by Lynn Turner
Chapter Seven
Zack’s childhood home should’ve had a revolving door. It was always full—of family, friends, neighbors—or kids from the recreation center where his mother still taught group salsa classes. Parties were a regular thing, especially for holidays like today, with bomba, soul and pop music playing, people dancing, and the tantalizing smell of food cooking and stewing and frying and baking.
The two-family red brick row house in Sunset Park, Brooklyn vibrated with Fourth of July merriment rivaling the veritable block party happening outside. He could already hear the pandemonium inside before he reached the front gate. As soon as he stepped onto the landing, Isaac, the toothless ragamuffin from two houses down, opened the door and poked his head out in greeting.
“Tio!” He launched himself at Zack’s legs. “What did you bring me?”
“How ‘bout ‘hello’ first, pana?”
“Qué es la que, Tio?” the little ankle-biter amended with a grin. “What did you bring me?”
“Better.” Zack mirrored Isaac’s infectious grin. Digging into his pocket, wrinkling his nose for good measure, he presented a shiny red diecast car.
“A corvette! I’m gonna go show Titi!” He took off flying through the foyer and disappearing around a corner.
Zack chuckled. “Titi” could be any one of the women whose animated voices echoed from the kitchen, but he was pretty sure the pudgy human hurricane was referring to Zack’s own mother, who was no doubt the ringleader of whatever mischief was happening behind the swinging double doors.
He passed through the living room, where a few more children (some relatives, some belonging to neighbors) were watching cartoons, to the dining room, where several men were playing a rowdy game of dominoes, and a sweaty Manuel Otero was kicking their asses.
“What’s with the suit, papá?” Zack teased, kissing Manny’s finely-lined cheek. “It’s a holiday!”
“I’m on the city council, hijo! The city asks you to give a speech in the park, you wear a tie. What can I say?”
“Manny’s sweating all over the place,” a long-time friend of the family complained. “Stinking the whole place up.”
“It’s not sweat,” Manny countered. “It’s drool. I’m drowning here. Can’t smell anything over what’s coming from the kitchen. Who’s gonna go in there and see what’s holding them up?”
“Bochinche!” a few chimed at the same time, and they all laughed and rolled their eyes.
As if on cue, laughter pealed from the kitchen and Zack grinned. The ladies were gossiping, but the men didn’t really mind. It was as much a beloved tradition among them to complain about the gossip as it was to play dominoes.
“I’ll go check it out.” Zack headed toward the kitchen.
Just as he was about to enter, the doors swung wide, and Isaac darted out, wide-eyed with red cheeks and wildly tousled hair.
“Don’t go in there, Tio!” he said, deathly serious. “They PINCH!”
“I’ll be careful,” Zack promised, but the little one had already scrammed.
He took a few sobering breaths, knowing exactly what he was walking into and questioning his sanity for it, then stepped through the double doors.
And whoosh…
Sensory overload.
The hot air hit him first. Though the windows were open, the walls would start sweating any moment from all the pots going on the stove and in the oven, and the finished dishes keeping warm on the countertops. And then the smell…rice and beans and roasted pork, Puerto Rican tamales and chicken stew…the heavy scent of rum in whatever concoction the ladies had obviously had a few of. Then sound.
He dropped the grocery bag he was holding as his mother and four “aunts,” some related and some not, descended on him. They fussed over him and cooed in the rapid-fire Spanglish they’d adapted since he was ten years old. He recognized them only by their voices because they came at him all at once. Tucking his head down, he squinted his eyes at the affectionate assault.
“Aaaayyyyy, cariño! You’re back! And so handsome!” Titi Ana cooed, mussing his hair.
“Sí, guapo, but flaco. Needs to eat,” Titi Clarita said, pinching his ribs and arms.
“Handsome…but what’s this?” Titi Isabel asked. “Muy velludo,” she tssked, rubbing the stubble on his chin with her fingers.
“Sí, but I like him hairy,” Titi Yara approved.” He looks like a man.”
