Evan studies my face, as if searching for coherence there. He glances at my chart, as if to make some connection between my strange story and perhaps the sedatives they’ve given me.
“I should not have called Dylan. I’m afraid Dylan will do something stupid. He’ll break Randolph’s legs or something worse,” I ramble.
Evan smiles. “Dylan is one of the smartest guys I’ve ever known. He won’t do anything stupid. At least not with witnesses watching.”
I smile weakly. “I should’ve called Sinclair instead. He’s very good at alerting the authorities,” I say, in my sedated fog. Evan looks amused, though unclear as to what I’m babbling about. I detail for him the drama leading up to my confrontation with Randolph: The Joseph’s request that I play the part of The Beard, and my subsequent charade with the Countess Wellington. Evan listens raptly, with a lopsided and skeptical grin. Perhaps he fears I’m delirious.
“You’re going to move into my apartment,” he says, like a bolt from the blue.
“Well, no argument here.” Am I hallucinating? Now it’s my turn to check my chart to see what drugs they’ve doped me with.
“I’m making your decisions for you now,” he says. “You’re not very good at making them on your own.”
“Oh, is that right?” I pull myself up taller in my bed, tucking my hair behind my ears to reveal my little pearl cross earrings (a First Communion gift from Mom when I was six years old), so as to look prettier. I assume my erect dancer carriage as if this will somehow give me an edge in the argument. I’m energized suddenly, a rocket of bliss ready to blast into some glistening orbit at the invitation to move in with Evan.
“Yes, let’s review them. You dropped out of an ivy league school, blowing a scholarship.”
“I didn’t want to be swallowed up in other people’s ideas.”
“You took a job with a boss who you knew was shady, maybe even crazy.”
“I wanted to be in the city.” What I really mean is I wanted to be near you.
“And now you pass up a career opportunity that comes along once in a lifetime.”
“I wasn’t about to make a deal with the devil!” I bite back.
Evan laughs. “Wanda’s not the devil. She’s close; those spiky heels of hers could double as hooves. Oh, Haley, we all make compromises,” he says with sudden melancholy.
“I didn’t want to make the same mistake that The Joseph did. To wake up tomorrow, and then every day for the rest of my life, knowing that I got where I was by stepping on you.”
Evan shakes his head. “You could’ve stepped on me; I don’t crush so easily. I wouldn’t have minded. Do you think I wouldn’t want to see you sailing into the blue sky, over the heads of people?” He attempts to quote Ralph Touchett.
“The bright lights over the heads of men,” I correct.
“Do you think I wouldn’t put some wind in your sails?”
I nod, impressed; this quote is close enough.
I am struck with a sadness and nostalgia for that long ago night at Delta, laughing beneath the print of Sunbeam Bread over blue margaritas and Jax beer, discussing books and life and dreams. It seems so long ago. Oh, but what does it matter, if it has led me to this moment?
“You make terrible decisions.” He seems consumed with some bittersweet emotion, as if he, too, felt the nostalgia of that night. “But for beautiful reasons.” It’s as if something deep within him as been touched, a place whose existence he would rather deny. “Which is why I’m making your decisions for you now.”
I warm to the sound of that, to being taken care of by Evan.
“I’m going home to Texas in a couple of days. You can stay at my place and finish writing your book. I know the couple who own the building. They’re an older couple, very nice people. They’ll look out for you. They’ll even cook for you. I can’t tell you how many covered dishes of pasta and meatballs they’ve left outside my door this past year.”
“Is there anyone who isn’t under your spell? Anyone you don’t know?” I look away to observe my manicured fingernails—which thankfully were not chipped from the altercation with Randolph—although removing my eyes from Evan is not an easy thing to do.
“Myself.”
“I don’t believe that.”
Again, the lopsided grin.
“Won’t you miss out on important auditions while you’re gone?”
“I don’t have an agent anymore,” he says, but he seems detached from this statement, resigned to the circumstances.
