Bunheads (4 page)

But I envy Zoe, too, who was born to all this. She grew up practically around the corner from the Met, and she started at the MBA when she was eight years old. She’s as ambitious and as jaded as a nineteen-year-old possibly can be, and the attitude seems to be working for her.

I wonder if it’s the city or the ballet world that toughens you up. It seems that either could do the job.

“Seventeen forty,” says the cab driver, jolting me back to reality.

The receipt prints out noisily as I fumble for a twenty. “Keep it,” I tell him, and dash into the warm dimness of my cousin’s restaurant.

Trudy, the bartender, waves in my direction and starts pouring me a glass of red wine, even though she knows I’m two years away from being legal. I look around nervously, just in case there’s someone who might ask for my ID, but there’s only a group of silver-haired old men drinking wine and arguing about baseball in the corner and a young, laughing couple in the back.

I sit down at the bar and take out my copy of
Frankenstein
, which I’ve been trying to finish since July. But I’m still amped from the performance, and I can’t concentrate. I’m watching the couple without thinking, and then suddenly the guy turns and catches my eye. He has dark hair and pale skin with the shadow of scruff along his jawline, and he’s incredibly cute. He holds my gaze for a moment as his blond date texts on her phone, and then he smiles at me—a big, warm, surprising smile.

I duck my head and feel the blush climb up my neck to my cheeks. I’m too embarrassed to smile back.

“Here you go,” Trudy says, passing me a large goblet of wine. “Drink up.”

“Thanks.” I take out a few dollars to tip her, but I don’t pay for the wine. Eugene gets mad if I do; this, plus his laxness around the matter of drinking age, is one of the reasons he’s my favorite cousin.

I want to look at the young couple again. Because I wonder, are they actually a couple? They seem like they should be—they’re in a romantic Italian restaurant together, after all—but the look the guy gave me would seem to suggest otherwise.

“Haven’t seen you for a while,” Trudy says, interrupting my thoughts.

“Yeah, it’s hard to get away,” I say. “Otto doesn’t approve of ‘field trips.’ ”

“Field trips?”

I laugh drily. “It’s what he calls any sort of activity that takes place more than ten blocks from the theater.”

“Yikes,” Trudy says. Then she eyes my clavicle as she sets a
plate of breadsticks in front of me. “Eat, eat. You’re too skinny, my dear.”

“Really?” I ask. Actually, I’ve been feeling sort of bloated lately, but I haven’t weighed myself because I don’t own a scale—and because I don’t really want to know.

“Well, compared to me you’re skinny,” Trudy says. She pinches her stomach. “I’ve got enough gut for both of us.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” I say, smiling. “Can I have a bowl of the pesto rigatoni?”

I tell myself I won’t eat the whole thing—and anyway, I missed lunch, so I need some calories.

“Sure thing,” she says, giving me a little salute. “Coming right up.”

As I sip my wine, I look to the back corner of the restaurant, but the guy and girl are gone. I can’t help feeling a little disappointed; even if he was on a date with someone else, he was good scenery. I open up
Frankenstein
and stare blankly at the pages. Then I open my journal, which I always have with me, and do the same.

I’m still sort of spacing out when I hear the strumming of a guitar. I turn around and look to the small stage that Eugene installed against the far wall of the dining room. Sitting on a stool, holding a battered old Sigma acoustic, is the cute dark-haired guy.

From this angle I can see him better, and I can tell that he’s my age, or maybe a year or two older. He’s wearing faded Levi’s, a V-necked sweater, and a pair of Adidas sneakers that has seen better days. His fingers move quickly over the frets of
the guitar, and then, a moment later, he opens his mouth and sings. He has a deep but breathy voice that reminds me of Nick Drake’s.

“
Saw you at the Guggenheim / shivering outside in line / wondered if you’d have the time / to turn around and see me,”
he sings.

The blond taps her foot and mouths the words along with him. She’s moved to a closer table so she can take pictures.

