December Dance

by Verity Norton

  Arielle ushered her inside and sat her down on the couch beside a cup of tea. “Talk to me.”

  Anne nodded. “Where do I begin?”

  “Beginning, middle, or end, it doesn’t matter.” She was used to piecing issues and timeframes together.

  Anne picked up her cup of tea and inhaled the soothing scent of jasmine. “We said good-bye. And I left. And I don’t know if he’ll stay.”

  Arielle turned and faced her on the couch. This was not going to be a short conversation. “Do you want him to stay?”

  “I don’t expect him to stay. Men never stay.” She put up her hand to stop Arielle from speaking. “And despite what you may think, it’s not because I tell them to leave.” Arielle raised a single eyebrow, but Anne ignored it. “It’s not.”

  “You didn’t answer my question. Do you want him to stay?”

  “I don’t know. I’m scared he won’t stay.” She sighed. “And I’m scared he will.”

  This was an improvement, the therapist thought. Possibly for the first time in her life, Anne was confused. According to everything she knew about her cousin-in-law, she’d always known exactly what she wanted. And her message to men had always been clear: “Don’t be here when I get back.”

  “It sounds as if you’re more afraid of his leaving than staying.”

  Anne shrugged, not sure if that was true or not. But she was sure of one thing. For the first time in her life, she was confused about her feelings. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? He won’t stay.”

  “Why do you think that? Did he tell you that?”

  “No. Actually, he kind of said he would stay.”

  “Kind of?”

  Another shrug, followed by a long sip of tea. Exasperated, she set down her cup. Why had she come here in the first place? “Do you have to ask so many questions?”

  “It’s what you’re paying me for.”

  “I’m paying you?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Anne frowned and then it hit her. “I should be, shouldn’t I?”

  Arielle laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ll put it on the McCullough family tab.”

  “There’s a McCullough family tab?”

  “Oh, yeah, between Skye and you and Cassie and Alex and—”

  “Alex? My big brother asked you for advice?”

  “He did.”

  Anne was feeling much better now.

  Arielle picked up her own cup of tea and took a cautious sip of the steaming hot liquid. Anne had a better tolerance for heat than she did. “So, back to my annoying question. Kind of?”

  Anne grumbled. “Okay, he said he would stay, but after that, I told him good-bye . . . with finality, you know? And then I drove off.”

  “That was the very end of the conversation?”

  “Not quite. He said something about having a flaw, besides snoring.”

  “What kind of a flaw?”

  “Something about falling in love with a woman who wouldn’t let herself love him even though she’s in love with him.”

  “And are you?”

  Anne scowled. “Again with the questions.”

  “Isn’t that why you’re here? Isn’t that why you chose me to talk to?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Do you think this has something to do with your fear of commitment?”

  Anne groaned. “I really should get back on the road. We have a rehearsal tonight and I want to get settled in first.” She stood up, but Arielle just sat there staring at her.

  After a long silent moment, Arielle said. “You came here for a reason, Anne.” She picked up Anne’s cup. “Think about it. I’ll go get you some more tea.” She considered bringing up deeper issues, such as fear of engulfment and abandonment. Most people majored in one and minored in the other. Her sense was that they did come into play here, but knowing Anne’s family and background, she didn’t think those fears ran that deep. Anne was passionate about dance. She was a free spirit. She didn’t want to lose that or herself. She just had to realize that she didn’t have to.

  Anne stood there staring at the fireplace. The flames were dancing all around, flickering here and jumping there, reminding her of herself. Dance was her passion. That was the only thing she knew for sure. She lived and breathed to dance. She wasn’t afraid of commitment. Otherwise how could she be this committed to dance?

  She walked over to the fireplace and squatted down, feeling the warmth soothing her body and her face. Only now she wasn’t seeing herself dancing in the flames anymore. She was seeing Chris’s face and the sadness in his warm brown eyes as he’d watched her turn and walk away from him. She hated feeling this way. She didn’t want to feel this way.

  Damn him. This was his fault. Why did he have to come to Canden Valley in the first place? Why did he have to go and fall in love with her? Why did he have to get her all mixed up and confused inside? She didn’t want this. She didn’t want anything but dance. She didn’t want to deal with these feelings.

  She stood and turned at the sound of a cup being set down on the coffee table. Arielle smiled and sat down on the couch. Anne knew she was safe here. She could say whatever she needed to say and not be judged. She sat back down, tears brimming in her eyes now. “He says it’s his heart that’s on the line. Not mine, but his. He says I’m the heartbreaker.”

  “And what do you think?”

  Anne took a deep breath and let her feelings manifest into words. “I don’t think I’m the heartbreaker he makes me out to be. I don’t think I’m the one who ends it. I don’t think I give men the message not to be here when I get back. Okay, maybe sometimes I have, but not every time. There have been plenty of men who promised they’d wait for me to come back, a couple men in San Francisco for example. But by the time I returned from tour, they’d moved on.”

  “And?” Arielle knew there was more, something she hadn’t touched on, something that was fighting to get out.

