Off Balance (Ballet Theatre Chronicles Book 1) (5 page)

“Why me?!”

“Because there’s no one here in this office who fits in as seamlessly downstairs as you do.”

“Gil, that was eight years ago. I don’t do that anymore. I haven’t been down there in so long, it would make me uncomfortable.” She’d maintained contact only with Ben, now Anders’ assistant, partly because injuries had forced him, too, to switch from performing to administration. He understood how it was. They saw each other and chatted at WCBT functions. That was as far as connection to the “down there” world went. She aimed to keep it that way.

“C’mon, Alice, be a sport.”

“The answer is, forget it.”

“Seriously.”

“No
.
”

“You know, maybe this isn’t just a ‘fetch me a coffee while you’re in the café’ kind of request.” A note of steeliness had crept into his voice.

Alice stared. “Are you’re trying to tell me this is something that, as my boss, you’re commanding me to do?”

An unfamiliar awkwardness filled the room. The two of them warily regarded each other but then, as if on cue, they both shrugged and laughed.

“Of course it’s not a command,” Gil said. “It’s a favor. What, you think I’d fire you if you said no?”

“Well, I just didn’t know, that’s all.” She kept her tone light, friendly, the way you were supposed to address a strange, snarling dog. “So. It means that much to you?”

“It does.”

A knot of tension worked its way up between her shoulder blades. She looked at his hopeful face and sighed. “Fine. I’ll do it. Ten minutes, though, and that’s it.”

“That would be great. I really appreciate it.”

“You’d better,” she grumbled.

Lana was the girl’s name. She was good. Alice saw that immediately, watching through the studio’s large picture window as the company members worked their way through an adagio. She had perfect turnout, a lovely upper-body port de bras, good pirouette preparation with her passé leg shooting up high and clean, right to the knee as she began turning. A double—no, wait, a triple—which she ended cleanly without hopping out of it. There was a naturalness to her, an innate musicality and attention to detail, the way she finished each movement down to the tips of her toes, her fingers, the proper angle of her head.

Anders Gunst, artistic director, was teaching that day, and she assessed him as well. In the thirteen years since he’d hired her, the year of his arrival, he’d changed very little. Medium height, still the toned physique of an Olympic-level athlete, dressed casually in dark jeans and a pullover shirt, but nothing casual about his energy, his authority. He’d been a force of nature since the day he walked through the WCBT’s doors, and had remained so. He was now having Lana demonstrate the pirouette combination, poor girl. Likely it was intended to shake up the others, push them from their comfort zones, make them reconsider long-held notions of épaulement and placement, because there was indeed something in the way the new girl moved. Fresh, unaffected, but hungry as well. Usually it was what you saw in the Vaganova-trained dancers, those elite, envied little Russian girls absorbed into the craft at age ten and given a merciless training. The loneliness and discipline and absolute lack of coddling combined with sublime natural talent produced a perfect artistry with a razor edge.

Apparently this Lana girl had trained and danced professionally in Kansas City alone. What on earth had she been doing there, hidden away for so long? She should have been shopped out to the coasts years earlier, in her training years. The WCBT would have snapped her up at any time. Alice knew what Anders loved: strong technique and artistry, complexity and a commanding presence, but purity as well, which this Lana had.

Following petit allegro jumps in the center, the group took a thirty-two-count combination across the floor. Alice recognized some of the senior members and noted that both Katrina and Delores from her own days were there. They, like Alice, were in their mid-thirties, and they looked it, all sinew and bones and haggard morning faces. Ballet did not wear well on the female body, particularly for lifelong corps members like Delores, whose body took on double the workload of the principals with a fraction of the glory. The younger girls appeared dewy and fresh in comparison, and none more so than the new girl.

Lana was in the penultimate trio of dancers to go across the floor. She took off with a sauté arabesque and proceeded to dance without reserve, as if her career depended on this very combination, this moment. It was mesmerizing to watch her, so lyrical and clean, yet so powerful. At the end of the combination, however, another dancer stepped the wrong way and crashed into Lana, shattering her concentration. It was surely an accident, but Alice saw a few of the watching females exchange catty grins.

