by Tonya Plank
I looked around. I didn’t see anyone. I heard more people walking down the hall, and I didn’t want to be accosted again so I took her hand and led us into the smaller, darkened hall.
“It’s like a cave in here.” Now I heard her attempt to keep her fear at bay. Blackpool was so not dangerous. But of course after what had happened in L.A. I could never blame her for being scared.
Suddenly one of the doors swung open and Bob, the American team coach, peeked out. He was a large, perpetually happy man with curly red hair who reminded me of a heavyset version of Ronald McDonald.
“Sasha, I thought I heard you,” he said, smiling widely.
“Good to see you again, Bob.” I shook his hand.
“Likewise. It’s been a while. How’s California treating you?”
“Well, very well.” I smiled at Rory. She was a huge part of why I was doing so well these days.
“And you must be Rory.” Bob extended his hand to her.
“This is Bob Maxwell,” I told her. “He owns a large studio in New York and he’s the team manager.”
“Very pleased to meet you,” she said.
“And likewise, my dear. Sasha’s new partner! Am I excited to see you dance!”
She laughed nervously. “Um, yeah?” she said.
“You sure about that? Is there an imposter in the room?” Bob said, laughing.
His immense excitement, maybe along with his clownishness, was bringing back that awful self-doubt of hers. Or, maybe it was just her way of remaining humble. She was never the type to brag, even if she was expected to win, after all. And that’s part of what I loved about her.
“I hope not,” she said. “I’m just, kind of in a state of disbelief right now that I’m here and dancing with Sasha and all.” She held her head down, bashfully. I squeezed her and kissed her cheek. “Yes, I’m sure,” she said more firmly, holding her head up to meet my gaze.
The door behind us opened again and in walked the rest of the team. I guess we weren’t late.
“Mariana, Dmitri, Alexandra, Oleg…” I shook hands, one by one.
“Oooooh, Xenia, you look just gorgeous, as usual, my dear,” Bob waxed.
I turned to her and offered her a polite nod, which she returned, looking smug as could be.
“Piotr,” I said, shaking her new partner’s hand.
“Sasha,” he said in return with his own polite nod.
“And beautiful, so beautiful Arabelle. Bella Arabella!” Bob sang.
Rory’s eating disorder having been related to her feelings about Arabelle’s ballerina body made me automatically wrap my arm around Rory’s waist. Arabelle eyed me then set her gaze on Rory. Her lips curved into a slight, shy smile and she nodded, probably in appreciation that someone else had to deal with me now. She backed slightly away from me, subconsciously I thought, as if she wanted nothing from me but distance. Which, after the way I’d treated her, she deserved. Arabelle was a good person, and I’d been too hard on her. Her new partner was Andrew, a young man I recognized as being a recent champion in the junior division, now transitioning to regular pro. Good for her, I thought. Now at a mental distance from each other, with our eyes we wished each other the best.
Not so for Xenia. I reached out to her with my right hand to shake hers. But I kept my left arm wrapped around Rory’s waist. Without taking my hand, she shot us each a brief smile, a look I knew well. I knew this meant she was angry and fiercely competitive. She wanted to beat us and thought she had a shot.
“Does everyone know Andrew?” Arabelle asked.
“Very pleased to meet you,” he said, giving Rory and me a firm handshake. He had blond hair and light blue eyes that made him seem genuine. He was good for Arabelle.
“And this is my new partner, Rory Laudner,” I said.
“Yes, of course. I’ve heard a lot about you,” Andrew said, now wrapping his other hand over the one holding her hand, giving her a double shake. I liked him already.
She giggled.
After introductions, Bob explained how it all worked, which I’d already described to Rory. But it was good for her to hear it again, from the captain. The two ballroom couples would go first; she and I and Xenia and Piotr would be the Latin pair of dancers who took the floor. The other two couples would be alternates in case of injury.
