The Firefighter and the Virgin Princess (11 page)

* * * *

One evening when she arrived at the theater,
her cleaned mohair coat was waiting for her, hung over her chair in
a plastic dry cleaner's sleeve.

Peter couldn't wait to tell her about the
handsome firefighter who'd carried it in and left it there for
her.

"They let an outsider in here?" she
exclaimed. "So much for security."

"Get real, honey...a hunky fireman on a
mission of mercy?" Peter laughed. "Of course they let him in. Have
you seen the giggling queen on the security desk? Besides," he
pointed, "the man brought pie. I trust you're going to share."

There, on her make-up table, sat two red and
white striped bakery boxes. One held a chocolate cream pie, the
other a pecan pie. It was Thanksgiving tomorrow, she realized. He'd
brought her pie. And he remembered the kind she liked.

It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever
done for her, and she had to sit down to let the idea settle.
Several dancers had already clustered around hopefully, as if
they'd smelled the pie from a distance. A rare treat. Lily with the
pie was suddenly everybody's best friend. They'd know her name now,
she mused.

There was a note too, tucked between the
boxes in a sealed envelope with her name scrawled across it.

She opened it later when she was alone, and
read that he was bringing his nieces to see Sleeping Beauty on
Saturday at the matinee.

I'm looking forward to
seeing you dance
, he'd written.

Love, Joe

* * * *

He'd sweated over that
note. Didn't want to be too soppy. Maybe he should just have put
"Joe"— left out the love. But, nah. He knew what he wanted, and he
knew what he felt. It was simple, like he'd told Donna. It wasn't
about what
should
be or what other people thought. A person had to know what he
or she wanted— for themselves. Then everything else would fall into
place.

Whatcha see is whatcha get. He didn't play
games.

So he wrote
love
. Because that was
what he felt.

Let her think whatever she wanted to. Let
her roll her pretty blue eyes.

Regular Joe was coming for his virgin
princess, and she'd just better be ready. She was skittish, fearful
of her feelings, so he'd have to pay court to her in the
old-fashioned way. Yeah, pay court. Woo her like they did in the
old country. His mother would approve of that.

He was doing it a little backward, maybe,
considering the hot sex they'd already enjoyed, but they'd start
over and he'd do it properly this time.

Somehow he'd try not to talk too much.

* * * *

The Lilac Fairy was exceptional that night.
She glowed and sparkled and twinkled across the stage as if her
feet barely touched down.

"Lily, you were beautiful."

"Well done, Lily."

"Charming, darling," Henri Paradisi
exclaimed with a smile when he saw her in the wings. "So charming
tonight."

She knew she had danced that night to
impress, but for the first time in her life she danced for a
particular person in the audience. A man. Of course, she could see
nothing from the stage, just a black, open mouth gaping back at
her, but she felt him there, watching.

There was something very sexy about it, she
mused. Certainly it was different to dancing for her grandmother or
the company director's critical eye. Or for herself.

She'd almost expected Joe
to call her after he got the gloves. At first she didn't know if
she wanted him to call her, but she thought he might. Then he
didn't call and she knew she wanted him to.
Good grief
, she mused,
I'm a teenage girl again
.

Stopping one of the young pages backstage,
she passed him a note and explained who she was looking for. He
nodded and hurried off, looking very serious and important about
his mission.

Twenty minutes later, as she sat in the
cluttered dressing room, the page brought Joe and his two nieces to
see her.

She stood at once and welcomed them warmly,
wanting to show how much she appreciated him coming to watch the
ballet when it really wasn't his sort of thing. He introduced the
little girls— his nieces— who both stared up at her, awestruck and
shy, because she was still in her make-up and tutu. Lily could
remember being their age, back when everything was simple, black or
white, yes or no.

"Thank you for coming," she said, shaking
Joe's hand. "I hope you enjoyed it."

The touch of his warm palm was like a kiss
that traveled through her body, touching every part of her. He
didn't immediately let go of her fingers, but held them in a light
squeeze. His eyes were dark, his gaze heated.

