Counterpointe (10 page)

Clare struggled to hide her dismay.

“
The Nutcracker
had the opposite effect on Lynne. She took lessons and now she goes to practically every ballet performance.”

“You were a dancer?”

Lynne shook her head. “I discovered rather quickly I had more talent for appreciating than for performing.”

Listening for a wistful nuance, Clare didn’t hear one. A relief after Lynne’s earlier revelation about dashed pregnancy hopes. “The ballet wouldn’t survive without both.”

“No, I don’t suppose it would.”

“You know,” Mrs. Chapin said. “I haven’t been to
The Nutcracker
in years. I do believe it’s something best enjoyed in the company of a child. Perhaps when I have grandchildren—”

“Should I go ahead and put dressing on the salad now?” Clare said.

Lynne mouthed a silent
thank you
.

Mrs. Chapin appeared annoyed but recovered quickly. “Lynne, don’t forget, your father takes his salad without dressing. Now, Clare, I want to hear more about you and Rob.”

“What do you want to know?”

“You met each other, what, four months ago?”

“That’s right.”

“Hmm. He must like you.”

“I hope so, since I like him.”

“Are the two of you...you know, it’s such a modern thing, these days. Cohabiting?” Mrs. Chapin finished off with a tight smile.

Clare drew in a breath to catch her conversational balance and covered her surprise at the bald question by getting out a bowl to set aside a serving of the salad for Rob’s father. “I’ve never heard it called that before.” Outside of Jane Austen.

Was that where Rob got his peculiar vocabulary, his mother, not the
Reader
’
s-Digest
-reading grandmother?

“Certainly, in a sense you could say we cohabit, since we both live in Massachusetts, although Rob lives in Boston, while I live in Marblehead.” She took a quick breath and kept the words coming. “I’m renting a house from this couple I know while they’re in Paris. I keep an eye on everything and, in return, I pay a reasonable rent. Not low, you understand, but definitely affordable for the area. It’s terribly inconvenient, of course. Sometimes after a late performance, I cohabit with one of the other dancers instead of going all the way home.” A glance at Mrs. Chapin confirmed that the steady flow of irrelevant information was having the desired effect.

Lynne appeared to be amused, Mrs. Chapin not so much.

“How nice for you, dear. Marblehead is lovely, although I haven’t been in years. Now, Lynne, do you want me to take the meat out to the men?”

“Game, set, match, rout,” Lynne whispered as her mother swept out of the kitchen bearing a platter of hamburger patties. “You must teach me how to do that.”

“It’s simple, really. Deflect the question, then keep talking boring nonsense until the person is sorry they ever spoke to you.”

“That’s all well and good. Unfortunately, Mom can be persistent. She considers it her duty to check our friends out. That’s no doubt why Rob keeps most of his under wraps.”

Mrs. Chapin, obviously a strategic thinker, waited until they were all sitting around the picnic table in the back yard before launching her next foray. “I think it’s so interesting you’re dating a dancer, Rob. Somehow, I always pictured you with a professional woman.”

“Clare is a professional woman, Mom.”

“I didn’t mean to imply she isn’t. She just doesn’t, well, do something...usual.”

Had she wanted to say
useful
and pulled back? Smiling, Clare waited to see who would outwit whom.

“It’s one of the many things that makes her interesting.” Rob placed a hand over Clare’s on the tabletop where his mother could see.

“It must be difficult, though. It isn’t a career that’s exactly conducive to family life.” Clearly, Mrs. Chapin didn’t give up easily.

“Family life comes in all shapes and sizes, Mom. I expect every family has to work out its own peculiarities. Personally, I’ve always thought those corporate types, the ones who jet around the world at a moment’s notice, have the least conducive careers for family life. Of course, I don’t have any hard evidence to support that hypothesis. And it isn’t good science to generalize without data, of course, but sometimes temptation overcomes even the most virtuous.”

As the senior Chapins pulled out of the driveway at the end of the day, Lynne bent over in mirth. “Did you see her face? Did you teach Rob how to do that?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Yes, you did,” Rob said. “When I came in to get the salt, I heard you and Lynne talking. When the opportunity presented itself, I simply couldn’t resist. It worked great. We owe you bigtime, Clare.” He dropped a kiss on her cheek.

She smiled at him.
Fall in like
, wasn’t that how he’d put it?

She appeared to be well on her way.

