It always seemed to take a minor ice age for the operator to connect to Earth, and of course, Tony wasn't exactly known for picking up his phone as soon as it rang. But Mataya knew her big brother well - even if he was busy at the moment the phone rang, he'd call back eventually. She'd rather he picked up now, of course, but still ...

As it so happened, Mataya was lucky enough to catch him at a good time, while he was in between rehearsals, catching a bite at a local eatery. Tony De Luca was a creature of habit. He always took lunch at the same time every day, and he always ate at the same place. He had just ordered lunch at his favorite hangout - a local deli that had the best prosciutto in the city, as far as he was concerned. He was a regular there, and they knew him by name. But of course, they knew him by name. He was a good Italian boy from Brooklyn who'd made his family proud, but to those who knew anything about the ballet, he was Anthony De Luca, the principal dancer for the New York City Ballet.

Tony greeted those he knew before taking a seat at his usual table - the one everyone knew was reserved for him and only him every day promptly at noon. He lifted his cup of coffee for a sip, the aroma enticing, the blend the best the city had to offer. No Starbucks for him. He knew what good Italian caffe was supposed to taste like, and nothing less would do. It was then that he felt his cell phone vibrate from inside his coat pocket and he set the cup down to see who was calling, frowning when he read the name on the display. Well, he couldn't avoid them forever, could he" He pressed the button to accept the call and set the phone against his ear. "This isn't bad news, is it?" he asked, before even greeting his sister on the other end.

"Hey, hey, ballerino," was the cheerful response to his suspicious greeting, Mataya conveniently overlooking any and all allusions to the current source of bad news in their family. She leaned back in her chair and kicked her shoes off. "What, I'm not allowed to call my big brother and see how his twinkle toes are doing these days?"

Tony switched ears so that he could enjoy his lunch while it was still warm and still talk to his sister, who he knew had called from a very long distance. He still wasn't quite sure how that worked and wasn't sure he wanted to know. Ignorance was bliss, after all, and he had enough of his own problems to worry about. "My twinkle toes, as you so call them, are just fine. How's the theater" How's Max" Is he still behaving himself or do we need to have a chat?" The smirk on his face could almost be heard in the tone of his voice. His sister knew him well enough to know he was teasing, though as far as he was concerned, the jury was still out on her choice of mates.

'Taya laughed. A few years ago, no one would have dared to tease her about Max; these days, it was perfectly safe territory. She had her fiance firmly under her thumb, after all. "Max is cool," she assured her big brother with a cheerful sigh. "He's more concerned with being all over-protective daddy to Juno than he is with getting all dominant with me these days. Seriously, I swear she's taking advice from El just to watch him change color." She snickered, though she knew it probably wasn't wise to mention their youngest sister to Tony right now. "Actually," she went on, sitting up to lean on her desk, "I wanted to talk to you about my theater. If you have the time, you know, in your busy schedule to help your little sister out." Now who was teasing"

Whatever smile had graced that chiseled face that had more than once been compared to a youthful Adonis faded at the mention of their youngest sibling, the problem child and often the source of grief and conflict between himself and the rest of the family. It wasn't that he didn't love Elena; it was that he loved her too much. Juno, on the other hand, was another source of confusion. Though Mataya had tried to explain the situation, he found the explanation more confusing than the questions and had stopped asking, taking her at her word. He mentioned neither Juno or Elena when he spoke again, pushing those concerns aside for now as too troubling to think about. He took a sip of his coffee as he listened to her talk, wondering what it was she was trying to get at. She wanted something; he just had to figure out what. "I've got time. Talk," he replied shortly, as he picked up his sandwich for a bite. She had precisely an hour - the time it took him to eat his lunch - to come to the point of her phone call.

One thing Mataya was very good at was getting to the point. It had taken her years to work out how to do it, but now she had the hang of it, she didn't let the opportunity pass her by. "Well, you remember you told me a few years ago that what you really want to do is set up a ballet company attached to a school and become a renowned choreographer?" He hadn't, but another thing 'Taya never did was let an inaccurately remembered conversation let her down. "Today's your lucky day, ballerino! I have a dance studio, I have a theater, I want to make a ballet company, and you're it! Possibly. If you want it."