  “I’m just not sure I can ever love anyone as much as I love dance.”

  There it was. Arielle spoke softly. “It doesn’t have to be one or the other anymore than you have to choose between loving someone else and loving yourself. Dance is your way of loving yourself.”

  “Geez, Arielle.” She scowled at her friend. “Do you always have to make so much sense?”

  “Sorry.”

  Anne sighed a deep sigh. “I just don’t know how to do both. Especially because they always want more than I can give them. More time, more attention . . . more commitment.” Another deep sigh. “I’m scared they’ll want too much and if I give it to them, I’ll be giving too much of myself away.”

  Arielle’s expression held no judgment, only understanding. “I agree you should hold onto yourself and who you are and not give up your dance for a man.”

  “But?” Anne recognized the inflection in Arielle’s voice.

  “What would you do if for some reason you couldn’t ever dance again?”

  “Die!” Anne answered without thinking.

  Arielle didn’t laugh along with her. Instead she leaned in closer and said softly, “Would you?”

  It took Anne a moment to respond. “No, but I’d sure want to for a while.”

  Arielle held the silence and waited for Anne to fill it. She wasn’t disappointed.

  “I really don’t know how I’d go on. I would, but I don’t know how.”

  “You’re more than your dance, Anne. Yes, it’s your passion and you love it and are incredible at it, and yes, it is your way of expressing your passion for life. But you need to know that you’re not only your dance. You’re much more than that.”

  “I know that.” She opened her eyes wider at the therapist’s look of doubt. “I do. It’s just that—Okay, I get it. But I still won’t give it up for a man. For anyone.”

  “And so you shouldn’t. We should never give ourselves up for anyone else. But that doesn’t mean we can’t love. In fact, it pretty much works the opposite way. The more we’re able to love ourselves, the
more love we have to give others.”

  Anne struggled to absorb the therapist’s words. She just wasn’t sure she believed them.

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  Anne stood up and carried her cup into the kitchen where she rinsed it and put it in the dishwasher. Arielle was standing behind her, still waiting for an answer.

  “I’m going to go dance.”

  “What’s wrong, sweetie?” Denny’s arm went around her shoulders when they finished running through their dance for the third time.

  “Nothing’s wrong.” She forced a smile. “Everything’s good. Great actually. My Cousin Mairi is still down in Winslow with her family, so I have Alex’s condo all to myself.” She was glad of that. Time alone. No one to bother her. No one to ask prying questions.

  “So, you got settled in okay before you came to the theater?”

  “Yep. So, you see nothing’s wrong.”

  Denny crossed his arms against his chest. “How long have we known each other? How long have we been partners?”

  “Why do you think something’s wrong?”

  “We ran through the dance three times, and not once did you come close to dancing it the way you did when we rehearsed in Canden Valley. Your heart isn’t in it.”

  So it wasn’t her imagination.

  “Call him. Talk to him. Do whatever you have to do.”

  “No way. It’s over.” This time it was her arms that crossed in front of her chest. “How do you know it has to do with a man anyway?”

  “Doesn’t it always?”

  Anne laughed. “More often for you than me.”

  Denny laughed and hugged her against his chest. “Well, it’s about time it is for you too. So, what are you going to do?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Well, whatever it is, it would be good if you did it before dress rehearsal tomorrow.”

  She nodded as she walked off the stage to grab her dance bag. Right now all she could think about was a long soak in Alex’s Jacuzzi tub and a large glass of Merlot.

  But even an hour-long soak in the tub didn’t help. All she could see was Chris’s face and the hurt in his eyes. All she could hear were his words accusing her of being the heartbreaker, saying his heart was the one that was on the line. If that was true, why was her heart aching so much right now?

  She climbed out of the tub and dried off. She didn’t believe him. He couldn’t be right. She wasn’t the one who was causing all the pain between them. She wasn’t a heartbreaker.

  Damn. She picked up her cell, made two phone calls, got dressed, and left the condo.

  Twenty minutes later she was sitting at a neighborhood café. She beamed up at the man who joined her at her table.

  “Hello, Tim.”

  “Hello, Anne, how have you been?”

  “Okay. And you?”

  “Good.”

  “Are you happy?”

  “You mean have I found someone I’m happy and ready to settle down with? Not yet, but I’ve been seeing someone. It could turn into something serious. And you?” He shook his head. “No, I don’t see you ever settling down. So, what is this about? Your call was unexpected, to say the least.”

  “Sorry about that, but I really need to ask you something.”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  The server came over, and he ordered a cappuccino.

  “This is kind of awkward.”

  Tim reached for her hand and held it across the table. “It doesn’t have to be. We’re still friends, I hope.”

  “We are.” Anne released her breath. “Why didn’t you wait for me to return from my dance tour?”

  Tim leaned back in his chair. “Did you want me to?”

  “I thought I did.”

