During a break, Raoul ran to the sideline, pulled off his helmet and picked up a Gatorade bottle to squeeze a stream of pale, green liquid into his mouth. I have no idea how he did it, but he spotted me. Our gazes connected and he smiled. Then he placed the bottle on the bench, kissed two fingers, tapped them to his heart, and then pointed to me. My own heart went buttery and warm. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to lose it entirely to this boy.
Chapter Thirty Seven
I slept in the next morning and when I woke, I lay in bed with my phone, going through pictures, reliving the night before. Jenna and I had met Troy and Raoul at the Frozen Tundra Ice Cream Shop after the game. I’d snapped a bunch of random photos, but one of Raoul wiping a smear of ice cream off his nose made me laugh aloud. Thinking about how the creamy confection came to be there caused me to tingle all over.
Raoul had scrunched his nose in disgust when he saw me eating mango-flavored ice cream. I tried to get him to taste it, but he refused, and when I called him a sissy he’d said, “I’ll try it. On one condition.”’
“What?” I’d asked.
“If you feed it to me.”
I had seriously backed myself into a corner. It was my fault. I’d offered for him to taste it. But the look he gave me said he’d like to taste more than ice cream.
Jenna egged me on. “Go ahead, I dare you,” she’d said.
So I’d taken my pink, plastic spoon, scooped up a sizable amount of the yellow-orange treat, and placed it into his mouth. Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, he’d closed his lips around the spoon, letting them linger as he made eye contact with me. Then he dragged his mouth off the spoon and licked his lips sensually before saying, “Mmmm. More.”
A flush had shot up my neck then, and thinking about it now caused a repeat sensation. I’d tried to play it cool—pretend I knew how to act sexy—and tunneled out another scoop. On my way to his mouth with it, Jenna jibed, “Sheesh, you two keep that up and you’re gonna melt all the ice cream in the place.” Then she bumped my elbow and I lost control of the spoon, causing the ice cream to jostle up Raoul’s nose rather than into his mouth.
Grinning now, I set the photo as my phone’s background, and after flipping through more of the pictures, I chose a couple of Raoul and me to send to Marisol. Then there was a knock at my door. I sat up in bed. It would be Mom. I shoved my phone under the bed covers a second before she opened the door and poked her head in.
“If you don’t get up soon,” she said, you’re going to miss your chat with your dad.”
“I’m up,” I said. “Be dressed in a minute.”
She was closing the door and I stopped her.
“Have you seen my purple shrug?”
“No. Did you check your closet?”
“Yeah, and the dirty clothes hamper, too, but there’s no sign of it. Maybe I left it at school.”
“Probably,” she agreed and left me to get dressed.
Throwing on a sloppy tee and a pair of running shorts, I had my laptop booted up and ready for the call when it came.
“So you’ve already been out with him again?” Dad asked when I told him about the football game and ice cream afterwards.
“It wasn’t exactly a date,” I replied.
“You haven’t wasted any time,” he ribbed. “A week ago, you hadn’t even been out, and now you’re his personal cheerleader. You tell him I said he’d better treat you right. He doesn’t want me to come over there.”
“That’s a great idea,” I said, jumping on his suggestion. “If you came home you could meet him.”
He opened his mouth then closed it again, and after fiddling pointlessly with his keyboard, he asked, “Is your mother there?”
I shook my head. “She went grocery shopping, but I can have her call you when she gets home.”
“That’s okay. Maybe another time.”
“This is wrong,” I complained. “It’s just wrong. You two don’t talk to each other; you’re not even in the same country for heaven’s sake. What gives? When are you coming home?”
“Don’t worry about it. It will fi…”
“Don’t worry about it?” I interrupted. “How can you say don’t worry about it? I think Mom’s cheating on you, Dad.”
Oops, hadn’t meant for that last part to slip out.
He stared vacantly at me a few seconds, let out a long sigh, and leaned back in his chair, stretching so all I saw was his upper chest and shoulders. When he reappeared, he looked sad.
