by Lola Keeley
Anna thinks for a moment before responding, “Your roof is easier on them than broken glass.” Rubbing her arms as cool turns to something more like cold. “If I was stupid enough, I might think that sounded like you care. But you’ve already decided I’m helping Liza Wade oust you from your own company.”
“Aren’t you?” Victoria splashes more wine into her glass before setting the bottle down between them. Somehow, they’ve moved closer, separated now by not much more than the width of the bottle. The air between them feels lighter than everywhere else, as though they’re meeting at great altitude. Anna grabs the wine, intending to drink from the source to show that Victoria can’t intimidate her with a bottle of red that probably cost more than Anna’s dress.
“From the bottle?” Victoria gasps before Anna can complete her little coup. “Are we savages?” She stills herself, as though not entirely shaken by the night’s events. “I wasn’t expecting company.”
Anna’s slow to react when Victoria hands her the glass, but she accepts it as though she expected it all along. She tries not to think about putting her mouth where Victoria’s has just been. She tries even harder not to think about Victoria’s mouth at all, not when she’s pouting over her stolen wine, those lips pillow soft and broad in a way that just invites the tracing of a fingertip.
“I didn’t have you pegged for a thief.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me?” Anna ventures, confidence buoyed by the rush of red wine through her system. “Like, for example, that I really hate when people go behind each other’s backs. There’s no way I could ever work for Liza now, not like this.”
“I’m sure they’d make an offer that would force you to reconsider,” Victoria points out, chased with a sigh. “Or maybe they’ll burn you for ever having been associated with me. I suppose I’m sorry for that. You have great promise, Anna.”
“Do I?” She has to know. If Anna is going to give her all now the threat is real and has a name, she has to be sure. She has to know that Victoria is sure too. “Because after tonight I’d understand if you can’t take a risk on me.”
“You’re scared?”
“No!” Anna protests. “Well, a little. But one thing I know for sure is that if you still want to go for this? I’m all-in. I’ll do whatever it takes, because people like that? They don’t deserve to win.”
“It’s going to be even harder now. Any allowances I might have made, before—”
Anna snorts. She can’t help it. “Come on. I think we both know you were never going to do that. I know what I signed up for, but I’m offering you the chance to take it back if you have to.”
“Do you want that?” Victoria is curious, sidling closer as they both look out over the city instead of at each other. “I wouldn’t throw you out of the company, but you’d accept going back to the corps, just one of the girls making up numbers again?”
With a shake of her head, Anna risks another glance at Victoria before finishing her glass of wine and setting it down in the limited space left between them. “I wouldn’t like it, no. But mostly because I wouldn’t get to work with you every day the way we do.”
“Flattery won’t get you anywhere, Gale.”
“Still, if you needed that. If it meant you’d still be here next season and we could try again…I’d do it.”
Victoria stares back at her, disbelieving. “That won’t be necessary.” Her words are almost lost in the faint traffic noises floating up from below. She sits on a wooden packing crate that’s been left up here.
Anna decides to be bold one more time, sitting down next to her.
“I picked you for a reason, and we’ll see it through. I’m going to make demands of you every day. You’ll have to work harder and longer than you ever have before, and what you think is your best? That won’t be good enough.”
“Then what should I be aiming for?”
“What I think is your best. I see things you can’t, Anna. I see potential in you. We need reviews that blow Rick and Liza out of the water, understood? But if you’re having doubts, if you’re tempted by something they’ve offered, then walk away now. Preferably with your shoes on.”
“Will you listen?” Anna exhales in frustration and, continuing her streak of uninvited contact, she’s grasping at Victoria’s wrist.
The touch makes Victoria look down as though her purse has just been snatched, but she makes no move to pull away.
Anna revels in the fragility of the tiny wrist, but it’s tempered by the jump of muscle in Victoria’s forearm, a reminder that she’s every bit as strong. “I’m not siding with anyone but you. You gave me this chance. You did that. How could I go anywhere else?”
