#scenebreak
After making sure I knew where Auntie Mac’s house was, Dad dropped me off at the dance studio the cop had mentioned. “At least there’s somewhere you can dance, right?”
Woot.
“I’ll be at the house in a few to help you unpack,” I said. The town was so small there was no reason I couldn’t walk it.
As he drove off, I felt like a little kid on his first day of school. Don’t forget I’d spent most of my life traveling the world on my own, so no big, right? The year before, I took second place at Blackpool, the most famous dance competition on the planet. I took first at World’s too, which was almost as cool. All my friends, who were dancers and coaches, treated me like a king. Out here I was just Macarena Davis’s nephew. Nobody.
Esmeralda’s Tango Emporium lived at one end of a half-empty strip center that may have been posh a hundred years ago, but was now. . . well, the opposite of posh.
And “Emporium”?
I pulled out my cell and googled the word.
Thought so. Not a good name for a dance studio.
I snapped a photo for Instagram and was about to tweet. . . then I shoved the cell in my pocket. Who would read it?
With a deep breath to settle into my cheery dance champion persona, I opened the door and took one step into. . . the saddest, shabbiest studio I’d ever seen. A solitary old couple stumbled through something that might have been an ancient version of cha-cha and might have been the hokey-pokey. The music playing was “Sway.” No, not the vaguely interesting remake with hot strippers who could sing. The original. And no one was being ironic. A dingy gold chandelier above needed so many bulbs replaced it actually managed to darken the room.
The little bell on the door behind me jingled.
“Out of the way, Ken Doll!”
Ken Doll? I glanced at my reflection in the hazy mirror: blond hair, blue eyes, nice teeth. Damn it, she was right. How had I never noticed that?
An elbow in the middle of my back propelled me into an imitation leather bar stool as a teenage cyclone in dance flats barreled past. I watched her from every angle in the studio mirrors as she stomped across the dingy parquet floor carrying more toilet paper than an army would use in a month. Latina, lots of leg in tight jeans, curvy under the t-shirt.
“Hey Tango, wait up.” I trotted after her.
In the mirror, she smiled at the nickname. “Whatever you’re selling, it can wait until I unload.”
Man, she walked fast. “Let me give you a hand.”
On the other end of the dance floor, she turned and stopped. “Do I look like I need help, Ken?” She did a double take so subtle nobody but a recently dumped guy like me could’ve noticed it. “I don’t know you.”
“I’m new.”
Her face relaxed like she’d just recognized a long lost friend. “You’re the dancer.” She backed through the swinging door and vanished.
Was the town that small? I’d been there an hour. Tops.
Her voice called through the door. “Come on in.”
Okay.
Smile: check.
Suave, masculine dance posture: check.
With a wink at the white hairs still dancing in the middle of the floor, I stepped through the swinging doors into the same storage room that’s in pretty much every dance studio I’d ever seen: dark, cluttered and smelling vaguely of old shoes.
Nice. The first familiar thing in town.
Before you judge me for loving a stinky old closet, think of that ancient pair of shoes, the perfect pair that fits like skin and reminds you of every hike or race or ramble. This room was familiar like that to me.
“I guess I can’t call you Ken Doll anymore.” She stacked TP. “Didn’t you win some kind of award at some contest somewhere?”
I hauled out my cell, tapped the screen and held it out to her. “Second at Blackpool.” Here, at least, I was in my element. My titles always earned me instant cred at dance studios. “Ten-dance youth champion at World’s. How do you know anything about me?”
She took the cell. “Get used to life in a small town. I talked to your aunt last week.”
Hmm, small town creepy: check.
She watched the video and one hand went to her mouth.
Stellar. It was the best I’d ever danced, and. . .
She laughed out loud, killing my moment of pride. “You have an app of yourself on your home screen? That is so precious!” She held the phone out before the video was even done.
Precious? My masculinity whimpered and crawled away to die. I closed the app. I had to get used to it: out here everything I’d accomplished was irrelevant.
She pulled her t-shirt off and I sort of forgot about the cell. “Is she your BFF, the girl dancing with you in the video?”
Her bra was purple and. . .
Okay screw it, all I could think was, omigod, tits! Out of nowhere, a perfect valley of dark skin. I glanced around. Was somebody punking me? Don’t get me wrong, I’d been backstage enough to see women in a quick change, but that was different. That was at a competition when I was more worried about forgetting my dance sequences. This was a shadowy storage closet, and internet porn had taught me what happens when hot girls undress in shadowy storage closets.
A heavy, boy’s class ring dangled between the lovely hills. It forced me back to reality.
Wait. She was still talking?
“. . .and the support group at school is great.”
Support group?
