Variation: A Novel

PointePrincess50363: That Ballanchine technique hurts to watch. Bring back your sister to show you how to do it right RousseauSisters4

Two days later, I tucked my knees under me in the oversize chair, and stared across the formal living room at Hudson, the ticking of the grandfather clock filling the miles of silence between us as it counted away the late-morning hours.

After Gavin burst in about thirty seconds into our conversation at the bar, we’d agreed to meet somewhere we wouldn’t be disturbed. I’d thought delaying the conversation would give us time to compose ourselves, or at least make it less awkward. I was wrong.

“Five minutes.” Hudson broke the silence.

“I’m sorry?”

“This might go a little easier if you pretend for the next five minutes that you don’t hate me.” He leaned forward on the blue-and-cream-striped couch, and braced his elbows on his knees, ignoring the hot cup of coffee on the coffee table between us. At least one thing hadn’t changed in the last ten years; he was wearing a Bruins cap.

“Five minutes isn’t going to do it, and I doubt that would make this any less awkward.”

“Let’s give it a shot.” He pulled his phone out and showed me the timer. “Take it five minutes at a time.”

“Five minutes. Fine. I kind of thought you’d be in uniform after getting off a twenty-four-hour shift.” I tugged the sleeves of my sweater down over the heels of my palms. Soon, it would be too hot for my favorites. June was breathing down our necks.

“If you want to see me in uniform, all you have to do is ask.” A playful smile tugged at his lips.

Warmth stung my cheeks and I quickly looked away. Flirting had been something he’d saved for other girls. “Is Caroline coming?”

“I haven’t told her.” His smile vanished.

My spine stiffened.

“First”—he held up a pointer finger—“I haven’t seen her, and this is the kind of thing you need to say in person. Secondly, she’s been adamantly opposed to Juniper looking for her birth family before she turns eighteen, but I also feel that Juniper has a right to know things like her medical history, so my loyalties are kind of torn right now. Caroline gets one hint that Juniper’s been hunting—let alone actually found you—and she’ll lock that girl down so tight supermax would look like a breeze.”

“Because our family is evil incarnate?” I tilted my head at him and tried not to let the insinuation ruffle my feathers.

“Because she’s been terrified someone would come and take Juniper from the time the adoption agency called to place her.”

I bristled. “We would never—”

“I know that. You know that. But it’s hard to overrule anxiety with logic.” He curved the bill of his hat and glanced down at the designer rug Mom had paid too much money for. “I figured we’d piece together as many facts as possible, then come up with a plan before going to Caroline.”

My phone buzzed on the arm of the chair, and Kenna’s name flashed on the screen. I swallowed my guilt and hit the Decline button. It was the second time today she’d reached out, and as much as I wanted her to stop, I’d probably wallow even deeper into my little nest of misery if she did.

“And then we let her decide if she wants to tell Juniper.” And in the meantime, that little girl would just keep wondering. What a shitstorm. I shifted my weight and grabbed the bottle of Smartwater from the end table on my right like Kenna was in my actual ear, lecturing me about hydration. My ankle was sore from the early-morning workout—I’d pushed hard on the Peloton this morning, then pushed a little too hard by escalating my calf raises to not-quite demi-pointe.

“Have you told Anne?” He lifted his brows.

“She’s . . . delicate.” I ran my finger over the bottle’s label and debated how much to tell him, how far to let him in. How much did someone change in a decade? Had to admit, there was something ironically poetic to be said about how we were forcing ourselves full circle—from confidants, to strangers, and back to whatever this was. “She’s in the middle of a divorce, and her feelings about children and motherhood . . .” I spoke toward the picture of Anne holding Eva as a baby. “It’s complicated for her right now.” Which was why I’d scheduled this meeting knowing she’d be out of the house.

Hudson nodded, looking at the collection of black-and-white photographs in their silver frames on the built-in bookshelves. “You want to say it, or should I?”

I tracked his gaze to a photo of the four of us in tutus in our early childhood. For the last two days, my mind had scrambled over every prospect and come up with the same conclusion every time.

