Things still felt a little frosty between us and I didn’tquite know why. I knew she’d been Gabriele’s dance partner for years, and that she’d wanted the lead in the show, so I supposed that was enough for her to resent me from the off. And she was milking her role as dance captain, using the power it gave her to pull people up on their sloppy steps. She’d criticized one of my lifts the other day and Gabriele had told her I was doing it one hundred percent accurately, and that since she didn’t know the steps as well as he and I did, she should probably keep her opinions to herself. But there was clearly another layer on top of professional jealousy – I’d feltthatfrom most of the other girls – but with Daniella it was different. I suspected Gabriele had still been seeing her at the beginning of the run, certainly during rehearsals. I tried to ask him about it, to make sure I wasn’t stepping on anyone’s toes, but whenever I broached the subject he shut me down immediately, insisting there was nothing going on between them. I didn’t own Gabriele; he could sleep with whomever he wanted. He didn’t owe me a single thing. And yet, it felt as though we were getting closer and closer. Could I really let that happen if he was also getting closer with other women? Was I saying, then, that I wanted Gabriele all to myself?
‘Do anything interesting today?’ asked Daniella, brushing copious amounts of bronzer onto her face and décolletage.
I busied myself slicking on another coat of mascara.
‘Not much,’ I said. ‘I recorded some bits and bobs for James Jive’s social media pages. You know the studio I run?’
Daniella stifled a smirk. ‘Sure, I remember.’
Every time I started to feel bad about potentially stepping on her toes with Gabriele, she went and did something that made me lose empathy for her all over again.
‘You think it’s funny, don’t you?’ I asked, for once not wanting to let her get away with her bad behaviour. ‘That I have to teach dance rather than just perform. You find it strange.’
‘I never said any such thing,’ she said, giving me a baffled, gaslight-y look, as though I was a bit mad for suggesting it. ‘I mean, it’s not somethingIcould do, that’s all. I think if you’re a dancer, you’re drawn to the stage like a moth to a flame. Nothing would ever get in the way of that for me.’
I nodded, as though in agreement. ‘Well, I’m glad you’re in a position to do exactly what you want with your life. Not all of us are so lucky,’ I replied.
I put my mascara away and pulled out my concealer, dabbing some onto one of my fingertips and applying it to all the areas of my face that needed smoothing out.
‘I noticed Gabriele has been helping you with your socials stuff,’ said Daniella, leaning into the mirror to apply her eyeliner. ‘Seems like you two are spending more and more time together.’
I shrugged. ‘He’s good at that kind of thing. He offered to help, no big deal.’
‘But you’ve been seeing each other, right?’
I tried to focus on finishing my make-up, but she was putting me on edge and my hand was shaking a little. I had no idea why she had this effect on me, but she reminded me ofsome of the girls at school – the mean girls, the bullies who had tried to intimidate me and my friends, a group of equally quiet and studious people, who I still saw for dinner and drinks now and again. I realized that Daniella was like a grown-up version of one of those girls, and I seemed to have regressed into the teenaged version of myself. I would not let myself be walked all over, not anymore.
‘I don’t think that’s any of your business,’ I said, sounding arsier than I’d intended. Better to overplay it than under, probably. At least this way she’d get the message that I wasn’t a total pushover.
‘Oh, it’s not,’ she said, her tone changing slightly. Was it my imagination or was she the tiniest bit thrown by my pushback? That was the thing with bullies, or at least that was what they told you, wasn’t it – if you got them on their own, they lost most of their power. ‘I just don’t want to see you get hurt, that’s all,’ she said, obviously lying.
I almost smirked this time, but I wasn’t going to lower myself to her standards. But honestly, as if she cared about my feelings. This was entirely, one hundred percent about her.
‘Thanks for your concern, but I can look after myself,’ I said.
‘You know he’s been sleeping with me as well, though, right? And probably a couple of other women, too. Have you seen the contacts in his phone? He has hook-up after hook-up listed and, because of who he is, the way he looks, he can pick any of them to come over whenever he chooses.’
I swallowed hard. Contacts? Hook-ups? Obviously, I’d never seen inside his phone, and now I was annoyingly intrigued. Because there was something off about having a list of women you picked from at random whenever you happened to feel horny, and it made me slightly sick to think that I might be one of these women. There was no way that I was going to let Daniella see it, but she’d got to me.
‘You really like him, don’t you?’ said Daniella.
Our eyes met in the mirror.
‘And so do you,’ I said, softening my tone.
I was all for supporting other women, usually, so maybe I needed to find some sympathy for Daniella here, even if she was going about things all the wrong way. This was happening because she had feelings for Gabriele, plain and simple. And I, better than anyone, understood how that felt.
‘Maybe we should both tell him where to go,’ said Daniella. ‘It would serve him right.’
I smiled tightly. ‘Maybe. But whatever happens, please let’s not argue over it anymore,’ I said.
‘Agreed,’ said Daniella, unzipping her make-up bag with a flourish.
For the next five minutes, we finished getting ready in silence, but not the sort of angry, resentful silence we’d experienced before. I was glad we’d finally addressed the issue between us. And I wondered whether I’d been taking my anger out on her when, deep down, it was myself I was angry with, for letting myself get caught up in the whirlwind that was Gabriele Riccitelli all over again.
CHAPTER NINETEENLira
Just when I didn’t think European cities could get any more stunning after three nights in laid-back, colourful Porto, we arrived in Lisbon for a five-night run. The sun had been shining and the skies were a clear electric blue as we’d stepped off the plane that afternoon, and although we were needed for a light check later that day, we weren’t actually performing until the following evening, so I fully intended to make the most of every single minute I had spare. Guidebook in hand, I left my hotel room almost as soon as I’d checked in and bumped straight into… Gabriele.
