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TWO YEARS LATER:
I’ve never felt more alive than to watch my company perform Don Quixote to another standing ovation, the postcard read, wherever you are, I hope you are as happy as I am today. With Love, Jaqui.
I folded it in half and stuck it with the pile of others I’d received over the last year. I’d walked away from Tanets with my head held high, hiding the tears in my eyes and my breaking heart. Russian men weren’t given to emotion, and I would be the last to admit leaving everything I knew, leaving her, had destroyed me.
Coming back to my aunt’s house, like a dog with his tail between his legs, was the worst thing I had ever done. Of course, she welcomed me back with open arms. We saw Sergei off to music school, a world away in Canada, and Vlad finally had his own room with a spare for me. I was twenty-four years old and coming back to live with the mother who raised me. I should have found work and moved on.
But little by little, the work never came. I had no skills except for ballet; that was my life’s work. So, every shop in town, despite Aunt Aloyna’s connections, turned me away. I finally found a job sweeping at a market, and moved to cashier after a few months. Every day droned on to the tune of the swipe and beep of items, and ended with my apron hung over a hook in a poorly lit breakroom. I even let a fine beard grow, neglecting the requirement to shave every day as I had since the day I became a man in the ballet.
Anna offered me a position teaching at her small studio. I turned it down. My heart wasn’t in ballet anymore, and truth be told, I had left it in Moscow, with her. It was my greatest mistake to walk away, and every day I knew she was right: I hadn’t tried hard enough. I hadn’t fought. I had run away, like I always did.
And now, it was too late to fix it. A few months after I left, six to be exact, Pytor suffered a horrible stroke, probably brought on by the stress of a baby in his advanced years; I didn’t know. Unable to teach, control of classes went temporarily to Jaqui, while Pytor’s brother Ivan explored other options for the legacy that Pytor had tried so hard to protect. It became international news.
Every month, a new postcard came. Some signed, some not. She lamented her new position, regretted her spotlight, and shared her struggles. I never wrote her back. But deep inside, I knew. No one was built for it more than her. Kind instruction replaced Pytor’s angry abuse, and Tanets flourished. Accustomed to being in the public eye in France, Jaqui’s reputation preceded her. Tanets’ reputation stayed intact, for now, under her watchful eye, it seemed.
“Did you see the paper today, Vasily?” Aunt Aloyna pushed into the kitchen where I stood, the bundle under her arm. She laid the paper on the table.
I took it from her as she pointed to the front page. Jaqui, dressed in all her finery with furs and jewels, stood in front of Tanets, her arm around a tall black-haired, thin man. The headline read, Tanets celebrates new star danseur Alexie Sokolov. I glanced over the small article.
At twenty-two years old, Jaquellyn Arnolt sets records as the youngest instructor in Russia. Countries like America, France, and even Germany continue to send their best and brightest to Tanets, the company that has doubled in a year’s time under the watchful eye of Jaquellyn Arnolt, second daughter of millionaire Marceau Arnolt, of Paris, France. Rumors abound of the impending engagement between Arnolt and Sokolov, a danseur that swept the recent production of Don Quixote. Record sales in the amount of...
I sat the paper down heavily and sighed. Engagement. Jaqui had found someone new, yet her postcards never mentioned him at all. Rumors? I didn’t doubt it. Yet the way she smiled for the camera told me she was happy, as I knew she always would be.
Aunt Aloyna looked at me. “Why don’t you go to her, Vasily?” she asked, frowning at me.
“She would never take me,” I answered her, “it’s over.”
“So, you say for two years, but yet keep these on counter.”
She pushed the pile of neatly folded postcards in the letter organizer on the table towards me. One-hundred-and-four, to be exact, one for every week we had been apart, and I knew each one by heart. “It reminds me of when life was better.” I pointed to the picture on the article. “She certainly has moved on. Why can’t I?”
Aunt Aloyna put her hand on my shoulder. “It may seem that way, but the tabloids are not always truth.” She set about picking up the paper and the dishes from the small table by the window.
“What are you doing?” I asked, as she circled the room, cleaning. It was odd, especially after her long shift at the hospital.
“Sergei will be home with company this soon.” She straightened from dusting her cabinet of fine china, and stared at me. “Yego drug-muzhchina.”
“Drug-muzhchina?” I repeated, shocked. “Already? He’s only been gone a year!”
“Da,” she chuckled, running a hand over my beard. “He moves fast, that one.”
I stepped around the counter to hug my Aunt, who froze at such a rare sign of affection. “What is this?” She asked, exasperated.
“Only you could be so accepting,” I told her.
“Before you went to Moscow, you never hugged, Vasily.”
I smiled, slightly, remembering that Jaqui, for all her faults, loved them. Aloyna was right. I never did, until I met her. I shook my head. “Sergei and his ... friend ... come from Canada?”
