| |
On the emailed schedule for the day, after the behind-the-scenes performance, there was a generous lunch break and then a mandatory specialty class in the Graham method of Modern.
Kristy invited Annalisa to join her and a few other co-workers to walk to a soup and salad bar about three blocks away before quietly mentioning maybe she should ask if Joel wanted to come. An instant flushing heat warmed behind her ears, and Annalisa hoped she got her face under control before saying she thought that was a good idea.
She wasn’t dense enough to think no one in La Faire raised an eyebrow when the director called the newbie from the back line to dance with him. No doubt, there were plenty of covert glances and a smirk, or seven. In that moment, she had made sure to keep her gaze forward.
But the way he grabbed her hips was dazzling. The way she felt the rise and fall of his chest press and give into hers was heady. His hands on her, arms around her, brought a vibrant buzz to her fingertips and lips. Those dark blue eyes seemed lit from far within with a heat that made them faceted and fascinating.
The moment she touched his hand and the moment the music touched them both, the whole room vanished. Walls blew apart and the floor dropped from under their feet. No one stood around them; she and he were an audience for each other. How she bent and stretched in any direction he asked, with those sure hands raking over her body, was pure pleasure. If he pushed her above his head, if he lifted her to his chest, she’d wait, weightless and electrified, by his strength.
In turn, she would drink in the way his body moved, the way his body strained, trained, and hardened under a mistress they both served. Feeling the splay of his muscles under her hands, the way his back moved, and the way his size only served to give his grace a dense, mind-blowing impact—she’d dance with him until there was no breath in her lungs.
Then they’d both be there, panting, and exhausted, coiled together to find rest between their bodies.
Attraction of the most stunning, physical kind had pinned her. The way Joel looked at her, the way he touched her, revealed he had been pinioned, too.
“Huh? Oh, yeah,” she replied, a little too brightly, “I’ll go ask him now.”
“Toss me your jacket and I’ll wait for you out front.”
With a tad more gusto than necessary, Annalisa flung it before hurrying from the locker room.
Joel’s was the only office on the second floor. Apparently, there had been plans for the long hallway to also house Len’s, but during renovations he stated he did not want a box keeping him away from dance.
After getting out of the elevator to save her quads from the stairs, Annalisa noticed the door to that lone office hung open. She wasn’t sure why the sight of it, not flush with the wall behind, pulled a tightness from between her shoulder blades. Either the door should be wide open to welcome interruption or shut and signaling business was top priority.
She walked faster and was about to call out his name when a sound shut her mouth.
A sob.
A heavy, choking sob.
The tension in her back reached her ribs and she held her breath as she peered around the door.
Elbows on the desk, hands thrust through his thick, dark, and silver hair, Joel was bent over. Deep, unsteady breaths expanded his back, testing the industry of the button-down shirt he wore.
Instantly, she wanted to run to him yet stare at the same time. When strength and power are doubled over, it strikes urgent sympathy and shock.
His name was a whisper on her lips. “Joel...”
Down onto the desk, his hands slammed, and a haggard expression met her gaze. She moved without thought. She braced to be his shield in the fight he was fighting. If he was already wounded, she’d be his solace, and hold him until the pain disappeared.
She clutched his forearm. She put her arm around his shoulders. She bent near him.
“What happened?”
In one instant, he leaned into her. In one split moment, she felt his weight against her body and her heart swelled. Immediately, she’d fight the world for him. Under the physical attraction, under the way his blue eyes drowned her thoughts and engulfed her body, she cared. For the man she had known younger, and the dedication he gave his students. For the man she knew now, running a company, making sacrifices, and taking chances.
Yet, in the next second, he stiffened and stood so fast, Annalisa stumbled backwards, stopped from falling only by the wall.
“Joel...what...?”
“Get out.”
“What?”
“Shut the door behind you.”
“Joel, please. What’s wrong?”
“Walk away, Annalisa!” he thundered.
Anger and hurt distorted his face. Away from his side, his arms hung like he waited for her to battle with him and was prepared to use brut strength to win.
The wild child in her dug her heels down and crossed her arms. If he wanted to play rough, then she would force him to use those muscles and carry her away from him. He wanted to yell? She’d yell louder. He wanted to fight? She could go all night.
And if she hadn’t cared, she might have fired back. Because she cared, because it hurt to see him mangled, she pursed her lips and walked out, only letting her petty side not give him the satisfaction of shutting the door.
