Page 39 of Stuck With the Best Man

“I shouldn’t have been so rude to you overGiselle. After all, you’re just being true to Balanchine’s vision of modernity for the company.”

“No, you were right for being angry,” I insist. “I shouldn’t have cancelled it after the roles were already established. I should’ve just letGisellehappen and focused on other upcoming seasons. I think I was desperate to prove to my family that I wouldn’t mess this up, so I made a bold choice to try and impress them.”

Ruby nods thoughtfully. “Why do you care what they think of you?”

“They’re my family. How can I not?”

To my surprise, Ruby ignores the hypothetical question and switches gears.

“What would you have done with your life if you weren’t born a Hawthorne?”

I balk at that. Nobody has ever asked me anything like that before. Moreover, I don’t think I’ve ever considered it myself. There’s no point. I am a Hawthorne, whether I want to be or not.

Still, I know that my answer will mean something important to Ruby.

I wonder if she expects me to say I’d be a useless party boy—the stereotype that I willfully lived up to for many years when I realized that my family expected little else from me. I’d like to think that maybe, in the past few hours at least, Ruby has formed a higher opinion of me than that, but I can’t be sure.

Either way, I tell her the truth.

“I do love the arts,” I say. “I’d probably gravitate toward them even if I wasn’t born in a family that famously patronizes artists.”

“Would you become an artist yourself?”

I shrug. “I like poetry. Maybe I’d do something ridiculous like attend a small private college in the middle of the forest and study classic literature until I go mad. That sounds like fun.”

Ruby laughs. The sound makes my heart soar.Do it again,I want to beg.Laugh again for me, please. Even if it’s at my expense.

“I can see it,” she replies, eyes dancing with humor. “You’ve got batty old English professor potential.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“Believe or not, yes.”

At that moment, the waitress saunters over. “You folks staying up at the Motor Lodge?”

Both of us turn to her with twin expressions of confusion.

“No, we’re on our way down to New York,” I tell her.

The waitress quirks a single eyebrow at me. “You know you’re still in Mass, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, good luck with that. I’m just asking around because the lodge has got some flooding going on right now in some of the rooms. Apparently, this second storm is supposed to be worse than the first.”

Ruby flinches.

I glance at her. “Maybe we should get back on the road right away.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” interjects the waitress. “Roads are falling apart out there. Flash floods. Trees are going down. You’re better off waiting for it to pass. You done with your plates?”

“Uh, yeah.”

We let the waitress take our plates, then stare at each other in worried silence for a long moment.

“It’s fine,” Ruby says. “We’ll just stay inland.”

“Yeah, no problem. It’ll take longer, but at least we’ll get back tonight. If the storm is in full force by the time we get into Manhattan, at least the streets will be mostly clear of traffic.”

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