Page 17 of Second Dance
I didn’t move from my spot until the whistle faded and the platform was empty.
Fourteen years. Sitting here now, it felt both like a lifetime and no time at all.
Then she appeared in the doorway of The Pelican, and everything in the room disappeared. Time fractured. She moved toward me with that same unhurried grace I remembered, wearing a simple tank top and a long skirt that caught the evening breeze. Her face was more mature now, the roundness of nineteen replaced by sharper cheekbones and a stronger jawline, making her even prettier than she’d been all those years ago. Her hair was different, cut shoulder-length, brushing her toned shoulders. When I’d known her, she’d had long hair that was often in a bun on top of her head. I remembered how herscalp had ached after a long day at the dance academy. She’d lay her head on my lap, and I’d caressed and massaged the pain away.
Now, I rose on unsteady legs, blood rushing in my ears. She lifted her hand in a small wave, that sweet smile and those soft green eyes the color of new leaves, and I was twenty-two years old again, watching her board a train.
When I extended my hand—some ridiculous attempt at formality—she stepped past it and pulled me into a gentle hug. Her scent was exactly the same as I remembered and made my knees nearly buckle. That familiar sweetness of vanilla mixed with gardenia that used to cling to my shirts after she’d fallen asleep against my shoulder. I felt that same magnetic pull toward her that I’d had then, deep in my bones. For a few seconds, she was solid and warm and real against me, and it was as if no time had passed. As if we were still those kids who had fallen desperately in love.
Then she pulled back and looked directly into my eyes. The same clear, unguarded gaze that had always seen my heart.
“Hello, Alex,” she said softly. “Is it really you?”
“You’re beautiful.” I hadn’t meant to say that, but the truth just slid right out of my throat.
“Do I look old?” Gillian asked. “I’ve been vainly worried about that.”
“Like I said in my message, I’d not thought it was possible for you to be prettier than the last time I saw you, but you are.”
“You’re looking very well yourself,” Gillian said. “Time’s been kind to you.”
“As it has to you.” I gestured toward the booth. “Please, sit. We can order a drink.”
She set her handbag in first, then slid to the middle of the bench. When she was situated, I sat across from her.
“I forgot that about you,” Gillian said.
“What’s that?”
“Your impeccable, old-fashioned manners.”
“Ah, well, my mother raised me that way.”
“How is she?”
The familiar stab of grief came when I thought about my mother. “She passed away five years ago.”
“I’m so sorry. I always wished I could have met her,” Gillian said. “I felt like I knew her from all your stories.”
“She was one of a kind.”
“I’m sorry about your wife too.”
“Too much loss these last five years,” I said. “It’s brought me to my knees.”
“Oh, Alex, I’m sorry. How are your children doing?”
“They’re all right. My son, Peter, has coped with his mother’s loss better than my daughter. Bella’s very sensitive and emotional. And she’s fourteen, so she’s difficult to read. I never know what version of her I’ll see at the breakfast table.”
“I have one of those too,” Gillian said. “She’s a song and dance girl with a bit of diva in her.”
We were interrupted when the server came by to take our drink order. I ordered a glass of red but Gillian asked for a pinot grigio. She’d said on her profile she liked crisp white wine on a hot day, so I wasn’t surprised.
“Are you hungry?” I asked. “We can order something to share.”
“They have a great hummus plate here,” Gillian said.
“Great. We’ll have one of those,” I said to the server.
