himself, thinking of Nona. He glanced at his watch. It would be around 8:00 p.m. in New York City right now. She would be at the ballet with his mother, Yvonne. He suddenly had the urge to call her just to hear her voice, but he knew he would be interrupting and she wouldn’t appreciate it. His little girl was hooked on ballet. She lived and breathed it. She took weekly classes, and practiced every day. There were recitals he missed more often than not, but which he got blow-by-blow critiques of from his mother; and Nona’s bedroom wall was covered in posters of ballet luminaries, mostly of guys in tights with prominent packages. Nick grimaced. He hoped Nona didn’t choose guys for that reason. But she was fifteen. Try as he might to keep her his little girl, she was growing up.
He’d told her he had two stops to make this weekend, one in Seattle and the other in San Francisco, but he bet she’d only remembered the one in California. She half listened when he talked to her. Part of the reason she heard only what she wanted to hear was because she was behaving like a martyr recently. It was poor Nona this, poor Nona that, twenty-four-seven. She thought he was neglecting her because she didn’t live with him. She lived with her grandmother in Harlem while he had an apartment in Manhattan. An apartment he hardly lived in himself because he traveled so often. The agency where he was a top agent was also located in Manhattan. He kept telling her that one day soon he would be starting his own agency and he wouldn’t have to travel so much, then she could move in with him.
She’d been only five when Dawn, her mother, and his wife, had gotten killed in a car crash when she was on the way home from visiting her family in Virginia. A day didn’t go by that he didn’t miss her. She’d been the only woman he’d ever loved. Sometimes he thought she would be the only one he ever would.
Yes, he got lonely. Loneliness, however, was better than dating nowadays. He’d tried it, and it was a nightmare. Too many women wanted to get serious too quickly. They’d obviously been waiting a long time to meet their Prince Charming, and were racing against time to procreate. They wanted to jump in bed on the first date or if they were more subtle, on the second date. They scared the hell out of him. Then there were those with relationship phobias. In spite of women thinking that men were the ones who were afraid of commitment, these women took the prize. They never wanted to define what was going on between you. They wanted to keep it loose. Date and have sex, but with no strings attached. He called it intimacy without intimacy. And when you pressed them for something more than a ready date on Friday night with breakfast included on Saturday morning, they accused you of wanting someone to take care of you. Nick Reed certainly didn’t need a mother, he had one; and he didn’t need a wife, either. He did require something real when he dated a woman, though. No games for him.
He thought he had found someone he could enjoy being with for the rest of his life around eight months ago, but she didn’t know how to be honest with him. Subsequently, they had stopped seeing one another over a misunderstanding.
It suddenly struck him. Nona was going to the ballet tonight. And the woman he’d just thought about was a ballet dancer. He wondered if his daughter listed her as one of her idols. If she did, Nona had never mentioned it. Which wasn’t surprising since his daughter didn’t share her hopes and dreams with him. She reserved that for her grandmother. His heart ached because of it.
His cell phone rang. He hoped it was Nona calling but one glance at the display revealed it was another of his clients. He answered with an enthusiastic, “Joey, how’s it going?”
“Oh, man, you’re not gonna believe this,” said Joey Blake, a right fielder with the Boston Red Sox, “Lola’s expecting!”
Nick breathed a happy sigh of relief. Good news for a change. Joey and Lola had been trying to have a baby for years. “Congratulations, daddy,” Nick said, laughing.
After the performance was over, Belana was in the dressing room she shared with several other ballerinas, getting out of her costume when the door to the dressing room opened and yet another ballerina entered. “Belana?” she said, looking around the room to the back where she spotted Belana pulling on a pair of jeans.
“Yes, Suri?” answered Belana, as she zipped up the jeans and stepped into her athletic shoes.
Suri Nash, a dark-haired dancer with brown eyes smiled as she approached her. “You’ve got a fan, an adorable teen with stars in her eyes. She’s waiting for you in the lobby.”
Belana laughed softly. Suri could be talking about none other than Nona Reed, the teenager she had been mentoring for the past six months. They had met when Belana had volunteered her time and expertise at a community center in Harlem. The woman who ran the program liked to introduce neighborhood kids to people in interesting careers so they would know there was no limit to what they could aspire to. There had been a few kids in the audience who wanted to be dancers and afterward they had approached Belana as a group, led by Nona Reed, and asked her to come to their dance class. She’d done so and had been impressed with their dedication, especially Nona’s. Before long, Belana was teaching the class, along with their regular instructor, one Wednesday night per month. After class the other students hurried away, happy to be leaving the dance studio in favor of more interesting pursuits. Nona Reed lingered, practicing in front of the mirror until the community center closed. Belana stayed behind one night, too, and they began dancing together. Nona told Belana of her dreams of one day commanding the stage, traveling around the world dancing, just like her. Belana told her about the glamorous side of a dancer’s life, but made sure to give her the sobering facts, too. They’d become friends.
“Thanks, Suri,” Belana said now as she grabbed her bag and, fully dressed, headed for the door.
“Are you coming to the after party?” asked Suri, hopefully.
“I think I’ll pass,” Belana said. She rarely went to after parties. It was opening night that excited her, hearing the audience’s first reaction to the performance. Her friends Elle and Patrice and their husbands had attended opening night three months ago. The ballet had been the longest-running of Belana’s career, eight performances per week for twelve weeks. She simply wanted to rest for the two months the company would be on hiatus, and come back refreshed.
“There will be guys there,” Suri said, still trying to entice her. “Guys who aren’t dancers. When was the last time you went out on a date?”
It was true. Belana had been experiencing a dry spell. After getting her heart stomped on eight months ago, she had decided to take a break from men. She had recently met a nice guy, though, and was attending a fundraiser with him next Friday night.
“Don’t waste your pity on me,” she told Suri with a sly smile. “I have a date with Eli Braithwaite.”
Elias “Eli” Braithwaite was one of the most eligible bachelors in New York City. It didn’t hurt that he was the highest-scoring player on the Knicks’ roster. Sports reporters swore the Knicks were having a good year largely because of him.
“You lucky girl!” exclaimed Suri. “I’m so jealous.”
“It’s just a date,” Belana said. “Nothing is going to happen. You know my motto …”
“Never kiss on a first date,” Suri said, laughing. “I don’t understand. How are you going to know whether or not you want to see him again if you don’t kiss him?”
“If you’re drawn to a person, you know it from the moment you meet. You don’t have to kiss to know whether he excites you or not. He can just walk into the room,” Belana avowed. “I know you’ve experienced chemistry with a guy.”
“Yes, but I like to test whether or not the chemistry is real. What if you’re attracted to him but when you kiss him he has bad breath?”
Belana laughed. “If he has bad breath, you’re going to smell it long before you get close enough to kiss him.”
Suri, walking with her to the door, wrinkled her nose in distaste. “True. I guess I just like kissing.”
“No harm in that,” Belana said. “I don’t do it because if I decide I don’t want to see a guy again after the first date, I haven’t