Slow burn, p.19
Slow Burn, page 19
I was touched. And thrown.
‘Look, Mum, it’s not all your fault. I could have said no. If I’d had the guts to stand up for myself, I could have told you there and then instead of waiting until I was into my thirties and it was almost too late. I’ll have a couple of years of performing at best, and then I’ll be back running the studio. We can make it work, can’t we?’
She sniffed again, harder this time. ‘I promise you, Lira, we will make it work.’
And for the first time ever, I believed her. And it didn’t matter that usually when she said ‘we’ would do something, what she really meant was that I would need to do something. I truly believed that she’d suddenly got it; that seeing a review of my dancing in black and white in a national newspaper – that I struggled to understand how she’d even managed to read, given she didn’t speak a word of Spanish – had made her realize that working in a dance studio wasn’t the only thing I wanted to do with my life. Perhaps this was always meant to be my time to shine – a few years later than anticipated, but better late than never.
‘And listen,’ said Mum, ‘I’ve been talking about you to the cruise company. They’re doing a special press event in Dubai in the autumn and they want you and Gabriele to appear. An all-expenses-paid trip. Plus a fee, of course. Would you be interested?’
I was shocked. Shocked that somebody else would pay to see me dance; that they didn’t just want Gabriele. And Dubai? I’d heard so much about it, but it was the kind of place I didn’t think I’d ever go to just for fun – I had principles, after all – but if it was work, well, why not?
‘I’ll speak to Gabriele. But it sounds good. Thanks, Mum.’
When I put the phone down, I noticed a message from Jack. I hadn’t thought about him for ages. Sure, I didn’t have the connection with Jack that I had with Gabriele, that unexplainable thing that made me feel giddy every time he looked at me, but Jack was sweet and gorgeous and kind, and sexy in his own way.
Are you back yet? Missing our PT sessions…
I smiled at our special code. I didn’t think the joke would ever get old. Although, one day, I might actually want some real personal training sessions with him, and then how would I differentiate between the two? I sent a message back.
Still away! Message you soon.
I pushed the thought that I might never contact him again from my mind. When my normal life resumed, I might very well be craving the excitement of a sexy tryst on Jack’s desk at the gym, however cold the thought of it not being Gabriele left me right at this moment.
* * *
An hour before curtain-up I was in the dressing room I was sharing with Daniella and another dancer, Astrid, touching up my make-up and spraying about a can-full of hairspray onto my bun so that there was no chance of it coming loose during one of the costume changes.
‘Evening,’ said Daniella, setting up next to me.
‘Hey,’ I said, casually.
Things still felt a little frosty between us and I didn’t quite know why. I knew she’d been Gabriele’s dance partner for years, and that she’d wanted the lead in the show, so I supposed that was enough for her to resent me from the off. And she was milking her role as dance captain, using the power it gave her to pull people up on their sloppy steps. She’d criticized one of my lifts the other day and Gabriele had told her I was doing it one hundred percent accurately, and that since she didn’t know the steps as well as he and I did, she should probably keep her opinions to herself. But there was clearly another layer on top of professional jealousy – I’d felt that from most of the other girls – but with Daniella it was different. I suspected Gabriele had still been seeing her at the beginning of the run, certainly during rehearsals. I tried to ask him about it, to make sure I wasn’t stepping on anyone’s toes, but whenever I broached the subject he shut me down immediately, insisting there was nothing going on between them. I didn’t own Gabriele; he could sleep with whomever he wanted. He didn’t owe me a single thing. And yet, it felt as though we were getting closer and closer. Could I really let that happen if he was also getting closer with other women? Was I saying, then, that I wanted Gabriele all to myself?
‘Do anything interesting today?’ asked Daniella, brushing copious amounts of bronzer onto her face and décolletage.
I busied myself slicking on another coat of mascara.
‘Not much,’ I said. ‘I recorded some bits and bobs for James Jive’s social media pages. You know the studio I run?’
