Finding Center (5 page)

Zed

We spend the weekend in bed. Or, at least in the apartment, and I have zero regrets. When we run out of milk for cereal and coffee, Aly goes downstairs to the café to borrow some of theirs, and we forget it on the kitchen counter anyway. We sleep in. Aly stretches at the barre but doesn’t go to the company class on Saturday morning. I should be using my leg more than I am, but I don’t mind. I’ll be on my feet all next week.

The Metro ride on Monday is particularly painful. When I wrap my hand around the metal pole in the middle of the car, I think of the barre. In the studio, with her dancing toward me. In our home, with her body hot against mine. I’m restless but I settle for resting my chin on her head and breathing her in. At her stop, she doesn’t immediately stir.

“I’ll see you when you’re done,” I say, reaching out an arm to catch the doors. “Aly.”

She kisses my cheek quickly. “Want to go out tonight?”

“Maybe,” I say, surprised.

The smile she gives me is bright and quick as she steps out of the doors and onto the platform. The doors ding again and this time, they close. I watch her as the train picks up speed and hurls down into the tunnels again.

“Young love,” says the woman next to me wisely. She winks, barely holding back a smile.

I’ve loved Aly for fourteen years. I’m not sure it’s young love anymore. Just love, plain and simple.

At the end of the day, I ride the escalator from underground into the hot and muggy evening. At the top, my phone buzzes with texts and emails. I assume the texts are from Aly but to my surprise, it’s my sister Noelle. She’s just turning eighteen and it’s her senior year of high school. We barely grew up together, but I’ve been trying to get to know her better over the past few years.
Hey, question:
Would it bother you if I chose Georgetown? Is it too close to you?

I frown and hurriedly text her back as I walk out of the Metro and across the bridge to Georgetown.
Of course not. That’d be super cool if you were here. Georgetown’s a great school.

She texts me back a smiley face and then a few minutes later adds,
Okay. I think it’s a good fit for me. I need to get out of Penntucky.

Don’t blame you, I write back.
“Aly!” I call up the stairs.

I don’t really want to sit in the apartment, and if we’re going straight out, I don’t want to climb the stairs. Some days the phantom pain bothers me more than other days. This is one of those days. Seems cruel after a morning of fantasizing about the barre and dancing and Aly.

No answer from upstairs.

I text her and then when there’s no answer, text Jonathan. Because there’s nothing like radio silence to make me spin off into orbit.
Aly there?

He replies instantly.
Nope. Building’s closed for cleaning.

It’s seven thirty. She should be home. I pocket my phone and drag myself up the stairs, unlocking the door to poke my head through and call her name again. The apartment’s quiet and dark. She hasn’t been home yet. Trying not to worry too much, I head back down the stairs to the café below us where there’s a piano, coffee and company.

The door’s bells ring merrily as I step into the café, relieved at the air-conditioning even in the four steps between our door and the café door. The heat’s the oppressive kind that crushes bones and dreams. Not that I’ve ever been overly dramatic.

My phone buzzes and my heart jumps. A text from Aly.
On my way home. The stupid train’s single-tracking.

Relieved, I text back,
stupid DC

She texts back immediately.
You aren’t going to convince me to move to somewhere cooler but nice try :) Can we send Madison there instead?

I grin at my phone.

“That’s got to be your girl for you to look that happy,” says Carmen from behind the bar. Aly’s not her biggest fan, probably because Carmen relentlessly flirts with me, but I’m so used to it from the baristas at this café that I just ignore it.

“Yeah, she’s on her way.” The café’s busy, but they’re all regulars so instead of picking a booth to wait for her, I sink onto the piano bench. Carmen reaches over, setting my coffee on the top of the piano with a wink.

I sip at it gratefully, and then set it down. Aly needs to dance to take the edge off. I need to dance too, but the piano suffices.

“What’ll it be today?” Carmen asks me.

“What would you like to hear?” I flip through the music with one hand, reluctant to take my right hand off the keys. They brush over them, asking a silent question.
Is this enough?
Is this all you need?

“Something fun and upbeat,” she says. “Something that makes me want to dance.”

Of course. Dance. It follows me everywhere, even when my very own ballerina isn’t here.

