Chapter 16
Jane watched her sister listlessly push a piece of fried tofu around the Styrofoam tray with a chopstick. Elizabeth turned the cube on its side, then pushed it back over. More suspicious yet, she had only eaten a bite of her egg roll before tossing it back into its wax paper bag. Elizabeth loved the egg rolls and always begged Jane for hers.
“Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?” Jane asked again.
Elizabeth looked up with dead eyes, shook her head, and went back to skewering the piece of tofu.
“I know you're embarrassed about what happened today, but no one blames you. Everyone thinks it was Caroline's fault.”
Making no reply, Elizabeth set her chopstick down and looked to her sister. Elizabeth's heart lurched, and she felt another peal of anger and hurt rip at her insides. Jane had no clue how William had ruined her chance at promotion. She wouldn't be this placid if she did. Elizabeth scrunched her face up, and then covered it with her palms.
“Elizabeth, what?”
“I can't talk about it! I'm so goddamned angry at him, I can't even think straight.”
“Why? Elizabeth, just tell me!”
Standing from the sofa, Elizabeth dropped her Styrofoam box of Chinese food onto the coffee table. “I'm sorry, Jane. I need some time to calm down.”
She walked into her room and shut the door with a cold thud. Jane sighed and closed the lid of Elizabeth's wholly uneaten food. Elizabeth had barely spoken the entire evening. She was sullen and troubled. Jane knew from Charles that Caroline had wrangled back the pas de deux. She had seen her sister in the throws of rejection before. This was not the weepy, dejected Elizabeth who had been denied a role she deserved. This was another beast entirely. Biting her lip, Jane was tempted to call Charles and ask what specifically had happened in William Lucas' office. He would never say, though.
Jane stood and collected the garbage from that night's dinner. She decided to give Elizabeth a night to work through her feelings before she pressed the issue any further.
In her room, Elizabeth collapsed onto her bed, burying her face in the pillow. She could not cry. Her mind was still too troubled for that kind of release. Rewinding over that afternoon, Elizabeth heard William's voice, its haughty baritone tinged with scorn. Her skin tingled again at all of the ways he had insulted her.
In love with her? Impossible. It was unfathomable. William had done nothing but criticize her, patronize her, look down on her, taken advantage of her. His disgust with himself had been so apparent when he'd confessed it. He had called himself an idiot, and her vain, fickle, and worst of all, narrow-minded. He had insulted her, and all in the name of what he thought was love.
He loved her, but he hated himself for it. What an awful thing to say to someone.
And all of the other things he had said. His guiltless admission about Jane's promotion, Greg and poetry, all the other bullshit. He loved her? It was so unbelievable. She had thought he'd shared her feelings – intense physical attraction hampered by an overpowering dislike of the other's character and behavior. William had certainly betrayed lust, but never admiration. Elizabeth could only think his confession another means of manipulation, a way to get himself out of the hole he had dug that day in rehearsal, and keep her on his side.
Sitting up, Elizabeth picked up her pillow and threw it across the room, feeling a bit better when it made contact with her vanity mirror, taking down with it a magazine cutout of Perfection by Hermes.
**
“But seriously, why? I mean, she's like only in the corps. Like, she's good and all, but, like, I just don't…”
The words died on the dancer's lips as Elizabeth and Jane shuffled into the dressing room with their dance bags. Elizabeth glanced over to the huddle in the corner suspiciously. They had been gabbing enthusiastically until the moment she and Jane had come in. Now, they glared at her. Lowering her eyes, Elizabeth chose a place on the counter far away from their stares. Charlotte approached Elizabeth and Jane and leaned on a chair. Rolling her eyes silently, she then smiled at Elizabeth.
“Warm up starts in ten minutes.”
Nodding, Elizabeth grabbed a pair of leg warmers from her bag. “I'm heading up there now.” She smiled weakly at her sister and Charlotte, and then left the dressing room.
“Well,” Charlotte sighed, “any better since last night?”
Jane shook her head. “I don't think talk like that makes it any better.” She nodded to the opposite corner.
Glancing over, Charlotte lowered her voice to a whisper, “They've been at it for almost twenty minutes before you came. Did Lizzy have some kind of fight with Mr. Darcy yesterday?”
Jane shrugged. “She won't talk.”
“Not that I trust their gossip, but Donna said she heard Mr. Darcy and Liz screaming at each other in the studio.”
Frowning, Jane took Charlotte's arm. “Come on, let's go grab a place at the barre.”
The two women linked arms, and whispered quietly as they trekked through the bowels of City Center to company class.
**
Elizabeth tapped the corner of her eyelid, setting the false eyelash in place. Frowning, she turned to Jane and asked, “Are these even?”
Jane studied her sister's eyes and replied that it was close enough. Then, she reached into her sister's makeup bag to borrow an eyebrow pencil.
“These costumes are god-awful,” Charlotte whined, gazing at her butt in the mirror. “Unitards? What was the man thinking? I look like a pole.”
Cracking a weak smile, Elizabeth looked at Charlotte. “You look fine.”
“Dancers in William Darcy's piece. You have ten minutes,” the stage manager announced over the intercom.
Jane and Charlotte stood. “Lizzy, hurry up and get your shoes on,” Jane said.
“Yup, I got it. It'll take me two minutes.” Rummaging through her bag, Elizabeth pulled out a brand new pointe shoe, the pink satin shimmering under the bright dressing room lights. She pushed aside leg warmers trying to find the other one.
“Jane, do you have my other shoe?”
Jane inspected the inside of her bag. “Nope, not in here.”
Furrowing her eyebrows, Elizabeth went through her bag again, opening every zipper and looking through every pocket. She turned the bag over and dumped the contents out on the floor.
“It's not here,” she cried. Jane's eyes widened, and she began searching through the mess of makeup and legwarmers on the counter.
“Has anyone here seen my pointe shoe?” Elizabeth asked the dressing room. A few dancers shook their heads, looking at her with concern.
“Charlotte, go tell Roger we'll be up,” Jane said. Charlotte nodded, and jogged out of the dressing room.
“Are you sure you put it in your bag?” Jane asked.
“Yes!” Elizabeth exclaimed, unable to suppress her panic. “You saw me. I picked them up from Mindy before we came down here. They were wrapped up in each other. I put them both in my bag!”
“Did you take them out?”
“Jane, you saw me. I put my bag down, got out my warmers, and then went to class.”
Jane chewed on her lip.
“Dancers in William Darcy's piece must come backstage. You're on in five.”
“Fuck!” Elizabeth cried, throwing her hands up in frustration.
“Liz, just wear the shoes you wore in class.”
“They're filthy!”
“At this point, it doesn't matter. Come on, get them on, and let's go.”
Elizabeth pulled the dirty, worn shoes from her bag and threw them on in record speed. She laced the ribbons, tucking them in securely, and then jumped up and ran backstage. She and Jane made it just as the light applause from the last piece was finishing.
Elizabeth was so shaken that she didn't have time to notice William standing in the right, upstage wing. The music began, and she jumped out into formation. But, her heart was racing, her mind tripping over itself. She panicked and blanked on the upcoming phrase. Luckily, she copied Lydia, who danced in front of her. Willing herself to concentrate, Elizabeth made it through the opening sequence and ran offstage, her chest heaving harder than it should have been for only one minute of dancing.
She felt tears well in her eyes. Fanning her face, Elizabeth commanded herself to stop the histrionics. She knew William would explode if she made a careless mistake, and frankly, she wanted nothing more to do with the man. Taking three deep breaths, she let the music take her, and she calmly waltzed back on stage.
The audience was tiny, but enormous in importance. Only the first three rows in the Orchestra section were full, but their occupants were millionaires and billionaires who had given heaps of money to the company. If they liked what they saw tonight, they would give more. Elizabeth knew that Catherine Boroughs was one amongst them, but the lights prevented her from picking out the woman's face.
The music ended. Elizabeth posed. Then, to her surprise, the curtain fell.
“Just bow,” William yelled onto the stage. The confused dancers lined up. When the curtain rose again, they curtseyed gracefully and received peppered applause. The curtain fell, and they ran off stage muttering to each other.
“What happened to the pas?” Lydia asked, approaching Elizabeth.
“Don't know.”
“Wasn't Caroline going to dance it?”
Elizabeth only shrugged. She looked to the wings, trying to catch a glimpse of William, but he had disappeared. Walking back downstairs to the corps de ballet dressing room, Elizabeth tried to recall what she had done with her new pair of pointe shoes after she had picked them up from the costume mistress. She had definitely placed them in her bag, and hadn't removed them at all. There had been two, of that she was positive. Swallowing, Elizabeth thought back to the gaggle of dancers who had been gossiping about her. No, impossible, she thought.
When she returned, Elizabeth checked her bag again. The shoe was not there. She morosely removed her makeup and costume, took down her hair and brushed it out. Then, she pulled her hair back into a messy ponytail and headed towards the costume mistress.
“Mindy, you gave me both pointe shoes, right?” she asked, handing over the deep blue unitard.
The costume mistress nodded. “I'm nearly certain. What happened? I noticed you had on old shoes out there.”
Elizabeth shook her head and smiled plastically. “I…I must have misplaced one of the shoes. I couldn't find it.”
Mindy frowned. “Be careful next time. You know if this were a real performance, Lucas would have docked your pay.”
Elizabeth nodded mutely and left the costume room. As she walked down the hall, William emerged from the stage and strode intently in her direction. She froze. The look in his eyes changed when he recognized her, and his pace slowed.
“Ms. Bennet,” he said in a clipped tone, “what happened out there?”
Her heartbeat raced. Coloring, she could not maintain eye contact. “What do you mean?”
“Your shoes. Didn't you get new ones before the performance?”
Elizabeth exhaled loudly. He must have thought that she was truly stupid. “Of course, I did. I…I couldn't find one of them. I came back from warm up, and it was just…gone. I had to use my old ones.”
She expected him to bark a reprimand. Instead, he remained silent. Looking up at him, Elizabeth was surprised to see him frowning. “What do you mean ‘you couldn't find one?' Did you lose it?”
“I got them from Mindy, put them in my bag before warm up, and didn't touch them afterwards. I don't know, maybe one fell out.”
William looked away, his forehead creased in a frown. He rubbed his mouth, nodded at Elizabeth, and then strode past her. Standing alone in the hall, Elizabeth sunk against the wall. She stared at the pattern in the linoleum tile, everything in her heavy and gray. It had been a terrible performance, a terrible day, and Elizabeth finally felt like her mind and body were ready for that cry. Trudging back down the stairs, Elizabeth quickly gathered her things and hurried home, so she could do just that.
**
“Paige,” William said, finding the old ballet mistress backstage. She turned and looked up at him suspiciously. She had never liked the man when he was a conceited principal dancer, and now, as a conceited choreographer, she hated him even more.
“Were all of the dancers in warm up today?”
The old woman looked him up and down before replying. “Why?”
“Just were they?”
Folding her arms over her chest, she glared up at William. “They were.”
“All of them?”
“Yes. I gave my attendance sheet to Charles.”
“Did any of them leave early? Or come in late?”
“Caroline Bingley came in after frappés. But she's always late.”
William froze and stared at the dozens of ropes and pulleys lining the opposite wall. Swallowing, he nodded and brushed past the ballet mistress without thanking her. She muttered something under her breath, which he ignored.
William stalked through the backstage halls, his thoughts racing. A few technicians stared at him oddly as he rummaged through garbage cans. Finding nothing, William strode to the emergency exit that led into the back alley of the theater. His heart pumped crazily in his chest. Deactivating the alarm, he pushed open the door and wrinkled his nose at the awful smells coming from the alley. There was a rusting dumpster there. William eyed it for a long moment, wondering if it were the same one from all those years ago. Holding his breath, he finally lifted up the metal cover and peered in.
There it was. On top of a heap of garbage bags laid a brand new pointe shoe, its satin striking against the black plastic, its ribbons twisting down into the darkness.
Chapter 17
Elizabeth's mood remained gray the following week. Not that she dwelled on William or Saturday's performance every conscious moment, but somehow, she smiled less. New York annoyed her more, with its frigidity, its somberness, its indifference. On Tuesday, a taxi nearly turned into her as she crossed the street. Cursing loudly, she flicked an indignant middle finger at its taillights as it sped off. The check-out girl at the supermarket, the same one who never smiled, who never said hello, pissed off Elizabeth even more, to the point where, as she grabbed her shopping bags to leave, she spat, “Thanks for the friendly service, as always.” The woman simply cracked her gum.
Saturday offered a brief moment of respite when Elizabeth went out with several corps girls to a bar downtown. There she downed several cocktails, flirted incessantly with a yuppie investment banker who bought her several more, and went home drunk off of rum and Cokes and Elysian unconcern. The next day, she woke up with a hangover.
Elizabeth spent Sunday at home quietly. She and Jane rented eighties movies and made popcorn. They ordered Chinese take-out for dinner and afterwards decided to give themselves manicures. Just as Elizabeth had finished her left hand, the phone rang.
“Hello?” she answered, as Jane sat next to her drying her fingernail polish.
“Liz?”
“Yes.”
“Hey, sweetie. It's me.”
Elizabeth paused. “Greg?”
“Yeah, long time, no speak. How's everything?”
Jane straightened her posture, glancing up in concern. Elizabeth's face had gone rigid.
“Fine,” she clipped.
“Is now a bad time?”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes into the receiver.
“Hello?”
“No, now's great. Where were you last Saturday?”
“Oh…right. The Gala. Listen, Liz. I'm sorry. I meant to call you earlier, but this week has been crazy. We got stuck in Jamaica for two extras days, then I had to race back here for another audition, and you know how it is.”
“I called your cell phone on Saturday. It rang.”
Greg paused, then began stammering. “Oh, well, I…I didn't take it with me. I lent it to a friend here.”
Elizabeth sighed into the receiver. “Uh huh. Well, it was nice talking to you. Good luck on your auditions.”
“Hey, we weren't exclusive, all right? So don't start acting all offended when I'm not at your beck and call every moment of the day.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Good bye, Greg.” She hung up the phone, sat back down, and opened up the bottle of nail polish. Jane studied her.
“So that was Greg.”
Elizabeth nodded.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded again. “Yup.”
“Are you sure?”
Slicking another coat of red onto her thumb, Elizabeth smiled at Jane. “I'm okay. Really. He was a pretty face. Probably would have been great sex. That's it. I wasn't into him.”
Jane smiled and shrugged. “If you say so.”
