Page 18 of Barre Fight
Beth made a circular motion with her hand, like she was urging him to complete the thought. “Right, that’s her job. She’s getting paid to help the company now. To helpyou. So why don’t you trust her?” She was looking at him like she was missing something obvious. Or like he was.
Justin shrugged. “I just don’t, okay?”
Missy wandered into the kitchen. More of a stagger, really. She was wearing a threadbare oldTwilightT-shirt with the sleeves cut off over a pair of Bonds boxer shorts and she looked a little worse for wear, her mop of curls sticking out at all angles.
“You just”—yawn—“don’t”—yawn—“what?” she finally managed to complete the question. They were all getting too old for pub crawls.
“Justin is explaining to me why he’s refusing to work with his company’s PR team on the image rehab they’ve?—”
“It’s not the team, it’sher,” Justin interrupted. “I don’t trusther. The journalist?—”
“Former journalist,” Beth interrupted him right back, her eyes on Missy, as though her girlfriend was now the judge and they were both pleading their case.
“Fine, theformer journalistthey scraped off the bottom of the barrel to follow me everywhere I go and find something nice to write about me for a change,” Justin said, imitating Beth and speaking only to Missy. “She’s the one who got me into this mess in the first place, and now she’s going to fix it?”
New jobs or not, people didn’t change overnight. Ivy Page was still the same person who wrote that review, who called him vapid and lacking substance. Like she was so substantive, he thought, angrily. Like she hadn’t seen a viral video and slapped a clickbait headline on it, knowing people would eat it up even if it ruined his life.
Missy screwed up her face and held up her hands. “First of all, it’s too early for this.”
“It’s almost 11,” Beth said tartly, but she reached into the cabinet for Missy’s favourite mug and filled it nearly to the brim with coffee.
“Second of all,” Missy continued, accepting the cup and pausing in delivering her verdict to take a sip. She sighed and muttered a quick declaration of love, whether to Beth or to caffeine, Justin couldn’t tell. Even half-asleep and hungover, and in the middle of a disagreement, his cousin and her girlfriend were gone for each other. Not something Justin had ever experienced, or had any desire to. “Sorry, babe, but Justin is right. I don’t trust that woman.”
“Not as far as I can throw her,” Justin added, which, to be fair, was pretty far. She was petite. A full head shorter than him,and shorter than most of his colleagues, though she was curvier. The dresses she wore, belted at the waist, often exaggerated those curves, and… what the hell was he thinking about Ivy Page’s body for? He gave his head a little shake as Beth sighed beside him.
“You’re both ridiculous.”
“We’re both right,” Justin scoffed, and Missy, mouth full of coffee, nodded in agreement.
Justin mulled the conversation with Beth over for the rest of the day, though, as the three of them did an abridged version of the Sunday routine—brunch, supermarket, no movie—and as he cooked himself a lean steak with a big green salad.
Hedidn’twant to give Ivy the satisfaction. He didn’t want her coming within ten feet of him. But the thing was, Justin needed some image rehab. He couldn’t afford for people to think of him as “slugger” for much longer. He just didn’t wantherto be the one responsible for that rehab. After all, it was her fault the entire country had seen that video in the first place. Sure, the ballet world was a gossip tinderbox, but it was small and insular. Without Ivy’s interference, that video would have stayed confined to that gossipy little world. Now Beth and her colleagues at the hospital knew all about it.
He’d have to let Ivy do her job a little, he concluded, as he washed and dried his dishes. The company was leaving for New York in three weeks, and if he didn’t give Ivy something to work with soon, it was going to leave without him.
The next morning, he walked into Studio B fifteen minutes before the start of morning class, foam roller under his arm, and was entirely unsurprised to find Ivy waiting at the front of the room, pen in hand and padon lap.
“You’re incorrigible,” he sighed, as he walked past her towards his preferred spot at the barre.
“Like Kurt von Trapp,” she replied, barely glancing up from her notepad.
“Who?”
“Kurt von Trapp? FromThe Sound of Music?” she said, looking at him as though randomly name dropping a singing Austrian child was normal behavior. He stared at her blankly.
“Never mind,” she muttered. She tucked a strand of hair behind one ear and scribbled something, then looked up at him, her face set and determined. Justin studied her. Her gaze was clear and frank, and her full pink lips slightly pursed in challenge. It was the same look she’d worn for much of last week, but this morning she wore it with a little less conviction.
Justin put his bag down under the barre and sat on the floor, and pulled out his leg warmers, ballet slippers, and water bottle.
“I had an idea,” he said, keeping his eyes on his stuff. “I think you should interview me.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ivy cock her head.
“What a novel idea,” she said dryly. “That I had a week ago.” Justin chanced a look up at her. She was watching him, eyebrows raised. “I’ve been trying to get you to let me interview you since I got here. Pretty hard to write a profile of someone when they won’t give you the time of day.”
Justin reached for his ballet slippers and started pulling them on. “I know,” he conceded gruffly. “I’m… I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” Ivy said, her tone guarded. Skeptical, like she didn’t trust that he wouldn’t say “just joking” and go back to stonewalling her. “I’ll need at least two hours. Maybe more. I’ve got a lot of questions.”
