by JJ Knight
Dinner goes along easily and with no disruptions. We were right to come here.
The waiter has just brought us an impossibly beautiful crème brûlée to share when I feel Blitz’s hand tighten around mine on the seat. “Here we go,” he says.
I turn to follow his gaze.
And freeze.
It’s Giselle. Holding her phone.
“Just a quick selfie,” she says, leaning down to snap a quick picture of herself and Blitz.
He tries to lean away, but she’s fast. I can see from the image that she’s left me out.
“Giselle,” Blitz says. “What are you doing here?”
“Just making sure my Valentine doesn’t try to go the whole day without me!” Her voice is high and fake.
Blitz’s words are low and threatening when he says, “I’m not your anything.”
My face is hot and I can feel the food we just ate sitting heavily in my belly. I’m so angry I could actually stand up and punch this woman.
She stabs at her phone a moment. “You really should start using a different fake name when you get reservations. It only took my team fifteen minutes to find this one.”
“Why are you even in San Antonio?” Blitz asks.
“Because you are, of course!” she says merrily. She lifts her phone again. “I’m hearing that you didn’t smile in that shot. Please do better this time.” She holds up her phone.
“Just stop,” Blitz says. “I’m going to have you kicked out of here.”
“Good luck with that,” Giselle says in the false, bright voice. “I think the maître d’ likes me. He did admire this dress.” She stands up and turns for him, running her hands down her waist and hips. She’s in a red dress too, form fitting and plunging low.
It’s actually remarkably similar to mine.
She recognizes this about the same time I do. “Did Blitz pick that out for you?” Giselle asks. “His taste runs a little racy. You do seem a little innocent for the look.” She clucks her tongue. “Blitz, Blitz, Blitz. You are corrupting her, aren’t you?”
“That’s enough, Giselle. You’re not welcome.”
But Giselle isn’t through. She squeezes onto the seat. “Nobody’s heard from you about the producer’s decision. You only have a few weeks until rehearsals begin.”
Blitz’s jaw clenches. “I’m not taking calls right now.”
I keep my mouth shut, but my mind is whirling. They made a decision? Why don’t we know what it is? Normally Hannah would be here and forcing Blitz to listen to her.
“Well, your manager is trying to reach you,” Giselle says. Her phone buzzes, then again, then again. She picks it up and smiles. “And your public is waiting.”
I have a feeling I know what she’s done. Told Twitter where we are.
“Why can’t you just move on with your life?” I ask her.
Blitz tries to bite back his smile, but I can see he’s pleased that I confronted her.
Gisselle swipes her finger across her screen. “Because it isn’t time yet, dear. Blitz, you really need to school her on Hollywood politics.” She sets the phone down on the table with a slam that startles a waitress passing by with a tray.
“I’m not interested in politics,” I tell her. “We’re just here having a quiet Valentine’s dinner and you’re ruining it.”
“You know, I had a few dinners ruined by Blitz myself,” Giselle says. She looks at the crème brûlée, still perfect and brown inside its lovely white and silver dish. She picks up Blitz’s spoon and cracks the top. “Don’t get used to having him all to yourself. He belongs to his fans.”
She shoves the spoon in the dish and tries a bite. “Sugar rush,” she says. “So fattening.” She glances at my dress. “You better watch that figure.”
With that, she slides out of the booth and flounces away, her hips swinging. A waiter stops to let her by and she blows a kiss at him.
“Great, just great,” Blitz says, tossing his napkin on the table.
“Are you going to call Hannah to ask her the situation?”
“Obviously I’m still involved if I’m expected at rehearsals in a few weeks.” Blitz pulls out his phone. “And rehearsals mean dance numbers, and obviously Giselle is still in.”
I reach out and wrap my fingers around his wrist. “This can all wait for tomorrow,” I say. “Let’s forget them for a moment.”
Blitz nods and shoves his phone back in his pocket. “I can’t believe she just showed up here.”
“In a matching dress, no less.” I’m still smarting over that.