“Across the park the leaves are red / the hawks have put themselves to bed / The snow will come the old man said / So please be with me…”

The melody—or maybe it’s his voice—gives me shivers. I stop trying to pretend I’m not staring.

“Here I am so far from home / and I don’t want to be alone / Do you want to be my own / my lovely girl…”

As he finishes, he looks up, and our eyes meet again. I feel a flutter in my stomach that is not unlike the one I feel the moment before I step onstage. It’s like a surge of nerves and anticipation.
Hello
, I think,
who are you?

He sings half a dozen more songs as I sip my wine. I don’t pretend to read my book or do anything but watch. Sometime during his set the blond vanishes.

He comes to the last verse in a song about California and then sets down his guitar. There’s a smattering of applause from the table of old men. A moment later he’s coming toward me, and then he’s sitting down next to me at the bar. “Can I have a Brooklyn Lager, please?” he says to Trudy.

I can feel my heart thudding in my chest and a blush creeping into my cheeks.
He’s sitting next to me
, I think dumbly.
He’s sitting right next to me.
What do I say to him?

Trudy raises one tweezed eyebrow and says, “Done already? Because I didn’t hear that song I like, about the river.”

“I’ll dedicate it to you next time,” the singer says, flashing her a grin.

“It’s a deal.” Trudy reaches for the tap and nods in my direction. “Her name is Hannah. She’s the owner’s cousin, so if you plan on hitting on her, you had better have the best of intentions, or else he’ll hunt you down and break your legs.”

I laugh, in part because I’m mortified and in part because Eugene is about 110 pounds soaking wet.

“Duly noted.” He grins.

Trudy gives the cute guitar player his beer and then slides my pasta down the bar so I have to catch it before it careers off the end. She always does that.

“That looks good, too,” he says to me with a smile. “Is that pesto?”

I nod as I grind some pepper over it.

“That’s a lot of pepper,” he observes, watching the dark specks cover the top of my pasta.

I look down. In my nervousness I’ve ground way too much pepper onto my dinner. “Uh, I really like pepper,” I say, and surreptitiously try to push some of it off onto the bar.

He smiles again, revealing a row of straight white teeth and two matching dimples. His eyes are blue, with lashes as long as a girl’s. I have no idea what I should say to him. He seemed perfect from far away, but now that he’s next to me he’s just making me nervous.

“I’m Jacob. I understand you’re Hannah.”

He extends his hand and I shake it, and in doing so I nearly spill my wine on my lap. “Oh,” I gasp as I catch the glass just in time.

“Excellent reflexes,” he says.

I can only nod. I don’t know how to flirt with guys—I’ve been insulated inside a dance studio for the last twelve years of my life. When was the last time I had a conversation with someone who wasn’t a dancer? Does the cashier at my corner deli count?

I stab the rigatoni with my fork while watching Jacob out of the corner of my eye. He’s lanky, tallish. His hair is tousled, and there’s a tiny cut on his chin where he must have nicked himself shaving. I have to repress a sudden urge to reach out and gently touch it.

He eyes my book, my journal, my pen. “So, do you go to NYU?” Jacob asks, looking at me over the rim of his pint glass.

I shake my head for a long time, long enough to get my vocal cords working. And then I say it. “No.” I think,
Come on, Hannah, is that really the best you can do?

“Okay,” he says. “The New School? That’s where Sasha goes. She was here earlier? She’s my brother’s girlfriend, and she’s more loyal to me, apparently, than my own brother, who called five minutes before my set to say he couldn’t make it. But anyway, do you go there?”

I say no and shake my head again. I’ve become virtually unable to speak. Thank God no one else is here to see this humiliating display; Zoe would never let me hear the end of it. But at least the blond isn’t his girlfriend.

“All right, then,” Jacob says gamely. “We can make this twenty questions. So, you’re not a student.”

I shake my head.

“Are you a spy?”

And this is so absurd that I’m shaken out of my vocal paralysis. I laugh and say, “Nope, not a spy.”

Trudy shoots me a look—
is this guy bothering you?
—but I smile. Jacob is definitely not bothering me. I hardly even care what he’s saying; sitting next to him is making me feel giddy.

