Dancing on a Moonbeam (Bedford Falls Book 1) (18 page)

"You're married?" Eleanor asked, glancing at Luna's ring finger.

The woman shook her head. "Divorced. He was a real bastard. Domineering. Leaving was the best thing I ever did. I mean, it was nice having sex on a regular basis, but there are more advantages to being free. Right?"

"Right," Eleanor agreed, although she really didn't know. Sex with Charles had been like lukewarm tea that had chilled over time, unappealing to the point of distaste. In the last year, she hadn't thought about sex at all, much less rejoiced in the fact that she was free.
 

Now was different though. She'd been thinking about sex.

She'd been thinking of sex with Max.

"Max is a handsome man," Luna said, out of the blue.

"We've only kissed once," she admitted.
 

Luna shrugged. "One kiss can lead to a lifetime together."

A lifetime was hard to imagine. Eleanor was just hoping to get through the next couple weeks, till her studio was open. She drank come tea as noted a couple details in her mental check. When the spice hit her palate, she blinked in surprise. "Oh, I love this."

"I thought you might. And speaking about new things, I have something for you." Luna went behind the counter and pulled out a wooden box. It was lined with purple velvet inside, and there was one glittery rock. "This came in, and I felt like it had your name written all over it."

Eleanor took the bright orange chunk of rock Luna handed over. It was sparkly, the color deep. It fit perfectly in her hand, and when she curled her fingers around it, she oddly didn't want to let it go. "I can't take it. It seems precious."

"It's orange calcite," Luna said without confirming anything. "Put it wherever you sit to work or think about life. It'll help you focus. It's meant to be yours. Sometimes crystals come in that way."

Eleanor had no idea what that meant, but the gift was obviously from Luna's heart, and that was all she needed to know. "Thank you."
 

"And take this for your friend Max." She reached into the glass case and pulled out a small blue stone that had pale veins running through it. Handing it over, she said, "It's a sodalite. I have a feeling he could use it."

"Does it help with kissing?"
 

The woman laughed. "No, it'll help with his worrying."

"You picked up that he worries?"

"I'm sensitive," was all she said.

Eleanor slipped both rocks into her purse and then looked up at the woman. "I'm happy we're going to be friends."

Luna squeezed her hand. "I think we already are."

Chapter 6

Max threw his pencil across the room and tore up the sheet he'd been writing. The composition wasn't working. Every time he tried to hear the music, he just heard Cohen's smug voice telling him Landot was a better composer than he was.

Utter bullshit. He wadded up the paper and tossed it after the pencil.

Getting worked up won't help
, his mom's calm voice whispered in his head.

Banging his head against a wall, trying to fix this score wasn't going to help either. He got up from the piano bench to find his shoes. He'd go for a walk.

His brisk pace down the lane did nothing to calm him, so he kept going, to the main road and then all the way to town.
 

He was about to go to Tiptop to get a cappuccino, but at the last moment he veered toward the barbershop, where he'd gotten his hair cut the week before.

Bernie, the man who'd helped him the last time, looked up when the door jingled his entry. "Young Max," he said with a welcoming smile. With his scissors, he pointed at the vinyl chairs near the window. "Have a seat, and I'll be with you in a jiffy."

"Thank you," he mumbled, impressed that the barber remembered his name. Bernie wasn't a day under a hundred and forty.
 

Max watched the man's hands move with impressive precision. That was a relief. He'd promised Bernie he'd get a shave this time, and he hadn't been sure about letting the old man near his neck with a blade.

Bernie finished up his customer, dusting off the man's neck with a fluffy brush, and then gestured Max over. "What are you in for today, young Max?"

"A shave."

"Good decision." Bernie rubbed his hands together as he walked toward a case. Without creaking too much, he opened the door and pulled out a steaming towel. Juggling it between his hands, he waved it a little before applying it carefully to Max's face.

The heat soaked in, soothing him, making the frustration of the morning dissolve. Bernie was right—this
was
a good decision.

"How are you liking town?" Bernie asked. "You getting out at all, or are you working all the time?"

He opened his eyes, watching the old man lathering soap with an old-fashioned brush. "I've met a few people."

"Have you met little Eleanor who lives next door?"
 

Eleanor was all grown up, and Max liked her that way. "Yes."

"She's a nice girl." Bernie pointed the brush at him. "You mind your manners around her. She's had a hard time of things lately."

