Slow Burn, page 23
‘So I read that you’re dancing with Tomas again. What happened to that Gabriele Riccitelli guy? The Stage just said he’d had a “family emergency”?’ asked Nolo, who was sitting by the window of her apartment. She had it thrown open and I could hear the wailing of a siren and the honking of cars and taxis from the street below, the kind of sounds you imagined when you pictured New York.
‘Ummm…’ I said, trying to engage my brain, which had suddenly drifted off into a daydream about Gabriele, and everything he was going through, and his flat, emotionless voice when I’d spoken to him last.
For some bizarre reason my bottom lip started quivering, as though I was about to cry. I shuffled about, changing position, plumping up my pillows, anything to distract myself from the fact that I was about to lose it while my face was blown up on both of my sisters’ computer screens. Fuck.
‘Go on, then, why are you stalling? Give us the gossip,’ demanded Sedi precociously.
I was going to have to talk somehow, otherwise they’d know something was up, and I didn’t even know how to begin to explain.
‘His father died,’ I said, feeling a very inconvenient tear roll down my cheek.
I was torn – if I wiped it away, it would be obvious, so should I leave it there in the hope that they were too self-absorbed to notice? Which was always a possibility.
Of course, on this occasion, I had no such luck.
‘Li, are you crying?’ asked Nolo, peering at her screen, scrutinizing my face for clues as to what the hell was going on.
When I said I’d never cried in front of them, that was no exaggeration. Even when our grandmother – Dad’s mum – died a few years ago, I sobbed only in the comfort of my own bedroom, late at night so that nobody could hear me, because I didn’t want to upset my sisters, and I definitely hadn’t wanted to set my mum off again. She’d been wailing for hours as it was – I was already dreading the moment when her own mother, my ouma in South Africa, passed away. Mum looked strong and robust from the outside, but when it came to anything related to death or illness, she fell apart completely. I always felt under pressure to keep it totally together for her.
‘You are!’ exclaimed Sedi, having the decency to look concerned.
I didn’t think I’d given my sisters cause to worry about me, ever. They probably had no idea how to react to this mysterious turn of events.
‘I’m fine, honestly,’ I said, grappling around for a tissue.
I blew my nose, taking some deep, scratchy breaths, letting air file out of pursed lips. Why did I feel so emotional at the mention of Gabriele’s name? Sure, it was horribly sad what he was going through, but it wasn’t like I’d known his dad. It wasn’t the kind of thing that would usually reduce me to tears.
‘Talk to us, Li,’ said Nolo, her voice softening into a tone I’d literally never heard her use before.
Lulled into a sense of being able to lean on someone in my family for support, I thought I may as well tell them everything.
‘Gabriele and I have become… close,’ I said.
‘You’ve shagged him. I knew it,’ said Sedi, triumphantly.
‘Really?’ said Nolo. ‘How did you know?’ she asked Sedi.
‘Well, have you seen him? He’s gorgeous. It was obvious. Plus, the press can’t stop raving about the chemistry they have on stage. You can’t fabricate that stuff, not when it’s powerful enough to translate to seasoned audience members and jaded reviewers.’
‘Good point,’ said Nolo.
‘How close are we talking?’ asked Sedi, who was simultaneously plaiting her hair, so that eventually it would hang in two cute braids on either side of her head.
‘Nothing serious,’ I said, although it felt serious, but I thought that said more about me than the reality of the situation. ‘I’ve spent a few nights in his hotel room, we’ve been on a sort-of date in Lisbon, and yes, we’ve slept together and it was… kind of out of this world.’
Nolo gasped, as if she’d never considered that I might be capable of having wild, passionate sex with anyone.
‘I’m insanely jealous,’ she said.
‘He does look like he’d be amazing in bed,’ reasoned Sedi.
‘So how did it happen?’ asked Nolo. ‘Was it one night after rehearsals?’