A bolt of recognition shot through her as one of the smirking dancers turned her head and spotted Alice. It was the pretty dark-haired girl who’d been gossiping in the administrative level restroom. For an instant their eyes locked. Alice saw uncertainty come over the girl, once again caught in the act of mocking the new soloist. Then coolness flooded her features. She straightened, raised her brows in a lofty manner and turned her back on Alice.

The message came across loud and clear.

You are a nobody here, on my turf. Only dancers, talented ones, belong here.

The barb hit its mark far better than the girl could have imagined. Alice’s hands balled into fists. What the hell
was
she doing there? Satisfying some whim of Gil’s only to be mocked as some stuffed-shirt administrator, a moose among gazelles?

She wished, not for the first time, she were anywhere but there. An instant later, she decided she was done being there. She turned and left, taking long impatient strides down the hall. She’d make her report to Gil and tell him to leave her the hell out of this loop. She had real work to do.

On her way home from work that evening, she stopped at her favorite mostly-outside-her-budget wine store to buy a premium bottle of wine. Tonight she wanted to celebrate: five months since she and Niles had begun dating. Things were going so well with him, it frightened her. She told herself she’d play it cool around him, not draw attention to the five-month business so much as celebrate the fact that one year ago this week the two of them had met, introduced by their friends, Montserrat and Carter. Theirs had been a cozy, friendly foursome that met regularly for dinners, lively affairs abounding with good food, wine and conversation, which they all enjoyed. Between her and Niles had been simply the warmth of a growing friendship. No sparks, no problem. She’d always succeeded best with friendships like these; serious relationships for her were tricky, messy and ultimately short-lived. And yet, in the end, getting romantically involved with Niles had become one of the best things to happen to her, right there alongside Gil plucking her out of administrative obscurity three years earlier to make her his associate.

Even as friends, she’d loved the way Niles would ponder her thoughtfully, his brown hair, pulled back into a ponytail, lending a rebel air to his otherwise serious, businessman’s demeanor. Very Silicon Valley. His blue-grey eyes, fringed by a smudge of thick lashes, would study her for a long moment before replying. He did this now, as a form of seduction, and it never failed to make the back of her knees grow weak.

She couldn’t get enough of him. Miraculously, he seemed to feel the same, reaching for her the minute they were together behind closed doors. The last time he’d come over to her place, they hadn’t even made it to the bedroom. They’d clung to each other in the entryway, clothing items falling by the wayside until they were naked, supine on the carpeted stairs, limbs intertwined, straining against one another while Odette, her cat, circled warily before coming to rest on a stray article of clothing.

A delicious shiver passed through her. She couldn’t wait to see him tonight. He was coming up for the evening even though his work pressures were heating up, with an important project checkpoint approaching. She told him fine, they’d get right down to business in that case. She visualized greeting him, slipping her hands under his shirt to feel the hot silkiness of his skin, pressing herself along the length of him, her mouth working a trail up his neck.

“Well, hello, Alice Willoughby, whose great-great-grandfather was a Whittier.”

Shaken from her erotic reverie, she looked up to see a pair of pale blue eyes fixed on hers. Andy Redgrave. She couldn’t believe it.

“Hello,” she stuttered. “What a surprise to see you again so soon.”

“Quite the surprise,” he agreed.

She reached up to nervously tuck an errant chestnut strand of hair behind her ear. “Gil and I received the invitations to your party this morning.”

“Good. I was going to ask about that.”

“We’re both looking forward to it.”

“Oh, I imagine your boss is. Another lead for the books.”

This was a man who cut through the bullshit.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she tried.

He smiled, which was a good sign. “I sense it wasn’t the grand coincidence you and he played it out to be, that afternoon at the Ritz. My guess is you two didn’t approach me to settle your bet. But that’s all right, because your credentials passed my test.”

She wondered if “your” meant hers, or hers and Gil’s. A moment later he clarified.

“I must say, if you’d been lying about the great-great-grandfather business you wouldn’t have gotten the invitations.”

Stellar prospect or not, she had her pride. She drew herself taller. “And why would I have been lying to you about such a thing?” she asked in a cooler voice.

“Oh, you’d be surprised at what people will try in order to get and keep my attention.”

“With all due respect, sir, it’s hard to get anything but a generic ‘no thanks’ response through your foundation’s existing channel of submitting proposals. Gil felt more creative measures needed to be taken.”

“Gil’s a live wire,” Andy said.