Daniella stifled a smirk. ‘Sure, I remember.’
Every time I started to feel bad about potentially stepping on her toes with Gabriele, she went and did something that made me lose empathy for her all over again.
‘You think it’s funny, don’t you?’ I asked, for once not wanting to let her get away with her bad behaviour. ‘That I have to teach dance rather than just perform. You find it strange.’
‘I never said any such thing,’ she said, giving me a baffled, gaslight-y look, as though I was a bit mad for suggesting it. ‘I mean, it’s not something I could do, that’s all. I think if you’re a dancer, you’re drawn to the stage like a moth to a flame. Nothing would ever get in the way of that for me.’
I nodded, as though in agreement. ‘Well, I’m glad you’re in a position to do exactly what you want with your life. Not all of us are so lucky,’ I replied.
I put my mascara away and pulled out my concealer, dabbing some onto one of my fingertips and applying it to all the areas of my face that needed smoothing out.
‘I noticed Gabriele has been helping you with your socials stuff,’ said Daniella, leaning into the mirror to apply her eyeliner. ‘Seems like you two are spending more and more time together.’
I shrugged. ‘He’s good at that kind of thing. He offered to help, no big deal.’
‘But you’ve been seeing each other, right?’
I tried to focus on finishing my make-up, but she was putting me on edge and my hand was shaking a little. I had no idea why she had this effect on me, but she reminded me of some of the girls at school – the mean girls, the bullies who had tried to intimidate me and my friends, a group of equally quiet and studious people, who I still saw for dinner and drinks now and again. I realized that Daniella was like a grown-up version of one of those girls, and I seemed to have regressed into the teenaged version of myself. I would not let myself be walked all over, not anymore.
‘I don’t think that’s any of your business,’ I said, sounding arsier than I’d intended. Better to overplay it than under, probably. At least this way she’d get the message that I wasn’t a total pushover.
‘Oh, it’s not,’ she said, her tone changing slightly. Was it my imagination or was she the tiniest bit thrown by my pushback? That was the thing with bullies, or at least that was what they told you, wasn’t it – if you got them on their own, they lost most of their power. ‘I just don’t want to see you get hurt, that’s all,’ she said, obviously lying.
I almost smirked this time, but I wasn’t going to lower myself to her standards. But honestly, as if she cared about my feelings. This was entirely, one hundred percent about her.
‘Thanks for your concern, but I can look after myself,’ I said.
‘You know he’s been sleeping with me as well, though, right? And probably a couple of other women, too. Have you seen the contacts in his phone? He has hook-up after hook-up listed and, because of who he is, the way he looks, he can pick any of them to come over whenever he chooses.’
I swallowed hard. Contacts? Hook-ups? Obviously, I’d never seen inside his phone, and now I was annoyingly intrigued. Because there was something off about having a list of women you picked from at random whenever you happened to feel horny, and it made me slightly sick to think that I might be one of these women. There was no way that I was going to let Daniella see it, but she’d got to me.
‘You really like him, don’t you?’ said Daniella.
Our eyes met in the mirror.
‘And so do you,’ I said, softening my tone.
I was all for supporting other women, usually, so maybe I needed to find some sympathy for Daniella here, even if she was going about things all the wrong way. This was happening because she had feelings for Gabriele, plain and simple. And I, better than anyone, understood how that felt.
‘Maybe we should both tell him where to go,’ said Daniella. ‘It would serve him right.’
I smiled tightly. ‘Maybe. But whatever happens, please let’s not argue over it anymore,’ I said.
‘Agreed,’ said Daniella, unzipping her make-up bag with a flourish.
For the next five minutes, we finished getting ready in silence, but not the sort of angry, resentful silence we’d experienced before. I was glad we’d finally addressed the issue between us. And I wondered whether I’d been taking my anger out on her when, deep down, it was myself I was angry with, for letting myself get caught up in the whirlwind that was Gabriele Riccitelli all over again.
