LITMIR.BIZ

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long wool coat. She sighed, then pushed her wishes away. She had nothing to wish for. Luc was waiting at the boat. They were sailing tomorrow. Tonight Nathan was buying everyone pizza. He was nice and smart, a neurosurgeon who had once operated on the brain of the prince of Yemen, and he said he liked the scrambled eggs she’d cooked that morning. The hired captain, Joren, was from Holland. He had an accent and red hair and a bushy red beard and he was handsome despite the scars covering the right side of his face and the two missing fingers on his right hand. “Don’t worry,” he had said when they met. “Not a sailing accident.” His Dutch accent made the words thick and liquid as if they bubbled from his mouth. “Motorcycle. Boats are much safer.” He had taken her hand and squeezed it with his three remaining digits. She never would have met anybody like Nathan or Joren without Luc. Luc had warned her that the Rhode Island pizza would be terrible, but she didn’t care. She was just grateful she didn’t have to cook—that was her job, the hired cook, but her repertoire was limited and she didn’t want to use it up on the first day.

      Back in New York, the night they met Nathan, Luc had bought her pizza for dinner. Less than a week ago, it felt like ages. It had been cold then too—she remembered wrapping her arms across her chest, pulling her sweater closed as Luc danced ahead of her up Seventh Avenue. He pirouetted and leapt. He had come to pick her up from her temp job, sweaty and stinky from dance class.

      When he walked into the office, Stan, her boss, looked up with a grimace. “I knew you were here from the smell.”

      Luc ran over and lifted an arm, pressing his armpit close to Stan’s face. “The smell of a superstar!” He crowed as Stan pushed him away. “Watch, Io. Watch this.” He did a fast combination on the narrow strip of floor between the two rows of desks, ending dramatically on one knee in front of Stan. Her co-workers applauded.

      “Get out of here,” Stan had said with a smile. “Take her with you.”

      On the street, Luc sang to her. “Oh Fi-o-na, You make me moan-a. With your long blond hair-a, you’re mighty fair-a. The way you dance-a, makes me cream in my pants-a.” He would not quit dancing. Commuters grinned at him. The guy at the newsstand clapped his hands. Luc was Gene Kelly singing in the wind. She laughed out loud as he ran back to her and lifted her in his arms. He kept singing in his deep, tuneless voice. “Oh Fi-o-na. You make me moan-a. Long blond hair-a, mighty fair-a.” He spun her and when he put her down she was dizzy, out of breath.

      “I’m so hungry, I could eat… I could eat… this.” He ran to a lamppost and pretended to gnaw on it. “I could eat this.” He leapt on top of a mailbox and chewed and chomped. “This too.” He jumped up to gobble a street sign, then turned to her. “You!” He nuzzled his warm face into her cold neck and licked and nibbled.

      “Class was good, huh?”

      “Oh, my Io Io Io. It was amazing. The way I flew across the floor. I think I levitated. Janet said I was magical.” He spun away from her. “Pizza! I’ll pay for it.”

      He had a small monthly check from his parents to support his dancing. She had to work. They kept their finances separate, Luc wanted no fussy attachments and she agreed. They were walking past his favorite pizza place, a hole in the wall with three stools at a counter. Fattening, but it sounded great. She tried to stretch and do her sit-ups at night after work, but it was hard sleeping on the couch at Lola’s. The apartment was only one room and an alcove. Lola’s girlfriend, Stephanie, was usually there.

      “Hey, it’s Fred Astaire.” The pizza guy greeted them. “And Ginger Rogers.”

      Luc did a couple of quick steps and a spin. “Two of your biggest, best slices,” he said. “And a little one for her.” He hugged her. “My little ginger snap.”

      Fiona took the slice and sighed. She had large blue eyes, lovely collarbones, and waist-length white blond hair, but she was not very tall and not the typical, lithe dancer. Bottom heavy. She could feel her thighs and ass spreading already, after just four days of entering invoice numbers into ledgers. “You’re killing me,” she said to Luc.

      “Death by pizza.”

      “I’ll die happy.”

      The pizza was delicious. The grease dripped down her wrist and she caught it with her tongue just before it stained her sleeve. She vowed to herself that this one slice was absolutely the only thing she was eating that night. She listened to Luc chatter with the pizza man. All the while his feet tapped and moved, he twisted on the stool. She looked at her graceful, beautiful boyfriend, his eyes bright, his wet tongue continually licking his lips. Was he high? He wasn’t eating; the pizza slices went untouched on his paper plate. His long fingers fiddled with the shaker of cheese, his napkin, the cuffs of his shirt.

      “What did you do before class?” she asked.

      “Hung out with Billy.”

      Then he was definitely high—but not that lazy, loose Luc he became when he did smack. This was an up. Cocaine, she figured, or some kind of amphetamine. He would crash later and she would have to tiptoe around him, ignoring his crabby comments.

      “I introduced him to Alison,” Luc said. “He really liked her.”

      “I bet.”

      Fiona put her slice down. She wasn’t hungry anymore. Billy was in love with Luc. Luc hated labels of any kind, but Billy called himself as queer as a three-dollar bill. He joked that Luc was too—he just hadn’t met the right guy. And Billy was hot in a Ziggy Stardust meets punk rocker kind of way, eye make-up and sparkles on his freckled skin, too skinny, a wispy and feminine dancer’s body more comfortable out of clothes than in. And Alison. She wasn’t a dancer, thank God for that. A few years older, tall and thin with great clothes, Alison knew everything, had lived in the city all her life, and adored Luc. Really adored him. Fiona didn’t like the way she watched him as he spun around her apartment, or bent over a line, or rubbed a finger over his gums. She didn’t like the way Luc appreciated Alison and her steady and ever ready supply of coke, pot, and hallucinogens. Alison. Billy. Luc’s personal groupies.

      “Shit!” he said. “What time is it?”

      She glanced at the clock. “5:35.”

      “We gotta go.” He threw some money on the counter.

      “Too much.” The pizza guy began to make change.

      “Keep it,” Luc said. “Best pizza of my life.”

      He had taken one bite. The guy put the slices in a box and handed it to Fiona. He looked sorry for her. She smiled and shrugged as if nothing was amiss.

      Luc was hopping up and down outside. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.”

      “What?”

      “The catering company called. We’re on tonight.” They both worked when called as waiters for a high end catering company. The money was good, the hours long.

      “I’m tired.”

      “Just think,” he said, “our own apartment.” He put his arm around her, slid it down to her ass and squeezed. “Our own bed.”

      She leaned into him, turned her face up for a kiss.

      With his lips against hers he said, “Io, I love you. You know that, don’t you? I love you you you!”

      It hurt how much she loved him back. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

      He pulled her down the street toward Lola’s.

      “Alison leave you anything for me?” She wasn’t a big fan, but a line would help her get through the evening.

      “Sorry. I couldn’t resist.”

      So instead she would drink coffee, probably snag a couple desserts for the sugar buzz. She felt worse about her sugar addiction than she did about Luc’s growing craving for drugs. At least his infatuation kept him thin. He was even more dramatic with his sunken brown eyes and prominent cheekbones. New York was making her fat. She had struggled with her

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