Page 38 of Barre Fight
“Matisse,” Ivy said, sitting down at the end of the bench. “It’s only a study. The real one is in Russia, but I like this one better. It feels more joyful and less finished. Like the women are improvising the choreography, because he was only improvising the painting.”
Justin nodded, running his eyes over the painting yet again. “I see that. How do you know all this?”
Ivy paused. “I love this painting. It’s basically the only reason I agreed to come to New York.”
“Well, that and all the musicals.”
She chuckled softly. “Obviously. You like it?”
“Yeah.” Another understatement. “It feels like how dancing should feel.”
“It really does,” she agreed. “Although I wouldn’t know, since I’ve never danced naked on a mountaintop with four of my best friends.”
Justin glanced over at her, then quickly looked back at the painting. He felt his cheeks heating and cleared his throat. That wasn’t a mental image he needed to entertain right now.
“I get why you came all the way here to see it.”
“I see it every day,” she nodded, “but in miniature. I have a print of it. In, um, my bedroom.”
Justin’s cheeks burned hotter, and he glanced over at her again. She was staring at the painting, as if avoiding looking at him, and he could have sworn her cheeks looked a little pink, too.
“Well, now you can look at the real thing,” he said, pulling the conversation—and his thoughts—away from Ivy Page’sbedroom and her naked body on a two-dimensional mountaintop.
She nodded a little frantically, and he turned back to the painting. Tried to focus on the colors. Tried not to think about how much the green of the hillside resembled the green of Ivy’s eyes.
They sat in silence for several long moments, their bodies separated by half a meter of bench, and the museum map between them. Whenever Justin felt restless, anxious to move, he reminded himself that Ivy had come a long way to see this painting, and that they had nowhere else to be. Every few minutes, people wandered in and out of the room, joining them in their appreciation, but mostly it was him and Ivy alone, and together with the five dancers in their circle of joyful motion.
After a while, Ivy hummed in what sounded like contentment and picked up the map.
“Does the real thing live up to your expectations? Worth the trip?” he asked hopefully.
“Absolutely,” she smiled, and she really did look happy. “More than worth it.”
“Alright then, I guess you can go home now,” he joked.
“And miss the chance to make you sit through a musical? I wouldn’t dream of it.”
He sighed deeply. “I tried.”
She giggled again, just as she had last night, and the sound was better than he remembered. “I’m not going home, but I should go to the cafe and get some food,” she said, standing.
“No need.” He shook his head and handed her the chicken sandwich.
Ivy stared at the lumpy plastic-wrapped package for a moment, and Justin wondered if he’d made a mistake. “Oh,” she said, finally.
“Unless you want something else?” he asked, alittle nervous. “I just figured you’d be hungry soon and, no offense, but I’ve seen what you’re like when you’re hungry, and for the safety of all concerned, I thought…”
She snatched the sandwich out of his hand and pursed her lips. “Screw you,” she said. “And thank you.”
“Screw you, too,” he shot back. “And you’re welcome.”
Chapter Nine
The inside of the theater at Lincoln Center was more beautiful and more intimidating than Ivy could have imagined. Plush red velvet seats, a thick scarlet carpet, and a heavy gold curtain at the front of the stage. The orchestra pit was the largest she’d ever seen, and the stage was deep and wide, big enough for New York Ballet’s entire 70-person corps de ballet to dance on it all at once. But the real treat was when you looked up, beyond the mezzanine and the boxes and the family circle, to the soaring gilt ceiling. In the center hung a huge sphere studded with golden light bulbs, with more bulbs set into the ceiling around it spiraling out in petal patterns. Red and gold and opulence everywhere, a cathedral consecrated to music and dance.
For one brief moment, Ivy let herself imagine what it would be like to dance on that stage, to look out over the pit and see rows and rows of red and glints of gold, hundreds of faces all turned to her. It had been years since she’d last performed—and that had been in the uni’s crappy little black box theater—but at the thought of dancing for an audience, the familiar flutter of butterflies always came back, tensing her muscles intoreadiness. What would it feel like to stand in the middle of that huge stage and feel the opening notes swelling out of the pit, to let the music move your body through the air from one wing to the other? She ran her eyes across the stage, taking in the breadth of the space. It was enormous. How would her short legs even carry her across that distance?
She bit her lip and pushed the vision out of her mind. She didn’t belong on a stage like this, and never had. It was a jewel box, reserved for the sparkliest, most precious dancers. The chosen ones, two of whom were rehearsing on it now, under Peter’s watchful eye.
