Page 35 of Andalusia Dogs
Joanna shook her head. “Show you what?”
“What you’ve worked on. You’ve been dying to all evening. I can see that particular glint in your eye, like you’re excited to share a discovery but you’re afraid that if it’s left too long, you’ll seem foolish. So don’t leave it. Show us.”
“Now, you mean?”
Alex was just as hesitant. “Jago, I think—"
“Mister Si-Man calls the stage a sacred space.” Jago raised a hand toward the fallen Morningstar. “In the absence of a stage, I am asking you to dance for the profane.”
Alex, Joanna, and Vicente exchanged looks, but… why not? Joanna knew the music as well as if it had been pressed to a record inside her head. Her gaze landed on Alex, who acquiesced with a silent nod.
As her audience of three—four if they counted the Morningstar—took their seats on the fountain’s edge, Joanna began moving through ten minutes of completely new steps. The violence, the hunger, the love and fear… it was all there, but gone were the barriers of the text itself. It was something new, vibrant and frightening, yet just as delightful. Alex felt as if each movement were nourishing his mind and soul after the exhaustion that had been Si-Man’s self-aggrandised salvation. When the dance was done, they sat silently in Lucifer’s shadow,watching Joanna scratch at the ground beneath her feet. At last, she rose with movements as slow as nature would allow.
A shiver swept through Alex, as if February had arrived already and caught them with its sudden, bitter kiss. “Brava,” he said at last, just loud enough for her to hear.
Joanna pulled her dark hair off her face, tying it back as it had been before her dance. “It’s getting there.”
“Jo?” added Vicente. “That was incredible.”
“Thank you, darling. You’re very sweet.”
“I mean it. You were great before, but this is something—”
“Vicente,” said Jago. “She knows.”
Vicente resisted biting that, much to Alex’s relief. Still, he wasn’t so sure Joanna did know. By the dance’s end, she’d seemed uncertain, even frustrated. He’d seen it in her eyes, just for an instant, as if she’d come so close to the perfection she sought, only to have it snatched away in one final moment, lost to silence.
“Vis?” she said. “I’m tired.”
“I’m not surprised.” He got up and took her in a hug. “You were up rehearsing most of last night.”
“Take me home?”
It lasted only a second, but Alex caught the sceptical look Vicente gave him. He had played nice all evening, but that look conveyed just one idea—Jago.
“Go,” Alex said softly but firmly. “We’ll be fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Can you find your way back to the gap in the fence?” asked Jago.
Joanna was already there, pulling back the shrubs to reveal the broken links. “Goodnight, boys!”
Vicente shook his head, taking Alex in a hug before reluctantly accepting a much shorter one from Jago, who gave him back the wine. “Goodnight.”
“Vicente,” Jago said after they parted. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
After so many forced smiles, Alex had to wonder if Vicente would need the rest more than Joanna. He sat, left in comfortable silence with Jago, who dragged his hand through the waters of the fountain. Alex reached out and began doing the same. The water felt surprisingly cool, refreshing him as he rubbed some of it on his forearms, face, and neck.
“Don’t drink any,” Jago cautioned him. “I can’t say with any certainty that someone hasn’t pissed in this.”
“Hah. You’re joking. Wait, are you? Or is this your way of telling me you need a leak?”
Jago smiled, taking a golden ping-pong ball from his pocket. He began tossing it in the air, catching it each time with clockwork regularity.
“Did Joanna give you that?”