“You must believe me when I say I did not intentionally give Wanda that story. The only reason I had my writing with me is because I forgot to buy a handbag, and at the last minute I dug that old velvet bag out of the bottom of my closet...”
He waves away my explanation. “I’ve let that go.”
“But Sinclair gave her my bag of stories; he didn’t know what was in there; he thought he was helping me.”
“I know that, Haley. I was sitting right there when it all happened. Besides, I know you. You’re not capable of that kind of meanness,” and then, “you once told me you thought you could complete a novel in three months, if you had no distractions or money concerns. Will you do it? Will you promise me you’ll write the book?”
“Why? I rejected Wanda’s offer. She doesn’t seem like someone who offers a person a second chance. What’s the point now?”
“The point is because there may be other offers. Why not be ready when opportunity knocks? And if you write a great novel, Wanda may reconsider. Trust me, if there’s money to be made from you, she’ll be sniffing at your door.”
“Well, don’t go using your powers of persuasion on my behalf. According to Wanda, the two of you could qualify to teach the Karma Sutra.”
He laughs, but then blushes to the tips of his ears.
“The guys are having a going away dinner for me, before I leave for home. Will you be there?” He strokes my curls, threading his fingers through them, and gently tucking my hair behind one ear.
“That’s like asking if the North Star plans on showing up in the night sky.”
He beams, radiant and handsome. “That’s good. Put that in the book. So, you’ll be there?”
“No. I’m tired of saying goodbye to you,” I say defiantly, although before the words leave my lips I’m already planning what dress I will wear. I’ll make Sinclair do penance by stitching me up something stunning. “You’re always going away. And each time I have to say goodbye to you it feels as if someone is ripping something from here, like little invisible chords are being severed.” I motion to my solar plexus.
“Promise me you’ll be there.” He reaches out to pat the place where the invisible chords would be.
“Why am I always the one doing the promising? Why don’t you promise something?”
“Promise me,” he says softly. He drops on me the most hypnotic gaze of inexpressible need. I realize this is the first time I’ve seen him in a short-sleeved shirt, and that it’s spring, the long winter is over. His muscles bulge below the black sleeves in a way that makes me ache for him.
“I can never say no to you.”
“You’ve been saying no to me since the day we met.” He tucks his tongue in his cheek playfully.
“Well, maybe this is your lucky day.” I’ve missed flirting with Evan.
“We could close that door and get started now.” He bites his lip in a gesture that is irresistible, but at that moment Dylan and Brandon barrel into the room.
~ 19 ~
Blue Moon
Sinclair visits me at Brandon's loft the next morning, where Dylan has delivered me after my release from the hospital, along with all my haphazardly packed boxes of belongings from the brownstone. Brandon took off at the crack of dawn for his waiter job, and the other roommates are away on various overseas assignments. If Sinclair was guilt ridden over the Wanda debacle, he looks positively stricken over recommending me to a psychopathic employer.
“I always thought he was mad
as a hatter, but I never suspected he was dangerous,” Sinclair says through a mouthful of chocolate eclair that he’s brought from Balducci’s. He lays the little beribboned box on the sofa, while I make us tea. He wears a long and what looks to be expensive leather coat that surely is a gift from the deep pockets of TJ; the smell of leather invades the small loft.
“Nice coat,” I say.
“Ah, yes, TJ thought it was time to lift me out of my shabby gentility. I’m a cold tattie, and this coat is warm as the tropics. But enough of that, to think of my poor Vivie in danger, this is just like when they sent poor Madeleine on that steamship back to Paris,” he says in reference to the movie Dark Journey.
“Don't worry about it. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” I assure him, with a pat of my hand over his. “You were the only one who believed in me and Evan, and now look where we are!”
Sinclair brightens, and wants to hear all the details of Evan’s visit to the hospital. “How long will he be in Texas?”