Blitz slides his arm around me and pulls me close. “Everybody loves a red dress on Valentine’s Day,” he says. “I’ve never even seen the one she was wearing. Giselle is good at poking people where it hurts.”
“You still have that naked picture of her?” I ask. “Because I have a caption or two to add myself.”
Blitz smiles and kisses my forehead. “I adore you, Princess. You go straight for the jugular.”
I do, I realize. That isn’t good. I can’t fight Giselle on her turf. She was right. I don’t know anything. And I don’t want to know.
Blitz waves at the waiter and pushes the spoiled crème brûlée away. “Bring us another,” he says.
I press my hand to my belly. “Maybe I shouldn’t.”
“Are you kidding?” Blitz asks. “You are perfect.” He turns to the waiter. “Bring all three desserts out.”
The man nods and walks away.
Blitz drags me close to him. “I don’t want you schooled in the Hollywood game. I don’t want you skipping simple pleasures because somebody tries to shame you. I don’t want you listening to anything but your heart.”
“But you have to get back there,” I say. “You’ll be in LA again.”
“We’ll find out what they have in store for us tomorrow,” Blitz says. “We’ve got a secret back exit out of here. A top-notch bodyguard who knows how to use inconspicuous in a sentence. And we have each other.”
He leans in to kiss me. I know he’s right. Giselle might blow up Twitter and get a chanting crowd to fill the sidewalks outside. But we have workarounds. And people on our side.
And we definitely have impenetrable, unbreakable us.
Chapter 12
Blitz spends almost the entire next day on the phone. The producers want him to come to LA, but he refuses. He won’t have anything to do with the show.
On Thursday, we head to Dreamcatcher for our private lesson with Gabriella, but we know we need to minimize our time at the academy to avoid the crowds finding us there.
So afterward, still in our dance clothes, we leave Dreamcatcher and load into Blitz’s gray rental. We have agreed to return to Jenica’s Dancery to work with the girl who does the aerial silks.
When we arrive at the strange building that houses the studio, Weeza is in the front room, sitting at the same makeshift cinderblock desk and giving Blitz the same withering glare as she did the first time we came.
“I thought we got rid of you,” she says. Her short blond hair is spiked up today, twisted into little points all around her head. It makes me think of a grass burr, and I giggle.
She frowns at me. “I saw you two on somebody’s totally lame Facebook live broadcast. On the East Side.” She stares at Blitz as if she is quite sure he doesn’t have any right to visit there.
“I bet you couldn’t keep your eyes off me, you little vixen,” Blitz says. He reaches out to tweak her nose and she squeals with indignation. “Let’s go find Jenica,” Blitz says to me. “Thanks for the grand welcome,” he tosses back at Weeza as we head for one of the doors.
She snorts.
“She’s terrible!” I say as we enter the expansive gymnasium.
“She’s definitely a piece of work,” Blitz says.
We pause just inside, looking over the scene today. The aerial ropes and high mats are strung up, but unoccupied. A couple doing classical ballet occupies one corner, and two men bounce on the triad of mini-trampolines, do
ing front flips between them, carefully timed to avoid colliding. My stress levels rise just watching them.
Jenica is near the back wall by the barre, working with a young woman in pointe shoes. I feel some chagrin at how little I’ve worked on my pointe since I advanced to them. Life has been such a whirlwind since I met Blitz.
We head her direction. She will introduce us to an instructor with experience in aerial silks.
Jenica smiles when she sees us, continuing an eight-count with the girl, who is flowing through the various positions and poses. When they pause, Jenica turns and says, “Blitz, Livia, so delighted to see you both again. And how interesting for you to seek an instructor in silks!”
“It was Livia’s idea,” Blitz says. “I’ve never done it, so it’s something new. I like new.”
Jenica nods. Wisps of her light brown hair have escaped her bun. She must always dress very colorfully, as today her dance leotard is a sapphire blue that fades into a bright green. The girl she teaches is traditional in pale pink.
