Two of a Kind (3 page)

“Pretty girl,” he said.

“Thank you,” she replied stiffly. She was not sure she liked him offering his judgment—even though it was positive—about her daughter. Was he going to corner her at the table again? She hoped not and was trying to devise some other means of escape when she came face-to-face with Angelica. The veil had been removed, leaving her lustrous black hair uncovered.

“So how have you two been getting along?” she said, looking from Christina to Andy. “I seated you together because I wanted you to meet.”

Christina felt her cheeks heating. So this had been a setup? Widow and widower meet and find love at a wedding? How predictable—and how odious. She hated being set up with men as if she were a lone sock or glove, useless without a mate. She'd had a mate. A mate she adored. And in the ten years since he'd died, none of the men she had dated had come even remotely close to him. Being alone was better than settling. Besides, she wasn't alone—she had Jordan.

Christina was so uncomfortable she could not even look at Andy Stern, and kept her eyes focused on Angelica, who added, “Andy needs some work done on his apartment.” She seemed unaware of Christina's discomfort. “And I thought you'd be the perfect person for the job.”

“You're a decorator?” Andy asked. He sounded skeptical.

“Yes, I am,” said Christina. His tone riled her, but it was because he'd touched a nerve. She had no formal training for her job; she'd found her way to it through a serendipitous offer, postcollege, to intern at an interior design firm where a college roommate's mother held a key position. The roommate had been all set to take the position but at the last minute had decided to go backpacking through the Yucatán and so Christina stepped in. She loved it and saw that, with her own desire to rummage and collect, she could make a life's work of it.

“She's a
superlative decorator,” Angelica was saying. “She did my place and I just adore it. You've got to see her work, Andy; Christina, you can send Andy pictures, right? And of course he can come to my apartment.”

“Do you have an office in the city?” asked Andy.

“No, in Brooklyn,” Christina said. And though she did not say it, until the recent downturn in the economy, it had been a very lively, even thriving business. People in the neighborhood knew—and loved—her work; she had been much in demand for a certain kind of warm, idiosyncratic, old-plus-new interior.

“Brooklyn!” said Andy. It was practically a sneer.

“Yes, Brooklyn. Park Slope, actually. It's a beautiful, historic neighborhood and I love it.” Relief that this was not a misguided attempt at matchmaking turned to bristling self-defense.

“She's right, Andy,” Angelica said, putting a hand on his wrist. “Park Slope
is
a beautiful neighborhood and if you saw what Christina has done with her house, you would be totally awed. You just have to get over your Brooklyn phobia, that's all.”

“Well, I am looking for someone to do work on my place,” he said. “And Angelica's recommendation means a lot. Maybe I could show it to you and you could let me know how you might handle the job.”

“We could set up a time later this month,” said Christina. She hoped her voice masked her complete lack of enthusiasm. Whatever fragile thread of connection she'd felt with him had been snapped; he had reverted to the arrogant, self-satisfied man she'd endured at the dinner table. But a couple of key clients had lost their jobs, another was moving to Chicago, and yet another had been very slow in paying her bills. Work was work.

“Perfect,” Angelica said. “Do you have a business card or should I just give Andy your coordinates?”

“I think I have one.” Christina popped the clasp on her black satin clutch and rooted around inside. Yes, here it was; she handed it to Andy.

“Christina's World,”
he read off the card.
“Antiques, Interiors,
Gardens.”
He looked at her. “Gardens? In the city?”

“Park Slope has a lot of gardens,” she said. “Lovely gardens, in fact. I've designed many of them.” Why did she feel this was another slight?

“Here's my card,” he said. She looked down at the fat, block lettering, and the string of degrees that followed the name. She put it in her purse, wishing she did not need, so badly, to use it.

“Get in touch with her,” Angelica was saying to Andy. Then someone called her name and she turned. Before she moved off in the direction of the voice, she added, “You won't be sorry.” Fortunately, Andy was waylaid by someone else and Christina was finally able to escape.

She didn't want to go back to her table, but it seemed too early to leave; the cake hadn't even been cut. Maybe she could go back to the rose garden. But her fingers were sticky from the cookies; what she wanted to do first was wash up. There were luxury portable restrooms set up at the far end of the lawn; Jordan had used one and told her it was even air-conditioned. But Christina wanted to find a bathroom indoors—mostly because she wanted a peek inside.

She went around to the front and slipped in. The foyer was as big as most New York living rooms and it was done in a gargantuan black-and-white marble tile and a ghastly, glittering chandelier. This was exactly the sort of decorating she hated: overdone, overwrought, mindless. Christina tried a couple of doors before finding the right one. Inside, she washed her hands and splashed cool water on her cheeks. The gilt-framed mirror was parked between a pair of ornate brass sconces. So
crass
,
she thought as she smoothed her hair—done in a simple French twist—and dusted her nose with pressed powder. A swipe of lip gloss and a few dabs from the tiny flacon of Diorissimo she kept in her purse and her toilette was complete.