***
RIGHT AFTER EVERYONE at the table had placed their order for unlimited mulligatawny and dark greens radicchio salad, an email notification popped up on her phone. Everyone else’s hummed in suit.
“That’s weird,” Kristy said, the first to open it because a frozen breath stopped Annalisa when she saw the La Faire address.
The others at the table mumbled in agreement.
Her hands weren’t trembling; inwardly, though, she shook. There hadn’t been enough time to fully get her face under control before she met Kristy outside. Her friend had had the decency not to ask what was wrong and offered her a supportive shoulder squeeze. During the walk, the inward chill developed, and she clenched her teeth against chattering.
Right now, she would have happily put the bowl of soup in her lap while she opened the email that read:
Due to unforeseen circumstances, Len will be taking a seven day leave of absence. All remaining classes/rehearsals for today are cancelled. Rehearsals for Angels will resume on time tomorrow led by Mr. Dvorak.
“I hope everything is okay,” Kristy said, re-reading the message like she would learn more.
Dillon agreed. “So weird.”
“He looked fine earlier,” Clark stated.
“I thought so, too,” Joyce said.
Annalisa cleared her throat. “I don’t know. Did he maybe look a little, uh, stiffer than normal?”
Clark thought this was funny. “Next to the word tight ass in the dictionary is a picture of Len.”
Her answering shrug felt mechanical.
In her mind, the text of the email scrawled over the stricken figure of Joel, despite not knowing if the two were connected. But it felt so immediate. Him yelling at her, the door being left open like something had just happened, and now the email.
“You all would know him better than me,” she offered, taking a sip of lime water to make up for the uneven tone of her voice.
Eventually, the conversation shifted.
During forkfuls of salad, the crunching was a welcome static noise in her ears and Annalisa lingered between the email and the way Joel looked. Radicchio and pumpernickel croutons made it hard to connect what she felt like she was in the middle of. At the same time, it was self-centered to think the two most important men in the company were at odds over her.
She wasn’t blind. During one of the turns, she had caught a glimpse of Len, and his expression was bitter, checked only by a strained smile. Then Joel was a wreck in the office and now Len was out for the week.
What those three things tied together created, she wasn’t sure. Power struggle? Len hadn’t been there when she auditioned for Joel. Creative differences behind the scenes? Maybe the way Len saw Graham’s work and how Joel envisioned it were far apart and both assumed he was right.
Or her. Somehow, her. From the get-go, too many perks went her way and that wasn’t the way it was supposed to go for the new hire in a company. She should have been in the back row, practically nameless.
“What do you think?”
Kristy’s elbow nudge was subtle. Annalisa shoved another crouton in her mouth to buy time in answering a question in a conversation she had been too far into her thoughts to hear.
“It’s not a fair question, Clark,” her friend offered. “Annalisa hasn’t been in the company long enough to know Matt’s having an off day.”
Clark shook his head. “Anyone with ears heard him mashing the keys.”
Annalisa set her fork down. “I don’t know. I had a teacher tell me once that I’d need the melody siphoned into my ears, so I had a chance of moving gracefully.”
This brought hearty nods and laughter. Quickly, everyone had a story about how they had been grossly humiliated by an instructor over the delicacy of music.
After lunch, claiming the third sprouted honey wheat roll had been a mistake, Annalisa let her bloated stomach be the reason she did not choose to rehearse independently for the rest of the afternoon.
On the bus ride back to the hotel, refusing in her mind to call it home, she told herself a nap was the best thing. Both her lower intestine and her thoughts needed settling. However, even though Smidge made it very easy to curl up on the bed, a shower, the happenstance of a beloved movie, and fresh pajamas did not bring slumber.
For the remainder of the day, until a third of a bottle of off-brand Nyquil reduced her cognitive process to sludge, her thoughts hummed.
By the next morning, the induced slumber brought pressure between her eyes. By the time she got to La Faire, it solidified. Nor did it entirely leave her alone over the next several days.
With a nasty, hollow ache, it vacillated between mild annoyance and skull crushing. When the second email went out that Len’s leave of absence would extend another week, Annalisa wished she could drive to wherever he lived. She’d grab him by the throat and shake him until the brain-freeze, vice clamp on her skull eased.
Her sleep was fitful; her appetite hampered. During rehearsal, the discomfort made her movements stilted, like she danced through a thorny briar patch, afraid of getting pricked.
Consequently, during a time when her vision often blinked blurry, and her body was trying to help by causing her to sweat more, Joel’s corrections found her. His touch lightly corrected the line of her arm or the angle of her leg, yet he always seemed to need to physically correct her. Despite barely touching her, her skin burned under the brush of his fingers.
