Slow Burn, page 10
And so here we were, even more awkward around each other than before. I supposed the only saving grace was that it hadn’t gone much further than a – spectacularly exquisite – kiss. Oh, and that Sedi seemingly had no idea that anyone – let alone him – had been with me that night. I hadn’t lied to her exactly, but nor had I told the truth.
I seemed to be doing a lot of that lately.
As I walked down a corridor, a warren of carpets and doors that led to the dark, underground bowels of the theatre, the door to a dressing room flew open and Daniella appeared.
‘Oh. Hello,’ she said, as if she was surprised to see me. I had the same call time as her and the rest of the cast, so why was she pretending otherwise? Then her startled expression turned into something else – a smirk, perhaps; I wasn’t sure. ‘Gabriele’s in there if you’re looking for him.’
She pointed to his name on the door.
‘I’m not,’ I said, smiling tightly and carrying on.
I knew I had to talk to him sometime, but it didn’t have to be now. My head was full of nerves and the steps that, in a couple of hours, I would have to perform. I couldn’t allow anything to throw me even remotely off.
Annoyingly, because I wasn’t really in a chatty mood, Daniella fell into step beside me as I headed for the communal dressing room. I couldn’t hear any of the usual chatter from the other dancers, so we must be the first in.
‘What is it with you two?’ she asked. ‘You and Gabriele?’
I swallowed hard. How much did she know? Surely he hadn’t told her?
‘I’ve no idea what you mean, and honestly all I want to think about right now is the show,’ I said, trying not to sound defensive.
Apparently, Daniella was not to be deterred.
‘Because I hope you know how lucky you are to have been given this role. It’s unheard of for a dancer as inexperienced as you to be handed something like this on a plate.’
‘Of course I realize what an opportunity this is,’ I said, put out by her tone. What was she suggesting here?
‘As dance captain, I will be watching you closely, as I will every other member of the cast. And if you’re not on your absolute A-game every single night, we’re going to have a problem.’
Was she threatening me? I bet she’d love it if I messed up and had to be replaced by either her or one of her adoring hangers-on, a group that included Carlos’s stuck-up assistant Emily, and who seemed to be gossiping together – sometimes about me, no doubt – every time I looked at them.
‘Trust me, there won’t be a problem.’
Daniella looked at me sideways.
‘Some advice, for what it’s worth. Gabriele needs to be focused on the show, not on some new romance that probably won’t last more than five minutes, anyway.’
I shook my head, reminding myself to keep calm, that she probably had no idea what she was talking about and was fishing for clues. Little did she know that romance wasn’t even an option – I was hardly going to make Gabriele fall madly in love with me, was I? There was some unresolved lust between us, that was all. And it wasn’t worth risking my reputation – or the wrath of Daniella.
‘There’s absolutely nothing happening between us,’ I lied.
Then I found a small section of the mirror that I could make my own and began to unpack my make-up from my bag, trying my best to ignore Daniella, who was still hovering next to me.
‘He doesn’t do relationships, anyway. You know that, don’t you?’ said Daniella, leaning her back against the mirror, refusing to go away.
‘Why would I care either way?’ I said, scraping my hair back into a bun.
‘There’s a spark between you, anyone can see that. But if you think it would ever be more than that, you’re mistaken. He’d never give you what you want.’
‘How would you know what I want?’ I asked, turning to her, wishing more than anything that she’d just leave me alone and go away.
She shrugged – she’d rattled me and she knew it.
‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ she said.
I tutted as she walked away, looking at myself in the mirror, knowing she had a point, even if I could have done without her rubbing it in.
Luca chose that moment to poke his head around the door.
‘Is it safe to come in?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows hopefully.
I smiled. ‘It’s only me in here, so sure.’
Luca scooted inside.
‘What did she want?’ he asked. Daniella had probably just flounced right past him.
‘Quizzing me about Gabriele. Warning me off him,’ I said.
