Epilogue
One year later
It wasn’t a celebration of Ivy’s success, this lunch.
Her parents had made that very clear. It was a normal family brunch, same as on any other Sunday, and it just happened to be taking place a few days after Ivy told them her big news.
And there just happened to be a bottle of champagne on the table.
Which they would drink without toasting to Ivy’s accomplishment, her dad promised.
No fuss, no pressure. They had thought she was wonderful before she got a book deal, and they still thought she was wonderful now.
They would continue thinking that, always—whether her book became a bestseller, or if they were the only ones who ever read it.
“Oh, and George. George’ll read it,” Luke added through a mouthful of meat. “We all know George loves a good book.”
“And we all know you’ll watch a YouTube video about it, since you can barely read,” George shot back from across the table.
“I read spreadsheets and decks all day, it’s literally my job. Sorry, I should explain, Georgie: a job is when—”
“Boys,” said their mother and father in weary unison.
Luke turned away from George and took a swig of champagne, then held up the glass and examined the sparkling gold liquid. “Oh, that’s nice. You should get a book deal every week, Ivy.”
“Sure, I’ll get right on that,” Ivy scoffed.
She’d barely survived the process of securing this one.
When her agent Simone had called this week with the news that two different editors wanted her book and were bidding for the privilege of publishing it, Ivy had burst into tears.
It had taken her a few moments to realize that they were tears of relief, rather than joy or pride.
Between working full time and researching and writing a book proposal—then revising it, and revising it yet again—the last year had been such a grind that by the time Simone had told her the damn thing was ready to submit to potential editors, Ivy was beyond burned out.
Once the proposal was out on submission she had less work on her plate, but that just left more room for anxiety, which was exhausting in its own way.
She’d had no idea whether the book would actually sell—whether she’d ever get to tell these stories in full, the way they deserved.
But it had sold, and now she could breathe a little easier. Well, now she had to write an entire book. But then she could breathe a little easier.
Next to her, Justin must have sensed her anxiety, because he put a large, warm hand on her leg under the table and gave it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. Then he reached for the bottle of champagne and topped off her glass.
“No toasts, right?” he asked, looking to her parents for confirmation. Her dad was busy filling her mum’s plate with food like he always did.
“No toasts,” her dad said with a nod. He set the plate down in front of her mum and planted a kiss on her cheek as usual.
Her mum reached for her glass and lifted it a few centimetres off the table, then put it back down. “Just know that we are proud of all of our children, equally, and that is true regardless of what’s happening in their professional lives—”
“Or not happening, in George’s case,” Luke interjected.
“Shut up, Luke,” George and Ivy both said.
“And,” their mother went on loudly, “we are very excited about Ivy’s news.”
They all paused to drink their champagne.
“That kind of felt like a toast,” Luke said, and Ivy suppressed a smile.
Justin picked up her plate and started to fill it with veggies and grilled meat.
She’d been a little worried the first time she’d brought him to Sunday lunch, that Luke and George’s macho ribbing would remind him too much of home.
But they’d been too curious about him to give him, or her, too much shit.
Now, he knew them well enough to ignore their nonsense.
Her parents had been curious, too, and he patiently answered every question his mother had about ballet, and Hillstone, and his mother’s preferred scones recipe.
Now, her dad even trusted him to occasionally man the barbeque.
It was the first time since Opa had died that there had regularly been six people around this table, and it felt a little cramped once they were all seated and all the food had been served.
Cramped, Ivy had realized a few months ago, but complete, in a way she’d missed for so long she’d almost stopped noticing the pain.
“It most certainly was not,” her mother said. It most certainly had been. But her parents were obviously doing their best. Sometimes they overdid it a little, but she didn’t mind. She knew that they’d support her no matter what happened next, win or lose. They’d been doing it all year, after all.
When she’d told her mum and dad, a few months after returning from New York, that she’d given notice at ANB, she could tell they were worried about her.
Concerned that she might spiral into misery again.
But then she’d told them about the book, and they’d seemed reassured.
Now they barely asked about her day job, since there wasn’t a whole lot to tell.
Ivy worked from home, writing blog posts and other website content for a hospital group.
It wasn’t exactly thrilling work, and it had nothing to do with the arts, but it paid about the same as ANB had.
Perhaps because it had nothing to do with the arts, it felt less grimy than the kind of spin and sales she’d been doing at ANB.
And crucially, it left her enough time to conduct the archival research and interviews she’d needed to write the first few chapters of her book.
On the strength of that work, Simone had been able to sell her soon-to-be publisher on the project.
Leaving ANB had meant she didn’t see Justin at work anymore, but she saw him almost every day anyway. Last night he’d walked in the door late, hair wet and skin still smelling of makeup remover, and found her waiting in his bed, bleary-eyed but eager to hear how the show had gone.
