Blue Rose In Chelsea Read online

  “Are you in love with him?” a voice inquires.

  It’s Sinclair, our costumer, who I’d assumed was consumed pinning tulle at his worktable, but who apparently has been listening. I’m startled, as Sinclair has never before directed any personal conversation my way. I’ve often observed the self-contained Sinclair with a mixture of curiosity and awe; he treats the dancers with genuine affection, but he’s not above slicing through their pretensions and pomposity with wickedly funny insights that often leave them speechless or, worse, indignant. In contrast to his understated black wardrobe, his witty comments sparkle with color.

  “Does it matter? It’s a hopeless affair. It’s impossible.”

  “Ah, those are the best kind,” he says, handing me my blue tutu for a final fitting. “Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast,” he quotes The Red Queen from Alice Through The Looking Glass.

  “The world starts speeding up when he’s around. An hour is only a minute. It’s like riding a beam of light, or how I imagine it might be. I don’t know. Is that love?” I wriggle into the beautiful costume, and Sinclair instructs me to stand up straighter.

  “No, it’s much worse, honey,” Sinclair warns. “It’s the molecules.” Sinclair presents a poetic theory on the cosmic origins of my connection to Evan; it reaches beyond compatibility or personality or circumstance. The universe formed when stars exploded, and Evan and I are formed from the same star.

  “He does seem to glitter,” I reflect, “and he vanishes like a comet into the night, leaving a trail of light.” I illustrate this with a sweeping arm gesture. “And he always wants to be as near to me as possible when I walk into a room.”

  Sinclair tugs me closer and stabs me accidentally with straight pins. “Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop,” he quotes The Red King.

  I recreate the scene of our meeting, complete with my unintentional striptease in the Chelsea studio. “I pulled off a complete change of attire, but without revealing anything more than an ankle or wrist!” I boast.

  “Very Gypsy Rose Lee,” Sinclair nods, impressed.

  I describe the night at Delta, getting drunk on blue margaritas, debating the merits of Henry James, the makeover in the bathroom with drag queens.

  “The Mary Kay gals?” he nods, knowingly. “Buy the cleanser, it’s fabulous.”

  “Then he tried to kiss me in a toilet. But it could just as easily have been a field of violets, like George Emerson and Lucy Honeychurch. Granted, it was a cramped hallway, but you could see the city skyline through a small window. Okay, maybe not the skyline, but at least a building, some brickwork, at the very least.”

  “A loo with a view,” he nods.

  I move on to Brandon’s debut as a bunny, and Evan and I departing the loft via the stairs rather than the elevator.

  “A farewell in the stairwell,” Sinclair interjects from the side of his mouth not plagued with pins. “Did Hemingway write that?”

  I describe our thwarted goodbye on Seventh Avenue. “Oh, don’t even get me started on the cows,” I say wearily.

  “Oh, honey, I wonder udder a word.”

  “It’s hopeless.” I perform an impromptu pirouette to see how the tutu holds up.

  “He’s the one you will wonder about twenty years from now, even though you may be happily married.” Sinclair seems suddenly lost in reverie, replacing the pins in their tomato-shaped clump of orange felt. He leans against the worktable, arms folded, legs crossed at the ankle. “You may not think about him for years, and then suddenly you’ll see his face in a dream and be plagued by thoughts of him forever after.”

  I sink onto the wooden floor, with my legs splayed so as not to crush the tutu, transfixed by Sinclair’s elegiac words.

  “You’ll wonder what he’s doing, what he looks like, if the years have aged him. Somehow you know, that no matter how he looks today, he will always look to you as he did the last time you saw him, forever young, bright with potential. You’ll obsess, does he still have the same essence of personality, or is he changed? Is he more lighthearted, or has he grown heavy with the weight of experience? Has suffering softened him or hardened him? You will see a man on the street, loading groceries into his car, and you will think, ‘That could be him. He might look like that now.’”

  “You sound like you speak from experience,” I say with tenderness, but Sinclair waves this away, as if that is a discussion for a future time.

