16. Shira

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Shira

Soon after Blake tells us about his brother, a tow truck rolls in to pick up Lilac. Logistics occupy the next few minutes: paperwork, the process of getting her hitched to the truck. "All set," the driver calls.

It's absurd to want to kiss a car goodbye, so I settle for stroking my hand gently on Lilac's roof.

"C'mon." Blake tugs me gently as the driver gets back into his truck. "You'll see her soon enough."

Of course, he doesn't have a problem with leaving something the second it turned into an inconvenience. No, that's not fair. I don't know his brother. If Blake says he's an asshole, he's probably an asshole. Or he's just someone Blake shed just as easily as he'll shed you.

The thought rattles around in my brain on our Uber ride over to the auto shop, where the mechanic says it's going to be a while and maybe we should wait across the street.

So we scurry across the road to a restaurant with a sign outside bragging, Stressed, blessed, and taco obsessed.

I'm at least two of those right now.

Inside, the restaurant is almost empty. Despite this feeling like the longest day of my life, it's only eleven a.m. The host doesn't recognize Blake, but then again recognition would mean looking up from her phone, which she doesn't. "Inside or outside?" she asks in a bored tone.

Outside has nothing much other than a view of the auto shop we just left. In here, there's a broad dining room surrounding a dance floor, a stage holding instruments from an absent band. Fans whirl the air.

Felix and Blake both look at me like it's my decision. "Inside's good," I say.

She seats us at a table in a corner, two chairs on one side and the L of a padded bench on the other. "Waitress'll be here"—the host glances around for other servers—"when she gets here." And she leaves us to examine our menus, half of whose page space is dedicated to margarita listings.

I'm struck by the sudden urge to get very, very drunk. "Is it too early to get mezcal?" I ask.

Felix laughs. "If you're asking, then it's not."

"We're probably gonna be here a while."

Blake folds his menu just as the server rolls up, a college-aged woman who looks no more interested in being here than the host did. "You know what?" Blake says. "Let's get a round. I could really use a drink."

An hour later, Blake has Tajín from the rim of his glass stuck to his lower lip. Felix is humming along to the music being piped into the still-mostly-empty dining room. Time's going, if not syrupy, at least a little softer around the edges.

"This goes down pretty smooth," I say. So do the endless bowls of tortilla chips and smoky green salsa the server brings over.

Her attitude brightened when Blake slid his card from his wallet—a card whose matte black design screamed high limit —and told her that we planned on running up a tab.

Blake's already on his third margarita. His hair is beginning to tuft in the vague dining room humidity. He points a lime wedge at me. "Tell me a Lilac story."

"A what?"

"You know, a story about you and her. Something that makes you happy." His cheeks flush at that, as if his happiness derives, in part, from mine. A bright warm spot develops right beneath my sternum.

"Is this a wake?" I ask.

"Um." As if he's embarrassed to be caught. "No?"

I laugh, then wrack my brain for a good Lilac story. Usually, I'd settle for something like an inopportune flat tire adventure or the time I drove her out to the Cape to see a sunrise. The kind of normal story most people have about their first cars.

Maybe it's the margaritas. Or maybe it's spending a whole day doing nothing in a town I'll probably never visit again, at a table small enough that Blake's thigh presses against mine and Felix's and my feet occasionally brush under the table. Maybe it's just the effect of carrying something for so long. Whatever it is, the words slide out of me.

"My parents gave me Lilac when I was sixteen. She was practically new for a car you give your kid, you know? It felt like she and I grew up together." I take a gulp of air. Focus on your breathing. If you can control your breath, you can control your body. What my old ballet teacher used to say . Today feels out of control already. What's one more thing?

"When I was eighteen," I continue, "I told my parents I didn't want to go to college. They wanted me to become a lawyer. The safe path—to have security, I guess, the way they didn't growing up.

"But I didn't want that. You know that feeling when you're doing something to please other people—like you're in someone else's clothes? That's what it felt like. And I knew if I didn't try to do ballet then, I'd regret it for my whole life. So we had a big fight. My family is bad at communicating feelings, but we're great at screaming them.

"I guess I could've stuck around. I didn't—I packed two bags and loaded them into Lilac and told myself I'd only come back when I was a dancer at some high-profile ballet company."

I draw my finger through the condensation on my glass and watch the cascade of drips, beads of water merging and splitting until they roll onto my napkin—how such seemingly small things can have such big effects. "I send them postcards every once in a while so they know I'm okay. But I haven't been home."

Next to me, Blake hasn't said anything. I brace for his pity. And get the simple tilt of his nod.

Across the table, Felix is giving me a look, a go on that I should spill out the rest of the story. I could. The words are right there. I could tell him, and it might not be so bad. I could tell him, and things might even be okay.

Saying it all at once feels like too much. Blake's clearly holding something back about his brother. Still, if he could trust me with that little bit, I should be able to trust him.

"Anyway," I continue, "everyone's a dumbass when they're eighteen. My parents called a bunch and asked me to come home. I didn't answer, even when I ran out of money really fast. Things got bad. Then things got really bad—so bad I slept in Lilac for a couple weeks. She was with me through all of that. That door you want to fix? That was my alarm if anyone tried to break in. That's what I remember. How I knew things were gonna be okay because she was there to keep me safe."

My breath catches. I should've just quit talking. It's too much. I'm not a charity case or a sob story—or if I am, it's because I cried most of my tears years ago and haven't been able to cry much since.

For a minute—for a minute that could be only sixty seconds or possibly the longest few breaths of my life—no one says anything.