“It’s a small town, but you’re perfectly safe here.” She slid on a purple blouse and pulled her long, black hair out from under it. “Are you all right?” She didn’t button it right away, which meant only one thing.
“I’m not gay.”
She laughed again but this time with less gusto and she did up her blouse self-consciously. “What do you mean, you’re not gay?”
I should’ve known what was up the moment she pulled off her shirt, but I was sort of distracted at the time. “No. soy. mariposa.” That’s how to say it in South Texan. “Does your boyfriend know you strip in front of gay dudes?”
“How do you know I have a boyfriend?”
“Class ring on a string.”
One hand went to the necklace. “Oh.” Suddenly, her eyes grew huge and she spouted a litany of Spanish that went way beyond the phrases and obscenities I’d picked up at Austin High. She shoved me clear through the swinging door, where I stumbled a couple of steps and fell on my ass.
She finally reverted to English. “Why’d you let me take off my shirt in front of you, culo!”
“Like I could’ve stopped you.”
“You could’ve turned around.”
“I already told you I’m not gay, Tango.” I got to my feet. “A hot girl strips in front of me, I’m only turning away if she asks me to.”
“Tango’s. . . racist. . .”
Ha. She was floundering, and the word “hot” threw her off track. Two points for me. “Then so’s Ken Doll.”
She planted her hands on hips cocked to one side in a very distracting manner. “You’re a teenage ballroom champ with a gay dad and you expect me to believe you’re straight?”
And there it was.
I’d learned how to cope: keep quiet and wait for her to figure it out on her own.
Having a gay boxing coach dad had its advantages: complete parental approval for the dancing hobby was at the top of the list. Insistence on boxing lessons to deal with the ramifications of the dance lessons was another. Why everyone assumed like father like son, I’d never understand.
Tango managed better than most. Rather than making it worse by babbling on about how many gay friends she had, blah, blah, blah, she stared at me for a few seconds while the old dancing couple watched the scene, probably wishing they had popcorn.
“Okay, Foxtrot, you get your first three Mexican stereotypes for free.”
Several points for her.
?
??Hi there.” I held out a hand. “My name’s Foxtrot and I’m new to town.”
She smirked. It was a pretty smirk. Damn that class ring.
“Hey there, Foxtrot. My name’s Tango.”
We shook hands, and I tried to prolong the contact for an extra second or two, but she glanced past my shoulder and retracted her hand quickly. In the mirror, I watched several teenagers enter the studio. She stepped closer and whispered, “The banter is fun, but please don’t tell anyone that you know I’m wearing a purple bra.”
Understanding that she could get in trouble if someone suspected she wasn’t doing her job, I inclined my head in a slow nod and stepped aside so she could greet the group, happy to keep the memory for my own enjoyment.
She strode across the floor and her bearing changed. She stood taller and pulled her shoulders down. Her hips rolled a little more and her steps hit softly. “Oye chicos, if you haven’t practiced I’m going to kick every single ass.”
Holy crap. A coach? I figured she traded janitor service for classes.
There were four girls and five dudes. Oh wait, four dudes and one boyfriend. At least, from the way she latched onto him, I assumed it was his ring on her string. He was tall and shaped like a football player, not a dancer. He had dark hair and eyes and a face that grinned wa-a-ay too much. Seeing a hot chick you like kissing her boyfriend is like watching a People of Walmart video. It’s gross and makes you squirm, but you can’t force yourself to look away.
Wow, was she ever going to come up for air?
My dance coaches never did that.
A very tall, white dude with Asian writing on his t-shirt blocked my view. “Hey there, I’m K-pop.” His hair was tall too, black streaked with red, and cemented into fun angles like an anime character. Cool.
“K-pop?”
“I really like Korean pop music, so Katy calls me K-pop.” He held out a hand.
I craned my neck to see around K-pop’s hair.
Yep, she was still sucking face.
“Katy?” I asked, full of innocence. “She told me her name was Tango.” I took the offered hand. “You can call me Foxtrot, by the way.”
The girl, whose name was still open to debate, came up for air. The fact that she named all her friends was stellar because the names always meant something, like K-pop’s. It made them easier to remember, but there were ten people on the crew, for God’s sake, and who remembers the names of all seven dwarves?
She introduced them one by one and really fast: K-pop, Taco, Juicy, Shilling, Woody, Cosita, Mono, Ephraim and Boyfriend. Yeah, her boyfriend’s name was “Boyfriend,” which avoided confusion in the long run, I guess.
And “Juicy”? The girl must have noticed my unspoken question. “I really love Juicy Couture.” Ironically, she actually was Korean, whereas K-pop was not.
Why did everyone let Katy name them when she herself had no nickname? No clue, but something told me that getting her to accept my suggestion would mean I had arrived.