  The tutu is a beautiful sky blue, sewn through with shimmering sequins, like moonbeams on tropical water. But it still needs to be taken in another half inch. Sinclair begins to croon a tune, his voice muffled from the pins stuck in his mouth, his rubbery lips like a pale pincushion.

  “So, what is the remedy? How do I avoid such a damnable fate?” I turn out my toes and plant my hands on my hips.

  “You could start by not being so afraid of him.”

  I’m taken aback by Sinclair’s perceptiveness. I’ve never been so magnetically drawn to, and yet so frightened of, anyone as I have Evan.

  “I feel like he’s so far ahead of me, in so many ways. I mean, at school there were all sorts of accomplished people there, but this is different somehow. He has seen and done so much with his life already. He has lived. I have to do something big, something huge first, to put me on equal footing with him, something worthy so that I won’t be swallowed up by his fabulousness.”

  “Okay, Gatsby,” he says, yanking me into position to secure the waistband.

  I giggle, recalling how my father had that very book on his shelf when I was a child, and its worn cover made the title appear as The Great Catsby, leading me to imagine an epic tale of a master mouser.

  Sinclair sighs as if it has become wearisome to listen to me. “Why do we always think we must do something to be worthy of love? Why can’t we all just be?”

  ~ 8 ~

  Romeo In Black Jeans

  Careen and I float up the escalators, past the newsstands stocked with candies and magazines, and through the frenzied crowds and onto the street level of Seventh Avenue. The city smells of people, and roasted chestnuts mingled with the smell of rain on pavement. It is dizzying to navigate the jet stream of commuters pouring out of Penn Station. Careen has bought herself two slices of pizza from Enrico Caruso’s. “Wasn’t he an opera singer?” she manages through mouthfuls of marinara. I’m starving, but I have it in my head that somehow, someway, I may cross paths with Evan today, and I don’t want to risk smearing my red lip-gloss or dripping food on myself, or getting garlic on my breath.

  Careen has managed to locate the coffee shop referenced in her friend Hazel’s phone bill.

  “What exactly are we going to do once we get there? Confront this woman? Tackle her to the carpet and beat her up?”

  “I personally would like to knock her lights out, but of course I am a woman of superhuman restraint in matters of delicacy,” Careen says, punching her empty paper plates of pizza into the overstuffed trash can, before yanking forward the collar of her early eighties pink striped blazer against the onslaught of wind on the avenue. “I have recruited Dylan. He’s meeting us at the corner near the iguana loft. The plan is to have a handsome man approach her and chat her up, see what he can determine, perhaps flirt a bit, while we skulk about in the shadows.”

  I try to imagine Dylan in the role of charming interrogator but I can’t quite conjure the image.

  “I think Dylan is too crude for the job. He’s not used to having to woo women. They generally throw themselves at him at gigs,” I say.

  “Yes, my thoughts exactly, which is why we must give him a bit of coaching beforehand.”

  “Coaching Dylan? The Man Who Knows Everything? Oh, this ought to be good.”

  I struggle to keep step with Careen’s long strides. At five foot six inches, I am a decent height, but Careen towers three inches above me, and swallows up city blocks like a loping gazelle. Her attention is roped away by Kelly-green pumps in a
shoe store window. I glance down at Careen’s flat white Capezio shoes, pink legwarmers scrunched at the ankles, and try to imagine her enormous feet in the green pumps.

  “They’re very green,” is the best I can say for them, when pressed for an opinion. I review my own appearance in the reflection of the store window. I’m wearing a black and pink print rayon pinafore—another fabulous clearance find—that is gathered at the waist and floating a foot above my knees, with black star-shaped beads for buttons snaking down the front, two of which I’ve left undone. My legs are wrapped in the usual black dance tights; my feet tucked into heeled suede boots the color of a smoky blue gas flame (though a half size too small, but beggars can’t be choosey, and dancers learn to live with sore feet). A black sweater with clunky gold buttons—nabbed from Mom’s closet—is draped over my shoulders. I finger comb my hair; it still has volume from the blow-dry and hasn’t drooped yet, despite an unseasonable humidity.

