2
Clara
Of course I wanted to get back on stage. I’d been born to dance. That was why I allowed that little tidbit of information to slip into my interview recently. But that didn’t mean it could actually happen. I’d changed too much, and I really did need to take care of the woman who’d raised me after my mother died and my father had no desire to take on the baby of a woman he hadn’t even seen fit to wed. I owed this woman everything. It had been she who’d put the love of ballet into my very soul. The answer was no… but I remained by the door, with my back pressed against it, struggling to breathe without pain until I heard the sound of the engine of Alexei’s car fade as he pulled away.
How dare he come up to my home, blowing my mind by looking like he’d stepped off the cover of a GQ magazine, then offer me a glimpse of a life I once knew? He’d claimed not to be a practical joker, but he’d pulled the cruelest tease ever.
“Clara?” I heard my grandmother call out. “Can you come in here for a moment?”
I sighed deeply and wandered into the kitchen where my grandmother slumped slightly over the table, clearly suffering from a lot of pain. I hated seeing her this way. I had always known her to be a really strong, powerful woman. But as soon as the osteoarthritis started its insidious degeneration of the cartilage and tissues surrounding her joints, she’d begun to crumble.
Once Olga Simyoneva had been the most beautiful and skilled dancer in the small Russian village of her birth. She’d never made it to the Bolshoi Ballet as Nadia Volkova had, but I’d sat at her feet listening to her spin tales of a world that had sounded so full of magic it took one’s breath away. Where ugly ducklings turned into the most beautiful swans and where princesses were swept away by the charming princes. I’d known since I could talk that I’d been named Clara after the little girl whose dance told the wonderous fairy tale of enchantment in The Nutcracker.
My babushka had instilled in me a love of ballet before I’d ever slipped into my first pair of pink satin flats. Now the disease was crippling her a little more every day, and it absolutely shattered me to see her knuckles and feet so swollen and twisted it was a huge effort to hold a cup of tea or walk more than a few steps. Though she tried to disguise her pain, I could see it in her eyes. I needed to be here for her, as much as she didn’t want to be a burden to me, but I was more than happy to do it.
“What was that about?” she asked me curiously, pushing to stand as straight as she could as she gestured toward the window above the kitchen sink. “I thought I heard a man talking outside.”
“Oh, that was nothing.”
I did my best to brush it off, but it was too late for that. From the way the lacy curtains were blowing with the draft, I knew the window was open. I had no doubt that my grandmother had been eavesdropping on my entire conversation with Alek Volkov. My grandmother had been trying to convince me to get back into ballet since I returned home from rehab, and this was only going to make it so much worse.
“You want a drink of water or something? When was the last time you took your pain pills?” I asked, trying to move on from any thoughts or discussion of Alek.
“You know you should be welcoming his offer with open arms,” she said, completely ignoring my questions as well as dropping any pretense she was ignorant of what had occurred outside. “You were born to dance, Clara. You shouldn’t be shut up here in this house, looking after an old woman and trying to teach spoiled children who’d rather be playing games on their cell phones than learning even the basic poses any serious dancer could do in their sleep. This isn’t the way your life should be. Child, it’s not the story written for you.”
“We’ve had this conversation many times. I blew it,” I said softly, with more than a twinge of regret. “I made my choices, and now I have to deal with the consequences.”
“Don’t give me that,” she shot back as she grimaced, fingers tightening on the back of her chair as she attempted to disguise the pain her outburst had cost her. “Clara, you made a mistake—”
“A mistake?” I scoffed sarcastically, giving a rather unladylike snort. “Baba, I made so many I can’t even give you a number.”
At the risk of losing her precarious balance, she lifted her hand and shook her finger at me. “It’s not polite to interrupt your elders, young lady. It doesn’t matter how many mistakes you made. We all make them. You shouldn’t be punished forever because of one. And that man came here to speak to you. That seems like a clear second chance to me. You should go to that theater and see what you think. I know you dance in the garage, but what would be the harm of dancing in a real studio with actual dancers? There’s no reason you can’t work out a bit, burn off some of the angst I know you feel when you sit up late at night and watch those old videos of the ballet you don’t think I know about. Clara, wouldn’t it be nice to see how it feels again? Before you lose the gift forever?”
She paused and, while she took several deep breaths, I knew she was thinking about the abilities the arthritis had stolen when it began to sink its evil claws into her joints. Shaking her head, she lifted her face, and I saw it light with a glow as she smiled, refusing to allow the disease to take her spirit.
“Besides, child, think about how far that gorgeous man’s chiseled jaw will drop when you try out and beat any poor soul he tries to put up against you.”
God, I so loved her and couldn’t stop a smile at her teasing. Still, as satisfying as that would be, one of us had to face reality. “I can’t. What about you?” I walked over to the sink to pour her a glass of water. “Plus, I have my hands busy with my classes,” I lied.
Whatever my dreams were, whatever I wanted, I needed to be there for her. She could argue all she wanted, but she relied heavily on me, and that was all there was to it. She needed me on her good days, and she definitely needed me when she was suffering. When that pain was radiating through her fragile body, she couldn’t do a single thing for herself. The time of attempting to bury my head in the sand and ignore what was right in front of my face had ended four years ago. I wasn’t about to ignore the fact my place was right here, regardless of what she said.
“What about me? I’ll be fine.”
It was exactly like her to put my needs first, but it really wasn’t so simple.
“Just because some man came here, doesn’t mean the ballet world would trust me and welcome me back with open arms. I don’t think anyone ever will again. I doubt I’d even get a part in the corps de ballet much less a starring role.”
What I thought but didn’t dare say was I was positive I’d get a middle finger and a forcefully delivered “fuck you” instead.
“I don’t want to get my hopes up because some naïve little boy who is in over his head with Mommy’s business that he knows nothing about says so,” I added feeling an almost desperate need to get out of the house, and I needed to do it before my grandmother kept harping on me. “Besides, who needs a theater to dance?” Looking out the window, the sight of a blue jay gave me my excuse. “I’ve got to pick those strawberries before the birds take them all. I know how much you enjoy them added to your yogurt.”