Page 17 of The Virgin's Dance
Kristof gave her a supercilious smile. “Every Friday lunchtime, like clockwork. Don’t worry, Liz. I know what I have to do to keep my job.”
Now, as he took a cab home to his apartment in Lenox Hill, Kristof smiled to himself. Whether or not he took drugs wouldn’t matter after the showcase. His work would be seen, once again, as ground-breaking, visceral, dramatic, and with Boh as the focus, the first Indian American principal … the sky was the limit.
He opened the door of the apartment and kicked a pile of mail into the corner. He didn’t even glance at it, knowing what the brown envelopes meant. He’d wait until the ones with the red ‘Urgent’ mark arrived. He had better things to worry about.
Now that he’d gotten the green light, he wanted to move things along. He’d set up rehearsals, and the dancers would have to suck up the long hours. They needed to be beyond perfect.
He smiled and sat down at his desk, grabbing fresh paper and pencils. Before the end of the week he would have it, the outline, ready to work with the dancers on the choreography.
For once, Kristof didn’t snort his way into oblivion. He needed his mind sharp. As he wrote and drew steps and costumes, he pictured his Boh as the Pupil inThe Lesson, cowed and terrified as the Teacher approached her with his knife.
Boh woke and smiled as she saw Pilot asleep next to her. She watched him, his long dark eyelashes on his cheeks, his beard longer now. She gently traced the dark violet circles under his eyes, and he opened them, their brilliant green always startling to her.
“Good morning.”
He smiled and pressed his lips to hers. “Good morning, beautiful. Sorry about the morning breath.”
“Me too.” But they kissed anyway. “I like waking up with you, Pilot.”
He grinned and as they sat up and stretched, he drew her close and hugged her tightly. “Would you believe me if I said I slept better last night on this old lumpy couch than I have done in years, maybe a decade?”
“Same. Would it be cheesy to say that it was the best night of my life?” Boh smoothed his dark curls away from his face. “Okay, that was cheesy, but it’s still true. You make me feel so safe, Pilot, so … cared for.”
He smiled. “So …loved?”
Her heart skipped a beat. “What?”
He chuckled. “I’m not saying anything too over-the-top but we have something remarkable here between us, I think. I’ve never felt this …” He cast around for the right word, then looked back at her. “This is right, you know? My gut tells me, everything tells me, we were meant to meet.”
“I feel it,” she said simply, “I feel that too.” She leaned her forehead against his. “And … thank you. Thank you for last night for before …herand after. Most men would have taken what they wanted from me regardless of my feelings.”
Pilot kissed her again, his lips tender against hers. “I’m not most men.”
“You can say that again.” Her eyes slid to the clock on the wall of the studio. “Dang it. I have to be at work in thirty minutes.”
“There’s a shower here in the little bathroom over there.” He grinned. “I’d join you, but I don’t think you’d make it to work in a half hour if I did.”
Boh laughed. “I’d say that’s a given.”
When she’d finished in the bathroom—luckily, she always carried changes of underwear with her for work—she found Pilot had made her a flask of coffee to have on the go. “I haven’t got any cereal or bread here, but here.” He gave her an energy bar and she smiled.
“Breakfast of champions.”
“Do you want me to walk you to the studio?”
She shook her head. “You have work to do, baby.” She flushed a little at the epithet which came out of her unbidden but his answering smile was worth it.
He kissed her goodbye at the door. “I’ll call you later.”
“Can’t wait.”
As she walked to work, sipping the coffee he had made for her, Boh felt like last night had been a dream. She had been telling him the truth when she told him she felt safe—to be that close to a man had always been traumatizing, if the other man hadn’t been a ballet dancer—but with him …
Boh wondered how her gentle, kind, sweet-hearted Pilot could ever have been married to that blonde racist. Boh’s face must have registered a scowl as a woman standing next to her at a crosswalk looked alarmed and edged away. Boh shot her an apologetic smile, then as they crossed, she thought about Pilot’s ex again. When she’d Googled him, it had mentioned that his ex-wife was an Upper East Side woman who regularly did work for charity. There was nothing charitable about the woman she’d met last night.
“Oo, serious face. Who yanked your chain?” She hadn’t seen Elliott falling in step beside her as they approached the NYSMBC building. She grinned at him. Elliott was one of her favorite people and he was an exquisite dancer.
“Ah, no one important. I feel like I haven’t talked to you in an age, El.”
