One Last Dance (16 page)

When Henry spoke again, his tone
was flat and distant. “If that’s how you feel—”

“I want you to leave me the fuck
alone. Is that clear enough for you?” Sophie snapped. Her voice was harsh. Her
throat ached with anger, and with the sobs she was holding back. She was done
with Henry Medina.
Done
.

“Crystal. Goodbye, Sophie.” He
hung up. Her hands were shaking so bad it took her three attempts to shove her
phone back into her jeans.

She had no idea how long she
stood out in front of Bistro pretending to stare at the menu. She was pretty
sure her mother called her name multiple times though, because she looked at
Sophie with wrinkled brows and took her arm.

“You ready to have some lunch?”

Actually, Sophie’s stomach had
shriveled to the size of a walnut. Whatever hunger pangs she’d had previously
were totally gone. “Um... mom? I was thinking... Maybe...”

Her mom squeezed her arm. “Not in
the mood for lunch, huh?” Sophie gave her mother a wan smile. That was one of
the good things about home. That was why she came here when she was at her
lowest. Her parents always knew what she needed even when she couldn’t say it
out loud.

“Not really, no.” Her mom patted
her hand and began leading her toward the library and her car.

“That’s alright. We’ll take my
car back home and have us a girl’s night in. Maybe watch Pretty Woman or
something and pop some popcorn. How’s that sound?”

Sophie thought of her night at
Wayne and Darren’s and their discussion about Pretty Woman. The hooker and the
billionaire. Her and Henry. Her stomach tightened even more. “Um, maybe not
Pretty Woman. But the rest sounds nice.” She covered her mom’s hand with her
own and squeezed.

“No,” her mom said, shaking her
head. “I guess you wouldn’t want to watch that one. Sorry, honey, I didn’t
think.”

They had made it as far as the
Bait & Tackle when her mother spoke. Sophie stiffened beside an outdoor
display of fly wheels. “What do you mean?”

Her mother sighed. “Oh, Sophie. I
saw the news. I know we’re backwoods out here, but we have the internet. And,
unfortunately, the tabloids.”

“It’s... I’m not...” Her throat
clogged with tears. She blinked away the sting in her eyes. Rennie reached up
and touched her cheek.

“Of course you’re not. I never
thought it for a single second. Those papers always turn something into
nothing.” She tugged Sophie’s arm, getting her walking again. “Not that I
wouldn’t love you, even if you were, of course.”

“Mom!” Sophie gasped. Her mother
snorted. Sophie bit her lip. “Does... does Dad know?” She’d thought neither of
her parents had any idea what was going on in the City. After all, it’s not
like they cared who some real estate mogul they’d never met was sleeping with,
or what all five boroughs thought of her.

“Your father doesn’t read any of
those trashy papers. And anyone who tried to be mean-spirited and tell him
about it... well, I just strangled them and threw out back of the woodshed.”

“Mom!” She knew her mother wasn’t
serious, but she was still shocked to hear her say it.

“Oh, hush. I’m just messing with
you. I did think about it though, when Delia Maple tried to bring it up while
your dad was buying his lotto tickets. ‘Oh, Jim, I hope you win. Then that
daughter of yours wouldn’t have to worry about money, huh?’” Her mother’s nasal
impression of the bleach blonde old biddy who ran the beauty parlor in town was
pretty spot on.

Sophie actually felt her lips
twitch. “Well, in that case, I’ll go get the shovel.”

“That’s my girl.” Her mother
squeezed her arm in a sort of hug as they maneuvered around a mother pushing a
stroller and trailing a toddler.  “So, am I allowed to ask what’s going on
with this Medina boy? I take it he has something to do with why you’re here.”

“Medina boy,” her mother said.
Just like she’d said “that Riley boy” when Sophie was fourteen and had fallen
head over heels for a boy in her class. Her mother had never referred to him by
his first name, even though Sophie had nursed her crush for years. Come to
think of it, her mother had rarely referred to Christian by name either. Christian
didn’t even get a last name. It was always just “Where is he?” or “Are you
bringing him along?” Maybe she should have taken that as a sign.

