“Just like you,” he told her sincerely.
Stacey smiled. “I actually wanted my burlesque name to be Black Butterfly, but when I started there was a dancer with the name “Butterfly” already, so I chose my favorite flower instead.”
“My Black Butterfly. I like it,” he smiled, “I won’t ask you to quit. I’ll just beat anyone’s ass who tries to touch you,” he said, rubbing his face along her cheek.
Stacey knew he meant every word of what he’d said. Smiling, she reached up and grazed her fingers through his beard.
“You know the rule, right?” he asked slyly.
Stacey pulled back, looking at him curiously. “What rule?”
“You touch the beard, you have to sit on it,” he said, quickly, moving to pull the stopper out of the drain and pulling them both up to stand.
Stacey giggled as Andre hurriedly dried them both off, discarded the towel over his shoulder, and carried her to his bed where he made good on his latest rule.
Chapter 15
The next few weeks for Stacey and Andre flew by. They picked up right where they’d left off, with Stacey spending a few nights a week at his condo, and Andre still showing up to the dance studio every Wednesday night to make sure she got home or to his place safely. Since she’d shared some of her past and how her dancing career ended, he’d been a lot more understanding and considerate of her burlesque performing. She’d even debuted a few new routines in a private show just for him, which he’d thoroughly enjoyed, of course. She would often still feel his watchful eye whenever she was at the club performing. Somehow, it gave her a measure of safety knowing he looked over her so intently. Stacey wasn’t a particularly jumpy person, but there were a few instances when she felt she was being watched or surveilled.
Stacey reclined in her leather chair in the tiny office she shared with another intern at one of the top eating disorder facilities, hunched over her desk. She was studious about going over her notes before and after her group sessions. She was devoted to giving her clients the detail and care they deserved. Since beginning her internship, she’d formed a group session to allow more access for women of color and women without insurance to be able to receive services.
“Hey, you got a minute?” Stacey looked up as she heard the knock on her opened door. At the entrance stood the clinic’s associate director, Marcy. Marcy stood at about five-foot-seven with shoulder-length, strawberry blond hair. She wore a pair black pants and a powder blue button up shirt. She smiled down at Stacey, and instantly Stacey’s mood improved. She’d just finished a rough session with a few clients that had left some of them in tears. Though she tried not to let her client’s problems get her down, she was human.
Stacey perked up. She and Marcy went back more than most people who’d worked at the clinic only a few years, knew.
“Sure, Marce, what’s up?” Stacey said, waving her hand to offer Marcy a seat.
“A couple things. First, I wanted to say how great of a job we think you’re doing here. We knew going in this project you started would be a tough sell to the higher ups, but when we were able to show the need for mental health services and eating disorder treatments for women of color and those who were less socioeconomically well off, it became an easier sell, thanks to your diligence.” Marcy smiled.
“And I know you know firsthand how much these services are needed. We both do,” Marcy stated, alluding to the fact that at one time, both women had been residents of the facility for their own struggles.
Stacey sighed and nodded, sitting back in her chair, “I do,” she agreed. There were few people who knew Stacey’s entire past and her struggles. This was the reason she’d worked so hard to become a licensed social worker. Why she put in the hours and took classes through the summers and vacations to finish her degrees in four years. After dance, and her own recovery, helping others get to the other side of recovery had become her main focus. Now, it was almost in her grasp. She would be finishing her studies in another six weeks.
“So far, we think the program is going very well. We want to see you continue the good work. So, the director has asked me to ask you to interview with us to become a social worker here at Renfrew once you finish your degrees. You can work here to get the necessary hours you need to get your LSW,” Marcy gushed.
A booming laugh escaped Stacey’s lips and she quickly covered her mouth with her hand. She just felt so giddy, elated and relieved all in that moment. This was what she’d been working towards. She wanted more than anything to work at this facility when she completed school.
“Are you serious?” she asked surprised.
“Of course,” Marcy affirmed. “We want to schedule an interview in another two to three weeks. I know that’s cutting it close to your finals and all, but that’s the earliest we can do it.”
