Dancing Barefoot (4 page)

Too tired to sleep and too rattled to relax, she grabbed a bottle of wine and jogged up the stairs to the second story. This had been Sela's domain during their roommate days. She'd been in graduate school while Sela had gone to law school.  Now it was her sacred space, her art space. She stared at the painting she'd hung over a battered sofa she'd found years ago in an alley, now covered with a worn blue blanket. She'd painted that same scene dozens of times, maybe more. It depicted the apartment she'd shared with Jacques...the disheveled bed showing a man's leg dangling from between the sheets, his torso exposed, face hidden by an arm, low ceiling fan in the foreground, light flooding in from the windows. 

Of course no visitors knew who
m the man was or that she painted from memory. Much of her life operated on a 'need to know' basis.

"I need to move on, let go, that's my problem," she muttered withou
t looking away from the scene. "I'm pitiful, holding on to a time in my life that's long over."

Taking a long swig from the bottle of wine, she turned her back on
the painting and walked toward her easel that stood in front of a wide bay window that faced an alley and rested directly beneath a skylight.

Emotions raging, she flicked on the stereo and faced the empty canvas on
the easel. At the first stroke, she lost herself in the act of creation. Painting brought her peace.

The buzz from the front intercom
startled her back to reality. She blinked, at first unsure if she had heard the sound. Darkness had crept through the room without her noticing the passing of time. The buzzer came again, long and insistent. 

Rubbing hands over the splattered pant
s, she jogged down the stairs. The floor tipped beneath her feet from a combination of too much wine combined with beer and tequila. What had she been thinking?

“If this is you, Marc, I’m really not up for company,” she said into the intercom. 

“Does that apply to all guests or only Marc?” The accent and deep voice could only belong to one man...Jacques Sinclair. Here. Now.

She dropped her forehead against the plaster wall and squeezed her eyes closed. Without saying a word, she buzzed him in and dragged her feet toward the door.  Maybe the alcohol would help...oh, who was she kidding?  This would be another fiasco ala Jessica.  

With each thud of his feet against the stairs, she flinched. Opening the door, she watched him ascend. He met her gaze without breaking stride. She bit her bottom lip and scanned him from head to toe, her heart twisting with remorse. A familiar leather jacket—she remembered them buying it together in Florence—scarred boots that he'd always worn, same jeans and shirt from earlier, the man oozed familiarity and sex appeal.

“
Were you painting?” He hesitated in the doorway, hands shoved in the back pockets of his jeans, expression cautious as he studied her. 

Hand still on the doorframe, she swayed backward and gnawed her bottom lip. “I thought you said we didn’t have anything left to say.”

He rocked back on his heels, eyes narrowing to slits. “Maybe I was wrong.”

“Maybe?”
Goosebumps rose on her skin while his gaze skimmed her body. 

“I didn’t think you painted anymore.” He squinted as if trying to figure out a mystery. 

“Just playing around.” She glanced down at the form fitting tank top. No bra.  Oh well. He had seen her looking a lot worse, and a lot better, in a lot less. “Come inside. The place is a mess.”

“Organized on the outside b
ut a mess behind closed doors. A contradiction.”

“I’m a woman of mystery.”
She walked ahead of him and gathered the clothes scattered across the floor. “Let me pick these up. Make yourself at home…or…well, there’s beer in the ‘fridge if you want one.” 

“
Is this the same Marc I met in Florence? Are you two together now?” He lingered at the threshold, uncertainty shadowing his face. 

“
We were friends then, we're friends now. It's nothing more,” she answered as she walked toward her bedroom.

She tossed the clothes onto the bed and closed the door behind her. Anxiety wracked her body. Alone, she pressed her palm against the wall and took several deep breaths to steady herself.

“Jessica?” he called after a few minutes of silence. 

“Right here.” She forced one foot in front of the other and walked to the kitchen. “Want a beer? 
I've got an open bottle of wine upstairs, I can get it.”

"That would be good, thank you."
He tossed his jacket onto the chair full of her belongings. He strolled around the living room as if taking inventory; gaze scanned everything from the books on the mantel to the paintings on the walls to the scattered photographs on the tables. 

Music from the upstairs studio drifted down to them. He held an 8 x 10 photograph of herself as a twenty-
seven year old, hair falling past her shoulders, laughing from pure happiness, leaning against his motorcycle, arms outstretched against the backdrop of the Florence skyline. He placed it back without comment. 

She had no idea what to say,
why he was here, or how he had her address. Beer bottles in each hand, she walked to him.

He smiled over his shoulder.
His dimples appeared, reminding of her why she had fallen so hard for him in the first place. The man simply had a way about him...a natural charm that almost hypnotized a woman into submission. “You did these paintings, didn’t you? Are you showing them?”

“
You’re looking at the gallery.” Careful not to touch him, she handed him a beer.

“What do you mean?”

“Art’s a hobby, that’s all.”

“So you gave that up, too?”

“I didn’t give it up. Look at me, I’m covered with it.” She stared at his mouth and wondered who had the right to kiss him, who made him laugh, who wrapped her fingers in the thickness of his hair.

“Miranda mentioned you have a horde of paintings stashed away here, said she would like to show them.  Why don’t—”

“You mentioned me to Miranda?”  The symphony returned for an encore performance beneath her ribcage. 

“Yes. I told her that you and I lived together in Florence.” 

She stopped pacing.  “You told her we lived together?” 

“Is that a secret?” His eyes narrowed as he watched her response. 

