Menen looks at me and I smile at her. She takes his hand and follows him to the middle of the dance floor. Roman pulls her into his arms and they glide effortlessly across the floor. No sooner has the music ended than someone else claims him. For forty-five minutes I watch him waltz and tango with women who could probably ballroom dance before they could jump rope.
The music ends and the conductor announces that the orchestra will be taking a thirty minute break. Roman is on his way back to our table when he is waylaid by Isabella who, I notice, has changed into a flouncy, knee-length white dress. I see him shake his head, but Isabella persists, at one point even pulling on his arm. I can’t imagine what their conversation could be about, but Roman angrily throws off her hand and stalks back to our table.
I pretend not to have noticed their exchange. “Are you having fun?” I say.
He smiles widely in response before taking off his tuxedo jacket and draping it on the back of his chair. His shirt is wet with sweat. I hand him a full glass of ice water and watch as he guzzles it down.
“Whew!” he says, using a napkin to wipe the sweat from his face. “I’m burning up!”
That’s when I notice Isabella across the table talking with Mikhail. The two of them turn to look at Roman.
“What will you and Isabella show us this evening?” says Mikhail.
“Not tonight,” says Roman, his voice stern.
“What do you mean?” says Mikhail, then more loudly, “Come, come, my friend. It has become a treat for us. Isabella is willing, aren’t you, my dear?”
Suddenly everyone at the table and even those at nearby tables are cajoling Roman to dance with Isabella.
“What do they want you to do?” I ask.
“Isabella and I used to be dance partners,” he says, his voice flat. “We would try out our choreography on our friends, and they just expect us to do it every time we’re in the same room.”
“We’ll just do an old routine, Roman,” says Isabella sweetly. “It’ll take five minutes.”
“You should do it,” I say, trying hard to sound enthusiastic. Nobody likes a bitter new girlfriend, and I was determined to show Isabella that I wasn’t threatened by her.
Roman looks at me. “Are you sure? I’d rather sit here with you.”
“Go,” I say, shooing him with my hands.
He sighs and stands. By now the word has spread, and people start clapping their encouragement.
“You have music?” he asks Isabella over the applause. “What are we dancing?”
“The music’s all arranged,” she says. “Pilar will start it for us. Let’s do an old swing routine.”
I am actually relieved to hear this. From what I’ve seen tonight, swing dancing is going to be the style that will put the most space between them. I would have gnashed my teeth through the tango.
Roman and Isabella hold each other in a v-shaped, side-by-side position. People abandon the tables and circle the dance floor, applauding and hooting support. I can’t see through the mass of people, so I leave my seat and worm my way to the front just as a jazzy, horn-filled piece begins.
It sounds harmless enough so I am surprised to see the furious expression that crosses Roman’s face. He glares at Isabella before scanning the crowd, looking for me. For a split second after our eyes meet I think he’s going to abandon Isabella on the dance floor. Then he rocks back and forth with her a few times and they start dancing, the audience clapping to the beat.
A lot of it looks similar to what Roman did with Shea a couple of days ago at the Mercury Café. After a few phrases of instruments only, a female singer belts out the words in a clear, bouncy voice.
The words of the first line of the song are absolutely lost on me:
Bei mir bist du schoen
,
please let me explain
…
I listen closer, trying to decipher them while Roman spins Isabella about ten times in a row across the floor.
My dear Mister Shane? My bear missed the train?
I have no idea.
Luckily for me the words repeat and I realize that at least some of it is in German:
Bei mir bist du schoen, again I’ll explain
It means you’re the fairest in the land
I could say “bella, bella,” even say “wunderbar”
Each language only helps me tell you how grand you are
By the end of the second repetition, my toe is tapping in time with the jazzy beat. I clap wildly along with the audience as Roman flips Isabella over his back, still holding onto her hands. She slides through his feet as she lands, and Roman reaches forward and pulls her through and back to standing in one fluid movement just as the music screeches to a trumpet-filled halt.