Elizabeth moved on to her index finger and then grew hot with anger, but not over Greg. What she'd told Jane had been the truth. After thinking it over for a week, she decided it had been hormones, rather than any real connection that had kept her interested in him. No, it was not Greg, but rather who Greg made her remember...I'm not a poet, but I can probably think up bullshit that's just as good as Greg Wickham's.
Subconsciously, Elizabeth dug her nails into the flesh of her thumb, ruining her nail polish.
“Fuck!” she cried. “Fuck this!”
Elizabeth grabbed the nail polish remover off of the coffee table, ignoring her sister's look of surprise and proceeded to violently rub off what remained of her spoiled nail polish.
**
On Monday in rehearsal, Elizabeth slipped in red-faced, more than ten minutes late.
“Sorry,” she whispered to the floor before rushing across the room to stand in formation. William ignored her, turning decidedly away and walking to another dancer to correct her hand placement. There had been nothing really wrong with the step; he simply could not bear to look or speak directly to Elizabeth. Not yet.
Glimpsing at her in between run-throughs, William saw that she was panting. Her eyes looked troubled, and she nibbled at the nail on her thumb. Off at the sides, Jane approached her. He saw them speaking in hushed, urgent tones. Jane frowned and shrugged.
The next day, Elizabeth came in on time, but her nose and eyes were red. William noticed her friend, the tall one, rubbing her back off at the side. Every so often, Elizabeth would turn away, pretending to stretch, but when she turned back, he noticed her eyes and nose were once again freshly pink.
Suspicion gnawed at his insides. He thought of the pointe shoe still hidden in the bottom drawer of his desk. Yesterday, he had confirmed with wardrobe that it was Elizabeth's maker. Of course, William could prove nothing unless he got the shoe fingerprinted, but he had enough experience at Ballet Theater to know what was going on.
Rehearsal finished. Without as much as glancing at William, Elizabeth ducked out quickly. It was just as well. He, too, had absolutely no desire to be with her, knowing how vehemently she hated him.
William passed Charles' office on the way to his and glimpsed inside. Elizabeth sat at the edge of a chair, her foot bouncing nervously, her arms crossed over her chest. Quickly skirting past the door, William shut himself in his office and made for the window, trying to control his wildly beating heart. Now a prisoner of his office, he was trapped until he could be sure Elizabeth was no longer on the floor. He felt ridiculous.
Rejection and the aftershocks of humiliation were, for William, a first. Of course, in his thirty-five years, women had turned down his advances, but their rejection had always been circumstantial: they had husbands, they were moving to Delhi in two days, they didn't date men. Single women – especially young, attractive, intelligent corps de ballet dancers – never turned him down. Some may have taken longer to acquiesce, but they always did. And they never told him things like, “I almost feel insulted that a man like you would fall in love with me.”
Shaking his head, William banished those words from his head. He needed to wait until he got home. Not now, not here. It would be pointless to fall into despair here when he could do so in the comforts of his Central Park West penthouse in an hour or so. He picked up the phone and dialed Charles' extension.
“Charles Bingley.”
“Are you done with your meeting?”
“Will?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“In my office.”
Charles laughed. “Getting lazy in your old age, huh, Gramps? Why don't you just come over instead of calling?”
“Is your meeting over?”
“Yes.”
“How long ago?”
“Will, what's wrong with you?”
“Can you just answer the question?”
“It ended like a minute ago.”
“I'll be over in five. Bye.”
William spent the next five minutes pacing, pressing his ear to the door every so often to hear if a rich, feminine voice was coming from outside. After seven minutes, William decided it would be safe to leave. He yanked open his door and strode quickly to Charles'. Closing the door behind him, William turned to face his friend, who raised his eyebrows in greeting.
“What's wrong?” asked William.
“How do you know something's wrong?”
“You're not smiling.”
Charles sighed. “I'm ready to quit.”
“Why? What happened?”
Charles hesitated, not knowing whether to reveal the issue to William.
“Charles.”
“Someone's being a prankster again.”
William frowned.
“You remember Stephanie de Lilo, from two years before you retired?” Charles asked.
Nodding slowly, William responded, “The one who quit out of the blue and went to New York City Ballet?”
“Yeah, her. I didn't know this at the time, Lucas just told me, but do you know why she quit?”
“She was being harassed.”
“Wait. How do you know that?”
William shrugged and looked out of the window disinterestedly. “Word gets around.”
“Well, it's happening again.”
Snapping his head to Charles, William looked at him in bewilderment. His eyes widened. “Is that why Elizabeth was in here just now?”
Charles nodded.
“What happened?”
“I really can't say anything, this is an administrative-”
“Charles, what happened?”
Sighing, Charles looked at his friend and frowned. “She had her locker broken in to. Some of her stuff was…tampered with.”
“What does that mean?”
“She couldn't get her locker open yesterday. She had to come up here to get the master key. Today, she went back to her locker and found that the ribbons on her pointe shoes had been cut off.”
William rubbed his mouth. “Anything else?”
“She claims a few people have been acting strangely in class. Bumping into her, etcetera.”
“And you're looking into this?”
“Of course we are! But, do you realize that Lucas and I have been here until nine every night, trying to get ready for the season? I don't have time to run around playing Sherlock Holmes.”
William knew Charles must have been upset. His friend rarely raised his voice. “Then let me look in to it.”
Eyeing William, Charles shook his head. “No.”
“Why not? You just said you were in over your head with preparations for the season.”
“No, Will. This isn't something that I can let you do.”
“So you're just going to let Elizabeth get beat up on until she quits?”
“No, we're going to try to solve this as quickly as possible.”
“It's not going to be fast enough.”
Charles glared at William, who returned the look with equal severity. “Will, I know you care about her, but there's-”
“That's not the issue!” William sat forward on his chair and glowered at Charles.
Furrowing his eyebrows, Charles swallowed and sighed. His features softened. “I'll sit in on company class tomorrow, okay? Just to see if anything's not right.”
William nodded and stood. Charles noticed a tortured look pass across his friend's face before it was blanketed by its usual stony visage. “Thanks.”
The choreographer said nothing else. He stood sharply then and without a word of goodbye, stormed from Charles' office. Shaking his head, Charles sighed and wondered again why he had taken this job.
**
William awoke at five the next morning, unable to fall back asleep. He stared up at the ceiling, rewinding through his argument with Elizabeth for what felt like the thousandth time. With each successive remembrance, the hurt grew more acute until his chest physically ached. “Why?” he asked himself again. Why did she so thoroughly detest him, when he felt this way about her? How could such a thing happen? He had singled her out countless times – in the studio, at the Gala - he had brought her back to his apartment, taken her to his favorite restaurant. How could there be any misunderstanding on his part or hers? Why had she been so incredulous?
No, he forced himself to stop asking the same questions over and over. It was done. She hated him. I almost feel insulted that a man like you would fall in love with me. A man like you? What kind of man had Greg Wickham made him out to be? What lies had that shit spouted this time?
William knew he was fooling himself. It had not been solely Greg's lies. She had mentioned Jane's promotion, too. Of course, Elizabeth would be furious about that, but there was so much that she didn't understand. She was young; she thought the world revolved around people's goodwill and hard work. She didn't realize that Catherine Boroughs had nearly bankrupted the Brooklyn Orchestra when she withdrew her funding six years ago. Ballet Theater had been around for nearly seventy years, but that didn't mean it would always be around. Better that Jane not be promoted now, if it meant that one, two, five years down the line, she would still be receiving a paycheck. Elizabeth didn't understand that.
Sitting up in bed, William pushed off the sheets and ceased those thoughts. He was sick of thinking of her. Pattering to the kitchen, he turned on the coffee maker, and fed Austin. Once that had been done, he poured himself a mug of coffee and leaned on the breakfast bar, sipping it absentmindedly. Charles would observe class today. While his friend was a competent administrator, William knew his own weaknesses whenever he got in a studio with Elizabeth. He could look at no one else. If it were the same with Charles, then he would spend the entire class admiring Jane and ignoring the other dancers.
William checked the time. Company class would begin in a little under two hours. Plenty of time to shower, dress, and arrive in time to watch the class from behind the one-way mirror to the side of the studio.
**
When William arrived, the halls were silent except for muffled piano music coming from Studio A. He approached the window and looked in. The dancers were in the middle of tendu exercises. Scanning the room, he finally spied Elizabeth at the back along the wall. His heart stung, but he could not look away. She danced nonchalantly – it was only tendus, after all – and the painful beating of his heart was relieved by a wave of annoyance. For one, she was forcing the turnout of her fifth position, a problem intricately related to the troubles with her arabesque, and one that would take a toll on her knees and hips years later. Two, she was hiding. Back there, folded away in a corner, she would never be noticed by the ballet mistress. It was a mistake corps dancers often made; out of modesty or fear, they deferred to the older dancers, allowing them prime spots at the front of the room. A dancer like Elizabeth needed to show off. That she hadn't, was the reason no one – not even Charles, and himself initially – had recognized her talent.
Barre exercises passed as they always did. William found that if he concentrated on critiquing Elizabeth's dancing, he spared himself the agony of remembering. The barres were removed. William saw Charles stiffen in his chair at the front, his eyes flickering around the room. If anything happened, it would be during center exercises. William straightened and narrowed his eyes. Caroline stood at the back of the room, leaning against a row of barres, whispering with a soloist. Her eyes were zeroed on Elizabeth.
Nothing happened throughout tendus, adagio, or petit allegro. During waltz, however, the same soloist, who had been whispering with Caroline, danced a balancé too close to Elizabeth, forcing her to stop in the middle of the exercise to take two steps back so she wouldn't get whipped in the leg during the upcoming en dedans turn. William saw Elizabeth's expression flinch and her concentration waver. Catching up with the next steps, she continued to dance, but the power in her movements had disappeared.
The exercise finished, and Elizabeth trudged off to the side with a worried, resigned look marring her face. William watched her gaze out of the window and release a sigh that dragged down her shoulders. Looking back, she saw Caroline smirking at her. Elizabeth quickly looked away.
William grew incensed. If Caroline needed a punching bag to relieve her insecurities, she should have used William. Elizabeth had nothing to do with what happened in his piece. How could Caroline expect a corps girl to pull the strings? He cursed into the empty hallway and began pacing. This wasn't good. Once Caroline bared her fangs at someone, she bit until she drew blood. Marina Rodriquez, Stephanie de Lilo, Sheryl Polenski. Now, it seemed Caroline had made Elizabeth another one of her targets.
Too angry to watch the rest of class, William stalked to the stairway, resolved. He would tell Charles everything about his sister and get him to take action. Then, William winced. Charles would be devastated. Naïve, trusting, glass half-full Charles. Pausing in the stairwell, William sighed. Charles would have to discipline his own sister, maybe even fire her. Canning Caroline Bingley would damage the company's reputation and, by extension, Charles' family's, too. The Bingley's, while a tad bourgeois, were otherwise nice people, especially Charles' mother, who often called William just to say hello.
Forcing himself to calm down, William decided he would return to his office to think about this rationally. There had to be a way to get Caroline to quit her pranks without revealing anything to Charles. Once on the administrative floor, William strode decisively to his office. Just as he was about to open the door, he heard his name called.
“Why, William Darcy.”
He looked over his shoulder and then smiled.
“For a super-star, you're here early.” A short, middle-aged brunette grinned as she paced down the hall to meet him.
“Morning, Maddy.”
“How've you been, William? I haven't seen you in weeks.”
“Our paths don't cross much, do they?”
“Not enough, no.” Madeleine Gardiner, Ballet Theater's tour director, smiled up at him and pushed back the front of her sharply edged bob. “And how are your rehearsals coming? I hear the piece is really shaping up.”
“Good. They're good. I've got a great group of dancers.” William repressed his agitation under a smile. He had a long history with Maddy, not always good, but in the past few months, she had been a warm, cheerful colleague.
“What about yours?” he asked.
Maddy sighed heavily. “Fine except for a piece of bad news that Charles just sprang on me. I shouldn't say bad…it's bad timing. Davinia's pregnant.”
William had a blank look on his face.
“Davinia's in the corps, William.”
“Ah.”
“She's going on tour, or she was supposed to, but her doctor's advised her not to go. Now I've got to tweak all of my casting, and this is going to throw everything off, since she was understudying some of the soloist roles, too. Ugh. It has not been a good morning.”
Smiling sympathetically, William replied, “I know the feeling.”
“And why are you here so early?”
The smile dropped from William's face. “I have an issue of my own to solve.”
“It's always something, huh? All right, I should run. I have a meeting with Lucas in ten minutes to discuss this whole mess.”
“Hope everything gets resolved.”
“Yeah, me too.” Madeleine patted him on the bicep and then disappeared into the office. William opened the door to his and quickly shut it. Sighing heavily, he sank into his chair, leaned back, and stared at the ceiling.
How to get Caroline Bingley to quit her persecution? The direct approach would never work. Caroline would deny everything. Or, she would find sick pleasure at the attention in the same way that serial killers got their thrills in seeing themselves on the evening news. William had ruled out telling Charles. He admired the Bingleys and his friend too much to do that. Then, how?
Closing his eyes, William let his mind wander. His thoughts rambled over class this morning, Caroline Bingley's smug look of satisfaction, and Elizabeth's quiet despair. William wondered if he should discuss the matter in general terms with Sir William, and wondered how long his meeting with Maddy Gardiner would…William's eyes popped open. His heart began to beat faster. There was a solution. But, he couldn't suggest that. It would be the proverbial cutting off his nose to spite his face. Could he do that? Did he want to? William dismissed it and desperately tried to think of another alternative.
The idea was just too perfect, however. It would guard Elizabeth, sever any opportunity Caroline had to carry out her revenge, and spare Charles the heartache of knowing about his sister. Checking the time, William bolted from his chair, flung open the door to his office, and charged down the hallway into the administrative office. He strode past William Lucas' personal secretary, who opened her mouth to protest the choreographer's intrusion, and walked straight into the artistic director's office without knocking. Inside, sat a surprised William Lucas and Madeleine Gardiner.
William closed the door, folded his arms across his chest, and spoke.
“I have a solution that could make everyone happy.”
**
Charles shifted in his seat and smiled nervously at Elizabeth, who sat opposite him in his office. She wore a look of strained congeniality. The events of this week had mentally drained her; bags under her eyes let Charles know that Elizabeth had probably lost hours of sleep worrying. While he had observed class for two days in a row, he had not seen any evidence of a vendetta against her. The whole issue kept getting stranger when William had barged into his office last night, demanding to remove Elizabeth from his piece.
The assistant artistic director sighed and plastered on a fake grin. “How's it going, Liz?”
“I've been better.”
“I know. I'm looking in to it. I am. You have the company's support one hundred percent.”