As she looked in the mirror, she saw her own still-attractive face with its delicate features and gray-blue eyes, but she thought of Andy Stern. Arrogant, self-important, opinionated—was there anything she'd left out? But although she neither liked nor respected him, she was going to go after the job anyway. Business was slow. Private school, even with a generous financial aid package, cost money. And her nineteenth-century row house always demanded something; this time it was the front stoop, whose crumbling steps needed resurfacing. She had inherited the narrow, four-story brick structure with its glass-paneled double doors and Japanese maple out front, and though she loved it dearly, it was certainly a money pit.

Lately, she'd been feeling so strapped that she actually applied for a full-time job at a design firm based in Greenwich. Giving up her own business to work for someone else would be, in her view, a comedown. But the Greenwich job offered a steady salary and good benefits. Anyway, it was a long shot; she'd sent the résumé in weeks ago, gone up for an interview, and heard nothing since. All the more reason to call Andy Stern.

By the time Christina made her way back to the table, the cake cutting was in progress. Angelica and Ohad, her Israeli groom, fed the first slices to each other, amid enthusiastic clapping and cheering. Then the servers took over, expertly slicing and distributing pieces to everyone else. Before Christina took her first bite, something caused her to look across the tent. There at the other end stood Andy Stern. On one side stood his son, Oliver, and on the other, Jordan. Oliver had a slice of cake in his fingers and was devouring it without the assistance of fork or plate. Jordan's hands were empty, and she watched Oliver as though he were crazy, dangerous, or both.

Why did it trouble her to see the three of them standing there together, like they were posing for a family picture? Something about Andy, that was it. It was his body language—so commanding and assertive—and the way he seemed to take up so much space, to
own
everything around him.

As if he were aware of her unflattering assessment, Andy Stern looked straight at her, pinning her with his bright, focused gaze. As his fork impaled a morsel of cake, he grinned. Now, why did that grin unsettle her so much? Christina didn't wait to find out. Setting down the plate with its untouched cake, she sped off to the rose garden to escape.

J
ordan slammed the locker door shut. Finally. School was over and now came the best, the most real part of the day: the ballet class that unfolded at the soaring white studio on West Sixty-fifth Street. She needed to hurry. The subway was a short walk, and even though Jordan was loaded down—backpack with all her school stuff, canvas tote crammed with practice clothes, ballet slippers, a towel, and hair gear—she made good time. But once in the station she had to wait for the train. Anxiously, she paced the platform. She
hated
being late to class. Finally, the train arrived.

The ride into Manhattan took more than forty minutes, time Jordan had learned to use well. First, she permitted herself something to eat—she'd had no breakfast and lunch had been only a salad—because her stomach was rumbling too loudly to ignore. After she consumed the protein bar and three almonds she'd found nestled in a Baggie beneath her tights, she was good. She pulled the heavy history textbook out of her backpack and opened it. Her father had been a history teacher, though he'd gone to law school. “He decided he liked kids more than he liked law,” her mother said. Would he have liked
her
? Dumb question. Parents loved their kids. Though Jordan knew of parents who didn't think their kids were smart or pretty or driven enough. Jordan found history boring, but then, she found pretty much everything apart from her ballet classes boring; that she excelled in school in no way reflected her interest level. How would her father have reacted to that? He had died when she was only four and what she had, mostly, were sense memories: the scratchy feel of his tweed jacket when he picked her up and pressed her to him, the warmth of his big palm when it enveloped her tiny one.

When the train emerged from the tunnel and went over the Manhattan Bridge, she looked up from her textbook. That wide view across the water, framed by the surrounding city, filled her with a sense of widening possibility. She loved being at SAB, despite all the rushing. And in September, she'd be moving up to the next level, B2. She'd be taking character, point, variations, adagio, and even a weekly class in piano. If
only
her mother would let her transfer to the Professional Children's School on Sixtieth Street, life would be so much easier. But her mother refused on what she called
educational grounds
. So they had reached a compromise: in September, Jordan would be starting at the Cromley-Blandon School. Her mom liked that they offered Chinese, Arabic, and advanced Latin, but the only thing Jordan cared about was the location—Seventy-fourth and West End Avenue—which was only minutes away from SAB. She'd still have to commute, but at least it would be at the beginning of the day, not when she was on her way to ballet class. At Forty-second Street, Jordan got off the train and caught a local to Sixty-sixth Street and then hurried up to the building, through the reception area, and into the girls' dressing room.

“You're late!”