“Will you still feel that way on the days where rehearsal starts at seven and you crawl home at midnight? When I’m making you lift and turn the other girls like a workhorse, things that no ballerina ever really trained for?”
“You say that like it’s any different to how demanding it is now.” Anna almost laughs. “I feel like maybe you could be less mean about it, but fine. I’ll be up there, opening night, making you proud, hopefully.”
“Let’s not get carried away.”
It’s honest-to-God teasing, and Anna goes weak at the sound of it.
“Whatever did I do to inspire such loyalty in you?” Victoria asks.
“You’re just…you, I guess.” Anna wishes she had something more eloquent to say, but words have failed her far more than her feet ever could. “And it helps that you’re offering me everything I ever wanted.”
“There is that.” Victoria leans closer, glancing down at Anna’s grip on her wrist again but still not moving to break the hold. They’re barely inches apart, all alone on the rooftop. “Make sure you bring Bishop or one of the boys to teach you tomorrow. I want lift practice until you’re throwing strangers around on the street out of sheer habit.”
“Sure, but if I get arrested for inappropriate grabbing, who’s going to dance your solos then?” Anna jokes. “You know, we could talk about this indoors. I can play you the whole restaurant conversation back if you have any reservations. Maybe with a second wineglass?”
“If it stops you stealing mine, then by all means.” Victoria wriggles free at last, standing and gesturing toward the fire door. “How did you know I was up here? Did the Golden Girl next door rat on me?”
“See, you say that like an insult, but there’s no bad way to be a Gold—” Anna stumbles on the doorstep, almost face-planting on the floor. Only Victoria’s swift clutching of her elbow keeps Anna upright, better reflexes than expected for someone with the best part of a bottle of wine in them.
“Try not to break both your legs before rehearsal. Honestly, Anna.”
“I’m fine!” she protests, a little too embarrassed. Standing up straight just pulls her closer to Victoria. They’re both in the doorway, framed by it really, and those thoughts Anna’s been trying not to have, about wine-tinted lips and precise fingers, come roaring back until she can barely think at all.
Is she leaning in? No, but Victoria seems to be. Time slows and the inches gradually evaporate, and just as Anna’s about to let her eyes flutter closed in anticipation, the peal of her damn ringtone goes off like a siren.
Twice now a phone call has almost ruined her entire life. She has got to keep the thing on Vibrate, or better yet completely silent.
Victoria retreats down the corridor just a little.
Anna plucks the phone from her purse and answers with a snappish “What?”
“Anna?” Jess sounds panicked. Two syllables are all it takes for Anna to be sure of that and feel her own heart pound like a kick drum in response. “I need your help. It’s Irina.”
“Where are you?” Anna asks, shooting an apologetic glance Victoria’s way, knowing already that this is one secret she can’t share. She acknowledges what Jess tells her and ends the call abruptly. “I have to go,” she doesn’t quite explain. “Maybe another time on the wine.”
“
It’s not like I actually invited you,” Victoria points out, but her heart isn’t in it. “What’s wrong?”
“Friend drama,” Anna says, waving her hand a little too frantically to dismiss the topic. “You know how it is with us millennials.”
Victoria’s frown says she doesn’t believe it, but Anna starts walking away to make it a done deal. “I’ll be in rehearsal bright and early,” she promises. “This won’t affect it.”
“Better not!” Victoria calls after her.
Maybe it’s desperation, but as Anna makes her way downstairs, she could swear Victoria almost sounded disappointed Anna couldn’t stay.
CHAPTER 23
Victoria makes her way through her apartment in the dark, knowing the layout innately by now. Reaching the bedroom window, she pulls the curtain back just far enough to spy on the street below. Sure enough, Anna scurries across, rushing through late evening traffic with barely a glance.
There’s no sign of anyone meeting her, and when Anna doesn’t reemerge in five minutes, Victoria gives up on her little act of espionage. She has no right to Anna’s free time, to know of her every movement outside of her contracted hours to the company. The wine is already making her tongue feel dry; the faint early drums of a headache creeping in at the base of her skull.
