Page 65 of Barre Fight
ChapterSeventeen
Ivy was the first to wake up on Saturday morning. They’d gone for a post-show drink with some members of the company after yet another sold-out show—“Ivy has to come, as my babysitter,” Justin had joked—and when they got back to the hotel, they made a show of going to their own doors as they said goodnight to Kat and Alice in the hallway. By the time Alice had finished telling Justin about how she planned to spend their last full day in New York, Ivy had let herself into her room, stripped off all her clothes, sauntered through the adjoining door, and climbed into his bed.
When he walked in the door to find her there, he let out a very satisfying growl, and joined her as fast as he could.
Ivy yawned and squinted against the morning light.Last full day in New York, she thought. She missed it already, missed the speed and the sound of it. The sense of possibility here, and the feeling of all her senses being overloaded at once. She’d often rolled her eyes when people returned from New York and waxed about “the energy” of the place, but now she realized they’d been right, and she’d been jealous. The energy here was exhausting, addictive, and irresistible.
To some people, she amended mentally, rolling over and looking at Justin. He was sleeping soundly, his hair a charming mess and his face relaxed and boyish against the pillow. A stark contrast to how jumpy and unsettled he often seemed during waking hours here. He’d be glad to go home, back to the familiar and manageable chaos of Sydney, the kind of noise and bustle he was used to. And what about them? Would whatever they had in New York survive the trip home and the return to real life? She’d wanted to raise the question after yesterday’s surprise Broadway matinee—and his surprise confession right before the curtain rose—but there’d been no time. They’d had to rush back to the hotel, then to the theater, and then they’d been surrounded by his colleagues all night. By the time they got back to the hotel, she’d lost her nerve.
She tried to find it again all through breakfast and company class. And all through the long subway ride uptown to the place she’d chosen for their last day. When they got off the subway at 190th Street, over a hundred blocks from where they’d started, they found themselves on the edge of a park. The trees were as stark and bare here as they’d been in Central Park, but the area was far less crowded. As they walked down the winding path that seemed to bisect the park, the noise of the streets dropped away, and a hush fell over the cold landscape, and over them.
Eventually, Ivy stopped walking and sat down on a bench facing the river, which was a forbidding steel grey under the pearly overcast sky. Justin joined her, sitting close to her so that she could feel the warmth of him through her tights.
Ivy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You hear that?”
“Hear what?” he asked, his frown audible.
“Exactly,” she exhaled. She opened her eyes and looked up into his face. “You wanted peace and quiet in New York, and here it is. Fort Tryon Park. Close your eyes.”
Justin raised his eyebrows doubtfully.
“Do it,” she commanded, and he complied, managing to look skeptical even with his eyes closed. For a second she let herself take him in, the sharp, cold-flushed cheekbones and the golden-brown stubble she knew he’d shave off before curtain. The long lashes and the faint lines around his eyes, the full lips she’d kissed over and over last night, nipped at and tasted as she came around him. He was the most beautiful thing, in a city full of them.
I like you, he’d said.I like you, too, she thought.I really,reallylike you.
“Ahh,” he said after a few minutes. “I hear it.”
“Hear what?”
“Myself thinking.” He opened his eyes, and she was struck all over again by the ever-changing hazel, more brown than blue today.
“Are you thinking anything in particular?” she asked, wondering if he could hear the hope in her voice.
He looked at her for a long moment, as if he was trying to read her mind. She should just ask him what was going to happen tomorrow, when the company packed up all its costumes and the dancers headed to the airport. When they were back on home soil and he no longer needed a handler watching his every move. She should, but she couldn’t find the courage. What if he said this was it? What if this was just a moment in the woods, a moment that would end once they were no longer required to spend every waking second together?
What if she failed at this, too?
“I’m thinking that you probably didn’t come all the way to New York, the busy, thriving center of the universe, to sit on a bench in a quiet park,” he said. “You’d rather be at a museum or a jazz club, somewhere with plenty of people and plenty of noise.”
She shrugged. “Peace and quiet aren’t so bad. This is noGadigal National Park, but it’ll do. Plus, this place has a museum.”
“Of course it does,” he smiled.
“It’s a museum of medieval art and architecture. Apparently, the building is designed to look like a monastery, and it’s supposed to have stunning views of the river.”
“How many museums is that, now, Kurt?”
“Almost enough. We don’t have to if you don’t want?—”
“No, I want to. Monks are known for their peace and quiet, right?” He stood and held out his hand.
“Right,” she said, taking his hand and pulling herself to her feet. Maybe somewhere among the tapestries and stained glass, she’d find the courage to ask the question.
The theater had been sold out for every show this week, and on closing night, the house manager made the decision to open up a row of standing room at the back of the orchestra.
Stretching backstage a few minutes before curtain, Justin could feel the difference in the air. The noise filtering over the orchestra pit and into the wings carried a kind of electric enthusiasm, as though everyone out in the house was grateful to be there, even if they had to be on their feet for two hours. Everything felt heightened tonight. The noise from the audience was louder, and when the stage lights came down, the hush felt quieter. The stage lights seemed brighter, making the crystals on all the tutus in the first ballet seem to sparkle more sharply than usual. And Justin was more aware than ever of Ivy’s presence out in the audience.
They’d spent a perfectly nice hour or two in the medieval museum at the tip of Manhattan, walking around the chilly stone buildings, which were full of gold artifacts washed in thefaintly coloured light of stained-glass windows. Between two buildings that could have been plucked from sixteenth century Spain was a wide courtyard, complete with ordered gardens and a fountain in the middle. From the balcony of one of the ancient-looking buildings, they had a view of the water and the opposite bank of the river, which was lined on the other side by dense grey-green forest. Justin had stood in the cold and stared across the river longingly at the trees, thinking of home. Despite his mother’s assurances, it was hard not to worry about her and Shane and Steen and their house. He hadn’t been home in a while, and now he couldn’t help wondering what the town would look like next time Missy guilted him into visiting.
