Off Balance (Ballet Theatre Chronicles Book 1)
Page 31
“Lana. Gil’s right there in the café. I saw him less than a minute ago. I’m friends with him, and I know you are too.”
This made Lana look up.
Gil would get it. He’d had his own mother problems. Back that first day of meeting him, she’d been appalled by his mom story, wondering what terrible thing he’d done to produce such ire and rejection from her.
Gil might be the only person on earth to understand here.
“Should I get him?” Dena asked.
“Yes,” she told Dena, who sped away.
Dena was fast. Or Gil was. Or both. Moments later, two shadows appeared at the other end of the hall. Within seconds, Gil was seated on one side of the bench, Dena on the other, Lana sandwiched in between.
“Lana?” Gil took her hand. “What’s happened?”
“Do you remember,” she said to Gil in a voice too high to be calm, but it was the best she could do, “back when you told me that story, about your mom, freaking out over something you said, or did? And her telling you—” Here she ran out of voice, courage. She studied the floor, her slippered feet next to Gil’s shiny black dress shoes.
“Yes. Is this about your own mom?” Gil sounded more urgent. “Lana, what did she say?”
“I betrayed her in the worst of ways, Gil. She put Luke at risk and I turned her in for it. I broke the family vow of ‘unity above all’. I told the authorities what she’d done, and in turn, she told me never to come home again.”
The tears followed, a childlike wail that tore through her, and that was the end of explaining.
How odd, times like this, when the people you’ve known and trusted forever become so vicious, and it’s the others around you, maybe your closest friends, maybe not, who know exactly what to say, what to do, how to soothe, how to help you heal. Gil and Dena took turns offering words of consolation and advice, sharing their own stories.
“There is nothing that can break your bond of family, Lana,” Gil said. “Not if you want it. Your mom’s angry, but she can’t unmake you her daughter. She can’t make your home suddenly not be your home. She can’t un-love you. She might threaten it, but she can’t.”
Gil’s words, his indignation, began to soothe the raw, raging thing inside her.
“Alice said my mom’s resorting to all this because she’s scared she’s losing me.”
“Alice is right.”
A chuckle broke through her tears. “I’m going to tell Alice you said that.”
His serious expression relaxed into a grin.
“Okay, so I did. Only under dire circumstances, though.”
Dena snickered. Gil wagged a mock-reproving finger at her. “My admission doesn’t leave this room, Squirt.”
“It’s a hallway.”
“Fine. This hallway.”
With less tension in the air now, Dena and Gil began to banter back and forth. When he called her “Squirt” for the second time, Dena grimaced.
“You said you’d stop calling me that, once I became a full company member.”
“Oops. Sorry. Old habits die hard.”
“Sure, I understand. They say it’s an aging thing, when you can’t change your habits.”
“Touché, Squirt.”
More laughter, followed by an easy silence.
“You two know each other well,” Lana commented.
“That Chicago connection,” he said. “Isabelle, Squirt’s mother, took me under her wing when I first moved out here. Made me dinner and made me feel like a member of the family.”
“Which means,” Dena said, “that Rebecca and I didn’t stop arguing just because he was there at the table too.”
Lana looked at her in surprise. “You two argue, wow. I’d been thinking you were the model family. The perfect mother, the perfect sister.”
Dena found this hilarious. “I can’t wait to tell them you said that. You ask the two of them, and I’m demon spawn. Always disagreeing with them, looking for a fight, there to tax them.”
“No!” Lana exclaimed. “Not you.”
Dena leaned over to catch Gil’s eyes. “You’re my witness. You hear what Lana’s saying.”
“Oh, no one would call you demon spawn, Squirt. We’ll just say you’re the family firecracker. You keep the Lindgren family interesting.”
Dena nudged Lana’s shoulder with her own. “See the reputation I have, even outside the family? Tell me I’m not trouble waiting to happen.” She was smiling, though, seemingly pleased by the image.
