Page 83 of The Unraveling

“Do all the other girls hate you for it?”

I shrug and take another sip. “It’s ballet. No one’s ever happy for each other. Ever.”

I think about Arabella earlier. My hand gravitates to my ear.

Just then, the song changes to “6 Inch,” Beyoncé’s old song with The Weeknd. It’s just a little too sexy.

“I’ll change the music,” I say. We’re trying to be good.

“I got it,” he says, then pulls an iPad from god knows where, and changes the music to something else without lyrics. But it is, I consider, also very hot music.

“I thought Arabella and you were close,” he says. “Wasn’t it Arabella who connected you with the company?”

“Yes,” I say. “Which is why it’s strange that she’s treating me so weirdly now.”

“Hm.”

The soup is already warm, so he dumps it into a large bowl that looks expensively designed. He heats up the second one.

“I think you’re exceptional,” he says. “I’ve never watched someone with such interest before. Not even Victoria.”

“But everyone loves Victoria Haley,” I say, in a slightly mocking tone.

“My wife loved her. Not me, so much. I thought she was a brat.”

I laugh in surprise. “Wow, I didn’t expect you to say that.”

He puts the second soup in the second bowl, and then says, “Let’s go to the table.”

He leads me to the dining room table, and we take two seats where we can look out the windows at the snow.

“It’s so pretty out,” I say.

It occurs to me then that the weather might not make it easy for him to get home. I haven’t been in London long, but I do know even a little bit of snow here stops everything. I wonder then where he lives.

“Gorgeous,” he says.

And then, before I can stop myself, it falls out of my mouth. “My grandmother, Mimi, would love it here.”

I try some of my soup as he tries a bite of his. It’s one of those subtle, delicate kinds. I usually go for the spicy kind that knocks your socks off.

“Here, try this one, see if you like it more,” he says, reading my mind and sliding the other bowl over to me.

Sharing food is actually very intimate, in my opinion. It’s something done by close friends, family, lovers. Not donors and their dancers.

But I accept anyway.

I like his way more.

“Take it,” he says, reading my mind again. “I prefer the shoyu.”

He takes my bowl and pushes his toward me.

“Thank you,” I say.

“So where is your grandmother?” he asks, taking another bite.

“Louisiana. That’s where I’m from.”

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