“He is. He’s also very committed to his work and the accounts he brings in.”

“Well. I imagine he’ll enjoy Saturday’s gathering.”

“I will too. You’ve really got Matthew Nakamura performing?”

“I do indeed.”

“I’m looking forward to that. I’ve met him; he’s a friend of a friend. In fact, I was wondering if she might be performing with him that night.”

“Who is your friend?”

“Montserrat Benes-Fortray. Violinist. She performs in a trio with Matthew from time to time.”

He looked impressed. “Well, you have some talented friends. Yes, she and Jukka Laksonen are accompanying Matthew in his program.”

She was thrilled. “Really? Oh, that’s wonderful
.
Now I’m sure to enjoy myself.”

“Because otherwise it would have been insufferably dull.”

Her face grew hot. “I’m sorry, that came out wrong. It’s just that I’m a classical music buff, so seeing Matthew and Montserrat perform is a big deal.”

“I understand. I’m a classical music person myself.”

Which made sense, given his $1.2 million grant to the San Francisco Symphony.

“Do you attend the symphony?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, season subscriber. I can’t get enough of it.”

“What about the ballet?”

“Oh, that.” She gave a wave of her hand. “I much prefer the symphony.”

His pale eyes assessed her. “You’re trying to persuade me to channel some of my foundation’s funds into an organization you work for but don’t yourself support?”

She felt the faint stirrings of fear. He was a tricky, unreadable man. Even now she couldn’t tell whether he was joking, or whether there was something menacing behind those eyes.

Before she could churn out the appropriate groveling reply, the store manager hurried out from the back office. “Mr. Redgrave, hello! Please forgive me, I was on the phone.”

“It’s no problem,” Andy said.

“I found the wines you were looking for. Shall we go to my office?”

He nodded and turned to Alice. “Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday.”

She gulped. “Mr. Redgrave?” she said in a low voice.

“Please.” A small frown crossed his face. “Andy.”

“Andy. Please forgive me for what I just said. It came out all wrong. I hope you don’t judge Gil and the West Coast Ballet Theatre harshly for my lack of tact.”

He shook his head. “Don’t think anything of it.”

Right.

The manager was waiting for Andy, smiling at Alice in a puzzled fashion. “I’ll see you Saturday,” Andy repeated.

“Great. I look forward to it.” Alice put on her bright, professional smile and nodded.

After he’d left, she stared unseeingly at the array of Cabernet Sauvignon bottles in front of her. Gil would kill her if she’d done anything to jeopardize his new lead. What had she been thinking, in speaking to a billionaire prospect so candidly?

The chime of her phone interrupted her churning thoughts. She glanced at the number and immediately felt better.

“Hello, you,” she said into the phone. “You’ve arrived?”

“I have,” Niles said. “Your couch feels very good. Where are you?”

She visualized him stretched on her couch, his long body relaxing, probably for the first time that day. “I’m just at the wine store, picking up a bottle,” she said.

“It must be heavy. Your voice sounds strained.”

She chuckled and squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh God, it’s been a strange day, just one thing after the other. I’m ready for it to end.”

“Well. The good news is it has.” His voice had a pleasing timbre, still a hint of the London accent he’d never lost in his twenty years in the U.S. “So get yourself right home.”

Relief and a silken sense of peace flowed through her. This was her reality, this friend-turned-lover waiting for her at her home, the place she loved the most. This was what mattered in her life. Not Andy Redgrave, not the new dancer who had Gil so dazzled.

“I’ll be right home to you,” she said, relishing the way “home” and “you” sounded together. “As fast as I can.”

The homesickness hit the hardest in the afternoon. The fact that she had it at all, at twenty-two, was absurd. Homesickness was a given in most dancers’ training, leaving home from age fourteen, sixteen, to pursue the best training possible. The people you danced with, worked alongside daily, became your family, your tribe. Here, Lana was the anomaly; her training had always been local and she’d remained living at home, with family. She was the only professional ballet dancer she knew who’d had such a cloistered upbringing. One who actively participated in her family life, to boot. She was miserably aware of the barrier it seemed to put up between her and her peers, but Mom had always needed the help, and Lana’s siblings were not the type to offer it. There’d never been a question about which came first, her career or her family. That was how the Kessler family worked.