Luca rolled his eyes. We’d developed a pretty close friendship considering we’d only known each other for three weeks. He was Gabriele’s understudy, so we’d rehearsed the duets together as well as the group dances. I loved Luca, but was it bad of me to hope that I’d never actually have to dance with him on stage? He and I shared a laugh together, and we enjoyed bitching about how snippy some of the other dancers could be, but I knew we didn’t have a fraction of the chemistry on stage that Gabriele and I did.
‘She’s clearly in love with him,’ said Luca, flinging himself into a chair and watching me lay out my make-up and hair products for later. ‘And you’re making her insanely jealous.’
I laughed softly to myself. ‘I don’t think anyone’s ever been jealous of me in my life.’
‘Rubbish,’ said Luca. ‘You’re beautiful and you know it. And so does Gabriele.’
‘He doesn’t.’
‘Oh so that’s why he looks at you like he wants to rip your clothes off, is it?’
‘That’s hatred you’re picking up on, not desire.’
‘I know what I see,’ said Luca infuriatingly. ‘Come on, you can tell me, we’re friends now. You’ve slept together, right?’
I bit my lip. I desperately wanted to tell someone, to say the words out loud, to hear the opinion of another person instead of listening only to the relentlessly punishing voice in my head.
‘Ages ago. We were kids,’ I said.
There. It was out there now. I was almost too scared to look in the mirror because I would see Luca’s facial expression reflected back at me and I would be able to tell what he thought of it all. And Luca was the kind of guy who said it as it was.
‘Knew it! And there’s something more recent. Isn’t there?!’ he demanded to know.
‘No.’
‘Do not lie to me, Lira James. No couple has that much of a connection on stage without shagging, or at least wanting to.’
I sighed, checking over my shoulder. For all I knew, somebody could be skulking around outside, and if one of Daniella’s henchwomen overheard, the entire cast would know all there was to know about mine and Gabriele’s sex life – or lack thereof – within minutes.
‘Fine. We kissed. A few days ago.’
‘And now what?’
‘And now I’m trying not to do it again.’
Luca sat up straight in his chair. ‘What’s stopping you?’
I turned to face him. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘Er, not really?’ said Luca, looking genuinely perplexed.
‘Daniella said we shouldn’t mix business with pleasure.’
‘Probably not, but everyone does. We’re dancers – who else are we going to meet if not each other? Also, I wouldn’t necessarily listen to anything Daniella has to say – she has an ulterior motive, as discussed.’
‘Also, Gabriele is hardly the relationship type. There’s no point in us having some casual fling that will only make things awkward afterwards.’
‘Has he actually said that’s all he wants?’ asked Luca.
He didn’t have to. It was obvious, wasn’t it? ‘Not in so many words.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t make assumptions, Lira. I don’t know him that well,’ said Luca, getting up to leave, ‘but he seems like a bit of a deep, sensitive soul to me. If he’s not into relationships, it’s probably because he hasn’t met the right person.’
‘Hmmm,’ I said.
‘Better go and get ready for the light check,’ said Luca. ‘But, Lira, maybe it’s worth taking a risk? What’s the worst that could happen if you let things take their natural course?’
I shuddered. ‘I dread to think.’
I watched Luca leave the dressing room and turned back to look at myself in the mirror. Did he have a point? I’d never really thought of Gabriele being sensitive before, but what if underneath all of that confidence and bravado there was someone more vulnerable, someone who was just as scared of falling in love as I was? I thought briefly of the moments after we’d slept together in Paris. He’d fallen asleep with me tangled in his arms, and even as he’d drifted off, his breath slowing and softening, I remember noticing that he didn’t loosen his hold on me. I’d never felt like that after sex before, so contented, so safe, so wanted. He hadn’t seemed like a womanizer then, but he was only twenty-one; perhaps he’d grown into it. In fact, if I thought about it, it had been me who’d set a precedent that this was simply a casual hook-up, not him. I’d known we were only destined to be together for one night, or at least I thought I’d known, and as a result, there had been none of the usual will we or won’t we see each other again? We wouldn’t, and that was that.