They’d hired formation dancers for the opening presentation, during which the team would be announced. We’d be driven on stage in a caravan, exiting one couple at a time, beginning with Xenia and Piotr, then the other two ballroom couples. Rory and I would exit last, since we were the stars. Both Xenia and Rory flinched when he said this. Women. This was going to be an experience, to put it mildly.
The standard ballroom dancers would go first. A bell would indicate the first couple would leave the floor and the next take it. Same with the Latin dancers. Xenia and Piotr were first, and we’d take over at the sound of the bell.
“You okay, hon? You look like you’re about to toss your cookies,” Bob said to Rory.
I wrapped my arm around her again and gave her a little squeeze.
“Oh I’m fine. I’ll just follow Sasha,” she said, a little squeaky-voiced.
“That’s good, dear. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, after all,” Bob said, laughing. “Now for the actual dances,” he continued, “don’t worry if you don’t have a special routine. We fully expect you to use the ones you’ve prepared for the individual nights. So don’t—”
“We choreographed a special routine,” Xenia interrupted, smiling sweetly at Bob.
“Oh, wow. More than expected. That’s great, then!” He flapped his arms about like wings. The man did like to gesticulate. “Did you guys?” he asked me, a hopeful tone in his voice.
“No, sorry, we didn’t.” I saw Xenia’s smug glare out of the corner of my eye. This was by far the least important part of Blackpool. She was more competitive, and more of an idiot, than I’d thought.
“That’s quite all right, not at all expected. Especially with Rory being so new and all,” Bob said.
Xenia transferred her smug smile to Rory, making me want to kill her.
Bob led us into the main ballroom so he could set the stage and tell us where to make our entrances.
“Wow,” Rory whispered, her eyes glossing over. It was the first time she’d seen the floor. I squeezed her hand. “It’s beautiful. And huge.” Her eyes wandered up to the multi-tiered balconies. “What are they setting up for?” She pointed to maintenance crew as they checked chandeliers, spotlights, and worked.
“The Rising Star competition—the competition for newcomers. It’s tonight.”
“The one I should actually be in.” She laughed.
“I don’t think so,” I answered.
I felt adrenaline surging through her veins. I squeezed her palm again.
“Don’t worry,” she said, reading my mind. Or my actions, rather. “It’s good adrenaline, the kind that will make me do my best, not the type of nervous energy that sometimes paralyzes me.”
This caused me to kiss her sweet little cheek again.
After we marked our own entrances out and watched a run-through of the Rockettes-like introductory number danced by the formation team, we left the ballroom and walked back to the Pavilion so I could talk to Daiyu about the details of the autographing. She hadn’t yet arrived but some of her employees had. I told Rory to browse around while I talked to the company’s publicist and that I’d text her when I was done. Our phones were working much better. We’d tested them several times that morning. But just in case something was again delayed, we agreed to meet back at Daiyu’s large red tent in forty-five minutes.
Rory walked off toward the table closest to us, which bore glittering bejeweled accessories. She looked like a little girl in a fairy tale.
I walked back inside the tent and waited for Daiyu’s publicist to get off the phone. By the time I got all the details I needed—when and where we were signing and doing the photo shoot, and, far more im
portantly, what time we were to arrive to have Rory’s hair and makeup done—forty-five minutes had passed.
I found Rory right outside the tent, admiring some of Daiyu’s fabrics, running her hands along the texture. When I walked closer to her, I saw that she was kind of crouching behind the swaths, peering out and around them. She was looking at someone.
I followed her gaze and saw Micaela examining the fabrics across the way. Her long ebony hair, her razor-high cheekbones, her flawlessly made-up face, her regal stance—she looked perfectly serene, glancing at Rory, shooting her that same magnanimous smile she gave all her fans. Her eyes shifted to me, then back to Rory, and she made the connection. She pressed her lips together, and waved at me.
“Micaela, hello,” I called out to her.
“Sasha,” she said with a pleasant smile and nod, first to me, then to Rory.
