by Shona Husk
‘And grace blah blah blah. Save it for the stage and your adoring fans.’
‘Hah. Pretty sure no one knows my name unless they are diehard ballet fans.’ Was he a rubber ball? In his mind the ball dropped to the floor and rolled into a corner, never to be seen again. That was why he had to keep moving. Stopping would be fatal.
‘You have a legion of fans on social media.’
Ripley nodded. And he hadn’t mentioned his injury yet. Would they all scurry away if he was no longer on stage? If everyone stopped looking at him, who was he? He’d always defined himself as a performer, a dancer. That was all he’d ever been. He became what other people wanted or expected to see.
He put down his fork. That was what Anton had realised on day one. His body was there but his soul wasn’t. Except for Sunday night after being with Pierce and trying to say he was falling. He hadn’t been able to bottle that up and it had shown. He’d felt it at the time—it was why he’d kept going. Dancing had felt good. Better than good.
‘What happened to the guy you were seeing?’ Dan’s words crashed into his thoughts.
‘Um …’ Yesterday he’d have said great. They’d stood in the sun, ventured into talking about a future that was impossible. He had the photos on his phone to prove that moment had happened. That Pierce had wanted to be seen out with him. ‘I don’t know. It’s kind of a mess.’
‘You like him and now you’re avoiding him?’
‘No.’ It was nothing like that. Was it? ‘Yes. I haven’t told him that I’m hurt and off the tour.’
‘You’re worried he doesn’t want you around.’
Ripley looked around the little café, hoping for a distraction. There wasn’t one. ‘He’s not exactly open. This was an experiment of sorts for him.’ That had been going very well, as far as Ripley was concerned.
Dan laughed.
‘And how is probation going? Indigo let you past first base yet?’ That wiped the smile off Dan’s face. Getting caught with some other girl’s mouth on Dan’s dick hadn’t helped his relationship with Indigo.
‘At least I’m willing to try and make it work.’
‘It’s different for you. Your lover isn’t worried about what her boss will say. He’s let people at work think he’s dating a girl.’ Which hurt. He knew Pierce wasn’t embarrassed about him exactly, it was that he was a man that was the problem. He didn’t think he could be with someone who was always covering their tracks.
‘I’m sure you look lovely in a tutu.’
‘I do, but that’s not the point.’
‘Not everyone is you. Which is a good thing. I mean that as your oldest friend.’
Ripley stabbed at his salad. He never stirred up trouble for kicks and he hated people who did—mostly because he’d been on the receiving end at school. ‘I’m not a drama queen.’
‘I didn’t say you were. I don’t think you are, but you draw attention and it’s fun and exciting and I love going out with you, but that can be a little scary. Remember when we got the fake IDs and the cops brought us home? You thought it was funny, but I was dying. I’d have rather gone to jail than faced my father.’ Dan picked up his last slice of pizza. ‘Maybe you got injured because you need to dial it down.’
Ripley clamped his mouth closed. Dan was no relationship expert. His ex had manipulated him and then he’d cheated on his new girlfriend. ‘I’m not sure you are in a position to tell me what to do.’
Dan considered him for a moment. Then shrugged. ‘Whatever. How come I haven’t seen the picture of you in a tutu?’
‘Want it for your secret stash?’
Dan flipped him a very subtle bird as he held the pizza. ‘So what are you going to do?’
‘Train as best as I can. See what happens.’
‘Make amends with your boyfriend?’
He was about to deny there were any problems, but he had been ignoring Pierce. ‘I don’t know. How do you know when it’s worth pursuing? I mean, you didn’t have to grovel for Indigo, you could’ve moved on.’
‘It wasn’t a grovel.’
‘Not what I heard.’ Ripley smiled.
Dan’s glare became steely. ‘Fine, it was a grovel. But it was worth it … I think. I’ll let you know if I ever get to do more than kiss her.’
‘You’re lucky to be doing that.’ There was no way Ripley would’ve ever even considered taking a cheater back. Infidelity was a big no second chance for him.