“Okay, then,” he says. “Let’s get to the bottom of this.” Jacob gets a serious look on his face and leans closer as he goes through a number of other occupations. He guesses au pair, actress, and yoga instructor, all of which I suppose are plausible, and then, when he strikes out with those, he goes on to professional skydiver, mountain climber, and hit man. The whole time he’s talking, I can’t stop noticing just how cute he is.

“No, no, no,” I say, laughing and shaking my head. A piece of hair comes loose from my ponytail, and he reaches up and gently tucks it behind my ear. I flush and feel a tingling where he touched me. My heart begins to race.

“I give up, then,” he says.

“I’m a dancer with the Manhattan Ballet,” I say finally, and watch as his eyebrows lift until they’re hidden under his bangs.

“No way,” he says. “That’s so cool. I haven’t been to a performance in a while, but I’ve totally seen your company. I got those cheap standing-room-only tickets.”

I look at him in surprise. I can’t imagine there are many
nineteen-or twenty-year-old guys out there who’ve ever seen a ballet, let alone more than one. “Really?”

He nods and his fingers tap an excited beat on the bar. “Yeah, I was taking this class about modernist music, and there was all this stuff about Stravinsky. A lot of the ballets you guys dance are to his music, right?”

“Yeah,” I say, impressed. “You know your stuff.”

“Not really. But I know enough to know that what you do is totally amazing.”

“Thanks,” I say, giving a slightly embarrassed little shrug.

People always ask the same things when I tell them I’m a ballet dancer. They want to know whether the ballet masters weigh us and if we’re on some special diet. They also wonder what percentage of the male dancers are gay. These are
totally
annoying questions, and it occurs to me that Jacob might be the first person to not ask a single one of them.

“You must love it,” he says. His eyes hold mine until I have to look away.

I don’t even have to think about the answer. “Yes,” I say, gazing down at my pasta. “I do.”

Trudy comes over to top off my glass.
Thank you
, I mouth. Then I turn back to Jacob. “But it’s a lot of hard work. I mean, a
lot
.” I think of the rehearsal schedule for the next day, and my chest tightens with anxiety.

He grins. “Well, as they say, ‘One must imagine Sisyphus happy.’ ”

I raise my eyebrows at him. “Pardon?”

He scoots closer to the bar and leans his elbows on it. “You
know the myth of Sisyphus, right?” he says eagerly. “He was condemned to roll a boulder uphill for all eternity. Every day he’d push it to the top, and every day it would roll back down. And basically this French philosopher, Camus, said you had to assume that Sisyphus was cool with it. That the struggle alone gave his life meaning.”

I laugh and take a sip of wine. “There are parts of my day that are struggles, all right.”

“But you get to be onstage at Avery Center. That must be incredible.”

“It is,” I acknowledge. “But you’re no stranger to the stage yourself.”

Jacob shrugs. “Avery Center this ain’t,” he says, grinning.

I sit up in mock indignation. “I hope you’re not maligning my cousin’s bar.”

“Never!” he exclaims. “I love Gene’s. It actually has a decent sound system, believe it or not. Plus, Trudy here is generous with the free beer.” He winks at her.

“Are you a full-time musician?” I realize, of course, that it would be a miracle if he was: New York is full of actors/waiters and dog-walking painters.

“Nah, I wish. I would be if it paid the rent, but I haven’t been able to convince the parents that it would.” He smiles, and his blue eyes flash. “I’m at NYU, majoring in philosophy. Or else art history. Or maybe ecology.” He laughs. “I’m having a hard time deciding. Basically, I declared four majors last year, and now I’m waiting for someone to notice and make me pick.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of different interests.”

He nods his head and takes a gulp of beer. “Yeah, I go on these kicks. It’s kind of geeky, maybe, but whatever. Right now I’m reading about the Meadowlands and saving up money so I can buy a kayak and explore the wetlands. They’re amazing, but they’ve been used as a garbage dump for decades. When the old Penn Station was torn down, all the debris got tossed right there into the water.”