Dance with Me, page 12
I nod and round the table and give her a hug. Demi’s not really a hugger, but she holds on to me, and we stay like that for a moment before I head back out to my chair.
For the rest of my shift, I can’t help thinking about her words. All of them. Not just how Pen up and left, decided I wasn’t her person after all. But all of it. All those things that we as human beings want. That we need. We’re not meant to be alone. I’m not meant to be alone. If I learned only one thing during the wretched breakup I went through not so long ago, it’s that. I want all those things Demi mentioned. All of them. And more. I want somebody who wants to be near me all the time. Just in the same place. I want somebody I’m so into that I know where they are in the room at all times, even if I’m not looking for them. I want somebody who’s the first on my list when something good happens and I want to make calls. I want somebody whose perfume I recognize from yards away. I want somebody who makes me laugh. I want somebody who takes time in their day to text me just to see how my day is going. I want somebody who wonders about me when they’re not with me. Somebody who’ll cook for me. And not just cook for me, but cook my favorite things. Somebody who knows how I like my eggs and my hamburgers, and that I drink almond milk but prefer half-and-half in my coffee.
All these thoughts swirl in my head as I work on my last client, a woman in her early sixties whose daughter-in-law recently gave birth to her first grandchild. I smile and nod and look at photos on her phone, but the whole time, those thoughts about what I want in life roll around in my head like bingo balls in a ball mixer. Is it too much? Am I asking too much? Expecting too much? I thought I had that stuff with Pen…well, most of it. Okay, some of it. Pen doesn’t cook, so forget about the eggs thing. She rocks ordering food, though, and did know pad thai is a favorite of mine. I can’t remember what her perfume smells like, though I do know it’s in a square bottle. I used to text her daily from here, telling her little anecdotes about clients or fellow stylists, but it always took her hours to get back to me. If she got back to me at all. She told me more than once that she just forgot to text back. Which is a pretty clear sign that you’re not at the top of somebody’s list, right?
I finish up and check my client out, then spend the next hour cleaning up and putting things away, since I won’t be back until Tuesday. Bash asks if I want to grab a drink, but I realize I’m not really in the mood for that.
What I am in the mood for is pad thai.
At home.
With a glass of wine and something on Netflix.
And probably my grandma.
Chapter Eleven
Tuesday at work is insane. Between overbooking myself—because I clearly don’t know how to keep an accurate schedule—and the woman who brought in her twelve-year-old daughter who had green hair because she was trying to color her hair at home and hadn’t followed the directions, my stress levels are pretty high all day. By the time I get to dance class—with about thirty seconds to spare, thank you very much—I’m pretty sure I’m just going to short out like a robot that’s been running too hot all day. A couple zips, a flash, and I’ll just power down and stand against the wall.
“Hi.” Marisa comes right up to me as I put my things in a corner. “You look frazzled. Everything okay?”
I find myself torn between being mortified that she can tell I’m frazzled by looking at me and kinda thrilled that she already knows me well enough to tell I’m frazzled just by looking at me. I give her a small groan. “Crazy day.”
“I hear that,” she says, and her smile is soft and her eyes are sweet and, holy crap, I’m going to be in trouble with this woman. The thought hits me, fresh and hard and out of the blue. So. Much. Trouble. “Dancing always helps me. Softens the edges.” She reaches for my upper arm, gives it a rub. “Hey, do you have a few minutes after class? I’d like to talk to you.”
I nod and watch as she heads to the front of the room to get everybody’s attention, and class begins.
Here’s what I’m finding: The more time I spend with Marisa—be it cutting her hair or running into her at the grocery store—the more of an effect she has on me. The more I dance with her, the more aware of her I am. Does that make sense? Like, she’s not doing anything any different in dance class. We are dancing together like always, her leading, me following, my hand in hers, her other hand on my back. Lots of touching, our bodies are very close, but there’s nothing sexual about it.