“I don’t know, however long it takes.”
“Weeks? Months?”
“I don’t think months,” I say, suddenly uneasy. I sit cross-legged on the ratty sofa, and readjust as one foot is falling asleep. I’m still barely awake.
“So, he just asked you to move in with him?” Sinclair sinks into the bean bag chair, and much to his alarm, continues to sink.
“Sort of. He said I would be staying at his place.”
“At his place, or with him?” Sinclair clarifies, in mid-bite of his second éclair.
“Does it matter? What are you getting at?”
“Nothing. I’m just a stickler for details. Then why are you here?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Evan has to get his apartment ready for me, or maybe he’s going to talk to Dylan about it first.”
I change the subject, asking after Sinclair’s mother. He informs me that he saw her this morning. My body goes rigid.
“Oh,” I say, “I was under the impression that you didn’t intend to visit her again, which is perfectly understandable, considering the inflexibility of her opinions.”
The chattering Sinclair falls silent, nibbling his éclair and eyeing me with an expression that is difficult to read.
“She had some sort of procedure this morning, and I wanted to see for myself that she was in good stead. She was groggy from the medications when I arrived. But she said something that I must say is utterly out of character for her.”
I wait for what feels like an interminable minute, while he dabs the corners of his mouth with a napkin, and gulps his tea. He stares dreamily at the iguana asleep in its cage on the carpet, strings of lettuce still stuck in its lizard teeth.
“TJ went to see my mother yesterday, for the first time,” he begins, and I hold my breath. “I don’t know what transpired during their visit, and he wouldn’t tell me very much, just that he chatted for about a quarter of an hour, and she mostly listened, and then he left. He was rather tight-lipped about the whole affair. I think he was perhaps angry at me for sending him into the dragon’s den all alone, not giving him a proper introduction.”
“Did your mother mention his visit?” I ask, in what I hope is a terror-free tone.
“As I said, she was quite groggy when I saw her this morning.” He finishes off the last éclair, offering me a bite that I refuse. “I inquired if she’d had a visitor the day before, and after one of her signature silences, she simply said, ‘the boy is charming, an impressive cut of tweed.’” he relates her words with the reverence of a prophecy.
Sinclair drops a wide-eyed gaze upon me, a mustache of chocolate across his upper lip.
“Scots know their tweed,” I chirp, although my entire body feels as if it’s made of jelly. I’m hoping Sinclair does not notice when I absently drop my éclair into the lap of my footed pajamas. “That’s wonderful, Sinclair. So, she accepts him then?”
Sinclair shrugs as if unsure, but a transformation seems to overtake him, right then and there, in the cramped loft with its hodgepodge furniture and its wall of windows channeling the morning light, which like a benediction, illumines the figure of Sinclair, as a burgeoning peace seems to descend upon him. I realize at that moment how lucky I have been my entire life to have always had the acceptance and love of my parents regardless of my choices, and how this is the very thing Sinclair has silently and perhaps desperately sought his entire life, though he may not have been aware of it himself until now. I see with crystal clarity the brilliant compassion of Joseph’s plan, and how it was worth anything to execute it, even the hard knot of stitches stinging at my temple.
“Did she say anything else?” I venture, wiggling back into my yogic pose.
“A fine choice for a life partner,” he reports. “A fine choice for a life partner is her assessment of TJ.” He emphatically repeats these seven words again for me, in case I hadn’t heard them the first two times.
“That’s high praise,” I gush, secretly miffed that the cryptic Countess couldn’t come up with something more colorful to say of me.
Sinclair waves away further discussion, perhaps wanting to secretly savor the memory of it. He crumples up the empty éclair box and carries the mismatched teacups to the sink so that we might move on to the “true order of business” which is the dress he’s thrown together in record time for me to wear to Evan’s going away dinner tomorrow night.