Stacey waved her hand. “Don’t worry about it. I will work it out. You just let me know the time and place and I will be there with bells on.”
“Absolutely. We’ll talk more about a specific date next week,” Marcy said standing.
Stacey stood, feeling too excited to sit. The warring emotions of pride, elation and nervous self-doubt began to creep in as she watched Marcy leave. She wanted to call someone to share her good news and confide in. The first person she thought of was the one who’d kissed her awake just that morning. Pulling her cell out of her desk drawer, before she could even unlock her phone, it rang. It wasn’t Andre, but this person was a close second choice.
“Hi, Aunt Ruth, guess what?” she rushed as she answered the phone.
“Hi, honey. You sound excited, what’s up?” Stacey’s aunt and the woman who’d been a second mother to her questioned.
“I just met with Marcy and she wants to schedule me for an interview to bring me on full-time after I finish school. I can work here and get my hours in to become an LSW,” she squealed, plopping down in her chair.
“Oh, honey, that’s wonderful. I am so proud of you. Hold on, I have to call your uncle in so you can share the good news,” her aunt rushed before Stacey could get out another word. The line was silent for a while and a minute later, Stacey heard the deep voice of her uncle coming through the line.
“Stace? Ruth just told me the great news. That is wonderful.” He sounded just as joyful as her aunt had been at the news, but Stacey wanted to temper their enthusiasm just a bit.
“Thank you, but remember it’s just an interview. I still haven’t gotten the job yet,” she said a little more evenly.
“Oh, pssh,” her aunt admonished. “We know you already got the job. You’re gonna ace that interview. Wait, until we tell the boys,” Ruth mentioned referring to her two sons, Stacey’s older cousins. Although both “boys” were grown men in their thirties, their mother still referred to them as “her boys.” Stacey smiled over the pride she heard in both her uncle and aunt’s voices. These two were the parents she’d wished she had as a young child, and although it’d taken some time for her to warm up to them when she first went to live with them, they’d come to be her major support system throughout her teenage years.
“Have you told Coral yet?” her uncle asked.
“No, Marcy just left my office when Aunt Ruth called,” she informed them. “Have you guys spoken with her recently?”
“No, honey,” Ruth answered.
Stacey could hear the hint of melancholy in her aunt’s voice. While Stacey had been twelve when she went to live with her aunt and uncle, Coral had been seventeen, and a year away from college. She had never developed the close bond with her aunt and uncle that Stacey had. In fact, it wasn’t until Coral left for college that Stacey was able to develop a closer bond with her aunt and uncle. She’d looked to Coral so much for protection throughout her childhood that it had felt like betrayal to become close with any other parental figures, while she was around. Stacey knew her aunt and uncle loved Coral as much as they loved her, but her older sister had an outer shell that made it difficult for anyone to penetrate. Stacey knew it
was that tough shell that kept them both alive as children, and for that she was grateful, but it often saddened her that her sister wasn’t as close to their family as she was.
“Okay, I’ll try and call her later,” Stacey told them before moving on to a different topic.
Ruth questioned Stacey about her plans for Thanksgiving that was only about three weeks away. Ruth and her uncle were planning to vacation in the Dominican Republic for the holiday and invited Stacey to come along. She told them she’d get back to them as soon as possible. She wasn’t sure if Andre had plans or what his intentions were for the holidays and she wanted to run it past him first.
At the moment, Stacey’s thoughts drifted to Andre and the evening they had planned. She figured instead of calling him now, she could wait until later to tell him about her interview before they went out. They were going out with Andre’s best friend, Hwan, and his husband, Damon. As her aunt and uncle continued to talk of their travel plans for the holidays, her thoughts drifted to what Andre had told her about his friend.
She braced the phone between her ear and shoulder, captured her right hand with her left, and began rubbing tiny circles over the tiny scar between the knuckle of her pointer and middle finger.