“Da,” she answered, returning to her berserk cleaning.
“Canada.” My interest peaked, I tried to toss around how far away it was. I couldn’t even fathom how far away we were, but only sparse letters and a couple of emails had come from him in the last two years. “Who would come from Canada to here?”
“His friend has never seen Russia.” Aloyna shrugged, setting the vase back in place atop the piano.”
“Do you know this friend’s name?”
“Nyet, I do not. Only that he is very much in love, my boy.”
I smiled. “One of us has to be.”
She waved her rag at me. “Go upstairs and change from your work clothes, Vasily. They will be here in a few hours. Vlad will be home from school any moment, and those dishes in the sink need done.”
I waved back at her and headed up the stairs. Man of the house or not, I was still subject to my aunt’s daily chores. No matter. I stared at the tiny closet, filled with more dance outfits in zipped-up blue cloth bags than anything. I still had the suit I wore on my one and only date with Jaqui. I contemplated it for a moment, then decided against it. It would be a special occasion before I could bring myself to wear it, with all the memories it contained. I decided on a button-down shirt and jeans, hating the lose way they felt after years of living in the tightest skin-tight leotards I could afford.
I glanced at myself in the floor-length mirror on the closet door. My normally gaunt cheeks had filled out, as had my stomach and my legs. Walking to work every day kept my legs and torso intact, at least. It was amazing to see the change since I stopped dancing, but I didn’t know what to do about it. Before I could contemplate whether a tie was in order, I heard the front door shut.
Must be Vlad, I said to myself, and waited to hear his excited chatter about his first days of secondary school. Instead, only hushed whispers, and a more mature voice than Vlad, without the cracking that came with early puberty. Then, a softer male voice, more feminine, echoed it.
Sergei was early!
I raced down the stairs, excited to see my cousin, who hadn’t come home since last summer. I wanted to know what college was like: the studies, the people of the foreign land, and so much more. Something, anything, to distract me from my daily miseries was welcome.
I froze at the bottom step when I heard a female voice, and not my aunt’s. A voice imprinted on my mind, since the first day I heard her. My French angel, who was imprinted on me forever: I’ve just arrived from Paris, and the woman over there said you were from Tanets.
But this time, her voice yielded nearly fluent Russian, as she conversed with my aunt and cousin.
The last step was the hardest, as I turned the corner. There she was, her black hair cropped short to her shoulders and curlier than I remembered, her slim frame just as contoured as the first day I saw her in a leotard. Her eyes, a snapdragon green, reflected in the ruby pendant that always hung around her neck. She held a small paper box in one hand. Next to her, a shorter man, more a boy really, with a head of finely straight blond hair and blue eyes, held the hand of my cousin, Sergei. The round chin and soft smiles of her and the man next to her were uncannily similar, yet so different.
My aunt was staring at all three of them in complete shock.
The blond man said something in French to Sergei, and he lit up, putting his arm around him. “This is my Mama. Mama, this is Renee, who I told you about.”
“Renee!” Aloyna was holding the man’s hand in her own, trying her broken English. “So glad to finally meet!”
“Ah, Vasily,” Sergei said, shifting his weight and looking at me nervously. “This is Renee, and his sister ...”
“Jaquellyn, Jaquellyn Arnolt,” she stuck out her hand and smiled at me, her strange Russian, but yet with still a touch of French, accent shining through just her name.
I shook her hand, confused. This was a woman I had seen naked in another lifetime, why did she introduce herself this way?
“Pleased to meet,” I stumbled over the French I hadn’t used in two years.
Before I could stop her, she yanked my hand and pulled me into a hug. In perfect Russian, she whispered in my ear, “Do you know the pas de deux?” And released me. She shoved her box at me, which I took. It was light, and smelled faintly sweet, like a fruit. I turned it over, eyeing her without saying at word.
A million questions flooded my brain, and awkward as always, I couldn’t get any of them to come out.
Sergei and Renee smiled at each other, and my aunt shook off her confusion, preferring not to ask the question that hung in the room. What was she doing here?
The tea kettle sounded from the kitchen then, interrupting the awkward exchange. Aunt Aloyna pointed them towards the couch and set off to silence the pot.
While Sergei took their coats and chatted with Renee, Jaqui took the couch, and I the chair across from her.
“Open it,” she whispered, nodding to the box.
I opened the tabbed closure to review four plump, ripe strawberries. I nearly dropped it as I met her gaze. She smiled at me. Sadly, but her face was bright and exuberant as always. I searched her face, looking for answers, scared to ask her the questions that threatened to boil over: Are you engaged? What are you doing here? Why have you come, after all this time?
