It was bedlam.
The new girl from Australia, Romy, had pulled a hamstring in the last number and was in too much pain to perform the ‘Little Egypt’ set.
Anna, the maîtresse de ballet, was on her knees, begging Lulu to don transparent scarves and wiggle her way through the act.
‘Those extra pounds on your hips can only help,’ she wheedled.
‘Those pounds you told me not four hours ago I was to get rid of or I’d be fined? Those pounds?’ Lulu demanded.
Anna clambered off her knees, dusting them off. ‘Well, maybe we can come to some sort of agreement.’
‘Oui,’ said Lulu crisply. ‘A signed agreement, before I go on to tell you that the extra pounds are my business.’
‘Wow, Lulu, what happened to you in Argentina?’ asked Trixie.
‘The mouse roars,’ said another dancer, Leah. ‘We should all get dumped by hot polo stars, girls.’
Lulu ignored them. All she could think about was what was awaiting her tonight, when the show was over.
He’d come for her.
When her period had made an appearance the day after she’d got back she’d cried and cried, and right up until Alejandro had appeared at her door this afternoon she hadn’t really known why.
At first, as she’d gone about putting into practice all her plans, she hadn’t been able to work out why she wasn’t relieved. It meant all her old goals were still in place—nothing had been shifted. Nothing but her.
She’d changed. Her priorities were different. She no longer felt the need to prove herself because deep down she knew now that she would make a superlative mother. If only because she would love her baby. It wouldn’t be easy, but nobody’s life was easy, and if she had a little more to overcome than other people it would just make her stronger, more resilient.
She could actually see herself as a wife and mother, see herself occupying that next stage in life. And it didn’t mean giving anything up.
She’d rung Alejandro and told him the no-baby news while he’d been on tour. There had been female voices in the background and he’d told her he was in a marquee, picking up an award. He hadn’t sounded very interested in it—it had only been later that she’d learned from the newspapers that he’d picked up that award from royalty.
Then he’d asked to come and see her and she’d said no.
She’d thought he was being nice. Tidying up the loose ends.
So why was he here?
She faced herself in the mirror. Why would he want to be stuck with someone like her? She might be getting better, but she was never going to be completely without her irrational fears.
Only wasn’t that falling back into her old patterns of thought? She’d learned that from him—learned to catch herself at it. Alejandro had given her a release from them when he’d talked to her about her father.
He’d also given her a tool to work with.
It was that new knowledge which acted as a powerful guidance system inside her. Her daily fear of constant collapse had receded and it was allowing her to see everything a lot more clearly.
She’d told her parents her plans at her first Sunday lunch back home, and as she’d suspected her mother had had a meltdown. But Jean-Luc had overridden those objections and told her he was proud of her, that they would step aside as she wished, although if she needed them they would always be there.
Which was when she’d flung her arms around Jean Luc’s neck and told him she couldn’t have a better stepfather if he was Gregory Peck.
The following weeks had passed in a blur of activity. She’d watched strangers traipse through her flat and she’d wandered through other people’s until she’d found one in the next arrondissement. It took up half of her weekly income, but it had its own bathroom, which was a plus, although no courtyard or anywhere to sit in the sun.
Still, she wasn’t home much, between working nights at L’Oiseau Bleu and college starting up, and her puppy Coco had to spend more time living at her parents. She seemed to live on the bus between college and the cabaret.
She told herself it was true independence, but knew it wasn’t going to be easy.
Nothing worthwhile ever was.
So facing down Anna hadn’t really been that difficult just now. It was thinking about Alejandro and what his appearance back in her life meant that made everything ache…