Page 3 of Canadian Boyfriend

“Let’s keep it between us,” Gretchen said before my Tap 3 class. “She doesn’t need everyone primed to gawk at her.”

Byeveryone, Gretchen meant the Minnetonka Dance Moms™. And would they ever gawk, if their performative grief when Olivia’s mom, Sarah, had been killed in a car crash seven months ago was anything to go by. They wanted to know how Olivia was doing. They wanted to know if Gretchen would pass along Olivia’s address so they could drop off a Tater Tot hotdish. (Gretchen would not.) They wanted to know what was going to happen to Olivia.

Well, really, they wanted to know what was going to happen to Olivia’sdad, who was allegedly an extremely good-looking player for the Minnesota Lumberjacks. I, not having followed hockey since high school, didn’t know anything about Olivia’s dad. I didn’t even realize he played hockey until the chatterabout Sarah’s death started. I had no memory of ever having met him. If I had met him, it would have been in passing at recitals, since Sarah was the one who’d brought Olivia to class. Even though recitals no longer gave me literal panic attacks, I was still more focused on getting through them than I was on any hot dads who might be in attendance.

Olivia’s dad had taken the rest of last season off after the accident. He’d pulled Olivia out of dance, and out of school, too, according to some of the girls who’d been her classmates. We hadn’t seen Olivia since last January.

Gretchen’s understanding of the habits of the Minnetonka Dance Moms™ was such that she’d suggested Olivia show up late that August afternoon, so there would be less fuss made over her return. I had always liked Olivia. She wasn’t the best dancer, but she had heart. She used to arrive every week with a big smile on her face and shuffle off to Buffalo with great enthusiasm, if not great aptitude. Shelikeddancing, and you’d be surprised how often that didn’t seem to be the case with these girls. I wasn’t, but you would be.

So I was looking forward to seeing Olivia again, but also, per Gretchen’s instructions, primed to play it low-key.

When she arrived, we were working on over-the-top jumps. “Cross left over right, point right, plié, and… jump! And again, right over left! Good!” I smiled at my herd of little elephants, metallicthunks heralding their landings. “Try not to let the left foot touch the ground. Let’s do five more in unison without me talking you through it. We’ll start again, and—one!”

We got into a rhythm, all of us leaping and landing in time. This was what I liked about dancing. What I had salvaged from it. That sense of your body as part of a larger machine, a dedication to precision allowing, paradoxically, a kind of freedom. Itdidn’t matter if you were doing the “Waltz of the Flowers” in the corps de ballet of a professional company or over-the-top jumps with a roomful of tweens in suburban Minneapolis.

I was in the zone.

Until Sansa’s mom, who was watching as she always did, stage-whispered, “Oh my God! Here comes Mike Martin.”

I was supposed to be playing it cool, but apparently I was no better than the Minnetonka Moms™. I swiveled my head just as he appeared in the doorway between the studio and the viewing area, which was separated from the dance floor by a half wall and was where the parents who wanted to watch sat. The parents sitting there were not watching the class at that moment though; they were watching him.

As was I. He had straw-colored hair, and he was holding a cup with a teabag tag sticking out of it.

No. My brain had randomly conjured a phantom from my past.

But then Sansa’s mom said something, and he opened his mouth to answer her.

He was missing a tooth.

Holy shit with a grand plié.

I tripped over my own feet, not quite making it over the top of over-the-top jump number four. I stumbled toward the parents, fell, and landed on my butt—at the feet of Olivia Kowalski’s dad, who might or might not have been the corporeal manifestation of my imaginary high school boyfriend.

“She’s the one who was a ballet dancer in New York?” he said.

Creases appeared on his forehead. I was pretty sure those creases signaled skepticism, which, given that I was sprawled in an inglorious heap at his feet after the world’s least graceful over-the-top jump, was fair.

“Yes!” Olivia said. “Miss Rory went to the Newberg Ballet School!”

One corner of his mouth turned up. After a beat, the other side turned up, too, and OK, calm down: he had adimple. That settled it. There had been no dimples in evidence with Mall Mike. This was a strange coincidence.

He extended a hand to help me up. “Maybe you should look into getting a refund.”

I tried to smile. Even though I didn’t know him, I could tell his teasing was not mean-spirited. I was an expert at distinguishing among subtle shades of mockery. But I was still reeling from this freaky encounter, and I couldn’t quite get my mouth to work the way I wanted it to.

The skin of his palm was rough, rougher than would seem attributable to hockey. He pulled me up, but he didn’t let go once I was upright. He kind of… stroked my hand with his thumb?

No. I must have made that up. Been so lulled by his magnetic good looks that I forgot where I was. ForgotwhenI was.

I reminded myself thatthisman had a dimple.

It did, however, occur to me that a person could have a dimple but if that personalsohad a beard, as Mall Mike had, that dimple might be hidden.

Olivia’s dad turned holding my hand after helping me up into shaking my hand. “I’m Mike Martin.” He pulled off his sunglasses with his other hand. He pulled them off slowly, though, like he was starring in a slo-mo montage fromTop Gun. I watched, transfixed, as he revealed a pair of gold-flecked green eyes.

Well. Holy shit with two grand pliés.

I’m not saying it was love at first sight, but I’m not saying it wasn’t.

---