Naked Angel (6 page)

M
ax stared out of his office window to Bryant Park five stories below. He loved that view.

When he’d been able to fully fund his passion project, the upstart Ballet Arts dance company, his first task had been finding a building that would provide a managerial office as well as practice space. He scored it in a prewar gem of a building just off Sixth Avenue.

He’d had no problem finding dancers for the company; he had money and dance space—two things that were in short supply in the ballet world. Still, he dreamed of being able to found a school some day, as Balanchine had done with the School of American Ballet. Aside from becoming a legendary school, it served as a feeder for his company. But for now, Max had to be grateful for what he had been given to work with. And he was.

With a busy afternoon ahead of him, he couldn’t quite get focused. Something was nagging at him, and he hated to admit that it had to do with that woman last night. There was something wrong with the world when a talented dancer like Nadia Grant could suffer one injury and then be compelled to turn her back on everything she’d worked for. She obviously felt it was none of his business—the mere suggestion that there were other things she could do in ballet had elicited a “drop dead” glare that he was in no hurry to see directed his way again. And really, it wasn’t his business.

So why was he still thinking about her? For some reason, he felt certain he knew of her for more than just her accomplishments in the city’s dance scene.

He Googled her name. Sure enough, an array of articles popped up that seemed to have little to do with her work in the corps de ballet. The first headline read, “Dirty Dancing: Cheating Choreographer Gets the Boot from Live-in Love.” And then he realized how he knew her name: She was the dancer who had been engaged to that Hollywood sellout, Jackson Mandel.

The receptionist buzzed his desk. His first meeting of the day.

“Thanks, April. One more thing: Is Anna Prince in the studio?”

“Yes, I think so,” the receptionist told him.

Max headed down to the studio. This was going to be awkward. But he needed that phone number.

He found Anna and a group of half a dozen other dancers stretching at the barre in one of the smaller studios. He didn’t want to interrupt, but as Anna dipped into a deep
plié
, he rapped on the glass window until everyone looked up. He pointed at Anna and gestured for her to come outside for a minute. She looked quizzical, but glided across the room to meet him in the corridor.

“Hey—what’s up?” she said.

“I hate to interrupt you, but I need Nadia Grant’s phone number.”

Anna looked at him suspiciously. He thanked goodness he’d held firm and refused to take her home with him last night.

“She can’t dance anymore,” Anna said acidly.

“Clearly,” said Max. This dig seemed to calm Anna slightly. She wiped her sweaty forehead, bent the toes of her left foot, and shuffled in place for a moment.

“What do you need it for?”

“I want to find a place for her here. There’s no reason a dancer of her stature should feel she has permanently lost ballet.”

“Like, doing what?”

“I don’t know, Anna,” Max said, getting impatient. “That’s what I need to figure out. But I don’t even know if she’s open to the discussion until I call her.”

“She’s not,” Anna said. “She told me it’s too painful for her to be anywhere near ballet right now.”

“She’s got to get over it.” Max held his iPhone, waiting to program the number.

Anna looked at him, and it seemed to be a standoff until she said, “Fine!” She gave him the ten digits in such rapid fire, it was as if she was daring him to get them down at all.

“Thanks, Anna. Have a good class.”

She looked at him as if he were the world’s biggest asshole, but he barely paused to let it register. He was, uncharacteristically, extremely excited to make this phone call.

First thing that morning, Nadia had turned on her Black-Berry to find a text from Mallory asking her to meet her at Agnes Wieczorek’s costume design studio.

Nadia knew that Agnes, the former owner of the legendary burlesque club the Blue Angel, had once upon a time been a ballerina in Warsaw, Poland. Maybe Mallory wanted Agnes to give Nadia some sort of pep talk. The thought was excruciating. But after her performance last night, she felt she at least owed it to Mallory to show up. Work through the pain, she’d always been told. She believed that still applied, even though the pain was now emotional rather than physical.

The studio was an unmarked storefront on Broome Street. At eleven in the morning, the streets of Soho were filled with über-chic mommies in high heels pushing designer strollers over cobblestones, models on their way to go-sees, and European tourists. Standing in the middle of that scene, it was impossible to feel too bad about herself. Whatever her recent disappointments and failures, she was still here, living the life she’d always dreamed of. She had to find a way to stay inspired, and not retreat into an existence that was gray and safe and miserably compromised.