“I’ll introduce you to Bex when she arrives,” Jenica says. “She’s not our most punctual instructor.”
Blitz and I glance at each other.
“What’s her background?” Blitz asks.
“She did two years with Cirque,” Jenica says. “She was an aerialist. Then she got pregnant and took a break. Now she teaches. We don’t have a lot of call for it. Not many places can host an aerialist, and there isn’t a lot of work for it.”
“We’re just doing it for fun,” Blitz says.
Jenica reaches over and squeezes his bicep. “You’ve been increasing your weights,” she says. “You still interested in lifts?”
“I am,” he says. “But we’re going to focus on this for a while. See how it feels.”
Jenica’s eyes focus on something behind us. “Oh, there she is.” She waves. “Bex! Over here!”
A woman with dark hair and long legs strides over to us. She has a pile of fabric over one arm. “Hello,” she says shyly, looking at Blitz like she can’t believe he’s in front of her. “This was a surprise.”
Blitz spreads his hands. “I’m just a dancer looking for some help with a new skill.”
Bex nods. “And you’re Livia. I saw you on the show. You just started pointe?”
“Yes,” I say. “I’d only had my toe shoes a couple weeks at that point.”
“You’re brave,” she says.
“I’ll leave you all to it,” Jenica says. She turns to count the ballerina back in.
Blitz, Bex, and I head to the corner where the fall of blue silk flutters.
“We have a good setup here,” Bex says. “It isn’t easy to find a space with room for aerial work.”
“The ceiling is really high,” I say.
“Yes,” Bex says. “And there is enough room for these giant mats.” She pats the cushioned stairs, each one at least two feet high, that rise above our head. “It’s really important to be able to get the height you need when it’s time to learn drops.”
I look up to see how high I would be for a drop, and my belly rolls over. This seems very different from the small maneuvers I did from the canopy of the bed.
“So, the basics,” Bex says. “It takes a special kind of fabric for this work.” She holds out the black cloth in her hand. “It can’t stretch, and either it must have some texture for your grip, or you need to use rosin to give you some stickiness.”
I touch her fabric. It feels a lot like the one I bought.
She sets it down and leads us over to the lengths that hang from a bar attached to the rafters. “Here we have a swivel, but sometimes you simply work with a single piece of cloth tossed over a bar.” She shrugs. “It doesn’t matter from a grip and hold standpoint, but if you can spin, it adds a lot to the drama. Most aerialists work on a swivel. Since we need two, we’ll just toss a second set over.”
Bex unfolds the fabric partway and tosses it over her shoulder. Then she deftly climbs the silks, wrapping her foot, standing up, and moving her foot up the silk. “This is called a French Climb,” she says, “or Basic Climb, to some.”
When she reaches the swivel at the top, she wraps the silks around her ankles and tosses the fabric over the rafter a few feet away.
“We will start easy,” she says, sliding down the silk like it’s a fireman’s pole. “Basic wrist lock, foot lock, box stand, and hip hold.” She lands on the floor mat next to us. “But first, we warm up.”
She takes us through push-ups, crunches, and stretches to make sure our arms, core, and legs are ready for the work. I’ve been trying to build up my arm strength, but as I gaze up the length of the silks, I wonder if I have done enough.
Bex leads us over to the silks. “We’re going to start with a climb so I get a feel for your strength and agility as we get started.”
She shows us how to wrap the silk around our ankles and how to hold the fabric. Then she jumps down.
“Let’s see what you can do.”
Blitz wraps his black silk and starts up, his arm muscles bulging as he moves.
I swallow hard. I can do this. It was my idea. I just never climbed the silk before, since I had so little room. My hands grasp the blue silk and I turn my foot around the tail end.
“Remember to flex your feet for now,” Bex says. “Later, when we do extensions and poses, you might point like in ballet, but for now, flexing is for safety and to keep the silk where you want it.”
I nod to acknowledge her instruction and push up. This first one is easy, so I hang on to the silk as I unwrap the fabric and bend my leg to wrap it again higher up.