‘Oh my God!’ said Sedi, suddenly remembering something. ‘He was here that night, wasn’t he? When I turned up late, banging on the door, a bit drunk. I knew something was off! Your face was all flushed and the mirror was steamed up.’
‘Hmmm,’ I said. ‘That was kind of the beginning of it. Although not quite. It started when I was nineteen. At the World Championships. Remember “G”?’
Nolo’s mouth dropped open and I filled them in on everything that had happened since. On how Gabriele had looked utterly shocked and pissed off when he saw me walk into the audition room all those years later. How it had taken ages for the ice to melt between us, for us to even talk about what had happened before.
‘You need to be more open, Li,’ said Sedi. ‘We had no idea any of this was going on. You’re so closed off all the time!’
‘Good to know what you really think of me,’ I said, bristling.
I was only closed off because I didn’t think either of them were interested in hearing about my problems. They rarely asked me what was going on in my life because they were far too busy talking about theirs. Sedi went through guys faster than the speed of light, and Nolo always seemed to have men fawning over her, hanging off her every word, but it was like she thought she was too good for any of them. I’d always felt less-than in comparison – I was rarely asked out, and although I’d enjoyed spending time with Jack, it had been painfully obvious that it wasn’t likely to go anywhere.
‘But that still doesn’t explain why you’re crying,’ said Sedi, narrowing her eyes at me. ‘Are you in love with him or something?’
I swallowed hard, still feeling choked up. It must be some kind of misplaced empathy for Gabriele, I supposed, but I wasn’t going to be much help to him if I turned into a blubbering wreck every time I set eyes on his beautiful, mournful face.
‘I don’t know,’ I squeaked.
‘You are, and you have to tell him!’ shrieked Nolo. ‘Enough of this pretending not to like each other. You’re going to have to put yourself out there and explain how you feel, otherwise you’re risking losing him all over again.’
‘How can I? His dad’s just died! He’s hardly going to be up for embarking on some hot new romance, is he?’
That shut them up.
‘Fair enough, you might want to give him a bit of time to deal with that,’ admitted Sedi.
‘I do talk sense sometimes, you know,’ I said.
‘The fact that you’re extremely sensible has never been in doubt,’ said Nolo.
Perhaps it was that which gave me the strength to say what I said next; the idea that I had a reputation for being closed off and sensible. Who wanted that? It wasn’t exactly sexy, was it? And sure, I might be both of those things – at times – but it wasn’t all that I was.
‘So on another note, I’ve decided I don’t want to go back to running the studio full-time,’ I said, my throat feeling so tight I wondered if it was about to close up completely. At least that way I wouldn’t be able to speak at all; wouldn’t be able to say the wrong thing and cause a row.
‘Really?’ said Sedi, her expression darkening.
Nolo stared at me with her eyebrows raised so high they practically disappeared into her hairline.
‘Who’s going to run it, then?’ asked Nolo eventually, after an unbearably long and awkward silence.
I cleared my throat, keeping my cool to the best of my ability. ‘I haven’t had time to think it through properly yet. We need to have a family meeting at some point. I’ll arrange it with Mum and Dad and let you know.’
‘Maybe you should just chat to them about it first?’ suggested Sedi, who I could tell was desperate to check out and get off the call so that she could pretend that none of this had anything to do with her.
‘Are you worried they’re going to ask you to step in and cover some of my shifts?’ I asked, deciding directness was in order.
‘I’d never have time for that,’ said Sedi. ‘This time in two weeks I’ll be in Australia.’
‘Seriously, guys!’ I said, losing patience altogether. ‘I’ve taken this on without complaint for all these years. I’ve given up on my own dreams to keep the family business afloat. Sure, I could have said no, and that’s on me. But you two could also have stepped up and offered to help me out. Or even just asked me if I was okay; if I was happy doing what I was doing. Even that might have been nice!’
