By Wednesday, Aurora had pushed the sketches from her mind. The academy added two more sessions to her week, and she felt pressured with paperwork, lists, and keeping track of her schedule and payments, the day-to-day minutia that had nothing to do with dance.
But when Samuel entered her room, she paused, feeling his searing gaze. He held the sketchbook, and her eyes dropped to it involuntarily. He noticed, and his fingers tightened. Then he recovered and helped his daughter out of her sweater.
The girls poured into the room, bouncing with energy that would need to be channeled. Aurora spun away and turned on the music to start the lesson.
Her belly buzzed with energy. Being near him brought out a lightness, an urge to be better, to shine.
She searched the mirror for him constantly. His dark hair flopped over his forehead as he sketched. His skin was honeyed from the warm light bouncing off the floor. She wondered what he drew, how she looked, what he thought as each curve of her appeared on his page. The thought of posing naked for him flitted through her mind and she had to shake it away or lose her concentration entirely.
By the time the girls formed their huddle at the end of class, her whole body thrummed with energy and need. She wanted Samuel to stay behind. She wanted to talk to him, delay him, make him stand beside her just for a minute.
When he stood to go, she pinned him with her gaze. She willed him not to leave. He dallied, or at least it seemed so to her, as the other mothers were almost gone by the time he managed to get Cassandra’s arms through the sleeves of her sweater.
But when he bent to take Cassandra’s hand and leave, Aurora could not bear it. “Wait!” she said.
God, she’d done it now.
Samuel looked up.
Now what?
Cassandra paused, looking back and forth from Aurora to Samuel. “Can we help Miss Aury pick up again?” she asked.
Aurora’s heart thumped against her chest. Saved by the child.
“I have all these mats to move,” she said.
Samuel set his sketchbook on the bench and headed to the far end of the mat. Together they separated the sections and folded them up in one corner.
Cassandra ran in exuberant circles around the studio, excited to have the room to herself. Aurora and Samuel laid the last mat on the stack and paused to watched the little girl zoom across the floor, arms outstretched like a bird in flight.
“She seems happier today,” Aurora said.
She felt Samuel stiffen beside her.
Shit. Shit. Shit. She hadn’t meant to bring up anything negative.
“I mean, she’s always a delightful girl,” she added with a rush.
“I know what you’re saying,” Samuel said quietly. “She has had a hard year.”
Before Aurora’s brain could catch up with her mouth, she blurted out the question, “What happened to her mother?”
Samuel brushed his hair away from his forehead. His face was somber. He was beautiful in a tender, haunting way.
“She divorced me,” he said. “We haven’t seen her in a year.”
Aurora’s breath hitched. The words were almost visible in the air, dark and heavy.
Cassandra ran across the room with grand, sweeping leaps. Since there was nothing else to say, Aurora commented, “We should work on her Grand Jeté.”
“What is that?” he asked.
Instead of answering, she showed him. With a few preparatory steps, she leaped through the air, her arms high in fifth position, one leg extended out front, the other behind.
Hers was imperfect, she knew, but of all the ballet moves, it was one of the most freeing. Aurora always felt, as she reached the apex of the jump, just before she came down again, as though she were flying.
“Wow!” Cassandra said. “Me too!” She held her arms high, taking more running jumps.
“Legs high,” Aurora said. “Think up as you jump, not out.”
Cassandra ran and leaped and ran and leaped. Aurora caught up with her, and for a few miraculous seconds, they moved in tandem.
Cassandra stopped jumping and collapsed to the floor, breathing fast. “That’s hard!” she said.
“It takes a lot of practice,” Aurora said. She glanced into the mirror to find Samuel.
His eyes met hers in the reflection, and the longing there snatched the air from her lungs.
Nobody looked at her like that. Nobody.
She whirled around so that she could face them. The movement felt good, so she kept going, turning in circles as she moved closer, whirl after dizzying whirl, until she crossed the distance across the studio and halted next to him.
He reached out to grab her as if she might fall.
Aurora laughed. “I don’t get dizzy,” she said.
But this was a lie, because his hand had encircled her arm, and now everything really was spinning. She felt uncertain about the ground beneath her feet. He wanted her. He had been pining all this time. Drawing her.
“Can I see you later?” she asked before she could chicken out.
His body stiffened.
God, too forward. He was shy. She could see that.
What would he do now?