My flight had been at 6am that same morning, my taxi due to arrive at 3.
And so, an hour after watching him drift off, I gently removed myself from his arms and got dressed in the bathroom, throwing my remaining things into my suitcase and sneaking out of the room with only a very brief glance back at the beautiful man sleeping naked in the bed. My life was going to be different from then on in, and it was pointless taking any of the old along with me.
It had felt like all or nothing. And in my case, seemingly, it had been nothing.
CHAPTER TWELVE Gabriele
I stood stage right, waiting for the show to begin. It was Carlos who would be most anxious this evening – finally his vision would be coming together in front of a paying audience. After tonight, he would have to finely tune the production based on the things – good and bad – he observed on opening night.
My job was to make sure that the only things he had to say were good.
I turned to Lira, who was standing quietly behind me. She looked a little unsure, as was to be expected after so many years away from the stage. For the first time in a long while I wondered if we had done the right thing by throwing her back in at the deep end like this, with nowhere near enough rehearsal time. She was an amazing dancer, and of course – although I was loath to admit it – our chemistry was exactly where it needed to be, on stage at least. Off stage it was… complicated. We had not found the time to talk about our kiss, nor the fact she had ushered me out the back door of her studio afterwards because she did not want to be seen with me – my ego had been bruised by her all over again. As a result, there was an unspoken tension between us that I imagined both of us were finding unhelpful for the performance of a lifetime we were expected to give.
‘Are you ready for this?’ I whispered to her.
She nodded. I was not sure if I believed her, but I supposed I would have to take her word for it.
Through the tiniest gap in the velvet curtains, I could see a snapshot of the audience, a thin sliver of faces, some avidly reading their glossy programme, others chatting to the person sitting next to them. I could feel the atmosphere all around me – the excitement, the expectation. It was everything I loved about live theatre. Now, all I had to do was deliver what had been promised.
‘Is it a full house?’ asked Lira.
‘I cannot quite see,’ I said. ‘But Carlos said that all the seats had been filled, yes.’
I turned to face her, softening my voice, wanting to be supportive, to reassure, despite not quite knowing where I stood with her after the other night.
‘You are going to be brilliant out there,’ I said softly. ‘Magnifico. Trust me.’
She nodded her appreciation and we shared a smile of solidarity, an understanding that we would both go out on that stage and give it our absolute all. She looked stunning in her costume for the opening dance, a long, navy blue satin dress with spaghetti straps and a slit so long it ran all the way up to the middle of her thigh. Her make-up was perfect for the stage: polished and simple, except for her mouth, which was ruby red and glossy. For a second, I imagined plunging my own lips against hers and then I got myself in check. What the hell was wrong with me, thinking like that moments before we were about to set foot out on stage? I was seriously calling my own professionalism into question.
‘I’m worried about the rumba,’ she said, biting her bottom lip and unfortunately drawing my attention to her mouth over again.
We had added in a new move that morning, at Carlos’s request. It was risky, but I knew she could do it.
‘Do not be afraid,’ I said. ‘If one of us makes a mistake, the other will cover. We know each other well enough for that.’
And I meant what I said, even if there were many parts of her that were still a mystery to me. I could feel her ambition, her attention to detail, how much she wanted this second chance at a dance career. What I did not know was why she had given it up in the first place; why she seemed so scared to be honest with her family; why she had walked out on me that night in Paris. But these questions would have to be answered another time – we had work to do now.
The house lights dimmed and the audience hushed and settled. I dropped my head, closing my eyes for a second, grounding myself.
Let this performance go well. Let the audience love the show. Let me dance like I have never danced before.
