by Logan Belle
“First of all, I want you to do the costumes for the Las Vegas Burlesque Festival,” he said.
“Mallory told me she wants to make an appointment to speak to Agnes about that.”
“I know. But I want you to create them—not Agnes.”
“You’ll have to work that out with Mallory and Agnes. I don’t make those kinds of decisions.”
“I write the checks. I make the decisions. And I want you to do the Vegas costumes.”
Gemma looked at him with new interest. “So what’s the second thing?”
“The second thing?”
“Yes—you said the first thing was the Vegas costumes. What is the second?”
“I wanted to see you,” he said.
“You did?” She wasn’t being coy. She actually found this information surprising.
“Yes. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since the other night.”
Gemma smiled and looked down at the cutting board. “I’m sure you say that to all the girls you lure up to your swimming pool.”
He reached across the table and took her hand. “No. I don’t.” His steely blue eyes were serious.
“I’m not sure what to say to that. Or do about it, for that matter. You’re married.”
“This is true. But my relationship with Martha is complicated. She isn’t a typical wife. What happened between you and me isn’t even entirely out of bounds with her. I just—I should have invited her to join us.”
“What? Are you out of your mind?”
“No. That’s our agreement.”
“I don’t do things like that.”
“I … gathered that. And to be honest, I didn’t want her to join us.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“I didn’t want to share you,” he said, his voice low. His eyes swept down to her breasts. She knew he wanted to put his hands on her, but the table kept him at a safe distance.
“I think we should stick to business conversation,” Gemma said.
“Fine,” he said with a reluctant smile. “The other thing I wanted to talk to you about is that I want you to design costumes for a party I’m throwing at The Painted Lady. A few of the girls are going to be performing dressed as different silver screen movie stars. I also want to transform the room to look like an Academy Awards ceremony. Maybe you can help with that, too.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“Martha’s birthday.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Of course I am. I do something different every year. We usually go away, but we’ve been so distracted with the opening of the club… .”
“No, I mean, are you for real asking me to work on your wife’s party—me, the woman you cheated on her with? Don’t you find that a tad questionable, morally speaking?”
“First of all, I told you the cheating thing isn’t that black-and-white with us. Would she be thrilled about it? No, but only because I didn’t follow the rules we set for stepping outside the marriage. And as for your doing the costumes and room, I think you’re amazingly talented. And I always want the best.”
“I’m going to be very booked up doing the Vegas costumes. As soon as Mallory decides on a theme I’ll be starting straight away.”
“I’ll make it worth your while financially.”
Now she was listening.
“What are we talking, exactly?” she said.
“I’ll pay you ten grand a week while you work on the party.”
“And when’s the party?”
“In three weeks.”
“I don’t want you to tell Agnes—or even Mallory. They won’t like this.”
Justin smiled broadly, as if she was doing him a favor by taking a ridiculous amount of money from him. “I agree,” he said.
“And what you’re paying me doesn’t include the budget for materials, correct?” she said.
“That’s right.”
She wrinkled her nose in consternation.
“What’s the problem?” he asked.
“If I’m doing all this work for you, and assisting Agnes with the weekly clothes for The Painted Lady, I’ll have no time to work on the fashion line I’m designing. I believe that’s what they call an opportunity cost?” she said. She could tell by the expression on his face that her tough negotiating stance made him want her all the more.
“What are you saying?”
“I need you to pay me ten grand a week for as long as I’m doing the Vegas costumes, too—not just the party stuff.”
“It’s a deal—if you agree to one more thing,” he said. She looked at him skeptically. “Come to dinner with me tomorrow night,” he said.
“What about Martha?”
“She’s at our house in LA for a few days.”
“I don’t know… .”
“We can talk business for part of the night if it makes you more comfortable,” he said with a flirtatious smile.
Gemma knew she should just roll with it. Ten grand a week was money she’d never find anywhere else at this point. “Fine. But we can’t make a habit of this,” she said. “You know what they say about not mixing business with pleasure.”
“They’re wrong,” he said. “No two things go better together. I’ll pick you up at your place at seven thirty.”
“You don’t know where I live,” she said.
“I’m waiting for you to tell me.”
Gemma resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She knew she should find him charming, but mostly she just heard the classic refrain from the film Jerry Maguire: “Show me the money.”
She picked up a blue Sharpie and wrote her address on the back of one of Agnes’s business cards. He slipped it into his wallet and walked out the door without saying another word.
Less than a minute later, her cell phone rang. She was sure it was Justin calling to say something cheeky, but it was an unfamiliar female voice.
“Is this Gemma?” the voice said.
“Yes,” Gemma said slowly. “Who is this?”
“Violet Offender. I’m a burlesque performer.”
“I know who you are. You own the Blue Angel now.”
“It’s Violet’s Blue Angel, but yeah.”
“How did you get this number?” Gemma said, glancing up at the stairs to make sure Agnes wasn’t on her way down.
