Off Balance (Ballet Theatre Chronicles Book 1) (20 page)

“This is all really nice,” Lana said.

“Thank you. A lot of space for one person, but when it came on the market, my father agreed it was a fabulous investment.”

“Niles told me he lived in Burlingame, down the Peninsula. Is that kind of a long drive for you two?”

“Outside of rush hour it’s not too bad.” She hesitated. “So, Gil didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

Alice ran her hands along the carved banister of the hallway’s oak staircase. “Well, at this time, Niles and I are taking a little time apart.”

“Oh, no. You broke up?”

“No. It’s time apart, that’s all. His work is a little too consuming for him to focus on anything else right now.” A note of bitterness arose with the last words.

“But he seemed so relaxed and generous with his time, talking to me at that dinner.”

“Yes. He did.”

Something inside Lana shrank. “Oh, God. It was me. Being there, monopolizing the attention. I brought on the conflict.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It is. I do this to people. I mean well, but I blunder in, and something gets ruined. Socially, I’m like a bull in a china shop.”

“Yes. No offense, but I can kind of see that.” Without waiting for a reply, Alice turned and ascended the stairs, leaving Lana to follow behind.

Lana knew she should stop the tour, apologize, leave. She couldn’t possibly be welcome here, in light of this new information. How could Gil have failed to mention this part? But Alice was speaking again, telling Lana about the house’s history, and while it wasn’t a warm, confidential voice, it was cordial.

Besides, she didn’t want to leave. She loved this house. The feeling only intensified as she checked out the rooms on the second floor. Everything was so clean and organized, so delicate and pretty. She’d never lived somewhere pretty before. The first bedroom that Alice showed her was an inviting shade of yellow, with an angled roof, a nook that held a plush easy chair, and on the other side of the room, a bed decorated with pillows and a gold and cream patterned comforter. The skylight drew in the pale hues of the evening sky. There was a faint scent of lavender in the air.

“Wow,” Lana said, “this is a beautiful master bedroom.”

She couldn’t believe when Alice told her that no, this was the guest room and therefore would be hers. This room surely couldn’t be surpassed, but when she saw the master bedroom a few minutes later, she understood. Textured ivory walls, a fireplace, silk curtains, an overhead light fixture that looked like a chandelier, gold-framed mirror, antique writing desk and chair. Alice misinterpreted Lana’s gape-jawed reaction with a self-conscious shrug.

“I didn’t choose all this formal décor. Whenever my mom redecorates, my house gets the old stuff. The periods don’t match; this is eighteenth-century French and the kitchen is Early American. But the price was right.”

“Omigosh, it’s fantastic.”

Alice reflected over this and nodded. “It’s a nice place to come home to.”

“I can imagine.”

Alice led her back down the stairs and into the living room. “So,” she said, gesturing for Lana to take a seat on the couch. “That’s about it. Are you interested in moving in? For a short spell?”

The last words said it all. Lana felt her hopes, her good spirits, evaporate.

“I don’t think it’s the right thing to do,” she muttered, looking at the carpet.

There was a pause. “You don’t want to move in here?” Alice sounded incredulous.

“Well, yes. But no. Because you don’t want me to.”

She looked up and saw that Alice was finally looking at
her
, instead of over her shoulder, Andy Redgrave style.

“I’m sorry,” Alice said.

“It’s okay. I understand.”

“No. I’m sorry I gave you the impression I don’t want you here. Because, the truth is, I do. I’m with Gil. You need to get out of that terrible area. You’re not safe there. And that’s all that matters.” She gestured around them. “There’s room here, as you can see. You seem to be a considerate person, I don’t imagine you’ll be a noise problem for me.”

“Oh, not noisy at all. Not me.” She tried to keep her voice neutral even as her body began to tremble with excitement. “And it will be temporary,” she said, and Alice nodded.

“So, if it really is all cool with you,” Lana added, “I’d love to.”

“All right. Welcome.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, yes. It’s not like I’ve got a landlord to report to.”

“But how much for weekly rent?”

Alice shook her head. “I’m not going to take your money, Lana. I know what dancers get paid, and it’s never enough to live well in San Francisco. Consider this part of the company package.”

“I can’t do that!”

