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But I didn’t know where that power lived. I wished I’d paid attention that day in the limo. I wished I was a super-security-agency-level info-hacker like Liam so I could find his address off the web. I found the location of his company’s business offices, but I didn’t want to waltz into his place of work uninvited, or linger outside like a stalker, slowly losing my nerve.
Rubio knew where Liam lived.
Did I dare approach Rubio for Liam’s address? I couldn’t do it during class hours or work hours, or backstage during performances—that pesky contract thing. I would have to catch him alone again and hope he’d condescend to talk to me. It took days of lurking before I stumbled across him in a little-used rehearsal room, long past work hours. I peered through a crack in the blinds to be sure he was alone, and then I kept watching, just a few moments, out of curiosity.
Whatever he was working on, it was expressive and slightly wild. I watched him move through steps, his long, muscular legs eating up the floor. It was a miracle, the way he moved. When people talked about things like “God-given talent,” this was what they meant. You didn’t get to his level by work. You either had it within you when you were born, or you didn’t.
Fernando Rubio did.
I’d never had a chance to watch him rehearse like this, privately, with his own creative energy. He looked tortured, driven… I wondered what life was like for the Rubios of the world, who had to numb their artistic genius down into the required structure of commercial production. If his tormented choreography was any indication, it was hard.
When he paused and went to the wall to write down some notes, I slipped in the door, coughing softly so I didn’t scare him. I was breaking every company rule right now. Interrupting a rehearsal, talking to Rubio, looking him right in his shocked, angry eyes.
“What you doing here, stupid girl?” he snapped. “This is a closed rehearsal.”
Rules or no, I was tired of him verbally abusing me. “Please don’t call me stupid again. If you do, I’ll report it to Mr. Thibault.”
“Ha, he doesn’t care. What he do, fire me?”
“Then I’ll report you to the police for assaulting me at that party.”
His eyebrows rose, practically to his hairline. “Assaulting? Whut? You—” He snapped his mouth shut like I was too unreasonable to respond to, but I could see color rising in his cheeks. “I was only playing. Not assault. Learn the difference.”
“I know the difference. Stop calling me stupid, okay?”
“I’ll stop calling you stupid when you stop ruining my rehearsals.”
“I didn’t ruin your rehearsal. I have a quick question and then I’ll go.”
“A quick question?” He looked aghast. “What I look like? Information kiosk? You’re a stupider girl than I gave you credit for.”
“You can do hard time for assault. I’m almost sure of it.”
It was hard not to cringe from his black stare, but I knew if I did I’d never gain his respect. He finally made an annoyed sound and turned away. “What you want, then? You have more trouble with Liam? You want another walk home?” He waved a hand at me. “Call a cab. I’m busy.”
I looked around the dim rehearsal space. “Busy doing what?”
“I told you. Dance for the spring showcase, maybe. It’s none of your business.”
“I thought it looked amazing.”
He glared at me with such vitriol that I took a step back.
“I need Liam’s address,” I said before I lost total control of the situation. “I need to go see him and I don’t want to call first, because I don’t want him to tell me…to tell me no.”
Rubio’s eyes narrowed. “No to what?”
It’s none of your business. I wanted to throw his words back in his face but I needed his help. “Please, just tell me where he lives.”
He turned away and snatched his phone off the top of the piano in the corner. “I don’t know the house number. He lives in Regents Park, near Cambridge and Chester Gate.”
“What are you doing?”
He put the phone to his ear. “Calling Liam to warn him a crazy woman is coming.”
I ran across the room and yanked the cell from his fingers. He stared down at his empty hand and then back at me in disbelief. “Did you just take my phone?”
“Will you listen to me first?”
“Sure,” he snapped. “Then I’ll call him after you leave.”
“I’m not going now anyway. I’m not going yet.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, his lips pursed in a tight line. “Tell me what you want with him.”
“I want to ask him to help me with something.”
“What?”
“I can’t tell you.” When his face darkened I added, “You wouldn’t understand. It’s complicated.”
“If you go see him, it will get more complicated. I told you what he’s like.” He stepped away from me, executed a few tendus and a perfect pirouette. “If you go to him, you’ll end up getting fucked, literally and figuratively. Maybe that excites you.” He flipped up into a handstand and looked at me upside-down. “I’m getting tight. Go away. I won’t call.” His leather ballet shoes smacked the floor as he catapulted back to his feet. “I don’t get any warning when you show up. You’re just there, poof. Now he can have the same horrible experience.”
I was beginning to understand that Rubio only had one comfort zone. Nasty. I handed back his phone. “You said Cambridge and Chester Gate?”