Dena was a lot more interesting than Lana had realized. And compassionate, to boot.
Gil consulted his watch. “Whoops, I’m about to be late for a meeting.”
He rose. So did Lana. He turned to her and hesitated.
He hadn’t made any overtures a good friend wouldn’t have. Holding her hand, slinging a companionable arm over her shoulders, giving one a little squeeze when the three of them were laughing over a joke. Now his eyes were pleading. Begging.
She took a step closer and slipped her arms around his waist. Immediately his arms went around her, holding her close, which felt as delicious and luxurious as slipping into a hot bath. She nestled her face in the crook of his neck that still smelled spicy-fresh from his shaving lotion. His hands worked her back. She drew in a deep, cleansing breath. Another. Another.
She pulled away finally, but he held onto her hands and met her eyes.
“I want you to know this, and Dena’s here as my witness,” he said. “Julia knows about you, about us. Everything. I told her I’d move out. Give her back the car. Whatever she deemed appropriate, because the bottom line is, you come first from here on out.”
She sucked in a breath, staggered by the news.
“I’m not saying this to encroach on your space,” he continued. “I’m going to keep honoring that.” He gestured to Dena, who’d risen as well. “You two go on tour soon. I’ll be thinking of you every day, all day. Because I love you. But I can wait. Through Nutcracker, through the holidays. I’m like family. You can ignore me, reject me, but I’ll always be there.”
He paused, winced. “God. I’m not coming off sounding like a stalker, am I?”
The comment was so unexpected, the three of them began to laugh.
“I’m going,” Gil said, while they were still chuckling. “I’m officially late.”
A moment later he’d hurried off, but his words, their impact, still hung in the air. Dena grinned and shook her head. “That Gil,” she said.
A whiff of suspicion took hold in Lana’s mind. “Do you suppose he planted that last bit, about the stalker, in there to lighten the air, make his exit easier?”
Dena stared at her. “Who cares? It was the rest that counted. And the rest—omigod. You’re the luckiest girl alive.”
Uncertainty battled with euphoria. “Do you really think he meant it all?”
Dena’s nod was vehement. “Without a doubt. I know Gil, and that was honesty.”
What a day for life-changing pronouncements. It put her in a daze, like the time she fell in rehearsal, only without the pain.
“We’d better get moving,” Dena said, glancing at her own watch. “Arpeggio rehearsal in five minutes.”
“The three of us together. You, me and your sister.”
“Yup.” Dena looked happy.
The memory of Lucinda’s words floated back into her mind.
“Hey,” Lana said as they made their way down the hall. “Wanna hear some exciting news?”
“Sure.”
Lana lowered her voice. “I was in with Lucinda this morning. There’s going to be a photo shoot when we come back from tour. For Arpeggio. They want the three of us in that trio variation.”
Dena’s jaw sagged. She stopped walking. “They usually cast the dancers they feature in publicity shots,” she said.
“That was my hunch, too.”
The two of them eyed each other, not sure whether to be loudly jubilant or quietly, cautiously, carefully elated.
“It
’s going to happen for us,” Dena said.
Lana bit her lip and nodded.
“Oh, shit,” Dena added. “I am so not going to be popular here.”
“Ditto. Tell you what. We’ll be not-popular together, okay?”
“It’s a deal.”
Laughter bubbled up, as though one of them had just told the funniest joke ever. They laughed until tears welled up in their eyes that they had to wipe away.
“We’re going to be late,” Lana said finally. “We really have to fly.”
A smile spread across Dena’s face that seemed to mirror Lana’s own buoyance.
“Watch us fly, world,” Dena said softly.
And together, they took off.