“I didn’t want you to find out this way. I had hoped we’d get it worked out.”
“Find out what? Get what worked out?”
Tugging at an earlobe, he groaned then drew his hand across his face. “Christine—baby—I’m the one who cheated. I cheated on your mother. And then I ran away.”
My mouth flew open and I gasped like I’d been sucker-punched, gurgling noises rising from my throat.
“I didn’t want you to find out like this. But you’ve been so persistent. And if your mother…” he waited a moment, “…well, if you mother wants to see someone else, I suppose I don’t blame her.”
Perched on the edge of my seat, I scooted my laptop closer. “This can’t be happening,” I muttered more to myself than to him.
“It wasn’t supposed to come out like this. It wasn’t supposed to come out at all. But I don’t want you blaming your mother for our separation.”
Separation. There, he’d said it. Their separation.
He continued to talk. I could hear and see him but none of it made sense.
“You cheated? But…but…”
“I’m so sorry,” he placated. “I’d really hoped you’d never have to learn of it. I came over here for a while to give things time to cool down, and now your mom and I seem to be stuck in limbo.”
My stomach burned and I felt sick. “You cheated?”
“Christine,” he touched his monitor as if he could console me through cyberspace, “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry!”
The overwhelming desire to punch something surged through me. All along, I’d thought Mom the problem. The cavern that had developed between us, her animosity toward Dad, I’d misread it and blamed her.
“Sorry for what? Sorry you did it or sorry you were caught? How did you get caught anyway?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” he said.
“Oh, yeah? Try me.”
“It was one time. She was a business associate, and I haven’t seen her since.”
“A business associate? Seriously, Dad?”
“I regretted it. That’s why I confessed everything to your mother. I went to her and told her about it.”
“But why? Why would you do it in the first place?”
He stared at me for a long while. “I don’t know. I’ve gone over it a thousand times. Your mother was always busy, working all the time, shopping and rubbing shoulders with the executives at her office; you were growing up, getting your own life. It’s a pathetic excuse, but I suppose I felt left out.
“Your mother and I had fought before I went to meet a company rep that night.” He paused and briefly cupped his hand over his mouth. “I had too much to drink, and—and it happened. I know it sounds sleazy, and I’m not making excuses.” He touched the screen. “You’re crying. Don’t cry. It breaks my heart. You know I can’t stand it when you cry.”
I wiped the tears from my eyes, rubbed my nose with my sleeve, and glowered at the monitor while he continued.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve regretted it. It cost me my wife, my home, and now my daughter.”
When I shifted uncomfortably in my chair, he begged, “Please, Christine, give me a chance. I know it may be too late with your mother, but please don’t shut me out, too.”
A throbbing started behind my eyes and shot to the back of my head. I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose to staunch it, and when I lowered my hand, he was staring at me, waiting for my verdict.
“I don’t know what to say,
Dad. I don’t know if I even want you to come home anymore," I snapped. Then I hit the End Call button.
Chapter Thirty Eight
Burrowed under my bed covers, I was still crying when Mom came home and entered my room.
“I went to Whole Foods and bought that pineapple yogurt you like.”
She saw my tears then and hurried to the bed. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” Pulling me to sit up, she pushed my hair back, and searched my face. “Are you hurt?”
My mouth felt filled with sand but I managed to mumble, “Dad told me about his one-night-stand.”
“He told you? Oh, no. Why would he do that? We didn’t want you to know.”
“Why not, Mom? Why would you keep it from me?”
She pressed her lips together and hesitated. “That’s not exactly a topic you want to discuss with your teenage daughter. How was I supposed to bring it up? ‘Oh, hey, Chris, your dad is a low-life cheating SOB, but we’re going to trudge on and pretend it never happened’.”
To my knowledge, my mother had never called my father a name, but she’d obviously harbored her anger for a while.
“Plus,” she sighed, “I know how much he loves you and you him. He’s still your father, no matter what happens. I would never want anything to come between the two of you. Not even this.”
