Page 83 of Two to Tango

Julie is sprawled outon my chest, breathing softly. I’m slowly rubbing her back, my fingers trailing up and down. This feels like a bubble of calm, and everything leading up to it was overwhelmingly perfect.

I want to lay here forever; I want to jump up and dance with her.

“When I first walked into a dance studio,” I say quietly, “I instantly felt like I was where I was meant to be. Like I was absolutely in the right place. You ever feel that?”

“Once,” she answers. “I was eight. I watched her dance for the first time.”

“That must have been wonderful to see.”

“It was life-changing,” she whispers.

“It doesn’t happen often, at least not for me anyway. Life is always a series of too many questions, and never knowing the answer. ‘Am I doing the right thing? Is this what I’m supposed to be doing?’ You know?”

“I know.” She nods.

“I feel it now, though,” I tell her. “I feel it here. With you.”

Her heartbeat speeds up when I say it.

“There was another time,” she swallows, looking at me. “When you blindfolded me. Remember that?”

“I do. Remember the very first time we danced? When I paired you up with Ethan?”

“I do,” she laughs.

“I felt it then.”

“Felt what?” she asks.

“A weird sort of calm. Like all my frustrating thoughts and complicated feelings about the dance sort of settled.”

She doesn’t say anything, just kisses me softly and snuggles closer.

Maybe this is working out just like it was meant to. A piece of my heart that had been healed by Celestina’s mentorship and then broken when she passed has now come back to me.

And it’s come back tenfold.

“Tell me about her,” I say.

“Oh God, where do I even start? You could probably tell me more than I could.”

“Why do you say that?”

“When my family decided to move here, she stayed behind and continued to compete and travel. I didn’t see her much. I would talk to her on the phone occasionally, but a lot of times it was surface level stuff. She loved to dance. She was so good at it, too, you know. It’s hard not to be completely mesmerized watching her.”

Celestina Rossi was an idol when I got into dance, and the magic of her never faded, especially when I was in Buenos Aires in workshops and her name was spoken frequently in adoration.

“I miss her,” she says. “Some days it feels like I let her down, like I didn’t do enough. I didn’t spend enough time or do enough with her. Or see her enough or talk to her enough. I didn’t doenough. Maybe it would have never been enough.”

I tuck her hair behind her ear, holding her close to me, listening.

“I’m just trying to be close to her again. I’m trying to make her proud.”

“I think you’re doing it, Julie. You’re trying your best, and isn’t that all anybody could ask for?”

“You haven’t met my parents.” She cocks an eyebrow.

“Not yet.”

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