Nicola Marsh - Valentine's Day

‘Zander,’ she started, lips tight. She looked as if she’d rather be calling him Mr Rush.

‘What is it, Casey?’

‘I wanted to...’ She changed tack. ‘Georgia just emailed these instructions, and I thought I’d better run them past you.’

That got his attention. Not just because the sentence had the word Georgia in it, but because his assistant and their resident scientist were thick as thieves, so Casey ratting her out meant something big was going on.

She stood across the desk from him. ‘She’s made some changes to the programme.’

No big news—Georgia changed things around regularly. He was getting used to it. He stared and waited for more from Casey.

‘Big changes.’ She held out a sheaf of papers.

‘How big?’ But as he ran his eyes over them he could see instantly. ‘Ankara? Are you kidding me?’ He eyeballed his assistant. She took half a step back. ‘Ibiza’s already booked isn’t it?’ Their flights to Spain were in a few weeks. Georgia’s big holiday. Now she wanted it to be Turkey?

‘Actually I can still make changes—’

Not what he wanted to hear.

Casey’s mouth clicked shut. She started backing out of the room. ‘I’ll leave you to read the—’

‘Stay!’ he barked, though deep down he regretted commanding her like a trained dog. None of this was her fault.

All of it was his. He’d been stupid to give into his baser instincts and kiss her. As though either of them could go back from that.

He flipped to the next page. Georgia had ditched the cocktail-making class in favour of life drawing. She’d dumped aquasphering on the Thames to go on some underground tour of old London. She’d dropped out of salsa and replaced it with belly dancing, for heaven’s sake.

‘I see spy lessons made the cut,’ he snorted.

‘Yeah, she loves those—’ Again, Casey’s jaw clicked shut. As if she suddenly realised she was siding with the enemy.

‘Get her on the phone for me.’

‘I tried, Zander. She’s not answering.’

Right. ‘I’ll take care of it tonight.’ At salsa.

Assuming she went at all.

* * *

‘I wasn’t convinced you’d be here,’ he said as Georgia slipped through the dance studio door, quietly, and joined him on the benches. She smiled and nodded at some of their fellow dance regulars. Twice as big as the paltry smile she’d offered him.

‘I wasn’t sure if the change got approved, so I didn’t want to leave them with uneven numbers.’

‘What’s with the swap to belly dancing?’

She shrugged and glanced around the room. Zander tried again. ‘I had no idea you were such a fan of all things eastern. First belly dancing, then Ankara...’

She brought her eyes back to his. Surprised at his snark, perhaps. ‘You helped me to see that my list was built out of things I thought I should be doing more than things I actually wanted to do.’

‘Come on, Georgia. You actually want to belly dance?’

She kicked her chin up. He might as well have waved a red flag. ‘It interests me. It’s beautiful.’

Uh-huh. It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that belly dancing was a solo occupation and she wouldn’t have to touch him again. ‘And what’s in Ankara that’s of so much more interest than Ibiza?’

Other than less alcohol, less noise, less crowds.

‘Cappadocia.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘A region full of amazing remnants of a Bronze-Aged civilisation. You can fly over it in balloons.’

He just stared. ‘And that’s what you want to do?’

Her hands crept up to her hips. ‘Yes.’

‘Why the sudden change of heart on all your activities?’

‘It’s not all that sudden. I don’t want expensive makeovers or hot stone massages or guidance on how to wear clothes I’ll never be able to afford to buy.’

The dance instructor clapped them to attention.

‘Is this about the cost?’ Zander whispered furiously. Hoping it really was.

‘This is about me. Doing things that matter to me.’

It was her money—her year—to spend however she liked. And it was his job to make even the wackiest list sound like something all EROS’ listeners could relate to. But it was becoming increasingly important that it helped Georgia to find her way back to feeling whole. He wanted her whole.

He just didn’t know why.

‘Partners!’ the dance instructor called.

They knew the drill. They’d done weeks of this. He’d gone a little bit crazy getting all the audio he needed, grabs from Georgia, the dance instructor. That should have been heaps. But he’d interviewed just about everyone else, there, too. Every single one of them had an interesting story, their own personal reasons for learning to dance at seventy, or despite being widowed recently or coming alone. And for every single one of them it wasn’t about dance at all.

It was about living.

There were thirty interesting stories in this room. But he was only paid to tell one of them.

The instructor clapped his hands again. He and Georgia were supposed to partner up. She was supposed to step into his arms, assume the salsa start position. But the stance they were supposed to assume was the vertical version of the one they’d found themselves in a few nights ago: lying there in the long grass as the sun extinguished in the ocean.

A little bit too familiar.

A little bit too real.

She hovered indecisively. And again, this was his mess to sort out. He was the one who’d failed to control his wandering thoughts and hands that night. He was the one who’d lacked discipline. Folded to his barely acknowledged need for human contact.

He stepped closer to her, kept his body as formal and stiff as he could. Raised his hands. ‘Georgia...?’

Her smile was tight, but she stepped into his hold carefully, and stood—just as stiff, just as formal—close to his body. As the music began he did his best not to brush against her unless essential—out of respect for her and a general aversion to self-torture—and they stepped as they’d been taught, though nowhere near as fluid as it had been in the past.

It was as clunky as them, together, now.

But it was functional.

The instructor drifted around correcting posture, demonstrating steps, voicing words of encouragement, but when he got to the two of them he took one look at their total disconnect, his lips pursed and he said in his thick accent, ‘Not every day is magic. Sometimes this happens. You will have the magic again next week.’

No. There would be no magic next week. There would be no salsa next week. And the guilt in Georgia’s eyes confirmed exactly what he’d suspected. This sudden change to belly dancing was about him.

‘I could have just stopped coming,’ he gritted as she moved close enough to hear his murmur.

She drifted away again. But he knew the steps would bring her right back. He tried to read her face and see if she was going to feign innocence or not.

‘I wanted something that didn’t force us to dance together,’ she breathed, her total honesty pleasing him on some deep level. A level deep beneath the one where he hated what she was suggesting. ‘The only other solo option was pole dancing. Belly dancing seemed like a decent compromise.’

And suddenly his mind was filled with poles and Georgia and seedy, darkened venues. He forced his focus back onto the key issue.

‘What about the segment?’

‘You’ve got more than enough for a salsa segment. In fact, why do you have so much? You’ll never use all of that in a two-minute piece.’

Prime-time air was too expensive to dedicate more than two minutes a month to the Year of Georgia. So why had he spent all that time recording everyone else in the session as well? ‘The laws of documentary-making,’ he hedged. ‘Get ten times more than you think you’ll need.’