She nodded, but could not smile.
“I've called you in here actually, not to talk about…that, but to tell you about a few cast changes we've made.” Charles swallowed hard and felt a drop of sweat run down his back. He hated announcements like this and especially dreaded this one, knowing how it would affect someone close to him. Elizabeth simply nodded for Charles to continue.
“Actually, we've decided not to keep you in New York this spring. We'd like you to go on tour.”
Expecting a blow-up from Jane's younger, more temperamental sister, Charles felt relieved and guilty at the same time upon witnessing her reaction. Her face crumpled.
“What?” she asked in a whisper. “W-why?”
“Well, I'm sure you've heard about Davinia, and we needed a replacement.”
“No, but you can't. I-I…what about Jane? And I'm in Mr. Darcy's piece. No, Charles, you can't send me on tour, please.”
Charles straightened in his chair, his heart trapped in a vice of guilt. Elizabeth looked shocked and scared.
“Don't worry about William's piece, Liz. He'll be fine.”
“Have you told him? He wouldn't want me to go.” Her voice shook in desperation.
Shifting again, Charles felt his mouth go dry. “William knows.”
“And…and what'd he say?”
Charles shut his eyes briefly and braced himself. “Liz, he suggested the cast change.”
Elizabeth's forehead wrinkled in confusion. Looking away, her chest heaved as she desperately tried to control the emotions churning in her. It was happening as she had predicted; he was exiling her, as he had done to Greg. Suddenly, everything from the past two weeks – the Netherfield Gala, the sex with William, their argument, the preview, the harassment – crashed together like a barrage of cymbals. No longer able to contain herself, Elizabeth covered her eyes with her hands and felt her fingers grow wet and warm with tears. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs.
Charles bit his lip, unable to do anything but watch Elizabeth cry. “Liz, it's not that bad,” he said gently, “it'll be okay.”
That only made her cry harder. “But…but Jane. What will she do without me? Three months. The rent.”
Standing, Charles crossed to the other side of his desk and knelt down beside Elizabeth's chair. “Don't worry about Jane. I'll look out for her. Liz, look at this as an opportunity. You'll be dancing a lot more on the road than you would in City Center.”
Sniffling, Elizabeth wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She gasped for breath, but then, thinking of everything, began to cry again. Charles watched her pitiably. Rubbing his eyes, he stood and squeezed her shoulders.
“Do you want me to give you a few moments?”
Elizabeth nodded through her tears.
“Okay,” Charles said, “I'll be back in ten minutes.”
She heard the door open and click shut. Inhaling shakily, Elizabeth slumped in the chair and tossed her head back. Tears slipped down her cheeks. She wiped them away with her fingers. William had suggested the cast change? Of course, he had. Step on the lion's toes, and the lion will rear up. She had suspected that the pranks from this week had been at his doing. Now, she had her proof. William wanted her gone, that was perfectly clear. That he would do it at the expense of his piece just proved his determination. He'd won. She let a last, trembling sigh shake her chest.
Elizabeth wondered how Jane would react. Even Elizabeth wouldn't want to live alone in that apartment for three months. Jane, who screeched upon sight of a baby cockroach, would have to now. Three months living out of hotels, dancing the same pieces over and over again, far away from Jane and Charlotte and Lydia, far away from New York City! Elizabeth had so desperately wanted to experience spring in the city. She'd wanted to go to the cherry blossom festival at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and take rambling strolls through Central Park. Now, she'd have to wait until next year. That is, if she still had a position in the company when she returned.
Charles' knock on the door disturbed her thoughts.
“Come in,” she called out weakly.
The door opened. “Charles, the costumes still haven't-”
It was William standing in the doorway, his face frozen in shock. Bolting upright, Elizabeth twisted in her chair, her eyes widening, and narrowing just as soon. She felt her chin begin to tremble again, but quickly snapped together. William said nothing. His face remained unmoving and glacial.
Elizabeth stood slowly. “It's done,” she whispered, “I hope you're happy.” Her face was a portrait of hatred.
William only shook his head. He opened his jaw and shut it, then opened it again to speak. “You'll…you'll be better off on tour. Trust me on this.”
Tears pooled in her eyes. “I'm sure you think so. Who were you to make a decision like that?” He turned his face away, his expression unmoving.
“William Darcy, the puppet master,” she spat, her voice shaking with anger. “You couldn't manipulate me by telling me you loved me, so now you manipulate Charles to get your way.”
He said nothing for a long moment. Finally, he answered perfunctorily, “I'm sorry.”
“No…you're not. I never asked to be in your pas de deux. I never asked for your good graces. But you forced them on me, and now I'm paying for them with interest. Thanks.”
She brushed past him, her shoulder skimming his chest. Once out of Charles' office, she turned to him, her eyes on fire. Elizabeth waited for him to speak, but he continued to stare past her, at nothing. Giving up with a frustrated snort, she shook her head. He would give her nothing - not an explanation, not an apology, not anything. He'd tortured her for the past two weeks - no, longer, and now he was sending the guillotine through her neck, and he had nothing to say for himself. She felt her eyes begin to pool again and before they could spill over, she turned abruptly and strode down the hall, leaving William silent in the doorway to Charles' office
Chapter 18
Jane stood with Elizabeth outside of the check-in counters at LaGuardia International Airport.
“Do you have everything? Tights? Toothbrush? Deodorant?” Jane asked, in a rare moment of older-sisterliness.
“Jane, they have all of those things in Boston,” Elizabeth replied, hiking her heavy carry-on backpack over her shoulders.
Around her, a few corps girls whooped upon discovering that they were sitting next to each other on the plane. Jane smiled weakly at them, Elizabeth not at all.
It had been a grueling two weeks. In the span of twelve days, Elizabeth had re-learned new blocking for Giselle and Raymonda, plus choreography for three other pieces she would perform, in addition to the roles she had been allotted to understudy. There had been so little time, that she had even gone in on Saturday and Sunday to work privately with Madeleine Gardiner. Despite it all, she was still shaky on one of the pieces and all of the roles she would be understudying.
Fortunately, because of their opposing rehearsal schedules, she had avoided speaking to William for the entire period. She had seen him once, striding down the hall away from her into Studio B. That was all. Jane knew instinctively not to mention his piece, his rehearsals, or the man himself. It had been two weeks, and Elizabeth still cried in the shower.
“Alright, everyone,” Madeleine Gardiner announced, “you should head over to the gate now. I need to wait here for two more. I'll meet you over there before the flight.”
Elizabeth turned to Jane, whose chin was shaking. “Lizzy, I'm going to miss you.”
“Nah,” Elizabeth joked through her own glassy eyes, “you'll have Charles and forget all about me.”
“Three months.”
“It's really just two months and sixteen days.”
“Merde, okay?”
Elizabeth nodded. That's when Jane started to cry.
“Hey, come on, Janey. I'll still call.”
Jane nodded, but started crying harder. Elizabeth wrapped her arms around her sister's shoulder and gave her a tight squeeze. “Come on. We'll pull through. We Bennets are stronger than we look.”
Jane laughed then.
Pulling away, Elizabeth smiled. “I'll call you when I get to Boston.”
“Okay, Lizzy. Have fun. Break a leg.”
“You're not supposed to say that to dancers.”
“You know what I mean.”
Grinning, Elizabeth kissed Jane's cheek and then jogged to catch up with the rest of the dancers. She still smiled through the security check. Before disappearing through the doorway, Elizabeth turned around and waved one last time to Jane. Once she was in the terminal, however, out of her sister's view, she ducked into a bathroom, shut herself in the stall, and cried.
**
It could only be one thing - God hated Elizabeth Bennet. Not only had a cold-hearted, scheming choreographer exiled her on tour in an attempt to ruin her career, but Delta Airlines had now seated her beside Anne Boroughs. Elizabeth glanced down at her boarding pass, up to the row number, back down to her boarding pass, and then further down to Anne slumped in the seat, staring intently out of the window at the wing of the plane. She didn't change positions until they reached the gate at Boston.
Elizabeth cast a sidewards glance at the mousy soloist. For two weeks, they had rehearsed together. For two weeks, her resentment towards Anne had boiled over into hatred. If William Darcy weren't such an arrogant ass, it would be Jane, not Anne, sitting next to her right now.
Elizabeth had observed her. Anne was a terrible dancer - lifeless, uninspiring, without one shred of talent. She had no friends. She spoke in a whine. After rehearsal, she scurried out of the studio, head ducked, shoulders slumped, and spoke to no one in the locker room. She was like an apparition. Elizabeth had a lengthy list of reasons to hate Anne Boroughs, a list which she reviewed often and thoroughly.
They arrived in Boston.
God seriously hated Elizabeth Bennet.
The announcement came from Maddy - room assignments for the rest of the tour would be done by alphabetical order. Boroughs came right after Bennet, so for three months, she would be rooming with Wednesday Addams! Elizabeth trudged to their room, several steps ahead of Anne. Flinging her things beside the bed closest to the window, Elizabeth made no effort to speak to the other woman neatly unpacking her toiletries.
However, God was not at work here. Anne Boroughs was.
**
A week prior, a note on the bulletin board had grabbed Anne's attention. William Darcy's rehearsal today CANCELLED. William never missed rehearsal. He rehearsed in blizzards, with 101-degree fevers, even while his sister had been going through the worst time in her life. Something was amiss. And Elizabeth Bennet, the girl he'd been so interested in that night at the Netherfield Gala, had been suddenly relocated to tour, as well. That Tuesday, Anne had summoned up all of her resolve, and after rehearsal, had taken a taxi up to Central Park West.
William didn't answer his buzzer. Luckily, the doorman recognized her, and she still had the spare key William had given her several years back. She let herself in and steeled her nerves.
“W-William?” she whispered, tiptoeing into his living room. He wasn't there. She called his name as she toured the apartment. It was the first time she had been inside in years, and William had really changed the place since his dad had died. Going upstairs, Anne knocked on each door and opened it a crack. No William. She frowned and headed back to the first floor. Proceeding past the staircase, she heard the strains of classical music grow louder as she approached a hallway. It was the same Bach number from William's piece.
Relieved, Anne sighed and strode to the sound. She opened the door to what had been Frank Darcy's home office, and instead found a dance studio occupied by William Darcy. He sat on the floor, leaning against the mirror, gazing at nothing. Even when Anne entered, his eyes didn't move. She stepped in and looked around the small studio with wonder.
“You redecorated.”
Then, William turned his face to her. He hadn't shaved. There were dark and heavy bags under his eyes. His hair was tussled, his clothes wrinkled. He looked worse than after his father had passed away.
“Did you come here just to point that out?”
“No. You weren't at rehearsal today. Charles left a note on the board, saying it was cancelled.”
“It was cancelled.” William glared at her with frigid irises. He was palpably irritated at Anne's presence. Walking over to where he was, Anne slid her back down the mirror and sat next to him. She said nothing for a long moment, instead tracing her fingernail over the pattern in the wood floor.
“Why?” she asked finally.
William sighed heavily. “I think you should leave, Anne.”
Making no reply, Anne simply continued to trace her finger along the floor. And there they sat, William staring off into the middle distance, sighing every few minutes, Anne silent and detached and picking lint off of her skirt. Ten minutes passed, and then twenty. Finally, William turned his head to her.
“This isn't my fault.”
Anne raised her eyes from her pile of lint. “Whose is it?”
“Don't be stupid, Anne.”
“Elizabeth Bennet's, then?”
William sighed, in what Anne took as an affirmative.
“What did Elizabeth Bennet do?”
William snorted. “I'll tell you what she did. She's in the corps, okay? I put her in my pas de deux, and she gets pissed at me. Pissed at me! Then, she says that I've ruined her career, I've ruined her sister's career, and oh, I've ruined Greg Wickham's career, too.”
“Wickham?”
“Yes. She's dating him.”
Anne frowned. “And what about her sister?”
William groaned and rubbed his face with his hands. “Anne. Please. You already know what your mother did.”
“Oh. That.”
“I was the one who convinced Charles to take your mom's money over promoting Jane.”
Anne shrugged. “He would have done it anyway. Lucas would have forced him.”
“Tell that to Elizabeth.”
“And her career?”
“I was the one who sent her on tour.”
“Why?”
William licked his lips nervously. “You can't repeat a word of this to anyone. Not even Mariah.” Anne nodded and her fingers traced a cross over her heart. “Caroline's at it again.”
Sighing, Anne replied, “You would have thought she'd have learned her lesson by now.”
“Caroline can't learn anything. She's too dense.”
Anne smiled and then chuckled. “I don't think it's anything you have to worry about. Going on tour will do more for Elizabeth's career than being in New York would. She's learning soloist roles.”
“Tell that to Elizabeth.” Again, he ran his hands down his face and settled his fingertips at his eye sockets. “She hates me.”
“And you like her.”
;
Dropping his hands, William cast Anne a serious look. She started and frowned. “You…more than like her?”
“A lot more.”
Anne considered that. “Whoa. That's so…unexpected.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.” Frustration was apparent in William's voice.
“Well, it's true.”
“And, why is it true?”
“Elizabeth isn't really your type.”
William glared at Anne. She smirked. “You probably won't remember this because you were completely drunk at the time, but I remember this one cast party we were at years ago. I overheard you. You were talking to Charles, and Dylan, and a few other principals. Do you remember Gina Thomas?”
William shook his head.
“No, of course, you wouldn't. Gina Thomas was a corps de ballet girl. She had the biggest crush on you. You don't remember what I'm talking about.”
Again, William shook his head.
“She asked you out. On a date. And I remember you were telling those guys at the cast party, ‘I wouldn't touch a corps girl with a ten-foot pole.' Now do you remember?”
William chuckled. “No, but it sounds like something I would have said then.”
“It sounds like something you'd still say.”
The smile on William's face wilted. He frowned and then grew indignant. “I was a jerk back then. I wouldn't say anything like that now.”
“Then why does Elizabeth hate you?”
“Did you come here to twist the knife a little more? Because it's already deep enough.”
“I don't think it's gotten to the core yet, William.”
“Why are you blaming me for this? You don't even know the half of it.”
Anne nodded. “True. But I know you. I know your pride is up to here, and that you couldn't bear to admit to yourself that you're partial to a corps girl. You're a good guy, William, but you say dumb things. Like me. I don't know Elizabeth well, but from what I've seen, I think she'd be just what you need. She reminds me of Mariah a little bit. Smiling and outgoing. She'd lift you out of this funk you've been in since your father passed away.”
William's face hardened. He turned his gaze to the opposite wall and made no immediate reply. “It's too late now. She hates me. She has all of these misconceptions about me. It's too much to overcome.”
