“Then?”
“I don’t know. I peaked when I was young. I remember them telling my mother that I was an exceptional eleven-year-old.”
“Was she proud?” he asked me, knowing I’d lost her when I was twenty.
“Yes,” I rasped, taking a sip of water.
He cleared his throat. “You traveled with her a lot to the summer intensives, right? I remember reading that you two went all over the world.”
I took a settling breath, smiling at him, pleased that he was moving the conversation away from me and on to my mother. “We did. I trained with many soloists, and getting so many different perspectives on my art helped form me as a dancer.”
“She made that happen, yeah?”
I nodded. My mother had made my dreams hers. She lived for me, and I was just about to explode as a dancer and give her the life I dreamed of her having when she’d been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It had taken her quickly, and then I was alone…until Eli.
“You must wish she were here to see you make principal,” he offered, likely thinking that was the reason for my melancholy. “That must be why you look so miserable.”
“I look miserable?”
“You don’t look happy,” he clarified.
I was quiet for a moment because I had to think of what exactly I wanted to say. “The other night, your mother asked me what I wanted to do.”
“Oh no,” he groaned.
“No,” I rushed out. “It was good. It got me thinking.”
“Which was obviously a bad idea.”
“Knock it off.”
He put down his fork and looked at me.“Well?”
“It’s just…when I told her I was going to dance, she said, ‘Well, yes, darling.’ You know how she does it, nicely but with a hint of exasperation.”
“Yeah, I know,” he assured me with a trace of laughter.
I chuckled; I couldn’t help it. “Basically, she wanted to know what I was going to do when I wasn’t a dancer anymore, and I had no idea.”
“You’re only twenty-eight. You have time to figure things out.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” He leaned forward. “I thought you loved dancing.”
“Yes. I mean…yes, I do.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
I thought a moment.
“What are you trying to tell me?”
I wasn’t sure.
“Cel?”
“I just don’t love it like I used to, and that’s scary as hell.”