At first, I was confused. Strawberries? Finally, that day on the railing of the Metro, the memories, cascaded over me. I blinked. Flowers, a soft bed, and strawberries. That’s what you deserve.
I’ll be damned. She’d found the strawberries. A little sprig of hope blossomed in my chest. Did that mean ... after all these years ...
My aunt pressed her fine china mugs into our hands then, and Jaqui stared into hers for a minute before taking a sip and setting it down.
“What are you doing here, Jaquellyn?” I managed to say, wincing as I knew it wasn’t for me.
“I’ve a business proposition,” she said to me in Russian, and I momentarily forgot to swallow as I marveled as how good her Russian was now. She sat her cup aside and reached in the pocket of her plum-colored blazer. “you have seen that Tanets has grown, yes?”
I nodded, setting my cup aside. I waited with baited breath. I couldn’t even get one out, I was so nervous for what she had to say. Tell me! I silently begged, wondering if our shared, silent communication worked after years apart.
“I’ve bought Anna’s studio, and the two floors above it. We are expanding.” From her pocket she produced a key, shook it at me, then tucked it back.
“Expanding?”
Renee, Sergei, and Aunt Aloyna drank silently, watching us.
“Yes,” she continued, “as I said, Tanets has outgrown our six floors, and our wait list is long. We are expanding lower classes to St. Petersburg.” She picked up her tea again.
“But why here?”
“I made Anna an offer she couldn’t refuse. She’s agreed to stay on as an instructor, of course, but I need someone with experience to get it off the ground. Protect the Tanets legacy.”
“I don’t understand.” I shook my head, the awful moments in Pytor’s office flooding back to me. “I destroyed that legacy.”
She shook her head. “I rebuilt it, greater than Pytor ever did. You can thank my father’s business sense for that.”
“You are a remarkable woman, Jaquellyn Arnolt.” I meant every word.
She glanced around the room, as if realizing for the first time that we had an audience. She sat down her cup. “Look, I know things haven’t been ... preferred ... between us, but I need someone to run the new academy. And I’m asking you.”
The silence dropped like a hammer. I looked at my aunt, and she shrugged. “Why me?” I struggled to get the words out.
She stood abruptly, looking at Aunt Aloyna. “I’m sorry to take him away, but do you mind if we go for a walk?”
I’d asked her the same thing over two years ago, though that night had ended so differently.
Aunt Aloyna beamed, and patted Sergei on the leg. “Yes, please!” She nearly shouted.
I gulped the last of my tea, suddenly wishing there was vodka in it. My hands trembled as I sat it down, scared she would see she made me nervous, even now.
But every minute around her, as always, I wanted more. I knew she would dance out of my life like she had last time, and a few moments was all I needed.
“I’ll get our coats,” I swallowed hard, as I stood. I sat the strawberries on the counter next to her postcards. I helped her into her coat and we went out the front door.
“How is Tanets doing?” I asked her, and delighted, she began to regale stories of dancers, some I knew, most I didn’t, and their productions. It wasn’t new information; I had followed Tanets over the years. But it was the best hearing it from her.
We strolled for hours, and finally ended up at the Fontanka River, near the same bright buildings I took her to the first day in St. Petersburg, over two years ago. We purchased coffee, just like we did back then, and found a bench on the bridge.
“You’ve grown up,” I muttered to her, as the heat from her thigh pressed into mine.
She sipped her coffee, surprising a smile. “It seems so.”
“Setting records. A fiancé, everything,” I added cautiously, wondering how she would respond. Would she give me hope or break my heart once more?
“No fiancé,” she answered, mostly into her cup.
“No?” I tried to keep my voice even, but it was difficult to hide the elation.
She chuckled. “The reporters have tried their best to spread rumors, though Mira squashed most of them. She took over for Tahir, you know.”
“Good.”
“Her and Igor were married last spring. Beautiful wedding.”
“Surprising. Did both sides of the family get along?”
She laughed, a sound I had dearly missed. “Yes! The ceremony was confusing, but to see that would make you believe there can be peace in the middle east someday after all!”
I chuckled. “I wish I could have been there to see it.”
“You were invited.”
“I can’t go back to Moscow, you know that.”
She sat her coffee aside and turned to me. “There’s something I need to tell you, that I couldn’t write in those postcards. Something that happened, rather didn’t happen, two years ago.”
I didn’t know what she meant, so I urged her on with a motion of my cup.
“Those pills that Misha gave me? I didn’t sleep with him for them. He tried ... twice ... but I made him go away. Because of you, Vasily. Because you told me once I should stand up for myself. And I did.”
“I know.” I took a sip of my cup.
“You know?”
“The morning we left for St. Petersburg, he tried to tell me ... well, that’s in the past, isn’t it?”
Her eyes widened. “Wait ... you took me to St. Petersburg, even thinking that Misha and I ...?”