She turned, and there was her best friend, Alexis, already dressed for class. She and Alexis had started at SAB together when they were both six; they bonded when they both played candy canes in the annual production of
The Nutcracker
.

“Am not.” Jordan dropped down to rummage through her bag. But Alexis was right: she
was
late. Yanking out the tights, leotard, and shoes, she stripped off her jeans and oversized T-shirt, stuffed them inside, and put on her practice clothes. The black flats she wore were kicked off and abandoned. There was just enough time to redo her bun before the opening strains of the piano music signaled that class was beginning.

Jordan took a place behind Alexis at the long wooden barre attached to the wall as the strains of Chopin filled the studio. That stuck-up Francesca Karatasos was at the front of the barre—naturally—but Jordan forced herself not to look, and instead focused on melting into a deep, rich
plié
. Down and down she went, and then as soon as she was at the bottom, the rising began again.

The
pliés
were followed by the
tendus
, the
tendus
by the
degagés
,
degagés
by
ronds de jambes
,
fondus
,
frappés
,
developpés
, and
grands battements
. When the barre was over, there was a break. Francesca stood admiring herself in front of the mirror; she was able to lift her long legs higher than anyone in class and sometimes her point work looked so perfect it made Jordan insane. Alexis tapped her on the shoulder and Jordan followed her out to the water fountain.

“She is
so
conceited,” Jordan said, glancing back to where Francesca continued to preen.

“But she's really good,” said Alexis. Jordan couldn't argue. “Want to come over later?” Alexis asked. Since Alexis lived in an apartment on West Seventy-eighth Street, they liked to hang out there.

“I can't; we're having company for dinner,” said Jordan. Her mother had invited Misha and Stephen, the couple who had started out as their tenants and become their friends, to join them. It was their anniversary or something.

“Tomorrow, then,” Alexis said. Jordan nodded as the teacher, Ms. Bonner, strode back into the room and began the center work. Mostly this was a recap of what they had done at the barre, but one of the combinations contained
pirouettes
. She fixed her thoughts exclusively on the small spot where her foot rose on
relevé
and then pivoted, imagining herself stuck there, like with a glue gun, unable to shift her foot at all. The only possible movement was around, around, and—yes!—around again. She finished cleanly, in a small burst of triumph—three neat, complete
pirouettes
. Francesca, who turned like a top, could do three
pirouettes
,
but Jordan never had before.

“Nice turns!” said Ms. Bonner as she looked in Jordan's direction.

Jordan stood there, chest heaving.
Three,
she thought,
three perfect turns.
The class seemed charmed after that—during the adagio she was able to lift her leg higher than usual, and she caught on to the
balancé
combination right away. Jordan still marked it dutifully along with everyone else, but when it was time to actually do it, she gave herself over to the music—a waltz—completely.

“Everyone, please stop,” Ms. Bonner said with a loud clap of her hands. The room went still and Mr. Strickland, the pianist, took his fingers off the keys. “I'd like you all to watch Jordan. She's got more than the steps; she's got the
soul
. Jordan,” she said, gesturing to a place alone, in the center of the floor. “Please.” Ms. Bonner looked at Mr. Strickland.

Jordan was nervous as the first few bars began to play. But once she began to perform the long, sweeping
balancés en tourant
—waltz steps that crossed the floor in a diagonal—the smaller
balancés
that rocked from side to side like waves, the
piqué arabesque
, in which she was required to strike and hold the pose, and the tight spin of the
chaîné
turns at the end, she wanted the combination to go on and on.

“Brava!” said Ms. Bonner when it was over. “Very well done.”

Jordan could feel everyone looking at her, especially Francesca, and Alexis gave her a high five as they passed. The glow stayed with her right on through the rest of the class and the final
révérence
where they all curtsied to the teacher. Then class was over; Mr. Strickland stood and gathered up his music; the sweat-slick young dancers filed out of the room.

Jordan was mopping her face with a towel when Ms. Bonner stopped her. “I've been watching you for a while now,” she said. “And I like what I see. Keep it up, and things—
good
things—will be coming your way.” She put two fingers under Jordan's chin and smiled; Jordan was almost afraid to return that smile. But she smiled all the way back to Brooklyn, on her walk from the subway station and through the front door of the house on Carroll Street.

She got there just in time to see two men, both dark skinned and one wearing a turban, looking at the house. It looked like the one with the gelled-back hair was taking a picture; he held his phone up to the facade. He was speaking very rapidly while the other man just nodded without saying anything back. Jordan was confused. Who were these guys and what were they doing in front of her house? She was about to ask them, but when she approached, they startled like a pair of birds and rushed off down the block. She watched them go with some satisfaction; although she had never seen them before, she felt, instinctively, that they were intruders. Next door, she saw the flick of the lace curtain on the ground floor. That meant their neighbor Miss Kinney had seen them too. She was ancient and spent a lot of time sitting out front or looking out of her window. Maybe she would know what this was about. Or else Jordan's mother would. But once inside, Jordan's need to share her own news crowded out thoughts of the two strangers.