Juniper couldn’t be Eva’s. She’d never been out of my sight longer than a week in those years. Neither had Anne. She’d left for college the same month I’d joined the Company as an apprentice—a full year before I graduated from high school.

“She has to be Lina’s.” As inescapable as the truth was, I still couldn’t wrap my mind around it, couldn’t fathom that I didn’t know my older sister as well as I’d thought I had. I ripped my focus from the pictures and found Hudson watching me, waiting for me to finish the thought.

It had always been one of my favorite parts about him. He was decisive, reckless even, when taking action, but he’d always listened to me first, something I hadn’t realized I’d been missing in a house of four kids and busy parents.

“If Juniper was born in May, then Lina had to have gotten pregnant in September,” I said softly, voicing the thoughts that had spiraled through my mind the last thirty-six hours. “Which is when she’d joined the San Francisco Ballet Theater.”

“The one you wanted, right?” he asked softly, rising from the couch and walking toward the bookshelves.

I pressed my lips between my teeth to keep from denying it.

“You did.” He glanced over his shoulder, picking up a silver frame that held a photo of Eva and me from the Haven Cove Classic when I was sixteen. “You told me once that you didn’t want to dance in someone else’s shadow, and since your mother had danced in Paris and London, San Francisco was your number one choice.”

“I was there. I remember,” I finally forced out as I stood, putting down my water and walking around the coffee table to stand at his side.

“What changed?”

My gaze darted over the professional pictures, ninety percent of which were taken with us in costume, as though the only moments worth recording for public consumption occurred when we performed. “You know what changed.”

“Lina died.” He slipped his hands into his front pockets. “So you turned down all the offers you got that day and went with the Metropolitan Ballet Company, like your mother wanted.”

Was that a hint of disappointment I heard in his voice?

“I don’t exactly see you in Sitka,” I fired back. That had been our little joke of a dream. Him living in the middle of nowhere, rescue swimming, me in San Francisco, visiting when I could.

“Sean died too. Cancer. I chose to come back to help Caroline with Juniper. Did you choose, or was that all your mother, living out her dreams with whichever daughter fit the shoe at the moment?” He folded his arms across his chest.

“She’d just lost her firstborn. I chose to honor her wishes.” And that came out too defensive. We were still within our first five minutes. “Anyway, I saw Lina at Christmas, but she didn’t say anything, or look different. The next time we were together was that summer. She’d declined an offer to renew her contract in San Francisco and came home to train with us in June to prep for auditioning for MBC again. She was determined and focused, but she acted normal . . . happy, especially after August auditions. She got the invite to join the Company, and that was what? Two weeks before the Classic?” I shook my head. “I know the proof is in Juniper, but I can’t believe Lina would have a baby and not tell any of us. Not even Anne. They were close, way closer than I am with Eva. But unless I have another sibling I don’t know about, Juniper has to be Lina’s.”

“Is there a chance Anne knows and never told you?” He rocked back on his heels and glanced out the window, then muttered a curse.

“Sure, there’s always that chance,” I admitted. “But why would she keep it a secret this long after Lina died? None of it makes any sense.”

“You have to be kidding me.” Hudson strode toward the entry hall.

“What’s wrong?” I hurried after him, my socked feet skidding in the foyer.

He practically consumed the entrance as he threw open the door, but I ducked under his arm to see Juniper drop her scooter in front of the porch steps.

Something in my chest sparked, then flamed slowly, like a campfire started with damp kindling, as Juniper unbuckled her purple helmet and tossed it on the ground next to the abandoned scooter.

“You’re supposed to be at school,” Hudson lectured. “Mrs. Ashbury is going to lose it when she realizes you snuck off.”

Her button nose lifted when she raised her chin at Hudson, and the morning sun caught the copper in her narrowed eyes as she stared him down while climbing the steps. She was fearless and determined and looked more than a little indignant. The flame in my chest spread, and my skin prickled. It wasn’t déjà vu. They were all elements of Lina that I’d recognized as familiar without truly seeing.