"It was beautiful," he said.

She knew he meant it, because he wouldn't be
able to lie.

Finally he released her fingers. He was
silent, leaving a gap for her to fill.

"I'm so glad you came," she muttered,
pressing her hands together.

He tugged one of the girls closer.
"Antonia's gonna be a ballerina too. She's taking lessons."

"Oh. That's good." She smiled down at the
wide-eyed girl. "You must train very hard."

Antonia nodded. "I can do the splits," she
spurted.

"Excellent."

"You can do the splits too, right, Lily?"
Joe whispered, giving her a wink.

She felt her face getting warm. "Hmm."

The other girl had run up to her make-up
table and grabbed some eyelash glue. "What's this?"

"Ah, that keeps these on." Lily sat and
peeled off her eyelashes.

"Does it hurt?"

"No. As long as you don't get the glue in
your eye or stick your eyelids together."

"What's this?" Next the girl picked up a
tube of lipstick, so Lily showed her, carefully daubing a little on
to her small lips, while Joe came to stand behind her.

"Nicolette's the nosy one, aren't you,
kiddo?"

"No," the girl yelled into the mirror,
puckering her newly colored lips.

"I want some." Antonia tugged on her tutu so
Lily lifted her up onto her knee and gave her lips the same
treatment. "More! More pink!"

"I think that's enough. You don't want to
overdo it. This make-up is for wearing under stage lights. It's too
much for the real world."

The children had soon forgotten lipstick
anyway, their attention drawn to the glittery paste tiara she'd
taken off her head.

"Is it diamonds and rubies?"

"No," she chuckled softly. "It's not real.
Nothing here is real. It's a make-believe world."

She glanced up and caught Joe staring at her
in the mirror. How strange it was to have him there. He looked a
little uncomfortable surrounded by hanging tights and all those
sequined, girly things.

"Did you like the pies?" he asked.

"Of course I did. Thank you." How awful that
she hadn't thought to thank him at once. "They were much
appreciated."

Tiffany, who wasn't dancing until the
evening performance, had just come in and heard him speak. "Hey,
you're the guy who brought the pies?"

He smiled guiltily. "I am."

At once a flock of tutu-clad dancers
descended on him as if from nowhere and he looked even more out of
place, but he was probably enjoying the attention. Watching in the
mirror as she saved her tiara from his nieces' sticky fingers, Lily
smiled. Yes, it was odd to see him in her dressing room, but it
wasn't horrible. It wasn't horrible at all.

She'd forgotten to thank him for the pies
because she was just too unsettled to see him again, too anxious.
Now that he was there she felt giddy, as if it was her birthday or
something and the hottest boy in school had turned up at her
party.

A few dancers glanced her way, looking
slightly puzzled, wondering how she knew him, how she— dull, shy,
dreary Lily, who had no other life— had managed to find someone
outside dance.Was it obvious that they'd been lovers? It felt as if
it had to be. Her skin was alive and tingling in his presence and
her lips kept smiling. Even if no one noticed a difference in her,
they would see the way he looked at Lily. They must.

It almost melted the make-up off her
face.

Chapter Eight

"Why can't Lily come with us?" Nicky
exclaimed.

"She's busy," he replied. "She's dancing.
She's always dancing."

But he almost fell over backwards, when the
woman sitting at the mirror said, "No, I'm not dancing in the
evening performance today, just the matinee."

He stared.

"Then Lily can come," his niece declared.
"Can't she, Uncle Joe?"

And Antonia put her hands around Lily's face
and said solemnly, "We're going to skate and have hot
chocolate."

There was a pause, then Joe said, "I don't
think Miss Keene likes hot chocolate."

She turned to look over her shoulder.
"Actually, I love hot chocolate, Lieutenant."

He squinted, uncertain.

"If I may come?" she added. "I don't want to
spoil your plans." Her gaze wandered slowly down to his hands.

"No problem." He was surprised and happy as
a boy who just got his first kiss, but he didn't want to say too
much. From now on he was going to use his words sparingly. "Hot
chocolate for four it is."

