Page 3 of Kept

My mother stands next to him, as always. She cries softly, hidden behind the black lace veil she wears.

Across the aisle, my late wife’s family is gathered. Most of them, I don’t recognize. I do recognize her father, who stares blankly, a bored expression on his face. To my knowledge, he made no attempt to stay in contact with his daughter after the wedding. After all, it’s just business. A transaction. A family bond to solidify political alliances.

In other words, the typical arranged marriage in the mafia. With the slight twist that I actually cared for my wife. Certainly more than he ever cared about his daughter.

Her brother is another story. He catches my gaze and returns it. He is his father’s son in every sense of the phrase, with the exception of his eyes. Both he and his sister inherited their mother’s emerald green eyes.

Eyes that are currently looking at me with nothing but pure hatred burning in their depths.

CHAPTER 3

Present time

Sarah

I groan when my alarm goes off. Unlike every normal twenty-two-year-old New Yorker waking up on a Saturday, not only is it the butt crack of daybreak, but I’m working today. I count slowly in my head to ten. I can still hear the voice of my old ballet boarding school headmistress in my head, complete with a thick Russian accent she never lost, even though she’d lived in the US for years by then.

“You have ten seconds to feel bad for yourself, then get on with it.”

It didn’t really matter what “it” was. Today, “it” is getting up at 5:00 a.m. after an opening night premier and social. I learned the first time not to touch the champagne, regardless of how good the show went. Time up, I roll out of bed, use the bathroom, brush my teeth, and arrange my hair into a pair of Dutch braids. I grab black yoga pants and a neon pink tank top and slide into my very well used, and very comfortable, running shoes. In lieu of a purse, I grab my much more practical backpack and throw an empty water bottle into it along with my phone and keys.

My yoga studio is only a block away. In the early morning hours, New York might be considered peaceful by anyone who didn’t grow up in the mountains of Colorado. Even so, I have to admit the city has a very different feel at this time of day. The sidewalks are largely empty, except for the odd jogger or dog walker, and the usual cacophony of car engines and honking horns is missing.

“Good morning, Sam,” I greet the woman seated at the front desk of Zen, my favorite yoga studio. I beep my all-access membership fob on the scanner as I walk by.

“Enjoy,” the woman says absentmindedly, without having looked up from her novel once.

Zen does a little bit of everything, which is part of why I shell out for a membership. I pass the spin class session, the meditation room, a small gym, the sauna, and enter the yoga area. To my left is a breezy open space covered by neat rows of purple mats. The early morning Pilates class is just starting to gather. I duck into the hot yoga room to the right, and I’m greeted with a humid wall of patchouli scented air. The instructor is already seated on her mat at the front. The class is largely empty, even though I’m the last to arrive.

Apparently hot yoga before 6 am isn’t popular. Shocker.

An hour later, I’m sweaty, limber, and relaxed. There is a water cooler filled with a bizarre combination of fruit slices, coconut water, and electrolytes at the back of the class. I fill up my water bottle on the way out.

The streets are only slightly busier on my way home. As I walk past the Russian spa down the road, I notice the curious number of black SUVs idling out front. Someone recently tried to convince me that the business was owned by the Russian mob. Briefly, I imagine a set of burly Russian criminals in bathrobes casually discussing murder in the sauna.

Yeah, right. As if that happens.

By the time I reach my apartment, my water is gone and my body temperature feels like it’s come back to normal. I walk past the elevator. It’s been out of order since I moved in. I’m actually beginning to wonder if there is an elevator in there or if the landlord just bought the doors and slapped an Out of Order sign on it.

Five floors and three door locks later and I’m inside my apartment, all three hundred square feet of it. I cross over to the fire escape-slash-balcony and open the window. My twin bed occupies almost the entire wall opposite the door. Next to the fire escape is my miniature kitchen, consisting of one of those refrigerators that looks almost full sized until you realize that you can see the top of it and the whole appliance seems to have shrunk in the wash, a single electric burner stove, a hot plate, a blender, and a sink.

The kitchen sink is also my bathroom sink. I have a small vanity set up next to it so I can do my hair and makeup, though usually I just take my supplies with me and do it at the theater where the light is better. The bathroom is just large enough for the toilet and the shower, barely. I have a small coat closet and a plastic “dresser” at the foot of my bed. I keep slim storage bins under my bed, one of which is almost exclusively new pairs of pointe shoes. Ballerinas go through a lot of shoes, and we all have our little routines concerning how we want them to be prepared—what padding we put where, how we sew the laces on, the works.

The pair I wore last night was new, so I’ll get a few more uses out of them before needing to set up my next pair. Depending on how many performances the company is doing, I usually change my shoes every three days, which might actually be pushing it. I know some dancers that change every other day, and I’ve met more than one that changes daily.

I hang my backpack up on its hook by the door before tossing the ingredients for my normal morning smoothie together in the blender. It’s heavy on the greens, a single spoon of creamy French yogurt, collagen powder, a plant-based protein powder, and whatever citrus fruit happens to be on sale when I’m at the store just to cover the taste of kale and spinach. I give it a little squirt of ginger paste for good measure. I set it to blend, switch on my iTunes, and strip out of my yoga clothes on my way to the tiny cubicle that is my shower.

I wash and condition my hair, taking time to comb the thick purple cream through it. My hair is naturally straight, platinum blonde and falls to the middle of my back. I use a body scrub that smells like the beach after an ocean storm. I’m saved from the contortionist torture that would be required to shave in my miniature shower by having had laser hair removal. It just makes sense when you spend your life in a leotard. Satisfied that the toning conditioner has had time to work, I rinse everything off and wrap up in a pair of towels, one turbaned on my head and the other wrapped around my torso.

Half of the smoothie, my own recipe which I’ve named I dream of Greenie gets dumped into a glass and I drink it sitting on the edge of my bed. The other half gets put in a bottle for later. I probably could squeeze in a small table and chair, but the idea of making my apartment any more crowded makes my heart race. I can handle dancing in front of strangers and being tossed in the air, but I can’t stand small spaces.

Like closets, hiding behind the clothes, watching the shadows move on the other side of the wooden slats…

I shake my head. Nope. I’m not going there.

Count to ten, and then get on with it.

I finish my breakfast, take my vitamins, and get dressed. Ballet chic—tights and a plain black leotard, with a pair of joggers and a jacket over the top. I twist my hair into a neat, simple bun and grab my bags, stashing the second half of the smoothie inside one of them.

---