  “But you really didn’t.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  He thanked the server for his drink and took a sip of the hot liquid, set it down, and looked across the table at her. “Because all you could talk about before you headed out on your tour was how much you loved that lifestyle, being free and unattached so you could go anywhere you wanted, do anything you wanted. I would have had to be pretty damn dense not to get it.”

  “You took that to mean I didn’t want you to wait for me?”

  He tilted his head to the side as if in an attempt to understand the question. “Anne, you were very clear. You didn’t want me to wait for you. Besides trying to start a fight with me for three days before you left, you as much as said I shouldn’t wait around. You told me you weren’t good at long-term relationships. I think incompatible was the word you used. They were incompatible with your lifestyle. And when you said good-bye the day you left, you said it with such finality it would have been impossible to misunderstand its meaning.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For?”

  “Not sure. Maybe not being clearer, more honest.”

  “You were plenty clear.”

  “Did I hurt you?”

  His sigh was deep and ragged. “Oh, yeah.”

  She cringed. Maybe she was the heartbreaker Chris had made her out to be.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m mending. Still a little broken, but getting there.”

  They talked for a few more minutes about life and love and the new woman in his life. She was happy for him. He was a good guy. He deserved someone kind and sweet, someone who was able to love him back.

  After he left, she ordered another cup of tea and waited for her second guest. She knew he’d be on time. He always was. She ordered him an Irish coffee five minutes before his arrival time.

  “Gabe.”

  He smiled and pulled her out of her chair and into his arms for a giant hug. “Missed you, beautiful.”

  “Thanks. How have you been?”

  “Not too bad. You?”

  “Fine.”

  “Thanks for ordering.” He took a sip of the spiked coffee. “You remembered.”

  “Of course.”

  He leaned in closer. “We were good together, weren’t we?”

  “We were.”

  “You know I was in love with you.”

  She shook her head. She’d had a hunch, but she supposed she hadn’t wanted to know so she hadn’t let herself believe it.

  “Well, I was.”

  “Did I hurt you terribly?”

  “Yes.”Gabe was nothing if not honest.

  “I didn’t realize—”

  “Don’t worry, I’m moving on.”

  “I thought you’d done that a long time ago. When I left on my last tour.”

  “No.”

  “But you told me—”

  “I saw the writing on the wall. Didn’t want to go through the pain again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you broke my heart once. I didn’t want you to do it again.”

  “I don’t understand. When I got back from my tour, you were the one who said you’d moved on.”

  “Because you wanted me to say that. You wanted me to have moved on.”

  “Did I tell you that?”

  “You told me you didn’t expect me to wait. You told me all the reasons I shouldn’t. You told me men don’t wait. They claim they will, but they don’t. You told me it was unreasonable to expect them to.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I asked you, ‘what if they want to wait?’”

  Anne frowned. Why couldn’t she remember this conversation? “And what did I say?”

  “You said that no man could love you enough to make him keep waiting. You said maybe he’d wait the first time, but there was no way he’d wait month after month, tour after tour.”

  She looked down at her tea and then took a sip. When she set it down, Gabe took her hand and held it. He pulled it to his lips and kissed it lightly, much the way Chris often did.

  “I would have waited, you know.”

  “Why?”

  “For you, Anne? Are you serious?”

  She shook her head in
disbelief. How many men had she hurt along the way?

  “I was in love with you.” He pressed his hand to his heart. “Still am a little.”

  She flinched and he laughed. “Don’t worry, I think I’ll go for someone who’s a little more settled next time.”

  “Settled?”

  “Yeah, someone who likes to stay in one place and wants to settle down. Maybe a teacher or a doctor or—I don’t know—maybe a landscape designer. They should be well-grounded.” He chuckled at his pun.

  Anne looked up at him in wonder. In one sentence, he had covered two of her cousins and her sister. She’d have to warn him to stay away from Canden Valley, lest he get involved with another McCullough.

  “But don’t worry,” Gabe continued. “I’m not about to throw my heart in the path of a wild and free dancer again. I fear it wouldn’t survive a second time.”

  This time she reached for his hand. “I’m so sorry, Gabe. I didn’t realize.”

  “So, tell me, what is this all about?”

  “Recently I was accused of being a heartbreaker,” she said. “Just trying to figure out if it’s true.”

  “Does this have to do with a guy? Are you involved with someone?”

  “Kind of.”

  “If you were anyone else, I’d think that ‘kind of’ doesn’t sound so good, but for you, it sounds serious.”

  They talked for a few minutes more, delving a little more into the past and their relationship. It wasn’t until he was about to leave that it occurred to her to ask, “By the way, did a man ever talk to you about me? After we’d stop seeing each other?”

  “A man?”

  “A photographer?”

  “Oh, yeah, as a matter of fact. He bought me a beer. Nice guy. Asked a lot of questions about you. Said he was doing a story on dancers and their lifestyles.” Understanding sank in and he smiled. “Ah, that’s not why he was asking. He was into you. I kind of thought that might be the case.”

  “Why?”

  “Just the way his voice got quiet and raspier when he mentioned your name. Is that what this is about? Why you wanted to talk to me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you in love with the guy?”