CHAPTER NINETEEN Lira
Just when I didn’t think European cities could get any more stunning after three nights in laid-back, colourful Porto, we arrived in Lisbon for a five-night run. The sun had been shining and the skies were a clear electric blue as we’d stepped off the plane that afternoon, and although we were needed for a light check later that day, we weren’t actually performing until the following evening, so I fully intended to make the most of every single minute I had spare. Guidebook in hand, I left my hotel room almost as soon as I’d checked in and bumped straight into… Gabriele.
‘Hi,’ I said, pausing reluctantly, suddenly wishing I hadn’t worn the tiny, flippy mini dress that I was pretty sure had been shrunk in the hotel laundry in Barcelona, because I did not remember it being this short.
‘Fancy meeting you here,’ said Gabriele, who somehow looked cool and polished and not like he’d stepped off a plane an hour ago. His eyes skimmed briefly over my body, which sent a not-unpleasant fizzing sensation running through me. I took a deep breath to calm myself, even if what I really wanted to do was fly into his arms and have him kiss me wildly right there in the hotel corridor.
‘Thought I’d go and take some photos of the city for the James Jive socials,’ I stuttered eventually.
Julie’s warning about our members not being happy about my absence had been weighing heavily on my mind and I was aware I needed to keep up the momentum when it came to making our clients feel connected to me and the rest of the James family, even if hardly any of us were actually in the country and – in the case of my siblings, at least – the studio was the furthest thing from their minds.
‘Then I have the perfect location,’ said Gabriele, leaning easily against the wall.
‘Have you now?’ I asked a little flirtatiously. I could do with a little local knowledge.
‘I am planning to buy the original and best custard tarts in Portugal. Believe me when I say this place would make a spectacular photo for your social media. Come, I will show you.’
He pushed off the wall and started down the corridor. I hesitated for a second, not because I didn’t want to go with him, but because I was thrown by the easiness between us. We hadn’t had sex again since that night in Barcelona – the cast had tended to hang out together in Porto and there hadn’t been time to be alone together, even if we’d wanted to be.
We walked along the banks of the River Tagus, glittering and powerful, and, according to my guidebook, at its widest here in Lisbon after starting over six hundred miles away in Spain and now about to spill out into the Atlantic Ocean. I reckoned this explained why I felt like I was on the coast – the River Thames this was not. In fact, it was giving me San Francisco vibes and, referring to my guidebook again, the stunning orange suspension bridge leading from Lisbon to an area called Almada had partly been modelled on the Golden Gate Bridge.
‘I take it you’ve been to Lisbon before, then?’ I said, glancing across at Gabriele, who had expensive-looking sunglasses on and was sporting a soft white cotton shirt that rippled in the gentle breeze.
‘Many times,’ he said, ‘although when I come to a different city to perform, I often do not see much more than the hotel and the theatre. Perhaps I will get to see some cafés and restaurants, but that is it. Being with you is making me feel that I should get out and explore more,’ he said with a shrug.
‘I guess when you travel so much, it loses that magical appeal.’
‘I am not sure it does, or should. There is always more to discover.’
I nodded, thinking briefly to how it could have been the same for me if I’d continued on a similar trajectory after winning the World Championships all those years ago. How different things would have been, how well travelled I’d be by now, too.
‘How’s everything with your dad?’ I asked gently.
I’d picked up that Gabriele rarely talked about his family. When we were together as a company, the other dancers would share funny stories about their childhoods, or perhaps a parent or a school friend or a sibling would be coming in to watch a particular show and we’d all be introduced to them afterwards. I knew very little about Gabriele’s background, other than what he’d revealed to me that night in Barcelona, and to my knowledge nobody he knew had been to see any of our shows. I felt a small comfort at not being alone in that, although I also wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
Gabriele sighed. ‘Not great. He is still refusing to see a doctor. And he will not listen to my mother. She has spoken to his staff, has asked them to take on a little more of the workload to secretly ease what my father has to do, and they have agreed, of course, because they are worried too.’
