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“Shit.” Her mother didn’t like it when she cursed. “I will call you,” Hayley said. “I will call you and answer all your questions, and we will both agree on all the things I should’ve done so you could be proud of me, but right now I’m very busy not doing any of that, so it’d be wonderful if we could postpone.”
There was a long pause. “Your father and I are coming to see you.”
43
“Nick Freeman.” Linda Brandazzio leaned against the doorframe of the tiny room. “Just the man I wanted to see.”
Nick turned from the shelf of binders. “You wanted to see me?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “Which doesn’t mean you need to be rooting through here on a Sunday morning.”
Nick didn’t really need to be doing anything, but last night with the Becketts had left him unsettled, and being at Vivez Dance was oddly soothing. And if Hayley Burke was going to be anywhere near Vivez, it didn’t seem likely to happen at ten in the morning on a Sunday.
“I want to do something with these binders,” he said.
“For free,” Linda said. “During the weekend.”
He smiled. “The door was unlocked.”
“Yeah, but I’malwayshere,” she said. “How’s your real job going?”
“Still getting to know the new kids. Hoping I’ve got a few like your son.”
She chuckled. “Ben’s hoping all of his professors are like you.”
Because he was such an inspirational person, no doubt. Because doing a decent job teaching kids meant more if he had a disability. But there was no way he’d be able to convince this woman that there was anything wrong with that point of view, and Nick was a little surprised to find he didn’t particularly want to. Linda had made his life better, and her son had been hungry to learn, and if he made the Brandazzios happy just by existing, so be it. Sometimes it was about how other people interpreted his dance.
“Been taking a lot out of you?” Linda asked him.
“Hmm?”
“You look tired,” she said. “Must take a lot to get the classroom up and running every year.”
“Nah.” Nick shrugged it off. “It’s work, but it’s worth the effort.”
“Wouldn’t want to do any work that wasn’t.”
“Sure.”
She was working up to something, he could see it. Maybe a little afraid, maybe a little unsure, but definitely choosing an approach.
“Can you do me a favor?” Linda finally said. “I want to ask you a question, and I think it’s important, but I don’t want to insult you.”
Great. This was not the day for this, but he was an ambassador to the able-bodied, after all. If he didn’t let her ask now, she might be awkward around him forever.
“Ask away,” he said. “I won’t take it personally.”
Linda nodded. “We all took to you from the start,” she said, “and you always seem happy to be here. But I’ve been thinking a lot about your perspective this summer, and there’s something I’d really like to know.”
“Go on,” he prompted. “It’s okay.”
“Is it difficult for you to be in such a physical environment?” she asked. “Has anyone at Vivez given you reason to believe you don’t belong here?”
“Well …” He tried not to hesitate. “Those are two different questions.”
“It’s just that so much of what goes on here is a celebration of the body,” she went on. “There’s a lot more to it, of course, but that’s how our joy manifests itself. I want to invite absolutely everybody into that, and I think I’ve got some good ideas, but I’ve got to wonder if it’s … I don’t know, cruel? Is it insulting to think you would get a lot out of what we do here?”
“You mean because I can’t participate the way others can,” Nick said gently.