“I owe you an apology.” I sniffed.
“Me? Whatever for?”
“I thought you were cheating with Cooper Nance, and I told Dad to try to get him to come home.”
She made a nervous twittering sound.
“You find that funny?”
“It’s not that it’s funny, it’s…I don’t know…I guess I did find Cooper’s attention appealing, and the idea of your father hearing a younger man thinks me attractive is a bit of a balm to my bruised ego, but it’s okay that you told him. You’re not to blame for any of this.”
Her eyes grew watery and she lightly dabbed a tear balancing on her lower lid. Then she pulled me into her arms and we cried together, her rubbing my back and cooing comforting declarations in my ear.
When we’d run out of tears, she held me at arm’s length. “Better?”
I nodded.
“We’ll be okay. I promise.” Then she stood. “I’m going to put the groceries away, but I’m in the kitchen if you need me.”
After she’d gone, I got up and strolled to Dad’s theater room. My original shock had turned to sorrow, and I still wanted to feel his presence there, to smell the leather and any of his cologne that lingered.
Alone in the dark for a long time, I thought of calling Jenna or chatting with Marisol, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It hurt too much to let either of them in yet.
Around four, I got hungry and went to the kitchen for some of the yogurt. After grabbing a spoon and popping the top into the trash, I headed for my room. The sound of Mom’s elevated voice caught my attention, so I tiptoed down the hall to her bedroom door. There was a tiny crack in it, enough for me to hear she was on the phone with Dad.
“Benjamin, it was not my idea for you to go over there. You did that. And you’re the one who told her why you went.” She was quiet a moment. “I don’t know. She’s okay now, but I don’t think we should tell her about the divorce yet.”
Divorce. They were going to divorce. I looked down at the yogurt cup in my hand and lost my appetite.
“Yes, I know what time it is there,” Mom snapped, “but I felt this was too important to wait. Fine. Yeah, yeah, I’ll be here at ten tomorrow. Okay—I said okay. I’ll talk to you then.”
She’d obviously hung up the phone, and I contemplated going to her, but I didn’t know what to say. They’d hidden so much from me already.
When she began to cry, I backed quietly down the hall, careful not to draw her attention. In my room, I set the yogurt and spoon on the side table and picked up my phone. The only way to get rid of the oppressive weight sitting on my chest was to go to the theater and dance until I didn’t feel it anymore.
Chapter Thirty Nine
“Are you there?” I called into the theater shadows. “Erik?” I’d sent him a text but wasn’t certain he’d received it.
Several seconds passed and the curtains shuddered.
“I’m here.”
“I want to dance.”
“Then let’s get to work,” he said.
Warming up, I strove to push Mom and Dad out of my mind, but the months of dead-end conversations with Mom, and the devastating talk with Dad, played like a video clip on repeat in my thoughts. After I’d blundered through several steps, Erik finally stopped me.
“No, no, no. There’s no fluidity. Where is your head tonight?”
I fell out of position and slapped my hands on my thighs. “I don’t know what you want. Without seeing my instructor, how am I supposed to gage my performance, to know what you’re thinking? It’s like dancing blind.”
“That’s not an entirely bad thing, Christine. You rely too much on your instructor’s facial expression and body language.”
He didn’t sound the least bit sympathetic. And when he started the music and called out a command, I whirled around, throwing my hands in the air to link my fingers behind my head. Several seconds passed as the arrangement played on. Still, I stood like that fighting the tears threatening to take over. I refused to give into them, though, and dropped my hands again to gather myself. Taking a deep breath, I did an about-face and lifted my chin.
“I’m sorry. Start the music over—let me do it again.”
The music stopped all together then, and after a beat, he spoke and he’d moved from the back curtain to the left side of the stage, very near me now.
“Something’s happened. What’s bothering you?”
I struggled with my composure, afraid to speak, and burst into a bout of crying. Getting a grip, I drew from years of training to stand in first position and lock eyes on a focal point.