"Uh..." It wasn't often that Tony De Luca found himself dumbfounded, but this was one of those rare occasions. "I never told you that," he pointed out, though it had occurred to him on occasion that he wouldn't be able to dance forever. At some point, he was going to have to make some serious decisions about his own future, and becoming a director and choreographer had always seemed the logical choice, but he was only thirty and felt he still had plenty of time to make those choices. "Are you putting words in my mouth again, 'Tay?" he teased. "The last time you did that, I ended up on a blind date with a blond who could barely string a sentence together without giggling."

"I didn't hear you complaining," his sister countered with the easy confidence that had always come at her beck and call, even when she was at her lowest. "You got laid, didn't you?" Her laughter was decidedly suggestive at that point, but she pulled herself under control fairly quickly. "Okay, so you might not have actually said it, but you know it makes sense. You're gonna give out at some point in the next twenty years, and wouldn't it be great to have a ballet studio and a company to turn your whole attention to when it happens?"

He scowled on the other end of the phone. He had no real answer to that, except one. "She drooled. You set up me up with a bimbo and a drooler. I was on penicillin for a month, just to be on the safe side!" But he had lost his virginity, and at least, that was something. "Twenty years is a long time, 'Tay. What's the rush?" He took another bite of his sandwich, furrowing his brows as a thought occurred to him. "Is this a bribe?" he asked around a mouthful of prosciutto.

"I'm not asking you to say yes right away, obviously," came the drawling response from his sister. "But you know you're the best, and no one else would be anywhere near as awesome as you would, ballerino. But, like I said, no pressure." She snorted with laughter, a sure sign of a tease impending. "Or I could tell Mama you're being difficult."

"And you're brown nosing, sis," he parried. As far as his mother and his sisters were concerned, he was the best, but he knew there were other dancers out there as good as he was or better. The competition was stiff, and they were getting younger all the time. Time waits for no man. He wasn't getting any younger. He knew he couldn't dance forever. His body had already taken a toll, but the thought of not dancing was simply unthinkable. It was his life and his passion, and yet, this was a rare opportunity that might never pass his way again. "Mama already knows." He quieted a moment, as his thoughts turned from professional to personal. "How is she?" he asked, his voice softening again, obviously missing his family, no matter how he might choose to hide it.

Mataya knew that time was always the enemy, but she had given up on fighting it herself. When she felt the need to perform, she subjected herself to an audition in front of her director, musical director, and choreographer, and had been turned down more often than she had been accepted. But at least she knew they were being fair. She heard Tony's voice soften, understanding the pain of being so far away from family intimately. "She's settling in okay," she assured him quietly. "Misses her brownstone, but she likes having a big garden, and Tess' kids are at her place almost every day. She's worried about you, Tony. We all are."

"There's nothing to worry about, 'Tay," he insisted. She had enough to worry about - they all did - without worrying about him. He'd made the decision to remain in New York, and he had no regrets, but he couldn't help but miss his family, especially now that the holidays were over, and he had missed out. It was one rule their mother had always enforced, no matter how widely scattered they might be - the family always gathered together for Christmas, no matter where they were or what was going on. It had been that way every Christmas for as long as he could remember, until now. "I'm fine. Same old, same old. You know me." He brushed off her concern, pausing a moment to at long last circle back to the problem that had separated them all in the first place. "How's Elena?" No matter what his feelings were regarding their youngest sister, his voice betrayed him again, more feeling, more worry, more caring there than he realized or intended for Mataya to hear.

A small, sad smile touched 'Taya's face as she heard that note in her brother's voice. It pained her to know how estranged Tony and Elena had become over the years, but she understood where each of them had come from to reach this impasse. What they didn't know was that each of them asked after the other regularly, with the same level of worried care. "Honestly' She's ....still in a bad place," she told Tony truthfully, more truthfully than she had been with her mother or Tess. "She's sober, but right now that's not helping her. She's really torn up about what she saw Nicoletti do, even before the murder, and ....I don't know, Tony. Some days, she's almost like she used to be, and others, she's dry and dull and she doesn't talk. She's scared." She took in a slow breath. "And she worries about you all the time."