“Burlesque is a small world.”
“Yes—a little too small. I’m at work, and my boss is not a fan of yours. So maybe you should tell me why you’re calling.”
“First of all, Agnes shouldn’t have anything against me. It’s not my fault she sold the club thinking it was going to be owned and operated by Billy Barton alone.”
“I don’t know that much about it, to be honest. I just heard that you used to work for her, she fired you, and then you somehow ended up involved with the new incarnation of the club—and used the name she created with your own tacked on the front. I don’t know what you call that here, but I think audacity fits the bill.”
“Whatever. Now she can spend all her time sewing like any grandma should.”
“Oh, come on! You really can’t be serious.”
“I’m always serious. You’ll learn that about me. Now don’t you want to know why I called?”
“I am a tad curious.”
“Then meet me tomorrow night and I’ll fill you in.”
“I have dinner plans tomorrow night.”
“So meet me after dinner. At my club. Eleven o’clock. The show will be finished; people will be heading out to the next drinking destination. We’ll have the whole place to ourselves to chat.”
“I don’t know… .” Gemma said. “Why don’t you at least tell me what this is about.”
“If you want to know what this is about, I’ll see you tomorrow night at eleven.”
And she hung up.
10
Nadia couldn’t control herself.
After leaving The Painted Lady, instead of taking the subway straight uptown, she got off at Forty-second Str
eet, Grand Central. And then she walked the few blocks toward Sixth Avenue.
Max Jasper was becoming a mental distraction, and she had to put an end to it. She decided she would just make one appearance at Ballet Arts, show him that she wasn’t afraid of being around ballet—that she had simply moved on—and that would be the end of it.
She found the building. Not surprisingly, it was beautiful, with a limestone façade, decorative arched doorway, and a marble-floored lobby.
She gave her name to the security guard, expecting him to call someone to grant her admittance. But he just looked on a list and said, “Mr. Jasper is expecting you.”
Expecting her? Presumptuous bastard.
She thought about turning around and leaving, but she was already there, and now she was curious to see exactly what the great Mr. Jasper had going on.
“Second floor,” said the security guard.
As soon as she stepped out of the elevator, Nadia smelled the familiar ballet studio smell, a woodsy and stale combination of sweat, powder, and something indefinable yet universal. Every studio she had ever been in, even in other countries, smelled exactly the same.
Four rooms ran side by side, each identical with front mirrors, pianos in the back right corner, and wide windows so all classes and rehearsals could be viewed from the outside. Only one of these rooms was in use. Nadia spotted Max at the front of the room, and she took a seat on one of the benches lining the wall.
The dancers practiced a series of fouettés en tournant. Nadia loved that step. One of her favorite moments in ballet was the thirty-two continuous fouettés in the coda of “Black Swan” from Swan Lake.
A woman sat on the floor in the front of the room taking notes on a clipboard in her lap. Nadia knew that had to be his assistant choreographer, Pauline Penn; she’d read about her defection from the School of American Ballet for Max’s company; it was big news at the time. Nadia had wondered what he’d offered Pauline to lure her away from her coveted position at SAB. Now, watching the woman gaze at Max with rapt adoration, it wasn’t hard for Nadia to guess. God, that man is a piece of work.
As if sensing Nadia’s stare, Max looked away from the dancers and directly at her. He smiled, and Nadia realized he was not smiling at her, but smiling spontaneously at the sight of her. This confused and, she hated to admit, delighted her. What was going on?
She turned her focus to the dancers. She watched them bend, arch, and leap through motions that were achingly familiar to her. As much as she wanted to be able to remain detached, each one of her senses was consumed with all that she missed about ballet. And all the confidence and bravado she’d felt while walking from the subway evaporated.
She jumped up from the bench and headed for the exit. Her heart pounded as she pressed the button for the elevator. All she could think was, get me out of here. When the wide elevator door opened, she wanted it to swallow her. She pressed the Close Door button, needing the fresh air of the street, anything but that ballet smell.
But just before the elevator door slid completely closed, it receded back to open again. Nadia quickly pressed the Close button repeatedly, to no avail.
And then Max stepped inside.
“Where are you running off to?” he said.
She was flabbergasted.
“You left rehearsal to ask me that?”
He shrugged. “It seems like an important question.”
“I remembered that I need to be somewhere.”
“Bullshit,” he said. She couldn’t help looking at his lips: lush, and—at the moment—quite pouty.
“What do you want from me?” Nadia said as the elevator mercifully deposited them on the ground floor. She assumed—erroneously—that reaching the front doors would put an end to this impromptu chat. But Max followed her outside.
“Did it upset you to be inside a ballet studio?” he said.
“Not at all. Did you want it to upset me?”
“No, Nadia. I did not want it to upset you. I just want you to examine what you’re doing, and to admit you’re not ready to walk away from ballet.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. But her body betrayed her yet again: To her absolute horror, her eyes teared up. Max did what anyone would do in that situation: He put his arms around her. His gesture startled her out of her crying jag, and she pulled away from him. “I’m fine,” she said, wiping her eyes.