“Yes. Big white house. You know when you see it.”
“Thank you,” I said, heading for the door.
“Hey! Ash-lee.” I turned to him. He gazed back at me, one hand braced on his hip. “Be careful. He is stronger than you are. He can make you do things you don’t want to do.”
“I’m kind of counting on that,” I said under my breath as I left.
*** *** ***
I didn’t go right away. Once I knew where he lived, the whole scheme started to scare me. I reconsidered, I waffled.
Then the week of Christmas arrived, and all my friends made plans with boyfriends and lovers and families. I had none of those things. When people asked about my holiday plans I lied and said a friend was coming to visit me from out of town. We were free by mid-afternoon Christmas Eve, and I had nowhere to go and no one to spend the holidays with. I hadn’t even planned any kind of special meal.
Before Liam, this would have been okay with me. I’d been content to slumber away my life like Sleeping Beauty while the world went on around me, while people lived and laughed and loved. But sleeping wasn’t doing it for me anymore. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t dream. I didn’t want to live like this. I tore the curtains off my bed in a fit of rage around seven that evening. I’d had enough.
I showered, dressed in my one pair of decent jeans and my nicest pale pink cashmere sweater, teased and styled my hair, and even put on makeup. I was going to go see Liam, now, even though it was Christmas Eve, because I had to. I had to move forward because I couldn’t stay any longer where I was.
It was easy to find his house. I directed the cab to the intersection of Cambridge and Chester Gate and immediately located the white edifice I remembered. I paid the driver and stood outside, marshalling my resolve. The house was quiet. No parties. Would he be home? At a friend’s house? At church? I couldn’t picture Liam in church, even on Christmas Eve. He might be inside his big house entertaining a woman. Two women. Three. How many women did a man like Liam need to feel satisfied? Orgies full of women, from what Rubio told me.
He needs a hell of a lot more woman than you.
I silenced the voice in my head and took stock of my situation. The cab was gone. I could call another one to pick me up, or I could do what I’d come here to do, which was ask Liam to fix all the broken things about me.
Like Mr. Thibault told me backstage, I just had to get through it. I marched to the door and rang the bell. It seemed like an eternity before it opened, an eternity to fight with myself an
d not run away. It wasn’t Liam who opened the door, though. An elderly, dark-haired man stared out at me. “Can I help you?” he asked with a clipped accent.
Could this be the wrong house? I looked down the block but I’d been one hundred percent sure this was the one. “Does Liam Wilder live here?”
“May I know your name?”
“Ashleigh Keaton.”
“Miss Keaton.” His face lit up in a smile. “Won’t you come in?” He shook my hand and practically pulled me inside. For someone so frail in stature there was amazing power in his grip. “Please make yourself at home in the living room while I inform Mr. Wilder that you are here.”
I picked a couch and sat down, but it reminded me too much of the last time I was here, so I stood again. He turned up the dim lights and palmed a phone, tapping out a message on the screen.
“What can I get for you, Miss Keaton, while we wait for Mr. Wilder to arrive?”
“He’s not here?”
“Not just yet,” he said in a soothing voice. “But he will not want to miss you. Would you like a drink?” he asked, heading into the open kitchen.
“He doesn’t have to come home from wherever he is. I’ll—I’ll come back another time.”
“Water? A cocktail? Some hot tea?” He played around with a fancy-looking tea press. “It is a perfect night for tea.” He gestured to one of the stools lining the counter. “Please, come and join me. We will chat while we wait.”
He was being too nice for me to refuse, so I crossed and sat on one of the leather-topped bar stools. Within moments the scents of cinnamon, orange, and vanilla wafted to my nose. He opened a cabinet and took out saucers and tea cups with a maroon toile design.
“Do you live here with Liam?” I asked. “You’re a friend of his?”
“Ah, yes. I live here. I am a friend but I have worked for Mr. Wilder too, many years.”
“What do you do? Cook?” I only asked because the tea smelled so delicious.
“Cook, yes. Sometimes. I do many things. Are you hungry? Would you like some Christmas Eve goodies?”
He started piling homemade cookies on a plate before I could say no. He told me what kind they were as he arranged them. Macadamia, mint cream, Russian teacakes. I remembered putting homemade cookies out for Santa as a child. I was so young when I stopped believing in stuff like that. When the tea was done, he gave me a full cup along with some sugar and cream that he produced from the massive refrigerator.
I looked over my shoulder toward the foyer. “Please tell me you didn’t call him away from a party or something. A date.”
The man’s expression didn’t change. “He will not mind being called away.” He stirred his own cup of tea, meeting my eyes. “He has been waiting for you.”