He took all this in with a pained look on his face, his eyes drooping closed as he leaned his chiseled jaw against a fist. He'd decided long ago that there was little he could do for his wayward youngest sister. He'd tried and failed. She'd made her own decisions - bad ones - and just as he'd warned her, they'd come back to haunt her, and yet, she was still his sister, and like a little lost lamb, he wanted her to come back to the flock and learn how to live again. "She always took Papa's leaving the hardest," he remarked more to himself than to Mataya, who knew all of this already.

He'd become the man of the family at an early age and not by choice, at least in Elena's eyes. She'd always looked up to her older brother, and it had wounded him deeply that she hadn't sought out his help sooner or followed his advice. "I don't want her to worry about me. She should worry about herself." He shoved his fingers through his hair and sighed almost wearily, torn, not for the first time, between the passion he had for his career and the love for his family. But maybe Mataya had just solved that little problem for him. "Have you talked to Anya lately?" he asked, out of the blue.

Mataya wisely didn't comment about their father. She, like Tess, had never forgiven their Papa for walking out on their mother, and though they never talked about it, the whole family knew that each of them dealt with the loss in a different way. Rosita had thrown herself into raising her children, specifically her son, in the best way she could; Tony had thrown himself heart and soul into dance; Tess had pursued her professional career until she married, and then had settled to creating her own family; 'Taya had indulged her wildchild tendencies to breaking point before she'd begun to settle down; and Elena ....Elena had struggled from one very public disaster to another.

"Yeah, well, you can't tell any of us not to worry about you, dude," she told Tony pointedly. "You're family, it's a habit we're never gonna break." The segue into a topic that seemed almost entirely different threw her for a moment. "Anya" Oh ....you mean Anya. I heard she finished up at the Bolshoi in October, and did the Nutcracker season with San Francisco," she offered, carefully not pointing out that she really shouldn't be keeping tabs on his ex for him. "I don't know if she's got anything else lined up - I heard something about Vienna, but there's nothing definite on the grapevine."

"Everyone does the Nutcracker. Christ, I could dance it in my sleep. Tell me something I don't know." Anya - as Mataya and everyone who knew Tony well knew - had been the love of his life, the one that got away. The flame had burned brightly for a while, until their careers had eventually taken them their separate ways, and though Tony had casually dated since then, no one had ever really been able to take her place or erase her memory from his heart. Though they had decided to remain friends, they had eventually lost touch. They were from two very different worlds, the ballet being the common factor in their very separate lives. "Is she seeing anyone?" He audibly groaned at his own question. "Never mind. It's none of my business."

He chuckled again, this time sounding amused at the thought of Anya dancing with someone she found less than attractive. He'd learned long ago that once you started dancing, you had to put any thoughts aside regarding your personal relationship with your partner and focus on the dance, but when he was dancing with Anya, there had been such undeniable chemistry between them, it could only be called magic. Such partnerships were rare. She had trusted him implicitly, and he had never let her down. The magic between them had been so palpable, it couldn't help but resonate to the audience, holding them spellbound. He wasn't even sure why they'd split anymore. She'd wanted to travel, spread her wings, see the world, while he wanted to stay in New York. He hadn't wanted to hold her back, and so he'd let her go and had regretted it nearly every day of his life since. "You're exaggerating. I've seen her dance, but I get the point."

"And, of course, you do realise that now I know you're thinking about it, I'm going to call you every day until you screw up your brown paper and find her, right?" 'Taya grinned down the phone, cheerful now the more dangerous end of the conversation had been successfully navigated. There was another rustle as her hand wandered through the papers on her desk. "Oh, would you look at that' I just happen to have in front of me the number for the gala's director. I wonder where that came from' Surely I have no use for it, and I don't think I know anyone who does. Do I?"