Grand pas de deux - Adage

Dance for two -
 
slow sustained work

In the fall, neither Clare nor Rob had as much time to spend together—she busy with rehearsals, he with teaching. But he found a way to be with her after he attended the first ballet of the new season.

“What do you usually do after performances?”

“You mean, when a pleasant professor doesn’t show up to take me home?” She linked her hand with his across the car’s console. “If it’s a matinee, I take the bus home. If it’s late, I spend the night with Denise. Either way, the first order of business is food, because I’m always starving.”

“Do you want to stop somewhere?”

“No, better if you just take me home. I’ll find something to heat up.”

“Why don’t you let me cook?”

“You cook?”

“It’s not very flattering to sound so surprised. If I didn’t cook, I’d starve. In case it escaped your notice, I do live alone.”

“Okay. I accept.”

While she showered, he assessed the contents of her refrigerator and ended up making his late-night specialty—fried egg sandwiches.

Clare came downstairs, wearing a terry cloth robe, her face pink and scrubbed. They ate and talked quietly until Clare stretched and yawned. “You know, I’m sleepy. Usually, it takes me hours to relax after a performance.”

“It’s my gift. Making women sleepy.”

“It’s a wonderful gift.”

“What were you thinking, just then?”

She shook her head. “Oh, nothing.”

“You seemed sad.”

She sighed. “I was remembering...oh, it isn’t important.”

“Not a good memory.”

“Parts were good. Once upon a time.” Her hands plucked at a loose thread on the robe. Rob doubted she realized she was doing it.

He’d never hunted but perhaps it would be like this. Catching a glimpse, a flash of movement, and freezing in place, so you didn’t startle whatever wild thing was there. He waited, silent and still.

“It’s just...sometimes, when the dancing goes really well, it’s easy to forget it isn’t real. That closeness to a partner. And after a performance...” Her words trailed off, her gaze focused inward.

Was she trying to tell him she was in love with Stephan Orsini? Rob’s chest tightened.

“Oh, I’m being maudlin.” Clare shook her head. “Ridiculous. It’s in the past, after all.”

Although he wasn’t completely reassured, Rob’s breathing eased. She stood and began clearing the table. It meant no more confidences tonight.

“I guess I better get going.”

Clare halted halfway to the kitchen with her empty plate and turned to face him. “Would you like to stay?”

It seemed to take forever to drag the breath back into his lungs. While he did he stared at Clare across the length of the room.

Her expression became tentative. “It wasn’t a trick question, you know.”

“God yes, I want to stay.”

She set the plate down and reached out a hand to him. Although, he felt light enough to leap over the table, he approached her cautiously, reality unspooling, spinning away, as he put his hand in hers.
 

Clare stepped into Rob’s embrace, as surprised by her invitation as he’d obviously been. But with the words spoken, she found she had no wish to take them back.

One of Rob’s hands slid through her hair, smoothing it, massaging her scalp. “I love your hair. I wanted to do this the first night we met.”

She bit down on the temptation to counter with a smart remark. Instead, she relaxed, letting her thoughts slow to the pace of his stroking. Safe. She was safe with Rob. She settled against him, using her lips to taste and touch. Letting everything else fall away—memories, fears, doubts.

Rob’s desire for Clare had become a deep, stubborn ache. What an enormous relief when she took his hand and led him upstairs to her bedroom. There, she unwrapped him with a slow, solemn deliberation he then turned on her.

Naked, she was even lovelier than he imagined she’d be. The elegant definition of muscle in leg, shoulder, and arm now fully revealed—a tensile strength, tempered by delicacy. The silken slide of her skin, rosy with arousal against his fingertips. Her lovely dancer’s body, moving in a rhythm, finally, of his devising.

Before he met Clare, the thought he might be missing something had been vague, formless. Now she had brought shape and weight, sound and touch, taste and smell into his life. Thank God he hadn’t settled for less.

“Tell me,” he said, holding her close. “What it’s like when you dance.”

“It’s...”

He waited.

“Always before a performance, it’s a madhouse backstage. Everyone rushing around until this moment when everything goes still and we all stop moving, speaking. As if we’ve been frozen by the casting of a spell. Then the music begins, and when I step onstage, it’s like stepping into a different dimension. As if I’m dreaming it. And everything is effortless, even the bits I’ve had trouble with. And nothing hurts. It’s the most amazing, fantastic feeling. There’s really no word that can quite describe it.”