fic: in one week.

[bournonville]

IN ONE WEEK





Monday

She texts him before filming commences in the morning, begging for baby pictures and he spends a good couple of hours running around after Frida (and her nanny) with his phone recording, the toddler walking from the couch to the table where she happily overturns all the newspapers collected in a stack there for Juliet’s return, her token theatre and film reviews. Sorry, he writes underneath the video, I hope you didn’t need those, she had a minor accident on them afterwards.

A couple of hours later, Juliet’s reply ticks in. It’s just a smiley, but it’s the one with heart eyes and it makes him chuckle, in the middle of packing for work. Their nanny comes in to make sure he’s okay which really says something about how often he’s overtly amused by things. At least where others can see it. Others, who aren’t Juliet, supposedly.

They’re going into the last stage of rehearsals for Theme today, so he doubles up on everything, dance belts, leotards, tights, lots of slippers. For a piece of choreography that is hardly even 20 minutes long on the fastest of days, it puts you to serious work.

Before leaving, Nikolaj kisses Frida on the head which makes her babble happily. He tells the nanny goodbye, gives her an estimate of when she can expect him back home.

Usually, she sleeps in the guest bedroom, if it gets later than ten.



Tuesday

Seeing as it’s the nanny’s scheduled day off and Juliet, unexpectedly, won’t be back in NYC until later in the afternoon, he brings Frida with him to work. At six in the morning, he had called Bianchi and cleared his plans with him, his director tiredly telling him to do whatever would ensure he could get ready for the premiere later in the week. He takes her on the subway in the purple stroller with the piggies, relatively unnoticed, except for the people irritated at all the space the thing requires. It’s not a long trip, they live pretty central and already as he pushes the stroller towards the stage door of the theatre, some of the girls are over her like magpies.

“Oh, she’s such a cutiepie, Ash,” Miranda squees and pinches Frida’s cheek, succesfully making her whine in distaste. “Oh no, sorry, sorry.”

Alice and Ashley, the Stoker twins, come over and are halfway hanging off of him, one on each shoulder while they make faces at his daughter and do the sort of elegant peek a boo only ballerinas can manage. He smiles slightly and pulls Frida out of the stroller after a moment, carrying the girl on one arm and the stroller, along with his stuff, in the other hand, as he enters the building.

The girls follow suit and in this line of work, there are definite ups to having your family be part of a larger whole, he thinks. Frida gets nothing but the magic of it all, theatre and Hollywood, while it’s her parents that must deal with the inevitable downsides.

And graciously so.



Wednesday

In the intermission of the huge Hans Zimmer concert she’d chosen to accompany him to, despite looking half-dead tired even in full glamour makeup, Juliet eats popcorn out of a cup and drinks beer like she weren’t currently in the running for an Academy Award, sitting next to him on a bench with her head intermittently coming to a rest on his shoulder. Still, no one’s come over to claim an autograph. That’s rare.

“You’re messing with my career,” she tells him, hiding a yawn behind the back of her hand. Her nail polish shines silvery in the light from the overhead projectors. “I used to hope things would drag on with my projects, so I wouldn’t have to leave set. Now I just want to come home, be with Frida, be a normal family. Can your salary support us, if I choose to retire?”

He smiles, turns his head a little, pressing a kiss to her hair. “My mom did that and it wasn’t a succesful shift, too much comes to ride on other people. Won’t recommend it.”

“That’s cynical,” she laughs which, in turn, makes him smile. There’s no nanny here to check on him for showing emotion, no choreographer to give instructions on how to bend an arm, stretch a leg. Instead he just reaches out and slips his hand around her waist.

Juliet is an hourglass in his grip and he doesn’t want her to have to give up anything for him.



Thursday

The journalist is pretty young, probably around Juliet’s age, and nervously jokes about how this is his first major piece for the NY Times, so he better not botch it completely while shrugging out of his jacket and pointing the photographer in direction of the kitchen. They’ve set up high tea like it’s something they even have time for on a normal day with two succesful careers and a baby, but it looks good, if nothing else, and Juliet especially has an image to uphold. Nikolaj doesn’t have rehearsals until late in the afternoon. He’s dressed in a pair of jeans and a tight-fitting sweater.

