Ballet Shoes and Engine Grease

by Tatiana March

  BALLET SHOES AND ENGINE GREASE

  BY

  Tatiana March

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  Smashwords edition

  Copyright 2013 by Tatiana March

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the permission of the author except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner to create a sense of authenticity. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Nick Constantine leaned forward in the flimsy wooden reproduction chair. “Say that again?”

  The family lawyer, Adam Andrews, cleared his throat and repeated his words in a dull monotone. “My shares in Constantine Motors go to my son, Nicholas Constantine, provided he enters into a marriage—”

  Nick exploded out of his seat. As impossible as it might be, he’d heard right the first time. Even from the grave, the old man was trying to control him. Fury boiled up in his gut as he slammed his palms on the shiny mahogany top and lurched across the desk.

  He glared at the lawyer and spoke through clenched teeth. “No. Fucking. Way.”

  In front of him, Adam Andrews shrank back in the big leather chair. The thin strands of sandy hair plastered over his balding skull fluttered with the evasive motion. His pale gray eyes bugged with fright, as if he suspected that his client might at any second reach out and wrap both hands around his throat, squeezing the life out of him.

  The idea had some merit, Nick had to admit.

  “Nicky, please, sit down.”

  Prompted by the tugging at the hem of his suit jacket, Nick glanced back to his left. His mother, Myrna, sent him an imploring look. Dressed in beige Chanel, blond hair in an immaculate upsweep, she looked calm and elegant.

  Just as she had at the funeral a week ago.

  Then again, she was the first wife. She’d done her grieving seventeen years ago when she’d been dumped—when they’d both been dumped for Wife Number Two and her adorable little son, a handy replacement family for the one that no longer held appeal.

  “I’m afraid I hadn’t quite finished,” the lawyer said and Nick detected a trace of warning in the small man’s bland tone. A chill crept over him. More bad news to come? How could there possibly be anything worse in his father’s will?

  “My shares in Constantine Motors go to my son, Nicholas Constantine, provided he enters into marriage...” The lawyer paused and shot a look of concern at Nick. “...into marriage with Crimson Mills, the only child of Esmeralda Mills, my third and current wife.”

  Nick felt his stomach lurch. No way. No way.

  Slowly, as if being pulled by a string, his head turned to the right. His gaze landed on Wife Number Three, sitting in an identical chair beside him. She wore a garish red suit several sizes too small. Her shaggy, bleached blond hair fell in tousled curls around a pair of sturdy shoulders. A thick layer of makeup covered the plump features.

  She looked like a middle aged dinner lady who’d won the lottery.

  Which she had, more or less, by her marriage.

  Nick had never met the daughter, but he had a vague idea that she was in her middle twenties, some kind of a dancer. Stripper, he presumed. His insides knotted up as he digested the news that his father wanted him shackled in holy matrimony to a stripper called Crimson.

  After Wife Number Two and her adorable—although no longer so little—son had died in a car wreck two years ago, Nick had entertained hopes of a family reconciliation. But alas, it was not to be. Instead of making an effort to repair seventeen years of neglect toward his first wife and only biological offspring, Stephan Constantine had sought out his childhood sweetheart—the daughter of the gardener who had worked at the family mansion, Longwood Hall—and had promptly married her.

  In truth, Nick had been relieved by the old man’s choice.

  No dolly birds. No scandal. And, with Wife Number Three nearing fifty, no prospect of half siblings to muddy the waters of succession. Nick might not have been on speaking terms with his father, but he was the only child, the son and heir. He’d figured there’d be plenty of time to heal the rift later on, when the old man wanted to retire and needed someone to step into his shoes.

  But, by dying at fifty-five, his father had put an end to those plans.

  “I’m not going to marry anyone on command,” Nick declared.

  His voice came out low and rough, but with enough steel in it to make him proud. His fingers gripped the armrests of the chair, so hard that he feared his knuckles might snap. Unless, of course, the wood splintered first. “So, who gets Constantine Motors?” he asked, feigning a casual tone. “Some charity? One of Dad’s budgerigars? The employees?”

  The lawyer shuffled the papers, adjusted his horn rimmed glasses and droned on. “Should my son Nicholas Constantine decline to marry my stepdaughter Crimson Mills, my shares in Constantine Motors will be divided as follows: twenty percent to my first wife, Myrna Constantine. Twenty percent to my third wife, Esmeralda Mills. Sixty percent to my stepdaughter, Crimson Mills. This is on the following conditions—”

  Nick pushed up to his feet. He adjusted his suit jacket and gave the lawyer a curt nod. “I think I’ve heard enough. Thank you for your time, Mr. Andrews.” He glanced to his right, then to his left, and spoke in a chilly, polite tone. “Mrs. Mills…Mother…Congratulations. Good luck in running Constantine Motors.”

  The slight man with bug-eyes looked up from his papers. “I haven’t finished reading the will,” he protested. “There are conditions—”

  Despite the anger, and the hurt that threatened to choke him, Nick managed a bitter smile. “Those conditions have nothing to do with me, do they now, Mr. Andrews?” he pointed out. “After all, I didn’t inherit anything at all. I’ll leave you to deal with the rest of it.”

