#scenebreak
Tango had church stuff that afternoon, so I floated in the backyard pool on a giant rainbow floatie with a two-liter of Mtn Dew at my side. What the hell should I do? Should I stay or should I go? Wasn’t that some ancient song from Dad’s time?
Ugh. Too hot outside.
I flopped down on the living room couch with my half-empty soda bottle. Time for some good, old-fashioned channel surfing. Headline news? Nope. Elephants banging? God, no. Seriously? Who watched that stuff?
Dancing with the Stars. Meh. Some has-been from a boy band that was popular for twenty seconds when I wore diapers sat cross-legged in the middle of a studio floor crying and flexing his pecs at the same time. Fuck. Really?
The routines had to be easy for the poor has-beens. All I’d have to do was flash my Ken doll smile and take off my shirt once in a while. I was guaranteed a million fans. The question was: could I spend the next eight months working with Monika every single day to have a shot at real fame, not just the kind that only ballroom dancers knew about?
I mean, half the country knew who was on DWTS. How many people knew who won Blackpool? Or even knew what Blackpool was? Could I be professional enough to put my feelings aside for eight months?
Did it mean that much to me?
Compared to a life in Dumass, Texas, it certainly had its appeal.
But what, when all was said and done, would it matter?
I left the rhinestones and glitter to hit the heavy bag for a while, which helped me get out of my head. Then I shoved the boxes out of the way and tried to dance. But every time I kicked, I broke a lamp. Every leap landed me in a cardboard box. After half an hour of that I felt pent up and twitchy.
I ate a pizza.
I played Dad’s old video games from the Stone Age when he’d lived in the house as a teenager, but the low-res images pissed me off.
Ugh.
I walked. I didn’t call Tango. It would be rude to lead her on if I decided to fly across the country, and I could hardly ask her to listen to me babble about it. If I left, I needed to make a clean break.
Late that night I found myself a block away from the studio. I had the pass code. No one would be there. I could kick and leap to my heart’s desire without breaking anything. Maybe I’d find a revelation on the dance floor.
At the studio, music filtered through the glass door. No surprise. After learning that her boyfriend (note the lack of capital) cheated on her with the girl who wanted to take me off to New York, Tango must’ve had the same idea I had. The lights were on and she was most likely in there dancing the shit out of her system. It was dark outside and, as I reached for the keypad lock, I could see all the way to the dance floor.
Holy shit! Who was that?
A girl danced alone with the lights on low. It wasn’t Tango. I could see the way she moved, but couldn’t make out her face. Juicy? She had the same slow, slutty walk, but when the music kicked into a faster rhythm, the mystery girl flat out nailed one of the hardest hip hop sequences I had ever seen. She popped, she locked, she rolled so hard I thought she’d dislocate her entire body. Seriously, she moved as well as dancers in Houston. Shit, New York.
The song was something by Skream. It hit the inevitable slow break and the girl slid into lyrical dance as soft as the hip hop was edgy. She nailed Twyla Tharp’s style in a way that would make a lot of dance majors need to go for the Google.
The music slammed into a heavy, techno bridge and this girl launched a gymnastic sequence across the floor that could take state. Who was she?
The song ended and she dropped into a full split with her back to me.
She finally stayed still long enough for me to read “Juicy” in pink across her ass.
Holy—and I really meant it—fuck.
This could not be the same girl Tango had to drill for an hour just to teach her a fouetté.
I yanked my cell out of my pocket because I couldn’t remember the pass code anymore. I punched Juicy’s icon and waited. Her cell jingled into the silence.
She popped out of her split much faster than anyone had the right to do and grabbed her cell. “Yo, I’m Juicy.”
“Not to go all Scary Movie on you, Juicy, but turn around.”
Slowly, she turned.
“Boo.”
She dropped her cell and gave a little girly shriek. I knocked on the glass and waved her closer. She picked up her cell. “What are you doing here?”
“Just open the door. I don’t want to do a scene from a Disney series.” Wasn’t that something they’d do? Two teenagers talking on their cells through the glass rather than just opening the door.
She opened the door.
“Holy—and I really mean it—fuck. You’re amazing!”
She grabbed my arm. “You cannot tell Tango what you saw.”
“Why don’t you want her to know you can dance?”
She released me and stared at me for a long time, like she was weighing me. Either she decided to trust me or she really needed to talk to someone. “It’s all she has, Foxtrot. She’s the town dancer. Her mom is a dancer. Her nana.” She moved to the dance floor and dropped into splits. “I have gymnastics and cheer. I win crap all the time.” She looked up at me. “She should get to keep the dancing.”
“How did you get this good?” I joined her on the floor.
“Dance camps. Cheer camps.” She shrugged. “YouTube. I know when the studio’s empty and practice whenever I can.”