She could not keep from shivering visibly and it did terrible things to the way he looked at her. Resentment flashed with longing, ripped apart by anger and hurt.
Every time he walked towards her, she felt the weight of his physicality—powerful chest and arms, a trim waist, and muscular thighs. With her brain’s functions scattered, her body didn’t know what to do and she shook, felt pulsation in her groin, and wanted to miss his gaze.
She was ashamed, confused, and wanted him. Between them smoldered a weird fire, tipped in white, blue heat. It snapped and hissed, warning that if either got too close, they would get burned. But he looked maddeningly virile in the glow, and she knew he saw her silhouette like she was something to be consumed.
When thoughts of Joel and the unrelenting ache in her head gave her any kind of blessed break, Annalisa saw what was happening around the company. One week with Len away? Okay. Everyone knew him to be a particular sort of person, likely unhinged when things did not follow the order he ordained in his life. By the second week, things were rattling around the edges.
Classes started on time but ended early. Rehearsals began late and ran over. Joel argued with Matt over how certain sections of the score should be played. Joel yelled at the dancers about formations, attire, and dedication. The quiet hanging over company members was stifled. Everyone was nervous. If someone sneezed, Joel might throw a chair.
He already looked the part of a man who might throw furniture into a wall of mirrors, shattering everything important to him. Stubble darkened his jawline. If he had done more than run a hand through his hair each morning, it would have been impossible to tell. Shadows hung like crescents under his eyes and Annalisa wondered when the last time was he’d consumed anything but coffee.
By the end of the second week, nausea lingering around her, vision more often blurry than not, and stumbling into class each day, Annalisa lived in dread of any notification on her phone. Len could not possibly be gone for a third week. Something had to give.
Friday arrived, slogged down by overcast skies and a damp chill in the atmosphere. The idea of winding her hair into a bun and pinning it to her head was out of the question. The sheer weight of her hair and the affixed nubs on hair pins would tear her scalp off. Knowing she was going against company class dress code policy, she wove her hair into a loose, low braid.
Over the last few days, she’d almost started crying on the bus, with all its racket and jostling. Today, she’d sacrifice the gas and drive.
Kristy had given up asking if she was okay. Annalisa appreciated it. Except she knew she looked like a wet cat when she walked into the locker room on Friday. Hotel maintenance had had workers overnight trying to fix the hot water situation and gotten nowhere. Her shower in the morning had been cold.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong,” Kristy asked, hands on her hips, “or do I have to wait ‘til you collapse to get an answer?”
Annalisa tried to laugh, but she was not sure much more than a tepid smile got to her lips. Women like Kristy were a blessing. The caretakers. Their instinct for concern had not been worn down by a selfish culture, constantly chanting to be one’s own savior.
“Deal. If I faint, I’ll tell you everything on the way to the hospital because I think I’m dehydrated.”
It was supposed to be a joke. Kristy’s brows only drew closer, and Annalisa stood to put her hand on her friend’s shoulder in reassurance. Yet when she stood, she stumbled and fell backwards over the bench into the locker.
“That’s it!” Kristy grabbed her hands and pulled her up. “You’re not going to class today. You’re laying down and when you drink some water and you aren’t as pale as Giselle’s ghost, we’re going to the hospital.”
“What about class?”
Kristy hoisted Annalisa more firmly to her side, one arm fixed around her midsection. “I’ll tell Joel. I’ll tell him you came but you weren’t feeling well. He’s not gonna be surprised. You’ve looked like death for a week now.”
“He’ll be angry.”
“He’s already angry! About everything. Do you want to collapse in the middle of warm-ups? You and him are already making enough of a scene.” Annalisa opened her mouth to argue, but Kristy shook her head. “No one thinks you’re the bad guy. We’re all blaming Joel.”
At a loss, grateful, embarrassed, and relieved, she let herself be led to the physical therapy room. Perhaps once a spacious closet, it now served as a narrow space in which dancers could have their aches eased Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. The door was never locked; company members were free to use foam rollers, elastic bands, and other PT goods.
Kristy deposited Annalisa on the couch with the command not to leave until she came back. The room was dark. The faux leather was cool and worn. Annalisa could hear her pulse in her ears, but she could also undo her braid and take off her ballet shoes. She could curl up and let muffled sounds from beyond the door soothe her.
It took longer than an hour, but fatigue eventually overpowered her pounding temples and she fell asleep.
