The Girl in the Mirror (Sand & Fog #3)

by Susan Ward

  Thirty minutes later, we’re at the drop-off loop for departing passengers. I hop out of the car and get the bags, then scan the crowded pavement for someplace carefully discreet to stand and wait for them to stay their goodbyes.

  After twenty minutes of quiet talking I can’t hear and a lot of hugs and tears, Chrissie closes her hands on Krystal’s cheeks. “Call me when you get there.”

  Krystal nods and I can see she’s trying to hold back her emotion. “I will, Mom. I promise.”

  Chrissie’s stunning smile fills her face. “You always promise. You always forget. This time, though, you’ve got to do. I’ll worry every second until I know you’re safely there.”

  She gives Krystal one more fierce embrace, then rushes toward me, startling me by wrapping me in her arms. “You’re part of the family now,” she whispers in my ear. “And we’re trusting you with what’s most important to us. It may seem like a silly job, but it isn’t. Krystal is Alan’s heart. Nothing is too small to call me about. Open phone line always. Remember that.”

  Choked up in under ten seconds, it’s like I’ve been sucked into a Hallmark Movie Kleenex box moment and I hardly know the woman. I wish Chrissie would let go and move back. Crap, I don’t need one more thing adding to my emotional overload.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll remember.”

  She makes a face at me. “There you go again, Jacob. Thinking I’m the Queen of England.”

  A memory rises: There you go, Jacob, saying something sweet.

  Now I know where Krystal gets that expression.

  Krystal stands on the curb until the SUV has pulled away and is out of sight. Without a glance in my direction, she goes into the terminal. I grab the bags and follow her.

  Stopping abruptly, she pulls her ticket from her pocket and looks around. Then does it again. Oh great, she doesn’t even know she needs to check her bags and swap out the digital boarding pass for one from the kiosk.

  Gnawing her lips as though trying to decide what to do, she moves toward the security rope line. No, Krystal, wrong answer.

  I stop her with a hand. “You need to go there.” I point at the customer counter. “Check your bags and get another boarding pass.”

  Her dark brows lower on her face. Her mouth remains tightly closed. Fine, not speaking to me today. Thankfully, not arguing. She moves toward the counter. Wrong line. Alan’s not some cheapo that would buy her an economy ticket. Empty first-class line to the left, Krystal. No, I’m not correcting her again.

  We wait side by side, moving at a snail’s pace. Thirty minutes later we’re at the counter. She stands there, doing nothing as I lift the first bag on the scale.

  “Give him your ID and ticket, Krystal,” I whisper at the back of her head.

  She doesn’t respond, but her cheeks pink as she shoves her paperwork at the airline employee. Bags tagged, taken away and new boarding pass in hand, she struts off without waiting for me.

  Damn it.

  I wait impatiently to get checked in, then snatch my documents from the clerk and hurry after her. The terminal’s packed. Christ, where’d she go?

  Looking. Looking. Eyes lock on target. Wrong line again. She’s two for two.

  “Krystal, you go over there.”

  Her mouth scrunches up as she stares at me. “The sign here says security check.”

  “There’s always a first-class line for everything. That’s your line, Krystal.”

  I point to a sign. She reads, then moves as directed. Resisting the urge to loosen my collar in frustration, it’s now clear why Alan thought hiring her a bodyguard was a good idea: I’m protecting her from herself.

  Christ, doesn’t Krystal know anything?

  Then I remember how Janie was when we first left home. How clueless she was about how things worked and how overwhelmed new environments made her when we moved from Ohio to Seattle. Maybe it’s a girl thing. They don’t clutter their minds with useful things—like how to board planes—unless they need to.

  As we wait, I study Krystal without letting her see me do it. She looks incredible today, sort of mismatching, understated trendy with her messy curls and simple shirt, jeans, and Converse. The way all the 90210 girls dress, thinking this look makes them not look like rich girls.