  “Yes, they would provide endless commentary for Mr. Palmer,” she says, moving on to a silver pair.

  I glance about me, surrounded by the unbounded heights of the buildings, and ever-present sound of horns honking and traffic trawling, like some sort of twelve-tone musical composition.

  We are officially in Evan’s neighborhood, which means he could, at any moment, walk past us, or step out of a store, or if I turn quickly without regard for where I’m headed, the person I bump into may be him. Not likely, but the possibility invokes its own roller coaster ride of thrills. I could almost be content to remain here on this corner forever, like a cracked fountain of hope, leaking all my longing onto the gritty streets. I am not even sure he’s in the city; he could still be on the west coast.

  And then I see Dylan’s familiar figure bobbing like a floating cork in the sea of faces. He wears his violet velvet jacket, and beside him is someone, a gait I don’t recognize, and then do, thinking my eyes are playing tricks on me. I collide suddenly with Careen, blurting Evan’s name into her face over and over, as if my voice were a needle caught in the groove of a record. She steadies me, and musters enough composure for the two of us.

  “You are ten minutes late but, of course, I won’t hold that against you, my dear cousin!” Careen offers her cheek to Dylan, and then turns her scrupulous gaze upon Evan, sizing him up, as she did the green shoes. “You’ve a face that could launch a thousand ships!” she announces, imperious as a monarch.

  “Is that good?” He’s not really seeking an answer. Evan was born with the confidence chromosome.

  “You’ve heard of Helen of Troy? You’re Herman of Troy.”

  Evan nods, scratches his lip to suppress a smile, and looks to me.

  “I brought you a professional actor for the job,” Dylan announces wearily, as if he’s been carrying something heavy, and is happy to be free of it.

  “Splendid! Well, splendid for me, not so splendid for you,” Careen says aside to me, though everyone hears it. “We must review our plan. Where is that glare coming from?” Careen squints, gazing up at the building, searching for incriminating neon.

  “Sylvia gives off light,” Evan says, folding his arms across his dark sweater, and running his eyes up and down my figure.

  “Sylvia?” Careen looks to me.

  “That’s his nickname for me. Because I read Sylvia Plath.” I wipe my hands on my waist. My palms have begun to sweat under Evan’s not-so-subtle scrutiny. His gaze follows my hands to my waist and travels slowly upward from there.

  “Yes, you do have a penchant for quoting her poetry. ‘The por and tor of distances,’ and all that. I’m Careen.” She extends her pink manicured hand, “and you, I presume, are Evan-lier.”

  “Just Evan,” he says, with a bemused smile. “Candelier is my last name.”

  Careen looks to me questioningly.

  “I just like to call him that,” I say, shrugging my shoulders.

  “So, you two have nicknames for one another.” Careen squints at us, alerted to something. “How quaint, and how revealing.” Her glance is scorching. She hooks arms with Dylan and hurries him ahead of us on the avenue, perhaps to give me some moments alone with Evan.

  “So, you’re in on this escapade?” he asks.

  “I had no idea you were coming,” I say effusively, turning to him, and he redirects me to the traffic light where we await the change, while Dylan and Careen have already jogged the crosswalk.

  “You wouldn’t have come, if you’d known?” he asks.

  I am momentarily stumped by his directness. “I don’t think my activity of choice for the day would be to watch you flirting with some girl in a coffee shop.”

  The lopsided smile. “Really? What would have been your activity of choice for today?” His eyes sweep my body and I battle a blush.

  “Something not strenuous,” I say, because it’s growing increasingly difficult to keep up with my gamboling cousin and brother. There is a surprising amount of heat in the air suddenly, despite the cooling effects of the earlier sun-shower. I brush back my long curls with one hand.

  “Something gentle? Sort of slow and sustained?” His glance seductively sweeps over my flimsy dress. My knees weaken.