Wow, okay, that’s a huge lie, because starting with this class—class number seven—all I can think about are sexual things. I don’t know what happened, where that line was that I not only clearly crossed over but blew the fuck past, but I am suddenly completely turned on anytime she comes near me tonight. It’s like a switch flipped and now everything she does floats my boat. Pops my kernels. Cranks my knobs. The way her hips move. How she smells like coconuts again. That there’s barely an inch between her breasts and mine. The way just the tip of her tongue darts out to wet her bottom lip as she concentrates on the steps we demonstrate for the rest of the class.
Oh. Right. There’s the rest of the class here.
I’m pretty sure my face is flushed for the entire hour. I know my underwear is damp. I also wonder if Marisa is feeling any of this because she doesn’t make eye contact. At all. Once we start dancing, once we’re actually touching and moving together, she finds a spot somewhere around my forehead, and that’s where she looks anytime we’re face-to-face.
The hour flies by. I do a double take at the clock when Marisa calls time and tells us all what to work on for next week. I’m torn again, this time between grabbing my crap and sprinting for the door, and hanging around after everybody leaves. I know I have to do the latter because Marisa asked me to, but it suddenly feels…dangerous to be alone with her.
I take my time gathering my things and wait for her to shut down the laptop. I check my phone for messages, and when I finally glance up at her, she’s looking at me, but then looks away really quick. The way you do when you’ve been staring and then get caught, but try to pretend you weren’t staring, even though you know the other person knows you were staring.
“So,” Marisa says from her spot behind the laptop cart, “my aunt wants us to dance together for the contest in September.”
I nod. “She mentioned it to me, yeah.”
“You up for it?”
Another nod and a half shrug, ’cause yeah, I’m breezy. Nonchalant. Unaffected. “Sure. You?”
“I mean, it’s my job, so…” She lets the sentence dangle unfinished in the air between us, and I don’t like it. I don’t like that answer, though I’m not sure what I would have preferred instead. She must feel my slight bristling because she quickly adds, “I think it’ll be fun. We”—she clears her throat—“we dance well together.”
A beat passes while the two of us look at each other from several yards apart, and then the words push themselves from my mouth before I even realize I’m about to speak. “It’s weird, right?”
“So weird,” she says, clearly relieved that I brought it up first. And then we stand there and sort of chuckle and shift our weight from foot to foot, and it’s only a little awkward and only for a minute or two. Marisa takes a breath—I can hear her inhale—and steps out from behind the laptop cart to walk toward me. “We’ll need to practice. I can help my aunt with choreography. I’ve got some stuff in mind. Is that okay?”
“Sure.” My body reacts as she gets closer, and it’s so strange. So odd. I can’t recall that ever happening, not even with Penelope, who I was totally in love with—or at least I thought I was. But I never felt my body literally preparing for her the way it seems to be doing for Marisa. More wetness to the south. A softening of my stance. An itch in my hands, like they’re just waiting until she’s close enough to touch.
Jesus Christ on a cheesecake, what is happening?
She stops about four feet from me, and that makes me wonder if she’s feeling it, too. If she’s feeling something. She clears her throat again, and is that her tell? Is that what she does when she’s nervous? Because that’s the second time in about five minutes. “I don’t know what your schedule is like,” she says, and while I’m sure she’s trying to be all business, her voice is soft, and again, the eye contact is fleeting. “I mean, we could practice pretty much any night. I’ll just need to make sure Jaden has a sitter, which my mom can help with, most likely.”
“Okay,” I say. Helpful, Scottie. So helpful.
“And Aunt Tina will be here to help out when she’s in town because it’ll be hard for me to be objective when I’m also dancing. Like, watching our overall moves and stuff.”
“Sure.” Clearly, words have left me. I’m only allowed one at a time, I guess.
“We’ll want to start rehearsing soon. Next week? The week after?”
I nod. “Yeah. Okay. I’m pretty open.”
“Great. How about I take a few days to come up with some ideas, listen to some music options, and then I’ll let you know, and we’ll pick a day?” Her shoes are suddenly very interesting, apparently. It’s cute, though.