I applaud with everyone else, happy that it’s over but glad that Roman was able to perform for his friends. That’s when I realize that Roman hasn’t released Isabella. In fact, he’s pulled her so close I doubt you could get a sheet of Saran Wrap between them. To make matters worse, Isabella seems to have straddled his right leg, raising her left leg to his waist and holding it there in a very suggestive pose.
I stop clapping.
The song begins again, slowly, slowy this time, the horns dragging out the notes like a moan. The woman’s voice is now a sexy, smoky bar kind of voice. I envision the singer draped across a piano.
“I've triiiiied to explaiiiiin,” she sighs breathlessly, “
Bei miiiiir bist du schoen
.”
My arms drop to my side as I watch Roman and Isabella basically fornicate with their clothes on. Despite the fact that Isabella is stuck to his leg like a beaver clamp, he still manages to spin her, drag her around the floor, and drop her into low, sensual dips.
“So kiss me and say you understaaaand,” the singer begs. Isabella has her hand on the back of Roman’s head, and their faces are so close, staring into each other’s eyes with such intensity that I think they may be about to follow the singer’s command and actually lock lips.
Across the floor I see more than one person look from the dancing couple to me, their faces shocked. I can feel my face flushing with angry embarrassment.
“I could say ‘beeeeella, bella’…” the singer croons.
I can’t watch anymore. I push back through the crowd, and stumble back to the table. I take deep breaths and stare out one of the twenty foot windows. Landscaping lights reveal a lawn that gradually descends to the edge of a lake. A dock extends out a fair distance into the water, and wonder if it would be possible to get out there, into the cool night air.
In the reflection of the glass I can see that Roman and Isabella’s performance has ended. Isabella grabs his hand, trying to pull him next to her to bow to the crowd. Roman is having none of it. He pulls away from her grip and leaves her standing alone. A few seconds later I feel his hand on my shoulder.
“Leigh, do you mind if we leave?” he says curtly.
“Leave the dance or leave Aspen?” I ask. I know we’re supposed to stay until tomorrow, but suddenly I feel like we can’t get out of town soon enough.
“Just leave the dance,” he says, grabbing his coat from the back of the chair. “Let’s go back to the house….if that’s okay with you?”
“Sure,” I say.
He helps me from the chair, and crosses the space to the door in a few long strides where he speaks intently with one of the house staff. I hobble after him like a pre-Maoist aristocrat with bound feet.
“The car is waiting for us,” he says, and heads down the hallway. Within a few seconds he’s rounded a corner and left me behind to stumble along. “You coming?” he says, peeking his head back around the corner. He looks at the hem of my dress and says, “Oh, right, I forgot.” Before I can answer, he swoops me up and carries me out the door to the car.
The car ride is short and absolutely silent. Roman stares out the side window into the night. He doesn’t offer to carry me to the cottage door, so I pull my dress up with my hand and walk up the stairs to let myself in. I don’t know what else to do but go to my room and change out of the dress. Once it’s safely back in the garment bag I change into a pair of jeans and an old, comfortable sweatshirt. I sit on the bed for about ten minutes, debating whether or not I should wash my face and go to bed.
No, I decide. I will not be a coward. He invited me for the weekend, it was my birthday surprise, and I could only assume that he was even more upset about this evening than I was. The best thing to do would be to just go downstairs and sort things out.
I find Roman in the kitchen facing the counter. He’s changed out of his tuxedo and showered, and looks even sexier standing barefoot in a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt. When I enter he turns around, holding a steaming mug towards me.
“I had the kitchen send over some green tea,” he says. “I don’t think it’s the same stuff you were drinking this morning, but hopefully it’s close enough.”
A flicker of light catches my eye from outside the window. I look towards it, and for a heartbeat I think the back deck has caught on fire. A flame shoots into the air, collapsing into orange sparks.
“Would you come sit with me outside for a little while?” he says.
Like I could resist. I nod dumbly and follow him outside like a twitterpated lemming. An assortment of chairs, couches and swings surrounds a giant outdoor fireplace. He takes my tea and puts it on a glass table next to the swing, then sits down on it and pats the space next to him.
I stare at his hand and stay where I am. “Roman, can I ask you a question?”