“You didn't try to clear her of those misconceptions?”
Shrugging, William said, “She's too stubborn. She wouldn't believe me.”
Anne laughed. “Pot, meet kettle.”
Not one to be laughed at, William threw up his hands and yelled in frustration. “Well, what was I supposed to do? Throw all of my pride away and get down on my knees and beg?”
Anne arched an eyebrow and pushed herself off of the floor. Standing, she towered over William and shrugged. “Sounds good to me. If you want a chance with her, that is.”
“Fuck,” sighed William.
“Would you stop being so into yourself, William? That girl, poor thing, hasn't smiled once in two weeks of rehearsal.”
William stared blankly to the floor and sighed in response. Anne let several moments pass, before she sighed, too.
“Anne, will you do me a favor?”
“Yes, what?”
“Do you think you can at least try to say a few words to her? Be friendly?”
“Me? I'm always friendly.”
“Yeah, and so am I,” William said sarcastically.
“Bye, William,” Anne said, turning on her heel and walking to the door. “Get some sleep. And shave.”
“Fuck off.”
That was how, for the first time ever, the company's room assignments on tour were changed, from pairings by rank to alphabetical order. Sometimes, it was good being the daughter of the company's top benefactor.
**
That evening, Elizabeth lay on her bed, staring blankly up to the ceiling. The drumming of water could be heard from the bathroom where Anne was taking a shower. An entire day had passed without a word spoken between the two, just as Elizabeth preferred.
A knock at the door interrupted Elizabeth's contemplation. Rolling off the bed, she walked to the door and opened it. Madeleine Gardiner stood outside, smiling.
“Evening, Elizabeth. Sorry for bothering you so late.”
“Oh, it's no problem. Is everything all right?”
From behind her back, Madeleine produced a small package. Elizabeth quickly glanced down at it. “In all of the commotion today, I completely forgot to give this to you,” said the tour director.
Elizabeth accepted the package in one hand and looked to it quizzically. “What is it?”
“I have no clue. William Darcy asked that I give it to you.”
“William Darcy?” Elizabeth asked, her face blackening.
Maddy frowned momentarily, but then recovered with a smile. “Yeah, well. Who knows? Get some rest, Elizabeth. We have a long day at the theater tomorrow.”
“Yes. You, too.” Her voice was hazy, her eyes locked on the small package in her hands. She wished Maddy goodnight before quietly shutting the door.
In the hallway, Maddy turned around and shook her head. A perceptive woman, she knew there must have been something going on between the two. First, William Darcy barged into her meeting with Sir William Lucas, demanding that Elizabeth be sent on tour. Then, Maddy discovered that Elizabeth had been assisting the reclusive choreographer with his pas de deux. And then this morning she had gotten a desperate phone-call from the man himself, a man with whom she had never been particularly friendly, asking to deliver a package to Elizabeth as soon as possible.
Returning to her room, Maddy recalled her few rehearsals with Elizabeth. She seemed friendly with the other dancers. They all seemed surprised that she would be joining them on tour, especially understudying a few soloist roles, but none had seemed particularly resentful or jealous. Elizabeth was well-liked, that was Maddy's impression, but she couldn't figure out why.
Throughout rehearsals, Elizabeth had danced well, but not spectacularly. She had potential, but was uninspired. Maddy tried to put it down to the pressure of having to learn so many new roles in such a short period of time. Despite that, Elizabeth also seemed unfocused, had a penchant for staring out of windows, and picking at her fingernails. She had yawned through their two private weekend rehearsals. If there was a reason that Elizabeth was so well-liked, Maddy couldn't figure it out.
Letting herself into her room, Maddy tried not to let her curiosity distract her from all of the work that still needed to be done that evening. She had lighting cues to approve, cast lists to confirm, and dressing rooms to arrange. But, Madeleine Gardiner loved an intrigue. In between okaying the lighting scheme for Act Two of Raymonda, she let her thoughts wander back to Elizabeth Bennet, William Darcy, and what could have been in the package.
**
Elizabeth sat on her bed, gawking at one of her pointe shoes. She turned it over in her hand, her heartbeat rushing through her ears. How, in God's name, did he get this? Is he stalking me?
Reaching into the torn-open padded envelope, she pulled out a letter, three pages, folded precisely in half. Several emotions coursed through her: a sudden, primal wave of anger at him, followed by a lull of confusion, finally peaking in a spike of curiosity. She didn't know why he would write to her; there was no reason. And now he had her pointe shoe? Elizabeth opened the letter and read.
Elizabeth,
I'm sure you're wondering why I have your shoe. Given our relationship, I'm sure you can only think the worst. First, let me say that, no, I was not the one who took it at the Preview.
Elizabeth looked up in alarm. This was the pointe shoe she lost at the Preview?
But, I'm returning it to you now, in this manner, because it is the best proof I have for what I'm about to tell you. I'm writing this letter not to beg for forgiveness or repeat anything I said in our last conversation, which seemed to make you so (a word was crossed out, making it completely unreadable) uncomfortable. Rather, I write this to correct a few misconceptions you have about me and hopefully clear myself of being the most despicable man you know.
You accused me of three things: One, of ruining your sister's career, two, of ruining Greg Wickham's, and three, of ruining yours. I can't defend myself on the first accusation - that I convinced Charles to promote Anne and not your sister. I can't apologize for this. I would have done it again.
“Asshole!” Elizabeth cried, glad that Anne was in the shower. She nearly ripped up the letter, just to spite William, but inquisitiveness overpowered her fury, and she read on.
Your sister is a beautiful dancer. She has a grace not rivaled in most principals. She'll have an impressive career, and the critics and audiences will love her once she becomes soloist. But BTNY is a business and the decision to promote Anne Boroughs and not Jane was not motivated by personal factors at all, but rather professional considerations- Catherine Boroughs threatened to withdraw her patronage of BTNY if Anne wasn't promoted. It was as simple as that.
Would it have been more ethical for Charles to make a wrong business decision because of his personal feelings for your sister? How would she have reacted to knowing the only reason she was promoted was because she was the assistant artistic director's lover? Charles is an excellent man and a great friend of mine, but he isn't practical. I'm sorry if I've hurt you again by telling you this. It was not my intention.
As to your second accusation, Greg Wickham, I believe I can more credibly defend myself on this point. I can only imagine what he's told you about me, but let me offer my side of the story. You're an intelligent woman. You can decide whose portrayal is closer to the truth.
We met in a dance studio. I was twelve, he was eight. Even then, he was a great dancer and was automatically placed in a higher level - my class. We were the only two boys in a class of almost twenty-five girls, so naturally, we bonded. I was like an older brother to him. Our mothers, too, became fast friends. However, Greg and I led different lives. I went to expensive private schools; he went to a run-down public school in Brooklyn. But, he loved to dance and his mother did anything she could to give him that opportunity. His dad died when he was only three.
When I was fifteen and Greg was eleven, Greg's mother went into the hospital for breast cancer. My mother visited her almost everyday. They were best friends, like I said. More than anything, Greg's mother worried that because of her cancer, Greg would be denied the childhood he deserved. My mother promised her friend that she would do anything for Greg. That's when my mother began paying for his dance lessons.
At eighteen, I left Julliard and began dancing at BTNY as a principal. Greg was still at the studio. He was terrific, and I expected him to come to BTNY even earlier than I did. However, when Greg turned sixteen, his interest in ballet waned. The money my mother was giving him to go to ballet lessons and cover expenses was wasted instead on pot and cocaine. I know this because Greg invited me to join him several times. I always refused. Not out of moral indignation (although there was that, too), but from outrage that he could spend my mother's money so dishonestly and flagrantly. I never told my mom. It would have crushed her. She had always been a delicate woman, too trusting, and naïve to how the world worked. Greg's mom had died a year before, and although he lived with his grandparents, in a way, I think my mother believed she was something of a foster mother to him.
Up until this point, Elizabeth read with increasing suspicion. It was exactly as Greg had said. They had danced together, they had almost been brothers. William conveniently forgot to leave out his heated jealousy, but Elizabeth didn't put the emotion past him. She rolled her eyes at the letter, as she would have if William had been telling the account to her face.
I was twenty-two when my mother passed away. Greg was eighteen, about to graduate from high school (barely), and in need of a job. His dancing was rusty, but he begged me to put in a good word for him at BTNY. I did. It probably helped that my mother had left two million dollars to the company in her will. Lucas gave Greg a position in the corps.
Elizabeth furrowed her eyebrows and read the paragraph again.
Everything went great for a few years. It was like old times at the studio.
A few years? Greg said he had only been in the company for a few months.
Those years were some of the happiest of my life. I found a great friend in Charles. Greg and I were dancing together again. It seemed as though he had quit his drug habit. Then, Caroline Bingley joined the company and everything changed. Caroline and Greg were a match made in heaven: two very insecure and vicious people. She joined the company, and only weeks later, they began dating. That's when everything reverted back. Greg skipped rehearsals. He started smoking pot again. At this point, Charles and I had become closer. Greg and I drifted apart.
And now to the issue at hand. Why do I have your shoe?
The similarities between then and now are too striking. The February after Caroline entered the company, there was only one corps-to-soloist promotion, as there was this year. Everyone pinned a girl named Harriet James for the promotion. She was already dancing soloist roles, like your sister. Soloist roles that Caroline was understudying. Harriet was promoted.
It was opening night of the spring season. We were performing an all Tchaikovsky program. Thirty minutes before curtains-up, Harriet couldn't find her tutu. It was missing from the costume rack in her dressing room. Harriet was a rather tall girl. It would have been difficult to find her a replacement costume in such a short period of time. Everyone looked frantically. The whole company was in a panic. Except me. As you will be the first to attest, I didn't (and probably, according to you, still don't) care about corps de ballet girls. I went to the alley of the theater to have a cigarette. On my way out, I ran into Greg, who had just come in. He smiled and laughed. I asked him what he had been up to. He just winked and said, “Mischief.” Greg was always up to no good, so I didn't think anything of it. But mid-way through my cigarette, I noticed a corner of tulle sticking out of a dumpster. Harriet's tutu. Stolen by Greg, at the bidding of his girlfriend, Caroline, who was understudying Harriet's role that night.
Lucas never disclosed who had found the tutu, but Greg knew. How could he not? I was in the right place, at the right time. Greg was fired the next day. Caroline never said a word about the issue. At that point, I held so much resentment towards him that I wasn't sorry to see him go.
The story could end here. It doesn't. If I stopped at this point, I don't think you'd understand the kind of person Greg Wickham really is.
Greg had always been hard-up for money. Drugs will do that to a person. He'd traveled around the country for years, getting jobs here and there - L.A. and Las Vegas for a few years and finally Miami. I mentioned to you that my sister lives there. She's exactly your age, twenty-three, and similar to you in many ways. We've always been close, but given our age difference, I was, at the same time, an older brother and father figure to her. Being as close as Greg and I had been, he was also quite fond of her, and she of him.
The next part of this story is difficult for me to write. A year after I retired from BTNY, my father passed away. Almost a year after that, Greg ran off with my sister, and they got married in Las Vegas. She was nineteen. To this day, I don't know why she did it. She knew what kind of man he was. She knew about his drug habit and philandering. She knew because I had confided everything to her. But my sister is, in many ways, a carbon copy of my mother. Perhaps she thought she could change him.
Elizabeth heard the water in the bathroom turn off. But, she couldn't stop reading. She realized she had her hand over her mouth in horror, her forehead twisted in confusion.
The marriage was, of course, a horrible one. I was shocked when my sister told me. More than shocked, I was livid, and I refused to speak to her. Fortunately and unfortunately, our silence didn't last very long. Months later, she called me, hysterically crying. Greg was cheating on her. Greg was out of his mind on cocaine. She wanted a divorce. He refused. He'd already blown a good part of her savings account on drugs. Why would he cut himself off from the source?
There has only been one time in my life that I've thanked God my family has the wealth it does. It was then. We hired the best divorce lawyer in the city. The case dragged on for almost two years in secret negotiations. My sister doesn't know this, but Greg threatened to leak information about the case to the press. I paid him a disgusting sum of money not to. In the end, Greg got nothing out of the divorce but his blackmail money, but really, it was my sister who had lost. During this whole time, I was back and forth between Miami and Austin, Seattle, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco, choreographing. My sister was completely alone. She dropped out of school. Of course, I was partially to blame for her loneliness. I was an irresponsible guardian and brother.
No doubt Greg left all of this out when he told you about me. I don't think badly of you for trusting him. My mother did for years. My sister did, as well. He's a brilliant con man. That he could ensnare someone like you, too, just proves how good he is at his craft.
Elizabeth swallowed down the feeling of dread in her stomach. Nearly half a page remained. She continued reading.
And finally, the third issue: how I ruined your career. I hope by now that you understand my motives for taking you out of my piece and sending you on tour. After the Preview, Paige told me Caroline Bingley had been missing from company warm-up. You're not the first dancer who's been harassed by Caroline Bingley. I know of four others. Perhaps there have been more. You may accuse me of self-centeredness or weakness when I tell you why I've never said anything to Lucas. Perhaps several dancers' careers, or at least their sanities, could have been spared if I'd divulged what I knew, but I couldn't do that to Charles or his family. You know Charles. It would have killed him. My silence was purely selfish, I know. Thus, I made a cast change that affected you, without your consent to protect a friend. But I did what my conscience knew to be right.
You will have a career when you come back. Caroline will move on to the next person she feels has insulted her. And I won't repeat the same mistake twice by singling you out. There was an excellent reason why I did so. It was not to use you, it was not to prop up my ego, and it certainly wasn't to destroy your career. You won't believe this, but your dancing inspired my choreography like no one ever has. It was something mythical and special. I haven't thanked you for that yet.
This letter may not justify my horrible rudeness to you, but I hope it clears me from being the villain you thought I was. Good luck on the rest of your tour. I'll see you back in New York.
WD
P.S. If I still haven't convinced you of the veracity of my account, ask Maddy about “the tutu incident.” She was Lucas' personal secretary at the time and knows everything.
Chapter 19
Elizabeth set the letter down on her lap, feeling the beat of her heart roll unevenly through her chest. She stared at the opposite wall, completely oblivious when Anne crept from the bathroom and offered her the shower. Picking up the pointe shoe, Elizabeth turned it over in her hand distractedly. She knew the letter had to be a lie. Greg had been so earnest in his account of William. That night at the swanky Italian restaurant, he had given her so many details – names, places, words spoken, dealings done. He had been so sincere in his anger. No, the letter had to be a lie.