“That sounds perfect.” And it does. And also, nerve-racking and worry-inducing and arousing and so many other things that my brain can’t begin to list them. But I smile, and Marisa gives one quick nod, and that’s that. I pack up my stuff and head out to my car where only it and Marisa’s SUV are left. Again.
I don’t wait, though, this time. I can’t. My heart can’t take it. I’ve had enough awkward weirdness for one night. I start my car—which takes three tries, goddamn it—and head home.
“Hi, sweetie,” Grandma says where she’s in the kitchen pouring herself a glass of pinot grigio from the fridge. She grabs a second glass without asking me and pours me some, too. “How was class?”
“Class was fine, but I’m dancing in a competition between local dance studios in September with Marisa and we start rehearsals soon and it just feels awesome and weird and wonderful and horrifying.” I blurt it out without even saying hello.
Grandma blinks at me and takes a sip of her wine before she speaks. “Well. I’d ask how you’re feeling about it, but the fact that you’re speaking at a hundred and twenty miles an hour with no pauses for air is all the answer I need.”
I grab the wine, take a slug, and blow out a breath. “Yeah.” Then I fall into a kitchen chair and take another slug.
Grandma pulls out the chair opposite me at the small table and sits, and I feel her studying me for a moment. “Sweetie, what exactly is the problem here?”
I gape at her. Is that a real question? How does she not see the problem?
“I mean, I know why you feel weird about it, but is there any reason to? You and this Marisa seem to be doing okay. Right? You told her you didn’t know about her during the Pen years, so she’s aware of that. You’ve been dancing with her for—what?—five classes now?” I nod. “And you seem to be enjoying yourself, for the most part. Do you think maybe you’re freaking out for no reason?”
A snort. “But that would be so unlike me,” I say, my voice heavy with sarcasm, because yeah, it would be exactly like me to freak for no reason.
Grandma laughs, and just like that, the mood lightens considerably. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I just need to chill the fuck out. After all, I’m about to be in a dance competition with one of the most gorgeous women I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting.
Perhaps I need to focus on that and let the rest fall away.
* * *
School ended this week, and at the same time, summer programs and sports and such started up. My half brother Noah has started playing Little League baseball. He’s only eight, so going to watch isn’t so much catching a game as watching kids learn the game. That is to say, it’s boring as hell. But when Noah calls me himself and asks if I’m coming to his game, how can I say no?
As with my mom’s new family, I love my dad’s sons. While there are a myriad of issues I have with my parents, none of them are the fault of my half siblings. So I do my best to be a good big sister, and I attend games and plays and concerts, especially if one of them personally asks me to.
The hardest part when it comes to those things is remembering how very few of them my parents actually attended for me. I played softball and basketball in school, was in several plays, and played the flute in the marching band. I can count on one hand the number of games or performances or parades my parents came to, and if I dwell on the unfairness of it, it will wreck me. It has before. So I do my best not to dwell, just to show up and cheer on my little brothers and sister. Like I said, none of my Mommy or Daddy issues are their fault.
I find my dad and his wife, Connie, in the bleachers, and I climb up to sit with them. My dad hugs me back and I give Connie a wave, and she smiles. She’s nice to me. Always has been. But we’re not what I’d call close, and that’s on me as much as it’s on her. I could make more of an effort and I know it. I just don’t.
My dad is alarmingly into the game. He’s alarmingly into everything his boys do now, and it takes everything in me not to focus on the possibility that maybe if I’d been a boy, I’d have gotten more attention from him. But I squash that down into a tiny dark corner and leave it there for later analysis and focus on the game instead. It seems to last forever. I absently wonder if we are now in tomorrow, but no. It’s still Friday. Thank God they only play five innings or we might be sitting on these bleachers all weekend. But when the game finally ends and we all climb down and Noah throws himself into my arms and asks if I saw his base hit, it’s all worthwhile. He’s an adorable kid, sweet and kind and gentle. Unlike his little brother Drake, who’s got dark hair and eyes like Connie, Noah looks more like me. His light brown hair is similar in shade to mine, and we both have blue eyes like our dad. I rustle his hair when he takes off his cap and tell him he needs a haircut.
