One Last Dance (14 page)

Her apartment appeared to be
under water, but that was just because tears still filled Sophie’s eyes. She
didn’t even bother dashing them away anymore. Fresh ones just took their place.

It had all been a fake. A lie. A
fling to shove in his ex-girlfriend’s face. Henry Medina didn’t care about her.
She paced the confines of her living room, muscles twitchy and restless. Every
time she tried to sit down, to calm herself, Nicole’s words came back to her, “
a
little girl who’s tragic slip-and-fall robbed her of a big Buenos Aires dreams
.”
She wasn’t sure what hurt more, that Henry had just been using her, or that
he’d shared such private things with that viper. Right now, her chest was just
a mass of pain.

Her ribs felt as if they’d been
dipped in cement, her lungs made of stone. Dragging in each breath was hard and
painful. Conversely, her stomach felt full of helium, floating up into her
mouth. Bile surged into the back of her throat and she lurched into the
bathroom and dropped to her knees before the toilet. But her stomach settled
again for the time being. Sophie pressed her forehead against the cool
porcelain, sobbing.

She had to get away. If Henry was
using her as a pawn in some sort of high stakes game against Nicole then she’d
just... take herself off the board. She scrubbed at her cheeks until they were
raw, but all traces of her tears were gone. All but the sting of her bloodshot
eyes and the wet, spiky lashes. She swallowed each new sob that bubbled into
her mouth and blinked rapidly to hold new tears at bay.

Sophie crawled from the bathroom
to her bedroom. It was the perfect position to tug the suitcase from beneath
her bed. She heaved it onto her mattress. The thing was huge and weighed a ton,
even empty. It was a hard case, scuffed and dented, an unfortunate shade of
yellow. Sophie had had it ever since she moved out of her parents house and
come to New York City the first time, for school.

“Okay,” she murmured into the
quiet apartment. “Okay.” She pulled herself to her feet and yanked open her
closet doors. She didn’t even really look at the clothes, she just snatched
things off hangers and tossed them toward the suitcase. She dragged open her
dresser drawers and began lobbing balled up socks onto the bed.

She turned back to the bed and
froze. The suitcase, still closed, was heaped with clothing. Several of the
socks had bounced off onto her night stand. She hiccuped a small sob. Her brain
was so scattered she couldn’t even pack right! Think. She had to think.
Whirling, she left the ransacked room and hurried to the living room. Where was
her purse?

Sophie found it on the kitchen
table, tipped on its side, spilling tissues and change. She stuck her hand
inside and tugged her cell phone free of the other detritus. She strode back
into the bedroom as Darren picked up. “Hey, Soph. Need more fashion advice for
your next media date with Mr. Medina?”

Henry’s name was a knife to the
heart. “You need to open the studio in the morning.”

“Oh. Kay. Are you going to be
late?” Darren’s words were faltering. Her voice had come out harsher than she’d
intended, but her throat was raw from holding in sobs.

“I’m... I’m going away for a few
days. But we have to re-open. We can’t afford to stay closed any longer.”

Sophie rubbed at her forehead.
She could feel Darren frowning at her over the phone.

“What do you mean you’re ‘going
away’? This is not a good time, Soph. We’ve had more cancellations—”

“It doesn’t matter. It’ll die
down. We have to open. And I need to be... somewhere else.” Somewhere far
enough from Henry Medina that she could get her head on straight. Figure out
her next move.

“That’s just it. I had two calls
last night from professionals. They both said they heard rumors the
‘relationship’ thing is a cover up. It’s not going away. We might need to scale
back on some—”

“Fine. We will. If that’s what
you think then... We’ll talk about it when I get back.” She strode into her
room and popped the heavy suitcase open, tossing the clothes haphazardly
inside.

Darren sighed. “Where are you
going? Sophie, talk to me. What’s going on?”

The suitcase wouldn’t latch over
the mound of unfolded clothing. Sophie shoved at it, grunting in frustration.
Why did everything have to be difficult right now? “I didn’t expect him to tell
everything,” she blurted. “Not
everything
. But she’s his
ex
. That
seems pretty relevant to me. To hear it from her... And he told her! I just...
I can’t even deal with that.”