“Want to get something to eat?”
“What?” she said, not sure she’d heard him correctly.
“Eat. Food. The practice commonly known as lunch?”
“Don’t you have to get back to rehearsal?”
He shrugged. “Pauline can cover for me. Come on—the least I can do is buy you lunch after I traumatized you,” he said, walking toward a café on the outskirts of Bryant Park. Reluctantly, Nadia followed him.
“You didn’t ‘traumatize’ me,” she said. “I’m just feeling emotional lately.”
“Understandable.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not patronizing you! That was empathy. Jeez, you’re difficult to please,” he said with a smile. Nadia supposed he thought he knew everything there was to know about “pleasing” women. But she wasn’t one of his BA groupies.
There was a line at the café, and Max suggested she get a table in the park while he picked up the food.
“Okay. Can you order me a tuna salad and iced tea?” She tried to hand him a ten-dollar bill. He waved the money away, and she could tell it would be useless to fight him on it.
She walked off to find a place to sit.
It was as perfect a day as you could ask of New York in August, not scorching hot, surprisingly low humidity. The park was teeming with people on their lunch breaks, but Nadia spotted a couple just finishing their food. She hovered nearby and sat down at the table when they left.
After a few minutes, she saw Max approach in the distance. The way he moved clearly signaled the grace and strength of a dancer, though an average woman probably wouldn’t know that. She would just perceive that he had something remarkably sexy going on. Nadia told herself that she did not find him attractive—that the dancer in her was simply responding to the fine form of another artist.
That fine form sat next to her, and her heart beat undeniably faster.
“Thanks,” she said as he placed her salad in front of her.
He smiled and dug right into his sandwich. She decided now was as good a time as any to ask him the question she’d been wondering about since she’d first read about Ballet Arts.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
“Yes, I’d be happy to have you work at Ballet Arts. Done.”
Nadia laughed, despite herself. “That’s not what I was going to ask you.”
He feigned surprise and disappointment. Or maybe the disappointment wasn’t feigned. “How do you manage to fund Ballet Arts? I mean, you’re so young, and I didn’t read about any corporate investors.” Nadia assumed he had a relationship with a large benefactor, maybe a patron of the arts who supported him as Lincoln Kirstein had famously partnered with Balanchine.
“I inherited a lot of money when I was in college,” he said.
“Really? That much money?”
He nodded. “My father ran a huge hedge fund.”
“Your father died when you were in college?”
He shook his head. “He died when I was in high school.”
“I’m sorry. That must have been very difficult.”
“It was. But if it hadn’t happened, I don’t think I’d be a dancer today.”
“Why not?”
“My father was completely unsupportive of my interest in ballet. It was something my mother got me into. They were divorced—honestly, I have no idea how they ever thought they could be married in the first place. Anyway, at first, when I seemed so intent on performing, he thought I was gay. And he blamed my mother, because she was a … performer, of sorts. And he hated that part of
her life. He made her quit, and she resented it, and she encouraged me to be artistic.”
“Was she a ballet dancer?”
“No,” he said.
When she realized he was not going to elaborate, she asked, “So did your father ever figure out that you’re straight?”
“Yeah, eventually he realized that I was actually girl-crazy. Then he felt free to tell me I was being an idiot about the dancing, and I was going to waste my life, and that if this was what I chose, I could forget about any support from him.”
Nadia was surprised by this torrent of personal information. And just as she thought about how surprising it was, he said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m even telling you all of this.”
“No, don’t apologize. It’s … I mean, I’m happy to listen.”
“So, to make a long story short, I learned when I was twenty-one that he had left me the bulk of his wealth. I’ll never know what changed his mind about me, or maybe he felt confident I would come to my senses by the time I was an adult and do something else with my life.”
“Maybe he realized he was wrong, and he just didn’t have it in him to admit that to you face-to-face.”
Max shook his head. “I doubt my father ever considered that he could be wrong. But it’s a nice thought.”
They fell silent. Nadia wasn’t hungry. She should have been starving after the morning workout, but she felt completely off-center sitting there with Max. Why did she keep finding herself seated across from this man who did nothing but provoke her?
“Well, you made something great out of his money. So you should feel good about that,” she said.
“It could be greater,” he said.
“How?” she said, and instantly realized he’d baited her and she’d fallen for it.
“Come join us.”
Nadia closed the plastic lid on her salad container and stood up to leave.
“Thanks for lunch. I’ve got to get going.”
Without missing a beat, Max stood up next to her.
“You didn’t even eat. And you’re not dancing anymore, so there’s no reason to starve yourself.”
Asshole!
“I am dancing,” she said. “Just not ballet.”
They stared at each other, locked in a standoff. And then he leaned close, held her face, and before she could react, kissed her.