Page 2 of Reverence

As the smile disappeared off the angular, pale face, in the depths of the stark emptiness Juliette gleaned an emotion that she herself had never known. Oh, she recognized it when she saw it, but she was far too blessed and sheltered by her privilege and status to ever experience this kind of fear.

And it was fear. A glimpse of terror that etched into Juliette’s imagination even deeper than Vyatka’s hand had marked Michel’s cheek. Juliette wanted to cross her arms around her chest, to contain the shock of it. Instead, she took a deep breath and followed Vyatka’s eyes to the source of the dread.

A man in a wrinkled brown suit was walking up from the corner of the rehearsal room. He was so visually nondescript that Juliette didn’t even wonder she hadn’t noticed him before. Yet, once his presence was anything but insignificant, she couldn’t quite look directly at him. A visceral reaction of distaste overwhelmed her.

A hideous little man with a very shrill voice in an ill-fitting boxy suit. So very out of place in the airy, high-ceilinged spaceof the studio among these graceful, sculpted bodies in ivory tulle and satin.

“Madame Bianchi, allow me to apologize on behalf of my comrade. Mademoiselle Vyatka is unused to such elevated company, being a simple working-class woman, and so she is unaccustomed to attention from sophisticated gentlemen.”

Without waiting for a reply, the man grabbed Vyatka’s elbow and escorted her to the far corner of the classroom where he proceeded to speak to her in an animated whisper. The prima must have been exceptional at poker, because after the initial imprint of fear, her face remained impassive as anger and spittle flew her way. Juliette felt nauseated.

“Ouch!” Gabriel‘s voice was faintly amused and a little sleepy next to her ear. “I mean, she’s been nothing but rude and standoffish with everyone since she arrived. And she drew blood for a grope, so talk about an overreaction. But whoever this suit is, he really didn’t need to humiliate her like this. Good thing she doesn’t speak English, otherwise I bet Vyatka would have his head, just as she had Michel’s cheek.”

Any other day, Juliette might have agreed with him that the slap was perhaps an overreaction, if undoubtedly justified, and the subsequent discreet smile of clear enjoyment of putting the fool in his place spoke volumes. But the humiliation she had just witnessed was so completely out of place.

Working class?Vyatka was the modern-day Michelangelo of ballet, and in Juliette’s world, Michelangelo behaved the way Michelangelo wanted to—as long as he drew and sculpted the way he did. Yet here was this little man, in his brown suit…

Gabriel yawned. “Did I tell you, rumor has it she killed some unfortunate prima in Moscow?” Juliette turned to him so sharply, he chuckled. “My darlin’ girl, you are so easy. So maybe not killed, but you know the Bolshoi gossip is always so damn cutthroat. She was third in line for the main prima title. One ofthe other primas ended up maimed, and the other—pregnant. I’m almost certain Vyatka is not responsible for the latter. Though, look at her. If anyone could, it would be her.” Gabriel shrugged and Juliette had to suppress a shiver. Yes, if anyone could manage such a feat, it would indeed be this woman.

Gabriel yawned again and went on. “You know how it goes with rumors. The tongues wagged about her injuring the first one. Badly.” He sobered up, and the second shiver Juliette felt was of a different nature. Gabriel seemed to not notice either of her reactions as he leaned against the wall and continued.

“They hushed it up. She’s the commies’ darlin’, some rags-to-riches sob story there. The reviews and the gossip from Bolshoi’s London performance last month are raving. The Empress of Moscow is everything they said she would be. Perhaps more. Maybe that explains the bloodthirst. Still, it does not excuse whatever this fool, this insult to fashion, thought he was doing.”

Juliette ventured an attempt at more details, though why she’d want them escaped her. “Well, you know how Russians are.”

Gabriel shook his head. “But she’s not. Someone mentioned the other day that even her first and last names aren’t Russian. I don’t remember exactly, but I think she’s from one of those Baltic countries. And you can’t expect me to actually differentiate those three socialist republics at this hour.”

She wanted to berate him for the lack of respect given to the Baltic states, but Gabriel’s jaw almost creaked as he yawned again. Lecture abandoned, Juliette gave him a thorough once-over. Her best friend and confidant, her ballet partner of seven years, Gabriel Flanagan looked tired. With the season not having yet started and their own tour over weeks ago, the sleepiness in his eyes told her that the exhaustion was not related to dancing. Or not the ballet kind of dancing.

“I take it you had a long night?”

Gabriel laughed, happy and carefree, throwing his blond hair back, attracting attention from pretty much everybody in a ten-mile radius. He made the impossible look easy.

Tall, with broad shoulders, sculpted arms, and a bearing that was admired and envied by everyone he crossed paths with, he was a modern-day Apollo with his golden locks framing a face that was sinfully handsome.

As the principal dancer of the Paris Opera Ballet company, and with his unbelievably good looks, Gabriel could’ve been genuinely despised by quite a number of people. However, once they met him, they were charmed and disarmed. He was kind and gentle and should have been everything Juliette desired in a man—if only she desired men. She categorically did not, and so they had been inseparable friends since their school days.

“I wish I could tell you. A gentleman never does, though.” Gabriel smiled brightly and a little too nonchalantly for Juliette’s taste.

“I hope you were careful.” She did not intend to infuse her voice with concern, but every day the rumor mill brought more and more distressing news from their male acquaintances near and far.

The smile stayed on the striking face, but Juliette knew her words registered as the light in those brilliant eyes dimmed slightly.

“I’ve known him for years, and I was as careful as I could’ve been. Jett, if I can’t trust this man, I can trust no one.”

He was quiet for a moment, and they watched as the Soviet dancers arranged themselves for the next movement of the rehearsal.

Instantly forgetting Gabriel, Juliette felt a chill running through her. The Soviet prima had returned. The wrinkled suit followed her. That naked fear was back in the now-ashen depths of Vyatka’s eyes.

And despite being surrounded by a crowd, amidst the whispers and the gossip, for some reason Juliette’s hands itched to wipe away the out-of-place emotion from the marble features. She shivered again, and Gabriel took off his lopsided knitted sweater, draping it carelessly over her shoulders, the gesture practiced and cherished. But this time it was too practiced. A bit too deliberately kind.

“The hallways are always drafty, darlin’.” At her narrowed look, he just waved his elegant hand at her. “Please don’t worry about me, Mom, I know what I’m doing.”

Juliette smiled up at him at their inside joke, and they shared a moment like so many others in the past seven years since both of them landed in Paris from the London Royal Ballet where they had studied together.

They had both been too talented and their futures had been too bright to be held back in the corps de ballet or to even dance solos behind the well-established English principal dancers, and so when Paris had called, they’d answered in the blink of an eye.

Juliette had been reigning for seven years as the biggest talent the Paris stage had seen, earning her the title of “Princess of Paris.” She had never fully embraced the adulation. It lay awkwardly on her shoulders. All that glitter. All that ass-kissing.

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