Holy shit, I’d been blind. Juniper looked just like her.

“I sent her an email from Mom’s account last night saying you were taking me to an appointment this morning.” She reached the porch and glared at Hudson. “She has her hands full with the Gibbons twins, so we both know she isn’t mourning one less kid in the class.”

“You have your mom’s password?” Hudson lifted his brows at his niece.

Our niece. I stared at her wind-snarled brown hair, the lines of her cheeks and chin, noting the similarities to my sister.

“Juniper0514 isn’t exactly hard to crack,” she drawled.

I leaned back, my head brushing against Hudson’s arm. The contact steadied my feet, but nothing calmed the speed of my heart. Juniper wasn’t just a notification on an app, or a discussion to be had, a question to ponder. She was Lina’s very real daughter.

“You can’t excuse yourself from school and run amok!” Hudson’s tone sharpened. “It’s not safe!”

“Right.” Juniper folded her arms across her chest. “Because I was in sooooo much danger riding my scooter all six blocks from where Mom dropped me off at school. Mr. Lobos says hi, by the way. He was gardening in his front yard when I rode past. Super scary.”

Even the way she rolled her eyes was just like Lina. How had I missed it? I wobbled, and Hudson braced his arm around my waist before I could make an ass out of myself and fall.

Breathe. You have to breathe.

“Not the point. How did you know I’d be here? I still have your phone.” His stern voice was at complete odds with the gentle pressure he used to keep me steady.

“I didn’t know you were here until I saw the truck.” Juniper motioned to the royal blue late-model pickup in the driveway. “I came to see her.” That hand swung around, gesturing at me. “Just because you took my phone doesn’t mean I can’t log on to the website when Mom isn’t using her computer. It notifies both people when it finds a connection, you know.” She looked at me, her entire expression shifting from fearless to apprehensive as she swallowed, her hands falling to her sides. “You weren’t lying. You’re not my mother. But it says we’re related. How?”

So much for waiting for Caroline.

I took a deep breath and prepared for the world to change. “I’m your aunt.”

“So you really have a ballet studio here?” Juniper asked ten minutes later, staring at the double doors off the foyer that kept the studio private.

“We do.” I handed her a glass of lemonade as Hudson followed me out of the kitchen post-emergency-game-plan-session with his, not that either of us had a clue what to do. I sipped mine, hoping the quick burst of sugar would kill the knee-wobbling feeling of being way over my head. “My father inherited this house. It was his favorite place to be. But the only way my mother would agree to let us spend summers out here was if he turned what had been a ballroom into a studio so we wouldn’t miss the crucial summer months of training.” Reaching past her, I turned the handle and pushed the door open to reveal the L-shaped studio.

Juniper gasped and her eyes brightened in a way mine never had for the space.

“It looks smaller from this angle than it is, because it runs down the side of the house.” I walked around her and into the studio, flicking the switch on the right as I passed. The lights came on, not that they were necessary this time of day. The twenty-by-thirty-foot space was perfectly lit by the wall of windows that made up the front and southeast faces of the house, and the line of continuous mirrors on the other side didn’t hurt either.

The floor shone. The mirrors didn’t hold a single fingerprint. There were no water bottles scattered around the windows, or ballet bags tossed against the wall. The speakers built into the ceiling were silent, and yet I was struck with the overwhelming urge to hurry to the barre before my mother caught me slacking.

“It’s beautiful,” Juniper whispered reverently, stepping inside.

“No shoes.” I shook my head.

“Oh, right.” Lemonade kissed the edge of the glass but didn’t overflow as she kicked off her sneakers and hurried in, like I might retract the invitation if she waited too long.

“That means you too,” I said to Hudson as he followed her in.

“I remember the rules.” He motioned toward his shoeless feet with his empty hand. “Though it’s been a few years.”

I sucked in a breath. The last time we’d been in this room together, he’d watched me practice the variation from Giselle for hours in preparation for the Classic. He’d been my number one supporter and, little did he know, my biggest distraction. After all, who could concentrate when Hudson Ellis was in the room?