I start playing the instrumental version of a song I heard on the radio and can play by heart. Carmen brightens and dances behind the bar, singing along. People glance up but they don’t seem to mind that I’m playing while they work. They smile and then lower their heads back to their laptops.

The doorbells chime behind me and a soft, warm and familiar body sinks into the seat next to me. I stop midnote and turn toward her, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her halfway into my lap. She smells like cinnamon and sweat from the outdoors. Aly. My Aly. She slides her fingers into my hair and leans against me.

“Don’t stop playing,” she whispers. “I like that song.”

I release one hand from her, reaching out to play at least half the song. “The train started running?”

“Finally,” she exhaled. “I was up at my mother’s office. She did that thing where she has a client who has a daughter, or maybe it was a niece, who likes to dance.”

I wince a little bit. Aly’s relationship with her mother has improved, but improvement isn’t perfection by any means. Her mother’s one of the most powerful lobbyists in the city and she tends to view Aly as something with a quantifiable return on investment. Sometimes she realizes she’s doing it. Sometimes she doesn’t.

“I’m sorry,” I say, kissing the corner of her mouth. “You okay? How was Madison?”

“I’m tired, and Madison is just so painful,” she admits and her fingers reach out to rest against the piano keys, but she doesn’t play. She’s good but she hates to do anything she doesn’t know she’ll do perfectly. “How was camp today? How’s
Billy Elliot
going?”

“Do you think it’s historically accurate for a boy in turn-of-the-century Ireland to text through his first dance class?” I say with a laugh. “Because there was an actual debate about it. You know I love this musical but it might not have been the best choice for summer camp. How was your day?”

“I sat the second class out,” she says, too casually, and then the reason comes. “I got dizzy in the first half and fell.”

There go the plans for the night. I stare at her. “What?”

“I fell.”

As far as I’m aware, it’s been a good long time since she fell. It happens, no matter how much we don’t like to think about it. But Yevgeny’s strong, Aly light, and both of them sure-footed. “How’d you fall?”

“I didn’t feel well this morning and I shouldn’t have danced at all, but you know me,” she says, and she does sound apologetic. “Jonathan just had me sit and watch. I’m feeling better.”

I’m doubtful. Aly doesn’t get sick that often, amazing given that she’s tiny and rides public transportation. She’s also a devout follower of the Church of the Constantly Overcommitted. Part of me wants to ask her to take a break, and another part of me is suddenly glad she’s at a small company these days.
Not
that I would ever say that to Aly. It’s not secret keeping. It’s just selective information sharing.

“Stop looking so worried. I had orange juice and a whole bag of almonds. I feel better, I promise. I walked here just fine, didn’t I?” She brushes my bangs out of my face. “You need a haircut.”

Alyspeak for a topic change. And right now, I’ll let it go. I relax and say, “You’re not cutting it again.”

“I didn’t do a terrible job,” she objects.

“You have many wonderful artistic qualities, Kitten,” I tell her, swinging my leg over the piano bench. “But hairstyling is just not one of them.”

“I’ll cross that off my retirement career list,” she jokes, following me up to the cash register where I pay for my coffee and start to order her usual tea, one vanilla, one orange bag in a cup together when she interrupts me, “Ginger tea, please.”

This time, when I look at her, she intentionally avoids my eyes. I hand over cash, without looking away from her and say, quietly, “You sure you feel okay?”

“Yes,” she says, her eyes focused out the window. “It’s super gross out there.”

I roll my eyes and take the change from Carmen who gives me an overly bright smile along with the tea and says cheerfully, “Thanks for chatting, Zed! You need to come by more often.”

Aly’s head whips around and I grab her hand before she can chew Carmen out. Not that Carmen doesn’t have it coming. Judging by the set of Aly’s mouth, Carmen’s baiting the last person in the world she wants to fight. We only have to step out into the heat for a few steps before we reach our door but it’s enough to feel like I just tried breathing underwater. Aly shivers at the blast of air-conditioning and now I’m convinced she doesn’t feel well.

“You should take your temperature,” I suggest.

Unsurprisingly, she ignores me as she takes the stairs two at a time, putting distance between us. “She’s much friendlier to you than to me.”

“Your hackles are up,” I tell her at the top of the stairs. I waggle my eyebrows to get her to smile but only get an eye roll. She hands me her tea so she can play with our finicky lock. “Are you jealous?”

