Page 34 of Supernova

She’ll tell him soon—but not yet.

As the stars begin to twinkle overhead against the dark denim of the winter sky, Frankie exhales. She lifts her head from the water and her wet hair falls all around her shoulders. “Ed,” she says, leaning in close so that her lips are right next to his warm ear. “I’m trying so hard. I need to find a way to be myself again. Can you help me?”

Ed nods, and she can feel his heart beating as his pulse races in his neck beneath her hand. “I want to help you,” he says. “But sometime soon I’m going to need the whole story. I want to know all of you, not just part of you.”

Frankie nods, feeling the fear of full disclosure as she imagines actually saying the words aloud.

“I’m here, Frankie,” Ed assures her, holding her close under the light of the moon. I’m right here.”

Frankie’s first order of business after she gets the keys to the dance studio in downtown Stardust Beach three weeks later is to open the windows to the late winter afternoon. The sun is sinking lower in the sky, and the air blows through the space, reminding her that she’s safe. She’s not in New York, and she is not in danger. Everything she wants to work through is in the past, and lives now only inside of her. She takes a deep breath and thinks about what she needs to do before she changes into a leotard and a pair of tights with her dance shoes—a costume she hasn’t worn in years. With the wood floors mopped and the long mirror cleaned, Frankie turns on the radio and places herself in the center of the room, where she begins to stretch and limber up.

“Earth Angel” by the Penguins plays softly as she puts one foot on the barre that she’s had installed. She leans her body sideways, arching her torso towards her pointed toes like her body is a rainbow. The next song is more upbeat, and Frankie begins to lunge and plié, feeling her muscles warm up and her body begin to thrum. It’s been ages since she’s let herself move like this. To be free and to take up the space around her with her whole being.

She spins once and hears her knee pop, which brings a smile to her face. She’d pulled a tendon several years before during the Rockettes’ Christmas show, and while there isn’t any pain to it now, her knee is still given to making an audible sound if shesteps on it wrong, and to Frankie, it feels like a war injury that’s there to remind her of what she’s been through—and that she’s survived it.

Soon enough, the music has taken over, and with a loosening of her joints, Frankie begins to really dance. Her body bends nimbly, her arms rounding gracefully and her legs extending high when she kicks. She explores the entire space—moving around the room like it’s a stage that she and she alone can command, leaping and throwing herself in a tangle of limbs and energy. It feels good. She’s at home in her body and lost in the music, and as she does things that she hasn’t done since the last time she danced in New York, Frankie realizes that her ability to dance has never really left her. It’s always been there, and all she’s needed to do is give herself permission to enjoy it again.

With her eyes focused on one spot on the wall, Frankie pirouettes three times, four times, five, stopping herself with one firm plant of her foot. When she does, she’s facing the doorway, and there, smiling at her as he leans against the doorframe, is Ed.

“What do you think?” Ed asks, stepping into the dance studio and looking around. “Are you happy with the space?” He looks like a hopeful little boy who has handed his mom a bouquet of hand-picked wildflowers, and all he wants now is her praise and approval.

Frankie takes it all in as she wraps her long arms around her leotard-clad body. She gives a pleased nod. “I am,” she says. “It’s perfect.”

The music plays on as Frankie turns lightly, pirouetting across the room. She knows what she needs to do—aside from getting some kids signed up to take her dance classes so that she can make the rent every month—and the time to start is now.

“I need a couple of hours here to work on something,” Frankie says to Ed as she stops spinning. She crosses the spaceand kisses him lightly on the lips. “I have an idea, and I want to follow it.”

Ed puts his hands in the pockets of his pants and backs out onto the sidewalk. “I’ll come back for you in a couple of hours?” he offers through the open doorway.

Frankie nods, her mind already racing. She doesn’t even watch Ed as he crosses the street because she’s already dancing again.

SIXTEEN

jo

“I have to tell you something,”Jo says to Bill one evening as they sit down in front of the television together. It’s been a busy week: Cassius Clay has been named heavyweight champion of the world, and the Italian government has officially requested help to save the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over, but to Jo, the big news is on the paper she’s clutching in her hands.

Bill pats the couch next to him and she sits—perches, really—on the edge of the cushion with her knees together. She’s facing him.

“Tell me,” Bill says with a smile.

Jo clears her throat and hands him the paper she’d received in the mail that day. “Well,” she says, not waiting for him to read it. “I wrote a short story and sent it toTrue Romancemagazine on a whim, and they want to publish it!”

Bill’s eyebrows shoot up. “Isn’t that the rag you pick up at the grocery store every so often? Full of silly women’s stories?” He looks at her dubiously, and Jo’s confidence falters.

“Sure,” she says, “it’s lighthearted, but it’s a real publication, Bill. They even sent me a check for ten dollars.”

Bill sets the letter on the coffee table and looks at her with a frown. “That’s great, Jojo. I mean, ten dollars is ten dollars, but…I thought you were interested in writing books? Something real?”

Jo swallows her disappointment. She isn’t sure what she’d expected from Bill, but she hadn’t expected mild disapproval. “Of course,” she says with a forced smile. “I want to write a book. And I was working on it, but it wasn’t going the way I wanted it to, so I thought I’d try to write a short story first and see if I could do it.”

Bill nods. The television is still turned off, and he looks at her pensively. “Well, I’m proud of you, Jojo. You’re doing something positive with your time if it’s earning you a little bit of money and making you happy. Plenty of guys I know have wives who aren’t doing much at all.”

At this, Jo jumps up from the couch. “Okay, now that’s not true,” she says hotly. “And it’s not fair. Most of the men you know have wives who are at home with the kids, who volunteer at the schools in their children’s classrooms, and who keep house, cook meals, and make their husbands’ lives easier.”

Bill holds up both hands defensively. “Whoa, sorry to ruffle your feathers, Jo. I wasn’t going for that, I was trying to pay you a compliment.”

Jo is still perturbed, but she sits down again. “Yeah, well, denigrating other women in order to compliment me isn’t what I truly want.”

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