“No,” I said. “You own the place. It’s in your name. Scarlett Rose Fausti.” I tapped the barre with a finger to the cadence of her name. It was like the beat of my heart.
Standing below the framed picture, she looked up, eyes intent. Her arms crossed over her chest. She pointed her toe, making a line with her foot, back and forth, creating distance between her and the girl on the wall.
“She’s different,” she said, almost in an abstract way, as someone who studies a piece of art would—finding a parallel, but recognizing the space in between. “So different now.”
I thought so too. The girl who had left this town was not the woman who returned. But then, who was?
“Am I going to have to entice you to comment on the matter? Or is it that bad that I don’t even want to know?”
I grinned. “I wasn’t aware that you wanted my opinion.”
“Never stopped you before,” she almost sang.
I took the few steps to close our gap, and then rested a hand on each of her shoulders, following her line of sight.
“No,” I agreed. “You’re not. But my wife reminds me of afarfalla. A butterfly. Ever changing. The core of who you are stays the same, baby, but other things change—your wings grow with life, get stronger and more resilient.” I paused.
“Or is it the colors that change—bolder as we get older? But we keep some of them, the ones that made an impact.” I squeezed her shoulders. “A good bit of life has happened between that girl and this woman. You weren’t married to me then, for starters.”
She rested her hand over my left, tapping, our rings clinking. “That alonechangedeverything.”
I laughed quietly, running my nose up her neck. “Sì,”
“Brando…” She moved out of my embrace and then nodded toward the back room. “Give me a minute.”
I sighed, and it held weight. I hadn’t realized how much she had been hurt by what happened here with her father and the ballet teacher. As much as the need to crush the man grated on me, another part of me couldn’t even consider it for long.
As she had reminded me before, she loved Luca, despite all that he had done, because he had given her me. The same could be said for Everett.
Slipping off my tennis shoes and socks, I walked barefoot, the wood smooth in spots, rough in others. Chilled all around. Curiosity got the best of me, and using the barre to steady myself, I tried to stand on my toes.
Scarlett busted out laughing and I went down hard, not even halfway successful in getting halfway up. My toes were on fucking fire.
I lowered my hoodie, bowed, and then tipped my hat to her. “Mrs. Fausti, you are, as I’ve always vowed to anyone with ears, a fucking savage.”
“I could teach you,” she said, eyeing me with seriousness. “I’d love to see that fineculoin tights.” Then she squeezed my ass.
“So would plenty of my enemies, but it’s not going to happen.”
She giggled. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.”
“I see why men rarely stand that way.”
“Well.” She sighed. “We, female dancers, that is, are lighter, compared to male dancers. We also have a difference of center—slight, but still different. A male dancer would train just as a female would for a certain role that requires him to danceen pointe,though. After, most of them obtain a deeper respect for what we do.”
Throwing her jacket, jeans, and shoes at me, she began to stretch. Underneath her jacket she wore a leotard, even though in the 90s she’d called it something else. That was all that was left of her clothing—I had the rest. She had found a pair of her old ballet slippers in the back and sewn herself in.
“Get comfortable,mio angelo,” she whispered.
“Sono,” I said, taking a seat on the floor across from her, setting all of her things beside me. I could sit and watch her do stretching exercises for hours.
It warmed her up; it put me at total ease.
What she had done for us in Paris had brought us full circle, but this was different. This was where she had started. I wondered if she was coming home or casting it aside. Maybe she was going to allow the dance to decide.
When the music began, some contemporary song, I knew she wasn’t dancing for me but against the version of herself hanging from the wall.
Unstoppable, fierce, but so damn naïve vs. amour-propre, knowing all but still hungry, a continual thirst for bettering, so damn mature. One version pitted against the other, to the death. Only the last note would crown the winner.