“I can see from the footed pajamas and Pebbles Flintstone ponytail that you are in dire need of my services.” He claps crumbs from his fingers and reaches for the gray garment bag he’s brought along, bringing forth from it a beautiful black silk dress. The dress is tapered at the waist, with fitted sleeves ending above the elbow and puckering like small chefs’ caps at the shoulders. This, he informs me, was inspired by the dress Madeleine Goddard wore during her fateful meeting with Baron Karl in her chic Parisian dress shop. The collar appears Elizabethan and seems a bit much, a white tulle ruffle overlaid with Belgian lace, but Sinclair insists that the collar defines the dress, and that, “We must not forget the aphrodisiac effects of tulle on the fabulous Evan Candelier.” He then gets down to the business of quizzing me on what accessories I intend to wear. He pulls a beautiful jeweled brooch from his breast pocket, pinning it on the collar.
“These gems look real.” I run my fingertips over their prismatic surfaces.
“Perhaps because they are. This belonged to a great Auntie of mine, a Duchess, and in the great tradition of Harry Winston, I’ll be accompanying you to guard the family jewels. I’ll be sure to remove the brooch before night’s end and take it home again. As for removing any other items from your lithesome figure, we’ll leave that lovely task to Alexander the Great.”
~~~~~
“I’m not coming back to New York. I’m going home for good. It’s time.”
The only thing that steadies me is that I’m in Evan’s arms when this news is dropped on me. In Evan’s arms, it seems any news can be borne.
Sinclair and TJ, Careen and Mr. Palmer are in the outer room of the café, taking their time over their dessert and coffee. Dylan and Brandon left before dessert, off to secure more plans for their tour. The Cowboy Junkies “Blue Moon” plays languidly on the jukebox, and, at Evan’s request for a dance with me, we’ve moved on into another room, where the lighting is dim, where the floor is a midnight blue like some deep sea that has never touched shore. He takes my hand and we move to the windows overlooking a quaint cobblestone street in the Village.
“My brother and I had a plan. I would accept the scholarship and come to New York, and send money home. My brother would try to save what he could, and after a few years I would return and we’d rebuild the ranch to the way it was when we were kids, before our father died when we were eight years old. But after a few years here, I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to go home. I loved it here. I loved my job. I loved the traveling. The truth is, I was happy to get away. I wanted excitement. I wanted to get as far away from that small broken down
old ranch as possible. And when my brother died, I told myself I could do more for my family by remaining here, by maybe going into acting, where the sky is the limit, money-wise.”
We’ve glided over to the French doors. I feel the need for air, and move out onto the terrace.
“How did your brother die?”
“An asthma attack. He was working outside on one of the barns, and I guess he was too far way from his medicine. You remind me of him, Haley. When he would come to New York to visit he would get claustrophobic too, like you. He felt he couldn’t breathe on the subways or in the crowds. He needed big spaces. Big spirits need big spaces. He called me Evan-lier, the way you do. No one but the two of you has ever called me that. The first time you said it, it freaked me out completely.”
Evan seems to recall some amusing memory of his brother. “He loved the big open spaces. He wanted to be a pilot. He wanted to go to school to learn to fly, and to some day build his own planes. He probably wanted to fly as far away as possible from that ranch and all its problems. But he couldn’t do it, not while I was here in New York. Not until I came back. But I never went back.”
“Of course you didn’t. Do you know how many dancers would give their right arm to have a job with ABT? Nobody would just walk away voluntarily from that. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live your own life.”
“When I was in the ballet company, I lived with someone. She was quite a few years older than me. I guess you could say that she took care of me. That enabled me to send most of my salary home to my family. But when my brother died, I went downhill and started drinking. I was fired from the company, and that’s when I met Wanda. She promised me the world. I would’ve done anything to not have to go back home, and I did do anything, didn’t I? I’ll never forget the look on your face when you asked me if I was sleeping with my agent. I realized at that moment what I had become.” Evan’s handsome face is a kaleidoscope of emotions.
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