“To my great surprise,” Vivi says with a smile as she places his usual repast in front of him, “you’re not as different from other men as I’d originally thought.”
Teo purses his lips and squints up at her. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin to respond to that,” he says. His right hand has been shaking uncontrollably all morning. He will wait until she is no longer at his side before attempting to raise his coffee cup.
“Want to hear?” she asks.
“I’m sure I have no choice.”
“That’s right. You don’t. So here goes,” she says, and she takes an audible breath. “For the past week I’ve been doing everything I can to get you to invite me to see your ballet at the gala and you have thickheadedly failed to notice all my attempts. I’ve asked you who you’re taking, I’ve hinted that I’m free on Saturday night, I’ve mentioned on three separate occasions how much I enjoyed watching the rehearsal and how I’d love to see the entire ballet performed. Nothing! Frankly, I would be happy to buy a ticket but of course the event’s by invitation only so I can’t. And now I’ve been reduced to begging you.”
His gaze is sharp and mirthless when he responds. “And you, my dear, are proving yourself less different from other women than I’d originally thought.”
She gestures for him to continue.
“First, that you tried all manner of wily approaches instead of confronting me man-to-man as it were. But mostly, because you believe that I failed to notice your attempts, instead of giving me credit for being an artful dodger.”
“Oh,” she says, “I had no idea—”
“Now don’t get all offended on me, it has nothing to do with you. I would love nothing better than to spend an evening with you. But since I myself will not be attending the gala I cannot ask you to join me.”
“Not attending the gala? What are you talking about?”
He rubs his temples. “It’s complicated,” he says.
“Everything’s complicated,” she says. “Just tell me why you can’t make it to a gala that’s staging what you consider to be your very best work. What could possibly be more important than that?”
“Look, Vivi—”
“Don’t you dare tell me it’s not my business. I won’t take that for an answer.”
He closes his eyes. “It’s one thing for me to see the ballet in bits and pieces in rehearsal when I’m focusing on every finger and toe, every angle of every head, that sort of thing. It becomes just another dance. But watching Obsession on the stage, hearing the music … I just can’t. It’s too difficult …”
“I still don’t understand. What’s difficult? Because it was your best? Because the dancers don’t do it exactly as you wish? Because you once danced it and now you can’t anymore?”
“No. No. None of that.” He does not meet her gaze. “It’s too … personal. Painful, even though I hate to use that word. Watching this ballet makes me exceedingly uncomfortable. I’ve avoided it for a quarter century now.”
“You certainly are a mystery sometimes. Your best work and you can’t watch it. Don’t you think it’s time to change that?”
“Why should I?”
“For the same reason you’ve been trying to get me to be serious about my art: a person has to be able to look into himself and examine everything, learn from it, use it.”
“I’ve already done that. Obsession is that precisely, a look into my own personal abyss.”
“So if you did that in order to create that work then why should it be so hard to revisit?”
“I suppose it was a kind of purging, a once-in-a-lifetime act meant to solve something. Something internal.”
“Well, excuse me for saying so, but if you can’t watch this ballet being performed then it seems to me you haven’t solved anything at all.”
He smiles wryly.
She says, “Come on, you know I’ve won this argument. Just say yes and I’ll dress up nicely and you and I will sit next to one another in the theater and I won’t ask you all sorts of questions if you don’t want me to. But you’ve got to attend. And if you’re attending, it may as well be with me.”
“Where did you learn to argue like that?”
“I’ve told you: my mother.”
“There’s a reception beforehand that I should attend. If you will agree to be my date for that and if you will agree to escape the theater the very moment the ballet ends, then I’ll go. I don’t want to talk to a soul about it afterward.”
“Agreed.”
“And you must be willing to come out for dinner following the ballet. Just the two of us. And I may be sad and speechless.”
“So I’ll be happy and talkative. And hungry.”
“I hope I won’t regret this.”
“There’s nothing to regret. Didn’t you once tell me we regret what we haven’t done, not what we’ve done and failed at?”
“Touché, my dear. You’re a quick study.”
“I’ll be ready at seven.” She leans over and kisses his forehead before she walks away.