“Heather’s dancing better than ever,” he’d said in a hushed voice, as he undressed in the dark. “She’s so strong, and it really shows. She says it’s because hauling Caroline around is like a constant core workout.”
“I believe it,” Ivy said, rolling over to watch him strip down to his briefs and pull on a pair of trackpants. He only ever wore grey trackies to be now, ever since she’d revealed her enthusiasm for them. “That kid is a handful.”
Caroline came to company class once a week or so, depending on Marcus’s uni schedule.
Despite his best efforts to keep the toddler at the front of the room near the piano, she ambled around the studio, spinning and stumbling in clothes from Izzy’s newly released kids’ dancewear line.
It was a little disruptive, but extremely cute, and it lightened the mood on mornings after a hard show.
Still, it was probably time for Peter to start thinking about on-site daycare.
Or maybe he already was; it was exactly the kind of thing he’d champion.
Especially if it meant the pianist could stop playing “Baby Shark” for tendus.
“An adorable handful,” Justin said, getting into bed and pulling the covers over himself.
Ivy slid herself towards him and he folded his arms around her, pressing a kiss to her hair as she nuzzled his neck.
They’d talked about kids, in theory. Neither of them knew what they wanted yet, but they agreed that even if they wanted a kid, they weren’t ready.
Ivy wasn’t nearly as professionally settled as she’d want to be, and he was working on himself.
And that work was hard. Every week, therapy left him wrung out, and he came home taciturn and tender.
Sometimes he told her what he’d talked about in his session, and sometimes he didn’t want to share.
On those occasions, she let him brood or hold her or whatever it was he needed.
It had taken him some time to admit that he was angry with his parents for failing to notice how bad the bullying truly was, even though he and Missy had gone to great lengths to hide it from them.
He was working through it all one week at a time, and even though it often left him raw and confused, she knew it was helping.
He’d been home to Hillstone more in the last year than he had in the previous five years combined.
Each time he went, he found the town a little more restored, a little more returned to its former self, plus some upgrades.
His mum and Shane had rebuilt their home, an act of faith that Ivy thought about a lot as she read accounts of refugees building new lives for themselves in Australia.
It took profound courage to come to a new place and start from nothing.
But it was courageous, too, to return to the place where you lost everything and dig a new foundation.
The dance school had also been rebuilt, and now it had everything Justin had promised.
Sturdy brick walls, a roof that didn’t soak up the sun and turn the place into a sauna all summer, air conditioners and heating and fire windows and a smooth, splinter-free marley floor that Miss Mary said was a pleasure to dance on.
Much to Justin’s satisfaction, Kieran Kavanaugh was among the students benefiting from the newly restored building.
He and three of his teammates on the footy team took class with her twice a week.
Justin had been tempted to tell the mayor that, in return for his efforts to rebuild the town, he wanted the footy field name for him—so Kyle Kavanaugh would have to see his name every time he went to a game.
Ivy had talked him out of it. Justin had his victories; he didn’t need to rub them in Kyle’s face. Tempting though it was.
Justin rolled over onto his back, bringing Ivy with him until she was straddling his hips, her hair falling around his face. “What did you get up to tonight?”
She pressed a kiss to his lips, tasting the remnants of his lipstick and the Gatorade he drank in the wings during hard shows. “More reading, more ancestry records.”
“Sounds like a wild Saturday night,” Justin murmured against her mouth.
Ivy rolled her hips against him, and a small groan escaped his throat. “Night’s not over yet.”
Justin shifted beneath her and winced. “My hip is really bothering me,” he sighed.
She eased her weight off him a little. “I’m sorry,” she said. She brushed another kiss over his mouth and slid off him, lying beside him with her palm flat on his chest.
Despite Shaz’s best efforts, and Justin’s diligent devotion to his foam roller, his hip flared up more frequently these days.
It happened with older dancers. At 34, Justin was squarely in that category now, and Ivy knew he’d had a few conversations with Marcus about what might come next.
She didn’t think Justin would follow Marcus and Shaz into physiotherapy.
Education seemed more suited to his passions.
Maybe he’d become a ballet teacher. He was always saying that boys in ballet needed more male role models.
Or maybe he’d carry on raising funds for arts organizations, the way he had for Miss Mary. Maybe he’d do something totally unrelated, take some path neither of them could imagine right now.
“There’s always tomorrow morning,” he said, brushing a teasing hand between her breasts.
Ivy hummed in pleasure. “I’m going to hold you to that.”
There was tomorrow morning. And the next day, and the next day. So much more to see and do and feel with Justin Winters at her side.
“Oh, I have no doubt,” he said, in a sly, seductive tone that made her skin tighten in anticipation from her scalp to her feet. Feet that didn’t hurt very much these days. She hadn’t worn a pair of high heels in well over a year.
Then again, as Em had pointed out a few weeks ago, there was a time and a place for a pair of gorgeous stilettos, and a walk down the aisle wasn’t that long.