but it was my first performance in New York and I stood for a moment, soaking in what I had craved for more years than I cared to admit.

  As soon as we were back in the privacy of Janice’s office, Jaz leapt into my arms and smothered my face with kisses.

  “That felt amazing,” she said between kisses. “That’s the first time I’ve fully danced that piece and felt confident enough to really let myself go.”

  Tiffany burst through the door without knocking. “Oh my fucking God!” Her excitement fed our already dizzy high, and she raced over and joined in the hug. “You were amazing, as always,” she said to Jaz. “And you.” She punched me in the arm. “Where have you been hiding?”

  I couldn’t contain my elation. This was what we lived for—there was nothing else like it in the world.

  There was a knock before Janice and Ophelia came in, closing the door behind them. Ophelia stood slightly behind her mom, her wide-eyed innocence soaking up the energy in the room. But it was the look on Janice’s face and the tears in her eyes that hit me like a punch in the gut. Our dance had reached out and touched her, and that was all any performer could ask for.

  “You were wonderful,” she said tearily, as she came over and cupped Jaz’s face in her hands. “My heart ached for you.” She touched her hand to her chest, the pain she had felt evident on her face. “And you, Baxter. If you were playing the lead there’d be no limit to where you could take this production.”

  I smiled, her words making my vision blur with tears.

  “You two together—it’s a match made in heaven.”

  Tiffany met us at the apartment so we could travel to the theater together. She wanted to be with us when we announced to the cast and crew that the show would be going ahead, the donations from Janice’s friends adding to a staggering four and a half million dollars toward the show’s budget.

  As we were going down the side stairs I heard movement in the store, so we detoured to say hello to Carter. He was sorting through boxes of second-hand albums that he’d picked up at a market, organizing them into stacks so he could catalogue them in the computer. I felt bad for leaving him in the lurch, especially as he had been kind enough to allow us to stay in the apartment, even though I was only spending a few hours a week helping him out.

  “Big day today. You going to give that money-hungry ass a beating?” he asked without looking up from his task.

  “That’s the plan. We’re going to stick it to Pierre,” I replied before remembering that Tiffany was with us.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, looking back and forth between us. “Why do I feel like I’ve missed something here?”

  Jaz shrugged at me. “We can trust her.”

  I nodded. “We’ll fill you in on the way to rehearsals.” As we were leaving, I turned back to Carter. “We’ll all come back tonight and give you a hand. It’s the least we can do.”

  By the time we arrived at the theater, Tiffany was up to speed and absolutely seething. She wanted to storm in and bitch-slap Pierre, and it took a lot of persuasion to get her on board with the idea of saving the production instead of jeopardizing it by outing Pierre and his misdemeanors.

  There was an air of anticipation, and I knew everyone was waiting on us to hear if our plan had come to fruition. We hadn’t told anyone about the cocktail party and recital because we weren’t sure if my performing instead of Mikhail would be approved, but the
y knew I’d asked for until the end of the week, and it was now D-day.

  Pierre was smug as he once again called us around him, and I knew it was because he thought we’d failed. “So, it is the end of the week and our situation has not changed.”

  “Actually, it has,” I interrupted. “If I may?” I stood beside Pierre upstage, increasing our height difference by the slope of the stage. “Jaz and I performed at a fundraiser last night that was put together by a friend of this production.” I looked at Pierre, whose brow had risen into his hairline. “Janice Durbridge. I believe you know her.”

  Pierre nodded. “Of course. She has been extremely generous.”

  “Well, it seems she loves Jaz.” I drew out the word ‘loves’ for effect. “And she wanted to help us so that Jaz could realize her full potential.” I smiled down at Pierre, wanting him to understand that these donations were because of Jaz, so any threat of firing her would have dire consequences. “So after we performed, Janice and her friends very kindly handed over a bundle of checks to the sum of four and a half million dollars.”

  There was a round of applause, and people hugged each other in relief.

  “And our accountant friend has agreed to manage the money that they have donated, down to the last cent, to ensure it goes to all the right places.”

  Everyone should have been happy—I knew I was—but as I looked around a sea of elated faces, one stood out. It was the scowl of Mikhail.

  With his shoulders squared and a face like thunder, he stood. “You danced my part.” He stepped closer. “You, who has been with the production for five minutes, dared to take my place. I am the star here. You are”—he flapped his hand dismissively—“you are a nobody.”

  “He was amazing,” Tiff said. “You should have seen the two of them together. It was magical.”

  Mikhail gasped. “You knew of this? You all knew?” He looked around at the bewildered faces that gazed up at him. “And you?” He turned on Pierre. “You allowed this to happen.”

  “I had no idea,” Pierre replied.