50
WALTHAM
MONDAY, MARCH2, 1942
As Josie plunked out a discordant tune on the piano, Lucie sat on the floor of the second-story dance studio with business papers scattered around.
Lucie wore the stiff new pointe shoes her mother had brought her from New York, Josie wore slippers from the studio’s storeroom, and they both wore skirted leotards Lucie had sewn from pale pink rayon.
She checked the preliminary class schedule. The girls enrolled under the previous teacher were coming tomorrow after school so Lucie could assess them and assign them to levels.
Six syllabi lay to her left, one for each level, listing the exercises she’d learned at the Paris Opéra Ballet School in the Cecchetti method.
She’d hired college girls to play the piano, she’d put ads in the papers, and she and Frannie Thiel were planning a dance recital to raise money for war bonds.
On Tuesday, the newspaper was interviewing her, excited about having a ballerina from Paris in town. The article would bring in even more business.
Lucie wouldn’t mention her connection to the resistance, to protect Renard and the others in Paris as well as those who’d helped her escape—and might even now be aiding Paul.
The piano fell silent, and Josie spun on the stool. “May I play in the storeroom?”
Lucie smiled at the girl, glad to see her spirits rising. “As long as you pick up before we leave.”
“Okay.” Josie scampered into the storeroom, a wonderland of costumes from Frannie’s time on Broadway.
Lucie brushed her hand over her paperwork. Paul’s touch everywhere, and she could almost hear his voice.“I know you can do it.”
“I miss you,” she whispered to that voice, her heart straining as melancholy and hope battled.
Frank Aubrey had called a friend in the State Department. They were contacting the US Embassy in Vichy, and their people could find out if Paul had been interned, arrested, or ... killed.
Melancholy surged, and Lucie shoved herself to standing. She needed to dance.
A phonograph stood by the piano, and Lucie opened the cabinet and flipped through the records.Swan Lake—the final, heartbreaking scene.
Lucie set the record on the turntable and lowered the needle.
Tchaikovsky’s plaintive strains filled the studio, and Lucie danced as Odette.
She closed her eyes as she danced, as memories flowed. Sitting with Paul in the Palais Garnier, hands hidden and entwined. Stolen kisses. Tearful departures. Every joy tinged with the pain of separation and danger.
Eyes closed, Lucie became Odette, sharing Odette’s pain, her sorrow, her despair. And in expressing them, she released them, released Paul into the Lord’s hands, where he already was, whether dead or alive, captive or free.
The music soared to a crescendo. Lucie stepped onto pointe,and an arabesque billowed up, the final pose before Odette would crumple, wings beating as she gave in to death.
Lucie reached the peak and held it, savored it, and the air shifted around her, different somehow, scented with hope.
A touch came under her front arm. “Arabesque,” a man said. Husky. Beloved.
Lucie stumbled out of position. Her eyes sprang open. Saw. Didn’t dare to believe. “Paul?”
“Lucie.” His eyes shone, and he reached for her waist and drew her close. “Thank God. Thank God, you’re alive.”
She pressed shaky hands to his cheeks. Warm. Solid. Real. “You—you’re alive.”
Paul kissed her nose, her cheek, her mouth. “I heard your ship went down. I thought—”
She couldn’t stop kissing him, over and over. “I thought you were—it’s been so long.”
