Read Online More Than A Maybe by Clarissa Monte - Free Book Online
Authors: Clarissa Monte
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you as just a dancer tonight. Or just anything. I saw you as a dancer. If you truly see the other girls at that club as just dancers, you’re suggesting that they’re doing something silly, or stupid, or wrong. Is that how you see them? Or whoever took the time to teach you all those moves I saw tonight?”
“No,” I admit. “I don’t see them like that.” I think about that cellphone snap I took with the other girls. Just a few hours ago, we’d all been on the same team, ready to take on the world. Now I’m trying to dismiss what they do to make myself feel better about my failure tonight. It might be a totally different kind of dancing, but somehow I doubt that Ginger Rogers would approve of my attitude.
Still, any pricking of guilt is balanced by another realization, and I feel a wicked thrill shoot through me. He ’d noticed my routine after all. It made sense — certainly he’d had no trouble catching me when I took my tumble off the stage. He must have been paying more attention than I’d realized.
Xavier looks forward at the rushing gray blur of the oncoming highway . . . wherever we’re now going, we’re getting there awfully quickly. And then, in the next moment, he turns, and his gaze is suddenly locked directly with my own.
It’s like he’s communicating with my very soul.
“Tell me, then . . .” he says, his voice now sharp. “Who exactly are you?”
The question is unexpected — and it’s one I don’t have an answer to. It’s like a sudden pressure on my shoulders. Nobody has ever asked me that before . . . not my mother. Not Jayla.
Not even myself.
The tears are coming again, and now I’m not sure that I can hold them back.
“I . . . I don’t know,” I say.
Xavier says nothing, but somehow I sense his understanding. He moves his hand to the inside pocket of the coat around my shoulders. The back of his hand brushes lightly against me, and for a moment I can feel the soft touch of his skin. He produces a beautiful handkerchief of royal purple silk, and presses it into my palm.
“In that case,” he says, “tell me who you were. And perhaps a bit of who you would like to be. I will take you home.”
***
I open up to Xavier. I tell him about growing up under the constant demands of my mother, how she died. The medical school, the waitressing. I tell him about all of the fantasies in my Book; all those long nights huddled with the Goddesses on Turner Classic Movies. I tell him about Jayla, that first interview at Mirages . . . I even tell him about Kiki on the DVD and my living room practice with the broomstick. That makes him smile.
He says nothing, but this time I feel like his silence has a different purpose. He takes it all in, nodding from time to time. I have no idea why it should be so interesting to him . . . but it is. And then, when I’ve finally gotten it all off my chest and made generous use of his handkerchief, he speaks.
“So that’s who you were,” he says, opening his strong and elegant arms in a wide gesture. “So how about now? What will you be? ”
It’s a question I’ve had since my mother’s death, but here in the car the answer finally comes to me. The words seem to crackle with danger, and I force them out of me before I have time to reconsider.
“I want to be beautiful.”
The sentence seems to suck the air from the car.
I find myself awaiting some response from Xavier — one of those cheerful, polite reassurances that men always keep up their sleeves for moments like these:
Oh, I think you’re very attractive!
You don’t have anything to worry about!
You just need to have a little more confidence!
But he doesn’t say anything — not for a long time. When he finally replies, all he has for me is a single word.
“Why?”
It’s another question with no easy answer. But even if it isn’t easy to put into words, I want Xavier to understand. I need him to understand.
I feel a tingle of gooseflesh; little hairs begin to
“No,” I admit. “I don’t see them like that.” I think about that cellphone snap I took with the other girls. Just a few hours ago, we’d all been on the same team, ready to take on the world. Now I’m trying to dismiss what they do to make myself feel better about my failure tonight. It might be a totally different kind of dancing, but somehow I doubt that Ginger Rogers would approve of my attitude.
Still, any pricking of guilt is balanced by another realization, and I feel a wicked thrill shoot through me. He ’d noticed my routine after all. It made sense — certainly he’d had no trouble catching me when I took my tumble off the stage. He must have been paying more attention than I’d realized.
Xavier looks forward at the rushing gray blur of the oncoming highway . . . wherever we’re now going, we’re getting there awfully quickly. And then, in the next moment, he turns, and his gaze is suddenly locked directly with my own.
It’s like he’s communicating with my very soul.
“Tell me, then . . .” he says, his voice now sharp. “Who exactly are you?”
The question is unexpected — and it’s one I don’t have an answer to. It’s like a sudden pressure on my shoulders. Nobody has ever asked me that before . . . not my mother. Not Jayla.
Not even myself.
The tears are coming again, and now I’m not sure that I can hold them back.
“I . . . I don’t know,” I say.
Xavier says nothing, but somehow I sense his understanding. He moves his hand to the inside pocket of the coat around my shoulders. The back of his hand brushes lightly against me, and for a moment I can feel the soft touch of his skin. He produces a beautiful handkerchief of royal purple silk, and presses it into my palm.
“In that case,” he says, “tell me who you were. And perhaps a bit of who you would like to be. I will take you home.”
***
I open up to Xavier. I tell him about growing up under the constant demands of my mother, how she died. The medical school, the waitressing. I tell him about all of the fantasies in my Book; all those long nights huddled with the Goddesses on Turner Classic Movies. I tell him about Jayla, that first interview at Mirages . . . I even tell him about Kiki on the DVD and my living room practice with the broomstick. That makes him smile.
He says nothing, but this time I feel like his silence has a different purpose. He takes it all in, nodding from time to time. I have no idea why it should be so interesting to him . . . but it is. And then, when I’ve finally gotten it all off my chest and made generous use of his handkerchief, he speaks.
“So that’s who you were,” he says, opening his strong and elegant arms in a wide gesture. “So how about now? What will you be? ”
It’s a question I’ve had since my mother’s death, but here in the car the answer finally comes to me. The words seem to crackle with danger, and I force them out of me before I have time to reconsider.
“I want to be beautiful.”
The sentence seems to suck the air from the car.
I find myself awaiting some response from Xavier — one of those cheerful, polite reassurances that men always keep up their sleeves for moments like these:
Oh, I think you’re very attractive!
You don’t have anything to worry about!
You just need to have a little more confidence!
But he doesn’t say anything — not for a long time. When he finally replies, all he has for me is a single word.
“Why?”
It’s another question with no easy answer. But even if it isn’t easy to put into words, I want Xavier to understand. I need him to understand.
I feel a tingle of gooseflesh; little hairs begin to
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