“There’s nothing going on, mom. I
was giving him private lessons. We... had a bit of a fling. It’s over now.
That’s all.” Her cheeks burned as she admitted her relationship with Henry. She
and her mother had never really talked about boys. Sophie had always been so
focused on her dance, it hadn’t really been an issue. Even David, aka “that
Riley boy”, had been a crush she’d never acted on.

They’d had the whole birds and
bees talk when Sophie got her first period, and then the whole self-respect,
don’t do anything you’re not comfortable doing talk when Sophie went on her
first date years later. And that was about it. Her mother studied her face with
shrewd eyes.

“You don’t look like that’s all,
sweetheart. Forgive your old mom for being blunt, but you look like this young
man has put your heart through the ringer.”

Tears pricked Sophie’s eyes. This
was the downside to coming home too. She cleared her throat and shook her head.
“No. Not really. It was just a silly fling. He spun my head a little with all
the fancy clothes and cars and stuff, but it’s no big deal. I’m just...
readjusting. Getting my head facing forward again.” She forced her lips to
curve upward.

If only it was that simple. A
turned head. It should be. Henry hadn’t had enough time to really get under her
skin and into her heart. It was a matter of weeks since they’d first met. And
yet... Sophie cut the thought off at the root.

Her mother stopped in the middle
of the sidewalk and turned to face Sophie. She took Sophie’s hands between her
cheeks. “Honey, it’s important to see a thing for what it is, and to let it be
that. There are always going to be a lot of outside influences... people,
society, whatever... all trying to add their two cents. But you have to decide
what’s really what with your own mind and heart. Okay?” She let go of Sophie’s
face, tucked her arm back through Sophie’s and began walking again.

“If this thing with that Medina
boy was just a fling, well... then let it be that. Don’t try and make it
something it’s not. I think a lot of grief in the world gets caused because we
have a tendency to forget how our lives and experiences color our perception,
and correct for whatever distortion that causes.” She shook her head.

Sophie frowned. “I’m not sure I
understand what you mean, Mom.” Rennie smiled as they turned the corner into
the library parking lot. The smell of sausage wafted from the delicatessen next
door.

“Well, like your rear view
mirror. You know how it has the little ‘objects may be closer than they appear’
warning? It’s because when you look in it, it’s not giving you a 100% accurate
view of the world as it is, right? Those things that look far away? They’re
really not.” Her mother raised her brows.

“So, you’re saying I’m making a
big deal out of something I shouldn’t? Her voice trembled.

Her mother snorted, fishing in
her pocket for her keys. “No, sweetheart. I’m saying...” She sighed. “I’m
saying make sure you’re not looking through the rearview mirror and mistaking
how close the oncoming car is.”

“I have no idea what that means.”
She giggled. It bubbled out of her with surprising suddenness. And then she was
laughing. She wasn’t even sure why, and for sure there was an edge of the
hysterical in it, but it was the first real laughter she’d felt since she’d
walked up outside Henry’s building yesterday.

Her mother joined in, shaking her
head. “Yeah, well. Maybe I’m just a crazy old lady. You ready to go home?” The
laughter tapered off and then drained out of her. She felt a little better,
more calm. But still scooped out and hollow like a gourd. Sophie shook her
head.

“I think I’m going to just walk
around for awhile. Look in the mirror, or whatever. I’ll meet you at home in a
bit?” Her mother brushed a kiss on Sophie’s cheek and squeezed her shoulder.

“Of course, sweetheart. Talk all
the time you need.”

Sophie smiled, feeling for the
first time in a day like it wasn’t a painful chore. “Thanks, Mom. I love you.”

“Love you too, snickerdoodle.”
Her mom always had a million and one nicknames for her. Sophie chuckled, waving
as she watched her mom climb into the car and pull away.

She watched for several minutes,
just staring into the distance as the silver Saab got smaller and smaller. She
sighed. Was there something to what her mother had said? Was she seeing
everything in a funhouse mirror?

Her phone buzzed. Slimy snakes
coiled in her belly as she pulled it from her pocket. She really couldn’t deal
with talking to Henry again right now. Or Darren. Or anyone. Sophie wanted to
think. The number on the screen was an unlisted one, but she recognized it from
the earlier call. Carl. He wanted her to hear him out. Well, she would. But not
right now.