Has Victoria really been so reckless? Sharing wine on a rooftop as if they’d sneaked out after curfew? She hadn’t done that since her training years at White Lodge, the boarding school that fed dancers into the Royal Ballet like a well-oiled machine.
The legend of Victoria Ford began not on stage, but in the halls of that academy. Even though she’d been a late arrival, barely a year in dorms before being invited to join the company as a professional, she’d made her mark.
She shakes her head at the unexpected bout of nostalgia, the pangs for London fainter these days but no less frequent. How cliché that a near kiss with a beautiful girl should send her into such an indulgent spiral. Setting the almost-empty wine bottle on the table, and the glass beside it, Victoria hesitates a moment.
“Don’t be a fool,” she chastises herself, heading toward the bedroom. There are wars enough to fight as it is, without embarrassing herself.
“Have I mentioned lately how much I want to kill you?” Anna snaps at her sister as she sees her propping Irina up against the wall outside Anna’s apartment. “Doesn’t she have a home of her own to go to? Oh wait, she does.”
“Just let us in,” Jess groans, her eyes glassy. “She was in pain, okay? I just need to keep an eye on her, make sure she didn’t take too much. Your place was closer, and you know, just in case…”
Irina swears a brief torrent in Russian before clamping her hand over her mouth like she’s going to be sick.
“If she pukes on anything, you’re replacing it,” Anna warns, ushering them in and rushing to grab the small trash can from the bathroom, handing it to Irina. “Is she drunk, or…?”
“You know what, you don’t need details,” Jess tells her off, pulling the big-sister card as though Anna can’t see her pupils just as well in the bright lights of the hallway.
“Well you two can fight over the couch, because I’m not giving up my bed.” Anna makes her way through to the kitchen. “I’m going to make some coffee. Maybe that will help?”
Jess mutters under her breath something like “Maybe it won’t,” but it’s something to do at least. The last thing Anna herself needs is caffeine; even with a drink at dinner and some of Victoria’s wine, she’s all jittery. It’s the work of a minute to fill up the coffeemaker and set it whirring to life, after which Anna watches on in silence as Jess deals with Irina, setting her up on the couch with the exaggerated care of someone who doesn’t entirely trust her own movements. From this small distance, in the dimness of the room that’s only got one lamp lit, the similarity between Irina and her mother makes Anna’s heart ache.
“What the hell happened?” Anna asks when she brings their mugs over. Irina is already passed out, snoring lightly against the cushion. “Didn’t you have work?”
“I told you, she just showed up.” Jess gulps at her coffee, hissing when it’s too hot. She’s in her usual stage blacks, no jewelry or anything else that may catch the light while lurking in the wings. “I know this afternoon she had an appointment, but I thought it was just a massage or something. Instead she shows up rambling in what I guess was Ukrainian, because you know, it’s like Russian, but the slang… I didn’t get all of it.”
Anna considers carefully, sitting on the living room floor cross-legged, mirroring Jess. They sip too-hot coffee in tandem, and Anna asks what’s bugging her most of all.
“But you didn’t come straight here. You got loaded first. I know Irina is doing it for the pain; she’s carrying injuries. What’s your excuse, Jess?”
“My sister, Nancy Reagan.”
“This isn’t judging, it’s just… Did she say how bad it is? Because we’re kind of betting everything on this program. If she can’t dance it…”
Irina sits bolt upright, startling them both.
“I will dance,” she almost snarls. “One more season, that is all I need.”
“What did the doctor say? Was it Kim?” Anna demands, laying a tentative hand on Irina’s shoulder.
“No, just another quacking duck,” Irina says. “Blin, gospodi. You can’t tell Vicki. If she cuts me now…”
Anna hesitates. Hasn’t she just pledged her every effort to make this season a success? And unless she’s going completely crazy, they almost kissed to seal the deal. Is that terrifying, amazing situation really something she can bear to throw away just to let Irina keep pushing through the pain barrier?
