Off Balance (Ballet Theatre Chronicles Book 1) by Terez Mertes Rose Page B

to report it or not. She looked so young, so vulnerable, lower lip quivering. Alice saw Gil and Andy nearby, clearly the source of Lana’s dismay. She caught on fast. She bade Montserrat farewell and leapt onto the scene just as Lana was charging.
    A bullet dodged. Just barely.
    Close to the car, Alice unlocked the doors with the remote. Lana quickened her footsteps and slid into the passenger seat before Alice could get around to her side.
    In the car, Lana was crying, shoulders shaking. “Why did you do that?” she asked between sobs. “Why did you make us leave? I needed to talk to him.”
    Alice didn’t reply at first. She focused on adjusting the seat, the rearview mirror. “I was protecting Gil.”
    “Why? Are you two secret lovers or something?”
    Alice snorted and glanced sideways at Lana. “Don’t you wish it were that uncomplicated.”
    At these words, Lana seemed to shrink in her seat. She doubled up, clutching her midriff as if the thought had caused her physical pain. She didn’t reply and Alice offered no further comments. Instead she started up the car and trundled down the narrow road, onto another road that took them back to the highway, back northbound toward San Francisco.
    For the next ten minutes, neither of them spoke. Lana struggled to control her emotions, but from time to time issued a hiccupping shudder of grief. Alice, casting a quick glance over at her, felt the stirrings of pity.
    “You going to be okay? Do you have someone to call, talk to?”
    “No. No one.”
    Alice sighed inwardly. “Do you want us to stop for a cup of coffee, before I drop you off?”
    “Do you mind?”
    “Not at all,” she lied.
    Lana sniffed. “I’m sorry. About all of this.”
    “Oh, well, it is what it is.”
    “Anyway, yes, I’d like to stop. I don’t want to be alone just yet.” This made Lana start to cry again, but this time it was quiet, more like little mews of distress.
    Alice stopped at a Denny’s outside the city, where the rumble of highway traffic turned into a soothing hum once they were inside, seated at a brightly lit booth with red vinyl upholstery. They both studied the menu in silence until the waitress arrived. Lana, to Alice’s secret amusement, ordered hot chocolate to Alice’s black coffee. Lana seemed so much like a hot chocolate type, she decided. She probably wore flannel pajamas and bunny slippers. But the desolation in her eyes when she raised them to meet Alice’s made Alice’s amusement die away. Lana was hurting in an adult’s way. Now was not the time to mock her little girl traits.
    Their drinks arrived. She watched Lana down her hot chocolate, using her pinky to wipe the last of the whipped cream from inside the mug. Lana looked up at her afterward, almost apologetically.
    “I’m feeling hungry. Would you mind terribly if I got a sandwich?”
    “Why would I mind?”
    “Well, the wait.”
    Alice settled against the cushioned back of the booth. “I’m in no hurry.”
    The club sandwich with a side order of onion rings and a chocolate shake came quickly. Alice accepted a refill on her coffee and watched, amused, as Lana tore into the food.
    “Oh, the other females in the company must hate you,” she commented. When she saw Lana’s stricken expression, she hastened to add, “What I mean to say is, lucky, lucky you. For being able to eat like that, even after tonight’s party food. And still be so thin.”
    The hurt look subsided into wariness. “My dad is a beanpole. I take after him.”
    “Like I said, lucky you. Do you have any idea how hard some dancers have to work to keep it off?”
    “I think I do.”
    She didn’t, of course. No one who was naturally thin and could devour such a meal with casual insouciance could understand how it felt to always be watching your weight, every pound, every ounce, terrorized by the slightest gain.
    Alice had been one of those who’d struggled to keep her weight low through her dance years. In the first year of