Despite the dark shadow of Nikolai dancing along the fringes of my perception, I couldn’t help but laugh at the image her words conjured. “Bull, Baba, I corrected. Cows don’t have horns… or big dicks for that matter.”
She’d yet to take a bite of her favorite biscuits so her choked laughter told me I’d actually said that last part out loud, the bright smile on her face telling me perhaps that was all right.
Reaching over, she patted my hand this time.
Maybe she was right. Maybe this was what I should be doing. Maybe it was time to stop dipping my toe in the water and to just fling myself into the ocean headfirst. Alek wanted me. I was the one who was holding back. Alek had told me repeatedly he didn’t give a rat’s ass what Yuri’s reaction might be to discovering we were together. I was the one who kept insisting it was better to keep our relationship hidden. Alek had made it obvious he was willing to accept me for who I was, and I was being stupid by freaking out.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” my grandmother said, waving me back when I stood to help her. “No, I can go alone. You can order a fresh batch of biscuits,” she said wiping crumbs from the one she’d crumbled off her hands before gripping the edge of the table as best she could to brace herself as she began to stand. Edging from the booth, she added, “And while I’m gone, you can sit right there and give a good think about what I said.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, dropping down on the red faux leather again, only to spring up as a blankness spread across her face. She went pale ,and her eyes rolled toward the back of her head, causing my heart to stop completely.
“Baba,” I screamed, grabbing for her, but I couldn’t reach her quickly enough. I was scrambling out from my side of the booth as she was slipping toward the floor, passing out. “Help! Call an ambulance!” I yelled. “My grandmother needs help. Someone help me please!”
I slumped down to the floor, trembling as I held my grandmother’s body closely to mine. This couldn’t be happening! What the hell was I supposed to do now? This was too soon. She had just gotten into a trial that was going to help her. She couldn’t die. No, no…
“The ambulance is coming,” a waiter said to me.
My heart was breaking. My world was falling apart. My brain exploded in my head. I’d thought we would have longer to fix this, but I could see now that just like so many other thoughts I’d had, I was wrong.
The paramedics arrived, and my grandmother was pulled from me. I answered their questions by rote, watching as they checked her over. Part of me was so grateful they were gentle as they checked her airway and her pulse. Part of me was livid they were taking so damn long to get her to the hospital. Watching them tuck a blanket in around her frail, tiny body broke my heart.
“You can come with us,” one paramedic said as she and her partner started wheeling the stretcher through the tables.
I nodded, already at the stretcher’s side, my hand holding on as if that would assure my babushka would do the same. All I could do was follow as they lifted the stretcher into the ambulance and then helped me inside. A slap against the interior gave the driver notice that their patient was safe.
Safe.
That was such a strange word. Had so many different connotations, every one of them swirling around in my head.
This couldn’t be it.
It just couldn’t.
I was not ready to lose her.24Alek“I’m so sorry,” I said into my phone as Clara told me what had happened with her grandmother. “Are you okay?”
I couldn’t believe it. They were both in my office only a few hours earlier. Although Olga had looked frail, she wasn’t exactly young, and I knew she was suffering from a severe case of degenerative arthritis, I hadn’t thought she was heading right to the hospital.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“I… I don’t know,” Clara said with a break in her voice that made me feel as if a fist were squeezing my heart. “My head is all over the place.”
“I’m coming,” I said decisively.
I didn’t know if I would do it for any other member of the theater. I’d never been in this position before, but there was no point in pretending Clara was just another dancer to me. What we had wasn’t a casual hookup. I didn’t just like her. I cared a great deal about her, and I wanted… no, I had to be there for her.
“Hang on, baby.”
“No, you don’t have to,” she tried to argue weakly, but I was having none of it. I was going to be with her whether she liked it or not.