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“Where do you live in New York?” she inquires.
“I’ve actually got a couple of apartments.” I try to say this in a way that doesn’t sound like I’m bragging. I’m pretty sure I fail, but Eve says nothing. Instead, her eyes widen in amazement.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I’ve got four properties in Manhattan that I rent out. My apartment is pretty close to the hospital, which is helpful if I’m ever on-call that day.”
“A doctor and a businessman,” she muses. “Looks like you’re doing pretty well for yourself.”
“What about you? What have you been up to in Haven?”
“I was actually based in New York a couple of years ago.”
I raise my eyebrows in surprise. “Really?”
She nods, a flash of pride filling her dark eyes. “I was a part of the corps de ballet with the American Ballet Troupe.”
“For real?”
“I know. It’s weird to think we could have passed each other on the streets and not known it.”
A small smile stretches across my lips. “Yeah. Weird.”
My mind swirls. Who would have thought Eve and I were so close? All this time, we were a couple of blocks away from each other, never quite meeting. I wonder how different things would have been for us had we met sooner.
“What brings you back to Haven, then? Your injury?”
I regret asking the moment the words leave my mouth. Eve’s expression stiffens, something akin to shame and embarrassment washing over her face.
“Yeah,” she mumbles in a tired voice. “I was training really hard because soloist auditions were coming up.”
“Forgive my ignorance, but what’s a soloist? I have no idea how dance hierarchy works.”
“All’s forgiven. I don’t know how surgery works, so I guess we’re even.”
I laugh for what must have been the hundredth time that day. I like how easy it is to relax around her.
“Well, at the very bottom of the ‘hierarchy,’ as you put it, is the coryphées and the corps de ballet. They’re kind of the same, except they’re not.”
“What’s the difference, then?”
Eve eyes me with amused suspicion. “Do you honestly want to know? Or are you just making polite conversation?”
“I genuinely want to know.”
Eve turns her head away as she smiles wide, blushing hard.
Fuck, she’s adorable.
“Please,” I say. “Go on.”
She clears her throat and continues, still looking disastrously cute. “Okay. So, I was a part of the corps and had just recently been promoted to a coryphée. They’re basically given smaller solo parts, promoted if they have enough talent and if they put the work in. Next come the soloists. As the name suggests, they dance solos and often work as principal understudies.”
“Are principals at the top of the food chain? Like Natalie Portman in Black Swan?”
Eve giggles. “Yeah. I guess you could say that.”
“Is the ballerina world as dark and dangerous as the movie makes it look?”
She laughs brilliantly. “Gosh, no. We’re actually supportive of one another. Although, I’m really surprised you even know about that movie.”
“What? I can be a man of culture.”
“Uh-huh. I’m sure you didn’t just watch it to see Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis going at it.”
I let my jaw drop open in mock offense. “You take that back.”
Eve’s still laughing. I think I could listen to her forever and never get bored.
“What were we even talking about?” she asks.
“Why you came back.”
“Oh, right. Yeah, well. A-Ma happened to get sick around the same time I got my shin splints, so I thought it best to move back home to both recover and look out for her.”
A warmth blooms across my chest at her explanation. I reach across the table and place my hand on hers, a tiny gesture of comfort.
“That’s really sweet of you, Eve. Is your mother all right now?”
“She’s fit as a fiddle. I’m pretty sure she’s going to live to a hundred and fifty, that’s how tough she is.”
Something about the way she says this doesn’t sit right with me. Eve grows quiet and still, casting her eyes down to avoid my gaze.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I just worry about her a lot. I really want to make it as a soloist so I can start earning some more money to take care of her. Being a part-time teacher—it doesn’t quite pay the bills, you know? But I also don’t want to join another ballet company out of state and leave her all alone again. I don’t know. It’s a flip-floppy thing for me.”
My heart sinks into the pit of my stomach. In a way, I feel guilty and envious of Eve’s relationship with her mother. I don’t think I’ve ever thought about Mother—or even Pops, for that matter—in that way before. A part of the reason why I’m so happy in New York is because their well-being just isn’t a worry. I know that no matter what, they’ll be able to live out the rest of their years in comfort and luxury.