The opening bars of the Argentine tango rang out across the theatre. This was not the duet Lira and I would end the show with, it was a group number, a recreation of a sizzling-hot night-club scene in Buenos Aires, a city I knew and loved. Lira and I were first to step out from behind the curtain; for forty-five seconds it would be just me and her, all eyes on us before the rest of the cast joined us and we became a company of dancers, all with the same common goal: to wow, to entertain.
I reached behind me and took Lira’s hand, squeezing it once before stepping out onto the stage, leading her behind me, becoming the character I was playing for this dance. The lights went up on stage, covering us with an intense beam of light as I pulled Lira into me, running my hand down the side of her body as she bent backwards, trailing her hand on the floor, my other hand supporting her back. As she came back to standing, I took control, snapping into hold, beginning the routine we had rehearsed over and over, willing it to go well.
* * *
The steps that ended the show nearly two hours later – if you included the interval – were some of the most dramatic of the entire production. Lira was balancing on my shoulder, I was spinning her around, then she slid off, spiralling into my arms. I caught her, seconds from the ground, and held her there, suspended in motion, before pulling her up to meet me, her hand on my cheek – an almost kiss – then her final back bend.
The lights went down, and for a second or two we did not move. We had done it. We had got through the show with minimal mistakes. It could not have gone better, not on a first night. Whether the audience had liked it or not, I was not entirely sure, although if their whoops and whistles throughout the show were anything to go by, it had felt like they had.
Performing was in my blood, it was what I lived for, and I rarely felt nervous, but perhaps tonight had been the closest I had got to it. It was a strange feeling headlining a show, knowing that no matter how perfectly everyone else performed, if I did not deliver, the whole show would be criticized in the press and there would be nobody else to blame. My stomach had been fluttering all day, and now I knew what people meant when they said they had butterflies in their bellies.
The stage lights came up again and Lira and I pulled apart, turning to face the audience. For a beat or two there was a loaded silence, until thunderous applause broke out, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Lira and I turned to our respective sides of the stage, inviting the rest of the cast to join us. The applause would not stop, and there were more enthusiastic shouts of Bravo! and More! – that would be the friends and family, no doubt, although, of course, there was nobody here for me. My parents were in Italy, and the only friends I had in London were the ones involved in this production.
When the whole cast were in place, I took a step forward alone, taking another bow. I straightened up, spotting that some of the audience were on their feet – lots of them, in fact. This was always a good sign. Perhaps that was why I got carried away and turned to take Lira’s hand, pulling her with me so that we could take one final bow together. This moment was supposed to be mine, but it felt wrong not to share it with her – I would not have danced so well with anyone else, I knew that emphatically.
And then together we turned and walked backstage, giving the audience a final wave as we disappeared behind the curtain.
* * *
The adrenaline rush when you come off stage is indescribable, and tonight was no exception. The whole company was in high spirits and everyone was jumping around, hugging each other. Carlos threw his arms around me. Lira kept beaming at me as though she could not quite believe we had pulled it off.
‘Yes, Gabriele! Bravo! They loved you out there!’ enthused Carlos.
And then he turned to Lira. ‘And you, my dear! A star in the making!’
Strangely, I did not feel even a prickle of envy or competitiveness. I knew how well I had danced, and of course I had wanted Lira to match me, otherwise what would have been the point in hiring her? The two of us were electric together and I wanted the world to see it.
Having checked my phone in the middle of all the festivities backstage, I noticed that I had several missed calls from my mother that I really should reply to. I glanced around the room – the cast were not going anywhere: we had much to celebrate. I slipped out of the bar, heading back to my dressing room, closing the door behind me. I took a moment to look at myself in the mirror, nodding to myself in appreciation. The small improvements to be made would be unnoticeable to anyone but me, Carlos and the most highly trained dancers. Lira had taken only one wrong step, and I had soon spun her back around the other way with a flourish, hoping to draw the eye to our arms and our elegant necks, rather than our feet.