Elizabeth picked up the three sheets, scanning over the immaculate, tiny handwriting. Without realizing, she shook her head in defiance. William was harsh, cold, dull. Nothing matched up, not her experiences with him and then this testimony. Did he take her for an idiot?
She read over the paragraphs concerning Jane, and her temper flared. A business decision! A bribe was more like it. Elizabeth tsked and threw the letter down again. That was a convenient excuse, because business decisions were never made based on talent. If anything, Jane's ability would pull in more ticket sales and be better for business, than Catherine Boroughs' short-term investment!
Then a small voice inside her asked, What reason would he have to hold Jane back? In response, Elizabeth snapped her eyes over to Anne Boroughs - slouched on the other bed, chewing on a fingernail while mesmerized by C-SPAN. The small voice laughed at Elizabeth. Her? it said. Get real. William never spoke to her, hadn't even come to the airport to say good-bye to her. What reason would he have to hold Jane back? There had to be some reason. Some very good, very diabolical reason. Elizabeth would have to think more on it.
She thought of the second half of the letter and her temper quieted. Greg, married to William's sister? A drug addict, a conspirator, and a thief? It was so far-fetched, beyond anything Elizabeth tried to imagine. She had figured he was a great schemer. He had stood her up, after all, with a hokey excuse about Jamaica and his cell phone, but no one could be that good of a liar. According to William, almost everything Greg had said to her about his time in BTNY was a lie – the length of time he had danced there, his relationship with William, his reasons for leaving the company. Thinking more on it, Greg had never offered any concrete details, simply names and places Elizabeth recognized. He had left out chunks of the story, chunks of his life, which Elizabeth had simply assumed natural for two relative strangers. He had certainly never offered her a witness for proof. William had.
Elizabeth showered and went through the motions of preparing for sleep. But sleep came fitfully that night. Her mind ran over scenes and dialogue, trying to piece together the truth from the web of half-truths she had known up until now. Sometime around two in the morning, her mind succumbed to exhaustion. She slept for several gray hours and then awoke, and continued the same train of analysis from the night before.
During blocking rehearsal, Elizabeth's body went on autopilot, automatically memorizing the placement and feel of the stage, while her mind drifted back to the letter. By that time, she had decided whose version of the story sounded more credible, and it was the man who, one day ago, she could have never imagined trusting. In dress rehearsal, Elizabeth's thoughts cleared, thanks to the pre-performance rush of adrenaline. Her eyes burned under the bright stage lights from her makeup and the lack of sleep. The company performed Raymonda flawlessly, receiving four curtain calls. Elizabeth's somber mood returned once she had taken her make-up off. A group of corps girls invited her to celebrate in one of Boston's bars, but she declined the offer.
Once she returned to her quiet hotel room, Elizabeth threw down her bag and went immediately to her suitcase. She dug underneath layers of leotards and sweatpants, finally producing the object she sought. Sitting there on the floor, she opened up the letter again and read it twice, shaking her head in disbelief, this time not at what was written, but at her own stupidity.
Greg was probably the hottest man who had ever noticed her, and she had been flattered. He was charming, funny, seductive, a great dresser - everything Manhattan Mr. Rights were supposed to be. She had been so thrilled by his attention, that she hadn't even bothered questioning his stories. He had offered exaggerations, with little hard proof. For God's sake, he was a stranger she had met on the subway! Elizabeth expected herself to demonstrate a little more sense than any other suburban innocent. Obviously, she did not. Burying her face in her hands, Elizabeth groaned in embarrassment.
Then, the letter took on a wholly different meaning. She re-read the part concerning Jane. How foolish of her to think that a professional dance company didn't have budgets, people to please, hierarchies, and rules of engagement. Jane was a remarkable ballerina, yes, but Ballet Theater wasn't run by locker room gossip. The administrators would have to make tough, unprincipled decisions, despite what a bevy of nosy dancers thought.
“Argh!” she groaned sharply, throwing the letter down and standing. Elizabeth began to pace. “I don't want to think about this anymore!”
Despite her resolution cried into an empty hotel room, Elizabeth continued to think about it. She stood in the center of the room, nibbling on a hangnail, thinking of all the ways she was an idiot. The phone caught her eye. Elizabeth stared at it for a long minute and then strode to her bed, sat down, and picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Dad.”
“Lizzy Bear?”
“Yup.”
“Hey. What are you doing calling on a Monday? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, everything's fine.”
“Is Janey okay?”
“I think so. I wouldn't know.”
“Is she at the boyfriend of hers' apartment?”
“No, Dad. I'm in Boston. Remember? I told you our tour would start this week.”
“Oh, that's right. Your old man's getting senile.”
Elizabeth chuckled into the phone, feeling herself calm at the sound of her father's voice.
“So how is Boston? See any parked cars in the yard?” Her father did a terrible Boston accent. Elizabeth laughed.
“Yes, everywhere.”
“They don't really talk like that there, do they?”
“Some people do. I don't know, we haven't really talked to many locals yet. It's been all rehearsals and performances so far.”
“Well, just thank your lucky stars that baseball season hasn't started yet. Sox fans are some of the most obnoxious in the league.”
Smiling, Elizabeth twirled the phone cord in her finger. “So, whatcha been up to lately, Dad? I haven't talked to you in a while.”
“Yeah, I know. I've been so damn busy with this intro course the Jackass made me teach.” Tim Bennet taught English Literature at University of Michigan. The Jackass was Peter Gordon, English department head. “Two hundred meatheads who wouldn't know Jane Austen from Steve Austin, if he knocked them over the head with a folding chair.”
“Hey,” Elizabeth chided after her giggles had subsided, “I was a freshman once too, you know.”
“Yes, but fortunately I raised you to have more sense than the kids in this class...” The smile on Elizabeth's face died. More sense...did she really? She remembered everything in William's letter. “...and this Einstein writes, get this, 'Shakespeare.' Um, hello! This is a 19th century lit course. Idiot, right?”
Elizabeth tried to laugh, but her father's quip failed to register. The phone cord in between her fingers had been twisted into a hopeless knot.
“Lizzy?”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry. Yeah, that's...unbelievable. Shakespeare. Ha!”
“But I have to give the kid credit for trying. Most of these goofs don't even bother to write anything...”
Her father continued his rant against the UM freshman class. Elizabeth stopped listening. Ever since she was little, Elizabeth had adored her father's sense of humor. Cheesy, at times, cutting, at others, Tim Bennet would do anything to make his daughter laugh. As a girl, Elizabeth had dissolved into giggles whenever he did his infamous “Crazy Fanny” impressions, as he called them. When she was a teenager, her father's dry wit endeared him as the “cool parent,” the one who didn't rave at her for ten minutes straight about her waistline when she snacked on a few potato chips. In college, he had been her mentor, advising her on her course load, which professors to take, and how to sweet-talk Financial Aid into adding on an extra thousand dollars to her aid packet. Tim was the reason Elizabeth loved books, and the reason she'd majored in French literature. She adored her father. He could do no wrong.
Still twisting the telephone cord in her hand, Elizabeth listened to her father disapprovingly, for the first time in her life. As he railed on about a bunch of eighteen-year-old morons and his boss, the Jackass, Elizabeth realized how petty and mean-spirited, arrogant and prejudiced he sounded. She swallowed down a leaden suspicion that he sounded like herself.
Tim Bennet ended his harangue and was met on the other end with silence.
“Lizzy, you there?”
“Yeah, I'm still here.”
“Are you sure you're okay? You sound out of spirits today, kiddo.”
“Oh,” she replied, faking a laugh, “I guess I'm just tired. We had a performance tonight.”
“Ah.” Tim had never really gotten in to his daughters' profession. He loved watching them dance, of course, but knew little about ballet and didn't care to know much more. “That jackass choreographer isn't giving you problems anymore, is he?”
“No,” she said, her voice cracking, “he...he's not on tour. He's...I'm fine.”
“Good. I knew my Lizzy Bear wouldn't take that shit from anyone. We Bennets are tougher than we look. Did you tell him what I told you to tell him?”
“Uh...not exactly. Something...similar.” Elizabeth leaned her head back on the headboard and closed her eyes momentarily, flashing back to the caustic things she'd spat at William that day in the studio.
“Yeah? Good. And, speaking of wackos, how's your mother? Still seeing the shrink?”
“I think so. You know how Mom gets when she starts talking about...you know.”
“I'm sure. Over-emotional and victimized. Poor me.”
Wincing, Elizabeth wondered if she'd ever sounded as small-minded as her father now seemed. She chuckled woodenly.
“Listen, Dad. I'm really tired. I'm going to go, okay?”
“Sure thing, Lizzy Bear. You take care. Give me a call when you can.”
The phone call with her father had had the opposite effect of what she had wanted. Hanging her head, Elizabeth felt a heavy gloom slink through her chest. Why had she never taken her father's jibes for the bigotry that they were? Because they had never been directed at her? Her father judged everyone, and poorly. Her mother was hysterical, the freshmen were slavering idiots, his colleagues had gotten their diplomas from cereal boxes. The only people her father treated generously were Jane and herself. Everyone else was, in someway, a Neanderthal.
And Elizabeth had believed it. She realized, with the force of a revelation, that she, too, thought as ungenerously as her father did. Scenes flickered in her memory, and although she was alone, Elizabeth burned with shame. She thought of her friends and acquaintances: Anne, the bore, Lydia, the slut, Charlotte, the politician, Collin, the ass-kisser, Caroline, the bimbo, Charles, the village idiot, Jane, the innocent, and William Darcy, the narcissist, the ogre, the asshole. From almost the very beginning, Elizabeth had tucked them nicely away into their little boxes where she could observe their folly from up high, never considering that perhaps they observed her own narrow-mindedness with the same disdain. She accused others of a lack of sense, when she behaved no better. She was a hypocrite.
Curling up onto the bed, Elizabeth hugged a pillow and stared at the opposite wall. Twenty-three years she had lived on this earth, and she felt that she was seeing herself for the first time. She was mortified at the portrait she made. Everything she had charged William with – vanity, arrogance, selfishness – she was guilty of herself. Feeling her face grow hot, Elizabeth buried it into the pillow. What an idiot she had made herself look like! What a…
Elizabeth heard the door unlock and swing open. Anne came in and started upon seeing Elizabeth.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“No, it's okay.” Elizabeth sat up and swung her legs over the bed. “I'm awake.”
Nodding, Anne averted her eyes and then set her dance bag and purse gingerly down on a chair. Elizabeth watched her, saying nothing. She felt uncomfortable. Anne probably thought Elizabeth was insane, her head buried in the pillow as if trying to suffocate herself. Slouching, Elizabeth supposed insane was only a little better than cold bitch, the role she had played to perfection these past few days. She looked up at Anne.
“Great performance tonight,” Elizabeth offered.
Anne looked up at being spoken to. With round eyes, she stared at Elizabeth, finally nodding in agreement. Her small lips twisted in a noncommittal smile, before she quickly grabbed her pajamas and went into the bathroom. Elizabeth sighed, looked around the room, and then pushed herself off of the bed. Grabbing the ice bucket, she headed down the hall to get ice for her sore ankle.
**
The company left Boston for Philadelphia several days later. Once again, Elizabeth found herself in an aisle seat beside Anne. This time, however, before the plane took off, Elizabeth made more of an effort to speak.
“Well, that's one city down and, what, twenty-eight more to go?”
Anne turned to her and smiled, only nodding in reply. Elizabeth looked away and repressed a frustrated sigh. Of course, she couldn't blame Anne for her reticence. Elizabeth had behaved coldly to her since their first acquaintance, and now she was paying the price for her babyish behavior.
She made one more effort. “You've been on tour before, right?”
Anne nodded. “Yes.”
“And, so what do you think?”
Anne stared blankly.
“I mean, do you like going on tour?”
“Y-yes.”
“Yeah? Why?”
“Uh…I don't know. I like getting away from New York. I like seeing different places.”
“You don't get lonely?” Elizabeth asked, feeling more encouraged by Anne's relatively verbose answer.
“No, not really.”
“You don't miss your family? Three months is a long time.”
Anne shrugged. “No, I don't miss my family. I think this year's a little bit different, though, Normally, tours aren't this long.”
“Really? How long do they last?”
“A month or two. There's usually two tours a year. Maybe three, if we go international.”
“Oh, I see.” Elizabeth nodded vigorously, trying to dispel the aura of disinterest and disdain she had given off since rehearsals had started. “So why the change?”
Anne lowered her eyes. “Oh, I don't know, really. I think that maybe the past few years haven't been so good to the company, you know, money-wise.”
Saying no more, Anne ducked under her seat and pulled out an MP3 player. She stuck the ear buds in and then stayed that way for the remainder of the flight. Sighing, Elizabeth leaned back in her seat and stared at the lit-up No Smoking indicator, thinking of Anne's comment about BTNY's finances, and once again keenly feeling just how stupid she was.
**
Elizabeth stretched out on the floor of her hotel room, a bag of ice melting over her ankle, as she watched a cooking show on the Food Network. It had become a ritual for her; after every performance, rehearsal, or class, she iced her foot, hoping the cold would ease the increasing bite of pain in her ankle. The effects were temporary, but they did offer some kind of relief. Elizabeth promised herself that if the soreness didn't ease by the end of the tour, she would see Ms. Crawford upon her return to New York.
Anne shifted on her bed. Elizabeth heard the sound of a book closing. She felt watched, and then Anne spoke.
“Does your ankle hurt?”
Elizabeth craned her head back and smiled. “A bit.”
“You do that a lot.”
“It helps ease the pain for a little while.”
Anne frowned. “You don't put your heels down when you jump. I've been watching you.”
The smile slipped from Elizabeth's face. “Yes, I've been told that.”
“That's why your ankle hurts.”
Turning back to the television, Elizabeth made no reply. She could not help thinking of William. She swallowed and stared at a bead of condensation slipping down the plastic bag on her ankle. Anne inched to the edge of the bed and then stepped off. Going to her suitcase, she rummaged through it and then pulled out a long band of thin rubber.
“Have you ever tried stretching with a Theraband?”
Elizabeth shook her head.
“It's great for stretching out your calves and stuff. Also, you can do foot exercises with it that'll strengthen your calves and arches. I use for abdominal exercises, too.”
Anne offered the band to Elizabeth, who accepted it hesitantly. “Thanks.”
Sitting on the edge of her bed, Anne stared at Elizabeth. “I used to have ankle problems, that's how I know this.”
“They went away?”
“Eventually. After years of Pilates. A lot of ice massages like you're doing. And exercises everyday with the Theraband before class and rehearsal.”
Elizabeth nodded. “I really want to try Pilates, but lessons are so expensive.”