That’s all we said to each other. We really had nothing more to say at this point except pleasantries. She wasn’t the least bit fazed I had a new partner. She looked perfectly serene and confident.
“Oh good. I was just going to text you,” I said to Rory, trying to deflect Micaela’s seemingly discomfiting presence. “We’re all done. Ready to practice?” I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her to me. We walked toward the back exit of the Pavilion, she in the nook of my shoulder. I could feel her nerves. “You okay? Don’t let Micaela intimidate you. Of course she’s here. Of course she’s good. Of course she’s the champion. But not for much longer.” I squeezed her.
She nodded, holding her head down. “That’s all very true. But it’s not her.”
“What?”
She took a breath and stopped walking. “You’re not going to believe this, but Cheryl and Luna and all of their friends are here.”
I shook my head. I’d told Rory when she worried before they might try to sabotage us that they never came to competitions they couldn’t perform in—in other words, the international ones that didn’t have pro/am components. What in the world are they doing here?
“It seems like they’re here to cheer on Xenia and Piotr,” she said, answering my unspoken question. “She was walking through the Pavilion and they ran up to her. They were telling her they couldn’t wait to see her tonight and she was going to kill all her competition and definitely win it all. And they were cackling.” Rory’s voice petered out until it was nearly a whisper. She was clearly worried.
As was I, after what Cheryl had done to her at the studio. She wouldn’t get near her again. I’d take care of it.
“Well, good for them,” I said with a shrug. I didn’t want to let Rory know I was the least bit worried. I had to remain solid, strong. “I haven’t known them to go to competitions they had no stake in. But good for them to travel and cheer on their friend, see a bit of the world, broaden their horizons.”
“Yeah, I know you said that,” she said. “And they don’t have any stake, right?”
“What? No, Rory.” I laughed. “This is on a completely different level from the American pro/am comps. They’re nobodies here. Don’t worry about them, okay? They are the last people you should be concerned with. They can’t hurt you even if they wanted to. I promise.”
She looked me hard in the eye and nodded. She trusted me. I was not going to let her down. Ever again.
With all my friends here, I had the resources to ensure she’d do nothing to us. I’d text Valentin. I’d kind of come to his rescue in the past, without really knowing it, back when we were newbies in the U.S. at our first small studio. It was a tiny studio and they hadn’t given us any lockers to put our things in as we taught; we had to keep them in cubbyholes in the lobby. I was teaching a private lesson in the space closest to the front door, and I spotted a beady-eyed little man looking around. He just looked like he was up to no good. I kept an eye on him, and minutes later, saw him walk up to the cubbyholes and pull out Val’s nice black leather satchel.
“Hey!” I yelled just as he ran off.
I ran after him, downstairs—three flights—outside, up Eleventh Avenue toward Hell’s Kitchen. He wasn’t too swift on his feet and I had him tackled within a block and a half. Bastard. I jumped him and took him down easily.
“Man, that had my passport in it,” Val said when I returned, holding his bag. It was two weeks before Blackpool. If it was stolen, he would have had to return to Russia to get a new one before going abroad. “I’d have missed the competition. I owe you big time, man.”
I never thought of it as us owing each other anything. And I knew he didn’t either. It was just a saying. We were friends. Friends helped each other when in need. Just like he’d offered to help find Rory when I was clearly distraught over losing her the first night here.
Anyway, Val’s competition was on a completely different night than mine, as were most of my friends’. We all had totally different schedules. I knew they’d help me out now. What I was far more concerned about was Rory’s predisposition to let her anxiety take over. That’s what would really sabotage us. I had to find a way to conquer that. Fortunately, Greta was due in town this afternoon.
Chapter Ten
Before practice, Rory used the ladies room to freshen up. I used the time to call Valentin. We’d verified the first night here we had the same numbers as before.
“Hey, what’s up?” he answered.
“Yeah, man, I need a big favor,” I said.