Sophie tucked the phone back in
her pocket and headed back to Main Street. She do a little more wandering and
study her mirror. Maybe there was a warning she was missing.

It snuck up on her. She wouldn’t
have thought it could, given how much time she’d spent there as a girl. But
then it hardly resembled the cheerful place she’d come to every week for dance
lessons. Body In Motion had been a sanctuary away from home for Sophie. Now the
glass windows that looked in on the front room, where all the pictures of the
kids in their leotards had hung, were boarded up. The sign was missing almost
all of its letters, leaving only Bo—n—on.

Some delinquent with more daring
than brains had broken the second n. The sign now read Bo—n—or. Sad to think of
her childhood refuge as a crash pad for punks whose idea of humor was
misspelled penis jokes. There was graffiti on the boards too, though it was too
layered to make any of it out. It just looked like random swirls in various
colors.

Compared to the elegant building
of glass and plaster full of classical music and Miss Clara’s firm repetitions
of “
One
, two, three,
one
, two, three,” the place was now a broken
shell.

“We used to be great once, huh
old girl?” Cold sorrow filled her chest. Sophie knew, intellectually, that she
still had a perfectly good life. Great, compared to a lot of people. But she
didn’t feel great. She felt... derelict.

She pressed a hand against the
splintered wood where the front door had been. It too was boarded up. Still,
maybe...

Sophie glanced at the shops to
either side of the boarded up building. To the left was a bar, not yet open. To
the right was a florist. She bit her lip, slipping down the alley on the left
hand side of the old studio. Surely the vandals had figured out a way in. She’d
just take a peak.

Behind the studio was a small
grass lot, the space shared with the florist. The owner of the flower shop was
using part of the area for a small greenhouse, but no one was outside. Sophie
picked carefully through the small bit of refuse, mostly broken boards, near
the back wall of the studio. As she’d suspected, there was a door hidden
beneath the wood propped against the wall. It hung crooked, unable to shut
completely. She tugged hard, and it popped open with a dull thunk.

She entered carefully, not sure
what she might find. It actually wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. It was dusty
and littered with broken glass and cobwebs, but she didn’t see any rats, or
condoms, or paraphernalia of partying kids. The room she’d entered had once been
the office, she thought. There was a discoloration on the grey wall in the
shape of a filing cabinet and another that might have been shelves. She’d never
been in here when she was little.

Only kids that were in trouble
were sent to sit in Miss Clara’s office. Sophie was never in trouble. She had
wanted to be there, loved being there. Time in Miss Clara’s office would have
meant time not dancing.

“And to dance is to be alive,
children,” she echoed softly in Miss Clara’s dreamy sing-song. Her childhood
dance instructor had been something of a cross between a strict disciplinarian
and bohemian philosopher. It was an odd, incongruous combination that had
somehow worked.

Sophie stepped gingerly over some
crumbled plaster as she moved out of the office and into the back classroom.
The big classroom, they’d called it. There were two more small ones up front,
the bathroom, and then the front room with cubbyholes for parent pick-up.
Unlike Sophie’s studio, which catered to people of all ages, almost every class
Miss Clara had been for children. Or teens.

She’d offered one adult level
class every 3 months, and that was it. Usually a beginner course for people who
just wanted to learn the basics. “People get too old, they lose the joy of
movement. They’d rather stay still. I’d rather teach children. They know how to
move. You know what they say... a body at rest...” Newton’s first law was a
favorite thing for her to quote. It’s where the name of the studio had come
from.

Maybe that was her problem. Maybe
she was just too old. Too wounded. Her body wanted to remain at rest.

The mirrors were all gone, of
course, either taken when the place had closed or broken. Sophie had watched
herself for endless hours in their silver surfaces, reveling in the twist and
turn of her body, in seeing the muscles tighten and bulge as she bent and
flexed.

She scuffed a shoe against the
dusty floor. It was still the same, at least, if a little worse for wear. It
was these floors that had made her go with the springy wood for the classrooms
in her studio. She had fond memories of the way it gave beneath her feet, the
sound of her ballet slippers sliding over it. Sophie pictured the room as it
had once been.

It had been a little dark, the
three walls not lined with mirrors a dove grey. She would have put in a
skylight. Or some high windows to let in the sunshine. There were none in the
back classroom, and only small slits in the front ones.