There were kisses to his face, hands in his hair, fingers pinching his cheeks…and someone pinched his ass.
“That’s because he is a man,” Carmen Otero snapped, mercifully tugging her son away from the clucking hens. “Strong and sweet, like his father.”
Zack rubbed his pinch-reddened face and grinned. “I can’t believe you still haven’t told papá I’m adopted.”
His aunts howled with laughter, but Carmen was removing her sandal. “You think he doesn’t know that, mijo?” She swatted him in the shoulder with it. “He was there! He signed the papers! I’m talking about things you don’t inherit from DNA.”
“No way, eh?” Yara quipped, getting back to whisking the eggs for her famous cheese flan. “He definitely didn’t get those hips from his birth father, but those eyes! So green.”
Carmen sucked her teeth. “Sit, mijo,” she commanded Zack, pointing to a stool. “You need to eat.”
“I eat three thousand calories a day, mamá, I don’t need-”
She cut him off, feeding him beans and rice, her hand cupped beneath the heaping spoon. It was fine. It was his cheat meal.
“You burn it off so fast,” she complained, setting a full plate in front of him. “It’s a wonder you don’t lose weight and catch pneumonia.”
Zack stifled a laugh, fearful of getting her shoe again. She had a preoccupation with feeding him whenever he came home and was in constant fear of him developing pneumonia. She really needed to stay away from Google.
“Did you bring my Adobo?” she asked, turning back to the stove to stir something.
His abuelita left her place at the sink, where she’d been the entire time, rinsing dishes and humming to the merengue in the background. She didn’t say anything, just cupped his face and planted a kiss right on his lips, then put an ice-cold rum-laced drink in front of him and waited.
“Sí,” he said to Carmen, putting the grocery bag on the counter. “With the red lid, not the blue.”
Then he gave the drink a sniff. Rum, fresh lime, pineapple juice. It was an el Presidente. He caught Abuelita’s knowing wink as she turned back to the sink. She might look harmless, but she made killer drinks, and he knew to sip slowly.
Carmen grabbed the bag and eyed Zack’s plate. Satisfied he was making progress with the food, she turned back to her task, talking all the while. “When are you coming back to the rec center, mijo? Your program is doing so well. Six older boys signed up for dance this summer! But the kids miss you. It’s been so long this time. We never see you anymore.”
“I’m here every Sunday, mamá.”
“Bah! You know what I mean!”
“Soon,” he promised, forking more food into his mouth. “And I want to bring someone with me.”
All the women, even Abuelita, turned to look at him with interest.
“Aayyy, chica bonita!” Yara, the chattiest aunt, chimed in. “Dances like a dream.”
“Muy bonita…but she’s skinny too,” Clarita said. “All that twirling around keeps the curves away.”
“Titi,” Zack said playfully. “She’s fine the way she is, probably eats more than you.”
“Eh?” Carmen’s thin brow rose, a hand on her wide hip.
The aunts all took that as their cue to pretend they were busy, but their heads were all inclined in his direction.
“What?” Zack innocently forked some sweet fried plátanos into his mouth.
“Don’t what me, mijo! Tell me, how are things going with the Parisian girl? Is she like you expected?”
He finished his mouthful and sipped his drink, already feeling fu
ll. Then he met his mother’s impatient stare. “In some ways, she is. But in other ways…” He ran his fingers through his hair. “It hasn’t been easy. Her training was probably tougher than papá’s military days,” he joked. “It’s been difficult breaking her in. But I think…I think I have it under control now.”
“Control?” Carmen scoffed. “That’s your problem, cariño. You think you always have to be in control. You don’t trust anyone to share it with you.”
When the aunts turned from their tasks to tssk and nod their heads in agreement, Zack knew he was in for it.
“You never control your partner,” Carmen continued. “You lead. Come on…” She set two mugs of café con leche on a tray and motioned with her hands for him to follow her. “Come talk to mamá.”