“Gotta get you to the barber,” my dad says to him happily, seemingly ignoring the fact that his daughter—standing directly in front of him—is a goddamn hairstylist. I poke the inside of my cheek with my tongue but don’t say anything. As usual.
An hour later, I’m sitting in a bar in Jefferson Square called Martini’s, nursing a beer and waiting for Adley to arrive. It’s Friday night, and it was hard to convince her to leave the ice cream shop for a short time to grab a drink with her bestie, but I did it. She’s coming through the door as I sip, moving at extra quick speed the way Adley does everything.
“Do you ever slow down?” I ask her as she sits on the stool next to me. “Move at a normal pace?”
“Listen, I don’t have time for normal paces. I am busy.” She snaps her fingers a few times to punctuate her statement, and it makes me laugh.
“Oh right, I forgot.”
The woman behind the bar has a mass of dark curls that I’d kill for, and I immediately start wondering things about it. Occupational hazard. What shampoo does she use? Is that natural curl? I think it is. Does she love it or hate it?
Adley orders a gin and tonic and teases me, telling me to stop analyzing the poor woman’s hair. She knows me well. “How was the game?” she asks, and we’re off on another topic.
“Long and boring, but Noah was adorable and had a base hit.”
Adley thanks the bartender when her drink is delivered and takes a healthy sip. “Those boys are the cutest.”
“Yeah, I told him he needs a haircut, and my dad promised to take him to the barbershop.” I roll my eyes.
“Right there in front of you?” Adley asks. I nod and she shakes her head. “Jesus.”
“Yeah.” I swig my beer and sigh because this isn’t new. Adley’s heard it all before, but she’s a sweetheart who lets me repeat all the stories all the time. I change the subject. “What’s new in the wonderful world of ice cream?” We’re talking about how business is down from this time last year, but Adley’s got a couple ideas for new sundaes when my eye is caught by the front door opening. A group of about five women come into Martini’s, and it’s like somebody’s reached a hand into my lungs and just pulled all the air out. I blink. I stare.
“Hey,” Adley is saying, but I can’t seem to shift my gaze. “Scooter. What’s up?” She turns to look at the group, then swivels back to me and, in typical, hugely observant, and intuitive Adley fashion, whispers to me, “Is that her?”
Marisa is wearing cropped jeans and a black tank with a pink denim jacket she’s sliding off her arms as she and her group of friends take two of the high-top tables and push them together. Her dark hair is partially pulled back, leaving waves skimming her shoulders. She’s laughing and relaxed, and it’s a version of her I haven’t seen before. It’s nice. No, it’s beautiful.
“Yeah,” I say with a nod, and Adley, never one for subtlety, openly gapes until I elbow her. “Well, don’t stare. God.”
“Which one is it?”
I pinch Adley until she turns back to face the bar with a whine. “Ow!”
“She’s the one in the black tank.” I say it without looking. I don’t know if Marisa has seen me, but I don’t want her to catch me ogling her. “This is, like, the third time we’ve been at the same place at the same time, and it’s seriously weirding me out.”
“Somebody up there is trying to tell you something,” Adley says, subtly pointing up.
“Hey, Scottie,” comes the voice from behind us, and I feel my own eyes go wide with surprise. Clearly, she did see me.
I turn around and those dark, dark eyes capture mine. “Hey, Marisa.” I glance over her shoulder. “Girls’ night out?”
She smiles and nods. “Coworkers, yeah.” Her gaze lands on Adley, and I mentally shake myself until my manners show up.
“Oh, this is my friend Adley Purcell. Adley, this is my dance instructor—and dance partner, turns out—Marisa Reyes.”