"You realize it would only take a phone call or two for me to track her down, Miss Smartypants," he reminded his sister with a smile on his face that resonated through his voice to the other end of the connection. "Don't give up your day job, 'Tay. You've never been very good at playing Matchmaker," he teased with a grin, picking up his cup to finish off what remained of his coffee. Lunch time was nearly at an end, and he had a million things to do before the day was over, even more so, now that she'd set the gears in his head in motion.

She cackled happily, pleased to have ended the call on a high note. "I got you laid, I'm holding to that as my greatest success," she declared cheerfully, putting the random scrap of paper back down again. Tony knew her far too well, really. "Give Anya my love." How was that for pushing her luck"

His smile faded again as the phone call was nearing its end. She had given him a lot to think about, and thinking was something he didn't really like doing much of. "I'm sure you're the first person she'll ask about," he told his cheeky sister. He frowned again, though she couldn't see it from wherever it was she was calling from. Rhy'Din. The word was meaningless to him, and he had no idea how he was even going to start to explain it all to Anya. "Give Mama my love," he said, his voice quieting as his thoughts circled back to the other women in his life. "Tell El to hang in there, and tell Tess I'm sorry."

"I will, ballerino," Mataya promised her brother, her own voice softer once more as the farewell turned to family. "And don't forget, whatever you decide, you're always welcome to drop in on us, anytime. And Tony ..." She paused, not wanting to be cloying, but equally not wanting to sign off without saying one very important thing. "Please be careful. You're on your own out there."

He wasn't sure why, but it seemed he was always apologizing to Theresa, for what he didn't know. His very existence seemed to offend her sometimes, and he'd never really understood why. If there was any sibling rivalry or jealousy, it was completely one-sided, as he'd only ever tried to be a supportive older brother. He knew his mother favored him, but he'd never understood why he was to blame for that. Her warning gave him pause, but only briefly, finding her concern unwarranted. Nothing bad had happened, and he was certain nothing bad was going to happen. Why should it' Whatever mess Elena had gotten herself into had nothing to do with him. Still, he had no choice but to promise to be careful, if only for his sister's peace of mind. "Stop worrying, Mataya. I'll be fine."

"You'd better be. I won't forgive you if you're not." And that, if anything, was scarier than the prospect of him coming face to face with Elena's sticky little problem. 'Taya sighed again, dropping her feet down onto the floor, and looked up as a hand knocked on her door. "Okay, dude, I gotta go," she told him reluctantly. "Call me. Soon."

He knew the call was coming to an end, both of them too busy to talk much longer. His heart sank a little as he wondered when he'd see them all again. Despite his own refusal to join them, he had to admit that he missed them. As bustling and busy as it was, New York was a lonely place without them. "I will. Take care of yourself, 'Tay. Talk to you soon."

"Guaranteed, ballerino. Ciao." There was a click as she rang off, setting the phone down amid the sea of notes and papers that covered her desk as her manager let himself into the office. Time - and the Shanachie Theater - waited for no man.

Love you, he told her in his head, words that went unspoken, but that he presumed she already knew. "Ciao," he returned, a moment too late, hearing the click on the other end that ended the call and severed the temporary connection between him and his sister. He glanced at the phone in momentary contemplation, his thumb hovering over the keys. One or two phone calls was all it would take to track Anya down. What would she say if she saw him again? Was she hoping to avoid him' Why hadn't she called him and told him herself" Was he just setting them both up for more heartache" Did she still love him' There was only one way to find out the answers to all those questions.

Tony punched a phone number in that he knew by heart and waited while the call went to voice mail. "Sal, it's Tony. Call me back. It's important." That done, Tony left a few bills on the table for a tip and got to his feet. His lunch hour was over, and it was time to get back to work. He tossed a wave to those he knew, those who'd come to expect his daily visits, and started toward the door. Behind him, the stranger in the corner table lowered his newspaper and watched as the last remaining De Luca in New York exited the deli. After a moment, he fished a cell phone from his pocket and quietly shared everything he'd seen and heard with the interested party who had sent him.

((Many, many thank yous to darling lovely Tony! And the player, obviously. :lol:))