We both laugh and then I fill her in on everything that’s been going on with me. “Initially, Connor’s surprise trip to France was welcome. Then, when everything happened with my parents and Gaston, I thought it was the biggest mistake. I love my family, but over the years, I’ve had very little desire to go back. They’re not the kind to forgive, forget, or set out cookies.”
“I’m eating one for you, er, us. Anyway, what’s that saying? You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family? I’m sure they care, but their way of showing it?—”
“Stinks like a codfish left on the riverbank in the sun.”
“Ew. I’m going to put this cookie down now.”
“The weird thing is, it was almost like coming back here woke me up. Renewed my resolve or gave me a second chance to think about what I really want from my life.”
“And that is...?”
“I’m getting closer to the answer, but since college, I’ve changed, only it was so gradual, I can’t quite pinpoint how.”
“Makes sense. It’s like when you see a cousin once a year, you see how much they grow, but if you’re with them every day, it’s not something you notice.”
“Exactly. This might sound weird, but on the anniversary of my decision to leave France and dancing—I check in with myself every year—something was different. Then I met Connor a few days later and...I can’t explain it.”
“Oh, Pippa has a word for that. She calls it the heart fluffies. It’s a particular kind of good feeling inside.” I can practically feel her smile through the phone.
“I’m not a fluffy kind of gal.”
Gemma laughs. “But you said that you’ve changed.”
I let out a long breath, realizing she’s right. “Going back to my family and seeing that they haven’t moved on at all made me see more clearly. Then, reading the letter I’d written to myself, reminding me to seek the desires of my heart and not solely the future my parents had mapped out, was like a highlighter pen emphasizing it all. But I still don’t know what to do.”
“Understandable. Have you been praying?”
“Yes,” and as soon as the word is out of my mouth, I send up one for my mother, then go on to tell Gemma what I overheard her say. “She was already planning to sabotage my fake marriageto Connor and then sue him for taking advantage of my need for citizenship.”
“That’s diabolical.”
“I know. Now, she has an immigration officer coming in the morning to expose us. Or something. This is such a mess.”
“What’s your heart telling you? God?”
I tune in as I’ve been doing for weeks now, even before I had the health scare. “There are two things. One is me, light on my feet, leaping and pirouetting. I miss dancing and want to return to the barre, but not to the stage. I want to dance on my terms.”
“There are adult classes right in town,” Gemma says excitedly.
“Madam Tissot is retiring and closing the studio. Plus, that would mean I’d need to be in Concordia. Not sure how, since I’m not allowed to re-enter the country. And as for the other one?—”
“Wait, just a minute. You’re a teacher.”
“Probably not for long.” Did Gemma hear a word I said?
“You’re a ballerina and a teacher. You could be a ballet teacher.”
My pulse quickens. “I could? I could.” I leap from the rock and spin around, my thoughts whirring.
“I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. It’s perfect.” Then, as quickly as my excitement appears, it fades as I drop back onto the rock. “But my heart desires something else as well and I don’t think it can have both, or this one at all.”
“Is this somethinga someonewho’s tall, muscular, and has a slight southern drawl?” Gemma asks, ever perceptive.
A tall, muscular, and handsome distraction with a slight Appalachian accent.Oui.
Gemma continues, “I’ve learned in life that sometimes the right people come together at the wrong time. But that doesn’t mean the right time won’t come along.”
We get off the phone and I start to brainstorm ideas about having my own ballet school. But where? How? Details come at me fast, but an emptiness remains. It’s the size and shape of a wonderful distraction that brought me alive these last four weeks.