Anne stared at her expressionlessly. Suddenly, Elizabeth remembered she was the daughter of one of the richest women in New York City and probably thought paying fifty dollars for a forty-five minute lesson was a bargain.
“It's your body. You should take care of it, no matter what the cost,” said Anne, her tone colored with accusation.
Elizabeth bristled. Once again, she was being told by a spoiled, rich kid what she should do with her money. She turned away and glowered at no one, forcing down the resentment that threatened to burst from her mouth in a snide remark.
“I'll see what I can do,” grumbled Elizabeth.
Anne said nothing for a long while. Finally, she said, “You can have that. I have two more with me anyway. And they're cheap.”
Elizabeth nodded her thanks and set the Theraband at her side, untouched. She said nothing else to Anne that night.
**
Nor, did they speak the day after that. Elizabeth let her resentment fester. Whenever Anne was in her presence, an endless loop of curses and bitter rants ran through her head. She damned her luck – first, endless rehearsals with Mr. Positivity, William Darcy, then rooming for three months with his counterpart, Miss Congeniality. She feared her self-esteem wouldn't be able to sustain much more. They remained without a word spoken between them from Philadelphia to Chicago – one week, three cities. Elizabeth had given up her attempts to befriend Anne. The last thing she needed was another critic.
An early riser, Elizabeth ate breakfast alone most days. She took solitary morning walks through downtowns, watching each city come alive in its own way. The suits walked sharply to their desk jobs, the cabs blared their horns, shop fronts opened, and in another American city - just not the one where she wanted to be - another day began.
The company usually arrived at the theater at nine. Maddy Gardiner held a ninety-minute company class, far less formal than those in New York and then blocking began. After blocking was dress rehearsal, followed by an afternoon break. The dancers were back at the theater by four for another, shorter warm-up class. Then, make-up, hair, and costumes, and promptly at eight, the show began.
On their third day in Chicago, Elizabeth spent her afternoon break wandering around. She snacked on a pretzel as she strolled up some downtown street, gazing at buildings and cars and people zipping by her on their way to afternoon meetings and department store sales. A display in the window of a Barnes and Noble caught her eye, and she stopped in front of the glass.
It was a health and exercise display with vegetarian cookbooks, do-it-yourself facial recipes, and a display of several yoga and Pilates books. She breathed slowly and was overcome by a heavy melancholy as she read the titles: Pilates for Life, The Ultimate Girl's Guide to Pilates and Yoga, Achieve Your Best Body! A Comprehensive Pilates Workbook.
Elizabeth thought of William. She had thought of him a lot lately, each time willing the memory of his words or deeds to go away. This time, however, she just let herself think. Standing in front of a Barnes and Nobles shop front, Elizabeth remembered all of the times he had told her to be careful, that she should do something about her ankle, that she should fix her alignment or it would lead to injury, and she had always been offended. Why? William had only been trying to help, as any dance teacher would.
Or wouldn't. Most dance teachers were so high on their experience, their careers, their connections, they rarely offered a dancer practical advice. They gave corrections that made themselves look learned and experienced, or corrections that came from an outdated school of thought, but nothing that might actually benefit the dancer. As Elizabeth stood thinking in the middle of the sidewalk, she had to credit William. His corrections had always been sound. He never pandered or joked at anyone's expense. He offered advice that was not only backed up by years of performing experience, but by sage anatomical and pedagogical knowledge. He expected the best from his dancers, and eventually, they learned to give it to him. Why had Elizabeth been unable to see that before?
“You should go inside,” a homeless man suddenly said, startling her from her thoughts, “I hear the books are even better when you actually look in them.”
She chuckled and nodded. Then, pushed the door open. An hour later, she stepped out and saw the same homeless man on the same corner. Smiling, Elizabeth waved her plastic shopping bag bearing the face of William Shakespeare.
“I bought one,” she laughed.
“Hey, that's great. Got any leftover change?”
She did, which she handed over, smiling. With only thirty minutes before warm-up, Elizabeth then took off jogging up the street and back to the theater, so she wouldn't be late.
**
As Anne ran a comb through her long, frizzy hair that evening, Elizabeth lay on the floor staring up to the pages of her newly purchased Pilates book. She read the words once more, trying to find some sense in them. Frustrated, she sighed and threw the book down beside her, deciding to simply try the stupid exercises rather than decipher their meaning.
She began a series of breaths and then lifted her head in a movement resembling a crunch. Anne looked over at the noise, but Elizabeth ignored her. She went through the exercise – three sets of ten crunches and then frowned. That didn't seem too bad. Figuring it was only the first exercise, Elizabeth picked up the book again and moved onto the second. The next series of crunches didn't seem all that strenuous either, and Elizabeth began wondering where all of the hoop-la over Pilates came from.
Just then, Anne spoke. “You're doing that wrong.”
Elizabeth tossed her head back and gazed at Anne upside-down.
“You're going to get injured. You should really get someone to show you how to do them.”
Elizabeth propped herself up on her elbows. “They're just crunches. How bad can I do them?”
“They're not crunches, they're the foundation of Pilates. If you can't do those right, then you might as well forget the other stuff.”
Elizabeth inhaled to restrain her agitation. She told herself to be patient, not to get angry at Anne Boroughs' self-righteous, pompous, patronizing tone, and to find the larger intention behind her words.
“I'm not sure I understand the explanations in the book then,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Would you like me to show you?” Anne offered, setting her comb down.
Elizabeth stared at her suspiciously, but found no malice on the other woman's face. In fact, when she studied Anne's expression, Elizabeth found an eagerness in her eyes that she had never seen before.
“Um…sure. If you don't mind.”
Anne shook her head and then lay on the floor next to Elizabeth.
“Watch how I breathe. You're doing this,” Anne inhaled, her chest expanding with the intake of breath. “That's wrong. It's like this.”
She then inhaled again, her chest expanding very little. Rather, Elizabeth noticed, her ribcage widened. Elizabeth frowned.
“I see the difference, but why does it matter?” There was still a sliver of defiance in her voice.
“With one, your center is engaged. With the other, it's out of control. What do you know about Pilates?”
“Madonna and that kind of people really like it. That's about it,” joked Elizabeth.
“Oh.” Anne didn't seem to appreciate the joke. “Pilates is actually about strengthening your core. A normal crunch will only strengthen the upper layer of abdominal muscles. Pilates goes deeper to the tiny fibers that connect your abs to your spine, to your hips, to your ribs. It will make your entire body more stable and solid. That's why it's so important to get the breathing right. If you can't hold your abdominals together during every moment of the exercise, then you can't do Pilates.”
Elizabeth stared at Anne, impressed with her for the first time in their acquaintance. She had always seemed so meek and indifferent. When it came to Pilates, however, Anne spoke with confidence and passion. Elizabeth nodded wordlessly and then tried the correct way of breathing for herself. Anne sat next to her, observing and offering guidance. Their Pilates lesson lasted an hour before Elizabeth ended it in favor of catching The Late Show.
**
April in Detroit was a cold affair, and Elizabeth concluded her daily morning stroll early before her nose froze off. She stepped into the hotel lobby and headed for the breakfast bar. Several business travelers lurked around the coffee machine, but other than that, most Ballet Theater of New York members were unaccounted for. Elizabeth grabbed a yogurt, slice of wheat toast, and a styrofoam cup of weak coffee and searched for an empty table. As she looked around, she saw Maddy Gardiner sitting alone, sipping a cup of tea, and reading the newspaper.
"Mind if I join you?" Elizabeth asked, after she had approached the table. Maddy was also an early riser, and she and Elizabeth had often shared each other's company in the morning hours before the other dancers had arisen. Although Maddy ranked high in the company hierarchy, she had a friendly and easy-going personality that made her a favorite with the dancers.
"Sure," Maddy smiled, gesturing to the empty chair in front of her. She looked down at the newspaper. "I was just reading what the Times had to say about William Darcy's piece."
Sugar granules scattered over the tabletop as Elizabeth ripped open the packet with too much force. She dumped the sugar into her coffee unceremoniously, and looked up with a forced smile. "Oh, right. It premiered last night, didn't it?"
Maddy nodded and frowned. "Unfortunately, Darcy's friend, Miss Mary Louise Benet, didn't find too many favorable things to say. Then again, she never does."
Elizabeth tried to keep her voice even and disinterested. "Oh, that's too bad. What did she write?"
Handing over the open newspaper, Maddy stood, "You read it, while I get myself another cup of tea."
Elizabeth nibbled on a fingernail as she began reading.
Dance Review/ Ballet Theater of New York
William Darcy Ponders the Dynamics of Inspiration with "Galatea"
By MARY LOUISE BENET
Over the past five years, William Darcy has traversed the country, creating choreography that many have likened to the works of ballet genius, George Balanchine. Mr. Darcy's works, like the iconic Balanchine's, are staunchly classical, complex in their rhythm and dynamics, and infused with the same contemporary sexuality. With the return of Mr. Darcy to Ballet Theater, where he danced for his entire career, as its Resident Choreographer, many eagerly anticipated his ascension to the title of New York's king of ballet. His first endeavor with the company, a piece in three movements entitled "Galatea," was an ambitious work of dance that explored the sometimes-nurturing, sometimes-parasitic relationship between artist and muse.
On Friday night, loyal Ballet Theater and William Darcy fans alike packed into a City Center abuzz with anticipation for Galatea. The atmosphere was charged with an electricity missed sorely by this company for years, since Mr. Darcy and other ballet greats such as Charles Bingley, Robyn Vazquez, and Jillian Tay, departed from the company.
The first movement of Galatea did not disappoint. Charging across stage with the frenzied, sharp dynamics that have come to be known as Mr. Darcy's signature style, the corps de ballet was flawless. The energy changed mid-way through the movement, slowing into something lush, rolling, and spatially perfect. The sudden transition in rhythm could have failed miserably had any other choreographer attempted it. However, Mr. Darcy knows the stage, and the abrupt shift was perfectly juxtaposed against the soaring solo performed by Marc Le Fay.
Unfortunately, after the first movement, Galatea tripped and stumbled to a disappointing pas de deux. While the dance oozed so much sexuality that the theater could be felt collectively shifting in its seats, principal dancers, Caroline Bingley and Mr. le Fay, did not have a smidgen of chemistry between them. They seemed like two junior high school kids flustered and awkward after a vigorous session of heavy petting, rather than two adults exploring the intricately related realms of sexual desire and artistic inspiration.
Ms. Bingley, while a spectacular classical dancer, simply does not possess the range or depth to triumph in such an expressively demanding role. She danced Galatea as she would Odile - all seduction with little nuance. Mr. le Fay's portrayal of Pygmalion was heartbreaking, not so much for the desperation and melancholy with which he brought to his fine portrayal, but rather because the audience had to endure watching him maneuver through six minutes of a smirking, slinking Ms. Bingley.
After the disastrous pas de deux, the piece groaned to an end in the lackluster third movement. The corps de ballet did not shine in the finale as it had in the opening; indeed, the entire movement seemed completely redundant. One wonders whether Mr. Darcy simply ran out of time, inspiration, or both.
For a ballet about an artist and his muse, ironically, this work is undoubtedly Mr. Darcy's most uninspired. Regrettably, the New York ballet world will have to wait a bit longer for its next Balanchine.
Staring at the accompanying photograph of Caroline leaning against Marc's chest, Elizabeth did not even realize that Maddy Gardiner had returned.
"Well?" she asked. "Pretty harsh, isn't it?"
Elizabeth frowned and shook her head. "This review is disgusting. The New York Times pays this woman? 'Uninspired?!' Give me a break. His piece was fabulous."
Smiling, Maddy shrugged. "You win some, you lose some. Mary Louise has never liked William Darcy that much."
"Why? Because he can dance, and all she can do is write drivel." Elizabeth threw down the newspaper and huffed.
"Rumor has it, they dated for a bit and had a bad break-up," Maddy replied, laughing.
Elizabeth's eyes widened and she quickly looked back down to the newspaper. When she had finally gained enough control over herself to sneak a glance back up, she saw Maddy staring at her, with an eyebrow cocked mischievously.
"William has a knack for making enemies. Don't you think?" There was a teasing lilt to Maddy's comment.
Shrugging, Elizabeth deferred answering with a long sip of coffee. "I suppose. I only worked with him for a few months."
"I never liked him myself, you know.”
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows in response.
"Oh, we get along fine now, but when I was working for Lucas and he was still dancing...Wooh! I hated that man. I thought he was the biggest jerk."
Elizabeth listened, struggling to maintain a cool demeanor, which made Maddy smile even more.
"He rubs people the wrong way sometimes. He comes off as snobby and arrogant, but he's a good guy. We've come to an understanding, I suppose. The more I know him, the more I respect him."
"Why?" The disbelief was palpable in Elizabeth's voice.
"Oh, I don't know. His dedication to the art form, his commitment to doing what's right. I've never met anyone more staunchly honest than him. It's a rare trait in this profession. Unfortunately, it doesn't make him many friends."
Elizabeth looked away and murmured, "No, I imagine not."
"But," continued Maddy, while stacking her dirty dishes, "he's been in the dance world for a long time, and has weathered worse reviews. And Miss Benet seemed to hate Caroline's dancing more than she did William's choreography. Maybe it was her time of the month."
Elizabeth chuckled and then looked down at the newspaper again. Maddy stood. "You can keep that. I'm finished with it. I'll see you back down here in a little bit."
“Maddy?” Elizabeth suddenly asked.
“Hm?”
“What do you know about...the tutu incident?”
Maddy frowned in confusion. “What do you know about the tutu incident? That was years ago. I don't even think you were born yet.”
Elizabeth tried to smile at the joke. “Oh, just a rumor I heard.”
“Nasty stuff, what dancers will do to each other. Between you and me,” Maddy lowered her voice and glanced around the room, “I've never liked Caroline, and I don't think I ever will. I've gotta run, Elizabeth. See you soon.”
Nodding, Elizabeth bade Maddy good-bye, and then stared at the Arts section of The New York Times for a long moment. She sighed dejectedly and then wondered why she had. This feeling, this pooling sympathy for a man she hated, was entirely new for her, and strange. Elizabeth felt such disappointment for him. When she considered this train of thought further, she found that disappointment inevitably extended to her. She had been intricately involved in the creation of his piece, or at least the pas de deux, which Miss Mary Louise Benet had deemed dull. Despite her resentment towards William, Elizabeth had to admit that they had danced well together, and it hurt to have that so completely and publicly rejected.