He looks into the fire, frowning now. “I was hoping you would. God knows what you must think…” He trails off and doesn’t finish.
I exhale, relieved. “How long have you and Isabella been…not together?” I am so unnerved by my own question that I rush on ahead instead of letting him answer. “I mean, I don’t want to pry, I just kind of get this uncomfortable feeling, like things are… unresolved.”
I see him clench his jaw, his face tight. “Nothing’s unresolved,” he says. “We broke up six months ago.”
“Six months?” I can’t hide my surprise. That’s an awful long time for her to be playing the part of the spurned lover.
“It’s complicated,” he says.
Uh-oh. If there’s one thing I don’t handle well, it’s “complicated.” I sit down in the nearest chair.
Roman pushes my mug of tea across the glass table, and leans forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together. “I’ve known Isabella since forever–like I said, we’re all related. Our parents were friends since
they
were kids. Two summers ago Isabella’s mother came to visit her and my mother in Los Angeles. They invited me to join them.”
“Your mother must have been
thrilled
when you started dating Isabella.”
Roman nods. “She was happy for us. In some ways she still has fairy tale notions of her son getting a crown—one way or another.”
“What’s the other way?”
“Well, Austria could decide to reinstate the monarchy.”
I laugh at the absurdity of it. “Does your mom sit around hoping that the monarchy makes a comeback?” I tease him.
He chuckles and locks his fingers behind his head. “I don’t know if she’s sitting around waiting for it, but I know she hopes she sees it in her lifetime.”
“It’s good to be the king,” I point out. “Much better than being a peasant like me.”
Neither of us say anything for a moment, and then Roman goes on, clearly wanting to get the story over with. “Anyway, Isabella was in a competitive dance troupe by then, and she introduced me to her friends. I picked up Lindy and swing pretty quickly, and found that we made great dance partners.” He looks up at me and then away. “It’s not uncommon for dance partners to become romantically involved.”
“Oh,” is all I say. This fact doesn’t surprise me. I’m not sure how long I could rub myself on some guy’s leg before I’d decide that removing my clothes was the logical next step.
“Anyway,” he continues, “I found the Lindy scene in Denver and she stayed in L.A. I flew there every other weekend for about six months to visit her and work on our choreography. It didn’t take me long to see that Isabella and I were not a good fit, romantically anyway. I know it would have been best to just break off our relationship and our dance partnership at the same time, but I fooled myself into thinking that we could have the dancing without the rest of it. But Isabella just couldn’t let go.
“I stopped visiting as much, and when I did go out there our practices became shouting matches.” He shrugged. “We stopped winning competitions…so I just quit. I finished law school, and I decided to fly to Europe and visit family for the summer. When I came back I knew I would stay in Denver rather than going back to L.A. I haven’t seen Isabella in three months. I wasn’t sure if she was going to be here this weekend–technically real royalty isn’t invited–but even if she did come I figured that by now…”
I stare into the fire, but I can tell he’s looking at me, waiting for my reaction. I actually don’t have any questions or comments about anything he’s said—it all sounds perfectly reasonable. What I want to ask has to do with something Isabella blurted out earlier, but it’s really stupid and petty. So I just stare at him instead, wondering what a guy this fantastic sees in
me
.
He stares back, the right corner of his mouth slightly turned up as if he’s wondering the same thing. Finally he stands up. “I’ll be right back,” he says.
I watch him disappear back into the house. A few minutes later I hear music coming from beyond the deck, as if a full orchestra has tiptoed into the trees and set up shop without my noticing it. I stand up and peer over the deck into the darkness.
“Come here,” says Roman, coming out of the house and holding his hand out to me.
I make my way over to where he’s standing, inexplicably nervous. For some reason second kisses always unnerve me more than the first. “An outdoor sound system,” I say. “The sound is really fantastic.”
Roman doesn’t answer. I shiver as he skims his fingers from my temple to my ear, then tucks a stray piece of my hair behind it. “I’m really sorry that I put you into such an uncomfortable situation. You handled it all so incredibly–and it’s not just me who thinks that–and I’m just really glad that you came at all.”