Acknowledgments
My thanks must always go, first and foremost, to my family for supporting me in my countless writing endeavors. Second, heartfelt thanks to my agent, Anne Hawkins, who was the one to say “why not a ballet novel?” What evolved from that simple suggestion turned not only into two novels, but an entire shift in direction of my writing, that nourishes and thrills me, immersing me in today’s dance world as a blogger and reviewer. The shift has also sent me back to my own dance performance days, for which I hold eternal gratitude to Kristin Benjamin, friend, mentor and artistic director of the Kaw Valley Dance Theatre. I’ll always appreciate the way you supported me, challenged me, and made me realize how high I could fly if I set my mind, body and spirit to it.
Books that enriched and educated me through the writing process of this novel include Toni Bentley’s Winter Season: A Dancer’s Journal, Steven Manes’ Where Snowflakes Dance and Swear: Inside the Land of Ballet, Janice Ross’ San Francisco Ballet at Seventy-Five, Kyle Frohman’s In the Wings: Behind the Scenes at the New York City Ballet.
Thank you to all my writer buddies through the eight years of this novel’s evolution, including Tara Staley, Kristina Riggle, Kelly Mustian, Carolyn Burns Bass, Kristy Kiernan Graves, Grace Harstadt, Karen Dionne and the Backspace writers’ community. Thanks for early support of my novel-writing career goes to John Dalton, author, teacher and advisor, whose words and positive attitude encouraged me to persevere, through novel after novel after novel.
Thank you to my readers and supporters at The Classical Girl. You are the reason I’m attempting this madness in book form. Thank you, to early readers of this novel: Kathleen Hermes, Donna Zimmerman, Sue Novikov, Alise Driscoll. A late-in-the-game thanks to fellow author and former dancer Grier Cooper, whose own ballet novel motivated me to publish mine once and for all. Thank you, Lauren Baratz-Logsted for your excellent editing and enthusiastic support. To James T. Egan at BookFly Design, kudos for creating the perfect cover. To ballet teacher Vicki Bergland at the International Academy of Dance, thank you for giving me the opportunity to continue the art and craft of ballet in such a supportive, pleasant environment.
Finally, at the risk of duplicating my words, I again offer my thanks, love and gratitude to my family. Jonathan, for all that you are, and all that you’ve taught me. Peter, for your unfailing support and faith in my ability to follow my dreams and make them happen. And to the entire Mertes family, my parents and seven siblings. Thank you for being you, and making me become uniquely and stubbornly me. I love you all.
Coming in Fall of 2015
OUTSIDE THE LIMELIGHT
Ballet Theatre Chronicles – Book 2
A brain tumor diagnosis forces a prodigiously talented dancer to consider a life outside ballet, just as aging and physical degeneration have forced her fellow dancer sister to do the same, even as she sinks deeper into an affair with the company’s artistic director. Told in alternating point of views, OUTSIDE THE LIMELIGHT chronicles the sisters’ forays into the unfamiliar world of medicine and academia and non-dancer relationships, as they strive to discover what is worth fighting for, what is best letting go of, and what should be shouted out to the online world.
Visit The Classical Girl (www.theclassicalgirl.com) for news and excerpts as the date draws closer.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1 – Alice’s New Life
Chapter 2 – The New Hire
Chapter 3 – The Prospect
Chapter 4 – Gil
Chapter 5 – The Party
Chapter 6 – Cinderella
Chapter 7 – The Aftermath
Chapter 8 – Lana’s Gloomy Day
Chapter 9 – Interviews and Interlopers
Chapter 10 – Apology
Chapter 11 – Alice all Alone
Chapter 12 – Lana Moves House
Chapter 13 – Confrontation
Chapter 14 – Lana Needs Coaching
Chapter 15 – The Article
Chapter 16 – Lagging
Chapter 17 – Reversal of Flirtation
Chapter 18 – The Wake-Up
Chapter 19 – Alice’s Very Bad Day
Chapter 20 – Falling
Chapter 21 – Facing the Truth
Chapter 22 – The Performance
Chapter 23 – A New Chance
Chapter 24 – Preparing to Fly
Acknowledgments
Coming in Fall of 2015