I had some decisions to make now. The upcoming fight was the kind of payday that would ensure I would never have to set foot in the arena again, if I chose. But there were those who wanted me to throw the fight. Those with the kind of power to put pressure on me to make me do it. It was the price for Joe’s complete release from the Triad and the autonomy of the Tong, it would also become the day the Triad would truly own me. But tonight was for me. No one else. Well, maybe one other, so I shoved all those dark thoughts to the recesses of my mind.
I focused on the performance again and let the music wash over me, calming my tormented soul. Or perhaps it was the woman on the stage who did that with the way she interpreted emotion through motion. She’d captivated me all those years ago and her hold had not lessened. No one who knew me would know I thought that way about a woman. Yes I’ve had women come and go in my life, none lasting for more than a week. I had no desire for a commitment or a relationship. Not with my life. Except for the possibility of one special person. No one even knew about my past with her. Nor for that matter on the date of Shelley’s death I still sent her a text, just to make sure she was all right, she always texted back she was. In the last five years that had been the extent of our conversations. I did not deserve her, she was classy and worlds above me.
Still, I followed her career, even thousands of miles away Google was my friend. Everything I’d read about her was true. She danced beautifully. My life was full of so much pain and ugliness, I wanted her no where near it. Yet I could not stay away. At the end of the show I did not move. Instead, I remained in my seat, scrolling through the pictures from that one incredible summer I kept in my phone, making sure I transferred them every time I replaced my phone. Over the years I’d stared at them a thousand times, memorizing each line on her face as she smiled up at me. Finally, the noise level died down, the theatre was empty. Only then, did I rise and make my way back stage where the dancers would be. At least those that lingered behind I knew it was Ivy’s way to do that, being among the last to leave. I’d read that about her, the prima ballerina who shunned the spotlight. I smiled slightly not surprised by that; she’d always been a little shy. Nor in truth was I surprised that my feet took me in a direction I knew I should not go. I did nothing to change my course.
“Can I help you?”
Some guy with a mic in his ear came down the hallway, toward me, so far no one had challenged me. If you looked like you belonged, most people didn’t question you. Most of the dancers were gone but there did seem to be a few people dressed in nice clothes back here. I didn’t think I stood out that much. I was dressed in about three thousand dollars worth of threads. Dark gray True Religion slim fit jeans, a dark blue Bugatchi Uomo form fitting shirt with a black silk Boss leather jacket over it. “I’m looking for Ivy Deene.”
“And you are?”
I hesitated. I really didn’t want to give this guy my name. I didn’t want her to be forewarned. In truth, I wasn’t sure if she’d even see me. Fuck it. I wasn’t sure what I was even doing there.
“A fan. Just a fan.”
“Well fan, Just a fan, I’m sorry but only authorized personnel are allowed back here. You’re going to have to wait outside at the side exist to see Ms. Deene.”
I shrugged. Relegated to being with the rest of the masses. What the hell! I turned around and made my way outside. The one thing I’d never been accused of being was part of the masses. I could have gotten back in and snuck past him, but I had another idea. I existed the building and walked past the alleyway where the crowd waited for her to come out. All of them wanted to see the great ballerina, perhaps get an autograph or picture with her. I knew the feeling of being on the receiving end of adulation well. I continued walking until I got to the end of the block and found a restaurant. I went in and there might have been people ahead of me, but I palmed the host a hundred dollar bill to be seated immediately. He smiled.
“Table for one?” he asked.
“Two.” I hoped.
He took me all the way to the rear of the place. I scanned the restaurant for any familiar faces, there were none, nor did I expect there would in this part of town. The man stopped at a booth that could have easily sat four, but it was separated a little from the other tables. Good. I sat down. The host handed me a menu and set another one on the table, then left. Only one thing to do, I pulled out my phone and turned it on. I had turned it off earlier while in the theater, and because I didn’t want my world to intrude on the brief interlude. I had two missed calls from Joe, as many messages and four texts. I ignored them all; they all said the same thing. Nothing I wanted to deal with yet. I sent Ivy a text, set the phone on the table and waited. My heart drummed against my rib cage in its bid to be set free.
Me: ‘I’m here. Carmines. One block from the theater.’
The waiter appeared and poured water in the glasses, I waved him off. My eyes on the silent phone. Five minutes and the phone screen was still dark. No reply. Instead of the drumming against my chest something else began to take root in my gut. How long should I wait? What the fuck, I shouldn’t even be here now and I damn well knew it. Fifteen minutes later I rose from the table and tossed some cash on it. “Fuck it!” I whispered and walked out of the restaurant just as a black limo pulled up to the curb in front of the place. Stupid ass that I was, I froze. This was New York; limos were as plentiful in this town as trash on the ground. Yet I couldn’t move.