She was babbling. She tried to
reign in her tongue but it was running away from her. On the other end of the
line, Darren’s chair scraped across the floor.

“Is this about Henry? What
happened?” His voice was sharper than she could ever remember it being. She
scrubbed at her tear-stained cheeks. Ridiculous. Darren couldn’t
see
her.

“Nothing. I’m fine. I’m just...”
Inspiration struck. “I’m just going to visit my parents for a day or two.
That’s all.” The lid of the suitcase finally came down far enough for her to
twist the clasp into place. She felt a spurt of triumph at the small victory.

“Soph, honey. You need to talk to
me. We can wait on discussing cutting back on classes, if you want. But if
something else is going on here, you can tell me.” Darren’s voice was laced
with a tinge of genuine anxiety. Sophie’s heart ached with the sound. He was
such a good friend. But she just couldn’t talk about it. Not yet. Maybe in a
few days.

Henry’s warm voice murmuring “
Dolce
amore, Dio, che me si bruciano!
” echoed through her head. She had no idea
what it meant, but the passionate syllables had seared themselves into her
brain. Sophie’s heart twanged. Maybe more than a few days.

“It’s fine, Dar. I swear,
everything’s fine. We’ll figure this whole thing out in a few days. I promise.
I just need to go... now.” Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. She had
to get off the phone quick or she’d burst into tears again and Darren would be
over here in the blink of an eye. His gaze would be sympathetic, but the “I
told you so” would be lurking in the back of it. And even if it wasn’t, she
just couldn’t handle any of it right now.

“Okay, Soph.” It was anything but
okay. The words were resigned but heavy with dread. “Call me when you get in.”

“Promise,” she murmured again,
and hung up before he could say anything else. She was out the apartment door a
minute later with barely a backward glance.

***

The drive was slightly less than
three hours long. It was nearly six in the evening when she pulled up to her
parent’s house, the sky that purplish-blue it got just before true dark. The
sight of the yellow clapboard made Sophie feel both anxious and comforted at
the same time. The white trim was peeling a little, she saw as she climbed from
the car and stretched her legs. There were no other cars in the driveway. Her
parents were both out.

Sophie knew her dad would still
be at work. In the spring and summer he worked until last light, and then he
had to clean up his tools before heading home. Her mother could be at any
number of places. Teresa Becker had taken early retirement the year before, but
she was unable to just sit around the house. She volunteered with half a dozen
local groups. She was almost busier now than when she’d been at the bank,
according to Sophie’s father.

She was actually glad no one was
home. It gave her a little time to prepare. Sophie had made the decision so
hastily, and followed it with such a rapid departure, that she hadn’t really
considered what her parents were going to think when she just showed up on
their doorstep out of the blue. Not that they wouldn’t be happy to see her. She
knew they would be. But there would be questions, and she’d left the city to
avoid answering them.

“Home, sweet home,” she murmured,
hauling her suitcase from the back seat. Sophie wasn’t surprised to find the
front door unlocked.

“What’s the point?” her mother
always said, with a shrug. “No one is coming out this far to rob us, and if
they did, a twist lock is hardly going to hold them.” And in all the years
they’d lived in the house, since Sophie was five, they’d never had a break-in.
It had taken some getting used to when she moved to the city and had to
remember to lock up everything.

But now she was glad her parents
didn’t. She pushed open the front door and trudged up the stairs to the second
floor, the big, ugly suitcase bumping against her shins as she climbed the
stairs. Her room was farthest from the top of the stairs, under the eaves, and
still looked almost exactly as it had the day she’d moved out to go to college.
Her posters had come down, and the little knick-knacks, ribbons, jewelry and
other scraps of things that indicated a room was inhabited were gone. But the
wallpaper, a pale cream decorated with curling green vines and tiny pink roses,
was still the same. Her single bed with the rose covered comforter was still
under the window.

The dresser top was covered in
picture frames. There was one of Sophie at age nine at her birthday party, a
pile of brightly wrapped presents on the floor in front of her. She was holding
up a pair of ballet slippers and beaming, missing front tooth and all. Another
 showed her and a girl named Gabrielle, who’d been her best friend in
grade school before she’d moved to Oregon, with their arms around each other.
It had been taken at the school talent show, Sophie remembered. They wore
poodle skirts and saddle shoes and grinned at the camera.