Nadia saw Mallory approaching from down the block. Even in the middle of a neighborhood filled with eye-catching people, she stood out. She had style, she had confidence and, at the moment, she had a giant bouquet of flowers in her arms.

“Hey!” Mallory said, kissing her on the cheek. “Grab the door for me—these are heavy.”

“They’re gorgeous! What are they?”

“I have no idea. But the florist said they live for weeks. I’m giving them to Agnes to thank her for doing such a great job with the costumes.”

Nadia held the door and then followed Mallory into the studio. The floors were concrete; the walls were part exposed brick, part brushed steel, and were mostly obscured by racks of fabric and designs in progress. Above, the tin ceiling added an ornate finish to the otherwise industrial feel of the space. In the far corner of the room was a black desk, and next to it a winding iron staircase leading up to a second floor.

“So this is what I was thinking last night: If the performing thing doesn’t work for you—and for some people it just doesn’t—maybe you can learn costuming from Agnes. And then, after being around the shows, if you decide you want to be onstage again, great. If not, you still have something really integral and creative to contribute.”

“I really appreciate your thinking of me, and trying to help me. But I don’t think making costumes is going to fill the need I have to be onstage. I have to find a way to get over my fear,” Nadia said.

Mallory looked at her with empathy and seemed about to hug her when they both heard the door open behind them.

Gemma Kole slumped in, her hair pulled into a high, messy ponytail, and big dark glasses obscuring half her face. She carried a large, green smoothie.

“I don’t know why you Americans are so hell-bent on these juice concoctions,” she said, dropping her hobo bag at her feet.

“So why are you drinking one?” Mallory said.

“Because the girl at the shop keeps bloody promising me they cure hangovers!”

Nadia thought, not for the first time, how carelessly sexy Gemma was. She was a cross between Sienna Miller and the Chanel model with the gap between her two front teeth. Maybe Gemma should be on the burlesque stage, and—as Mallory suggested—Nadia should be tucked away in this little shop, threading a needle. But no—she was not yet ready to concede that.

“What are you two doing here, anyway?” Gemma said. “Don’t tell me I forgot a fitting.”

“No, we’re just visiting Agnes.”

“Are those flowers for her? They’re gorgeous, but slightly menacing. What are they?”

“Yes—they’re for Agnes. I don’t know what they are, but they live a long time,” Mallory said. Nadia could tell she was second-guessing the arrangement after the word “menacing.”

“Do me a favor? Go upstairs to see Agnes. I need quiet to even begin to function.”

Nadia and Mallory exchanged a look and were happy to oblige her. They climbed the narrow stairs, Nadia clutching the slim iron railing all the way.

The second floor had a shiny wood floor, and two walls were floor-to-ceiling mirrors. If it hadn’t been for the bolts of fabric, containers of beads and sequins, and yards of thread and ribbon, it would have felt like a dance studio.

Agnes was seated cross-legged on the floor, wearing a pair of eyeglasses with another pair perched atop her head, and she was sewing a swatch of black fabric. She looked up when they cleared the stairs, but then went right back to sewing.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” she said in her thick Polish accent before turning her attention immediately back to the work at hand.

“Yes, opening night was a huge success. And we couldn’t have done it without you. I wanted you to have these,” Mallory said, putting the flowers on the floor next to her.

“I’m talking about the marriage proposal,” Agnes said. “And thank you. I love Sabine Pastel orchids. They live longer than most house pets.”

“Oh! Yes. Alec really shocked me,” Mallory said.

“I’m not surprised.” Agnes turned to Nadia. “And how did you do, ballerina?”

Nadia felt her stomach sink. It was bad enough that she’d frozen in front of a hundred people last night—including Max Jasper. Now she had to admit her failure to a woman who was not only a former ballerina who’d mastered burlesque, but one who’d spent her later years at the helm of the longest-running and most successful burlesque revue in Manhattan.

“Nadia got cold feet,” Mallory said, winking at her.

Agnes nodded. “It’s not for everyone,” she commented.

