In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,84
of water. He put on the glasses he had hanging around his neck and quickly scanned the pages. From what Shen could tell, it was a music notebook. He remembered those from his childhood days of attempting to learn piano before his mother finally came in during a practice session and closed the cover on the keyboard, looked down at her only son, and said with as much kindness as she could muster, “Let’s just find something else for you to do. Anything else for you to do.”
“Do you . . . um . . . still have an agent for your music?”
“I haven’t in years. Science has been my love for quite a while now. Why do you ask?”
“Well, we might be interested in using this music and creating a ballet around it.”
“Very interested,” the older woman said. She stepped closer, held out her hand. “Hi. I’m Ida. The ballet master.”
“Ida Swan?” Stevie said, shaking the woman’s hand. “The Ida Swan? It’s such an honor.”
“And an honor to meet you. I remember seeing you conduct once in Madrid.”
“Oh, yes. I remember that. God, I was so young.”
“But talented. Your music is wonderful. I was sorry to hear you’d walked away from composing.”
“It was for my mental health.” She suddenly reached out, her arm wrapping around Oriana’s neck and yanking her close. “But Oriana and her beauty as a dancer just . . . brought me back. It’s been revolutionary.”
Ida smirked, her wise gaze sizing up these two women instantly. But she didn’t call them out. Not when she had a chance to get a ballet written by the great Stevie Stasiuk-MacKilligan. At least that’s what Shen was guessing. He watched players work all the time. Especially when he protected financial guys. This was a negotiation if he’d ever seen one. Even if the word was never actually used.
“Dear, Oriana,” Ida said. “You’ve been keeping secrets.”
Oriana nodded. “Stevie wanted to keep her time here quiet.”
“About that agent . . .” the music director pushed with a gentle—but desperate—smile.
“You can use mine,” Oriana suggested. “Dominique Gagnon.”
“The cellist from Marseille?” Stevie guessed.
“No. The agent from Uniondale. Out on the Island. She has an office in Manhattan, though. She handles dancers and musicians.”
Stevie grinned. “Perfect.” She glanced at her phone. “Oh, I have to go.”
“We’ll get in touch with you,” Ida promised.
“I look forward to it. Maybe dipping my toe back into this world through dance will change everything.”
Stevie started to walk off, but stopped, turned, and gently attempted to remove the music notebook from Connelly’s desperate grip.
“Can I just . . . can I . . . if I can just . . .”
She ignored his begging and yanked the notebook from him. She tucked it into her bag and zipped it closed.
“Ready?” she asked Shen.
“Yep.”
Stevie took a few steps, and that’s when Oriana’s great enemy stepped in front of her. She was the stereotypical ballet dancer. Long and lean, her hair in a perfect bun, not a strand out of place, her eyes big and easy to see from the back row of any theater. She was stunning, but obviously calculating. Hanging around his sister Kiki over the years, Shen had been introduced to lots of people like this woman. They had different livelihoods, were of different races, religions, but all had the same calculating gaze.
“Hello, Stevie. We met . . . very long time ago. I am Svetlana. Principal dancer here.”
Stevie blankly gazed back at Svetlana and, with a calm, dead voice, replied, “I’m sorry. I don’t know you.”
Then she walked around the dancer who was used to people bowing at her feet and left the stage.
* * *
“‘I’m sorry, I don’t know you’?” Shen repeated to her as they sat in his SUV.
Stevie cringed. “Too much?”
He leaned forward a bit so he could see out her window. “I don’t think so.”
Stevie looked out the passenger window and saw Oriana running down the stairs. She’d taken off her toe shoes and put on an orange pair of Converse high-tops.
Rolling down the window, Stevie began, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
Oriana’s hug cut off the rest of Stevie’s sentence.
“So, I guess we’re cool,” she laughed.
Oriana pulled back. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Get back in the game. I know you pulled out for a reason. And this is going to turn into a bidding war.”
“Bidding war?” Stevie shook her head. “No.”
“No what?”
“No bidding war. I’ll give it to the company. They just have to make you the soloist.”