According to Andre, Hwan could be very blunt about his feelings. He told her Hwan was often quick to let him know when he did not like a woman he brought around or was dating. While Stacey rarely sought approval of others anymore, she did want to gain at least the respect of the man Andre called his closest confidant.
****
Stacey felt Andre’s hand tighten around her smaller one as they followed the hostess into the Tropicana Room at Loca Luna. She admired the ambiance of the restaurant as she took in the wooden tables and chairs covered by red table clothes, and the overhead lighting decorations that looked like Christmas lights intertwined around the ceiling pillars. Salsa music provided an upbeat feeling to the restaurant, but was not blaring so loud that it was a hindrance to conversation. It felt like a cozy restaurant to meet friends for dinner, or in Stacey’s case, for the first time.
“There they are.” Andre turned his cerulean eyes on her, giving his signature wink.
That wink, though he meant it as reassurance, always had a way of sending a heated sensation flooding through her stomach. Shaking off the feeling of desire that was always not too far from the surface when she was around Andre, Stacey turned to the table their hostess stopped at.
“Here‘s your party, sir. Your waitress tonight will be Stephanie. She’ll be over in a few minutes to take your drink orders. Enjoy your dinner,” the bubbly hostess announced before turning and striding back to the front of the restaurant.
Stacey took in the two men who now stood before her. One she immediately identified as Hwan, Andre’s best friend since graduate school. He was a similar height as Andre, but that was where the similarities ended. Hwan’s creamy complexion, dark hair and slanted eyes spoke to his Korean lineage, while Damon stood a few inches shorter than both men, and his smooth chestnut complexion spoke of his African-American lineage.
“Babe, this is Hwan and Damon,” Andre introduced, extending his arm to the two men. “Hwan and Damon, this is Stacey.”
“Like I didn’t know,” Hwan tutted at Andre before pulling Stacey into a warm embrace. “Nice to finally meet the woman who has my friend so enamored.”
He smirked.
“Hwan,” Andre’s voice was low, but held a hint of warning at which Hwan’s smile grew even bigger.
Stacey’s lips spread into a smile matching Hwan’s. She could tell he liked to ruffle Andre’s feathers. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Hwan. Andre’s told me so much about you,” she confessed after pulling back from Hwan’s hug.
“And this handsome fellow right here is my husband, Damon,” Hwan said, placing his arm around Damon’s waist. “See, Andre’s not the only one down with the swirl.”
Hwan snickered, causing Damon and Stacey to laugh too.
The quartet sat at one of the u-shaped booth tables with Stacey and Damon on the inside, and Andre and Hwan on either side of their respective dates. They settled in just as the waitress arrived. She quickly took their drink orders and dispersed, leaving the group to talk amongst themselves.
“So, Stacey, I hear you were a ballerina?” Hwan asked, diving right in.
“Jesus, Hwan, give her time to breath,” Andre demanded protectively. He knew Stacey’s ballet history was a sensitive subject for her. He was surprised when she jovially interjected.
“It’s okay, Andre,” she declared patting his leg under the table. “Yes, Hwan, I used to dance ballet for the Pacific Northwest Ballet Company. Have you been?”
Strangely enough, she’d begun to feel more comfortable talking about her ballet history with others. Stacey suspected it had a lot to do with opening up to Andre about her abrupt career-ending injury.
Hwan’s lips spread into a wide grin. “Yes, I have actually. I’m from San Francisco. Each Christmas break, my family would take a vacation to Seattle. My mother would insist we all do something culture related. So, the ballet it was. My younger brother hated it and so did my dad. But my mother and I would talk for hours about the minutest details. The costumes, the difference between the Balanchine choreography and the other choreographers. I probably should have known then that I was gay.” He broke out into laughter with the rest of the table.
“Mmm, I loved the Balanchine choreography. You know, Pacific only changed over to his style a year and a half before I left. I danced in the Corps performance of the Nutcracker,” Stacey reminisced.
