Page 27 of A Shade of Myself
Giselle explained that she’d asked Kadeem for another fixer’s name, and he’d given her Tatiana’s.
“Wasn’t that nice of him?” Tatiana said. The ice in her drink shriveled down to nothing.
Being an expert multitasker, I sussed out the closest emergency exit while jerking my chin at the irritated Frenchman to pay attention to his own business.
Laurent tugged the cuffs of his jacket straight, tiny gold cuff links winking in the light. His neatly pressed suit may have been cut with a tailor’s precise eye and made of the finest fabric, but being Laurent, his curls remained untamed, his jaw dusted with stubble.
I wrapped my arms around myself, convinced he was stripping away the filmy material of my dress through eye voodoo, then dropped them. Screw that. See what you’re missing, buddy. I patted my hair ornament, the movement thrusting out my spectacular boobs, and turned a bright smile on Giselle. “Why don’t you tell us your problem and Tatiana will decide for herself.”
My boss sniffed, but at my pointed look, said she was all ears.
Giselle looked uncertainly at me, but I nodded encouragingly. “Do you ever get the feeling that you’re not living your life correctly?” she said.
I frowned. “Correctly according to who? There are a bunch of different ways to achieve what you want. Do you mean you don’t have the right job? Or that you’re with someone you thought you wouldn’t be?”
Tatiana sipped her gin and tonic. “That’s called regret.”
The waiter arrived with our meals. We made small talk while he distributed the plates, my mouth watering at the grilled meat.
Get in my belly. I dug right into my steak, dragging the piece through the herbed butter, while Giselle toyed with her salad.
“That’s not what I mean. More like a train being switched onto another track.”
“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.” Tatiana forked a delicate piece of salmon that was laden with capers.
“I don’t know how to explain it.” Giselle reached for her wine with a defeated expression.
Emmett rolled his eyes, but Giselle had gotten me wondering.
She’d flown to Vancouver from New York to press her case in person after being turned down already, but she couldn’t articulate her problem. Could magic be involved and be preventing Giselle from giving the details?
Laurent still watched me, so I forked a huge pile of salad, eating it with a look of bliss like it was the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted.
He shook his head and finally quit staring at me. I immediately crammed another piece of steak into my mouth.
“When did you first feel like that train had been switched to that other track?” I said.
Giselle’s eyes shone with gratitude. “It was about a month ago. Shortly after I’d been promoted to coryphée. It’s a lead position in the corps de ballet.”
I glanced at Tatiana to make sure she was okay with me taking over the questioning, but she nodded. “That sounds great, but did something specific happen?” I said. “Was there jealousy or open animosity from a fellow dancer?”
Giselle ate her fish while thinking over my question. “No. Everyone was really supportive. Then the artistic director announced that we’d be performing The Sleeping Beauty next year. Thanks to my acting abilities I was cast as the fairy Candide and a second study for the lead role of Aurora.”
“So, what’s the problem?” Emmett said gruffly.
“I just…” Giselle’s lip trembled, and she hurriedly had a sip of wine.
“What my colleague means to say,” I interjected, “is it sounds like your career is on the upswing.”
“It is. I was overjoyed about everything, but that’s when this feeling that I’d made a mistake started. It began as an itch, but just kept growing and growing. Now it’s like a deafening scream that I can’t get away from and can’t release.” Giselle grasped my arm. “Please. You have to help me. I feel like I’m going crazy.”
The woman seated across from me seemed gracious and genuinely nice. Could she be experiencing the resurfacing of a repressed memory?
“That’s terrible,” I said gently. “I’m really sorry you’re feeling that way.”
Giselle sagged back against the leather booth. “Thank you. When I told Kadeem all this, he said it was stress. He was so dismissive.”
“I hear you. I’ve been there with men.”