‘I know.’ He nodded. ‘But if I hadn’t have tried I would have always wondered what could’ve been.’
There were very few people Ripley thought about after he’d moved on. Maybe three … and Pierce was already one of them. While he didn’t regret not pursuing a relationship—because he’d had other goals at the time—he had wondered what could’ve been a couple of times. But then he thought that about some of the dumb things he’d done. Some were wake-up calls.
This was one of them.
He was grounded. Maybe he could stay in Perth for a little longer. Even if he had to eventually go back to the States, he’d be a fool for not seeing where things went with Pierce.
Or he might be a bigger fool for wanting more. Could he live with being the secret boyfriend?
He didn’t think so, but that wasn’t a conversation that could be had over the phone.
‘You worried that the great Ripley Malone might get rejected?’ Dan lifted an eyebrow and sipped his drink. ‘Want tips on grovelling?’
‘There will be no grovelling because I haven’t done anything wrong.’
He hadn’t done much right either.
***
The class sucked so hard it was like being torn apart in a black hole. Everyone knew he was injured and how badly—gossip moved faster than light in a dance company. Chad could barely stop smiling, although he did manage to give some kind of ‘get better soon’ line. No doubt he was rejoicing so hard on the inside he couldn’t think straight, because he kept getting corrected.
Ripley was sulking so hard he wasn’t doing much better.
He knew it, but he couldn’t get past the fact that one arm was so badly fucked he could only do half the moves. Anton would be doing everyone a favour if he evicted him from the class. At least he didn’t have to do any of the rehearsals. There was nothing for him to do. He was dead wood for the rest of the Australian tour and everyone knew it.
‘Ankles, Mr Malone. Push. Use the floor.’ Anton adjusted Ripley’s good arm slightly then walked past, on to his next victim.
He was using the floor. It was right there under his feet. ‘Fuck this.’
Ripley walked out of the class. He didn’t have to stand there and be told how useless he was. He almost expected someone to stop him.
No one did.
Ripley sat in the change room. He’d left his water battle and towel in the room. He’d have to go back. He raked his hands through his hair. Fuck them all. They didn’t need him here, why he was still expected to train he had no idea.
Not true. He had to train every day. It was his job. He didn’t want to train with them and be reminded of what he’d blown. He was the soloist on an international tour; now he was nothing.
‘Nice work, dickhead.’ He rested his head in his hand. He wasn’t good at anything else. Dancing was his life, his career, and it had been going beautifully.
Is that how his brother had felt? Wife, house, great job, and then one blood test had poisoned it all? He stared at his hand, the way Paul had admitted to doing. Was there a little poison in each of his cells too?
Was his body already plotting against him?
From the noise, class was over. He braced for Chad to come swanning in, gleeful about his promotion. At least Ripley hadn’t become soloist by default. He’d earned it.
The change room door swung open. Ripley tried to look less sorry for himself.
‘What do you call that little temper tantrum?’ Anton crossed his arms and stared down at him.
Ripley swallowed. While he’d got used to Anton and the way he p
ushed and expected more, he didn’t need that right now. ‘I don’t owe you anything.’
‘You owe me an extra thirty minutes of your time. You can join us after lunch.’
‘And do what? I’m not needed and I won’t be on stage.’ He’d be cluttering up the rehearsal.
‘You can join Chad and Cait as they work on their lifts.’
‘Great. So Chad can rub it in a little further.’
Anton snorted. ‘You think you are the first dancer to get injured and to be sidelined? I never made it out of the corps until I broke my ankle.’
Ripley looked up. He hadn’t known that. ‘How did you break it?’
‘Playing soccer with my not-ballet friends.’ He shrugged. ‘It made me realise what I wanted. You can train with an injury. Think about what you can do, not what you can’t. Chad could learn something from your footwork.’
‘The footwork you spent all morning telling me to fix.’
‘You weren’t moving well. I saw the heart in your performance on Sunday. I know you have it in you. Don’t sink.’