Elizabeth had always pictured dance critics as shrill, old ladies with penchants for tie-dyed headscarves and turquoise Native American jewelry. What kind of woman was Mary Benet? Was she pretty? Did she hang out at swanky, uptown bars drinking swanky, overpriced cocktails? Had she taken William to any of those bars? And who had broken up with whom? Elizabeth very consciously ended that line of thinking and stood, taking the offending newspaper with her. She was sure Anne would want to read the review, as well. And she did want to skim over it again, just to make sure she hadn't misinterpreted any of Mary Louise Benet's totally insipid and thoughtless remarks.
**
William threw down the newspaper, leaned back in his leather recliner, and smiled.
“Too, too true,” he murmured to himself. Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply, letting a solitary and swift wave of self-pity break over him, before he opened his eyelids again to the sunlight of a Manhattan Saturday morning. The height and insulation of his apartment shielded William from any street noise, but he felt it. On weekends, the city awoke slower. The air calmed and settled.
He bounded up from his chair, deciding then to enjoy the spring air with a walk in Central Park. Leaving everything else, William brought the Arts section of The New York Times with him.
It had rained for the entire week, but this morning was cloudless and crisp. He felt invigorated. Sitting on a bench in an uncrowded section of the park, William once again opened up to page three and read. He had always known he possessed a resentful nature, but never knew how deep its roots went. Beaming at the awful review, he imagined the horror with which two in the city had probably read it - William Lucas and Caroline Bingley. William's father had always told him that success was the best revenge, but he'd never known the sweetness of failure, until now.
Elizabeth had been gone for over two weeks. Really, it was more. She had been absent from his rehearsals for a month, by his own doing and missing from his life for a bit longer than that. The month had trudged by, each day a trial. He had cried. He hadn't cried since his father passed away. He had missed rehearsal. He hadn't missed rehearsal since…he tried to remember, but couldn't. Maybe the time he'd gotten that stomach bug in St. Petersburg, eight years ago. He had taken walks, striding aimlessly from his apartment, until he looked up and found himself in Battery Park. He had done everything to stop thinking of her, to get her venom-filled voice and injured eyes out of his head.
And he had thought. William thought about his father, and wished he were still around, as he so desperately needed a bit of fatherly advice now. His father had never liked Greg, had always chastised his mother for aiding “that ingrate fake.” But this was a thought that helped little at three in the morning.
William remembered his father, remembered how well he had treated his mother, and felt sick with shame. She had been fifteen years his junior, flighty and whimsical, concerned more with dance and music than mutual funds, and, yet, they had been perfect together.
William remembered one night of his boyhood, his parents getting ready to go to the opera. His mother adored the opera and his parents went to nearly every show put on by the Met. She had records of all the great shows and always hummed the arias as she applied her makeup before each performance. That night, however, she had been running around the apartment in a panic because she couldn't find her other pearl earring. That, and she discovered a run in her stockings, and they were already late, and she was yelling at her father to “stop laughing, and actually help look for the goddamn earring, goddammit.”
William remembered his father had winked at him and beckoned him to follow. With William at his father's heels, the older Darcy had turned to him and smiled.
“Will, when I'm dead and gone, remember this, if nothing else. Find a woman as pretty as your mom when she's mad, and she'll make you the happiest man in the world.”
Now that his father was dead and gone, that memory struck a somber ring in William. His parents' marriage, like most, had sometimes been bumpy, but William knew his father had found the utmost joy in all of his mother's whims and intricacies.
He missed Elizabeth. Again and again, William wondered if there could have been any other way besides sending her on tour. He wondered if there were any chance that she would forgive him when she got back. William thought about everything he had ever said to her, about the way he had treated her, as if his feelings had been silly and unjustified, despite everything his mind, body, and creativity had screamed.
One night, at two a.m., he wondered if he really had loved her. The answer, he determined, was no. He had admired her, lusted after her, been inspired by her, been infuriated by her, craved her, longed for her, used her, but he hadn't really loved her. William had assembled the mortar, bricks, wood, and steel, but all of those things by themselves didn't make a building. He hadn't even begun to build - to know Elizabeth, or respect her.
Trembling with that insight, William wondered if he had ever really loved a woman. He had dated plenty, some long-term. At the time, he had imagined himself in love. Passionate kisses shared, expensive jewelry bought, anniversaries and birthdays celebrated in candlelit French restaurants. But, William realized, those relationships had ended placidly, even when they ended badly. His emotions had never been touched. Now, he felt they were being stretched, strangled, and beaten.
William had finished the third movement of his piece, cleaned the entire thing, and still had a week of rehearsals left before the world premier. Yesterday, the night of the performance, he had watched stonily from the upper, right-hand wing, feeling how wrong it looked. The dancing was perfect; the audience gave the piece several curtain calls. William had even been pulled onstage for his own solitary bow, and several bouquets of roses had been tossed into the blinding arena of lights for him to retrieve, humbly and gratefully. Once backstage, he chucked them all in the garbage and sped towards the silent confines of his private car. He spent the night staring at the trickle of taxicabs making its way down Central Park West. The piece would garner rave reviews. Lucas and Caroline would cluck and preen. And Saturday morning would dawn as gray as the Friday before it.
Except the review was brutal, and it changed everything. He read, the smile on his face brightening with each paragraph. Finally, the last sentence slapped him in the face, and William laughed. It was just as he thought. The piece was terrible. He was a failure. Everything that had tortured him since Elizabeth's disappearance dawned starkly true. The piece was self-indulgent, pompous, and terribly cast. Now, he had somewhere to start, something to prove.
Late April in Central Park was no warm affair, but William unbuttoned his coat, leaned back against the bench, and smiled, for what seemed like the first time in weeks.
Chapter 20
Anne's fingers snaked down Elizabeth's chest, resting finally at the mouth to the valley between her breasts. Inhaling, Elizabeth shut her eyes and released a ragged breath. Her entire body trembled, her insides burned.
“Yes, good,” Anne murmured, the other hand wrapping around Elizabeth's ribcage.
Elizabeth released her breath in spurts, a bead of sweat trickled down her temple, she gazed up at the ceiling, feeling the burn in her core.
“Almost,” said Anne.
Finally too exhausted to continue, Elizabeth collapsed back onto the floor, her whole body spent.
“Please, no more,” she begged.
Anne smiled. “Just one more rep.”
Elizabeth groaned. “No, I can't take any more of these stupid crunches!”
“They're not crunches. They're ‘The Hundreds.'”
“I don't care what they're called,” Elizabeth whined. “Joseph Pilates can have his Hundred crunches back.”
“You're very weak. You're still moving your chest and not your ribs in the breaths. Fine, fine. Do your Theraband exercises while I take a shower.”
Elizabeth grumbled as Anne walked over to her suitcase and began rummaging through it.
“Are you all packed for tomorrow?” Anne asked.
“Yes, Mother.”
“Well, you forgot a pair of ballet slippers last time.”
“Yes, thank you, Mom. I won't do it again.”
Anne stared at Elizabeth sourly, and didn't respond. Smiling, Elizabeth knew she wasn't angry. She loved poking fun at Anne, ever the Miss Do Right, in an attempt to prod a response from her normally unresponsive features. In return, Anne seemed to enjoy Elizabeth's teasing as a crotchety spinster would, loving the attention in a grumbling, begrudging sort of way.
“You should pick up some sunscreen before we go tomorrow.”
“Anne, they'll have sunscreen in Miami.”
“Yeah, but after that, it's Mexico and you just never know.”
Elizabeth made a serious face. “I'll buy two bottles in Miami.”
Just then, Anne's cell phone rang. She reached up and pulled it off of the bed. Glancing at the screen, she wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“The Wicked Witch of the Upper West Side,” she grumbled, making Elizabeth giggle.
Flipping open the phone, Anne stood as she made her way towards the bathroom where she always took these phone calls. “Hello, mother.”
Elizabeth shook her head and went back to her Theraband exercises. Midway through a series, the phone in the room rang. Elizabeth answered it with a bright hello.
“Hello, yes,” answered the voice on the other line, “I'm calling to report a missing person. Her name is Elizabeth Bennet, and she hasn't called her sister in over a week.”
“Oh, hey, Jane.”
“Oh, hey, Lizzy. What the heck! Thanks for calling.”
“Settle down, Fan, or we'll have to get you your Zoloft.”
“Ha ha ha.”
“I'm sorry, Jane. I would have called earlier, but this past week has been really busy.”
“Uh huh.”
“Yeah, we went to Disney World yesterday, and the night before that, a bunch of us went clubbing after the show. And the day before that was a travel day.”
“Do you actually dance while you're on tour?”
Elizabeth laughed. “We dance! But we have fun, too. How's New York?”
“Good. Same old.”
“How's Charles?”
Jane sighed dreamily. “Good.”
“Any progress on finally unlatching your tongues from each other's throats?”
Giggling, Jane replied, “We don't have our tongues down each other's throats.”
“Sure you don't. Well, tell him I say hi.”
“I will. He asks about you a lot.”
“Does he? Aw, he's a sweetie.” Elizabeth smiled into the receiver. “So, how's everything else?”
“Good, good. Charlotte told me to tell you hi.”
“Oh, how is she?”
“She's good. Still dating Colin.”
Elizabeth cringed. “I don't get it, but that's all I'm going to say.”
“He's not a bad guy, Lizzy. Charlotte says he makes her feel special, like a lady.”
“Really?” Elizabeth asked skeptically. “Well, who knows? You can never tell what goes into a relationship unless you're the two people in it.”
“Exactly,” Jane agreed.
“I still gag when I think about the two of them kissing, though.”
“Oh, I do, too. Blech!”
Elizabeth laughed. “Good to know I didn't get all of the bitchy genes.”
“No, just most of them.”
Giggling, Elizabeth asked Jane about their other friends. Jane related a piece of gossip fed to her by Lydia. They chatted about the fall season's repertoire and speculated on casting. All the while, a question burned at Elizabeth. During a lull in the conversation, she looked behind her, to make sure Anne was still in the bathroom, and then lowered her voice.
“And so, uh, has Mr. Darcy started his new piece?”
“Not yet. He hasn't really been around lately.”
“Oh.”
Jane hesitated. “We went out the other day, though. He, Charles, Charles' parents, and I.”
“Oh?” Elizabeth attempted to sound as indifferent as she could.
“Charles' dad and William talked the whole time about stocks and stuff. He seemed okay.”
Elizabeth answered with a grunt, not because she wasn't interested, but rather, because she was so curious that she felt any other answer would betray that fact to Jane. Sensing Elizabeth's indifference, Jane changed the subject and asked where the tour was stopping next. A twinge of disappointment nipped at Elizabeth, but she answered.
“Miami, and then Mexico.”
“Aw, man,” Jane moaned.
“Yeah, I know you're jealous.”
“You're right, I'm jealous. You'll be on some perfect beach, and I'm stuck here in a concrete jungle.”
“You have Charles.”
“Yeah, but I wanna go to the beach,” whined Jane.
“I'll bring you back a seashell.”
Jane muttered that she didn't want a seashell, she wanted Miami Beach.
“Lizzy, how much longer do you have on that tour?”
“Only a month.”
Jane sighed and grew quiet. “I miss you.”
“Oh, Janey, I miss you, too, but it's only a month more. Twenty-seven days, really.”
“I know,” she sighed. “Okay, I should go. The phone card's going to run out. You'd better call me.”
“I'll try. But it's going to cost me twice as much to call from Mexico.”
“Lizzy!”
“Okay, okay,” Elizabeth laughed, “I'll talk to you soon.”
Elizabeth hung up the phone, repressing a surge of guilt. Of course, she missed her sister, and she missed New York. However, Elizabeth found she loved being on tour as well. She loved waking up in a new city every morning, traversing the country on the company's money, and getting a salary at the same time. She hadn't been great friends with many of the dancers before the tour had begun, but after weeks in their constant company, she found she was just as close with some as she was with Charlotte, Lydia, or Katherine. In Anne, especially, she had found a person so diametrically opposed to herself, that they somehow clicked. Elizabeth joked that Anne was her Laurel, and she the Hardy.
Surprisingly, Elizabeth didn't want to go back to the city. She loved traveling. She couldn't wait to get to Mexico and the rest of their Central and South American stops. It would be her first time out of the country. Although she couldn't speak a word of Spanish beyond hola and burrito, Elizabeth found the idea of stepping into an unknown land just as thrilling as the feeling before stepping on stage into the lights. She missed New York City, but, no, she was not ready to return just yet.
There was another reason for this, she suspected. William Darcy. Elizabeth didn't want to face him yet. Rather, she didn't know how to face him. She was thoroughly humiliated by her behavior towards him. She had been belligerent and thick. She had played into the role of naïve suburban girl to perfection. William probably wondered why he had ever shown her any preference, in the studio and out of it. Elizabeth regretted her words to him, not because she loved or even liked him, although her feelings had softened considerably, but because it made her look like a fool in his eyes, and with William more than anyone, that fact made her physically cringe with embarrassment.
So now the question was how to face him. Should she apologize, and if so, what should she say? Even if she did apologize, there was no guarantee he would accept it. He might react coldly, or patronizingly, or worst of all, indifferently to her. Elizabeth couldn't even consult Jane on the matter, as the issue so intimately concerned her sister.
In any case, she had another month to work through the particulars. It had already taken her a month to realize how wrong she had been about William. She figured it would take her another month to figure out what to do next. There was no need to make a decision any time in the near future. Right now, Elizabeth simply had to go through the rest of her Theraband exercises and pack, so that Anne wouldn't reemerge from the shower with another of one of her mother hen lectures that Elizabeth had grown so fond of ignoring.
**
After a three-hour delay in Orlando International Airport, the company arrived in Miami sweaty, grungy, and irritated. Most had planned on using the afternoon to lounge on the beach, but by the time they arrived in Miami, the sun had clocked out for the day. The eternal wait in a stuffy airport terminal had drained away any desire to go out and savor Miami's famous nightlife. Thus, Elizabeth sat restlessly in her Miami Beach hotel room, aching to explore the pastel-lined streets. Anne could not be convinced. The humidity was disgusting and besides, every Thursday night she expected a call from her “friend,” Mariah.
Resigned to her own company, Elizabeth donned a tank top and sandals and headed out to find a cup of coffee, a harder task than she expected. Apparently, no one in Miami wanted hot coffee when the thermometer read ninety-four degrees with ninety percent humidity. Elizabeth strolled slowly along the street, staring up at the tops of palm trees. Being farther up the beach, there were few pedestrians. After walking for some minutes and only passing hotels, condos, and convenience stores, and with her tank top already betraying signs of perspiration, Elizabeth stopped outside a brightly lit restaurant, Reynalda Cafetería. The lettering on the window was all in Spanish, but Elizabeth recognized the word “café,” and decided to give the place a go. Pushing open the door, Elizabeth entered to the clanking of bells against the glass. The interior was staid and fluorescent-lit, but clean. A middle-aged man behind the counter conversed in rapid-fire Spanish with a young woman sitting at a table alone. She was the only patron in the diner.