“Sick,” Irina huffs, leveraging herself off the couch and hobbling toward the bathroom until Jess can catch up and support her the rest of the way. When they get themselves together, she’s going to need a full explanation, and an idea of exactly what Irina is trying to overcome with her injuries. The urge to call Victoria and have her come across the street to deal with all this is overwhelming, but Anna holds out.
She can handle it. If this is how the big leagues go? Then Anna has to be ready for it. The thought of keeping this from Victoria makes her feel slightly nauseated, but maybe this kind of loyalty is what they mean by esprit de corps.
A phone rings, though Anna doesn’t recognize the ringtone. The sounds of Jess cursing are much more familiar. A moment later she emerges, shamefaced but her mouth still pinched in anger.
“Those clowns can’t even close up a theater without me. It’s all gone to shit. Can you keep an eye on Irina for a few minutes while I talk them through it?”
“Sure,” Anna sighs. “Not like I have anything better to do.”
“Breakfast is definitely on me,” Jess promises, with a quick one-armed hug.
“I have early rehearsal,” Anna says. “With your girlfriend in there. Assuming she can walk in the morning.”
“She’ll be fine,” Jess says, already halfway to the door. “Trust me, this is so not the toughest thing she’s been through. You two should talk sometime, properly.”
Anna sits for a moment alone, waiting for some sound to suggest Irina might emerge soon. When there’s no sign of movement, she makes her way into the bathroom with some trepidation and finds Irina sitting on the floor of the shower.
“You’d better not throw up in there,” Anna warns. “Come on, let’s put you to bed. And by bed I mean sofa. I don’t care how great a dancer you are, you’re not getting my memory foam.”
“You are not a nurse,” Irina says with a sigh. “Too rough, little one.”
“Don’t ‘little one’ me when I’m dragging you through my apartment,” Anna argues back, but she’s quietly pleased that even with Irina slumping like so much dead weight, there’s not much strain in half carrying her. It bodes well for the lifts she’ll have to do tomorrow. Only when she’s pulling a blanket over Irina does Anna notice she’s humming to herself. The moment she stops, Irina picks up the tune
.
She sings in Ukrainian, and it’s the first time in over a decade that Anna’s heard the lullaby in anything but English. It’s one of her greatest regrets that she’d never pestered her mother to teach her more, to learn the little songs and rhymes in the language of a country left behind.
Spaty, spaty, holubyatko, Irina finishes, reaching out vaguely with her eyes closed, fingertips skimming Anna’s cheek.
“Sleep, sleep, little dove,” Anna translates back to her in a whisper, eyes brimming with tears. There’s no denying the similarity now, not with Irina’s heavy makeup mostly sweated or wiped off, her face relaxed as she falls into sleep. For a fleeting moment, Anna could swear she has her mother back.
Irina snores to break the moment, a choking little sound that has Anna alert for any signs she’s in distress. Confident Irina will sleep it off, Anna turns her into the recovery position and goes to get ready for bed. It’s been one hell of a night and, as she settles under the covers, her racing mind says it’s not going to get any easier. Anna closes her eyes, but all she sees is her mother’s face, faded by memory. The lullaby rings in her ears, and she pulls the pillow over her head.
She’s late.
Barely a handful of hours since all her grand promises, and Anna Gale is late. Victoria scowls into her latte, which isn’t even close to hot enough. The studio echoes with the impatient tapping of her right foot, and she checks her watch one more time to make sure the clock hasn’t skipped ahead overnight.
Finally, there’s a commotion in the hall, and her trio of ballerinas spill into the room, Gabriel in tow behind them. He still has his headphones and sunglasses firmly in place.
Well medicated and fueled with fresh determination to beat Rick and Liza, Victoria prowls the room like a tiger in an enclosure. She snaps, she berates, she straightens a leg here and adjusts an arm there, the fact of only warming up being no excuse for anything less than perfect form. Only with Irina does Victoria know better than to push. She’s here, she’s upright, and she’s dancing. Let that be enough for now, no matter how pale she looks.