The pair spent the next ten minutes talking about ballet, the different styles, and their mutual love of the costumes and performance. Damon jumped in when they began their conversation about the makeup and how it correlated to the moods and characters the dancers were portraying on stage. As a makeup artist, Damon loved anytime he could talk shop about makeup.
All the while, Andre sat and watched as his friends and his woman interacted. A warm feeling came over him as he watched the joy Hwan expressed interacting with Stacey. It was almost as if he couldn’t stop talking about his love of the ballet. Stacey was just as responsive to Hwan as she too gushed over the different aspects of ballet. They were getting along more like two friends reunited, rather than two people meeting for the first time, or worse, two people whose only purpose in even talking was trying to appease those around them. Andre had had plenty of women he was seeing try to get in good with him by trying to turn up the charm on Hwan. His perceptive friend would see right through it and so did Andre. It was no secret to Andre that Hwan rarely liked the women he’d dated. As he looked over at his best friend, he surmised that it wouldn’t be an issue with Stacey. For some reason, that lifted a weight off his shoulders he hadn’t realized was there.
“Hwan, Andre told me you two met in grad school, but he told me there’s a funny story how you two met. Care to share?” Stacey asked as they all munched on their shared dinner of grilled asparagus, platanos maduros, and grilled salmon skewers.
Hwan nodded, wiping his mouth with the red cloth napkin. “We were both at Stanford and lived in the same apartment building just off-campus, and one thing you’ll learn about me is that I love music. All kinds from classical to hip hop, rock. All of it, and I have a tendency to play it loudly. So loud it can be disturbing to my neighbors, but I’ve gotten better. Right, babe?”
He looked over at Damon.
“Define better,” Damon teased, leveling a look at him.
“Anyway,” Hwan waved him off as Stacey and Andre chuckled at Damon’s comment, “I was blasting my music and all of a sudden I hear loud banging on the door. Startled, I rush to the door, thinking someone’s hurt. I open it to see a pair of tired, yet angry blue eyes bearing down on me. I was so taken aback by this gorgeous man staring at me, I forgot, I’d answered the door in my boxer briefs. And well, I don’t have to tell you, but our boy over here is fine.” Hwan waved his hand towards Andre.
“Excuse me,” Damon interjected.
“But nothing compared to you, baby,” Hwan cooed to Damon, kissing him on the cheek. Damon gave him a satisfied smile.
“Hey, what am I chop liver?” Andre joked. He’d heard Hwan speak of his instant attraction to him in the past, but they’d been friends for so long it didn’t bother him.
“No, you’re perfect,” Stacey consoled, rubbing Andre’s leg and placing a kiss on his cheek.
“Thanks, baby,” Andre said nuzzling her neck.
“Will you two get a room,” Hwan teased. “But let me finish my story first. So yeah, I’m standing there in my boxer briefs looking at those beautiful blues, and after just staring, I realize blue eyes is speaking. I hadn’t heard a word he said. It was then I realized I was nearly naked in front of this man. So, one thing led to another, and we became friends when he didn’t become all weird after the sex like the other straight dudes I’ve been with.” Hwan placed air quotes around the word straight as he finished his story.
“Hwan!” Andre growled, tossing his friend a warning look, but he couldn’t keep the smirk off his face. Hwan often joked like this when trying to get to know one of Andre’s many dates. Their response often determined the course of their relationship with Andre. He glanced down to gauge Stacey’s reaction to his friend’s comments.
“Well, was it good?” she retorted quickly.
Her question even caught Hwan off guard for all of a second before he burst into laughter along with the rest of the table.
“I like her,” Hwan declared over his laughter.
The rest of the evening flew by quickly as they talked about everything from work, to sports, and even a little bit of politics. An hour later, the restaurant converted the front section into a dance space, making room for the couples to dance as a live band played a mix of salsa, reggaeton, bachata and even some flamenco. Stacey was pulled to the dance floor by Damon who himself loved to dance, especially salsa. He and Hwan had even taken dance lessons the year before.
Black Butterfly Page 16
