Once she began dancing, it was easier than she’d imagined. The syncopated beat carried her as if she were an electrically charged marionette, her body automatically following Mel’s lead. They did basic steps, then cross-overs and an underarm turn. In the corners of her vision, the other dancers moving in unison were blurred and unreal. Or maybe she was unreal.
Before she fully realized what had happened, the music stopped and applause thundered into the silence. The dance was over.
The announcer’s voice was echoing like God’s around the ballroom as Mary laced her arm through Mel’s and he led her off the floor.
“Good,” he said, when they’d reached the staging area. “You did good, Mary.” She couldn’t tell from his tone of voice if he really meant it.
The mambo competition passed the same way, everything like an illusion set to music.
During her next dance, a rumba, the reality of where she was, what she was doing, how she was being watched and judged, caught hold in her. Cold panic hit and she rushed an underarm turn. Her bruised ribs ached as she stretched her stride to catch up with the beat.
“You okay?” Mel asked without moving his lips.
She had to stop herself from nodding and losing head position. Instead of answering, she concentrated on her dancing. Spectators were screaming contestants’ numbers. Mel danced her close to the Romance Studio table and several voices she recognized shouted, “One-nine-nine!” Okay, everyone out there wasn’t being critical of her. Mary felt a rush of energy and bore down with the inner edges of her feet on each step, pressuring the floor to emphasize hip roll, doing arm styling in perfect synchronization with Mel’s.
Practice had paid; it was all happening almost on its own.
Then it was over.
At least for Mary, for the Friday competition.
About twenty couples danced swing, and it was time to bestow awards in the Ladies’ A Newcomer division.
Mary stood next to Mel in the semicircle of dancers who were waiting for their names and numbers to be called, so they could walk forward, accept their prize medallions, and pose proudly for photographs. Time to reap whatever had been sown.
Her name wasn’t called, but she wasn’t disappointed. The purpose of today’s competition was to get her used to dancing under competitive stress. Tomorrow was to be her day, the smooth dance competition in Newcomer and Bronze divisions, including tango. Tango was her dance. Tango was her hope. Everything she did today was to build toward tomorrow, and in that respect, today had been a success.
The rest of the morning she sat at the table and rooted for the other Romance Studio contestants, shouting out entry numbers, sipping diet Pepsi through a straw, and discussing other dancers. She was having a grand time, feeling a part of all this. Why had she ever considered not coming here?
Helen didn’t place in any of her heats, either, but lean Lisa surprised everyone by dancing a near-perfect mambo and finishing third.
After changing out of her Latin dress, Mary had a lunch of salad and pasta in the hotel restaurant with Helen and an ecstatic Lisa. Then they returned to the ballroom and watched with increasing awe as the higher divisions competed.
That night, after dinner with the other Romance Studio people, Mary watched the professionals do their routines. It was an impressive show, though nothing like what was scheduled for tomorrow night. That was when television crews would be taping and all the stops would be pulled.
Between performances there was general dancing. A blond man Mary remembered doing a stylish rumba in Bronze competition walked over to the Romance table and asked her to waltz.
After a few sweeping change steps and a pivot, as if he were trying to impress her with his expertise, they settled into lazy box steps and he smiled down at her. It was a smile that went well with his regular features and razor-styled hair. He might have been a TV news anchor. Would he do bad comedy and speak in sound bites?
“My name’s Benson,” he said.
“First or last?”
“First, I’m afraid. Amberbrake’s my last name. Sounds like a butler, doesn’t it?”
Benson Amberbrake. “It does,” Mary said honestly. “Or maybe somebody who’d hire a butler. I’m Mary Arlington.”
“I know. I was watching you dance rhythm this morning. You looked great.”
“Not great enough to win anything.”
“Listen, don’t feel bad. This is some of the best competition in the world. Where you from?”
“St. Louis.”
“I’m Minneapolis. This is the third time I’ve competed, but I’ve never won anything either.” He led her through a hesitation step, grinning down at her. Her hand resting on his shoulder felt hard muscle beneath the smooth material of his suitcoat. He really did dance beautifully. “Competing tomorrow?” he asked.
“Yes, in American smooth. My best chance is the tango.”
“I’ll be pulling for you.” He moved back slightly and peered down at her face. She knew he wanted to ask about her blackened eyes, much more visible close up, but he restrained himself. Maybe they lived in the same world, where a gentleman never inquired about a lady’s bruises.
The music stopped. “Thanks for the dance, Mary.” He crooked his arm for her to take, then escorted her back to her table. “And incidentally, I don’t have one.”
“One what?”
“A butler.”
“Me, either.”
“I hope we can dance again.”
“Me, too,” she told him.
He patted her shoulder almost paternally before walking away.
“See,” Helen said, as Mary settled back down in her chair, “that dress of yours was worth the money. That blond guy’s a hunk, and he knows how to put one foot in front of the other without falling down.”