She took center stage and clapped her hands. “Okay, Foxtrot, now you’ve met the gang, you can piss off. We have work to do.”
Mutters of dismay communicated that the group felt she was being rude to the new guy. The new guy agreed.
“You don’t want to sit here and watch.” She spoke faster and she gestured more. “We’re learning some new choreo. Bo-ring.”
Hands in my pockets, I broke for cool. “I don’t know. Maybe I can learn a new move?”
That’s when it happened: the moment that changed the tone of the whole scene. I swear I heard the sound of a record scratch.
Juicy regarded me, full of wide-eyed curiosity. “Oh? You’re a dancer, Foxtrot?”
If it’d been Glee, they’d all have turned to look at me simultaneously with a big whip-cracking sound effect. Except for Katy, who was already staring at me with a little extra salsa in her cheeks.
She hadn’t told them.
And she knew.
She knew Blackpool.
She knew who I was, and not just from Auntie Mac.
She’d lied.
Closing in and holding her trapped in her subterfuge, I stared her down. “Well, I dance a little. I’d love to see what y’all can do.”
A murmur of excitement at a chance to show off rumbled through the studio, cut off by a sharp whistle from Katy. “No offense, Foxtrot.” All the bravado and teacher presence returned. “But you dance ballroom.” She gestured at those around her. “We’re a crew.”
They fell out.
“Hells yeah,” said Woody.
“Ballroom?” asked Ephraim.
Yeah. I had to cope with that shit a lot too. Time to impress the freak out of them. Sure I danced ballroom, but I was more So You Think You Can Dance than Dancing with the Stars. I mean, I was seventeen, damn it. Back in Austin. . .
Well. . . I wasn’t in Austin anymore.
Katy settled her shoulders, eyes blazing, all her Latina La-tin-essss daring me to ask for a showdown. A few months ago, I would have. Come on, this was my chance for the sexy face-off, right?
Something stopped me. Deep in her eyes, she was afraid.
Of what? Of a hot, blond, Ken doll?
As I looked over her crew, a sick feeling hit my stomach and I took a deep, deep breath, letting all the excitement bleed out of me. So that’s why she didn’t want me there. Why she lied about not knowing Blackpool. Why she made fun of my app.
I held up both hands. “My apologies, Katy. You’re right. I should. . . go home and. . . unpack. . . things.”
I shook a few hands and bumped a few fists. Everyone was friendly enough, but I saw it in their eyes: I danced ballroom. Era ñoño. I was lame. Not a good feeling, but if I was right about the crew, I had to let it go.
As I left, I watched Katy in the mirrors. When you’re around mirrors long enough you learn to see the world almost 360 degrees at a time. She acted like everything was same old, same old, but she glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. She wore a mother’s look, as if she knew her little kid had just avoided the neighborhood bully. Relief.
Outside, I hurried around the corner and waited. When the music started, I slunk to the glass door and peered inside. The music was faint, but it rocked. Katy’s team, however, did not. Half of them were off beat. The choreography was what you saw in the first ten minutes of a movie about the downtrodden dance team who would rise to fame and glory by the end of it.
Okay, there’s truly no way I can describe them without coming off as a complete douchebag. . . because they sucked. Utterly.
K-pop really wanted to be a pop-and-lock star, but all his moves reeked of five years ago. Juicy thought she was sexy but didn’t realize that an ultra-flexible pelvis just made her look like a slut. It didn’t mean she could dance. She couldn’t have been worse if she’d been trying to look bad.
That’s why Katy ejected me. She was smart enough to see the truth and didn’t want her friends to know it: out here this crew probably rocked the planet, but anywhere else they were a bunch of wannabes in costumes. She didn’t want me to laugh at them and force them to face how little they mattered to anyone outside their Dumass world.
So why stand down and leave when I saw that Katy was afraid? Why? Because that exact same haunted expression stared back at me every time I looked in a mirror. How could I make fun of that?
Six months ago, I probably would have.
Not anymore.
two
David sniffed the rose and adjusted the ribbon. He wiggled his fingers over the flower and muttered some nonsense from the naked chick’s website. He placed it on the windshield of Katy’s car and hid in the shrubs across the street. Red was her favorite color and she only liked roses with a strong scent. Unscented roses were a waste of time to her. She’d once told Juicy that a single rose was a romantic gesture, but an entire dozen smacked of d
esperation.
An hour passed.
Katy ran from the house and jumped into her car. She must’ve been late for the dance crew’s performance. Would she notice the rose? Yes. She climbed out of the car and picked up the flower delicately. She glanced around with a smile that filled David with hot desire.
“Ethan Fox, you naughty, naughty boy.” She sniffed the rose and her smile grew.
Son of a bitch! Nothing the naked chick told him to do worked!