You can, because you’re not a teenager anymore.

Juniper walked past me and looked around the corner, where the true space began. “And you have a gym too?”

“The last ten feet,” I confirmed, watching her expressions shift from wonder to curiosity as I caught up. “What we do back there makes it possible to do what we can up here.”

“This is how you’re training away from the Company,” Juniper noted, setting her lemonade on the windowsill and climbing over the Pilates machine at the edge of the mat. “Eva made it sound like you were quitting by coming out here.”

I blinked, and my steps faltered.

“She watches Seconds,” Hudson reminded me in a whisper, reaching my side.

Oh. Right.

“I mean, most ballerinas rehab at their company.” She shot me a knowing look and walked by the free weights stacked along the mirror. It was an accusation and question all in one.

“I’m not quitting.” My spine stiffened at the implication. “I recover better on my own, without”—competitors salivating over my demise—“eyes on me.” I took another sip of the tart lemonade and composed myself. “Besides, Eva knows how the algorithm works. Anything controversial or negative is going to get engagement.” And what she really wanted was followers.

“So you’ll be back for the fall season?” Juniper trailed her fingers along the barre.

“That’s the plan.” In time to debut Equinox in the fall season, as long as Vasily liked what he saw on the recording and gave us the go-ahead.

“Pushing it, don’t you think?” Juniper crossed in front of Hudson and me, walking to the pictures that hung on the walls in the spaces between the windows. “It took Michaela DePrince a year to recover, and you think you can do it in nine months?”

“I had a newer procedure, and eight, since you’re counting.” I followed her to the wall. “I’ll have to rehearse at full strength the month prior. And I know the odds. Our family beats them.”

“Our family,” Juniper whispered, looking up at the earliest photograph in the room. All four of us were in tights and leotards at the barre, our hair pinned into buns. Eva couldn’t have been more than two. “You’re all named after prima ballerinas, right?”

“Yes. Mom likes to set expectations early.”

“Alina is my mother, isn’t she?” Her gaze slid to my oldest sister.

That comment hit me like a punch to the stomach. “What makes you think that?” I felt Hudson behind us, watching, but he stayed quiet as Juniper’s gaze shifted to the picture below, where the four of us wore matching leotards and skirts. I was seven, making Lina nine—one year younger than Juniper was right now.

Glancing between the two, my chest constricted. The resemblance was uncanny. I should have noticed the second I laid eyes on her.

“I thought for a second it might have been Eva,” Juniper said, moving down the line of windows, studying each photograph. “The shape of our eyes is the same, and she doesn’t seem the motherly type.”

Grandma’s eyes.

“The shape of your eyes probably comes from my dad’s mom, your great-grandmother, and just because you follow someone online doesn’t mean you know them.” Though I couldn’t exactly argue with her observation.

Juniper glanced my way and paused as though weighing my comment, before turning back to the pictures. “But you would have known if she’d had a baby, right? And you looked pretty shocked to meet me.”

“True.” I followed her line of sight to the next picture, where only three of us wore costumes, holding bouquets after a performance. Anne stood at our side, smiling for the camera, her arms empty. She’d quit at fourteen, when Mom told her she’d never reach the level needed to be hired by a company.

My pity had rivaled my envy of her freedom.

“Anne doesn’t dance, so she can’t be my mother.” Juniper sighed at the photo and moved to the next wall.

“That’s not how it works,” I countered, following her path. “And she can dance. She’s an amazing dancer.” My defenses bristled at Juniper’s skepticism. “It’s hard to grow up in a house like this. Hard to be great when . . .” My words trailed off before I could disparage my sister.

“When you’re surrounded by phenomenal,” Juniper noted, pausing at the next picture. All four of us stood outside the very first Classic, but again, only three of us were costumed. She crossed the final window and stared up at the last picture.

Eva and I were dressed for the barre, teaching a summer intensive, and Anne beamed beside us in a black dress and an engagement ring.

“How old are you here?” Juniper asked, picking up her glass from the nearby windowsill.