Nolo went to say something and then stopped. She looked upset and I should feel bad, but I didn’t. Welcome to the real world, I thought. Sure, she might be resilient when it came to her career, she had to be in the ballet world. But when it came to life, to family, she was overly sensitive. If there was even the tiniest hint that somebody was criticizing her, she’d crumble, leaving the other person feeling guilty for having said anything in the first place. But I didn’t feel guilty, not this time. Because she needed to hear it – in fact, she’d needed to hear it years ago.
‘I think you’re both quite selfish, if I’m honest,’ I said, thinking in for a penny, in for a pound. ‘We all have our faults, and so here I am pointing out one of yours – it’s time you two start thinking about somebody other than yourselves. Because it might be cute when you’re in your twenties, you might just about get away with it then, but once you hit thirty, it’s really not a good look. You have a responsibility to me, to this family, to Mum and Dad.’
‘What about them?’ protested Sedi. ‘Why do they get to swan off and do whatever they like? Aren’t they selfish, too?’
‘Yes. And I’ll be telling them as much,’ I said, doubting it even as the words came out of my mouth. ‘Perhaps not in so many words. But yeah. It’s their studio, ultimately. I will officially hand my notice in and then we can take it from there.’
Sedi and Nolo stared at me in stunned silence. I bet they wished we were doing this in person so that they could join forces against the tyranny I was inflicting on them, look to each other for support, but on Zoom it was every woman for herself. You had no idea who was with you and who wasn’t.
‘I feel terrible,’ said Sedi eventually.
I frowned – this was a different emotion from her.
‘Go on,’ I said.
‘I can be a selfish prick at times, I’m well aware of that. You’re not the first person to say it,’ she said.
‘Obviously,’ I said. I couldn’t help myself.
‘And I’ve never given much thought to all the opportunities I had,’ said Nolo. ‘Coming to New York at such a young age. There’s just so much privilege in this industry, that you forget not everyone is as lucky as you are. Not everyone gets to do what I did.’
‘I didn’t,’ I said.
‘I know,’ said Nolo, grimacing. ‘And it’s shit, and I’m sorry.’
I nodded, tempted to let them off the hook, to say it didn’t matter, that I’d been fine, anyway, without their help. But I held back. Because I wanted them to sit with this feeling, for it to really sink in. I meant it this time when I said that things needed to change. And I might not know what that looked like yet, but I would, at some point, and I was one hundred percent sure that it didn’t look like running straight back to Castlebury.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Gabriele
Once my father’s funeral was over, I could start to breathe again. Everything before that had been a whirlwind of emotions – dropping out of the show, saying goodbye to the team, to Lira, especially. Returning to Italy. To my family home, but without my dad in it. To Mama, who was numb with grief and who I’d had to care for like a child since I had arrived.
I felt my responsibility very strongly now. I was the part-owner of this house, this farm, this wine business. There was no more putting it off, no easiness now about signing up for another dance show or pursuing a TV opportunity. In her current state of mind, my mother needed me more than ever, and I wanted to help her heal. And so, I had packed away all the emotions I had about my dad dying – all the regret and guilt and sadness and feelings of abandonment. I stopped asking how he could leave me, how he could do this to us, why he didn’t look after himself more like we’d all asked him to. And I focused on just getting through; on organizing, planning, troubleshooting and comforting Mama.
I had kept half an eye on what was happening with Slow Burn, but it had been too painful for me to see pictures of Lira and Tomas dancing together. The reviews were good, but not as unanimously great as they had been with Lira and me taking to the stage together. In some ways, it pleased me to know that they did not share the same sizzling chemistry that we did, but it also made me sad that this was how the show should end for her, after such an exciting start.
I felt bad for Carlos, bad for Lira, for Tomas, for how insensitive I had been with Luca, for my mother and for everyone except myself. Somehow, I did not have the headspace to think about my own place in all of this, to acknowledge how I felt. I just had to carry on for now, and to hope that, at some point, I would start to feel better again. Just as I had begun to feel hopeful about the future, about what Lira and I were beginning to build, I had been set back not a few steps, but what felt like several hundred thousand of them.