“I’m ready. Start the music again.”
The curtain swayed and to my surprise, his long pale, fine-boned fingers slipped from behind the curtain to curl around the edge of the fabric, and I wondered if he was going to step out. But he merely held it in his hand.
“Are you going to tell me?” he asked. “I thought we’d established a level of trust.”
He was right. He’d certainly trusted me with his story.
“My family is falling apart,” I choked. “My parents are separated and they’re planning to divorce.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“My dad lied to us. He let me believe…I…I don’t know what he let me believe, but it wasn’t the truth.”
Everything pressed in on me then and I couldn’t take it anymore. The tears came.
“I should leave,” I sniveled at last. “This isn’t working tonight.”
“Wait,” he pleaded, and his hand disappeared. “I have an idea. Stay there. I’ll be right back.”
“Huh?”
“Just promise me you’ll stay there.”
“Okay, I’ll stay.”
His footsteps echoed behind the curtain. He was leaving the backstage area, and I couldn’t imagine why.”
After pacing a while, I went to the edge of the stage to sit down, hang my legs over the side, and look out on the pencil-straight rows of burgundy theater seats.
Several minutes passed when I heard, “Christine—I’m over here.”
I whipped my head to the left and my mouth fell open. Erik was standing on the stage for me to see, dressed in black warm-ups and arrayed in an elaborate costume mask that concealed his face.
With effortless grace he approached me, every step revealing his nimble dancer’s body. When he stopped he extended his open hand to me and I took it, allowing him pull me to my feet with a strong arm.
Mere inches from me, he waved a hand in front of the mask. “I know this is strange. But it was the only thing I could think of. And it didn’t seem right for me to be behind the curtain and you out here crying a
ll by yourself.”
Still surprised to see him on stage, I stared open-mouthed at the mask. Full-faced, it was white with angular, almond shaped eyes. The upper half was stippled gold, with raised filigree swirling across the forehead and down the sides of each cheek. The lips were of a softer, more buttery, shade of gold. The face-piece connected to a length of black knit that was swathed in an Arabian style across the top of the mask, draped under his chin and wrapped back up to be pinned high on the other side. It was stunning.
“Are you afraid?” he asked.
I closed my mouth and shook my head.
He was still holding my hand in his, and lifting it between us, he placed his other on top so that he held my hand warmly between his, and asked, “Then will you let me dance with you?”
Chapter Forty
It was impossible to tell his age with so much of him covered up, but I thought of Cooper Nance and figured Erik younger than him. But the baritone register of his voice led me to believe him older than Raoul, no longer a teenager.
“We’re going to use this—your pain,” he said, “to transform your dancing. You’ll learn to channel your pain, your love, your hate, everything you’re passionate about into your art.”
Curling my bottom lip in, I held it between my teeth.
“You don’t believe me, but you’ll see.”
He released my hand to glide behind me. Then gently, he took each of my wrists and lifted my arms straight out into second position.
“Now tell me how you feel.”
“I…I…”
“Tell me how you feel,” he pressed, never releasing his hold on my arms. “Remember it. The moment pain pierced you. What did you feel?”
My thoughts went back to the video chat with Dad. The revelation had been piercing.
“Betrayal.”
“Betrayal,” he echoed in my ear. “So you are Giselle. See it?”
I closed my eyes and nodded.
Then he shifted and brought his face around to the other side, and the mask brushed against my hair.
“You are Giselle. The man you love, Prince Albrecht, has betrayed you. He wooed you and stole your affection from the gamekeeper Hilarion. You thought him a simple peasant, someone with whom you could grow old, but he kept the truth from you.”
My eyes flew open as I thought about Dad keeping the truth from me.
“When you learned he was royalty and already promised to another, you were so devastated it drove you mad, and you died from a broken heart.
I visualized it, me in a medieval village falling in love with Prince Albrecht, and then the grief of his duplicity, which ultimately led to my demise.