They waited for her outside the theater and
she emerged after fifteen minutes with a clean face, wearing
sweats, snow boots and wooly hat. The girls almost didn't recognize
her and fell shy again for a while, until they had their hot
chocolate and she was helping them lace up their skates. She was
good with the kids—didn't talk down to them or act self-conscious—
and he could tell they liked her. Why wouldn't they? He did.

"I'll sit here and watch, if you don't
mind," she said. "I have to rest my ankle, and skating would be the
worst thing for it right now."

"What's up? You got hurt?" He was concerned,
looking down at her fluffy boots.

"I've been hurt for a while," she replied
nonchalantly. "It's just a sprain."

Joe frowned. "And you're dancing on it?"

She shot him a look. "What else can I
do?"

He shook his head. "Someone ought to look
after you, Princess, since you don't do a very good job of it
yourself."

"I've managed perfectly for twenty-two
years," she replied crisply, chin up, her nose pink from the cold
air.

Suddenly, while his nieces were chatting
over their hot chocolate and busy pointing out the skaters, he
couldn't resist whispering to Lily, "You're so fucking beautiful. I
wanna kiss you right now."

Her eyes shone. "Oh?"

"And then make love to you. All night."

Now her nose wasn't the only thing pink.

"In every way imaginable," he added, his
voice growing hoarse the lower it got.

"Oh," she said again.

"And no rubber. Just bareback, raw. Just my
Princess and me deep inside her...coming hard. My cock filling her
up with my spunk."

On a shocked intake of breath, she whispered
back, "Now you're in the realms of fantasy, Lieutenant."

He put his head on one side. "Why does it
have to be fantasy?"

"I don't take risks like that." She looked
him up and down, haughty again. "And I doubt you do either. You're
not stupid, Joe Rossini."

He laughed. "Hey, I guess that's the closest
thing I'll get to flattery from you, huh?"

"Just go and skate, please, so I can watch
you fall on your tight, hot, fireman ass."

So he took Nicky and
Antonia onto the ice, while she sat and watched them from a bench,
warming her hands around a tall hot chocolate. No doubt she was
criticizing his every move, he thought, amused.
Had he talked too much again? Ah, crap. He couldn't help
himself
.

When he saw her dance that afternoon he had
helplessly fallen a little bit more in love with her, seeing that
side of her life that she'd kept from him. Being in the audience
had peeled another layer off the mystery that was Lily Keene, and
seeing her with his nieces backstage had peeled off another. He was
more sure than ever now that he wanted to be with her, but he still
didn't know what she was thinking.

All his worries disappeared when he held her
hand and he felt like anything was possible.

* * * *

An elderly lady had sat beside her on the
bench and said "Hello".

Lily smiled and said "Hello" back.

"That's your family out there, is it? The
two little girls and the handsome young man? I saw you lacing their
skates. How lovely they are and you all look so happy together. It
reminded me of when I was a young mother. You're very lucky."

About to deny that they were her family,
Lily chose to say nothing. Why bother explaining? Instead she
nodded, smiled again, and sipped her delicious, creamy hot
chocolate.

Did they look happy together? She had no
idea what they looked like. When she was with Joe she rarely
considered her appearance and that, in itself, was a rarity for
her.

She looked around and saw several families
out to enjoy themselves on that chilly evening, the kids excited,
the parents long-suffering but valiantly soldiering on. Christmas
was in the air, of course. For once she felt as if she was a part
of it too.

Lily had spent the last two Christmases
alone, since her grandmother died. Before that she tried to get
home to Boston to stay with the old lady at some point, even if it
was just one night. There would be an exchange of
professionally-wrapped gifts, a glass of chef-prepared eggnog
around the designer-decorated tree in the parlor— not a real tree
of course, for that would leave too many pine needles on the
carpet— and then she was back in the city to dance. Her grandmother
rarely ventured out of Boston and hadn't come to the city at all
for the last two years of her life, so she'd only seen Lily dance
on stage once or twice, in the beginning of her professional
career.