EPILOGUE I
Two Weeks Later
Sasha
By early April, two weeks before La Esmeralda , our rehearsal schedule increases to five days a week, which is totally exhausting.
It takes all day Saturday for me to recover, alternating between ice and heat on my hip, which screams from the rigors of performance rehearsals. But my sweet Vaughn looks after me, drawing hot baths, then holding ice packs on my hip. He says I’m sexy no matter what. I tell him he’s crazy.
“About you,” he confirms, placing a damp towel between my skin and the ice.
“Oh, that feels good.”
“Not too cold?”
“Cold feels good,” I tell him. “But I think this might be my last rodeo.”
“Wait! What? No fall season?” he asks. “But you love it!”
“I do,” I say. “And I’m determined to finish out the year. But if they offer me a contract for next year, I think I’m going to decline. It’s time to throw in the towel.”
“You could see a specialist for your hip, Sasha,” he tells me. “Anywhere. Anyone. The best in the world.”
“I loved this little comeback,” I tell him. “But it will be enough. I’ll walk away from the world of professional ballet on my own terms.”
“Then what?” he asks me.
I shrug lightly. “I can teach at Sayaka’s studio…I can teach at Annapolis or in DC…or I can work with you. I love Fostering the Arts . I’ve missed being a part of things.”
I don’t add what I’d really like to do next.
Plan a wedding. Marry you. Make babies. Live happily ever after.
When he’s ready, he’ll ask me. Or he won’t, I think, and we’ll live in non-wedded bliss for the rest of our lives. The most important thing is that we’re together.
“Whatever you decide,” he says, “I’ve got your back.”
“I know,” I say, with a happy sigh. “It makes everything easier.”
“Hey,” he says, “I forgot to tell you: I got two tickets to the matinee of Romeo and Juliet tomorrow.”
“At the Kennedy Center?”
“Mm-hm,” he says, concentrating as he repositions the ice. “You up for it?”
My hip aches like crazy, but I can’t turn down an opportunity to see one of my favorite ballets on stage.
“Yes,” I say. “I’ll just move slow if I’m hurting.”
“Sure?”
“Absolutely,” I say.
“I thought we might do a picnic on the terrace first,” he says, looking up at me with a little grin. “For old times’ sake.”
“Should I bring my book of poetry?” I ask him.
Our battered leather tomes sit side by side, in place of pride, on the top shelf of our bedroom bookcase.
“Let’s do it,” he says. “I’ll bring the challah.”
“It’s a date,” I tell him, closing my eyes as the ice does its job.
***
I feel better by the following afternoon, so I pull an old favorite from the back of my closet—the white sundress with cherries that I wore for our first date on the terrace of the Kennedy Center. When I come downstairs, Vaughn is sitting on the living room couch, his phone in his hand and a beautiful picnic basket on the coffee table in front of him. I pause at the foot of the stairs.
“Wow,” he says, standing up. “You look beautiful.”
Ironically, he’s also wearing something similar to what he wore on our first date—jeans and a white button-down shirt, albeit with leather shoes and a belt that cost more than some people make in a month.
“So do you,” I tell him.
He crosses the living room and pulls me into his arms. He drops his lips to my bare shoulder, nuzzling my skin and sending shivers down my back.
“Maybe we should just stay home.”
“No way,” I say, closing my eyes and leaning my neck to the side, so he can slide his lips along the column of my throat. “You invited me on a date.”
“True,” he says. He pauses his lips at the pulse point on my neck. I can feel it throbbing in response to his gentle licks and kisses. “I love you, Sash.”
“I love you, too,” I murmur, swaying against him. Maybe we should stay home.
Suddenly, he draws away. “Ready to go?”
“Stinker,” I mutter. “Get me all hot and bothered, and then—”
“Take you on a date to your favorite place in the whole world?”
I huff softly. “Promise you’ll make up for it later?”
His eyes darken. “All night long, котенок .”
Downstairs a car is waiting for us, and we slip inside for a quick ride across the river during which Vaughn is unusually fidgety. He rolls down the window, then rolls it up. Takes my hand, kisses it, squeezes and drops it. Pats his knees, grins at me, pats them again, and opens the window.
“What’s going on with you?”
“Is it hot or cold?”
“It’s spring,” I say with a little shrug. “It’s both.”
We pull up at the Kennedy Center a good hour before the show, and Vaughn helps me out of the car, then leads the way through the Hall of States to the Grand Foyer to the terrace. Taking a blanket from the picnic basket, he spreads it under our favorite weeping willow, then places the challah on the blanket and beside it, our two little books of Russian poetry.
I sit down on the blanket, crossing my ankles and looking up at him.
“ At the skin, my blood calls out to your heart ,” he says. “ My whole sky craves an island of tenderness. My rivers tilt toward you .”
“ Your eyelashes ,” I answer, “ are longer than anyone’s .”
He reaches into the picnic basket again, pulling out a small, aqua, square-shaped box. Before I can gasp in surprise, he’s kneeling on the terrace before me. The little box opens when he presses a silver button on the bottom, and on a bed of black velvet sits the most beautiful diamond ring I’ve ever seen.
“V-Vaughn,” I sob, trying to take a deep breath and failing miserably. I slide my eyes to his and find them focused on mine.
“Sayaka helped me choose it. And your mom, dad, and Bubbie all gave their blessing.”
My heart might explode from the sweetness of these declarations, that he invited my family into this moment, in his own way, makes it so perfect, I can barely speak. A happy giggle escapes through my lips. “I…I l-love that so m-much!”
“I know how important family is to you,” he says, his eyes brimming with love for me. “But you should also know how important your family is to me. Your mother, father, and Bubbie. Your brothers. June and Sayaka. The gaggle of nephews and nieces that I love as much as you do. I want that for us, too, Sasha. I want our sons to have your goodness and our daughters to have your strength.” He pauses for a second, the ring box shaking slightly in his outstretched hand. “You showed me what it was to be seen, to be loved, to be wanted. You are my family, the only family I will ever want or need. I choose you, Alexandra Grace Collins, for the rest of my life. I hope you choose me, too.” He pauses again, looking down for a second before meeting my eyes again. “Will you marry me?”
I’m crying so hard by this point, all I can do is nod emphatically as I offer him my shaking hand. Once the ring is safely on my finger, through sniffles and snuffles, I somehow manage to cry, “Yes!”
He stands up, and I hop off the wall.
For just a second, we grin at each other, like we share the most amazing secret in the universe, and then I’m in his arms, my fingers laced at the back of his neck and our lips colliding.
When we are breathless and panting, he rests his forehead on mine and whispers,
“You said yes.”
“Of course I did. I love you like crazy. What else would I say?”