Page 28 of Slow Burn

She looked down at the ground and then back up at me, perhaps having the exact same reservations herself.

When our eyes connected, I felt a sensation I had no control over; it was how I felt with her on the dance floor, a sort of longing I could not turn away from.

I realized I really wanted her to come for a drink with me.

And that I did not want to spend yet another afternoon alone killing time before the show.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Why not?’

‘Great,’ I replied, desperately trying to mask the chaos in my head from being in such close proximity to her.

Earlier, I had passed a bar carved into what looked like a cave, and so I led us there.

The sun put me in the mood for a glass of sparkling Cava, but I knew that I could not drink alcohol until after my performance – I was strict about that.

I needed to conserve all of my energy for tonight, and daytime drinking risked leaving me feeling sluggish.

Lira must have felt the same way, because we both ordered cappuccinos.

‘I am extremely tempted by the churros,’ I admitted to Lira, as a plate of the sizzling donuts was whisked past us and delivered to the table of the two women next to us.

Lira groaned. ‘God, me too. It’s taking all my strength not to say “to hell with it” and order them!’

I laughed.

‘Sometimes the life of a dancer is tough,’ I said.

She nodded. ‘Not that I’ve really felt like a proper dancer, not since I was a teenager. This is definitely an adjustment.’

‘Why did you give it up?’ I asked, settling back into my seat, enjoying the fact that I had Lira all to myself for, at the very least, as long as it took us to finish our coffees.

I would be sure to make mine last as long as possible.

In Spain, like in Italy, such things – hanging out in a café, drinking good coffee with friends – should be savoured, not rushed.

Lira put her elbows on the table between us, resting her chin on the backs of her hands.

‘You really want to know?’

‘I really want to know.’

She shook her head, a little embarrassed, perhaps.

I waited. Because I couldn’t imagine what would make a dancer as talented as her give it all up to work in a studio.

I presumed it was something to do with her family, and if anyone knew about familial responsibility – or at least how to avoid it – it was me.

‘So I’m the oldest of three sisters,’ she told me. ‘Although, I think you know that.’

She looked at me with a hint of a smile. She knew, on that first day of rehearsals, that I had remembered this fact about her. Now it was my turn to be embarrassed.

‘I have a vague memory of it,’ I said, trying to play it cool, although it was a little late for that.

‘They’re dancers, too,’ continued Lira, thankfully letting me off the hook. ‘And my mum – she was South African Latin world champion. Twice.’

‘Incredible. What is her name?’ I asked, intrigued.

‘Amahle James?’

‘The most famous Black dancer of her generation?’ I exclaimed, shocked. ‘She was an amazing performer, so ahead of her time. I never knew she was your mother!’

Lira smiled and shrugged. ‘How would you? We’ve never properly talked about our families, have we?’

I was taken back by her directness. My instinct was to move the conversation back into safer waters, but there was something about her willingness to be honest with me that made me feel as though I owed her the same thing.

As though she might even understand. I had always been reluctant to be vulnerable in front of others, but what if it helped?

What if hearing somebody else’s opinion on my predicament could actually be useful?

‘We have not. But it is not too late to start,’ I said quietly. ‘Please, carry on. I want to hear about your mother, about how this impacted your own career. Was she hard on you when it came to dancing?’

Lira thought about it.

‘In a way. When she sees me perform, or any of my sisters for that matter, she doesn’t hold back.

She tells us everything we could have done better, and you have to do something exceptional to get a compliment.

Deep down, though, we know she’s proud of us.

But she was always so busy with her own career that she didn’t have a lot of time to get to know what made us tick; what we really wanted from life.

It was all dance, dance, dance. And as the oldest girl, there was this expectation, steeped in tradition, I suppose, that I should prioritize my family, and what they needed. ’

‘Which was…?’ I asked, thinking how achingly familiar this all sounded.

‘They’d been planning to open the studio for a couple of years and the original idea was that all of us would run it together.