  He raked his gaze over the three people still seated. Was that a flicker of sympathy he could see drifting across the lawyer’s pinched features? Nick couldn’t tell for certain, but his mother was easier to read. Bitter outrage, mixed with a hint of relief and a touch of greed. The dinner lady—or whatever was the right term for someone who until her marriage a year ago had earned her living in a school kitchen—looked shocked, as if someone had just told her that her entire life was a lie.

  Nick spun on his polished Gucci shoes and strode out. He didn’t want to admit it, not even to himself, but tears of rejection and disappointment burned behind his eyelids. He’d been fifteen years old when his father fell in love with another woman, and he’d reacted with the blind, uncompromising anger of an adolescent, siding with his abandoned mother.

  Later, when things settled down and emotions cooled, they might have found a way to repair the damage, but pride and stubbornness from both sides had kept him and his father apart. And yet, despite the long years of estrangement, Nick had always felt the pull of the family bond, had expected to one day inherit Constantine Motors.

  He’d trained for it. Had lived for it. />
  Even the car he drove, a Constantine Panther, had in his mind been a promise for the future. It had arrived on his eighteenth birthday, with a card that said “From the staff and management at Constantine Motors”. Nick had accepted the gift, but his bitterness had been too deep, his loyalty to his mother too fierce for him to respond to the gesture of reconciliation.

  And now he had to pay the price for his rebellion.

  Constantine Motors, the family legacy, would never be his.

  ****

  Crimson Mills curled up in the economy seat of the airplane and tried to get some sleep. Even with a dancer’s ability to twist her body into knots, she could never get quite comfortable in the confined space. Today, the strain of having made one of the most difficult decisions of her life added to the discomfort that throbbed through her muscles.

  She’d never wanted to do anything but dance.

  Throughout her childhood and teenage years, ballet lessons had occupied her time. She’d failed to reach the pinnacle of a prima ballerina, but she had achieved what most little girls in tutus could only dream of—a full time job as a dancer. It might have only been in the chorus line of a touring company, but her role had taken her to Europe, to South America, and even to Japan, often for months at a time.

  And now it was over.

  Who would have thought that something as trivial as a dust mite—a creature so tiny the naked eye failed to see it—could terminate a career? When the coughing and wheezing had first started, she’d blamed a virus. Eventually, the doctors in South America had diagnosed asthma, and Crimson had been forced to face the truth.

  By that time, she’d ruined a gala performance of Sleeping Beauty with a choking fit. If she hadn’t decided that she needed to retire to safeguard her health, she suspected that she would have been fired anyway. A dancer prone to coughing fits on stage was a liability.

  No job, no savings. The smart thing to do now was to go home and stay with her mother while she made plans for the future. Home to Longwood, on the northern edge of New York State, where she’d grown up as a skinny, pale kid with ash blond hair and a funny name that clashed with her coloring.

  When people in Longwood looked at her, Crimson always felt they didn’t see her. They saw a loutish father who’d died in a bar brawl when she was nine, and an overweight mother who dressed like a teenager.

  When Esmeralda—her mother—had married that rich man from her youth, Crimson had been bowled over. Who would have guessed that someone worth millions might want to hook up with an aging prom queen with hair brittle from too much bleach and hands chapped from washing pots and pans? Her mother had no education, no ambition, and no interest in anything but small town gossip and making dolls’ houses.

  Technically, Crimson supposed, her mother’s second husband had been her stepfather. She’d been introduced to him at the wedding, and then she’d gone to stay with them at Longwood Hall for a month around Christmas, after the Japanese tour, and for another two weeks in April, just a short while ago. Although nothing had been said at the time, it was clear that Uncle Stephan—they had agreed on that as the most sensible form of address—was dying rather than just sick.

  Crimson felt guilty for not having attended the funeral, but once she had made her decision to give up dancing she hadn’t wanted to rush home from South America in a hurry. A few more performances. Buenos Aires and Santiago. Her own personal farewell tour.

  What did it matter to a dead person anyway who stood by the graveside? And it was not as if they’d meant anything special to each other. Stephan Constantine had married Esmeralda Mills on a whim, most likely to spite his frosty ex-wife, and had probably regretted it even before the wedding flowers faded.

  Crimson wriggled in the narrow airplane seat. She hoped the man had enough charity to leave her mother some money to live on. If not, Esmeralda would have to go back to cooking school dinners. Crimson certainly couldn’t support anyone. At twenty-six, she had no skills, and would struggle to pay her own way.

  Unless...

  No. She brushed aside the thought. Why would Uncle Stephan have left her anything? Heavens. Even though they’d liked each other, she barely knew the man, and he had a son of his own blood. They were estranged, but when push came to shove, blood ties won.

  Huddling beneath the small fleece blanket, Crimson recalled the photos she’d seen of a young man with dark hair and eyes. In her favorite picture, he’d been shirtless, arms roped with muscle as he bent over the open hood of a racing car, tinkering with the engine.