Ripley stared at the coach. ‘You act as though I’m going to come back and dance again.’
‘Why wouldn’t you? You want to be a classical prince … Swan Lake?’ Anton sat opposite him. ‘Dancing is in your blood.’
Ripley gave a dark laugh. ‘That’s not all.’
The coach’s gaze narrowed. ‘What else is going on?’
No one knew about his father. He didn’t want the pity that he might be struck down. Ripley pressed his lips together, but he couldn’t keep the secret any longer. It was all he thought about since coming home.
‘My father has Huntington’s and I just found out my brother will get it too. No one here knows and I’ve never been tested. Maybe I’m wasting my time. Wasting everyone’s time.’
There it was; out, to a man he’d once wanted to be like and who was now making his life painful, and who expected more from him than he’d given anyone … who had already made him a better dancer.
Anton considered him for a moment. ‘So you are going to throw it away because you might get sick later, when you are what, forty, thirty-five?’
‘If I don’t get full range back then what is the point?’
‘You dance in the corps, you dance because you love it, and without it you die.’
‘I feel dead already.’ Because he wasn’t dancing. He was a lame duck quacking around a pond waiting to be eaten by the next predator.
‘Because you aren’t dancing, you are wallowing in self-pity.’ Anton stood up. ‘I expect to see you after lunch.’
‘And what about tomorrow? I keep turning up?’
‘Yes.’
‘And when we leave Perth? We both know that I’m out for Adelaide, Melbourne and it would take a miracle to be right for Sydney. Maybe I should go home.’
‘I thought Perth was home.’
Ripley opened his mouth to argue but Anton was right. ‘I could stay here while I heal?’ He’d been expecting to be on a plane back to San Francisco by the end of the week.
‘There is certainly a case to be made.’
Ripley shook his head. ‘I still need a coach and physio, and the company has all of that in the States, not here.’
‘I am here.’
‘I can’t afford you.’
Anton stared at him, through him as though trying to see how he was put together. ‘Prove that you can get your head back on straight this week and I will coach you.’
‘My head has never been on straight.’ Ripley almost smiled.
‘I’m being serious. Show me that commitment, that spark, and I will have you dancing classical by the end of the year.’
The seconds ticked by. That was one hell of an offer. He couldn’t turn it down even though he would be working harder than he ever had—not that Anton was convinced. He had the rest of the week to get his shit together and prove he was worth Anton’s time. ‘Why?’
‘I need a new hobby. My wife complains I’m killing all her plants.’
‘I don’t want to be in the corps.’ If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right.
‘I know. When I look at you I see me when I was young. I see the fight. So you’ve been knocked down, this isn’t the first time. You are better than a temper tantrum that a two-year-old could do … and do better.’
‘Now I’m not even doing that to your standard?’
‘You barely disrupted the class. I’ve had dancers bring everything to a halt.’ Anton walked over to the door. ‘I don’t work with people who are difficult. You are going through a difficult time. Don’t become it.’
The door swung closed. For a few minutes, Ripley was alone.
There was one thing Anton hadn’t said. At some point Ripley was going to have to resign or go back to the company home in San Francisco. He couldn’t stay in Perth forever.
No, but he could stay while he recovered. He could use his father’s illness as a reason, but that would mean admitting that he might also get it. By the time he was forty, if he did get it, he wouldn’t be dancing. He’d never looked that far into the future, only at the next goal.
What was his goal now?
That was his problem. He didn’t know. Not exactly. Throwing away being a soloist in a contemporary company to chase another dream hadn’t seemed like a possibility before. Now, though … he had an opening. He had a brilliant dancer extending a hand if he could reach high enough to grab it.
The fear remained his shoulder wouldn’t heal well enough, and what then? He was too young to be questioning the future of his career already. He stood, knowing he needed to get warm again.
He’d been questioning his future from the day his father had been diagnosed. Less than six months later he’d been on his way to America. Now he was home, he was going to have to face the things he’d tried to avoid.