“Mom!” she called as she came through the door. “Mom, where
are
you?”

“In the kitchen,” Christina called back. “Misha and Stephen will be down soon.” The kitchen was at the back of the house's ground floor; in the front was their living room. On the parlor floor was their formal dining room, along with her mom's office and showroom; on the floor above there were two bedrooms and a bathroom in back. Misha and Stephen rented the top-floor apartment.

When Jordan burst into the kitchen, she found her mother, dressed in a tea-colored linen dress and a strand of carved ivory beads, rinsing lettuce. “You sound so excited,” Christina said.

“I am!” Jordan dropped her bags on the floor. “I just had the best ballet class
ever
.”

She proceeded to tell her mother about the turns and waltz and what Ms. Bonner had said.

“How wonderful,” Christina said softly, stepping back. She had the misty-eyed look she sometimes got; it could be annoying, but right now, Jordan was drinking in every misty-eyed second. “A red-letter day.” Then Jordan ran upstairs to shower and change before Misha and Stephen came down. They had become like uncles to her, making a fuss over her consistently excellent grades, buying her little presents, and taking her on what they liked to call “cultural outings.”

Dinner, served in the dining room on the parlor floor of the house, felt like a party. There were tiger lilies in a crystal vase and the table was set with their best china, no two plates the same, and the heavy white linen napkins her mother had been collecting for years; they were so soft and thick, so what if they had someone else's initials embroidered onto them? Along with salad, Christina had made wild rice and poached salmon, topped with a caper-dill sauce and presented on one of her big blue and white platters. Jordan knew her mom was always worried about money, but she managed to turn out these fancy meals anyway.

Jordan ate the salad, ignored the rice, and meticulously scraped all the sauce off the salmon before putting a few bites of it in her mouth. Misha—tall and lanky, with a thick shock of hair that fell across his forehead—went downstairs for the champagne Christina had in the fridge. “You have to let her have a taste, Christina,” he said. “It's a special day for her too.”

“All right, just a tiny taste,” Christina said. The silver bracelet she always wore was bright in the candlelight; she had lit several long white tapers and placed them along the pine sideboard. Misha popped the cork, which shot across the room like a rocket, making them all laugh. Christina made a toast to the two men—they were celebrating their ten-year anniversary together—and then Stephen stood up.

“To a three-pirouette day,” he said, lifting his glass in Jordan's direction. “May you have many more.” He touched the rim of Jordan's glass with his own. “Drink up, darling.” He drained his glass quickly and poured himself another. Then he turned to Christina. “How was the wedding of the century?”

“Beautiful,” Christina said. “The decorations, the food, the flowers . . .” She sipped delicately at her champagne. “Though you should have seen her stepfather's house; it was beyond tasteless!”

“Do tell!” Stephen leaned in closer. He was a fashion stylist and Misha was a set designer; they both cared a lot about how things looked. So Christina obliged and pretty soon all three of them were giggling like a bunch of kids.

“Speaking of weddings, are you two going to tie the knot?” Christina asked. Stephen and Misha exchanged a look.

“Well, it's complicated . . . ,” Stephen said. As the conversation turned to same-sex marriage, only recently made legal, they all grew more serious. Jordan stopped paying attention. The champagne was like soda, but crisper and less sweet. Good—it probably didn't have so many calories. She took another sip and it was soon gone. When Christina went to the kitchen to get dessert, Stephen poured her a little more. “Sh,” he said, “don't tell your mom.”

Jordan drank that too, and for the rest of the evening felt blanketed by fog. When Misha and Stephen said good night, Jordan was about to go to bed too; she was tired. But she was stopped by the sight of her mother, seated alone at the table, shoulders slumped and head down. Jordan's champagne-induced haze was pierced by this unsettling image.

“Mom?” she said. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” Christina said. “Go up to bed now, darling. It's after eleven.”

“I don't believe you,” Jordan said, and went to join her mother at the table, which was covered with dirty dishes.

“Well, I guess I might as well tell you now; you'll find out soon enough. Do you remember my client Mimi Farnsworth?” Jordan nodded. The Farnsworths had a huge limestone just above Eighth Avenue on Third Street; Christina had recently completed a very big job there. “I just found out today that Mike Farnsworth was caught embezzling money from his firm. There's going to be a trial and he'll probably go to jail. The house will be seized and all their assets frozen. She doesn't know how she'll begin to pay the legal fees. Or me.”