Zack followed behind her obediently to the sitting room—the one reserved for special occasions with its plush furniture, a piano that had been in the family for three generations, family photos, and a tapestry of The Last Supper on the wall above the sofa. He smiled inwardly. At least she finally took the plastic off the couch.
“Sit.” She set the tray on the coffee table and sat next to him, taking his hand like she’d done when he was a child. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I knew it was going to be challenging, training a classical ballerina to do the stuff I’m doing. I welcomed the challenge. I thought it would be fun.”
“Is it not fun?”
He nodded. “Some days, it’s incredible what we do. When she’s present…when I can tell she’s with me and she’s giving me everything, I have no doubt in my mind I made the right choice. But some days I can tell she’s someplace else. No matter how much I encourage her, how hard I push her, she just locks up. Loses focus. She gets unsure of herself and turns into this screaming, stubborn person. She completely shuts me out.”
“Someplace else?” Carmen asked. “Where would she go?”
“That’s just it, I don’t know. It’s clear something’s bothering her—something I can’t ask her about because it’s personal. Of course I’m worried we won’t be ready in time, but I have an understudy for just that possibility.” He shook his head. “I want her to know she can talk to me. That she can trust me. I’m not sure she thinks she can. If she won’t trust me, we won’t be as great as I know we can be. And that’s why I chose her in the first place.”
Carmen’s eyes widened at that. “Why did you choose her, mijo? Don’t tell me you got sucked in by a pretty face.”
“Well, I’m a visual person and she’s very…visual.”
She laughed, squeezing his hand. “Tell me.”
“It’s not easy to explain. There was just something about her.”
“My mijo? The writer? The one who is about to open on Broadway can’t find any words? BAH!”
Zack shrugged. “I couldn’t take my eyes off her. It’s that simple. Before I even saw her in Paris, I only watched one of her performances—all of thirty seconds of it on Alex’s TV. I found her intriguing. She took the role into herself until it wasn’t a role. That kind of passion? The kind that makes the audience forget they’re watching a show? I dunno…” He rubbed his chin, then threw up his hand. “I just got this—this urge. I had to dance with her.”
Carmen took a few sips of her café con leche. “If you say she’s Camille, then she’s Camille.”
Zack started to speak, but his mother held up her hand. “Don’t second guess yourself, nene. This ballerina…”
“Mina,” Zack offered.
“Mina…She’s uprooted herself, come all the way here—away from her family, away from everything she knows. She’s like you, when you first came to live with me and papi. Everything so new and exciting, and a little bit scary, too. But…” She took Zack’s chin in her hand. “She did those things because of you. Because she does trust you, mi tesoro. Or at least, your reputation. She wouldn’t have come if she didn’t.”
She was quiet, giving him time to process her words, as she’d done since he was a child. He sipped the coffee, thinking about what he’d learned of Mina so far…She dyed her ballet shoes. She snuck in extra practice with another choreographer. She picked herself apart in the mirror every chance she got. Every move she made, every thought, every spoken word, seemed meticulously controlled.
Well, except when she’s cursing at me.
She kept her insecurities to herself until they had her wound up so tight, there was no conclusion but to eventually fall apart. Looking up, he found his mother studying him. She was the seasoned teacher. And a woman. She would know what to do.
“What now?” he asked.
She sat up straighter to deliver her verdict. “Pretend the floor is like a map, mijo. And the steps are all the stops along the way, bien?”
Zack nodded.
“She is too focused on the vehicle and the weather and everything else, trying to get to certain places on the map. So now…now, you lead. You take the map. You drive the vehicle, so she can stop concentrating so much and just enjoy every stop.”
“No se, mamá,” he teased. “You sure you’re not the writer?”
“Bah!” She straightened her clothes, clearly flustered. “I’ve been around you too long! Come…You need to eat some more.”
Later, Zack stopped by the dance theater to post his fliers seeking skilled dancers to volunteer some time with his youth at the rec center. The dance theater had been open for camp earlier in the day but closed its studios to evening classes in observance of the holiday. He went to unlock the double doors, but they were already open. Frowning, he left the fliers on the front desk to go investigate.