  “Do you ever miss the ballet company?” I segue awkwardly.

  Evan’s face registers incredulity, perhaps in reaction to this question coming out of nowhere.

  “I miss the money.”

  “You must have loved dancing, to have gotten so far, to have danced with one of the greatest companies in the world. What does it feel like to be so young, and to have done something so amazing?”

  Again, the incredulous look, as if alien aircraft alighted on the avenue. “Amazing?” He shakes his head. “I’m just as clueless as the rest.”

  “I don’t believe that. A clueless person could not have come this far. You must be very focused.”

  “My sister was taking ballet classes in my hometown, and they needed boys for one of the productions. There’s always a shortage of guys in ballet—gee, I wonder why.” He pulls a face. “And so next thing I know I was getting free lessons, and then I was offered a scholarship, and before I knew it, I was on my way to New York.”

  I absorb this, trying to imprint it on my brain, so I can relate the exact phrasing back to Sinclair for analysis, when he says, “What about you? What made you want to write?”

  “I’ve always loved books, from the time my mother used to take me to the Brooklyn Public Library as a little girl. I remember that they had these stone lions in front, on each side of the entrance, as if you were entering some sacred dwelling, which you were, in a way. Every book is like walking into a new world.”

  “You talk like a character in a book.” He looks both ways before leading me across the avenue.

  “I do? Meaning what? I sound scripted?”

  “No,” he says, laughing. “Actually, no one could ever accuse you of being scripted. You kind of just blurt things out. You don’t censor yourself.”

  “So, which is it? I’m tactless, or just extemporaneous?”

  “Okay, I have no idea what that word means, and you’re doing it again.” He holds up a hand playfully, as if in surrender.

  “I’ve been told that I’ve read too many books,” I say wearily.

  “I’ve been told that I haven’t read enough books, so maybe we even each other out,” he counters. “The things you say sound complete, the way they do in books. You always know exactly what you think about things, most people don’t know what they think, which is why maybe the things they say are forgettable. With you, I never have to wonder what you mean.”

  “Perhaps you should. They say a woman should always keep a man wondering.”

  “Keep the others wondering,” he says, in his tantalizing voice, “but not me.”

  “Well, you’re so elusive, always leaving and flying somewhere else to some audition, what choice do I have but to wield my one talent to set your brain on fire with some indelible image so you won’t forget me.”

  “There it i
s again.” He grins. “And it’s not my brain that you’ve set on fire.”

  I look away because now I feel a burning in my thighs that spreads like a brushfire quickly upward to my temples.

  “And it’s not your only talent, from what I hear,” he adds.

  “I beg your pardon?” My eyes widen.

  He bursts out laughing. “I didn’t mean it that way. I meant I heard that you also dance and play piano.”

  “You make me sound like an organ grinder’s monkey.”

  He has to actually stop walking because he’s laughing so hard. “I meant,” he says, recovering, “that I heard that you’re brilliant.”

  “I’m brilliant? Who told you that? Dylan and Brandon? That’s hardly a recommendation.” Although I am struck with curiosity as to who said this. I wonder if Dylan says nice things about me, just not in my presence.

  “Dylan is very protective of you,” he says, which pretty much answers my question.

  “He likes to frighten off potential boyfriends. It’s like a hobby for him.”

  “I don’t scare easily.”

  “Well, that’s the best news I’ve heard all day,” I say saucily. “I’m a Gemini. We’re known as the Jack-of-all-trades-Master-of-none. I can do many things with moderate skill, but I don’t excel at anything.”

  “I was told by a psychic that I was going to meet a Gemini,” he says, intrigued. “You excel at making me feel better.” He looks away, as if he has revealed too much.

  There is something in the lost way that he looks out over the traffic that makes me yearn to reach for his hand and hold it, but I don’t dare. I’m amazed that people on the street pass him without stopping to genuflect before this glorious Being In Black Jeans. His green sweater has a striking orange piping on the collar. His hair is tucked behind one perfect ear, and just touching the collar.