That was the burlesque, I thought, though I didn’t tell Annabelle. It hadn’t blown anything up. It was the key that had opened a lock at the front of a cage I hadn’t known was holding me in. Now the door was open and I could do anything.
Thinking about burlesque dancing made me think about Sebastian, which I still did far too often. And I might have known, without a shred of doubt, that I’d made the right decision. That I wouldn’t change anything if I could.
But that didn’t make me miss him any less.
My mother had come down to the city for some or other charity thing today. She knew perfectly well this was my day off, so I’d had no option but to agree to meet her for lunch when I would have preferred to work on my audition routine.
I walked into the restaurant, saw her at once, and started weaving my way to the tables toward her. She looked as she always did. Perfectly put together, her hair elegant, her expression haughtily serene.
I couldn’t help thinking about the odd ties that held us together. Mother and daughter. Obligation and disappointment, love and hope. I understood how those things moved as one and made a whole when it was a dance company. Why did I think a family was so different?
When she looked up and saw me, a faint frown marred her smooth forehead. I knew she did not approve of what I had chosen to wear for our lunch. My favorite boots, clunky and a little bit motorcycle-y. Leggings without a tunic covering them up, making them the pants she abhorred. And the cropped leather jacket that showed off entirely too much of my body without even attempting to conceal any of it. I could hear her objections from across the room.
But she said nothing as I sat down opposite her and we exchanged greetings.
I waited until we’d ordered our food, a sensible salad for her and a grilled cheese for me, because I liked to live dangerously. These days, anyway. Then I sat back in my chair and smiled at her.
“I’m glad you wanted to have lunch, Mom,” I said, before I lost my nerve. “I have something to tell you.”
Up went that brow. But I refused to be cowed.
“I’m leaving the Knickerbocker,” I said.
My mother stared back at me, her face frozen. “I beg your pardon?”
“I understand that you don’t appreciate other forms of dance the way you do ballet,” I said as diplomatically as possible. “But I’m going to join a contemporary dance company. It actually has quite a sterling reputation, though of course it doesn’t have the Knickerbocker’s grand history. Anyway, it’s time to move on and that’s what I’m doing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to understand this, Mom.” My voice was harder than it needed to be, maybe. But I wanted to get my point across. “I hope you’ll support me either way.”
My mother blinked. “Darcy.”
I braced myself for the lecture, but she only shook her head as if I was a mystery to her. It made my heart hurt.
“Of course we’ll support you,” she said, with that cultured certainty that had always made me feel grubby and unhinged in comparison. “You behave as if you think your father and I don’t know how difficult it is to be a professional dancer. But of course we do. We see exactly how hard you work. If you see any hesitation on my part it’s because I thought you loved ballet to distraction. Why else would you dedicate your life to it?”
“I do love ballet.” Though I felt unsteady, suddenly. As if I’d never seen my mother before. As if I’d broken my own heart. “But it doesn’t love me back, Mom. It never will. And I think there’s only so long you can live with that.”
Maybe I wasn’t talking about the ballet anymore. Not entirely.
“I know it’s the fashion to tell young people that they should do what they love, damn the torpedoes, and so on,” my mother said, after a moment. “But you’ve done that. And you’ve always combined your passions with intense discipline. It’s why you’ve made it as far as you have.”
“But not far enough,” I finished for her. Before she could get the jab in. “Not a soloist.”
“Will you be a soloist at your new company?”
“Yes.” It was amazing how much satisfaction it gave me to say that. “I believe I’ll come in—assuming I nail the addition—as a principal.”
“It’s what you’ve always wanted,” my mother said. “It doesn’t surprise me, Darcy, that having gone so far down one road without getting where you wanted to go, you decided that you might prefer another. You were the most determined child I’d ever encountered. While my friends’ children were getting into trouble, with drugs and sex and all the rest of it, you never wavered. Ever.”
“I’m wavering now.” Though really, the only thing wavering was my voice. “I guess if professional ballet is a game of chicken, I lost.”
“Nonsense.” And this time, when my mother’s brow rose, I felt that she was doing it for me, not at me. “Ballet might be rigidly hierarchical, but love is not. Or it isn’t love. It expands. It changes when necessary—that’s called growth. And so will you.” She even smiled. “I will look into season tickets for your new company at once.”
And in case I thought that she had been body snatched, when my tears welled up she looked aghast, produced a tissue from her bag, and told me to pull myself together.
I couldn’t remember ever feeling so at peace after an interaction with my mother before. I walked back to my apartment afterward, feeling...solid. Connected. I would dance out the rest of my contract at the Knickerbocker. I would nail my audition. And I would start a whole new chapter of professional dancing.