He walked for just a minute before faint music met his ears. Following it, like a child after The Piper, his brow smoothed. The ambiguous sound grew clearer with each step. He recognized those yearning notes, the haunting strains of “Élégie” by Jules Massenet for Manon.
How long had it been since he’d heard that music? It had to have been years, longer still since he’d danced the choreography. But it was filed away with every other piece of music, every other step. His mind simply double clicked to open it up and it all came pouring out…
Manon, a woman torn between worldly wealth and true love. It was a ballet so special, so intense and beautifully tragic, few companies included it in their repertoires…Including this company. Intrigued, he followed the sound until it reached its true volume, just outside studio six.
He wasn’t particularly quiet stepping into the studio, but its sole occupant was moving in his direction without appearing to notice him at all. Christine must have let her in. Made sense. It wasn’t a holiday for Mina.
Immersed in the music, she moved with feline grace and a flawless line, from her perfectly aligned fingertips to the tips of her pointe shoes. He admired the supple arch of her back, the gorgeous curve of her feet and her beautiful arms; but it was her exquisite face twisted in agony that rooted him to the floor for countless seconds, until she stopped abruptly, stumbled, and started up again.
Again, she danced like her body was made of water…and again she faltered, like she’d missed a step. The clumsiness was so unlike her it was jarring, and he tried to ascertain its cause. He studied her feet more intently this time, not for their shape, but for the steps. He watched the way she gained momentum, as if going into a lift, then abruptly stopped…the way she’d lean and lift her arms as if supporting them on something.
No, not something. Some one.
His mind put the pieces together. It was her expressions: They were far too honest to be an act, and she seemed completely unaware of him and her surroundings. It was her steps: She stopped short when the choreography called for a partner. She was dancing the pas de deux, from the first act of Manon. And she was dancing it with a ghost. He didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out who the ghost was.
Jesus.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt his heart break, the last time he’d experienced sorrow so acute, his body physically ached�
�but his heart was filling with empathy to the point of rupturing, and his breaths came heavy and uneven. Before he could stop himself, he was moving toward her—slowly, not wanting to startle her. Another file in his mind clicked open, and he was moving his steps in time with hers.
Her steps brought her toward him again. Looking into eyes that were normally dark and soulful, but now looked vacant, his breath caught. For an uneasy moment, he searched for some sign that she had come out of her stupor and didn’t want him there. But she lowered her eyes and timidly bouréed toward him, silently giving him permission to dance with her.
Gingerly, he walked around her as the piece demanded…five…six…and spun her into his body, as if overcome with burgeoning love and desire. He was Des Grieux and she was Manon, and he swept her from her feet as she literally walked on air. His touch was attentive, adoring, and she responded, allowing him to support the weight of her body in increasingly daring lifts—lifts he knew would make her freeze up in rehearsal but were so seamless now. His eyes watered with emotion.
It could be this easy, this effortless…
He blinked it away and stayed with her, their movements becoming faster and more urgent until the final moment of repose, when they stared, enraptured, into one another’s eyes. Except the moment felt strange, as if the universe had shifted somehow, blending reality and fantasy, and he couldn’t discern what he was feeling, what he was reading in her eyes…or whose eyes they were.
“Zack?” she whispered, her eyes wide and equally searching.
“Petite?”
“Why?”
“Why?” He frowned, still trying to catch his breath.
“Why me? Why haven’t you fired me? Found someone better?”
It was the second time he was asked the question that day, but it wasn’t any easier to put into words, especially not now, after what they’d just shared. The exhilaration still flowed through his veins, still raised the hairs of his neck, made his nostrils flare with the effort to breathe. So, he said the first thing that came to mind. It was all he could manage.
“Because you do this thing sometimes when you dance. You flirt with the time. You’re off by just a hair, milking the music for all it’s worth…It’s so subtle, no one knows what it is when it’s happening, they just feel it.”