  Wrong. Every guy in this building can see she’s uptown and gorgeous. Yes, there are lots of stares. I can’t drag my eyes away from her either, in spite of the fact that her features are stiff and her stare is definitely not welcoming when it briefly touches on me. It’s really cute how excited and confused she is, and fighting not to show it. Even as unmistakably angry at me as she is. Damn, it makes me want to kiss her.

  I’m pulled from my thoughts just in time.

  “Stop.”

  I’m surprised when Krystal whirls to face me.

  “Give him your ID and boarding ticket,” I say, making her aware of the TSA agent she nearly strode past. That wouldn’t have worked out well. They’d have hauled her off to security.

  Her face burns red. “Again?”

  “Yes, Krystal. Again.”

  Letting out a slow, aggravated breath, she takes out her ID and lays it on the counter. The TSA agent studies her, eyes shifting from face to passport. Normal, but I can tell she doesn’t know that because the color on her face turns scarlet and one foot has started to tap a toe circle on the floor, heal-toe-heal, in a dainty move I’ve seen her make a thousand times when she’s anxious.

  An hour later we’re on the plane and I’m more than ready for my seat. I settle next to the window and she stands in the aisle staring at me as if she expects me to move.

  “They’re assigned, Krystal.”

  She stares at me like she wants to argue this one, then drops down next to me, buckles her seat belt, shoves her earbuds in her ears, and closes her eyes.

  Throughout the six-hour flight her lids don’t lift. They stay closed even when the flight attendant tries to give her a meal. I can hear some kind of classical music pouring out of her iPhone, and she sits with posture erect in her chair, gracefully moving her hands with fluttering fingers as though she’s dancing.

  She’s beautiful to watch even dancing in her seat.

  After gathering the bags at the luggage claim, I send a text to her driver. I escort her to the pickup curb and into the waiting car. The ride into the city is slow. Bumper-to-bumper traffic. Two hours later we finally enter the underground garage of Krystal’s building.

  Top floor loft in an expensive, renovated historical factory. 1900s feel on the exterior. Freight-style elevator but with security features.

  Camera.

  Camera.

  I need to check tomorrow that those and the monitors are working.

  I take the keys from the Black Star file, open the door for her, step in, and drop the bags.

  Holy fuck.

  Enormous open floor plan.

  High ceilings.

  Wood floors with raised and drop-down areas.

  Everything soft of color and elegantly sparse.

  Like Krystal.

  White walls.

  Chagall paintings.

  A vase of daylilies.

  One wall all windows.

  Wraparound private terrace.

  All this for one girl?

  This is how they send her off to college?

  Yes, I get it, Alan. I know why I’m here. You sent Krystal into the real world, but you don’t want her to ever experience it because she’s never been there.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Krystal”

  By the end of my first week of classes, I’m halfway convinced I should to go back to California.

  My dance classes at Juilliard are no better than they ever were in Pacific Palisades, even though no one knows who my family is. We’re in that figuring-out-who-is-who state still after five days, sizing each other up, and the pettiness of the ballet world has dominated from the get-go. I haven’t made a single friend,
though we’re all new here, and the struggle for standings is in full force. Girls prevent me from taking a spot at the barre, staring me down, and there are the relentless snide comments on slightly too loud hushed whispers. They comment on my clothes. The designer totes I carry my gear in. Even the mysterious guy of undefined relationship—i.e. Jacob Merrick, bodyguard—who walks me from the car to the front door every morning and is there waiting on the steps when I leave.

  Yes, I can hear every word my fellow dancers speak as intended. And yes, they are unkind, especially after I’ve gotten a harsh critique from one of my instructors. And yes, I have a target on my back like I did at home. Only this time I’m not sure what I’ve done, if anything, to put it there.

  Some of the students know each other, and I’m the new girl here. There are small cliques inside the giant clique that is ballet and seems to exist everywhere. Privileged girls, working classes girls, scholarship students, the best of the best from everywhere. Talent, the great equalizer, but not the great harmonizer. We’re fighting for grades, fighting for notice, fighting for roles, and outside school we’re going to be fighting for those precious slots as members with the elite companies of the world, and we all know it.