Autumn has hit New York hard at this point.

“My mother used to take me to the ballet,” says Carl the Journalist before they sit down for the interview, looking Nikolaj up and down once, slowly, “she still follows ABT very devotedly. You’re all the talk, you know.”

Their eyes meet.

At the table, Juliet serves the tea like a perfect aristocratic lady from the mid-19th century. Nikolaj would know, he descends from that kind of family. Carl the Journalist then raises his chin a little at him.

“Do I,” Nikolaj asks without looking away. Smiles.



Friday

As the curtain rises, he’s sweating bullets. The serene, pleasant expression is plastered to his face, though, it doesn’t go anywhere. Mostly by virtue of being so utterly learned, weeks of intense study just into this brief part, the opening sequence. The chandeliers and the elegant posing always make the audience react, he can hear someone gasp, someone whisper. Meanwhile, he just stands there while Caroline goes through the motions first, a gentle sort of attention on her from the entire corps, too. Everything is centered on her right now.

The beauty of Balanchine, his ballerinas.

When the music shifts, he mirrors her, goes through the same steps she just did, like a male reflection. They’re symbiotic in some elevated, ingenius way. He thinks about Juliet who’s sitting in one of the boxes, watching. She always attends his premieres, if she’s in town, people have almost come to expect it, the principal dancer’s Hollywood wife. Then, while doing the initial bows, he thinks about Carl who slipped him his phone number after their interview and told him, no worries, I’m very discreet.

As Caroline exits stage left in a beautifully light run, he follows her out and thinks that if Theme doesn’t kill him, he might give Carl a call.



Saturday

She is beautiful completely au natural, is Juliet, he’s always thought so, but when she really dolls up, empties her makeup purse and smears it on thick, she looks like something out of this world. He’s seen her described as the most beautiful Hollywood actress since Marilyn Monroe somewhere, he doesn’t recall where. And although it’s a high bar to set, Nikolaj thinks she very well meets it, as she’s making ready for her date with Oliver, leaning in over the sink to apply a third layer of mascara. A little gloss on top of the neutral-ish lipstick. She purses her lips at herself in the mirror.

“You look stunning,” he tells her and she smiles, cocks her head in his general direction which is an invitation for a kiss. Nikolaj kisses her cheek softly.

“Oliver and I’ve been dating for a year today,” she tells him, sounding genuinely thrilled. In her room, Frida starts crying. Juliet’s expression changes immediately.

“I’ll go take care of it,” he says, nodding towards the door. “Off you go.”

Blowing him a kiss, she heads for the door. Nikolaj, on his part, heads for Frida’s room, casting a quick glance at the note with Carl’s number that he’s left on the kitchen table, because he survived Theme and if he’s supposed to contact the man, it’s going to be tonight. Tonight or never.

Never is rarely the correct answer to anything in his world.



Sunday

Last day of the week and they’ve collected a bunch of friends, mostly Juliet’s, because very few at Nikolaj’s age at the ballet have kids yet, to celebrate Frida’s 2nd. It’s 1 in the afternoon and Juliet’s been back since 10 in the morning, humming happily while she made coffee for ten women with concomitant husbands and kids. They’ve ordered cake. The nanny’s been by to help decorating.

Frida sleeps peacefully until the last toddler arrives. At least a handful of people are aw’ing and oh’ing at her before she finally blinks herself awake and cries for her mom. Juliet picks her up, carrying her around from friend to friend, baby to baby. Nikolaj follows them with his eyes, watches how Frida is so easily satisfied with just this, her mom and her mom’s life. Her dad in the gaps. Her nanny in the splits between one and the other.

The party won’t be long, they’re all going to be gone in an hour and a half at the most which is good, because Nikolaj has arranged a meeting with Carl the Journalist at one of the cafés in Lower Manhattan around 4 o’clock. Juliet’s agreed to stay home with their daughter, just let me know ahead of time if you’re spending the night and while she shows Frida off, the girl looking like a plaster saint, he thinks there’s still nowhere he’d rather be than right here.