Come to think of it, perhaps that
had influenced her decision to go along with Darren’s suggestion for the enormous
glass window wall that lined the front of her own studio. She took a deep
breath and closed her eyes. She could almost hear the faint strains of Vivaldi,
or maybe Chopin, floating through the big room. Miss Clara had been fond of
both.

Sophie hummed to herself,
stretching her arms up over her head. The way she had felt here! Like she was
discovering a whole new world, this beautiful place of such peace. Ballet had
eventually become tedious to her, which is why she had left the company for
competitions. A lot of dancers thought you only competed if you couldn’t cut it
as a ballerina.

But Sophie had stopped feeling
that peace, the sweet joy that had flowed through her as she danced. She’d
found it again with tango, and spent the next five years in a whirlwind of
joyousness like nothing she’d felt since her first few years here, in this
place.

She flexed her feet, moving up
onto her toes. Not quite on pointe without the shoes, but close enough. She
wasn’t a dancer anymore, after all. Just a broken woman in an abandoned
building. Eyes closed, she moved through several beginner routines, her arms
moving smoothly out to her sides as her feet slid along the floor.

Sophie bent and swayed, humming,
feeling the warmth seep into her muscles. The abandoned studio around her
dissolved away, replaced with the floor polish smell and soft music of Miss
Clara’s big classroom.

The movement of her body grew
quicker. She spun, arms up in a graceful arc. The names all came back to her as
she moved, ron de jambe, eleve, plie, pirouette. Step, step, spin. Her lungs
expanded and contracted. Dust tickled the back of her throat as tingles of
warmth moved along nerve endings.

Here she had felt young and
beautiful and free and full of joy. The ghosts of those things swirled around her
as she executed a soft leap, toe pointed, sweeping her leg. A fine sheen of
sweat broke out on her forehead, between her shoulderblades. The fabric of her
pants tightened around her thighs as she lifted her leg. Developpe.

Sophie’s tendons stretched as she
imagined Miss Clara’s voice in her ear.

“Listen to the music. Let it flow
through you. Ballet is the lyrical expression of human movement, Sophie. You
are
the music. Relax your fingers. Good!”

It had been good. She’d left Body
In Motion every other day after school feeling like she’d been reborn. Back
then, dancing had never failed to put a smile on her face. She felt it now,
hovering around her lips. Her scalp prickled with sweat in the slightly stuffy
room, cheeks flushed with heat. Her chest rose and fell with each deep breath.
The muscles in her thighs and calves tingled and burned.

Not painfully, the sweet burn of
exercise. As just like she remembered, there was the hushed sound of her shoes
sliding over the hardwood floor. Sacred, like the clack of rosary beads.
Rhythmic, like a prayer. Places like this were Sophie’s church.

Inside these walls, there had
been no missed questions on a pop quiz, or teenage fights with her parents. The
bad stuff, the stressful things of everyday life, got tucked into the cubby
hole with her jacket and backpack. She did it now, tucking Christian and Henry
and the media and Nicole and the cancellations all into a cubby in the front
room.

She focused on her feet. Pas de
bourree, pas de chat. Her heart echoed the leap, soaring in her chest. Sophie
landed lightly on the balls of her feet, breath rushing out of her, arms to her
sides.

Phantom clapping, the three,
hard, curt claps that Miss Clara gave at the end of a routine done well, seemed
to echo through the room. Sophie stared at the wall where the mirrors should
be. What did she look like now, she wondered? Wisps of light hair stuck to her
sweaty cheeks and neck, face flushed, panting.

A silly woman in slacks and a
t-shirt dancing in an abandoned studio. Sophie relaxed, breath whooshing out of
her, and dropped her arms. There was no going back. Only forward. Or standing
still. And she knew what Miss Clara would say about that.

“A body at rest...” she murmured
into the stillness of the dusty room. She palmed sweat from her forehead and
picked her way gingerly back toward the rear door. However full of joy her past
was, she wasn’t going to be one of those people who wallowed there. She was no
Miss Havisham, wandering around in her old wedding dress. She wouldn’t be
bitter.

