Page 101 of The Perfect Mistake

Isabel

He’s gone when I wake up. The comforter is tangled around me, like I’ve been turning and twisting in my sleep, and my head feels heavy. He’d stayed long enough, though. He’d been here when I fell asleep.

The events of last night return in a painful realization. Antoine. The drinks. The proposition. I turn over and bury my face in the pillow.

Gone.

That life is gone.

I failed at the dream I’ve always had.

For so many years, the prevailing wisdom was always just work harder. And I’ve just worked harder so many times. Earlier mornings, longer training sessions, rigorous stretching hours. But I’ve seen this injury take out dancers before. There’s no just work harder with recovery or healing.

You have other identities, Alec had said.

Well, I don’t know if I want to make “nanny” a full-time one. The kids are lovely. I’m enjoying myself, working here, living here… more than I suspected I would. But it’s hard to imagine myself doing it all over again for a different family when this runs its course.

I knew retirement was coming. It’s always coming for a professional dancer, and it never comes when they’re ready.

I just never thought it would be at twenty-five.

Dragging myself out of bed, I head into the shower. Alec has already roused the kids, and the warm scent of breakfast wafts from the kitchen. I start packing their backpacks and listen to Sam recounting the dream he had.

The rest of the morning goes by in the same domestic chaos: packing homework and lunch boxes, herding stray hats and shoes, and an endless chatter in the car to St. Regis’s. Mac and I drop them off, both waving, and watch them race up the steps of the school.

We get back in the car in companionable silence. He pulls the Bentley out into morning traffic, heading back to the apartment. I look out the window at the now familiar stoops. We drive this way every morning. Brick houses, tree-lined streets.

“You know, I wasn’t always a driver,” Mac says.

I look at him in surprise. But he’s staring at the road, shoulders relaxed.

“Oh? What did you do before?”

“I served time, actually.” He says this casually and merges into the right lane with a glance over his shoulder. “Got twelve years, served eight for good behavior.”

My mind has gone entirely blank. I don’t know what to say, how to respond to any of it.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

That makes him chuckle warmly. “Don’t be. It taught me a lot. Want to know what I did to serve time? Most people do. It’s their first question.”

I swallow. “Yeah. If you want to tell me.”

“I’m not from New York,” he says. “No, I’m from Boston. My dad worked with cars. Ran his own car shop. I loved it. Every moment I wasn’t in school, and there were plenty, I was in that shop. Tinkering with the engines and polishing the hoods. Dropped out of high school the minute I thought I’d learned everything I would ever need to know, which goes to show how mature I was at sixteen. My neighborhood was rough. Dad was pretty absent, and he wasn’t that good to begin with. But cars…” He shakes his head, reverence in his voice. “I loved them as much then as I do now. I planned to take over the auto shop. Thought I deserved it.

“But,” he continues and looks at me in the rearview mirror, “I wanted to live the high life first. Drive the fastest cars, the sexiest cars. Race them. Doing that quickly gets you into bad company. I wanted it all, though. Didn’t take long until I started committing grand theft auto with a few buddies. Boosted cars, raced them, then flipped them for profit. Porsches, Bugattis… it ran like a fine-tuned machine.”

“I didn’t know any of this,” I say carefully. “How old were you when…?”

“When I got caught? Twenty-seven. My girlfriend at the time was pregnant, and I wanted to make just a bit more money for us. But shit went sideways.” He shakes his head, and his tone turns somber with regret. “There wasn’t supposed to have been a security guard there, but there was. Things got violent. He survived, but only barely. I was terrified. Of what would happen and of what we’d done. The cops knocked on my door three days later.

“I pleaded guilty. Served my time… got out. It took years of work just to get to meet my son. He was eleven the first time I got to see him.” Mac’s voice inflects with pride. “He’s twenty-two now, living down in DC with his mom and going to community college. I go to see him every break I have.”

“What’s his name?” I ask.

“Jeremiah. Sarah named him all on her own, but I think she did a pretty good job.”

“I'm glad you got a second chance,” I say.

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