The driver got out and came around to the rear door. He opened it up and all I saw was this black short high heeled boot, attached to a long graceful caramel-colored leg, I knew that leg. The rest of her emerged and my gaze travelled across the leggings she wore, the short skirt to the short leather jacket, up past her slender neck until I rested on her face. And it knocked me back in time. I stepped out of the doorway of the restaurant and approached her. It was only then I realized since she’d gotten out of the car she hadn’t moved. I registered that she hadn’t been alone in the car. There seemed to be a few other people in there with her. They didn’t get out and I paid them no more attention. I was there for one reason and she stood in front of me. I stood there like an idiot staring at her, but then she had remained frozen too checking me out as I did her. I wondered for a fleeting moment what she saw. I was no longer the boy she’d once known. I was a man now. And she no longer that young ballerina just beginning to fly. She was shooting among the damn stars now.
The sound of the driver shutting the car door jarred me from my paralysis. “I thought you weren’t coming, when I didn’t get a reply.” Five years and those were the fucking first words out of my mouth between us? Shit.
“I had to get past the crowd.”
“Oh.” Brilliant reply. Of course, she had to navigate through the crowd. I was too impatient. In truth, I was scared shitless she really didn’t want to see me. I’m not sure I could take that. Not from her. Not now when I risked so much by even seeing her.
“Were you leaving?” Her voice was hesitant but her gaze roamed over my face as though she tried to mesh her image of me from the past over the one before her now. I know I was. I loved what I saw. That sparkle there in her eyes, seemed familiar.
“No.” I took her hand. I had to know, a test for both of us. I looked into her eyes, damned if that electricity wasn’t still there between us. And by the way her eyes opened wide I wasn’t the only one feeling it. “Are you hungry?”
“Yes.” Her voice was low sexy. I was in trouble.
I turned around and led her back inside. I nodded to the host and asked him for my table again. He just grinned and led us back to it. If the fucker had asked for more money I would have given it to him without blinking.
Chapter Eight
Ivy
The roar of applause and bravas followed me as I stepped off the stage. I’d just finished the finale for Swan Lake. Three bows later, some of my fellow dancers lingering back stage met me there and we embraced. This was what we’d all worked so hard for. To be a part of a
professional ballet company, it was like being a part of a big family, even right down to the dysfunctionality. At one time I was the youngest principal ballerina. But after three years with the company, at twenty-one, I was burnt out. I’d been dancing since I was three with one goal in mind to become a prima ballerina which I had been for sometime now, but better known more so I think for my Pas de deux. I’d sacrificed much to get where I was today. And it was worth it. I would change only one thing.
Shelly.
I had made peace with my part in her death, yet recently I’d found dance was not enough. Perhaps for the first time in my life, while the joy was still there and always would be the solace and peace were missing.
The door suddenly opened and a man stepped in. “Ivy, are you coming with us tonight?”
I glanced up after taking off my stage makeup, my roommate, best friend and the other half of my Pas de deux, dance of two, Dante stood behind me. I smiled. Dante was one of the most beautiful men I’d ever known, prettier even than Maze and that was saying something. The first time I met Dante he’d been hugging his boyfriend goodbye outside of the auditions for the company. We’d hit it off immediately and became good friends. Two months later he tried to kiss me. I grinned even more at that memory and my shock. He was the first bi-sexual person I’d ever known. He claimed he loved either sex, he did not discriminate. Looks and personality attracted him, well mostly looks. His wish was for a three-some, one that would include me, and surprisingly another woman, which I found odd. But I declined his invitation and told him most people had a hard time maintaining one committed relationship, much less two. It wasn’t until I moved in with him I realized he’d just been having fun with me. He told me he thought I was too proper and he wanted to rattle my cage. He could be a crack up at times, but I believed he searched for a deeper connection with someone, male or female. I’d found that kind of connection once, and let it go. After I turned down Dante’s come ons, we’d been best friends and great roommates for the last three years and I never regretted it. He was my rock and I was his. But our relationship was more that of siblings.
As a professional dancer I didn’t date much, when I did it was usually a friend or brother of a fellow dancer. But none of them stuck for more than one or two dates. I told myself it was because dance took everything I had so I could not commit to a relationship. Dante was the only one I’d ever told about Shelly and Maze so he understood. Surprisingly, he was the one that encouraged me to really connect first with someone, instead of just jumping into bed with a stranger or anyone who didn’t rattle my cage.
He sat on the chair beside me and wrapped his arm around me. His long blond hair hung loose around his shoulders. When he danced it was pulled back into a queue. Tonight he was ready to party.
“Come on girl. None of that. You’ve been down lately, but the show’s over. We did a fantastic job. Now we have a bit of a break for the next couple of weeks before rehearsals begin again. Just classes a few hours a day. Now it’s time to party.”
Dante and I were the couple most often paired because we danced beautifully together. He knew exactly how to catch and hold me, how to make my body move for him. We’d even choreographed a few of the modern ballet pieces, lots of difficult leaps and lifts. Videos of our press lifts are used as examples in other companies and studios. We’d even both been approached by other companies, trying to lure us away but we’d never leave. Dante and I were happy where we were, although during downtime we had begun choreographing more for others as a team and getting paid. Which was pretty nice.
