Chapter 6
It was Sunday evening, which meant Emilio was up to his eyebrows in paperwork. Teaching dance was so much more than just the choreography and the music and the time spent coaching his students. Running the school meant bills like rent and utilities for the studio, and cleaning up after classes, and keeping the bathrooms stocked with soap and towels. Then there were the student accounts to be collected and balanced, orders for music, and leotards, and tights, and dance shoes, and catalogs to be gone through for costumes. On top of everything else, he had to screen applications for new students and answer inquiries about private lessons. His mother had established the school and built it into a successful enterprise, and Emilio was determined to keep expanding the school, making it bigger and better. He taught all forms of dance, from contemporary to ballroom, and he was grateful for the popularity of the dance competition shows that had sprung up over the last ten years. He had a lot of hopeful students with stars in their eyes, and it was his job to give them every possible tool to make their dreams into a reality, no matter whether it was a chance to be on television or learning to waltz for a grandchild’s wedding.
After his mother had moved into a nearby “active adult community,” Emilio had bought the family home. His siblings were fine with him having it, since they were older and already had places of their own. He’d turned his old bedroom into an office, where he kept his computer and neat rows of filing cabinets that held all the paperwork. He knew he should probably get everything scanned into digital format, but there was something rather satisfying about looking at the cabinets, knowing they held over forty years of students who had passed through the doors of the Rives’ School of Dance. It was history, and Emilio sometimes went back through the old files from the days when his mother had first started the school. He couldn’t help chuckling over pictures of people who were now on the town council or owned successful businesses when they had been young children earnestly applying themselves to a performance.
He had finished with paying the bills and was starting on the student accounts when he heard the sound of the front door being closed. He knew he’d locked it, so his visitor had to be either his mother or one of his siblings, the only ones who had keys. He wasn’t surprised when his mother appeared in the office doorway.
“Hello, Mama,” he said, rising from his chair with a smile. He crossed to the door and took her hands in his, bending down to kiss her cheek. “What brings you by? I thought you were having dinner with Elena.”
“I did,” she said. “We had a lovely meal. But I wanted to make some time to see you tonight as well.”
Emilio drew back, tilting his head to one side. “Did something happen?”
His mother fixed him with a stern look. “I should be asking you that. I’ve been waiting for you to say something, but you haven’t, so I must ask.”
There was no doubt she was referring to his conversation with Rayne. He should have known someone would have seen them talking, perhaps even eavesdropped deliberately. Holiday Pines was a small town, after all, and the gossip mill was a better source of information than the nightly news. Someone had carried tales to his mother, and she wanted him to rehash the entire uncomfortable exchange.
“What do you expect me to say?” he asked, hoping to put her off. It had been a difficult, emotionally fraught conversation, and he wasn’t in the mood to replay it. “I did as you asked. I talked to Rayne. Cleared the air. We have agreed that the theater and the town are what matters now, and the past is the past.”
She stepped back, braced her hands on her hips, and stared at him in that way that made him feel about six years old again, and she remained silent, her dark eyes boring into his.
Emilio winced. He should have known he wouldn’t get off that easily. “Look, Mama, it wasn’t pleasant, all right? It was painful and sad and bitter, but I said what I needed to say, and he listened. Much to my surprise, he didn’t try to put all the blame on me, so…” He shrugged. “That’s it.”
“You talked, and he listened.” Mama pursed her lips in a disapproving moue. “I see.”
“He talked, too.” Emilio sighed, seeing she wasn’t going to be convinced. “Fine, fine. If I’m going to give you a play by play, I need a drink. Let’s go into the kitchen.”
He ushered his mother out of the office and into the comfortable, if somewhat old-fashioned kitchen. His mother’s copper-bottomed pots still hung from a rack over the central island, and the wallpaper was still the same pastoral print he’d grown up with. It was homey, and he liked it. Emilio enjoyed stability in his homelife, as a contrast to the passion he brought to his dancing. It helped him relax.
He sat his mother in a chair at the plank table. “Sweet tea? Or would you prefer wine?”
“I’ll have a glass of wine,” she said as she settled in, making it clear she wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.
Refraining from sighing again, Emilio retrieved wineglasses from a cabinet and then took a bottle of the sweet white vintage his mother preferred from the refrigerator. He brought everything to the table, taking a seat across from her and putting the bottle between them. Lifting his glass, he smiled wryly.
“Can we drink to making this a short inquisition, Mama? You can’t burn me at the stake until the show finishes its run.”
“We’ll see,” she said, giving him another piercing look. “You let him talk, did you? And did you listen?”
“Yes, I listened.” Emilio took a drink of his wine, wishing it was something stronger. “Let’s see. He said he was surprised I was still single, said he was sorry he’d hurt me. He said he was thinking about coming back here, and then wanted to know why I thought he would turn the playhouse into something ugly and modern. So I told him.”
“So I heard,” she said, pursing her lips again.
“Heasked.” Emilio looked at her, not backing down. He was probably disappointing her, yet he hadn’t lied about anything he felt. “Let’s see… then he told me it wasn’t all about me, that he wasn’t here to piss me off. That he wasn’t a villain. I said something about maybe I’d never known him at all, but he insisted he really had loved me, and he just hadn’t been ready to settle down. He seemed surprised that him breaking up with me would be enough for me to distrust him so much.”
“Why shouldn’t he be surprised?” Mama took a sip of wine, regarding Emilio steadily. “He did not betray you, after all, and young people break up all the time.”
Emilio snorted. “I was all ready to move to Atlanta to be with him. I thought we were in love and were going to be together. He could have betrayed me for all I know, but it hardly mattered at that point, and it doesn’t matter now. Why shouldn’t I distrust him, Mama? Did he ever say a word to me after dumping me? He didn’t just throw away the years we were involved romantically—he threwmeaway, his supposed best friend since childhood. He never called or wrote, he just went on with his life. I could have died, and he never would have known.” He took another drink of wine, feeling dejected. “Papa did die, and you know when Rayne found out? When I told him!”
“Would it have been better had he stayed in touch?” his mother asked. “Would you have been capable of going back to being his friend or would each letter or phone call dredge up hope that he was asking for a second chance?”
“I don’t know.” Emilio stared into his glass. “Maybe it would have. Maybe it would have made me angry. Maybe it would have hurt. I don’t know, because it didn’t happen. All I know is that right now, I feel like I never really mattered at all.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Look, Mama, I get it, okay? Life went on. He fell in love and got dumped. He built his business, and I went on with my life. You always told me there is no changing the past, and you’re right. Maybe I just wanted him to say he’d never loved me at all so I could justify all the years I’ve spent hating him.”
“There is no justification for it,” Mama said, her expression growing stern. “I knew you had trouble letting go, but I thought perhaps you had moved past it. Now I realize you have carried this burden all these years. I should have been more insistent that you see someone. A doctor or a therapist or even a priest. Someone who could help you.”
Emilio gave a half-shrug. “I don’t know if I would have listened. I thought we were going to be like you and Papa. I thought I’d found my soulmate. I can see now how foolish I was, but at the time, I felt like everything I’d believed was a lie.”
“Yet you held on to it.” His mother reached across the table and clasped his hand tightly. “My son, I weep for how much you have denied yourself all these years. But you are still young and vibrant, and you can have your happily-ever-after, even if it isn’t with Rayne.”