“Twenty.” I couldn’t help but notice that my smile didn’t reach my eyes, and wondered if I’d even manage that smile if someone snapped a picture right now. “I’d just come back from the first time my Achilles ruptured.” The last few words slipped into a whisper.

Juniper’s shoulders dipped and she looked up at me, both hands on her lemonade. “My mother is Alina.” The statement was as decisive as it was laced with sadness.

“I think so,” I answered gently. “We called her Lina. She was the oldest, and had the brightest smile, and the loudest laugh, and gave the best hugs—the kind where you feel like love moves through osmosis, like she could infuse you with her joy.” My throat tightened.

Juniper glanced beyond me toward where I knew Hudson was standing. I’d always been able to pinpoint him in a room without much effort. He was a magnet, drawing everything and everyone toward him—including me. Always had been. He and Lina were similar that way. “And she’s dead.”

I nodded, my stomach twisting, knowing I was probably doing this all wrong. There should be therapists here, and Caroline, and a host of other support, and people who knew the right thing to say, like Anne. Instead, Juniper was stuck with me.

And I never knew what or how much to say, which was why I’d always preferred staying quiet.

“How did it happen?” she asked.

I swallowed, and the twisting tied my stomach into knots.

“Juniper.” Hudson’s tone was a warning, and I heard the distinct sound of a phone vibrating.

“She has the right to know,” I said over my shoulder as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone.

He tapped a button and put it away. Our five minutes had turned into thirty.

“How did it happen?” Juniper repeated.

“It was a car accident.” I pushed the words through my dry throat.

“That part was in the articles.” Her hands twisted on the sweating glass. “But how did it happen? You were with her, right? That’s what the news said.”

“I don’t remember.” I lifted my glass, but it was empty, which wasn’t exactly helping the throat-closing feeling that always took hold when I tried to recall that night. “I know that we were coming back from celebrating after the Classic. I was told she lost control around a curve, and we hit a tree, and I . . .” It was nothing I hadn’t been through in therapy dozens of times to help me move past it, but the words clogged my airway and my heart started to race. “I lived, and she didn’t.”

You left her there to die. Mom’s voice screamed in my head.

Tires squealed in my memory. Glass shattered. Metal crunched. No matter how much was missing from that evening, the moment of impact stayed with me. And parts of what memory I did have didn’t match the official report, which made me question the rest of it.

“Allie,” Hudson muttered, suddenly filling my vision. He traded my lemonade for his. “Here, take mine.”

I gulped his down and concentrated on breathing deep and even. It was another reason for keeping lemonade in the house—the sour burst of flavor was supposed to help distract from anxiety attacks . . . or so my therapist told me.

“You have every right to know,” he said to Juniper. “But for now, you have to change the subject.”

“I’m fine,” I managed to say, and handed his glass back. “Thank you.” I pushed the memories away like they belonged to someone else’s story and faced Juniper. Her lips were pressed flat, and worry puckered her brow. “You have nothing to feel bad about,” I promised. “If I could remember more with any certainty, I’d tell you.”

“How can you not remember?” Juniper asked.

Hudson stiffened and his pocket started vibrating again.

“I hit my head so hard that I lost most of my memory from the hours before the crash, and then I didn’t wake up for a couple of days.” Good job. I lifted my hair and tilted my head so she could see the scar that ran down my hairline.

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Juniper glanced between Hudson and me as he declined another call. “Do you . . . do you know who my father is?”

“I wish I did, but I don’t.” She must have been seeing someone in San Francisco.

Juniper absorbed the news with a slow nod. “Will you tell me about her—my birth mother?”

I nodded. “If that’s what you want. We should probably talk to your mom—”

“No!” Juniper shouted, and Hudson somehow managed to pluck her glass out of her hands before it spilled. “You can’t!”

Hudson’s phone vibrated again, and I snatched all three glasses out of his hands, pinning one between my forearm and stomach. “Just answer it already.”