“I’m always jealous,” Aly says, her hand on my chest stopping me for a quick kiss. “Some days she gets to see more of you than I do.”

“One day, you’ll be, like, this totally famous ballerina, making a bazillion dollars because that’s what ballerinas make, right? And then I won’t have to work. I can just lie on the couch watching endless reruns of
Bones
. We’ll see each other all the time. It’ll be great. So get on that.”

“If not a bazillion dollars,” Aly says, grinning, “pretty close to it. What? You’re only dating me because I’m famous?”

I toss her an orange from our basket of fruit. “Pretty much. Heard you were on TV a few weeks ago. That’s basically superstar status. When are you filming the shoe commercial?”

“Next week,” she says, sitting down on the couch, her fingers digging into the peel right away. “And next month, I’m doing another shoot for that lingerie company.”

She’s successfully derailed my brain now. I watch her fingers make quick work of the orange peel. “Right.”

Her mouth tips into a smile. “You going to come to that one?”

“Did you have to use the word
come
?”

She falls back on the couch, laughing and reaches toward me with a loose hand. “Come here.”

“That word again,” I say, but slide around the end of the couch and fold onto it, laying my head on her lap. She rakes her fingers through my hair and I smile into the softness of her stomach. I whisper, not sure she can hear me but willing to take the risk, “Stay. Forever.”

Her fingers pause, and then she says, so soft I can only hear the vibrations coming from her abdomen into my ear as her body rises and falls with every breath, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Aly

“Good afternoon, Alyona. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Yes. Wait, why? You’ve never offered me a drink before.”

“You’ve never called me for a same-day emergency session before. We’re mixing things up today. Let me start you a cup of tea and you can tell me what’s going on.”

“I don’t know where to start.”

“Start with what you felt that made you call me, and go backward from there.”

“I didn’t know who else to call. Zed’s at work. My mom’s at work. I don’t even know how to talk to them. And—and I didn’t want to be alone.”

“Okay. Do you think you’re in danger of harming yourself or others?”

“No.”

“Okay. Sugar in your tea?”

“No, thank you.”

“So you didn’t know who else to call and you didn’t want to be alone. I’m glad you thought of me. What happened before that?”

“I took a pregnancy test.”

“Okay.”

“It’s positive.”

“Tissues are to your left. Can you reach them? There you go. Congratulations, Alyona. Were you and Zed trying to get pregnant?”

“No, not really. I mean. No. We weren’t. I’m on birth control but I switched a few weeks ago and I thought I did it right but...I must not have. That’s the only time I can think I might have been unprotected. How
stupid
am I?”

“How are you stupid?”

“Who gets pregnant
twice
by accident?”

“Many people, I think. Want to play with a Rubik’s Cube? Might be less messy than shredding the tissues.”

“Please. Thank you. What if Zed doesn’t want a baby right now?”

“Do you think that’s a possibility?”

“Not really.”

“Are you afraid?”

“How’d you know?”

“You lost a baby, Alyona. I’d be worried if you weren’t at least a little bit wary and afraid.”

“I’m barely twenty-six. I just restarted my career. What if I’m not good at this? What if this destroys my career? What if I get sick again? What if I lose this one too?”

“You can what-if yourself to death. That’s the anxiety driving the car. Take a deep breath. You don’t have to look at me if it’s too hard. That’s why I gave you the Rubik’s Cube. But Alyona, I want you to listen. Your fears are normal. All of them. You’re going to be okay. So is Zed.”

“Jonathan’s going to kill me.”

“I sincerely doubt that.”

“Oh my God, Madison’s going to have a field day. I’m never going to get principal roles again. I’m never going to get my body back again.”

“Deep breath. Baby steps. So to speak.”

“Cracking jokes is a cheap way to ground me.”

“Did it work?”

“Yes.”

“Not so cheap, then.”

“That’s how you earn the big bucks.”

“I’m also a parent, Alyona. And while I can’t speak for the physical changes and how that’ll affect you, I can promise you two things. First, you’re going to be a great parent. And second, we’ll handle whatever comes next. I’m here for you. Zed’s here for you. Your parents will be.”

“You’re sure.”

“I’m absolutely sure.”

“Okay.”

“Keep the Rubik’s Cube. Bring it back next session.”

“Thank you.”