The Firefighter and the Virgin Princess (10 page)

* * * *

So it was over. She might have known he
would get pushy and start grabbing at her. The imprint of his
fingers still ached around her arm where he'd held on to her. Did
the man not know his own strength?

It was rather arousing actually, made her
sorry she already put her boots on at that point.

But however much she liked having sex with
him, it was over. Short and sweet. Just an experiment, nothing
more.

What if a condom broke and she ended up like
Pregnant Carrie?

A drooling baby? No way.

But Joe Rossini was the type who would want
children and lots of them. He'd make a good father, she thought.
For someone else's brats.

Even worse than a pregnancy— what if
something happened to him in a fire, she thought with a shudder.
She couldn't handle it. He was so full of life and vitality, but
look at what he did for a living! Like he'd said, you never knew
what might happen. Of course, the way he said it was breezy, trying
to make her agree they should throw themselves into a nonsensical
romantic relationship. But she didn't feel very breezy when she
thought about what he did. It was fine to eye up a hunky fireman
from a distance, but thinking about the danger he put himself
in—the reality of running into a burning building when everyone
else was running out...

What sort of man would do that? Someone
brave. Someone crazy. Someone who didn't know fear or
uncertainty.

Lily couldn't risk falling for him and then
standing at his grave one day when he left her. Everyone left her.
She was better off alone.

Ignoring the sudden twinge of bitter sadness
in her heart, she quickened her steps, passing through the doors of
the NYBT rehearsal studios, almost colliding with a cluster of
young dancers heading out. They barely saw her. She watched them
leap out into the street, laughing and chatting. Anyone seeing them
must know they were dancers. They had that graceful poise in
everything they did and they couldn't walk down a sidewalk without
practicing a jete, or wait at a bus stop without trying a few pique
turns. She was like that once too.

A fire truck went by as she stood there
watching through the glass doors. Her heartbeat tripped and
faltered.

Oh, Joe, I'm
sorry
. He was a good guy. He deserved
someone who could give him everything she had to give. Lily was
certain she couldn't keep him happy for long. It would be
disastrous, and he'd end up hating her because she couldn't give
him her sole attention.

But thanks to him she had taken a few steps
that got her out of a rut. Now she was dancing again the way she
knew she could. Her body was refreshed.

She owed him a thank you, at least. Her
grandmother might not approve of all that rough sex, but she would
approve of a thank you. Thank you notes and showing one's
appreciation when appropriate were very big on the list of
important things her grandmother had taught her.

The next day she called his number, but it
went to voice mail and she hung up, losing her gumption. Lily hated
recorded messages, never knew what to say and ended up sounding
like a socially awkward idiot. Which she probably was,
actually.

She'd have to think of some other way to
communicate her appreciation for what he'd done. Something more
imaginative and special than a silly, garbled phone message.

Chapter Seven

When he arrived at the firehouse for his
next shift, something was waiting for him.

"Hey, Joe, this came for you. It ain't
ticking so I guess you can open it."

He caught the small package as it was
casually tossed over to him. Didn't recognize the writing. No
return address and the front merely had his name and shift written
on it, so it must have been hand-delivered.

A pair of thick, waterproof gloves fell out
of the wrapping and with it a small card, which he luckily grabbed
before anyone else could and slipped it into his pants pocket.

The gloves fit perfectly and they were warm.
Just what he needed, since he'd lost his other pair. She must have
remembered that.

No girl had ever bought
Joe such a thoughtful gift. Donna had bought him fancy cologne and
silk ties that he didn't really wear— but she picked them out
because
she
liked
them. She'd never given him anything he really needed or wanted.
Nothing practical.

"What's that dumb look on your face,
Rossini?" one of the men shouted. "You look like you just got
goosed."

He shrugged sheepishly and tucked his gloves
away out of sight. No point letting his imagination run away with
him. It was just gloves for Christ's sake.

Play it cool, Joe. If she wants you, let her
call.

Why didn't she just call?

He had too much pride to stand outside the
theater waiting for her again.

Later he read the note card.

Thank you for everything.

Best wishes,

Lily
Keene
.

Best wishes? Trust the Princess to be so
fucking polite while breaking up with him, he mused.

Still, how could she break up with him
since, in her mind, they hadn't even started a proper
relationship?

* * * *

She tried not to think about Joe, but he
kept creeping in at the oddest times— during the dull routine of
barre work in class, while taping her hurting toes, while standing
in the wings poised for her entrance. Whenever she heard a siren in
the street.

One day in class the smoke detectors started
going off. Someone called the fire department, but she didn't see
Joe. Must not be his shift.

She almost expected to see him outside the
theater again one night, but he didn't come. The weather was bad,
so she couldn't blame him. At least he had gloves now to keep his
hands warm. His lovely, strong, firm hands, that she could not
trust herself to feel again.

The casting for Sleeping Beauty was posted
two days later. Lily was dancing the Lilac Fairy, and Stacey
Glasson was out. She took all the hollow congratulations fluttering
through the air around her and smiled a little. Yes, it felt good
to be appreciated at last, her hard work and skill recognized.

But she was sorry that Stacey's troubles
could be so quickly swept aside. That was ballet, of course. If
someone slipped there was always another dancer standing ready to
take their place. That was the way roles were lost and snatched up.
Even the very talented, the exceptional ones, often got their first
big chance because someone else wasn't fit enough, someone else had
fallen. Like the ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall.

"You've been dancing strong," one of the
dancers told her. "You deserve this, Lily."

But like Peter had said recently, they were
all talented dancers to have got this far, they all worked hard.
Was any one of them more deserving than another? It was all about
luck. A moment of chance that got a dancer noticed. A higher leg, a
faster spin, a better turnout.

