malesâtwo from Texas and two of our apprentices. He has to start rehearsing them immediately for the coming season. Iâm sorry.â
Miss Freezinâ was still so full of it. She couldnât have been happier to take my call. Kharkov would use it as an example to the Company as he had in the past. Heâd gloat, then theyâd gloat, thinking they had landed in the biggest pot of ballet honey around, but it just wasnât the truth. The truth was that they had a job.
I called Rachelle after finishing all the wine. Her voice grounded me. âHello prodigal son. We miss you like stinkweed. Youâre drunk. Are you with your hubby? Are you coming back?â
âThatâs optimistic.â
âWhich one?â
âAll of the above, although I am quite inebriated.â
âA little game of hide and seek?â
âGood news travels fast.â
âNever mind. Your big plunge has caused a wave of self-doubt. Three have taken offers to dance in Atlanta. You probably could have gone with them or negotiated something. And the empty spaces have all been filled in. Itâs all up-and-comers and new blood. Speaking of blood, Gordon and I are getting a divorce. Do you want an invitation to the un-wedding?â
âIf I were married, we could have a double divorce.â Itâs funny how the memory of replacing the receiver of a phone into its cradle lasts longer than the feeling left by the call. I have this long internal list of postâhang-up-the-phone feelings. Someone tells you they are sick, someone accepts an offer, someone says goodbye, maybe for the very last time. That moment after stamps itself forever onto your consciousness. It could be filled with silence, or a clock ticking in an empty room, or the swirl of life still continuing around you in a train station or an airport. The echoed ring from the receiver being slammed down. In this instance it was the sight of gob and tears that dripped from my face onto the floor, as I had a drunken weep. I was still on the same patch of floor the next morning, shivering, when Hugues took pity and actually brought me a café au lait and wrapped me in a comforter.
Septemberâs cold, clear blue skies shone over everything: the city, the mountainâforcing everyone to be happy about good weather for sleeping, and a fresh start at school or work after their vacation. And me, hungover on a Monday morning with nothing to start. What now? Shop around? Find a small company? Which one? Les Ballets Jazz? Eddie Toussaint? I looked too desperate. I was dancing like a fucking broken nutcracker.
Things have been a little too stop-and-start recently for me to be a big believer in fate; doors slam in front of you or behind you. It ends up meaning the same thing. I wouldnât have described what happened next as luck, not then. In retrospect it brought a crazy dancer, Bertrand, into my life, to save me from my ennui, unclog the cogs and get the next part of my story unstuck. But itâs not what it sounds likeânot another man for my dance card. Yes, I found him attractive, but only because he was the only person Iâd ever met who was as crazy and as cockeyed-optimisticâa truly nutty look in his eyesâas me.
He was passionate about dance, had a gorgeous big muscular ass and a generously loaded crotch. He was a tight package of male body odour and lean muscle ready to burst. I only mention these qualities because that is how he danced, with a suppressed energy, as if he and everything in his tights would explode in a second. His face was Depardieu before foodâthe meandering nose, slightly crooked teeth and wide jaw and a kind of indefinable handsome wild aura. He had studied at the Conservatoire for the summer and we exchanged glances and nods in the hall from time to time. I wondered if he was gayâhe wasnâtâand he probably wondered why the hell I was staring at his crotch. We shared a pas de
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