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Both Juliette and Gabriel gawked. Katarina remained impassive, arms crossed over her chest, looking from one participant of this conversation to the other with visible boredom.
“Cesca—”
“I have made myself very clear and I will not be reconsidering my decision. The pas de deux is not a gender flip, amor. It’s a vision of the movement. I am reinventing it, not massacring Tchaikovsky. Plus, you two are already wearing each other’s clothes. How much more lesbian do you want this entire experience to get?”
Juliette felt more than saw the stiffening of Katarina’s willowy arms, and the bored expression lifted for a moment before the clearly practiced detachment returned to the chiseled features. This was the second time Francesca had brought up her lesbianism in front of Katarina and the second time the former Soviet prima reacted in a way that Juliette could only guess was a recoil. Too bad. But maybe just bad enough to have Juliette overcome the stupor she entered every time she had to come face-to-face with her. Bigotry wasn’t attractive.
Except, Katarina was. Even now she was breathtaking. After being thrown to the wolves of her judgment on the subject of sexuality the way Juliette had been, Katarina’s allure sadly didn’t dim. She remained the epitome of gorgeous. Juliette watched, mesmerized, as her future dance partner pushed off the wall and took a few steps toward the exit, clearly done with this conversation since it had turned to matters disturbing to her.Nothing seemed to detract from the allure. Juliette pressed a steadying hand to her abdomen and got a narrowed-eyed look from Gabriel.
In the meantime, Katarina had reached the door, with her long, unfaltering stride crossing the room in just a few steps.
“If this is all.” Despite the supposed inquiry, there was no question mark in her tone, and it felt very much like she was the one dismissing them all. To Francesca’s nod and careless, “Yes, yes, go take class, make up for the lost morning,” she simply closed the door behind herself without a backward glance.
A second passed, two, the clock on the wall measuring time and the beats of Juliette’s heart, which suddenly felt like it was beating itself out of her chest.
Here it comes…
“No way, Jett! You do not!” Gabriel was on his feet and by her side in the blink of an eye.
Juliette sidestepped him, but apparently also sidestepping Francesca, who was smirking at them, was not an option.
“Oh, if I was a betting woman, I’d put a considerable amount of money on the fact that yes, she very much does, querido.”
Juliette shook her head at their shenanigans.
“Last I checked, youarea betting woman and I have no idea what either of you two clowns are talking about.”
“You and the walking icicle over there, amor, of course.” Francesca pointed to the door and made a show of looking for her cane. Gabriel jumped to help her. Once he had delivered the ebony oak, he gave her an elbow bump, as always mindful of her balance.
“I see now why you are staging the pas de deux between these two. All that talk about great ballerinas, matching Jett, so bogus. It’s all about the sizzle. And while we fake sizzle as well as can be expected from two gays, even I can’t act at that level.”
Francesca laughed, and Juliette felt like she had taken awalk through the magic mirror. For surely this must be a parallel universe of some sort. She had probably been inhabiting it since yesterday because the entire ordeal had to be a figment of her imagination. Especially the way she acted around Katarina. Which had to be some kind of aberration, one she would deny till death. And speaking of denying…
“What level is that, Gabriel? Because I see no level?—”
“It’s really serendipitous that you are a dancer and not a sharpshooter, amor. Your eyesight leaves quite a lot to be desired. You couldn’t see Helena roping you into that relationship, nor goading you to go to New York. And that’s fine. Part of your charm. All that brain and all this nearsightedness. To your own importance, to your own attractiveness. It doesn’t matter. It’s enough that I see it. And the public will see it.”
Juliette rolled her eyes and looked down at her fingernails. It was time for a manicure.
“And what is it that you and the public will be seeing?”
“Lust and fear, amor. And these are unique emotions to playwithand playtowhen dancing. Nothing comes close to that.”
With those words, Francesca took Gabriel’s arm and left Juliette alone in the now-empty office among dirty mugs, scattered music sheets, and a faint trace of orange blossom.
9
OF PINK LIGHT & NIGHT TERRORS
Okay, so maybe Francesca was a tad correct. Only a tad, mind you. Juliette wouldn’t go as far as lust, because that was way off base and she just didn’t want to wade into that quagmire. However, to be fair to all involved, Juliette decided to cautiously admit to attraction. Fine. Francesca could have attraction.
Juliette was miffed about it, but the feeling wasn’t foreign. She was experienced, after all, and knew how to handle it without making the object of said emotion uncomfortable. And Juliette was convinced that Katarina would not be just uncomfortable, she’d be utterly disgusted by it, since she had shown nothing but contempt every time Juliette’s lesbianism had been mentioned.
Juliette, however, felt that her usual woman-about-town savoir faire in matters of women had abandoned her. She had already been thoroughly inappropriate to Katarina by getting caught ogling her as she exited the shower, dripping wet, in a flimsy towel.
Juliette wanted to smack herself upside the head for being so obvious. So devoid of tact and self-control. In her defense, Katarina could stop traffic on any day. Katarina covered onlyby a patch of cotton would have paralyzed Paris’s entire infrastructure. Juliette was only human.
Well, human or not, days passed and she felt like an alien in her own space. They would exit the apartment on Rue de Rivoli and walk seemingly together yet without a single word past Rue Saint-Honoré toward Place de l’Opéra. A fifteen-minute walk on her regular days, Juliette would make this one in ten because Katarina stopped for nothing, not even red lights, although there weren’t too many of those. So Juliette kept up, even if she wasn’t entirely sure why. They weren’t speaking. They weren’t even acknowledging each other.