  I hoped life in the dance world would be better here, but I was wrong about that. Perhaps there is no way to escape the misery in a competitive environment of girls.

  None of this should be surprising.

  It’s how the world of ballet is.

  Disappointing, yes. Surprising, no.

  The only thing I didn’t mentally prepare for was the added complex variable of Jacob. No, didn’t see that one coming or how agonizing it would be living with a guy I like who treats me like an object: wait in the kitchen for Krystal in the morning, move Krystal to Juilliard, wait for Krystal, and bring Krystal home.

  Never a word.

  Never anything.

  Just Jacob doing his job and me feeling like an object.

  Then him off to his room in the loft until morning and me roaming that giant open space trying not to climb out of my skin or crumble and try to fix things. If he wants space from me, Jacob can have it.

  Living together and living without connection.

  Hard, but doable.

  Like everything in my life: hard but doable.

  Dance is my priority. I’m in New York as planned, and I’ve dedicated my entire life to this: to learn, network, and land a coveted place with a prestigious dance company. Everything exactly as I want it. It’s time I shake off the mental hold of some guy I could never have a future with anyway. This is my one shot to make it. It’s past time to get Jacob out of my head.

  Guys ruin focus and weaken the body. Inside my head I replay Burgess Meredith saying women weaken legs. True for boxers, but turn it around and it’s true for ballerinas. Guys weaken legs…and the heart…and the head…and damn near everything.

  I struggle not to cry as I pace in slow circles, hands pressed into my hips, and stare at the floor. I need to rein in my thoughts to start dancing again. I’ve only got the studio for an hour and I’ve far from impressed my teachers this week. I need to cleanse my thoughts of Jacob Merrick, but it’s hard because how everything has been left between us is my fault, and I’m as miserable at home as I am in school.

  I’m about to hit play on my music library again when the practice room door opens.

  “Hey, LA girl, aren’t you done yet?”

  I turn to see Cassandra Mendez stride in. God, what’s she doing here? The worst of the worst of the mean girls. The best in the class, superior rich girl manner, and unabashedly destructive whenever her mouth is running.

  I check the clock. “I have another twenty minutes.”

  She leans with her elbows atop the piano. “Ah, yeah, but it’s Friday and that hot guy is waiting for you on the steps.”

  I ignore both comments. “I’ll be done when my time’s up.”

  She laughs as she pushes to stand in perfect posture. “No rush. I don’t want the room. I thought maybe you’d like to know your boyfriend’s here.”

  I almost say he’s not my boyfriend, then I stop myself and go to my bag and grab my outer clothes. I sink down on the wood floor and start removing my pointe shoes.

  She crosses the room and drops down close to me. “What’s your story, anyway? I can’t figure you out.”

  Without looking at her, I say, “No story. I’m here to study dance like everyone else.”

  Her flawlessly shaped brows shoot up. “Don’t give me that. Everyone has a story. No one here seems to know anything about you. Why’s that, Kryssie?”

  My face snaps up from shoving my junk into the bag. “Don’t call me that.”

  She stares, amused, and I tense since I can’t tell by her expression if she meant anything by that or if it was random bitchiness.

  “OK? I guess you don’t like nicknames,” she says lightly as she starts to stretch. “Good to know. I don’t mind them. You can call me Cass, Cassie, or D-ra.” She looks up. “But never Sandra. That one bugs.”

  I continue to pack up.

  “No need to get frosty. I’m just trying to talk to you. You don’t talk to anyone so I thought I’d give it a shot. No one here seems to know anything about you. California is to hell and gone, but the dance world is small, so someone should know something. And you’ve got a guy always with you. Everyone is gossiping about you. Not surprising. And hey, we’re all one family. Sort of. We should get to know each other a little, right?”

  She says that like she’s trying to figure out a riddle, and I hide my face by pulling on my baggy mid-thigh sweater then my UGG slippers.