"You're so brave," Blake says finally.

I shake my head. "I was scared the whole time."

"But you knew how you wanted to live your life and did it anyway? Sounds pretty fucking brave to me."

It's too much. Tears prick the edge of my eyes. My chin wobbles. I need to decant some of this feeling so I don't burst right there. "Hey"—I lean across the table and stage whisper to Felix—"Blake swore."

Felix quirks an eyebrow. "Seems like Boston is rubbing off on him." And he says Boston but it sounds a lot like Shira.

"More like all of New England." I give Felix a visual once-over.

He laughs and raises his glass to mine so we can tap them in accomplishment. And I'm about to drink when Felix mouths tell him.

Fuck. I should. I don't want to. I'm scared. I'm going to do it anyway. "There's something else," I say to Blake, then stop.

Neither of them speaks. Above us, the fans keep swirling. Another set of customers is being seated on the far side of the room. Snatches of their conversation drift our way. If the salsa is spicy or spicy . If route 95 will have traffic or traffic.

I wonder if this will go terribly or terribly.

So I roll my shoulders, straighten my spine, snap myself into as close to ballet posture as I can get in a padded pleather booth. Four words. I can manage four words over the subtle pounding of my heart. "I used to dance."

Blake blinks at me in confusion. "I…know?" As if I'm talking about ballet.

So I add four more words. "For money—I stripped."

That registers. He blinks, longer, like a recalibration. I can fill in the blanks: That I'm a scammer. Yeah, I survived by liberating men like you from their paychecks. That I'm giving away the proverbial milk for free. No, I charged. That I'm a slut. I didn't screw around with customers. Except one. Except the one sitting right here.

"Oh. Okay." A long pause. "Do you still dance?"

"No. Busted my ankle. Had to quit."

Another "Oh." Then quiet.

"Would you say something?" Say something, do something, get angry. It's his bewildered silence I can't stand.

"It's not a big deal," Blake says finally.

As if a significant fraction of my life isn't a big deal . "I did it for six years."

His eyes widen as if he's realizing this wasn't some rebellious lark. It was— is —my career. He nods to Felix, who's currently attempting to ease himself out of the conversation as much as a six four guy can ease while also sitting down. "You don't seem surprised," Blake says.

"We were talking," Felix says. "I misunderstood when M—when Shira said that she danced. I guess I assumed and she, uh, confirmed."

Blake's mouth pinches skeptically. "You assumed she was a stripper?"

"If she was, so what?" Felix draws himself up—puffs up, really. "It's not like we aren't in the entertainment industry too."

I'm not ashamed . What I said to Felix in the ancient history of two entire days ago. It just never occurred to me that he wouldn't be ashamed either. That he was, in some way, proud of me. I guess people can surprise you. Or maybe Felix has been like this from the second I met him—when he was John and I was Melody—and I'm just now letting myself believe it.

Blake's still looking at him, startled, blue eyes wide like I've really managed to shock him. A faint pulse jumps at his jaw: Tension? Anger? Embarrassment at being played?

A familiar panic comes over me. That Blake won't understand. That I've been dressing myself in someone else's metaphorical clothes—that I was so convincing as the good girl he was dating—he won't want the real me.

We should just leave.

No, I should just leave.

I've left before. Hell, after all this time, it's maybe my best skill. Walking away is easy as long as you don't look back. If we're going to break up over this, at least we should make it a clean break, even if this swirl of emotions inside me is decidedly messy.

What I need is a plan. I start a mental list: get my suitcase out of Lilac, see if there's a club or two that'll let me dance for a few nights to save up some travel money, less the cost of buying some heels and an outfit at a side-of-the-highway sex shop. If they even have those in God's country. Before I might have asked Felix for a loan, but I won't now that I know the farm's in trouble. Guess I really am on my own again.

I thought Blake was different, even if some part of me whispered that I knew he'd be like this. That I've been holding back from him because he'd be like this. How I'm no one's amazing daughter now that he knows the truth. Or at least fifty percent of the truth.

I'll have all the entire ride north to cry. No sense starting now. I gather my purse. "Okay, well, it was a fun trip, but if I'm going back to Boston, I probably need to?—"

"Back to Boston?" Blake cuts me off, then shakes his head like he's clearing it. "Sorry, I'm confused."

"You obviously aren't good with this, so I should just go."

"I don't want you to leave." Blake motions to the restaurant around us. "Just give me a minute, okay?"

We do, sitting here, and I try not to read anything into the expressions that flick over his face, but I can't help it. Anger? Worse, pity? Finally, he settles into a smile, not the media-trained one, but the softest version of it. People will always surprise you . Except if it's bad, I don't know if my heart can take it.

"You danced?" Blake says finally.

I nod.

"Were you good at it?"

I laugh. "Yeah, pretty good."

"You enjoyed it?"

"I liked the money and the other girls." I shrug. "And some of the customers weren't so bad." I don't trust myself to look at Felix—but he shoots me an amused glance. That secret that no longer feels like a ticking clock, but like a landmine that we've only just managed to defuse.

"And you didn't want to tell me because…"

What I should say is, I didn't know how you'd take it. What I actually say is, "Has anyone ever told you you're kind of infuriatingly perfect?"

That startles a laugh out of Blake. "Yeah, but emphasis on the infuriating ." After a long minute of contemplation, he sobers. "I know what it's like to keep a secret. My brother…" He trails off like there's something else. "I guess we all have stuff we don't want people to know."