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Ballet is moving. I’m not so insecure about my masculinity that I can’t admit it. I think only an idiot would deny the transformative powers of this art form. There is something magical about motion and music set so perfectly together, a kind of earthly nirvana. While some companies leave me stone-cold, the MBG never fails to capture my imagination. As the final dance finishes and prima Marietta Kostroyva takes her curtsy, I turn to Millie. Her cheeks are wet with tears.
Ballet is moving, but I hadn’t expected to see her so moved, nor the way my own emotions would respond to that sight.
‘Hey.’ The word is hoarse. ‘You okay?’
She nods jerkily, but doesn’t meet my eyes. ‘That was so lovely.’
I nod, unconvinced.
She wipes her cheeks and smiles brightly, looking towards me as she stands. ‘Thank you.’
I reach for her hand, braiding our fingers together. ‘I’ve made a dinner reservation but we can just order in if you’d prefer?’
‘No, I’m fine.’ Her eyes lift to mine.
I don’t feel reassured, but I nod. My driver is out the front when we step out. The restaurant is only a few blocks away though and I look down at Millie. ‘Would you like to walk or drive?’
She breathes in deeply, the balmy New York air warm and sultry. ‘Walk, of course.’
I take a second to direct my driver to the restaurant and come back to Millie. All sign of her tears are gone, but some sixth sense alerts me to a sense of emotional ambivalence inside her. ‘You like the ballet?’
‘I haven’t been in years,’ she says, beginning to walk. I take her hand in mine, ignoring the lurch of desire that practically incapacitates me. ‘Since I was a little girl.’
I suspect she has more to say on the matter, so I wait patiently.
‘I used to want to be a ballerina.’ She pierces me with eyes that are awash with feelings I cannot begin to untangle. That I wish to so badly it surprises me.
‘You’d have been an excellent ballerina,’ I hear myself offer, and squeeze her hand to make it clear my rejoinder is just a light-hearted joke.
‘Why, thank you. I think so,’ she says and laughs back. We walk in silence for a while, and then she says under her breath, ‘I was thinking of my mum.’
My heart drops at this admission of her grief, and at my corresponding desire to wipe it away somehow.
‘I was remembering my mum,’ she corrects. ‘And how I used to want to be a ballerina.’ She smiles reminiscently. ‘I remember twirling around our veranda, spinning with my arms high in the sky, convinced I was every bit as graceful as the ballerinas I’d seen on stage.’ Her sigh is carried away on the light breeze. ‘My mum would watch me and applaud, telling me I could do anything. Be anything.’
Her words layer over me and for a moment I think about what that would feel like—that kind of support and love. ‘When did you decide you wanted to be a doctor?’
She shrugs, coming to a stop as we reach a busy crossroads. ‘I was young. Ten, maybe?’
‘You didn’t think about combining the two? Becoming a doctor who dances?’
She shakes her head, a small laugh escaping her pink lips. ‘I think by ten I’d hung up my ballet slippers for good.’
‘I don’t know, Millie. You’d look pretty damned good up on stage.’
She blinks at me, a small frown on her face, and then she looks away. The pedestrian light goes green; we cross the road together. The restaurant is halfway down this block. I gesture to the doorman. The queue snakes about a hundred metres in the other direction and I see by her look of recognition that she’s heard of the restaurant. Viola is a celebrity haven, famous the world over, but that’s not why I chose it. At least, not completely.
Millie wants to experience new things, and I figure it’s not the kind of place just anybody can get into any time they want. I wanted her to have this. Plus, the food is second to none on this side of the city.
She begins to move past the door, to the queue, but I pull on her hand, smiling at her before guiding us to the door. Damian pushes it inwards with a, ‘Nice to see you again, Michael.’
I nod in agreement, leading Millie inside.
She spares only a brief glance for the restaurant, preferring to study me instead. I’d rather be back in my apartment than here. I’d rather be alone with her, giving into this mad crush of desire and making her mine all over again.
We’re seated at a table near the arboretum. Plants grow to our side, weaving above us.
‘Okay,’ she says after a moment, and I suspect she’s fighting laughter. ‘You can stop now.’