‘Maybe you could get through to him?’ I suggested. ‘You’ll see him when we get to Italy, won’t you? Perhaps if you tell him how upset it’s making you all—’
Gabriele laughed hollowly. ‘If he will not listen to my mother, there is zero chance he will listen to me. We are not close in that way, not anymore. Feelings and concerns are not something we discuss, as a family.’
‘That’s normal, I reckon,’ I said. ‘It’s the same for me. I don’t think I’ve had an in-depth conversation about feelings with my parents ever.’
‘But you have your sisters…’
‘Yes,’ I said, suddenly craving how close Sedi, Nolo and I had been before Slow Burn came along. I hoped it would get back to normal eventually, but I thought that maybe it would take me a while to get over everything that had happened. I’d known my parents would be unhappy, but I’d honestly thought Sedi and Nolo would have had my back no matter what, especially since they were more than capable of standing up to our parents about their own stuff. I’d honestly thought they’d have come around quickly, excited to see their big sister having the kind of career they’d enjoyed themselves.
I took a photo of the bridge and pinged it to the WhatsApp group. Things might be a little off between us all, but I didn’t want the distance to get any wider, and I’d always been the one to pull the three of us together. Sedi immediately sent a heart emoji back. Nolo, in New York, would still be sleeping.
‘So this is one of the places I wanted to show you,’ said Gabriele, sweeping his arm out towards some kind of fortress sitting in a small bay, several metres from the shore. ‘The Belém Tower. It makes a beautiful picture, no?’
I flicked to the relevant page in my guidebook and read it out to him.
‘The Belém Tower, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is one of Lisbon’s most striking monuments. In 1514, King João II led a project to defend Lisbon from enemy ships, a plan that included the building of the Belém Tower.’
‘I had no idea it was so old,’ said Gabriele, looking surprised. ‘We can climb up to the top, I think, but look, the queues…’
The line to get in was about a hundred people deep and I was pretty sure that the view from ground level was almost as lovely. I began snapping away, adding in a couple of videos, panning from one side of the tower across to the bridge on the other, accidentally getting a bemused Gabriele in shot. I loved the way he smiled so naturally at the lens, how he never seemed fazed by having a camera pointed at his face.
In front of us was a small beach, where clear and shallow water from the river washed onto a sandy shore with the tower as its backdrop. Gabriele saw me watching people kicking off their shoes and wading in.
‘Come,’ he said, bending to slip off his loafers and promptly rolling up the hem of his trousers. ‘We must go in.’
‘What?’ I said, laughing.
‘We must paddle. I have always wanted to, but I felt like a fool on my own. But now you are here,’ he said, standing up with a satisfied smile and holding out his hand. ‘Ready?’
I nodded and took his hand, feeling safe and looked after the instant his fingers closed around mine. Kicking off my sandals, I dipped a toe in the water, grimacing.
‘It’s freezing!’ I exclaimed.
Gabriele laughed. ‘This is the Atlantic Ocean, you must be brave. Come, let us go deeper.’
Together we waded further out so that the water soon came up to my knees.
‘Your trousers are already soaked,’ I warned him, looking down, thinking he’d be irritated, but he just laughed it off.
‘Then there is nothing for it,’ he said. ‘I am going to have to soak you, too.’
He dropped my hand to bend and scoop up palmfuls of water before throwing it all over me, breaking out into a deep rumble of a laugh that I’d never heard from him before. Shocked for a second and gasping at the sharp coldness of the water on my face and arms, I barely hesitated before dipping my own hand into the Tagus and splashing him right back.
* * *
Our clothes dried off in the sun during the fifteen minutes or so it took us to walk to the infamous Pastéis de Belém, the former monastery and home of the Portuguese egg tart – pastel de nata – that I’d been dying to try ever since I’d heard we were coming to Portugal. According to every single travel guide ever, the tarts at Belém were the original and the best.