  Like always, when she allowed her thoughts to linger on his image, her imagination began to spin fairytales in choreography. She saw dancers gliding on the stage, a snow queen with long silvery hair, the prince of darkness with brooding, handsome looks. She drifted off to sleep just before she got to the part where the prince of darkness pulled the snow queen into his arms and brought his mouth down to hers in a passionate kiss.

  ****

  “Crimson! Crimson! Co-ee!”

  Heavens? What was that? An out of season Father Christmas? Crimson peered through the crowds in International Arrivals at JFK. No. That creature in bright red was her mother. Dragging her big trolley case with her left hand, her carry-on with her right, Crimson made her way toward the parental welcoming committee.

  “Hi, Mom!” She forced a cheerful note. “I didn’t expect you. I don’t think I gave you my flight details.” Of course I didn’t. Her mother was a nervous driver who refused to get behind the wheel unless she knew every inch of the route. She would never have ventured into New York City, a hundred miles south of Longwood.

  Esmeralda tugged at Crimson’s arm to direct her attention to the elegant, middle aged woman who stood beside them, immaculate in a beige suit, blond hair twisted into a neat chignon. “This is Myrna Constantine,” she announced proudly. “Myrna figured out which flight you were on. She is good at getting information from people.”

  When Crimson’s only reaction was stunned silence, her mother added, “Myrna is Stephan’s first wife. Nick’s mother.”

  Speechless, Crimson clung to the handles of her suitcases as the woman in beige leaned forward to brush air kisses on both her cheeks, first one side, then the other, enveloping her in a cloud of perfume. “So lovely to finally meet you, Crimson.” Her voice was cool and cultured.

  From the corner of her eye, Crimson saw a flash of red. It was her mother, gesturing toward the exit. “Let’s go,” Esmeralda said, ushering her along. “We have a limo waiting at the curb. We can talk on the way to Park Avenue.”

  Click, click, click. Two pairs of high heels set off across the floor. Crimson followed, hauling her suitcases. Her brows drew into a frown as she mulled over her mother’s words.

  Myrna is Stephan’s first wife. What was going on? Two women who were supposed to be enemies were behaving like a schoolgirl reunion and taking her to some unspecified place on Park Avenue.

  In the limo, they seated her in the middle. Myrna Constantine tapped the driver on the shoulder and said something. A second later, a transparent screen rose to insulate the rear seat from his prying ears—that is, if he was interested enough in their conversation to pry, which Crimson very much doubted.

  “Guess what?” Her mother said, blue eyes round as a full moon.

  “No idea,” Crimson replied.

  “It is rather wonderful news, my dear,” the elegant stranger said.

  “Mrs. Constantine...”

  “Please. Call me Myrna. And may I call you Crimson?”

  She could hear a tiny quiver of distaste in the woman’s voice. A wave of childish anger at her mother swelled within Crimson. “Sure,” she muttered. “Go ahead.” Crimson, puce, purple, mauve. As a kid, she’d been called every shade of red. Even now, at twenty-six, echoes of those childhood taunts rode in the limo with her.

  “Well, Crimson.” Myrna sat with her spine ramrod straight, knees pressed together and folded to one side, hands resting in her lap. “We are the joint new owners
of Constantine Motors. The three of us. Isn’t that exciting, my dear?” Her pink lips curved into a strained smile.

  Crimson made a non-committal sound. If she hadn’t worked on the stage, where dancers sometimes had to smile until their cheeks cramped, she might have been fooled into thinking the woman’s delight was genuine.

  Her mother grabbed her hand and squeezed it with the strength gained from hauling heavy pots and pans. “Crimson, honey, do you understand? Stephan left the business to you. We’ll run it together. It will be fabulous. Just like Dynasty, except there are no horses or oil.”

  When Crimson failed to reply, her mother pressed on, “Do you understand, honey?”

  Crimson turned to the left, away from Myrna’s cloud of Estee Lauder, toward her mother’s equally powerful scent of Oscar de la Renta. “No, Mom, frankly, I don’t,” she said. “Why would Uncle Stephan leave his business to me and not to his son?”

  Perfume clouds mingled as Myrna Constantine made a sweeping gesture with one manicured hand. “Oh, Stephan offered the business to Nick, but he turned it down. That boy is so maddeningly stubborn. Independent. Refuses to follow in his father’s footsteps.”

  “He turned it down?” Crimson asked, full of doubt.

  “Yes,” Myrna said, in the slightly overbearing manner of someone who knows she is telling a boldfaced lie. “He prefers to be independent. Make his own way.”

  Crimson pursed her mouth. “I see.”

  In silence, she listened as the two women prattled on, informing her about their minority shares and her majority holding in Constantine Motors. And, all the while, a seed of dread niggled in her belly. It simply didn’t make sense. No sense at all. She was sure that for each word they told her, a dozen more were left unsaid.

  Something was wrong.

  Something was very wrong.

  ****

  The law offices on Park Avenue seemed so upscale it surprised Crimson they allowed her to enter in her traveling outfit of black cotton pants, a ratty pink cardigan, and worn white Reeboks. As they settled in three identical chairs opposite the shiny mahogany desk, her mother bent to whisper into her ear.