He shot me an apologetic look, then swiped the device to answer as he walked a few feet away. “What? I’m not on today. He did what with the dog?” Hudson snapped, and we both pivoted as he twisted his hat backward.

Oh, that’s exactly what I needed, Hudson Ellis to look even hotter than usual. What the hell was it about a backward baseball cap that made me feel seventeen again?

“Absolutely not.” He sighed. “I’m in the middle of something, but I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He hung up and shoved the phone back into his pocket as he came our way. “Sorry about that. Juniper, we have to tell your mother.” He relieved me of two of the lemonade glasses. “Thank you.”

I almost asked if everything was okay, but entwining my life with Hudson’s more than necessary was a bad idea given our current situation. “He’s right, we have to tell her.”

“No.” She shook her head vehemently. “She would have felt like she had to listen to you if you were my mom, but she won’t let me see you if she knows you’re my aunt!” Panic filled her eyes. “She’s made it crystal clear that I’m not allowed to find my family until I’m eighteen.”

Guess Hudson wasn’t exaggerating about Caroline’s position. Heaviness settled in my chest. Finding out that Juniper existed only to be denied the opportunity to know her felt like losing Lina all over again. And if that night had gone differently, it would be Lina standing here, not me.

“But you already found your family,” I said softly. “So, if we aren’t allowed to know you, then what’s left?” I looked up at Hudson. “Where do we go from here?”

Hudson’s jaw ticked. “Caroline deserves to know.”

“What about what I deserve?” Juniper interrupted, her eyes watering. “My mom wanted to adopt me. Alina wanted to give me up. They both got what they wanted. Why doesn’t it matter what I want? Why do I only matter when I turn eighteen?”

“You matter,” I whispered, my grip tightened on the glass. This was unfair on every possible level.

“Of course what you want matters,” Hudson assured her, palming the bases of both glasses in one hand and stroking his other over her hair.

“Good.” She swiped at her eyes with the back of her forearm. “Because I want to know my biological family.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible without telling your mother,” I said gently.

“We’ll tell her,” Juniper promised, her gaze darting between us. “Just not yet. She has to get to like you first.”

That was never going to happen.

“Which would also convince your mother that not all ballerinas are stuck up?” Hudson lifted an eyebrow, clearly on to her plan.

“Two birds with one stone,” Juniper admitted, lifting her chin.

“I think you greatly underestimate how your mother feels about my”—I winced at the slip—“our family.”

“You can change her mind.” Two little lines appeared between her eyebrows, and her gaze shifted quickly, like she was thinking. The smile that spread across her face was pure mischief. “Uncle Hudson can bring you to my birthday party.”

Wait. What? My stomach hit the floor.

“That’s usually classmates and family only,” Hudson reminded her.

“Your birthday already passed.” Sweat broke out on my palms at the idea of being anywhere near Caroline, carrying a secret like this.

“We always celebrate my birthday Memorial Day weekend so the whole family can be here.” She turned a full-on grin at Hudson, bouncing on her toes. “And that’s why it’s perfect! Bring her as your girlfriend. Mom let Uncle Gavin bring his girlfriend last year.”

My stomach abandoned my body. His girlfriend?

“Absolutely not.” Hudson lifted his eyebrows. “No.”

“Just pretend.” Juniper tilted her head at me . . . exactly like Lina. “You’ll get to know my family. I’ll get to know you, and once Mom knows how great you are, we’ll tell her.”

I blinked. The scheming, the sneaking out, the general disrespect for authority—that was all Lina, too, though I didn’t doubt Hudson’s influence. But faking it so Caroline would like me was preposterous . . . and wrong.

“Juniper—” Hudson started.

Something rustled in the doorway behind us.

“I thought I heard someone in here!” The excitement in Anne’s voice was palpable, and I turned toward her without thinking, Hudson doing the same. She peeked around what appeared to be a sample centerpiece in her arms, a tall vase overflowing with pink-and-green flowers. “Interesting company to . . .” Blood drained from her face, turning her pale as the paint on the doors as she looked directly between us. “Lina?”

The vase slipped from her hands and shattered.