Every Step You Take (26 page)

I just stared at him. “You don't get to have
three
people,” I said quietly. “You get to have
one
.”

He sighed and said, “God will help me through this.”

“No. God is
not
going to help you through this,” I said. “I am.” And that was the end of the Catholic—and of my dating career, as it happens. I just gave up. It was too depressing, too tawdry, and I had other, more pressing things to worry about. My body, for instance. I was getting injured more and more frequently, and I had so many aches and pains from years and years of dancing and lifting ballerinas and generally pushing myself physically. I was spending a lot of time with physical therapists Marika Molnar and Michelle Rodriguez, and with my body trainers Declan Condron and Michelle Khai, and with the miracle-worker chiropractor Larry DeMann Jr., who took care of many of us at the NYCB. But it was tough.

I had another disturbing problem that I didn't like to talk about much back then, or even now. For a long time the pesky ghost who had stalked me during my childhood years had remained mercifully absent, but somewhere in my midthirties she returned. At first I tried to ignore her. I told myself that the whole notion of being haunted by a ghost was a silly hallucination left over from my childhood. But this particular ghost was determined and persistent. I could sense her near me more and more at different times during the night and day—slipping into rooms right behind me, tailing me on my subway commute in the morning, sliding into mirrors just after I had turned away, and staring fiercely at my departing back. I tried to tell myself that even if she was there, she was harmless—but the situation made me increasingly anxious. My mother sent me some of the special sacred cornmeal, and I dutifully sprinkled it around the doors and windows to protect myself. I remember there was one night, when Chris and I were still together, when I was too petrified by the approaching ghost to even move, and poor Chris had to call my mother and get directions on how to distribute the cornmeal.

I sprinkled cornmeal and tried to ignore my strange shadow, but over time she seemed to be getting more and more aggressive. In the spring of 2003 my ghost—or the witch, as she seemed to me to have become by this time—followed me all the way to Binghamton, New York, when I had a dancing engagement there. After the performance that night she crawled into my hotel bed and curled up against me. She had become more than annoying. She was ruining my sleep, wearing me out, and throwing me off-balance. When I told my mother about the situation she insisted that it was time for me to make a trip to the reservation to see our medicine man, a relative whom we always called Uncle Joe. Reluctantly, I agreed.

I always feel caught in the middle when it comes to Navajo traditions and spiritual practices—I feel I can neither dismiss them nor surrender entirely to them. All Navajo ceremonies tend to be long and complicated and exhausting, and the ceremony for the exorcism of my ghost, conducted by my uncle Joe in his hogan on the reservation, was no exception. My mother and father and Kiko were all present, as well as my mother's good friend my honorary “aunt” Cindy and my half brother Charles (this was the period when he was living with my mother and father in their trailer at the A-1 storage facility in Santa Fe). In addition to being long and complicated, Navajo ceremonies are also extremely sacred and private, and I really should not reveal much about this one except to say that it was at times terrifying and at times painful—and that it seemed to do the trick. When it was all over, Uncle Joe informed us that the woman had been a potentially harmful ghost. He said that when my mother was pregnant with me, she and my father had driven past an accident on the highway just as a woman who had been injured in the accident was dying. He said the woman's spirit had crawled into my mother's womb with me. As I think about all of this now, it occurs to me for the first time that perhaps this was why my mother felt me “dancing” in her womb before I was born.

By April 2003 I had rid myself of the Tiresome Catholic, and just a month later I seemed to have also rid myself of the annoying spirit who had been stalking me for years. As a result, on June 15, 2003, when I walked into a New York restaurant and watering hole called the Park one sultry summer night to have a nightcap with my friend Jason, I was finally a free man. Thank God, because that was the night I looked across the room and saw Luis. He was standing near the bar, wearing a suit and tie, looking very dashing holding his ice-cold lager. Everyone else was wearing shorts and T-shirts. I was feeling flirty, so I approached him and said, “So what's with the suit?”

Luis has an accent that sounds formal and old-fashioned, as if he were born perhaps from Spanish royalty. (When I tease him about this now he always gives me that glare, as if to say, “It's not funny, because I
am
royalty!”) He told me, in his elegant, rich voice, that he had just gotten off from work. When I continued with my questions I discovered that he was a chef and a sommelier, and that he had studied at the Culinary Institute of America.

I was immediately taken (and I still am) by Luis's beauty—his dark hair, his dark eyes, the dimples, that voice—and by the blend of confidence and kindness and panache he exuded: he seemed to be a dashing blend of James Bond, Robin Hood, and a Spanish musketeer rolled into one gorgeous, modern gay man. We were both performing standard bar flirtation that night, but I also sensed instantly, at that very first meeting, that something profound was happening and that Luis and I would be a part of each other's futures.

