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“He writes to her, yeah. He says, ‘I am half agony, half hope,’” I whispered.
I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t see Xavier’s face just then. I honestly couldn’t bear it.
He was quiet for a long time.
Then, at last: “Fitting.”
I opened my eyes again, and before I could stop him, he dropped my hand and used his to weave his fingers into my hair, pulling me down for a kiss. His lips as soft and sweet and salty as they had ever been. And just as I started to sink into them, he pulled away.
“What—what was that for?” I wondered as I touched my lips.
A bit of slyness stole into his overall sadness. “Had to sneak a goodbye kiss, didn’t I?”
“I suppose…”
“I’ll see you in two weeks,” Xavier said, then turned and left.
And I stood there long after he was gone, feeling that, despite the fact that our words had clearly ended whatever had been between us, nothing was finished at all.
Half agony, half hope, indeed.
I just wasn’t sure which side would win.
FIVE
“Oh myGod, I need coffee.”
With a catlike stretch of her lithe arms, Joni padded down the stairs exactly ten minutes before we needed to leave that morning.
After partying hard with some friends in Brooklyn the night before, she had opted to crash on my old bed on the landing rather than schlep all the way back to the Bronx at four in the morning. Unfortunately, both Sofia and I had woken up just a few hours later to get ready for school. By the time Joni joined us, Sofia was already done with breakfast and was deep into multiple princess costume changes in her room while I filled her lunchbox in the kitchen.
“How was the landing?” I asked Joni, knowing full well that the mattress sagged in the middle and was creaky when you moved. Given that I slept like an eggbeater, twisting and turning throughout my slumber, it had always woken me several times a night.
Two weeks after the wedding and nearly six since Matthew had moved to Boston with Nina, I’d taken over his old room with aplomb and was finally getting used to a bit of privacy. And a queen-sized bed. And a door that I could shut or even lock.
Not that I really had anything to keep particularly private. My new bed was irritatingly large, quiet, and annoyingly empty. Still, I was planning to enjoy every second of the next seven months until little no-name burst onto the scene.
I poured a mug from the pot I’d brewed as soon as I came down and pushed it across the counter to where she sat, acutely aware of how Matthew used to do the exact same thing for me just a few months ago.
“Since your bed came without a nosy nonna poking her head in every six minutes, it was fantastic,” Joni pronounced as she yanked on a messy black bun that still managed to look chic and shook her head so her oversized hoops danced from her ears.
It really wasn’t fair. Even with barely any sleep, zero exercise for two months while she’d been hobbling on crutches, and a reported hangover the size of Connecticut, my youngest sister still looked like she had walked off a runway. Joni was the family beauty, and she absolutely knew it. Meanwhile, I was still waiting for chilled gel pads to shrink the suitcases under my eyes.
“Well, I made a pot, so help yourself to more if you need,” I said as I placed a satsuma and some carrot sticks into Sofia’s lunch box. “You have PT today, right?”
She checked the time behind me on the oven clock. “At two, yeah. First day, and I’m gonna kill it. You watch, I’ll be back on Broadway in six weeks.”
She gave me a grin, though I could tell she was nervous.
Two months ago, Joni received a call to be an understudy, then a full-cast member inChicago. For someone who had never really succeeded at anything in her life besides dancing, it was beyond a big break. It meant she was actually good at something. It meant that at twenty-four, she was more than just a three-time college dropout, cosmetology school failure, GED-recipient, part-time go-go dancer, and resident family mess. A pretty face and life of the party, sure, but generally treated like nothing else.
Less than two months into rehearsals, though, her brief success ended with a bad fall on stage, a trip to the ER, two surgeries, and a recovery period that had reportedly been driving everyone in the Bronx up the wall.
Call me crazy, but I felt a little guilty, having missed it all when I was in England. Well, I could make up for it now with some coffee and a place to crash here and there.
I reached across the counter to rub her shoulder. “You’ll do great, Jo. Just be disciplined and consistent, and you’ll be back on stage in no time.”
Joni’s face fell at the phrase “disciplined and consistent.” I didn’t remark—we both knew neither trait was a strength of hers. Dance was the only exception—for what reason, I never knew.
