I took a bite of food, waving my own hand. “Therattocame to offer his congratulations.”
She snorted, such an unlikely noise from someone like her. “I doubt that,” she said, taking a sip of wine. “Who invited him?”
“He claimed to be an invited guest,” I said.
She made a face that made me grin. Her nose scrunched up and her eyes narrowed, reminding me of feral bunny.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, touching her nose. “He’s gone now.”
At my touch, the look on her face softened, eyes lowering. When she breathed out, the scent of expensive wine drifted from her mouth. The alcohol relaxed her, staining her cheeks the color of Maja Resnik’s dress. Later she’d be either pliable, giving in to my every desire without resistance, or a vixen, biting and clawing at me until we were both bruised and bleeding. I never knew which woman I’d get. It didn’t take much to get her drunk.
She moved closer to me, warm and supple, her graceful shape made for my jagged one. We touched throughout dinner, kissed, and eyed each other like no one existed but us.
Grinning after she fed me a bite of her fish, I went to take another bite of my steak and caught sight of Scarlett’s parents, seated some chairs down. Sitting side by side, they might as well have been worlds away, but one still reached out to the other. Scarlett’s mother went to touch her husband’s hand, but he flung it off with a flick of the wrist, apologizing right after, blaming it on the timing.
Her mother’s eyes met mine. She scowled at me before turning to talk to Charlotte. Travis, Charlotte’s fiancé, was seated next to her. He had taken Scarlett out to the movies once. At the time, unbeknownst to them, I had been lurking in the darkness of the theater.
This little anecdote infuriated her sister when he told it at our rehearsal dinner, sans the part about me. I had grinned at one point during his tale, thinking of how close he had come to losing fingers. They had been itching to reach out and touch something—on her.
Lucky for him, he hadn’t touched her during their “date.” He felt me there, or maybe it was the popcorn Mitch had thrown at his head, and in turn, she had given him the cold shoulder. She had gone out with him to make me jealous. For the record, it worked.
Travis was a smart man, or at any rate, had a healthy sense of self-preservation.
Scarlett and her grandmother had been chatting in Slovenian, and I turned back to their conversation, a perplexed look on Scarlett’s face at her grandmother’s latest words.
“Yes,” Scarlett answered in English, realizing that I was listening. “I was afraid of the weather last night.”
“The weather? Or him?” The old ballerina placed a hand on her granddaughter’s cheek. “You are such a reflection of me.”
Scarlett snatched my hand, holding it tight in her own, reminding me of how scared she had been the night before. “Him? Who is he,Babicka?”
“Matteo,” her grandmother answered, a smile coming to her lips at the mention of her Italian lover’s name. The one obsessed with her naval, among other things.
“Did you see him?” Scarlett’s voice came out small, as small as she had seemed hiding underneath the covers.
The old ballerina laughed, her cheeks going pink. “No, but I do not need to see him to feel him. We walk by faith, not by sight.”
Instead of continuing the conversation with her granddaughter, the old ballerina met my eyes, her words directed at me. They were spoken in her native language, so Scarlett spoke for her—almost as eerie as this entire conversation was turning out to be. She went on about how their love began with the cardinal desires of the flesh, but in exploring desire, they had uncovered love. The old ballerina was afraid to give herself to him, to lose herself to something so wild she couldn’t understand it, and so, she left him.
Time went on. She met Scarlett’s grandfather and they planned to wed. They had, in the same church on the lake, with a reception to follow in the hidden woods, and then a wedding night spent in the bridal chamber of the castle.
That night, there was a storm, and though she didn’t see her Italian lover, she felt him out there, looking up at the window. She slipped out of the room, braving the weather to see if her feelings were true. They were. She found him not long after, cloaked in all black to hide. The two came together…
“A storm!” She clapped her hands together, holding her own, as if she were remembering the way he had taken hers in his. “He then asked me to leave my husband, though our bed was still warm.”
She couldn’t bring him in from the cold, not after the vows she had made. She kissed her lover goodbye and went to leave him, but he had held her so hard that he had bruised her. Then he sent her away with a promise.
“Tornerò per te, in questa vita o nella prossima,” she spoke in Italian.
Before Scarlett could, I translated the words.I will be back for you, in this life or the next.Both old and young ballerina looked at me, eyes shining in a familiar way.
“Da,” the old ballerina sighed. “I have never forgotten.”
“Do you see him,Babicka?” Scarlett had taken her grandmother’s hand sometime during the story, and I could see that she was trembling, trying to control the fear.
“You are a reflection of me,vnukinja, though I do not have your touch. I feel him because he claimed me as his lover, but I do not see him. Others have, others who are also touched. Do not be afraid of him. He only wishes to find me. Enjoy your husband without worry.Festeggia in onore della perdita che ho sopportato,” she finished in Italian.
Celebrate in honor of the loss that I endured.
