Reunion by Alan Lightman

Author:Alan Lightman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307427489
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

THE next day it rains. He leaves campus on the noon bus to New York and arrives at the Morla Magay studio at half past two. Despite the weather, he has not worn a raincoat, as if to increase his misery, and is drenched. When he enters the studio, Juliana is dancing a pas de deux. Tony, puffing his short stub of a cigarette, leans against an iron radiator and claps to the music. Tchaikovsky. Can he close his eyes and just listen? Can he forget himself for a few minutes?

From across the room, Lynn spots him and glides past the pianist. “Can’t stay away from her,” she whispers, and smiles. “Or did you come to see me?” She stands very close to him, so close that he can see a vein throbbing in her neck.

“I heard Juliana’s been sick,” he says. “Is she feeling better?”

“Is that what she said?” says Lynn. “We’re all sick. Starving and sick. We kill ourselves for it. I’d weigh ten pounds more if I weren’t dancing.” Ten pounds wouldn’t be nearly enough, he thinks. He can count her ribs one by one through her leotard. “Juliana tells me you’re a wrestler.”

They watch Juliana and her partner spin and float around the room. If Juliana has been ill, there are no signs of it now. She holds the swanlike positions without effort and shapes them in an unfolding line. Her partner rushes at her, she retreats coyly. The prince and the swan queen look ecstatically in love, and they convey their love completely through facial expressions and movement. He finds that he is jealous of the male dancer, envious of each glance, each touch of Juliana’s hands and her waist. He can barely look.

“What do you think?” says Lynn.

“A dream,” he says.

“Juliana works very hard.” Lynn does some stretches in front of him, but when he pays no attention to her, she walks away. For a moment he thinks that he should walk away as well, leave this studio and never come back, return to . . . what?

When the rehearsal is over, he gives Juliana the book of poetry, and she seems pleased. She asks him to go with her to Frankie’s. “Why?” he says, holding the door for her. “Why should I go to Frankie’s with you?” He is mystified by her, hurt, in love all at the same time.

“Do I have to explain it?” she says softly. “Just come with me.”

“Why did you cancel last time? The night before?”

“Please stop asking me questions. I like being with you.” She slips her hand in his, and he melts.

At midnight, after her waitressing shift is over, she takes him back to the studio. They climb the three flights of stairs in silence, he following behind her, their feet falling in soft taps on the stone steps. She has a key. In the dark they walk through the studio, past the shadowy shape of the piano, to the rear, and out into a narrow corridor. Not until they reach the small door of the women’s dressing room does she turn on a light.

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