“Da.” I tried to smile, knowing this at least would bring her some comfort.
“Why? You knew I was so damaged, and yet you still wanted me, even then.”
“I don’t care about that,” I told her honestly. Her hand rested next to mind on the bench, and it took all my willpower not to touch it. Not because I knew she would resist, but because I was scared she would pull away. And even more scared she wouldn’t. “The past is back there, and we only trip over the future if we don’t look forward,” I added softly.
“You always knew what to say.” She sighed, shaking her head. She paused, biting her lip and staring into her cup. Her other hand inched closer to mine. “Will you take the job, Vasily? For me?”
I sighed, trying to resist the plea, begging myself not to give in. There was so much between us I didn’t know if I could do this. Not without her. “I don’t know. It’s very sudden.”
“Aunt Aloyna tells me you work in a grocery store now. Do you still dance?”
“I haven’t for years.”
“I see that.” She reached her hand to my cheek and rubbed lightly. I let her. “This looks good on you, you know.”
She pulled her hand away slowly, but I held it to my face. I touched my forehead to hers, and she let me.
“Why did you bring the strawberries, Jaqui?” I whispered.
“You made me a promise once,” she said, her voice as soft and youthful as ever, “that I deserved more. I wanted you to know you were right. It took you leaving to teach me that.”
Her hand finally curled around mine. Her touch sent a jolt through me, and sweet memories of the past filled me with a calm, a euphoria. Jaqui, who was never mine, but for a fleeing moment, she taught me how to dance.
We sat in silence for a minute, two kids back at Tanets again, dancing to our own private song, but this time only in our heads. Tourists on the bridge passed us by, one even snapping a picture. “What an adorable Russian couple!” one said in English as she continued on with the man beside her.
That was enough to break our spell. We laughed. “I can pass for a Russian, can you believe it?” Jaqui chuckled.
“You speak it so well,” I told her.
The smile fell from her face. She stared at me. “You promised me once you’d never let me fall.”
“I did.” I frowned slightly. Where was this going? I looked down at our intertwined hands, and I thought of the strawberries in the box at home. “But—”
“Marry me, Vasily.”
Shocked, I pulled my hand from hers and backed away. In my haste, I felt myself falling off the bench. I landed firmly on my ass and cried out. “What did you just say?” I looked up at her, gaping.
She offered me her hand, a haunted smile on her face. She bit her lip again as she always had, and her rare nervousness showed. “Please, Vasily. I couldn’t say it in the postcards; I could never bring myself to admit it.”
“Jaqui ...” I stared up at her, all the things I wanted to say trapped inside me.
She held up other hand, as I froze to take her outstretched one. “I love you, I never stopped. I know you never did, either. After everything at Tanets ... I know now you’re the prince to my Sugar Plum Fairy. I made my father proud, but now I’m ready to take on a new name, a new legacy. I’m ready to be Jaquellyn Petrov.”
I didn’t even need a minute to think about it. I took her hand and she scooted over for me to sit next to her once more. “Yes, Jaquellyn, I will marry you.” I rubbed my finger over her delicate hand absently, staring at it, refusing to look her in the eye. “But, you know there’s nothing I can offer you.”
She opened her other palm, where a simple silver ring lay. “It was my mother’s. My father gave it to her before she knew he was a millionaire.” I let her slip the ring on the finger of my left hand. “You loved me even knowing I was one. I don’t need anything else. Just you.”
As she rambled, I interrupted her, finally meeting those green eyes of hers. “What will happen to Tanets, if you move here?”
“It’s all arranged. There’s someone to take my place, a replacement. I’m ready to start over in St. Petersburg.”
I nodded slightly. There was that brilliance that I had known. My tongue finally decided to work the words that I wanted to ask her since the moment I saw her on my aunt’s doorstep.
“May I kiss you, my soon-to-be Jaquellyn Petrov?”
“God, that name sounds wonderful from your lips. I thought you’d never ask.”
I pulled her close, but in true ballet fashion, dipped her over my lap and bent her over the edge of the bench, the same way I did the last time we danced. I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers, tasting her sweetness which I had missed for so long. She met me with the fervent passion we shared the night of the Nutcracker, a lifetime ago.
When we parted, she sat up, touching her lips as if recalling our memories.
“It’s hard to believe this all started with a postcard that Igor and Mira sent all those years ago,” I said.
She laughed. “I wondered why the French cursive looked so different after that.”
“You never knew?”
“I never knew.”
“God, I love you, Jaquellyn.” I kissed her again. “I’ll never let you fall again, this I swear.”
With that, I pulled her to her feet and held her to my chest.
And we danced.
The End.
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Join Renee Arnolt in the continuing Postcards from Paris novel, Postcards from Montreal, available 2018 from author Rebekah Dodson.