Chapter 16
When I turned on the phone in the morning, I had two missed calls—one from my parents and one from Peter.
I talked to Mom, and I talked to Dad. They were heartbroken for me but relieved for Barysh.
Should I return Peter’s call? Nah … he must have called on impulse. He only tried once and didn’t leave a message. If he really wanted to talk, he would try again.
Mom had never asked about him again. Had she seen him since the time he’d acted weird?
After walking into the bedroom, I reached into a bottom drawer filled with out-of-season clothes. Under it all was the pink envelope with the Kenny Rogers CD and Peter’s note.
“For the road,” I whispered. A Love Song Collection. Should I listen to it? My hand traced my name on the front of the envelope. I shouldn’t…
Should I throw it away? I couldn’t…
I returned the envelope and its contents to the bottom of the drawer.
Last Christmas I’d told Peter that I knew it was time to let Barysh go. Every time anyone said anything about my dog’s health and the need to put him down, I fought it, but Peter knew that I agreed with all of them. My heart simply didn’t have the courage to ask a vet to do it.
Peter had never pressured me to make a decision for Barysh and insisted that if it were really his time, I would have the courage to make the call.
But we’d hoped together that I would never have to get to that point—we’d hoped that death would visit gentle and comforting, like a warm moonlit night bringing quiet peace.
It had, and I wanted to tell Peter that. I smiled through tears, my eyes on the spot where Barysh had closed his eyes for the very last time. I petted his corner of the empty bed.
But it was best not to talk to Peter. I dried my tears. If I had answered the phone when Peter called, he would have expressed the same feelings my parents had expressed, I was sure. It would have been a compassionate but polite conversation about dogs, ending amid awkward silences and adding significant volume to my well of tears.
A well that right now needed a lid, as there was a full day of class and rehearsals ahead for me.
Life went on.
After the last rehearsal I checked my phone. No missed calls.
“Ana, are you in there?” I heard Claus ask from outside the dressing room.
“I’m almost ready.”
“Jovana wants to talk to you.” He peeked in with an eyebrow flash.
Jovana, our ballet mistress, had danced with legends like Fernando Bujones, Alicia Alonso, and Cynthia Gregory, to name a few. She rehearsed the corps de ballet often and taught the company classes most of the time. In the studio, she was very strict, severe even, but she was a sweet lady when there was no marley flooring in sight.
I walked into her office with Claus. The place was simple and tidy. Efficient. My eyes stopped on a Swan Lake photo of her and Bujones.
“I need just Ana,” she said without looking away from her laptop.
He looked surprised but left, closing the door behind him.
“Ana.” She came around her small desk with her arms crossed in front of her and stood next to me.
“Yes, ma’am.” Was I in trouble?
She pushed her glasses into place and ran her fingers through her short black hair. “I can’t wait to see you on stage. There is something about you—an artistic potential I haven’t seen materialize yet but that I know is in you.”
“I can’t wait to be on stage.” I beamed, wondering where she was going with this conversation. Is she about to tell me that I don’t have to audition in the fall? That we can start working on something right away? That I’m in the company?
“There is a problem, though.” She looked down.
Of course, there is a problem. This is my life we are talking about. There is always a problem. I braced for the worst, unable to read the twist of her mouth.
“Did you meet the new girl from Berlin today?” Jovana asked, as if she hadn’t just broken my heart. “She sent a tape last month, showed up, and is now a soloist.”
“I saw her, but I haven’t met her,” I said, relieved that I sounded composed.
“It’s the nature of the business, and you know it. Some people are born with the ideal body type and dance well naturally. Others work hard and become very good but can’t ever compete at the same level. It makes me sad because I like you.” She picked up my hands and spoke as she looked in my eyes. “But you have Claus, and in him, a chance.”
“Claus?” What was she talking about?
“We think he will be a great choreographer one day—we see an incredible potential. But he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to show us anything.”
I nodded in slow motion. Claus was working on choreography, but how did everything connect? I wasn’t understanding it.
“We want you to audition in the fall and perform a ballet, choreographed by Claus, immediately after.” She sat behind the desk again. “You blow us away with his choreography, and you’re in.”
I nodded again, once more in slow motion. Did he already know about this?
“And we place it in the New York program,” she said, as if she’d just said there was tuna salad in the kitchen.
Claus and me dancing at the Met? Together? I covered my mouth to muffle my childish squeals. “Sorry,” I said, as soon as I was able to speak.
“Go.” Jovana laughed, a confident tilt to her jaw. “And don’t disappoint me. I’ll be rooting for you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I found Claus outside with Jack, who waved and walked away when I came out of the theater.
“What happened?” Claus asked, his face scrunched up.
“I’m not sure.” I started laughing and tearing up at the same time. “I’m really not sure if I should be happy or sad.”
“I can see that. But what did she say?”
So he didn’t know about the ultimatum. “Shhh,” I said to quiet Claus and to calm myself. “Let’s sit a minute.” Grabbing his hand, I led him in silence past the statue of Schiller and the muse to a park bench by a large magnolia tree.
I sat, looking at the gorgeous opera house. The evening breeze ruffled the fragrant summer blossoms by the lake. It also ruffled the water and sent a cooling mist from the center fountain over our tired, sweaty bodies.
The lake was crowded with pigeons, and the baby ducks were almost grown now. We never did name them, I realized, with tears in my eyes again. We didn’t linger at the park anymore. We had become like everybody else. I missed the way we were before Prague.
“Ana, what?” Claus asked, startling me.
“Well, she said there is no way I can pass an audition.”
“What?”