“That’s true—but it also can just take time. So I was thinking maybe you could let her watch you create costumes. It’s so inspiring, and if she decides she doesn’t want to dance . . .”

“It’s a lot of work,” Agnes said with a heavy sigh. Nadia wasn’t sure if Agnes meant creating costumes, or showing someone else how to do it.

“I’m not ready to give up on performing,” Nadia said.

“What happened to your ballet?” Agnes asked.

“I keep breaking my foot,” Nadia said. Six months later, and she still felt like crying every time she said it. Agnes clucked in sympathy.

“Let me see the ring,” she said to Mallory. Nadia witnessed the flush of joy on Mallory’s face when she held out her hand. Agnes inspected the diamond as if it could solve the mysteries of the universe. “Very nice,” she finally pronounced.

Nadia hated to think this way, but looking at Mallory’s sweet satisfaction, she wondered if a good relationship was another bar she would never reach.

Her cell rang, an incoming number she didn’t recognize.

“I hate cell phones,” Agnes said.

“Better take that outside,” advised Mallory.

“I don’t even know who it is. I’m not going to answer it,” said Nadia.

“Live dangerously—answer it. Just take it outside,” said Agnes.

Something about the woman was so authoritative, Nadia found herself pressing the green button and saying hello. And as soon as she heard the male voice on the other end, she wished she hadn’t.

Mallory decided, while Nadia dashed down the stairs to answer her phone, to use the private time with Agnes to try to end the nagging worry she’d felt since her conversation with Alec last night.

“Can I ask you a question?” Mallory said.

“Of course. Is it about the club?”

“No,” Mallory said.

“Good,” said Agnes.

“It’s about marriage,” said Mallory.

“Now that is a topic I can speak to,” said Agnes. Mallory didn’t know much about Agnes’s personal life—it was widely assumed she had none. But Mallory had heard her mention a long-ago marriage. It had obviously ended at some point, but she didn’t know when, how, or why. And considering how circumspect Agnes could be, Mallory doubted she would ever know.

“I’m afraid our relationship will change once we’re married.”

“Of course it will.”

“For the worse.”

“Of course it will,” Agnes repeated.

“Really?” It might be honest, but it wasn’t the answer Mallory had expected. She’d thought Agnes would tell her she was being ridiculous, as her friends surely would.

“Yes. It will get worse, and then better, and then worse, and then better, and then so bad you want to leave, and then good enough to make you stay . . . and there you have it. Marriage.”

“Okay. I guess I know that, on some level. And everyone deals with it, right?”

Agnes, wisely knowing the question was rhetorical, said nothing. “But what if you have to change something about yourself for the marriage?”

“Marriage is all about compromise.”

“Alec wants me to phase out of performing. He just admitted to me that it bothers him to see me taking off my clothes like that.”

“It’s good he told you.”

“You think this is reasonable?”

Agnes put down her sewing and looked at Mallory. Her eyelids sagged so much Mallory wondered if the folds obscured her vision. She resisted the urge to touch her own eyelids to see if they were beginning to lose the battle with gravity.

“There is no right and wrong. How long do you think you will want to keep performing?”

Mallory shrugged. “I don’t know. A few more years, maybe.”

“And how much longer do you think you will want to be with Alec?”

“A lot longer than that, obviously.”

“Compromise,” Agnes repeated.

Mallory heard Nadia climbing back up the stairs. At least, she hoped it was Nadia, and not Gemma, who had overheard her personal conversation. The woman was clearly talented, but there was something about her Mallory didn’t quite trust.

“Sorry about that.” It was, in fact, Nadia, who appeared at the top of the stairs looking rather flushed, either from the flight of stairs or the phone call. Mallory hoped for Nadia it was the phone call. The woman needed to loosen up a bit. “Mallory, I have to get going.”

“Everything okay?” Mallory said.

“Yes—it was just . . . a ballet choreographer who saw the show last night. He wants to talk to me. I don’t know why but I agreed to meet him for coffee.”

“Okay—can’t hurt. I have to get going, too. I’m meeting some friends for an early lunch on the Upper East Side so I’ll walk you out. Thanks again, Agnes. I’m going to come by next week to talk about the burlesque convention, okay?”