***
WHAT HAD BEEN MOLLIFIED light through the square cutout window on the room’s door was gone when she woke. Rested, though her head felt like it was crammed with cotton balls, she sat up carefully. A blanket she was positive had not been there before puddled off her legs. Stiff and confused, she stared towards the faint red glow of emergency exit signs drifting in.
Didn’t Kristy say she was coming back? What happened? What time was it and how long had she been asleep? No way it was the middle of the night and she’d been forgotten about.
Rather unsteady, Annalisa pushed herself off the couch and opened the door. Save for the mechanical glow of exit signs, the large hall was dark.
“Am I dreaming or something? Hello?”
Half expecting a security alarm to wail at unaccounted for after-hours motion, she walked into the hall. Squinting as if that would help her vision adjust faster, she turned towards the direction she knew the locker rooms were in when silhouetted light caught her periphery. Then, from under the electric buzz of the exit signs, she heard music.
It was coming from behind the door of the black box studio. Convinced this was the surreal part of the dream where she stepped through the looking glass into a parallel dimension where a giant caterpillar smoked a hookah pipe, she walked towards it.
The music, strains of guitar and cello, was not a melody she recognized. Meandering in and out of a ¾ time signature, it waltzed as if it had no destination but to wind in on itself. Plaintive. Content to be sad.
With care, she opened the door and peered in.
Joel danced.
Shirtless and barefoot, his body was the music. It wasn’t a recording. Every strain of his muscles, each time he raised his arms or lifted his leg, his body played the harmony. Each flex was the strum of a chord. He leapt, floating on indulgence gravity offered him, and the song swelled. He paused, balanced on one foot, motionless, his abs chiseled and engaged, and the music waited for him to move again.
He was magnificent. Large and in control, power doled out and restrained by years of training. Annalisa was jealous of the time Ballet had spent honing his body. She was jealous the artform had seen him transform into this elegant lion, commanding the space, the music, and the floor.
Her vision cleared. The fog in her mind evaporated against the sudden race of her pulse. She slung the door wide and walked towards him, barefoot and disheveled.
Landing softly from a 540-barrel turn, he saw her. The instant those eyes took her in, she lost the gait of her walk and ran.
He caught her with care, his arms sliding around her as if she might be fragile.
“You’re awake.” His voice was soft. “I was going to let you sleep a while longer. I told Kristy I’d stay.”
Perspiration enhanced the smell of his cologne, the scent of his deodorant. He was warm and sturdy, and Annalisa could barely find coherent words.
“Are you mad?” she managed, nuzzling into his shoulder.
“Not at you.”
“This week has been hell.”
His embrace tightened. “I know.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”
“It hurt.”
“What hurt?”
“When you told me to get out. I know something happened with you and Len. I wanted to help.”
He swayed, bringing her into the motion, like he meant to rock her, soothe her. “I’m sorry. I...I don’t know. I keep trying to make the right decisions. It keeps backfiring.”
She looked up at him, their movement expanding to the basic pattern of a waltz, a box step in time with the generous down-up melody.
“Am I one of those backfired decisions?”
“No.”
“What am I, then, Joel?” The question seemed to hurt him. He opened his mouth to reply but she kept talking. “What is this between us? And don’t tell me it’s nothing because—”
“I can’t say that.” He bent his head down to the nook of her shoulder. “But I don’t know what to say, Annalisa.” His breath was hot, and he turned towards her neck, his lips tracing the words he spoke on her skin. “I want you.”
“You can have me,” she answered, sliding her hands up to his shoulder and then down his biceps.
His arms closed tighter, and it became hard to breathe.
“I can’t...”
“Why? Because I’m your dancer?”
“Yes, but...”
“Because you were my teacher?”
His grip was a vice, and the restraint pulled his voice deeper, stilted with emotion. “That, too, but—”
“But what?” She put her hands on his face. “If you want me, I’m here. But if it’s more than that...”
He looked away.
“If it’s more than that, Joel. I’m here for that, too.”
Again, he groaned, but this time his hands raced down her backside and he split her legs, lifting her up and wrapping her legs around his waist. One hand under her butt, the other quickly up her back, his mouth was on hers with crashing need.
It was punishing and slaking. Her insides unfolded and she melted into his mouth, into his body. Their kiss deepened and she knew nothing except the strength and rock-hard feel of the body she was clasped to. Need unfurled like a kaleidoscope of a thousand colors.
She was his. Body and heart. She wanted him and cared for him, and it was euphoric.
Until, like a slap, he yanked her arms from around himself and staggered back.