“No, I just…I don’t talk about that summer to anyone.” She flattened her back against the opposite wall from him, needing the space.

He stared at her from across the room for several long minutes before speaking. “You shouldn’t hide your work
. It's meant to be shown, shared.”

“You were my biggest fan.”
A small smile touched her lips. “My only fan.”

“I’m confused.”
He mirrored her action from across the room, beer bottle dangled from his fingertips. “Earlier I thought you had turned into a stranger, now I come here and you look almost the same as I remembered.  Who is the real you?”

“The real me?  Seriously?  You sound like a New Age workshop leader.” Every inch of her quivered beneath his gaze. “You need to go.”  

“Why are you afraid of me? You look terrified.”

She stroked her throat with trembling fingers, closed her eyes and remembered the trapped feeling from the office. Once again, a silent scream welled in her throat and demanded
escape. Instead, she opened her eyes and looked at the floor.

“You need to go,” she managed to whisper. 

“You’re the one who wanted to play catch up.”

She met his gaze with all the fire and frustration of the day
. “And you’re the one who put my picture on the cover of your book and came to Boston for a gallery exhibit. You had to know I would find out somehow. Now here you are pacing around my home like you’re some avant-garde artist when you’re just as much a sell-out as I am. Gallery openings and book signings for the elusive Jacques Sinclair. I don’t remember you talking about those dreams while we played pretend in Florence.”

“Played
pretend? Is that how you remember it?” 

Confused at the anger she felt when all she truly wanted was to know him again…she had missed him so desperately…missed his friendship, missed his face, missed his voice…yet now she ached to smash this beer bottle against the wall.
She regretted wanting to get drunk in the first place. All of this was wrong and she didn't know how to make it right.

“
Why are you here? I thought you no longer gave a damn about me.” Alcohol made her bold. 

He shrugged, his gaze roaming around the room.

“How did you find my address? I am not listed, I—”

“I kept it
from some things you left behind in Florence.” He looked at the hardwood floor at his feet. “I brought it with me, took a chance you hadn't moved.”

Knowing that he had planned on seeing her, had kept her address for all of th
ese years, weakened her knees. Confusion spun through her mind like a tornado.

“How did yo
u know I would still be here?” With halting steps, she walked into the kitchen. Dizziness rocked her. She needed food. 

He followed.
“This is what you wanted, am I right? Roots. Security.  Predictability.”

“You’ve kept this address for
five years?” She rubbed the back of her neck.  “Why didn’t—”

“I needed to see for myself.”

“See what for yourself?”

“I needed to know that you lied about everything,
including who you really were. Now I’m even more confused. Seeing you like this... it’s as if I walked through a time warp or something. You look the same, you’re painting, you’re up in the middle of the night, music is going...but earlier you...I don’t know what to think.” He combed his hands through his hair and closed his eyes. 

“This isn’t fair. You act like I deli
berately tricked you. I didn’t.” Loaf of bread in hand, she faced him. “What were you going to do with that address? Ambush me after work? Did I spoil your plan?”

“Yes, actually, you did.”
His grin played havoc with her senses.  When he opened his eyes, his gaze locked on hers. “You are always ruining my plans.”

“
Five years,” she whispered without looking away. “Long time.”

“Did you
mean what you said?” he asked. “About thinking about Italy, about our apartment?”

“About you, you mean?” She r
ipped her gaze from his. Alcohol may have made her brave, but not stupid. She had to be careful about how she answered this question. “Yes, I meant it. I...I wish I...”

“
Wish what?” He stepped closer. "What did you mean by wanting a do-over?"

She shrugged off the tingling sensation skittering across her skin. “It doesn’t matter.”

He leaned his hip against the counter. He muttered something in French, just like he used to do back in the day when he didn’t want her to understand.

“I still haven’t learned it,” she whispered as she stared inside the
refrigerator.  “I always wanted to learn French so I’d understand your secrets. You and Ava used to have the most entertaining fights, screaming French at each other. So dramatic.  And then Simone would get into the act...ugh...I hated her. How is Ava, by the way?  I read a blurb about her in the New York Times. I saw she had a spot in New York's fashion week this past February. How exciting for her. Ava Sinclair Originals has come a long way from that apartment in Florence where we cut patterns while sitting on the floor."

He reached around her for another beer. His a
rm grazed hers. Their gaze met.  

Silence saturated the room. 

Longing pulled at her to say more, but all she could do was hold the refrigerator door open and blink like a moron. 

“
We have all come a long way since that old apartment building in Florence, haven't we? Success all around, ” he said after minutes had passed.

Finding it difficult to breathe, she forced her
self to speak from sheer will. “I thought about calling her after I read the article. I miss her.”

He sipped his drink and studied her as if she had just landed from another planet. 

“We were close,” she said because she didn’t know what else to say. “I wasn’t sure she would appreciate hearing from me, though, so...I didn’t.” 

Their apartment had been the center of the universe that
long summer. People had come and gone, crashed on their sofa for days. Every night had been a party—sometimes mild but often wild. No one had had any cares. Life had been simple.

He smiled down at his feet. “For awhile this afternoon, I wondered if she had set this up somehow, pulled the stings with the gallery
to arrange it so we would run into one another, but I cannot find the link. I think it is too much of a coincidence that the only gallery where I am having an exhibit is not only blocks from your apartment, but is owned by a friend of yours.”

Well, that would fit Ava’s MO. She slammed the bread onto the counter. She need
ed to eat. Now. With her head spinning from alcohol and Jacques’s confusing presence, she needed food.