That’s what this trip was about,
wasn’t it? Putting all the craziness of the last few weeks behind her. Moving
on. “A body in motion tends to stay in motion,” she quoted Newton, via Miss
Clara. And Sophie intended to keep moving.

The air smelled fresh after the
close confines of the old studio. Sophie took a deep breath, tilting her face
up to the sky and briefly enjoying the warmth of the sun on his skin. She
shoved the door back into place, leaning hard against it to pop the crooked
hinge. She covered it with the leaning wood again, and brushed her hands free
of dust.

The rasp of a lighter’s ignition
wheel made her jump a little. She turned toward the small patch of back lawn
behind the florist. A woman stood there, her back to Sophie, dark hair tied up
in a messy bun. She wore a green apron tied around her waist, and puffed on one
of those tiny, slim cigarettes that were marketed just to women.

“Excuse me?” Sophie asked,
stepping further away from the back of the decrepit building. The woman turned
slowly, puffing on her smoke. Her face was lined, she was older than Sophie had
first thought, but she smiled kindly enough.

“Well, you don’t look old enough
to be one of the ruffian’s mothers. Sister?”

Sophie stared at the older woman
for a moment, uncomprehending. Then she shook her head and smiled. “Oh. No. I’m
not looking for anyone. I was just wondering... I used to come here as a kid,
you see. Do you know what happened to it? I mean... the woman who owned it...”
She bit her lip, suddenly not sure if she wanted to know what had happened to
Miss Clara.

“The lady who owned it retired
down to Florida. Still there as far as I know, but the kids are in charge of
her assets. They just let the place sit.” She shrugged, sucking on her
cigarette.

“I didn’t realize Miss Clara had
any kids.” But then, she’d been young and awfully absorbed in her dancing.

“Don’t think the relationship is
real close. At least, that’s the impression I get.” She picked a flake of
tobacco off her tongue. “But hey, if you’re interested in the place, I can get
you in touch with them.”

“Oh, I
—
”

“I’d move fast if I were you. I
know it doesn’t look like much, but you’re the second person to come look at it
in the last few weeks. I guess the market’s heating up. I’ve got that contact
info back in the shop if you want it.” She jerked her head back toward the
florist.

Sophie swallowed her protest.
Maybe this was her way forward? Here, at home? “Someone else was looking at
it?”

The lady nodded, waving her hand
and drawing elaborate figures in the smoke that wafted up from her cigarette.
“Yeah. She was an odd duck, I’ll tell you. She wanted to know the building’s
whole history. Asked if there were any records left, photos, that kind of
thing. Then she wanted to know how long I’d lived here. When I told her it was
only the last couple of years, she said she needed someone who’d lived here for
at least twenty years. Someone who could tell her about one of the students.
Guess someone famous went here once?”

Sophie opened her mouth, but her
voice caught in her chest. She tried again, clearing her throat first. A knot
of suspicion began to tighten in her stomach. Whoever had been poking around
here had been asking about her. Twenty years ago was when she’d been here. And
while she wouldn’t call herself famous, she was well known in the dance world.
Had a reporter come sneaking around, drawn here by the stories about her and
Henry? Or worse…

“What’d she look like? The woman
who was interested in the place?”

“Tall, leggy, blonde. Fancy
clothes. Way too fancy for poking around abandoned buildings. Ice blue eyes.
She had the narrowest nose I’ve ever seen. I’d bet a million dollars she had
work done on it. Why? She from a rival company or something?”

Sophie swallowed, hard. She knew
a tall, leggy blonde with ice blue eyes and a too narrow nose. One who’d
recently had more information about Sophie’s past than she should have. Bile
burned in the back of her throat.

“Something like that.”

“Well, she took the contact info.
You want me to get it for you?” The woman dropped her cigarette and ground it
beneath her sneaker, raising her brows. Sophie shook her head.

“No, thanks. I’ve got everything
I need. You have a nice day, now.”

She spun on her heel and stalked
through the narrow alley, digging in her pants for her cell phone. She needed
some answers, but she wasn’t about to call Henry again. Not after their last
disastrous conversation. Still, there was someone she could call who seemed
intent on getting involved in this whole mess. Her fingers jabbed at her cell
harshly. Carl answered on the second ring.