Take turns, do a few lessons each. My mother was the big-name pull and she wanted to be very present initially.

But then she started getting more and more opportunities – she was a judge on a big TV show in South Africa, then she and my dad ran the entertainment on one of the big cruise ships, bringing in dancers, choreographing onboard shows, that kind of thing.

They pretty quickly realized that opening a studio on top of that had been somewhat ambitious of them. ’

Our coffees were delivered to the table, large ceramic mugs topped with creamy froth and a leaf carved into each fluffy topping.

‘This looks delicious,’ I said.

Lira dipped her finger in the froth and licked it, groaning with delight.

I dug my fingernails into my thigh, wondering how this innocent act had suddenly made me feel like doing a whole host of decidedly less innocent things to her.

I cleared my throat, trying to focus. It was good to talk.

And it did not always have to lead to sex; there were other ways to connect with people.

Or, at least, this was how I felt when I was with Lira.

‘Continue,’ I said. ‘The studio?’

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘So one night, when I’d just turned nineteen, my parents sat me down and told me that they would like me to help them with the business full-time.

They said that maybe I wasn’t cut out for an uncertain career like dance, that I’d had my time competing – to be fair, they didn’t know my partner Tomas and I were about to win the World Championships.

They told me that a dance career was tough; that I was too level-headed for it and had skills that could be better utilized helping the family business grow.

Apparently, they’d noticed how patient and kind I was on the odd occasion they’d even seen me teach a routine to somebody, and suggested that, once the championships were over, I should come straight back to Castlebury and take over the management of James Jive. ’

‘ What ?’ I said, baffled. ‘Even though they knew how talented you were?’

‘I suppose so, yes.’

‘What did you say? You told them no, si ? Surely, Lira.’

She looked at me with sadness in her eyes.

‘I’d always had this need to please my parents.

In a busy house like ours, with two very loud and demanding sisters, it felt like the only way I could be noticed.

By complying and never getting into trouble.

I was my parents’ favourite and I felt compelled to keep it that way.

I asked them whether I could do the two things at the same time – perhaps as the business grew we could employ more staff and then I’d have some time to go off and do other things.

Dance myself. Perhaps my sisters could help once they got a bit older – they were only sixteen and fourteen at that point. ’

‘You suggested a compromise,’ I said. Although it was a big one, one I would never have agreed to if my parents had asked when I was just nineteen. ‘Did they support this idea?’

‘Half-heartedly. But then, whenever I did ask for time off or suggested we employ another teacher, they’d brush me away, say we’d talk about it later. Which, of course, we never did.’

I nodded, trying to understand. Why hadn’t she put up more of a fight?

‘And this happened when you were nineteen. Was that…?’

‘When we met in Paris? Yes.’

I let this sink in. That had been her last competition. The end of her dancing career, until Carlos found her and gave her another chance at the thing she had wanted for herself all along.

What a waste of talent.

I felt angry with her parents. I supposed they must have had their reasons, but to me, as an outsider, it seemed that they were thinking only of themselves and not what was best for their eldest daughter.

Parents were supposed to give things up for their children, weren’t they, not the other way around?

‘That Argentine tango we danced in the hotel?’ she said. ‘That was my last dance with a professional partner. Until now, obviously.’

It had felt as important to her as it had to me, then. More so, even. I reached across the table and took her hand. If I had thought it through, I might not have done it, but I had reached for it without thinking and I did not regret it. She squeezed my hand back.

‘Why did you leave that night?’ I asked, the question that I had been dying to ask since she had walked into Pineapple Studios a few weeks before. Why had she run away?

‘I had a flight to catch,’ she said.

‘And you could not have told me?’

She removed her hand from mine, sitting back in her seat, the connection we had had a second ago gone completely. It was my fault, perhaps, but I needed to know the truth. I needed some closure because I had been going over it in my head ever since and it still never made any sense.