NICK
BEFORE
The dance studio is located in an old furniture factory in the town next to ours. It’s a three-story redbrick building that lines the railroad tracks. It’s been refurbished and flaunts all those exposed beams and ductwork that people want these days. The floors are a dark wood, the office spaces bound by glass. The upper floor of the building is loft apartments, but down below are a photographer’s studio, a home decorator, attorneys, dentists and more. And a dance studio, of course. I can’t help but wonder what the lease payment is on a place like this, though I also wonder how much traffic comes and goes through. The building is off the beaten path; without a devoted client base, there’s no chance in the world of ever being found.
The whole way to ballet, for fifteen miles and nearly thirty minutes, I stared in my rearview mirror, searching for signs of Theo and his Beemer. Nearly every black car I saw scared the daylights out of me, as I was half sure it was Theo coming to get even with Maisie and me in case we weren’t already even. I’m not the only one who’s scared. In the back seat, Maisie sits with her eyes pinned to glass, quiet like Maisie is never quiet. She holds tightly to my hand as we walk inside, peering over her shoulder. I can feel my eye start to swell, a shiner taking form.
Inside the building, in the common space, there are signs posted—No tap shoes in the hall—and yet a group of girls scurry down the corridor, tapping their toes and giggling. As we walk down the hallway, Maisie becomes giddy with anticipation, forgetting about Theo as she skips along.
The other mothers eye me as I step inside the lobby of the dance studio, looking me up and down before they smile. They say a soft hello to Maisie as I help her into her ballet slippers, and she disappears with her friends behind a closed door, where I stand and watch through a pane of glass as the teacher, a pretty woman no more than twenty-one or twenty-two years old, leads the ten girls and one boy through their ballet positions. The women make small talk while we wait, asking me how Clara is feeling and whether or not the baby has arrived. I pull up photos on my phone, and they pass it around, oohing and aahing as they gaze at my boy. “He looks just like you,” says one of the women, and another says that he’s a cutie-pie.
As I stand and watch the ballet class, I feel the week start to weigh heavily on me. I’m tired, and yet I have no good reason to complain. Clara is the one who has tackled all those late night feedings while I’ve tried to keep her company—tried and failed. But still, I’m tired. I find a couple of quarters in the pocket of my jeans and step toward a vending machine, pressing in the code for a Mountain Dew. I’m not one to drink soda—I know exactly what all those sugar byproducts do to the teeth—but right now, a jolt of caffeine is just what I need. I watch as the plastic bottle falls down into the chute, twist the cap off and quaff half the bottle in a single gulp, sliding the cap into my pocket beside Gus’s abandoned green army man that I picked up the other day. There’s also a couple Halcion pills stuffed in there, which I plan to flush just as soon as I get home. That’s something I no longer want or need.
I wonder when I will find out if Gus is my son.
It’s a sinking feeling, knowing that if he is I’ll have to confess to Clara about it. I’ll have to come clean. I didn’t do anything wrong—I didn’t even know Clara twelve years ago—and yet this little boy will change the future of our marriage together. There will always be a reminder that before Clara, I’d been with another woman. Clara wasn’t the only one.
For the last five minutes of ballet, we’re allowed inside the classroom so we can watch the kids perform. The mothers and I line up against a mirrored wall as our children begin to twirl gracelessly to the sound of a Disney soundtrack. I can’t take my eyes off Maisie, the awkward and yet adorable way her spindly arms rise up above her head, the way her knees buckle as she bends down to plié, the torn knee of her tights reminding me of Theo, though I try to push his face from my mind and to focus on Maisie and only Maisie. She smiles at me, feeling like a princess, like all eyes are on her and none of the other children. It’s spellbinding; I’m hypnotized by my little girl as she peers behind me to see her own reflection in the studio mirror. She waves, and the little figure in the mirror waves back. The other mothers take notice and smile. I pull my phone from my pocket and take a video, thinking how I will show this to Clara when I get home, and then I silently thank Felix for his fussiness this afternoon, knowing that if it hadn’t been for Felix and his ravenous appetite, I would have missed out on this moment of my life. Watching Maisie dance.
Back in the lobby, I tell Maisie to sit so I can help her with her shoes. “Miss Becca says we’re going to have a recital,” she’s telling me as I remove the slippers and force her foot into the pink sandal. “She says we get to dance on a big, big stage and wear a pretty dress.”
“Oh, yeah?” I ask, and Maisie says, “Yeah.” I ask when, but all she does is shrug. She says she’s hoping for a pink dress. Pink or purple or bright blue. With sequins and a fluffy tutu.
My stomach grumbles, and Maisie’s stomach grumbles, and I realize then that it’s nearly five o’clock. Traffic will be a mess on the way home. “I’m hungry, Daddy,” says Maisie, and I say to her, “Me, too.”
I call Clara for a quick check-in before Maisie and I leave. She answers on the second ring.
“Hey,” I say to her, and she replies, “Hey yourself,” though the words are hushed and hard to hear, a forced whisper, and I know right away that Felix is sleeping.
“How’s everything going?” I ask, picturing her and Felix at home, on the sofa, watching TV, Felix in her arms or on the floor, maybe, swaddled in a baby blanket.
“Just fine,” she says, and I hear that overwhelming fatigue in her voice, so tangible, like she could close her eyes right now and drift off to sleep.
“Is Felix asleep?”
“Yup,” Clara says, and I do the math in my head, easily suspecting that if Felix is asleep now, he’ll be up half the night, and therefore Clara will be, too.
“Maybe you should wake him,” I suggest, as twin ballerinas wave goodbye to Maisie and drift through the glass door. The room is loud and crowded, so many mothers trying hard to force shoes onto their ballerinas’ feet, nobody wanting to go.
“And how should I do that?” Clara asks.
Her words are snappy, and yet I know she doesn’t mean for them to be. I don’t take it personally. Clara is tired. In the last four days, she’s barely slept, and she’s still recovering from the pain and ordeal of childbirth. I don’t have the first clue what that must feel like.
“I don’t know,” I concede, as I force the second of Maisie’s sandals onto her feet, and whisper to her, “Let’s go potty before we leave.”
“But, Daddy,” whines Maisie, as expected. Maisie never ever wants to use the bathroom, not until it’s an absolute emergency or she’s already had an accident. “I don’t have to go potty.”
“You need to try,” I say as I help her to her feet and watch as she disappears behind the ladies’ room door. “Should I pick up something for dinner?” I ask Clara as again my stomach rumbles. I could make something at home, hamburgers on the grill again, but with traffic, I’m guessing it will be six o’clock before I make it there, nearly seven o’clock before we eat. From the other end of the phone, there’s no response, and I envision Clara on the couch with Felix in her arms, eyes drifting off to sleep. “Clara,” I say, deciding for her, “I’ll pick up something for dinner. Maisie and I will be home soon. And then you can rest,” I say as Maisie arrives through the heavy bathroom door, and I grasp her by the hand to leave. Tonight, just as soon as I get home, I’ll take Felix from Clara’s arms and tell her to lie down for a while, to get some sleep. She won’t be able to keep up this pace much longer if she doesn’t get some sleep soon. “Chinese or Mexican?” I ask as Maisie and I head off, hand in hand, through the concourse of the old furniture factory.
Clara says Chinese.