For some reason, after all her struggles,
now that she had the role she'd wanted for two seasons the sense of
accomplishment was not as great as she'd imagined it would be. She
still wasn't safe from the heel snappers— those waiting for her to
fail. And she realized she never would be. There was no lasting
victory. Not anything that continued beyond the glory of a curtain
call.

Then, once the applause had faded, she was
alone again and fair game.

There wasn't much joy in success when she
had no one to share it with. No one who genuinely cared about
her.

* * * *

Riding the Staten Island ferry one day he
ran into Donna. He supposed it was inevitable that he'd see her
again, sooner or later.

"How ya been, Joe?" she said, holding her
windblown hair back with one hand.

"Doing good. How about you?"

"Great. Busy, ya know. With Christmas coming
and everything."

"Yeah." He looked out over the water toward
the Manhattan skyline. "Busy." Everyone was fucking busy doing
their own thing in that city. Some people couldn't even slow down
to hold a hand when it was offered.

"I been thinking about you, Joe. About us."
Her voice pummeled his face like the chill wind. "Maybe we can go
out sometime. Get a bite to eat. Talk things over. Sherri said
you're not seeing anyone."

He looked at her, puzzled. "Why would we do
that, Donna? We already talked."

"For old time's sake. Maybe we can start
again. You've had time to think about stuff now, right?"

"What stuff?" He knew damn well that she
hadn't changed. The same old Donna would be pushing for an
engagement ring the moment he started seeing her again. "What
happened? You broke up with your new boyfriend already? Now you're
lonely, bored?"

She turned red. "Sherri told you about him,
huh? Eh, that was nothin'. I was on the rebound. Maybe...I don't
know...maybe I was trying to make you jealous."

Joe leaned against the rail. "You should
take some time to be alone, Donna. You don't have to be hooked up
with some guy, all the time. Go out and do things for yourself.
Learn who you are and what you really want out of life before you
get into another relationship."

Her thickly clumped eyelashes blinked hard,
but she couldn't squeeze out the tears that she evidently wanted.
"I know what I want. I'm twenty-seven. I wanna have babies, Joe. I
wanna get married and go to Cabo for a honeymoon and —"

"Twenty-seven is young, Donna. You've got
years ahead of you."

"My friends are all getting married and
having kids," she exclaimed, sullen. "It's what you and me were
supposed to do."

Yeah, nobody likes to be alone, he mused.
Except Lily. She was so afraid of living and falling in love that
she pushed him away and stayed in her lonely world. She thought he
couldn't understand her life and she didn't want to give him the
chance to try. But since when did Joe Rossini need some woman's
permission to do what he wanted?

"Joe? Are you even listening to me?"

He bounced on his heels to get some feeling
back in his icy feet and blew out a misty breath. "Sure, I'm
listening. You wanna get married and have kids. But I can't help
you with that."

"Why not, Joe? We're meant to be together, I
know it. Everyone knows it. No one can believe we broke up."

"Thing is, Donna, it's not always about
going with what's easy or what other people think you should do.
It's about what's in your heart, what feels right for you. Then
everything else falls into place."

She pouted. Oh, he remembered that
expression. Yeah, she hadn't changed.

"I don't even want kids right now," he
added, as gently as he could. "Maybe in a few years, but not yet. I
don't know about that, and I ain't gonna pretend." He'd been
thinking about the young fireman who died in Buffalo. It wasn't the
first, or the last time, that one of the brotherhood left behind
little kids and a grieving widow. "I used to wanna be just like my
brother, Mike, but as time goes by I see how his life is. And it
ain't all roses. Sure it looks great from the outside...a lot of
things look real pretty from the outside...but maybe marriage and
kids ain't everything it's cracked up to be. Even if it is, I wanna
find that out for myself, make that decision for me. I gotta be
sure. Not because some girl thinks it's time I settled down."

"
Some girl
?" Her hands went to her
hips, and she tapped her foot. Another gesture he remembered. "I
thought I was more than that to you, at least."

Joe laughed softly. "Hey, I'm sorry, Donna.
I can't say it with fancy words. You know how I am. Whatcha see is
whatcha get. I'm just a regular Joe. All the designer silk ties and
cologne ain't gonna change that, and you should know."

Her scowl deepened. "Is there someone
else?"

"What?" He scratched the back of his
neck.

"You're different, Joe. I
can tell. Sherri says you disappear sometimes and don't even answer
your brother's texts for hours. Whatever you say, you're not the
same
Regular Joe."

Again he looked away over the gray water, to
where thin spikes of sharp winter sun hit the glass of skyscrapers
in the distance. Maybe he had changed a little. He'd been thinking
a lot about his life and what he really wanted lately, more so than
usual.

Unfortunately, she didn't want him.

"There ain't nobody, Donna." It wasn't
exactly a lie, was it? Lily didn't want to be his anybody, just his
fuck buddy.

"Then let's go out for a beer. It doesn't
have to be serious. It's just a beer."

"We both know you want more than a beer,
Donna. You gotta go out and find something new for yourself. Take
it from me, there's a big world out there with a lot of men who
would be better for you than me. They'd give you what you want and
make you happy. I can't do that." He pointed at the skyline. "Look
out there, Donna. Know how many guys there are in those buildings,
looking for a girl like you? You gotta widen your horizons.
Sometimes we gotta get off Staten Island. Try something different.
Take a chance and don't be afraid to fall on your face, 'cos you
might find something real special."

"You sound like fucking Dr. Phil," she
exclaimed.

He laughed. "Yeah."

"So who the fuck is she?"

Joe couldn't lie. Never could. "You wouldn't
know her. She lives in another world. And she ain't mine
anyway."

"What is she...married?"

He gave a snort, leaning on the railing with
both arms. "Yeah, she's married." Married to dance, he mused
bitterly.