Blitz has already mastered it and is halfway to the top. “Now this is cool,” he says, looking down at me.
“If you feel fatigue, come on down,” she says. “You can slide or just climb in reverse.”
I pull myself up a second time. I feel like I’ve gotten nowhere, still only a few feet above the ground. I swing precariously for a second, and struggle to keep my hold as my feet move out from under me.
Bex grabs me and steadies me back in an upright position. “Use your core,” she says. “Keep it tight so you stay straight. Try not to bend your arms. Keep your wrapped foot flexed.”
Too many things!
I reach higher, release my leg, then wrap it again, trying to stay flexed. I can already feel my arms getting tired. I place my free foot on top of the wrapped one, and stand up. I’m a little farther up now.
Again, reach up, lift legs, and stand again. I’m figuring out how to do it without stressing my arms so much. After a couple more climbs, I’m also halfway up. I look over at Blitz’s silks.
He’s reached the top and is standing on the silk. He waves at me. “This is off the hook,” he says.
I want to be at the top with him, but I make the mistake of looking down. I instantly lose my balance, my foot swinging out again. I clutch the silks, but my arms start to shake right away since I’m clinging rather than standing.
And Bex is too far below to steady me.
I feel panic taking over.
“You’re all right,” Bex calls up. “Use your core, straighten out, get your feet below you.”
Blitz starts to come down. My arms are burning as I try to hold on while frantically trying to pull my body back to vertical.
“You can do it, Princess,” Blitz says. He’s even with me now. “Lean forward.”
I do what he says and feel my chest moving over my legs. Then the blessed feeling of my weight settling on my feet again.
“Straighten your arms,” Bex calls. “It keeps you from clinging and using your weaker muscles.”
I finally feel confident enough to let go of one silk and lift one arm higher, then the other. Now there is no weight on my arms, only my legs.
“You got it,” Blitz says. “Let’s go down together.”
I watch him squat down, then unwrap his leg, lower it, then rewrap it with a straight body.
I do the same, scooting down like an inchworm
, until I’m close enough to the ground to jump off.
“That was good,” Bex says. “Let’s do a few ballistic stretches and then I want you to jump right in and do it again. No fear.”
What? Again? I look up at the silks. Tendrils of unease uncurl in my belly as I remember how I got stuck.
“She’s right,” Blitz says. “You have to train your brain not to feel fear.”
He knows I’m afraid. I manage to give him a weak smile, and clap my hands against my opposite shoulders in a bear hug, out and in, until I feel less shaky.
“Let’s do it,” Bex says. But as soon as I’m a couple body lengths up, I notice she moves one of the tall mats closer to us, as if she isn’t positive I’ll make it this time.
This punches my determination into gear. The climb isn’t hard on my arms as long as I stay over my feet. I work carefully as I bend, wrap, lift, and unwrap to avoid getting off balance or swinging.
Still, I don’t quite make it to the top. When my arms and thighs start quivering, I go ahead and make my way back to the floor. Blitz is faster and makes it to the top and ends up touching down the same time I do.
“This is wicked,” Blitz says. “What do we do next?”
Bex shows us the foot lock, where we tie our foot into the silks so we can do different poses securely. Then the knot, which is the basis for many of the positions, from the box stand to rolling drops.
After an hour of this, I feel more spent than anything I’ve ever done in ballet. I want to lie on the ground and never move again, but Blitz is completely jazzed. So I stay on the mat and watch as he and Bex climb the ropes. She shows him how to spin, and they twirl in tandem, suspended in the air.
This motivates me to get my butt back up there. Bex slides down and suggests Blitz get a little lower. Then I get in a foot lock and bend over, the silks between my thighs, one arm outstretched until I’m horizontal on my side. The silk holds me up by the hip, and from there, Bex turns me to start the spin.
Blitz drops down to watch. “That is absolutely gorgeous,” he says. “Too bad nobody will ever see us do them.”