black-haired.
Marcel tries to put his hands on Klara’s hips. Klara whips around. I have to duck back around the corner, so I don’t see the slap, but I certainly hear it.
“Remember that I don’t work at one of your clubs!” Klara shouts. “I won’t be one of those girls who sucks your cock for coke and purses until you’re tired of me.”
“When have you ever seen me do that?” Marcel shouts back at her. “All I’ve done is ask for a chance, every day, for three fucking years.”
“Not quite three,” Klara replies.
“What?” Marcel says, bewildered.
“Two years and eleven months. Not three years yet.”
“You’re going to drive me insane, woman,” Marcel says, with rapid footsteps that sound like pacing. “I think you just like to torture me.”
“I’ve got to take this up,” Klara says.
I can hear her gathering up the tea tray. I sprint back up the stairs, before she can catch me.
I leap onto the bed and pull the covers over me, looking around wildly for a book.
When Klara comes in a moment later, she sets the tray next to the bed, then looks at me suspiciously.
“What are you doing?” she says in Polish.
“Nothing. Just waiting.”
“Why are you breathing so hard?”
“Am I? Guess I was excited. About the tea coming.”
Her eyebrows have disappeared under her bangs. She does not believe one word of this.
“Oh, thanks. Great tea!” I say hastily, gulping too much and burning my tongue.
Klara rolls her eyes and heads toward the door, taking the tray with her.
I drink all the tea, but I don’t go to sleep.
I’m way too amped from the night I had. It started out promising, since I actually got to leave the grounds for the first time in forever. But then I realized Mikolaj was taking me to meet some awful Russian gangster. If I thought Jonas was bad, this guy really made my skin crawl. I couldn’t understand anything they said during the dinner, but the callousness in his voice made it obvious exactly what kind of man he was.
Then he tried to touch me as we left—nothing gratuitous, not trying to grope me or anything. Mikolaj grabbed his arm like he was going to rip it right out of the socket. Instantly we were in some kind of Mexican stand-off, and I was pretty certain it was the last seconds of my life.
Then we left, and Mikolaj was like an ungrounded wire in the car, thrumming with electricity, and fully capable of shocking me to death if I dared touch him.
And out of nowhere he drove us over to the Yard. I didn’t even think about Bliss being there. I had almost forgotten the show even existed, living in the strange fantasy world of Mikolaj’s mansion. But the moment I saw Marnie and Serena on the stage, I knew exactly where we were.
My god, seeing something I created . . . it was so unlike performing in the ballet. It was like watching my own dream, full and vibrant and real. I couldn’t breathe.
I’d seen plenty of the rehearsals, but this was different, in full makeup and costume, lighting and stage sets. I could have cried, I was so happy.
I should have been sitting right up front in the audience, with my family around me. That’s what would have happened opening night, if Mikolaj hadn’t kidnapped me.
For a moment I was hit with a stab of anger. I remembered all the things I’ve lost out on these past weeks—my dancing, my father’s birthday, my semester of school.
I looked at Mikolaj, so furious that I might have shouted something at him. But he wasn’t looking at me at all—he was staring through the glass, watching the ballet. He had that look on his face, similar to when he was sleeping. The harshness and anger washed away. Calmness in its place.
And I remembered that I hadn’t actually missed out on dancing at his house. Actually, I’d been doing more than ever. While creating something totally unlike anything I’ve done before. Not the product of the old Nessa, but of the new Nessa, a girl in progress, one growing and changing by the moment, in ways I never would have if I’d stayed at home.
My anger washed away. We finished watching the show, and we drove home. I thought Mikolaj might come upstairs with me. Instead, he rushed away somewhere else.
And now I’m laying here, not able to sleep until I hear his car in the drive.
Because wherever gangsters go, it’s never safe.
There’s always