“But that I can go ahead and audition, and then dance an original work choreographed by you. If I blow them away with your choreography, then they will let me in the company and put the work on stage in New York at the Met.” I let my jaw drop on purpose to emphasize the insanity of it all. “No pressure on either of us, huh?”
“Wow.” He looked whiter than usual. This was news to him, too, wasn’t it?
“Wow indeed.”
Claus moved closer and put his arm around my shoulders.
“I know you’ve been working on something.” Hopefully, he would volunteer some information.
He didn’t.
“What is it?” I asked. “Is it for me? Is it ready? Is it narrative?”
“It’s for us. It’s almost ready. It is narrative.”
Okay. That’s good. And that it’s a narrative piece is good. If I’m to impress them, I need to tell a story.
“Here’s what I suggest.” He turned to me and held my hands. “I finish the work in the next couple of weeks, and then we go to Mallorca to get away from everyone—and away from the pressure. I will teach it to you there. When we return, we are ready to rehearse.”
“Mallorca?” I put my legs on his lap and my arms around him.
“It’s an island in the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain.”
“I know, but why go to Mallorca?”
“Because I’m German, and that’s what we do.” He laughed. “I’ve been wanting to go for a while now. I was going to look at a couple of different resort options before running it by you.”
“Okay.”
“Good idea?”
“Great idea.” I kissed his shoulder and hugged him tighter. “So what’s the ballet about? What’s the music? Can Luci be my understudy?”
“Let me finish it first.” He caressed my legs over the pink tights. “Are you sure about Luci, though?”
“Yeah. She dances mostly classics, but she always says she’s not much of a tutu girl. She would love to do something more contemporary.”
“That’s taking a big risk. I don’t remember her dancing anything modern.”
“Well, give her a chance.”
“What am I? The patron saint of lost causes?”
“No.” Swinging my legs down and shoving myself off his lap, I watched one of the ducks stick her derriere in the air as she searched for food at the bottom of the lake. “That would be Saint Jude. You’re just a royal jerk.”
“Ana, I didn’t mean it that way. Sorry.”
I walked away fast, but Claus caught up with me. “Listen, I am really nervous about this whole thing. I know I can dance, but I’m not sure I can choreograph.”
“But you said you wanted to.” My feet kept moving toward home fast.
“There is a big difference between wanting to do it and actually doing it—and doing it under this kind of pressure.”
“Then don’t do it, Claus.”
“This is coming out all wrong.” He punched the air. “I’m not able to express what I’m feeling.”
“The understatement of the year,” I said, without slowing my pace.
“Ana.” He grabbed my wrist and forced me to stop.
“Can I please just go home? I need to go through Barysh’s things and figure out what to do.” Sudden tears flooded my eyes and spilled over.
“Come here.”
I shook my head before stalking away, drying my face with the palms of my hands.
He didn’t attempt to speak again until we’d reached the building. “It’s called Praha because I loved our time there and how our relationship changed during that time.” His voice was much calmer, his steady hands opening the elevator for us.
Of course he loved our time in Prague.
“We’ll be dancing to Dvořák’s New World Symphony.”
And then he kissed me, the tenderness of his touch melting my anger and my sorrow.
“The largo,” he said amid slow kisses. “Molto largo.”
His lips stretched against mine, and I smiled too. Praha.
“I really didn’t mean the lost cause comment the way it sounded.” His voice was throaty now. “I’m sorry.”
Walking around him to get to the elevator panel, I closed the flimsy metal door before pushing our button. “I know.”
Once inside the apartment, Claus went straight into the kitchen, and I heard him pop open a bottle of champagne.
Champagne?
He came back with two flutes, and I immediately spotted a marquise-cut diamond ring in the one he handed to me.
“Can’t say I saw this one coming.” Why right now? “Is this a pity proposal for calling me a lost cause?”
“Ana, come on. Yeah, I keep a diamond ring around the house just in case I stick my foot in my mouth.”
“Do you?”
“No. I got it before Prague.”
“And then what?”
“And then I was looking for the right occasion. I was going to give it to you in Mallorca.”
“But decided to use it now, so I can stop thinking about the previous conversation?”
“Decided to use it now because I want you to know how much I love you, and that I love you no matter what, and that I want to be your partner no matter what. Forever.”
Wow. Is this really happening? All of it?
“Ana, will you marry me?” He got down on one knee and held my hand.
Of course I wanted to. Images of our lives together flashed before my mind. The beginning, his return, Romeo and Juliet, him at my old apartment asking me to move in with him, the trips, the loss of Barysh, the dancing … our life.
“Ana?”
Now we would start a new phase. My eyes met his. Surely, he knew I would say yes, right?
“If you need time to think—”
“On one condition,” I interrupted. My eyes riveted on the Paquita picture.
“Condition?” His eyes followed the direction of mine.
“This Paquita picture has to go.”
He filled up his lungs, then exhaled fast. “Okay.” Grinning, he took down the picture of me at seventeen. Claus fished the ring from the champagne and put it on my finger before enveloping me in an embrace.
I listened to his uneven heartbeat and exhaled, enjoying the warmth of his protection. It is really happening—all of it.
And for once in my life, what I had was sufficient.
My parents were thrilled with the engagement and planned to spend Christmas in Germany. Once Mom settled down and stopped crying, her tone changed.
Why did I have a feeling she was going to say something about Peter?
“At least one of you is moving on.” Knew it. “I was at the horticultural center the other day to buy a birthday gift for my friend, Janet, and, if you know anything about plants, you just know the designer was not well—false agaves, bleeding hearts, black pearls…” He’s had my number all this time. “Don’t get me wrong. It was beautiful, but so incredibly sad….” He chose not to use it.