They’d done a medley of dances
from the 1960’s, the Twist, the Madison, the Watusi. It had been so much fun,
even though they’d come in third. Sophie set her suitcase against the dresser,
kicked off her sneakers, and collapsed onto the bed. For several long minutes,
she just lay there, breathing in the slightly floral smell of the detergent her
mother used to wash the sheets, and the soft scent of dust and old wood. She
felt a small ball of warmth in her stomach, easing some of the anxiety coiled
there.

Whatever else was going on in the
world, here, she belonged. She was safe and loved. Sophie exhaled a long
breath. She pushed herself up from the bed and headed back downstairs. She’d
raid the kitchen and see about starting dinner for her mother and father.
Though she still wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to tell them,
everything went better with a home cooked meal.

It was the pictures on the
stairway wall that caught her up. She should have just kept going, but one drew
her eye and then she couldn’t look away. It was a shot of her and Christian,
from the first competition they’d won. One of the photographers covering the
event had snapped it, and she’d gotten a copy and sent it to her parents,
glowing with pride over her first win.

She raised trembling fingers to
the frame and traced the graceful curve of her back. The dress was shocking
red, all spandex and sequins, clinging to every slim line of her arms and torso
and then flaring dramatically out just below her hips. Her dark hair was
slicked back in a shining bun, red paste jewels glittering there and on her
cheeks. Christian bent low over her, his blond hair gleaming in the spotlight,
his sleekly muscled body cradling hers, one arm swept high in a dramatic arc.
Their eyes were locked on each other.

They hadn’t been together yet at
that point, but the heat had been there already. She could recall the vibrating
tension in Christian’s frame every time they’d touched, the way they’d end
every dance panting with exertion and speechless. There had been so many times
she’d wanted to throw herself onto him. But she hadn’t, because she’d known
what Christian Navarro was like. She’d watched him work his way through almost
every female in their company before they’d left for competitions.

“He got to you eventually though,
didn’t he?” she asked her younger self softly. He’d worn down her resistance
and she’d finally given in. She’d let him into her heart and he’d strode over
it like a stepping stone and moved on. The worst part was, she couldn’t even
really be surprised.

It’s not as if that had been the
first time Christian had ignored her needs for his own. He had often been
dismissive of her feelings, or even downright cruel. Any time she gained even a
pound, he was quick to point it out and take her to task. She’d always brushed
it off as him caring about their career as dancers, but the comments were
cutting.

He’d stayed with her longer, but
in the end he’d left her just like he left all the women before her... weeping
and broken-hearted. Sophie squeezed her eyes closed, blocking out the glossy
images of her and Christian on the dance floor, her and Christian at a banquet.
Christian had abandoned her. And what had she done?

She’d run home. Wounded in both
body and heart, she’d slunk here to lick her wounds in private. This was
getting to be a pattern. Meet a man who swept her off her feet on the dance
floor, let herself be vulnerable to him, have her heart trampled, flee home. A
mirthless chuckle trickled out of Sophie’s throat. Fresh tears stung her eyes.

Sophie quickly palmed her eyes,
swiping at the tears before they could fall, as the front door swung open. Her
father strode in, wide grin splitting his beard in half. It was more salt than
pepper these days, but the ever present facial scruff had been part of her
father since she was a little girl. The sight made her trembling heart ease a
little.

“There’s my girl!” he cried, eyes
crinkling at the corners as he spotted her on the stairs. They were grey, just
like hers. “Couldn’t believe it when I saw the Toyota out there. What you doing
up here, sweet pea?”

She flew into her father’s arms,
pressing her slender frame against his bulky body. For a moment she just
reveled in the warmth and familiarity of him. He smelled the way he always did.
Like sawdust and paint thinner and a light sweat. “Hi, daddy,” she murmured
against his shoulder. “I uh...” Damn it, she’d forgotten to come up with a
cover story! “We had a gas leak! At the studio. It’s okay, they’re fixing it.
But we had to close down for a couple days. So... I figured I’d come visit my
favorite parents.” She forced her lips to curve upward as she pulled back from
his tight embrace.