"I'd never contribute to her hard times," Max vowed solemnly.

The old man stopped and studied him out of one eye. Then he nodded. "I believe you, young Max. Tilt your chin up."

He did, closing his eyes as Bernie began to apply soap to his face. He tensed when the blade touched his skin, but he relaxed as Bernie's sure touch competently scraped off his stubble.

"You said you're going to be here a while longer," the old man said, sounding close to Max's face. "You should come play poker with me and my friends. We're a motley bunch, but we have good whiskey and tell good tales."

"I'd like that," Max said, feeling like a boy who'd been invited to the cool, older kids hangout.
 

"Leave me your phone number," Bernie said, applying another hot towel. "I'll text you."

"You text?" Max said as he stood up.

Bernie looked at him like he was insane. "Don't you text?"

Grinning, he paid his bill and shook Bernie's hand. "For you, I will."

Chapter 7

"Eleanor Westwood, you really are terrible, you know," was the first thing her former colleague, Anya Rusakova, said when Eleanor answered the phone.

Eleanor smiled and replied the same way she always had when Anya said that. "I really am."

"Have you decided to work with me?" the prima ballerina asked in her typical forthright way.

Last week, Anya had called Eleanor to ask her to choreograph a dance program for her to perform in conjunction for the Joffrey Ballet. It was a nonsensical offer. Anya had to be crazy to consider asking someone who'd been out of the dance circles for as long as Eleanor had.
 

Not that the woman would take no for an answer. Eleanor shook her head. "Anya, I can't work with you. You know I'm busy opening my dance studio."

"Are you still pursuing that insanity?" Anya asked in an accusatory tone.

"Teaching ballet?"

"Just the phrase makes my stomach turn. Didn't you have a monster already?"

Monster? She thought of Lily. Actually, it was a fair assessment of the kid at the moment. "I'm not having any more children. I'm just teaching other peoples'."

"Same-same," the Russian dancer declared. "Eleanor, can you really tell me that you're going to say no to choreographing a ballet for the Joffrey?"
 

"Yes. No." She frowned. "I can't choreograph."
 

"If you think you can teach, you can choreograph. Besides, I know you and what you're capable of, otherwise I wouldn't have asked you." There was a pause. "That's it."
 

"What's it?" she asked, shaking her head.

"I'm sending you the music I picked out."

"Anya—"

"And then I'll talk to you again," Anya said firmly.

Eleanor sighed. "You used to bulldoze me when we were younger too."

"I don't bulldoze, darling. I make change necessary."

"Is that what we're calling it?" Eleanor asked with a grin.

"It is, until I need to use more force to get what I want."

Eleanor listened to the dial tone on the other end. It was fine—Anya would send the music and she'd listen, but it didn't mean anything. She was opening a dance school, and that was that.

Chapter 8

Max sat on the bench in the middle of town, a notepad in hand, listening for a new tune to include in the movie score.

Instead, the music that overcame him was the melancholy, delicate melody that had come to him when Eleanor was talking about her daughter. Unable to help himself, he bent over his notepad and furiously began scribbling it down.

The haunting strains flowed through him, clutching at his heart. He finally understood the madness that gripped Mozart. Except Max's madness had a name: Eleanor.

A shadow fell over the bench, and someone plopped down at the other end.

"I didn't know people still wrote in Greek," a teenage voice said.

He didn't have to look up to recognize Lily's presence. Perfect, really because having her here made Eleanor's sadness over the distance between them even more audible. Focusing on getting the last of this movement written, he murmured, "Don't you have an Estee Lauder store to rob or something?"
 

"Ha ha. Funny," she said in a deadpan. There was a rustle of paper and then nothing.

The silence stretched suspiciously, so he looked up to make sure she wasn't making a voodoo doll of him or anything.
 

The teenager's face was hidden by a fall of hair, but the rest of her wasn't hidden at all. Her skirt was too short and her top too low. He had the urge to throw his coat over her and bundle her away from other people's eyes.

Not his monkey, not his circus, as his brother Johann always said. Max ducked his head over his pad and kept writing down music.

He finally ran out of notes, so he put his pencil away and studied his work companion.
 

Lily was still hunched over her notebook, writing as though she had to get the words down before time ran out. He wondered what she was writing. He knew if he asked she wouldn't tell him. The kid held her thoughts closer than Liam held the Oscar he'd won last year.