  I stand up and pull the strap of my tote over my shoulder as I cross the room.

  “You’re not even going to say goodbye?”

  I turn to her once I’ve got a smile plastered on my face. “Bye.”

  She springs up and trots across the room. “Hey, listen. I’m not your problem here. The other girls I can understand you being standoffish with, but me? No problem. I think we’re a lot alike.”

  Cassandra gives me a glowing smile that transforms her severely beautiful face into something arresting.

  “And how is it you think we’re alike?” I ask, even though I’m positive it’s a mistake.

  “Do you know why they all hate me?”

  I flush. I wasn’t aware she knew what the other dancers thought of her. It never shows in class.

  I shake my head.

  “My father is Milo Bassard.”

  My eyes widen though I command them not to. Jeez, Louise, one of the most renowned artistic directors in the world and the head of the Nelson Bassard Ballet Company.

  She nods into my silence, her lips in a downward curl. “Exactly. And your next question I’m sure is what am I doing here? I have a strained relationship with my father. The jerk hardly acknowledges I’m his daughter and what little interest he has in me doesn’t include nepotism or being accepted into the NBBC. I have to succeed on my own. But no one here believes that. They think I have a leg up at Juilliard because of my dad. Everyone thinks you do, too, because you really haven’t danced that well this week and you’re so tight-lipped with everyone. Though there isn’t a student here that hasn’t noticed how the administration goes out of its way for you. And I’m telling you, you need to stop being a bitch to everyone and open up a little or they’ll ruin your chances here faster than you can say first-class ticket to California.”

  I stare up at her for a moment, wondering if she’s being sincere or if this is a mind fuck of some kind I haven’t figured out yet.

  I pull back the door. “Thanks.”

  To my displeasure, she follows me into the hallway. “See. Cards up with a heads-up. Playing nicely here. So what’s your story?”

  I shrug. “Nothing. I’m from California and I didn’t get accepted into a corps with a professional dance company after high school so I came here.”

  Her brows pucker.
“Me either, and at the risk of sounding conceited, I dance better than you do. At least what I’ve seen from you so far.”

  Conceited—she has the right of that—but honest as well. Even if I were at the top of my game, which I’m not, Cassandra is better than me.

  I slowly let out a breath. “I’m better than what you’ve seen. Getting acclimated and settling in hasn’t been easy.”

  She laughs. “Glad to hear it. The better part. You might last a full term if you toughen up your hide.”

  My hide, huh? That’s not my problem—my gaze fixes on my problem waiting at the bottom of the stairs—but I don’t correct her.

  She juts her chin in Jacob’s direction. “What’s the story with him?”

  I look over to find her practically drooling. “He’s a friend. We share a loft and he’s helping me figure out my way around the city.”

  “You live together?” She shakes her head. “Friend? I don’t believe that. He sure doesn’t stare at you like he’s in the friend zone. And why would you want to put him there? Are you blind?”

  Burning color returns to my face. “We’re just friends.”

  “Oh, so you’re one of those?”

  My cheeks are scorching now. “What do you mean by that? One of those?”

  She arches a brow. “There are only two kinds of ballerinas, doll. Those who are sluts and bang them and toss them. And those who are frigid virgins afraid that having any semblance of a normal life will ruin their career. I’m taking you for the latter if you live with that and keep him in the friend zone.”

  I lift my chin and stare her down. “I’m neither. I’m not involved with Jacob. That’s all.”

  Her eyes sharpen and fix on me with an insulting smile that makes me tense.

  “Oh. I get it. You were involved and he dumped you. Well, you better get used to it and figure out a way not to have it mess with your head every time it happens. It’s the nature of the beast. Guys ending it when you are no longer a pretty dancing fantasy but ten hours a day of rehearsal and early nights to sleep. Really, what kind of guy wants to be with a ballerina after having shoved in his face the reality of how we live? It happens, Krystal. They smarten up and end it once they’ve gotten fucking us out of their systems. Doesn’t mean it can’t be good before they run.”