I sighed knowing Dante was determined to get me out tonight. He’d been worried about me lately. I’d done nothing but eat, sleep and dance. I hadn’t been on a date in a year or out with him and our friends in a couple of months. I didn’t really understand the restlessness in myself. It wasn’t like Shelly’s birthday or the day she died was coming up. Usually I’d begin to get restless about that time. My friend would have turned twenty-two this year, same as me. We’d have been able to drink legally. Even though we never let our ages stop us. No, the sense of restlessness I guess stemmed from something else I couldn’t define. Maybe from loneliness, Dante had been dating regularly and while it was nice seeing him with someone it reminded me of what I didn’t have. Perhaps he was right and I needed to get out more, be open to meeting people.
“All right, I’ll go. Let me finish changing.”
“Cool. I’ll be right back, let me go hurry Christy and Bloom and whoever else is going along.”
He left and I finished changing. As the lead ballerina I had my own small, emphasis on small, dressing room. The core dancers all changed in two main dressing rooms, the guys had their own. I was glad after I got dressed that I agreed to go out with Dante and our other friends. I’d just grabbed my bag when Dante walked back through the door. The man did not knock, no one did around here. At times when dancers had to do quick changes, getting in and out of costumes in sixty seconds backstage, stripping was just not that big a deal. You had no time to glance around you to see who might or might not be looking. In truth, no one was. But dancers had to learn sometimes to change around the opposite sex and after awhile you became numb to it.
“Ready,” Christy asked, walking in behind him. She held his hand. Dante and Christy ‘were testing’ each other as Christy put it to me one day. They looked good together both blond both beautiful. So far they’d been together going on two months now, a record for Dante. I nodded and they turned around and we walked out.
“I called the limo around,” Dante said. One of the perks being one of Dante’s friends, he came from money. Lots and lots of it. He didn’t need a roommate, he simply wanted one. He didn’t like the idea of living alone. When he’d decided he wanted to become a professional ballerina, his parents got behind him. They’d always supported his dancing. His mother had been a ballerina in Paris thirty years ago. They even bought him the two bedroom condo loft in Manhattan. Not cheap. And he had an account with a local limo service he used whenever he needed to get from point A to B and didn’t want to walk. Yeah, his parents loved him and supported him in everything he did. The one thing he said he couldn’t bring himself to tell them was he liked men as well as women. But he was fine with that. As long as when he went home to up state New York, where his parents lived, for a visit he made sure it was a woman he took with him. For some reason that was always me, which led them to believe I was his girlfriend. Perhaps next time he’d take Christy.
We waited in the hallway for the driver to pull up around the side when the phone in my purse tinged letting me know I had a text. I pulled out the phone and glanced at the text.
“What’s wrong?”
I glanced up and looked at Dante, unable to form the words. “I…I need a minute.”
He glanced down at his own phone. “Guys go on out. You know the fans are out there wanting autographs anyway, we have to go through them first to get to the limo. We’ll be right behind you.” He swatted Christy on her ass to get her moving. She frowned at me. Christy and I had always been friends and friendly competitors; she’d been with another company but was hired about a year ago. I always got the roles she wanted, but she’d never seemed to hold that against me. It wasn’t until she and Dante began sleeping together that she’d acted a little put off with me. I was no competition for her as far as my roommate was concerned.
Once the door closed behind Christy, Dante turned back to me. At this point I was propped against the wall.
“Okay spill, what’s up?”
“Maze.”
Dante frowned. “Okay, what about him?”
I looked into his baby blues and grabbed his arm squeezing his biceps. “He’s here.”
“Get the fuck out!” Dante’s eyebrows rose toward his hairline and he glanced around like he expected Maze to be right behind him.
I laughed. “No silly. Not here here. He’s down the block at Carmines.”
“Well fuck that.” He grabbed my hand and turned t
oward the door. “Let’s go. I want to meet this dude.”
I stopped before he could pull the door open. My heart raced at the mere thought of seeing Maze again, knowing he was so near. But under no circumstances did I want my first meeting with him in years to be in the company of Dante and the rest of our friends. “No, Dante. I have to meet him on my own. Alone. Let’s just get through the autograph line and then drop me off at the corner.”
He turned and stared at me. “You sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure.” I squeezed his arm. After that, I pretty much went on autopilot. Like dancing a piece of chorography I’d danced many times before. We walked out of the theater into the alleyway and our fans surrounded us. We signed a few autographs and stopped to take a couple of pictures, but all the while walking steadily toward the car and the driver standing beside the open door. Christy had just stepped in, then Bloom, and we weren’t far behind. I let Dante get in before me because I knew I’d get out first. I told the driver to spot at Carmines, I’d be getting out there. He merely nodded and shut the door.
When the car stopped at the end of the block and the driver threw the car in park, Christy spoke up. “Why are we stopping here?”
“Ivy’s getting off here,” Dante said.
Bloom turned to look at me. “Aren’t you coming with us?”
“No, sorry. I’m…I’m meeting someone.”
“Who?”
The question came from Christy, but by then the driver had opened the door and I saw him. I had to hold on to the doorframe to get out of the car, it kept me standing, otherwise I might have fallen. My eyes took him in like a blind man starving for light. I dissected the parts, yet it was all the same, Maze. Still heartbreakingly beautiful, but now with even more of an edge.
The Ballerina & The Fighter (Book 1) Page 5