“Excuse me,” Elizabeth said, approaching the counter, “do you have coffee?”
The man stopped speaking and stared strangely at her, making no reply.
“Do you have coffee?” Elizabeth repeated.
“Coffee? Yes, yes, coffee.” The man spoke with a heavy Spanish accent. “Con leche? Cubano?”
Elizabeth looked blankly at him. He returned the look.
“Coffee,” Elizabeth said.
The man's face twisted with annoyance. Again, he said something in Spanish in response to which Elizabeth again stood mutely. The woman at the table giggled, saying something to the man in Spanish. Elizabeth glared at her, lifted her chin, and was about to turn away in a huff, when the woman spoke.
“He asked you what kind of coffee you want. Coffee with milk, or Cuban coffee.”
“I can't just get it black?”
The woman giggled again. “You can, but it'll be super nasty.”
Elizabeth frowned.
“It's, like, not really real coffee. It's kinda like espresso. You should get the Cuban coffee. He makes it really, really good.”
Nodding, first to the woman, and then to the man, Elizabeth made her order. “Cuban coffee, then.”
“Cubano? Okay.” The man nodded in approval and went about his work.
“You're totally not from Miami, are you?” the woman asked.
“No, New York.” Elizabeth fished around in her bag for her wallet.
“New York! Oh, cool. Me, too. Where in New York? New York City?”
Elizabeth nodded. “Yes.”
“Manhattan?”
“Yes.”
“Ooh! Me, too! Where?”
“I live in Harlem.”
“Ooh, scary. You should, like, really carry around pepper spray or something.”
“Thanks,” Elizabeth said, drolly, “but it's not that bad.”
The woman grinned and shrugged. Turning her focus away, Elizabeth tried to ignore the bimbo in the corner. She, however, kept smiling at Elizabeth. She seemed completely out of place in this small, plain diner. Her hefty Louis Vuitton bag sat ungraciously on the plastic tabletop. No older than twenty-five, the woman sat with her legs crossed daintily, four-inch strappy sandals gracing her perfectly pedicured feet. Chanel sunglasses sat on the crown of her head. She wore a matching Tiffany necklace and bracelet and fulfilled every stereotype that Elizabeth held about Miami women: tanned, dark, raven-haired, and in the shortest shorts Elizabeth had ever seen. But, she seemed friendly, annoyingly so. Elizabeth was tired and grumpy. She just wanted coffee and quiet. Suppressing her irritation, she struggled to maintain a pleasant demeanor.
“How long are you in Miami for?” asked Miss Louis Vuitton.
Elizabeth plunked down $1.50 in quarters and dimes, and smiled stiffly, “Just a few days.”
“Planning on going to the beach?”
“No, I'm here on work.”
“Oh, coming to Miami for work is like, I don't know, like going to Paris and not seeing to the Eiffel Tower.”
The analogy didn't hit. “I've never been to Paris.” Elizabeth grimaced at the frost in her voice. She wondered which was better – sounding like a complete bimbo, or a complete bitch. It's only five minutes, Elizabeth reasoned with herself. It won't kill you to be friendly.
“Have you ever eaten Cuban food before?” the woman asked, oblivious to the bite in Elizabeth's tone.
“No, this is my first time,” Elizabeth said. “Can't you tell?”
“Oh my God! Then you totally have to get something else besides coffee! Pepe makes the best medianoche. Oh, that means ‘midnight,' but it's really only a sandwich.”
“Thanks for the suggestion, but I had a sandwich for lunch.”
“Oh, cool! Then you can have a pastry!” Then, the woman said something in Spanish to Pepe who turned and walked over to a hot lamp, plucking two pastries from underneath.
“Really,” protested Elizabeth, “you don't have to. I need to get going anyway.”
“I swear, just try this. They're the best in Miami. You have to just try this.”
Shrugging and smiling in resignation, Elizabeth let the woman pay for a pastry and usher her to sit at her table.
“Oops, sorry,” she giggled, removing the designer bag. Elizabeth smiled uncomfortably at the woman. She had never been bought food by a stranger.
“Thanks, you really didn't have to.”
“It's totally okay. You're so going to die when you eat that.”
Elizabeth picked up the pastry as her hostess did. A large blot of grease remained in its place on the paper plate. Suppressing a face, Elizabeth figured she would have to double up on Pilates exercises that week to compensate for all of these calories. The woman held her treat in between long, French-manicured nails and chomped down happily. Closing her eyes, she smiled. “Yum”
Elizabeth took a tentative bite, and then another. On the third bite, she struck gold; guava paste and warm melted cream cheese oozed out of the sides. “Ummm,” moaned Elizabeth orgasmically.
The two women looked at each other and then burst into giggles.
“I told you it was good!”
Elizabeth hungrily scarfed down the pastry, then took Miss Vuitton's recommendation and ordered a medianoche sandwich. While that was being prepared, the woman propped her cheek on her hand and smiled. Elizabeth, feeling guilty for her ungracious behavior, returned the smile and attempted to make conversation.
“So…what do you do in Miami?”
“College. I go to UM.”
Elizabeth furrowed her eyebrows, and then understood. She laughed. “Oh. I'm originally from Michigan, and we call the University of Michigan ‘UM,' too. That's where I thought you meant.”
Miss Vuitton giggled. “Oh, no way. I meant Miami, silly.”
“What's your major?”
“Econ and international politics.”
Elizabeth nodded, impressed. She'd expected the woman across from her to say tanning or underwater basket weaving. “Wow, that's pretty heavy-duty.”
“Well,” the woman shrugged, “I really like it. I'm pretty dumb when it comes to books and reading and stuff, but, like, I totally get numbers and logic and all that boring junk. Oh, gross. I have guava all in my fingernails. I'm, like, totally nasty.”
Elizabeth laughed. Just then, the door swung open and a woman muttering to herself in Spanish walked in.
“Oh, hey, Reynalda,” Miss Vuitton called.
“Hola, mi hija,” Reynalda answered, “Where's Pepe?”
Pepe grunted from under the counter. Reynalda, a woman in her fifties with a bad dye-job, strode to the counter and began talking to the man in Spanish. Elizabeth recognized a few English words thrown in.
“They're married,” whispered Miss Vuitton. Just then, Reynalda, who had grabbed a croquette from under the heat lamp, came to their table and sat, without invitation. She smiled politely at Elizabeth.
“Are you Georgiana's friend from school?” Her English, while still tinged with a Spanish accent, was far better than her husband's.
Shaking her head, Elizabeth opened her mouth to reply but was cut off. “No, she's from New York,” answered the woman, who Elizabeth now knew was called Georgiana.
“Oh, your friend from New York?”
“No, Reynalda. We just met.”
Reynalda nodded as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be having coffee and pastries with a stranger. “So, you're not from Miami.”
“No, I live in New York City, but I'm originally from Michigan.”
Reynalda made a face. “From Michigan? It's so cold there, no? When I first came over from Cuba, I lived in Chicago for a few months with my cousin. It was so cold. I thought I was gonna freeze to death. I can't even stand New York, but at least it's better than Chicago.”
Elizabeth simply laughed. Pepe shuffled out from behind the counter then and brought her sandwich. He asked her something in Spanish, which Georgiana translated.
“Want more coffee?” The stuff was so rich and sweet that Elizabeth said she would be fine with one. Pepe shrugged and shuffled off.
Reynalda and Georgiana watched Elizabeth eat for a few moments and then began chit-chatting in a strange mixture of English and Spanish. The older woman asked Elizabeth how she liked Miami and as Elizabeth had only been in town for a few hours, replied that it was extremely humid, but pretty. Reynalda seemed satisfied by that answer, and mentioned again how cold Chicago was. Then, a shrill rendition of Ode to Joy came from the Louis Vuitton bag. Fumbling in her bag, Georgiana plucked out a thin, pink cell-phone and flipped open the lid. Her eyes lit up.
“Yo, Dub! Where are you?…No way!…No way!…I thought you weren't coming ‘til tomorrow…Cool!…At Reynalda's. Oh, crap, who's picking you up?…Oh, good…Oh, crap, he was supposed to pick me up. I didn't bring the car…Can you?…Aww, you're so sweet…Fifteen minutes…I'm so excited to see you, too!…Oh, man! Why is she coming?…Yeah, yeah. If I have to, I guess I'll put up with her….Okay, so fifteen minutes?…Great!…Love you! I'm so excited to see you….Okay, love you. Bye.”
The woman snapped her cell phone shut and looked at Reynalda with dancing eyes. “He's already here!”
“You're kidding! He said he was coming tomorrow.”
“He wanted to surprise us.”
The woman laughed and clapped her hands, and then yelled something in Spanish to Pepe, who only smiled in response. Georgiana turned to Elizabeth and explained.
“My brother's coming in from New York. He was supposed to come tomorrow, though.”
“That's a nice surprise.”
“Her brother,” Reynalda interrupted, “he always does stuff like that. He's so good to her. He's so good to all of us. And so handsome, too. If I wasn't married to Pepe, I tell you, that boy would be in trouble.”
Elizabeth laughed, as did the younger woman. “Reynalda, you always say the exact same thing.”
“Because it's true, mi hija! Georgiana's brother is the…”
“She does this to like almost everyone,” explained Georgiana. Reynalda lightly slapped the girl's arm and told her to be quiet.
“You know, I worked for his family for years. I took care of him since he was this big. I was like his grandmother, you know? And their parents,” Reynalda pointed at Georgiana, “may God rest their souls, they were the best people, too. When you were about how old, Georgianita?”
“I don't know, like five, or something.”
“When she was five, my sister, she came over from Cuba. You know, she had nothing. Just the clothes on her back. And her kids. Her husband couldn't come over. And you know what their parents did?”
Georgiana rolled her eyes with a good-natured smile on her face. Elizabeth raised her eyebrows, awaiting the response.
“Her parents, they let my sister and her kids live with them for five months. For five months! My sister couldn't even speak English. They got her a job. They fed her and her kids. The best family. The best. I'm telling you. It didn't matter if I was the housekeeper, they treated me with respect. Respect. Now, that's something you don't see a lot of lately.”
“No, indeed,” agreed Elizabeth. Georgiana smiled softly and simply shrugged.
“And her brother, he's the same way, you know. Let me tell you, a couple years ago, I started getting back problems and the doctor told me to take it easy. You know, from years of dusting and vacuuming and taking care of these ones. My back just couldn't take it anymore, you know? And Pepe, he'd been working for years in the factory, but how's an old fart supposed to work day-after-day on the same line with kids two times younger than him? You know? So, I told her brother, ‘I'm sorry, but the doctor says I have to take it easy, and I can't work anymore.' I had been working for this family for nearly thirty years, you know?”
At this point, Reynalda paused in her account to dab away the moisture from the corners of her eyes.
“And let me tell you what her brother did. When I retired, her brother bought me and Pepe a house. And not some filthy, run-down place in Hialeah. No, a nice little house in Kendall, close to my sister and her husband and her kids.”
Elizabeth nodded in approval. “That's very generous of him.”
“But that's not all. He buys me a house, and he gives me a retirement bonus bigger than what most businessmen get. Can you believe it? I nearly died of shock when I saw that check. Pepe here, he just burst into tears. And I told her brother, I said, ‘I can't accept this.' But he wouldn't hear it. He told me, ‘Reynalda, you're like family.' Isn't that something? So, what are we going to do with all that money? Pepe, he always made the best pastelitos, so we said, why not open a cafetería? So we bought this place.”
Elizabeth was impressed, not only by the display of goodwill, but also by the vast amounts of money being thrown around by Georgiana's brother. No wonder the girl had more designer brands on her than a duty-free store.
“I'm warning you,” the young woman joked, “this woman exaggerates, like, everything.”
“Oye, hush. You know your brother's the best man in the world.”
Georgiana giggled and winked at Elizabeth. “He is. He'll drop whatever he's doing and help me if I'm in trouble.”
Chuckling, Elizabeth replied, “He sounds like an ideal brother. I've always wanted a brother.”
“You don't have any siblings?”
“I do. A perfect older sister.”
“Hey,” Reynalda said, leaning into Elizabeth, “give me your sister's number. We could set them up. I keep telling him to get married and give me grandbabies, but you know, he's all over the place. He won't settle down.”
Picking up the second half of her sandwich, Elizabeth was about to bite into the corner when Reynalda screamed and bolted up. Elizabeth jumped, her sandwich falling from her hands and landing on the tile. Running to the door, Reynalda laughed and screeched and clapped like someone possessed. Suddenly, Georgiana joined her in her pandemonium, and Elizabeth found herself alone at the table, picking up pickles and pieces of ham from the floor.
Looking over the table, Elizabeth plucked a napkin off of it and then froze. Her mouth plunked open. There, at the door, strangled in a vice-like embrace by both Reynalda and Georgiana, stood William Darcy, his baritone laughter resounding through the small cafeteria like a roll of thunder.
“Shit!” Elizabeth muttered, ducking back under the table. Then, realizing what she would look like to William, hiding under the table, she shut her eyes and knew she would have to stand and reveal herself. A shiver rippled over her skin, and her face scorched with embarrassment. She stood and looked away awkwardly.
The reunion lasted for a long minute. Reynalda had finally calmed to the point where she was no longer screaming. William answered all of her questions - how he was, when he got in, how was his flight, did he have a girlfriend yet. When her interrogation had ended, he turned to his little sister, her hair now cut in a pixie style, as short as a boy's.
“What have you done to your hair, G?” he asked.
“You like it? I got it cut!”
“I see that. You look like Audrey Hep…”
Then, he lost all ability to speak. Georgiana stared at him strangely, as he looked past her, stunned.
“Dub, it's ‘Hepburn.'”
William nodded, stiffening his jaw. Was he seeing right? He had to be. There would be no reason for a perfect stranger to be standing in the background so awkwardly, her face beet red, her lips pursed in mortification, doing everything to avoid his gaze.
Georgiana followed the line of his eyes to Elizabeth and then understood. “Oh, we were making a new friend. Dub, this is…oh, crap. I'm such an airhead. I totally didn't even ask you your name.”
“Elizabeth,” William murmured. Finally, she lifted her eyes. William felt his heart stop and then stumble into it a frantic rhythm. He had no words, and so he simply stared dumb and wide-eyed, which was fine, since Elizabeth could only do the same.
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