“Fine, you can chip in thirty bucks every week for the PG&E bill.”

“That’s not enough. I’ll keep the refrigerator stocked too.”

“Only if you want to.”

“I do.”

Decision made, they both rose. “When would you like to move in?” Alice asked.

“Um, any chance that I could do it right now?”

A smile broke through Alice’s somber expression. She agreed and even offered to drive Lana back and forth, to load her car with Lana’s belongings. They stopped at a Safeway on the way to get empty boxes and plastic bags, which Lana filled frantically in the thirty minutes it took for Alice to run another errand.

Lana looked around the studio. She couldn’t get out of this place fast enough now. All she could think about was seeing Coop’s dead body, thinking of how he’d died, alone, unloved, overlooked. Tears stung the back of her throat. She could have, she
should
have done more. But she’d been preoccupied by her own life.

Alice returned, and somehow they managed to squeeze everything into the car’s back seat and trunk. As they drove back toward her house, they chatted about the company, people Alice had known who were still there: Delores, Joe, Katrina. And, of course, Ben, who had been Alice’s partner the night of her onstage accident.

“He was the greatest about it all, afterwards,” Alice said. “One of the few dancers who knew how to offer comfort, encouragement, without making me sick with jealousy over their own good health. But maybe he sensed that he, too, would be in the same boat pretty soon.”

“What happened to him?”

“Oh, he was battling some lower back pain for years, I think, but after one really bad episode he was diagnosed with a ruptured disk. An L-5 S-1, I think it was. There he was, still in his twenties, at the peak of his career, but they told him he would need major surgery and six months of rehab, minimum, if he wanted to keep dancing. Not to mention lifting women. And for the rest of his career, it would be an issue that would limit him. He shocked everyone by deciding to have the surgery, and terminate the dancing anyway. But he was pragmatic and can-do about it from the start. He’d always had strong administrative and logistics skills, and when he got an offer to co-artistic direct a new company a few months later, he took it. Anders wooed him back a year later, as a ballet master and his own assistant.”

“I really like Ben,” Lana said.

“Everyone does. He diffuses Anders’ intensity.”

“Anders still scares me,” she confessed.

“He scares a lot of people. That’s just him. He pushes Ben, too. I don’t see how Ben takes it, but he does. With a smile and a good attitude.”

“Sounds like he’s a good friend to have,” Lana said.

Alice frowned and worry shot through Lana. Had she said the wrong thing yet again?

“He’s a good friend to
make,
” she told Lana, who recognized the suggestion in the comment. But, oh, as if. Much easier for someone like Alice, who’d be shocked if she knew just how few friends Lana had made within the company.

They both fell silent after that, hostage to their own brooding thoughts.

Back at the house, though, Alice grew sociable again, helping her unload the items inside. When everything was settled, divided between Lana’s bedroom and the kitchen, Alice glanced at her watch.

“It’s early, but if you don’t mind, I’m going to go into my room and have some quiet time. Just knock if there’s anything you need, though.”

“Oh, one thing,” Lana said. “I need to call my mom and tell her my living situation has changed. I’ll give her my cell phone number, but she might get suspicious and want to know the address of where I’m living and such. You know how moms can be. Would it be okay, maybe, if I gave her your home’s phone number too?”

“Of course. I told you, make yourself at home. You live here. Give out this address and home number as yours. I’ll jot it all down for you.”

She strode over to the counter, scribbled out the information on a pad of paper, tore off the sheet and handed it to Lana.

“Thanks. I appreciate it. My mom will too.”

“No problem,” she said, an edge creeping into her voice. “I’ll be in my room if you need anything more.”

Alice disappeared and Lana swallowed, vowing to be less annoying, somehow. She moved around as quietly as she could, stowing her kitchen items in the pantry and back cabinets. In the bedroom, her few personal belongings fitted easily in the guest bedroom’s maple chest of drawers and spacious closet. Twenty minutes later, she was finished. She called Gil first, leaving a message that all had gone well at Alice’s, she was now settling in, and that she’d talk to him tomorrow.

Her next call would be considerably more tricky.

She perched on the edge of the pretty bed as the phone rang. Mom answered. She was still up; she was a night owl and rarely went to bed before midnight, which worked well for calls from the West Coast. They chatted for a moment before Mom asked how things were going in San Francisco.