I prepared some breakfast for my mother and I, something I had been doing since I arrived in Italy nearly three weeks ago. She spent her days – and many of her nights – sitting out on the veranda, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, staring into space. I would bring her enticing-looking food on a tray, but sometimes she would not even touch it, or she would pick at it, not managing more than a couple of mouthfuls. I tried to joke her out of it.
‘Is it my cooking, Mama? Am I putting too much salt in your food? Or does it have no flavour at all?’
She tried to smile, but it never quite reached her eyes.
Lira and I had been texting regularly. She was heading down to Florence today, with a day off before the show opened in the city that was closest to my family home. It had been the performance I had been looking forward to most, and tears stabbed at the back of my eyes when I thought of the tickets I had reserved for my parents; two seats that would now remain empty, in the centre of the fifth row back, the perfect spot for my mama and papa to see me perform. In my imagination, it would have been the moment at which my father would admit he had been wrong to try to stop me dancing, that he could see now that it was what I was born to do. That he was proud of me. Now, he would never get to see me and I would never know what he might have said.
I was clearing up the breakfast things, with plans to make a start on the copious amount of emails that seemed to come through for the vineyard every hour of every day, when I heard a car pulling up outside. I sincerely hoped it was not someone else come to pay their respects. Many locals wanted to see us – well, Mama, mainly, but me, too – to tell us how sorry they were, how much they had loved my father, how dearly they would miss him. They brought us bottles of wine, which I had been working my way through worryingly quickly, and lovely home-cooked meals, although since Mama had no appetite, I had mainly polished them off myself.
When the doorbell rang, I walked down the hallway with a feeling of trepidation, because it meant I would have to make polite conversation with whoever had arrived unannounced, and would also have to overcompensate for the fact that my mother was not talking much at all. Steeling myself, I opened the door and instinctively stepped back, shocked by who was on the doorstep of my parents’ house in the Tuscan hills, all the way out in the middle of nowhere. Once I had pulled myself together, I felt an altogether different sensation in my body – relief, perhaps. Happiness.
Lira was here, and my world was already infinitely better than it had been a few moments before.
‘This is a surprise,’ I said, thinking that was a woefully inadequate way to describe how I was feeling.
‘I wanted to see how you are,’ she said. ‘And I was in the area, so…’
I laughed lightly, and she joined in. We both knew she had not been in the area; nobody ever was. This was rural Tuscany, a village in the middle of green hills and vineyards, miles and miles from the nearest station; even the closest bus stop was over a half-hour walk away.
‘How did you get here?’ I asked. ‘I could have picked you up from the city if I had known you would like to visit.’
She shrugged. ‘It was easy enough to get a taxi.’
Easy, perhaps, but also expensive. I was touched that she had made the decision to come all the way out here for me.
I suddenly realized that I had left her on the doorstep for no good reason, possibly making her think she was not welcome when she most certainly was, more than she would ever know, more than I could even admit to myself. I had not really known how I was going to get through the next few days, weeks, months, stuck here in the middle of nowhere alone with my mother, who I worried about constantly, and my thoughts and the aching hole my father had left in every single part of this house, this land.
I stood aside.
‘Sorry! Come in!’
She had a large shoulder bag with her, but no luggage. With a thud of disappointment, I assumed this meant she was not planning to spend the night. Perhaps I could drive her back into Florence later – that way I could spend an extra hour with her, and some time away from the house might do me good.
Lira stepped over the threshold, looking around in what seemed like awe. It probably was impressive when you saw it for the first time. A typically Italian country house, whitewashed on the outside with bursts of lilac and pink bougainvillea hanging from baskets around the doors and windows. My parents were both keen gardeners. Papa had done the practical – the vegetables, the fruits, obviously the wine – and Mama took care of the flowers.