He could avoid them for a little longer. He owed Anton another thirty minutes and proof he could dance from the heart.
***
Ripley stared at the messages from Pierce and knew he should respond, but he didn’t know what to say. He was never around for those moments when relationships got hard. Short-term and good time, that’s what he was good at.
They’d had a good time.
But he wasn’t leaving.
There was no point in going back to San Francisco when he could spend the time here. That meant he had a couple of months to work with Anton and put out some feelers.
And he’d be here with no excuse not to see Pierce.
There were no new messages from today, Pierce was waiting for him to respond. Maybe he shouldn’t. He should let Pierce think it was done. It would be done. But he never usually left things so … so … unfinished.
He sighed and stared at his phone. The screen dimmed and then turned off.
He wanted to see his sailor.
But if he did that, then he’d have to admit that he was staying and then there would be a mess of expectations. He couldn’t deal with that now. While he sucked at relationships, Pierce hadn’t even been in one, not with a man. There was going to be hurt feelings all around.
More hurt feelings. He was already hurting. He was missing Pierce. The hotel room was too empty without him. The bed was definitely too empty. Pierce was coming up tonight. It was already four. Would he be on his way? As much as he missed Pierce, he wasn’t sure he was ready to see him. They would have to talk and stuff … he hated the stuff. It killed the fun.
Ripley texted his brother. He’d rather deal with Paul right now.
Who did you see to get your test done?
After his dad’s diagnosis, the whole family had gone to counselling. All except Ripley, because he’d been in Sydney at the time. He hadn’t been speaking to his brother at all by then. And he hadn’t wanted to know about his father’s Huntington’s. His life was just beginning.
Now it had ground to a halt.
If he didn’t have it then he could stop thinking about it, and if he did have
it then he needed to make the most of what he had. Would he have changed anything?
He sat and thought about all the hours he’d trained and danced. The stupid things he’d done and obvious mistakes he’d made. While he’d do a couple of things differently—like using condoms every time, and making sure that the chief bully at school wasn’t able to get up and smash him face first into the footpath—what he missed was having a home. He claimed that family was important but then ran from his and made sure lovers were gone before the sheets were cold.
He didn’t know what to say to Pierce. He wasn’t going to grovel no matter what Dan thought. He hesitated. Should he? If lovers didn’t return his texts, did he get pissed? He had to think back to when he actually gave a damn. He knew that if Pierce had stopped replying, he’d be feeling burnt.
He had to say something. The truth, or at least part of, was probably a good place to start.
I’ve injured my shoulder, been a bit hectic. That was too impersonal. He deleted it and tried again.
I’m sorry, I haven’t been ignoring you. I’m injured so it’s been a bit hectic. Scans and such. X
Better. It would have to do.
He didn’t expect an answer straight away but his phone buzzed in his hand.
Are you OK or in hospital?
Ripley winced. Now he felt like shit. He wasn’t that injured, not to most people, only another dancer or athlete would get what a rotator cuff injury could mean.
Not OK, not in hospital. Which was a lame message so he immediately called after sending it.
‘Yeah.’ Pierce sounded distant and there was wind catching the microphone.
Now he was on the phone he’d run out of excuses. ‘So are you coming up?’
‘I don’t know. Do you need rest or something?’
Ripley closed his eyes. ‘I don’t know what I need.’ You. He knew that now. He lay back on the bed and tried to ignore the spreading ache that had nothing to do with his shoulder.
‘Why don’t you tell me what happened?’
Ripley gave Pierce the short version and what it meant. ‘But now I have the opportunity to stay in Perth and work with Anton.’
‘The new coach who was making your life hard.’
‘Yes.’ He didn’t expect Pierce to get it. He needed a coach to push him, especially now. Especially if things didn’t go well. Anton might be able offer some guidance on alternate pathways. He had options. Maybe it was time he made a plan B. He hadn’t ever made one of them. It was almost as if having one would cause plan A to fail.