Suzanne and David Nyemchek, a professional couple from St. Louis, were taking the floor to do a paso doble routine. Mary had seen them once before, at an exhibition, and she ignored Helen and watched them, lost in admiration.
That night she fell asleep immediately and slept dreamlessly, and was surprised when the alarm sounded.
He didn’t sleep a total of an hour that night. Several times he got up and went into the bathroom. He’d watched her dance and she still danced in his mind and he wanted desperately to masturbate but the voice told him not to because there was a reason so he got out the knife and stared and stared at it and then pressed the cold flat of its blade against his forehead and felt calmer. “Soon,” the voice said, speaking to him through the knife.
He lowered the knife and ran his thumb along the blade’s edge, cutting it deliberately very slightly. Raised the thumb to his mouth and tasted the blood.
“Soon now.”
Saturday morning she was as scared as she’d been the day before. It was as if she’d never danced in competition. Her first heats, fox-trot and waltz, passed in a blur, and she knew she hadn’t done well.
“Jesus,” Mel said under his breath, leading her back to the staging area, “we gotta get it on, Mary.”
We? She knew she was the problem. She was moving too stiffly, not quite on the beat. Her bruised ribs still ached, and she seemed to have lost some mobility. Messages from brain to feet were taking too long and arriving garbled.
Concentrate, she urged herself. You’re who and what you are and the people watching and judging are no better than you. If you can do it in the studio, you can do it here.
She breathed deeply, willing herself to be calm, and felt better.
Thank God fox-trot and waltz had been scheduled first, leaving time to atone for sin.
When the dancers took the floor for the tango, Mary was surprised to find herself firmly in control despite her nervousness. She could do this-she knew it! Confidence smoldered like an ember in her stomach, then, when the music began, it flared brightly through every inch of her.
Mel led her through a basic, a promenade turn. Nose follows toes. She snapped her head around to give the dance definition, shadowing his lead perfectly.
The music took her, and he was a part of it. She could read his mind and body, knew what he was going to do an instant before he did it. And somehow this didn’t surprise her. Primal rhythms of communication were older than speech, linked to life and emotion in ways not understood. Dance itself must have preceded speech. Far away, people were applauding and shouting out numbers. It didn’t matter to Mary. She and Mel and the music were all that the ballroom and the moment held. Mary was flying.
Then the moment ended, and she was standing still and the applause was now and near.
“Oh, Christ, Mary!” Mel whispered in her ear as he led her off the floor. “That was perfect! That was what we wanted.”
If that tango was perfect, so was the one they danced in the Bronze division. They added flares and cortes to their steps, drawing applause from the audience.
Mary was sorry when the music ended.
She was nervous again standing in the dancers’ semicircle, listening to the names and numbers for the waltz and fox-trot awards, watching the other contestants rush joyfully forward to receive their medallions and applause. The ceremony for those dances seemed to last half an hour, though she knew it actually took less than five minutes.
Then it was time for the tango awards.
“Third place, number one-seven-seven, Lee and Brockman.”
Mary watched the couple stride forward smiling and receive their award. Applause. Humble time. Camera flashes like indoor lightning.
“Second place, one-twenty, Frazee and Nyemchek.”
Okay, they were competing against the best, even though Nyemchek was only the instructor half of the team. Mary was trembling again. Either she and Mel had won, which seemed highly unlikely now, or they hadn’t even finished in the top three.
Time dragged to a halt, as if the earth had paused ponderously on its axis. Mel gripped her elbow, squeezing so hard it hurt her. More bruises?
“First place, number one-ninety-nine, Arlington and Holt!”
Reality spiraled away. Mary floated up to the judge, watched her hand reach out and accept the shiny gold medallion with the numeral 1 engraved on it. She was barely aware of shouting and applause. Mel had to stop her and hold her still while photographs were taken. He didn’t have to tell her to smile.
Then they were back at the table. Everyone was standing, shaking Mel’s hand, patting Mary’s back and shoulders. Helen and Lisa pecked her on the cheek. Nick hugged her. Ouch! She let him hug her again.
Finally Mary slumped down in a chair. Ray Huggins was leaning over her from behind. “One for Romance Studio!” he was saying. “Terrific, Mary! Just terrific!”
When he placed his hand on her shoulder she reached up and squeezed it. Released it and felt him move away.
Suddenly she was tired and her legs were numb. So what’d you think, Duke? What can you say now, Jake? Bastards!
She shook thoughts of the two men from her mind. What did Jake, or her dead alcoholic father Duke, have to do with any of this? Thinking of them now would only spoil things. Men like Jake, Duke, Fred, had nothing to do with this world.
She should call Angie and let her know what had happened.
Duke.
Why had she thought of Duke?
Helen sat down next to her, unable to stop grinning. “Well, Mary Mary?”
Mary said, “I need a drink.”