“Okay. . . loyalty. . . I get it.” I threw my hands up in a manly gesture of exasperation. “But if she’s your friend, she’ll want you to be happy, too.”
Her cheeks flushed. “I’m happy, chulo.” She started to rise. “She’s happy, so I’m happy.”
Ohmigod. It all made sense. Girls let guys think we’re smarter all the time.
I took her hand and dragged her down again. “She doesn’t know that either?”
She dropped cross-legged so close our knees touched. “You cannot say a word to her, Foxtrot.” Her eyes grew huge and desperate.
“So I’m upgraded from ‘ass’ to ‘Foxtrot’ when you need a secret kept?” I smiled so she’d know I was teasing. “And what’s with the Spanglish, anyway, China Doll?”
“I’m Korean. Not Chinese,” she corrected. “And this town is, like, eighty-five percent Mexican. Do you speak Norwegian, or whatever pasty white people you come from?”
“You’re a phenomenal dancer.”
Her whole face squinched up in confusion. “Are you being nice to the competition just to throw me off?”
“Sorry, girl, but you’re not the competition. No offense.” I meant it about the no offense. “I don’t want to be all douche-y about it, but Tango doesn’t swing on those monkey bars.”
At first, she looked pissy, and I prepared for a clever snark, but she relaxed. “I know she doesn’t. I’m pathetic.”
I waited for her to get out the rest.
“I don’t expect her to feel the same way, but my options are nada in this podunk, dumbass town.” She stretched her legs out in front of her. “There are, like, three other lesbians my age and they could model for Guns and Ammo.” She reached for her feet. “It’s just to the end of the year and I can start over. I have a full ride at UT.”
Wow. Impressive. University of Texas? Getting in was hard enough, let alone earning a full ride.
“Does anyone know?” I asked.
“About?”
“Take your pick.”
She crossed her legs and ran a hand through her hair. “If I came out now, all three lesbutches would stalk me. Like I said, pickings are pretty slim.” She snorted. “And this is a small town, Foxtrot. Everyone may be all liberal and twenty-first century in Austin, but there’s still crap to deal with here.” She looked down and picked at her t-shirt. “I can’t tell Tango at this point. It’s just easier to wait until I get to college.” And the real question. “Are you going to tell her?”
&nb
sp; I shook my head. “Not my place. Y’all have been friends for years. I’m so not getting in the middle of that.” Deep breath. “Some folks at my old studio in Austin go to this group called OutYouth. I’ll get you their e-mail addies.”
She relaxed and took my hand again. “You come across as a total attention whore, Foxtrot, but you’re good people.”
Attention whore? Okay, maybe.
She released my hand and we sat in silence. I could tell she was giving me time to process her revelations. Wait a minute. I’d never even thought about a girl being Tango’s stalker.
Juicy pointedly cleared her throat as if reading my mind. “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, I will kick your ass. I had nothing to do with Tango’s car, and I will end whoever did.”
Okay, fine. She seemed pretty resigned to her situation. “Any theories?” Why pretend I hadn’t wondered, though?
She shook her head. “None.” She shrugged. “Or too many. She’s pretty and popular and everyone likes her. Who wouldn’t want to be with her?”
“Anyone stand out as particularly creepy?”
“Well. . .” She folded her arms and smiled with one half of her mouth. “There is this new guy who just moved to town and pops a boner every time she walks in the room. He’s pretty creepy and full of himself.”
I laughed. “Point taken.” I rose and helped her up despite the fact that she didn’t need it. Enough talking. I’d stopped by to dance. “Show me your Twyla Tharp. I wanna see if I can do it.”
Her face lit up. “You got it? Ohmigod, I figured I was the only one under the age of, like, a hundred who knew the Tharp.”
I danced some fans across the floor, my limbs loose and dangly, then popped a few shapes I’d copied from Baryshnikov. I crossed my feet and did a slow 360 offering my hands in a traditional “ta-daa.”
She clapped. “How are you not gay?”
She jumped into a pas de bourrée and kept repeating until I joined her. Assemblé, pirouette. . . sorry, but there’s no way to describe her shit without high-tech dance terms. Go check out every YouTube video on Twyla Tharp and you’ll get the idea. No. Really, damn it. Go check her out.
Holy crap. It’d been a long time since I’d had to work so damn hard to keep up. She was better than me and I hated admitting that about anyone. It took me a while to learn the routine she’d been dancing when I arrived, but I didn’t even try her across-the-floor gym sequence. Oh, and I never really nailed the slutty walk.
I was the one who finally called a halt. She smiled like she could have gone on for hours more. . . and I’d bet she could’ve. Damn, I hoped we could dance again.
“We could learn shit from each other,” I said as she locked the door.
She raised an eyebrow in my direction. “What can I learn from you?”
Without another glance, I walked away. “Humility.”
No idea what her reaction was. The whole night had been too perfect to ruin it by waiting for a response.