“Well, actually, I’ve made a change in my housing,” Lana said. “There was a little, um, trouble in the old neighborhood. And it turned out to be easy to make the change.”

“Trouble?” Mom’s voice rose. “What did you do?”

“Oh, not me. I wasn’t involved in any way. It was actually a problem that took place outside my building.”

“What kind of problem?”

“Well, someone kind of…died.”

“What are you saying? Right out there, in front of where you live?”

“Yes.”

“Dear God. A heart attack? A car accident?”

“No. He’d been stabbed.”

The moment the words slipped out she regretted them. Mom didn’t need the truth, she needed reassurances. How quickly she’d forgotten the rules of The Mom Game.

“So that’s why I’m out of there,” she added in a rush. “Far from there, now, thanks to the help of my friend, Alice. No chance of that happening again.”

Silence. A moment later, Mom began to cry.

“Oh, Lana. Don’t I have enough on my plate here? Now I have to worry even more about you.”

Lana felt terrible. “But I moved, Mom. To someplace safer.”

“Where? With who?”

“With Alice. Into her house.”

“Lana! And you think I’ll stop worrying now?”

“Yes. It’s a real house, in a safer neighborhood.”

It was as if Mom couldn’t hear her. The sobs became louder, jagged breaths of air in between.

“You aren’t safe and you have to come home. Now.”

“Mom, stop. I’m fine.”

“I can’t lose another, Lana. I can’t.”

It was horrifying, like Mom was caught in the grip of some terrible hallucination. “My baby,” she was moaning now, “my angel. How could I lose you?”

She’d done it; she’d conjured up The Memory. The worst thing possible a Kessler child could do, the ultimate gaffe. Remind Mom of Baby John.

“Mom,” she tried to say now, “that was sixteen years ago.”

“A mother never forgets, Lana. You may have gotten wrapped up with your own life, your own needs, but a mother never forgets.”

More gasping sobs, a note of hysteria rising in them.

“Mom,” Lana tried again, shaken now as well. “I’ll be okay. This is a much better situation.”

No answer, only those muffled sobs.

“Mom?” The fear grew. “Tell me you’re all right. Where’s Dad? Is he home? Let me talk to Dad.”

“He’s away overnight,” Mom managed to say.

“Then Annabel. Is she home?”

A sniffle. “Yes.”

“Let me talk to her, Mom. Please.”

She could hear the
clunk
of the phone being dropped and for a paralyzed minute she didn’t know whether that meant Mom had dropped to the floor herself, or if she’d merely gone to get Annabel.

The silent seconds ticked by, agonizingly slow. When Annabel came on the line with a “yo, sis,” Lana was nearly tearful with relief.

“Annabel. Is she freaking out?”

“Yes, she is.” Annabel did not sound happy. “What did you say to her?”

“I was just trying to tell her I’d moved to a safer place, and give her the new phone number and address here.”

“I think it’s safe to say your delivery sucked.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t see it coming.”

“Too wrapped up in your exciting new life to notice it?”

“God, not you, too. Look. I’m doing the best I can out here. And right now I’m scared about Mom. You need to spend some time with her. Even if she tries to push you away. She needs someone to coax her out of this mood.”

She could almost see Annabel’s pretty face scrunching up into a pout, the careless rise and fall of her sister’s shoulders.

“That’s not my particular skill, as we all know.”

“Annabel, I’m begging. Please.”

A heavy, burdened sigh followed, which Annabel had perfected from years of listening to their mother perform the same thing. “You owe me,” she said finally.

“I do. And I’ll pay up. Those Ghirardelli chocolates you like so much?”

“The ones in their own little shiny wrappers that have caramel and mint fillings?”

“Yes. I’ll send you a bunch as a thank-you. Okay?”

“All right. But don’t you dare forget.”

Without waiting for Lana’s reply, Annabel hung up.

Lana set her own phone down and stared blankly at the wall. Her arms and legs were trembling with spent adrenaline. She rose and tried to organize some of her personal items, knickknacks and figurines, but she felt so jittery and clumsy she finally gave up. She returned to the bed, sprawled on it and lay there, too drained to finish organizing, too wired to crawl under the covers and attempt sleep.