Page 3 of The Unraveling

“Oh, I’ve heard of this place! Let’s go in here,” I say. “I’ve been dying to go.”

It’s true, but I’m also feeling the heat rise in my cheeks as their questions threaten truths and feelings to rise up and take me over, and a cabaret is exactly the sort of distraction that can save me.

I’m absolutely right. As soon as we step through the doors of Josephine’s, we are taken away to the rich, decadent world of America’s Jazz Age. My vintage fur coat and beaded Oscar de la Renta dress are perfectly in theme, and I wish—for not the first time lately—that I really could travel in time.

My mind starts to wander and I desperately regain control of it. We need drinks. Stat. I still have a headache from last night’s cocktails, but I don’t care. I just need to feel less.

Jordan leans toward me. “You okay? We can always go back to our place.”

“I’m fine,” I say, with the biting tone I can’t seem to leave out of my voice lately. I smile to lessen the impact, but I don’t feel like it works. He gives me an affectionate squeeze anyway.

“What would you like?” asks Jordan, impervious.

“Something strong. Sazerac.”

He hesitates, but he never tells me what to do, so he orders one for me. I notice he gets it made with the highest-quality whiskey they sell, trying to save me from tomorrow’s hangover.

And then I hear my name. “Jocelyn?”

I turn to see the source, suddenly remembering with blistering clarity how I had heard of this club.

“David,” I say, with an impossibly warm smile, masking the fact that I could not be less excited to see him.

“Oh my god, you look absolutely gorgeous,” he says, coming to me and putting an arm around me. “I love how you look so good with some weight on you. I can never pull off having extra pounds on me.”

Christ.

I have to admit that David, though a total bitch, is a strikingly beautiful dancer. I know him from my old company in New York, North American Ballet. He and I have never been particularly close. He’s a gossip who loves good drama and gravitates toward it, bailing on anyone the second they might need him. I don’t need friends like that.

I shouldn’t be surprised to see David here in London. I did see when we were looking up which Nutcracker show to watch that he was guesting for the season. He’s English, and they love having him back here. I purposely avoided his Nutcracker show, but I have terrible fucking luck.

“I took some time off,” I say, accepting my drink from Jordan and letting the plume of absinthe in the glass rise and sting my nostrils as I sip.

“Well, girl, you definitely look better with tits.”

I want to be clever, but instead, I am struck silent and uncreative as I wince a nasty smile at him and roll my eyes. He’s unfazed and turns to Jordan.

“Is this Jordan?” he gushes, holding out his hand. “I think we may have crossed paths once or twice. You’re the artist Jocelyn left her hard-won career for?”

There’s something about the way he asks this question like he and I were ever close. Jordan is an artist, an extraordinary painter, who has managed to catch global attention lately. As Artie said in his most recent write-up on him for the Guardian, “Despite the maddening crowd’s constant insistence that things like paintings are dying at the altar of modernity, Jordan Morales manages to keep our attention.”

But there’s also something about the way David says artist that makes it sound like he’s saying, You’re the guy with the fingerpaints, right?

“Nice to meet you, David.” Jordan never takes the bait. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

They hold each other’s gaze for a moment, David seeming to glean that whatever Jordan’s heard, it’s not all good.

“Yes, yes.” David snaps his fingers at the bartender, who reluctantly comes over and takes his order. “Bottle of Krug.”

No please, no thank you, no sorry for snapping my fingers at you like a dogcatcher in an old movie. I forgot how obnoxious David can be.

The bartender nods. I look apologetically at her, but she looks at me like I’m part of the problem. And I am. Just by my proximity to him, I’m guilty.

Jordan looks irritated, and I know it’s on my behalf. He knows that running into another dancer from New York is the last thing I want right now. And it really is.

I just know David is going to text everyone in NAB about how I’ve gained a bunch of weight and how I’m just hanging around London with some guy, throwing my life away.

“I’m here with some friends you should meet,” says David to me now, fully bounced back from the moment of discomfort. “Come over and join our table.”

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