The Art of Falling by Kathryn Craft

Author:Kathryn Craft
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2013-11-11T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

Angela’s story left me reeling. Could I have had this all wrong? If Kandelbaum had ever thought of me as a potential love interest, I’d know by now. And I loved Kandelbaum like an uncle, not a lover. I had to get this sorted out.

But how? I was certainly no expert on dating. Before Dmitri, I’d madly loved only one other dance partner—my clumsy, rhythm-challenged father. But he worked long hours at the store and traveled for business, and as soon as my mother was done at the candy factory, she’d run me to classes and rehearsals. What chemistry may have passed between them I hadn’t witnessed. At my performing arts high school, the boys in my dance classes only had eyes for each other. I didn’t go to prom; instead, my mother banked the money she would have paid for the ticket and dress toward my participation in the Young Dancers Workshop at the Bates Dance Festival—an arrangement I negotiated. The only heterosexual male flesh I’d pressed belonged to the dads at Bebe’s meet-the-teacher events.

So Dmitri—oh Dmitri—he threw me for a loop.

Every time he came near me in the studio, my muscles contracted with anticipation. At first, accustomed as we all were to touching in front of the others, only a sharp observer would have seen the suggestive glance or lingering touch that made us desperate to get to Dmitri’s each night. I ran back and forth to my place to pick up new clothes, exhausted but deliriously happy. After a couple of weeks, we gave up the charade. I left my little room at Bebe’s for the last time, and made Dmitri’s penthouse our home.

• • •

With one final shudder, tension drained from Dmitri’s body. I felt his release, head to toe, though I remained all stirred up. He stayed quiet for a while, but the rhythms of sleep didn’t claim him. The city lights, filtered through the gauzy curtains separating our bedroom from the balcony, glinted in his eye. He said, “When did you know you would dance?”

It took me a minute to shift into verbal mode. “I just always danced. As far back as I can remember. My mother would play the piano and I’d twirl around the room.”

Dmitri kissed the top of my head and brushed his thumb down my nose. “One day I will meet this player of piano to thank her.”

I thought it best to change the subject. “How about you?”

“Like you, I did not decide. I always knew I would bring modern dance to Russia.”

“That’s precocious.”

“Child of plumber is plumber, child of soldier is soldier. I am the son of a dancer and an ambassador. I will make a company that travels. My mother trained me for this.”

With that line of thinking, I was destined to be either a quality control inspector for chocolate-coated deer jerky or an outdoorsman with a wicked sweet tooth. It seemed prudent to keep the focus on him. “When did she start this training?”

“My mother said she started to stretch my hips when she changed my couche-culotte.

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