Luis and I had our first date that same week, at the restaurant Gramercy Tavern. I was dancing that evening—as always—so of course it had to be a late dinner. I told Luis that I would arrange a ticket for him for that evening's performance of the ballet, but he insisted on buying his own ticket. That impressed me. When we sat down at our table in Gramercy Tavern and our waiter approached, I ordered a glass of chardonnay. I thought I saw Luis flinch—had I done something wrong? I am a real ditz about remembering people's names, or anything else they tell me upon first meeting, and I had forgotten everything from Luis's and my first encounter, including the fact that he was a professional chef and sommelier. (To be honest, I think I was too busy looking to listen.) There was a slight silence, after which Luis ordered a gin and tonic. When the waiter returned with our drinks, he also brought with him a bottle of La Tâche burgundy—Luis had had it sent over from the restaurant where he worked. I didn't recognize the wine by its name, but my first sip told me all I needed to know. I had already been impressed that Luis had insisted on buying his own ticket to the ballet; that extraordinary bottle of La Tâche impressed me once more.

As Luis and I got to know each other over the next few weeks we quickly discovered our mutual love of cooking, and then had fun performing our respective and very different culinary styles for each other. I was the first to display my skills. As a cook, I am a self-taught amateur, with a talent for improvisation and shortcuts (I could probably do a whole cookbook of recipes that have Campbell's soup as the secret ingredient). For my opening act, I cooked Luis a roast chicken, with mashed potatoes and frozen peas. He insisted that he loved it.

Luis, as I've mentioned, is a professional chef, thoroughly trained in the best tradition. The first meal he prepared for me was a sautéed fillet of sockeye salmon in a crunchy, armored crust of thinly sliced potatoes, served on a bed of leeks with a beurre blanc sauce and a triumphant final topping of caviar. I was knocked out. And of course I will never forget our first Christmas together. Luis insisted on doing everything for the Christmas dinner. First he shopped for all the ingredients in the city, and then spent three days making a demi-glace—which left our city bathtub full of stock bones. On Christmas Eve we transported the holy demi-glace and the holiday groceries to the Connecticut house, and on Christmas Day Luis set about the business of making our holiday dinner while I busied myself with other duties. When I finally peeked into the kitchen I almost had a heart attack. It was a complete war zone. Every bowl, every pot, every pan, and every spoon had been used.

Luis looked up at me and smiled. “I'm done!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands three times. “Oh no, you're not,” I thought to myself, as I surveyed the incredible chaos and destruction. But the Christmas meal that year was absolutely sublime, and I quickly realized that supreme talent sometimes comes with a cost. In addition to our passion for food, Luis and I soon discovered a shared passion for the performing arts: he was all about opera and I was all about ballet, but once again our different areas of expertise complemented each other.

After Luis and I got to know each other better we moved in together, and a series of positive changes and a sorely needed sense of stability came into my life. We lived at first in a tiny but charming walk-up studio in an old building on Eleventh Street in the Village, above a restaurant called Gene's. Gene's is about a hundred years old—seriously, and I think some of the patrons have been eating there since the place opened. It serves a mean vodka martini in a glass that always reminds me of a goldfish bowl. The owners are very pleasant and they used to lend Luis and me little round tables for the small dinner parties we often hosted.

Stability couldn't have come at a better time for me. Luis's presence and our domestic life together was a huge comfort and support to me later that year when my mother was diagnosed with cancer and had to undergo a series of operations. And it was Luis who helped me through the difficult walk-up to my retirement. I had reached an odd point in my career, because in many ways I was doing some of the most interesting work I had ever done. In addition to Chris's new ballets, I was partnering Darci in several new ballets by Peter—such as the very sexy and provocative
Guide to Strange Places
and his
T
l
Gaisma
. Between my commitments for the regular season, I was still being booked on fascinating trips abroad and special gigs at home. My understanding of my art was more intricate and sophisticated than ever—but, undeniably, my body was breaking down. I tore each of my calf muscles several times in my last years at NYCB, and coming back got rougher each time. Often I would have to skip rehearsals, or instead walk through my pas de deux briefly and then spend the rest of the day getting my body ready for that night's performance. The performances were still sublimely exciting. But the pain afterward was extreme. It's terrible to have to let go of the thing you love most in the world—but I knew the time for change was coming.

M
Y LIFE TOOK
an important new direction on that June evening in 2003 when I met Luis at the Park. At the time I never would have guessed that five years later, in the King Cole Bar at New York's St. Regis Hotel, my whole life would change dramatically once again. On that evening Luis and I and our friend Nancy had just finished a delicious dinner at Il Convivio, and Luis talked us into stopping at the St. Regis for a nightcap. After arriving and settling in, I made a quick trip to the men's room, and when I returned, Luis—in pure Luis form—had ordered a bottle of '95 Krug champagne. He had also pushed aside the table from in front of our sofa and was down on one knee. I looked at Nancy quizzically as I sat down, and then at Luis. He gave me a big smile, and then he produced a beautiful ring and proposed.

I was absolutely stunned—so stunned that the first thing to come out of my mouth was, “You've gotta be fucking kidding me!” Perhaps not the reaction Luis was hoping for. So then he asked me if that response was a yes or a no. (He later confessed that he had asked Nancy to be there with us that evening because he was so nervous about proposing.) I immediately shouted, “Yes!” And then I began to sob. It wasn't until the waiter came over and said, “Congratulations” that I realized that this was all actually happening. And then I began to sob even harder.