“Sure, shoot,”
I told him about Cheryl and Luna, describing them down to the last detail, and said I needed a lookout to make sure they were in someone’s sight all the time. He promised he’d be on it. I found some photos on my phone Luna had sent me of us at the O.C. competition and shot them over.
Got your back, man, he texted back.
Rory emerged and I led her through the ballroom again, to a black door built into the wall, which opened into a hall with several doors on each side. I opened the one on my left, which led to a small practice room, and extended my arm, inviting her to enter. She laughed again, and I realized what a maze this place really was.
As soon as she was in, I closed the door and whisked her around toward me, pulling her close and kissing her deeply. It was the first time, outside of the hotel, that we were actually alone and had some privacy. I wanted to get her mind off Cheryl and her cronies, and I also needed my Rory.
“Mmmm,” she moaned. “I could do this the rest of the day.”
I released her and took a long inhale, then slowly and seductively unzipped her jacket, my fingertips trailing down her clavicle, to her nipples, to her belly, where they unfortunately had to stop. The jacket unzipped completely, I whipped it open and tore it off her shoulders, revealing her cute dance clothes. We both laughed. She knew what this was—an homage to her insistence on dancing naked together. Which we were going to pretend to do here. I kissed her again, deeply, my tongue massaging hers, exploring her mouth, plunging toward her throat, before letting her go and backing off. Another deep inhale.
“Okay, prrrrractice,” I said, holding up a finger as if she were the one misbehaving.
“Don’t you shake your finger at me. You’re the one being naughty.” She narrowed her eyes and gave me a sexy pout.
I kept a straight face. “Rrrrrrumba!”
We went through all five dances, beginning with our favorite. She was nervous at the start of the rumba. I could tell. I understood. This was for real. She was really here and we were really doing this. I felt her confidence literally slide from her head to her toes, and leave her body.
“I’m sorry,” she started.
“Don’t talk. Don’t think. Just dance. Only dance.” My voice was strong and commanding. She didn’t dare disobey. I was serious but not frustrated. Not yet, anyway.
We kept going. She made a few more flubs but she did as I said, didn’t apologize and kept going.
“Don’t think. Just move. Just dance,” I repeated whenever I felt her confidence begin to falter again. “Feel only my body, think only about my body, leadin
g yours.”
Slowly, I felt her nervous energy begin to dissipate. And she made no more mistakes, at least none of consequence that would show to an audience.
At the end of the first full run-through, I released her hand and walked briskly around the small floor, holding my head back and running my fingers through my hair. It helped me to do this to release my pent-up nervous energy. The routine wasn’t perfect, but it was there. It was good for a first time, I had to admit, although I’d always been one to get crazed about lack of perfection. Especially so close to the actual competition.
“See how much better it is when you just focus on the movement and don’t allow yourself to think?” I said to her, forcing my tone to remain soft.
“Yes, yes, definitely,” she answered, voice slightly shaking, though I could tell she was trying to control it.
“Yes, there were mistakes. But this is the time to make them. To get them out of our system. Most of them were minor, anyway,” I continued, partly as self-assurance.
“You know what they say,” she said. “That an imperfect practice leads to an excellent performance. And vice versa. So we’re good.” She smiled sweetly at me and raised her eyebrows.
“Is that what they say?”
“Yes,” she said, walking toward me. She could tell I was struggling with my patience. It was now her turn to be the calm, strong one. “Sasha, we’re going to be fine. More than fine. Far, far more than fine. Our dancing is excellent. We’re winners. We both know that. It’s only ourselves we have to overcome. And we’re going to do that.”
She reached out and held my hands in hers. I closed my eyes for a few moments, then opened them and pulled her to me, kissing her forehead.
“You’re right. As always. You’re right,” I whispered.
“Damn right, I am.” She laughed.
***
“I’m famished. Are you?” I asked after practice, hoping the sight of Arabelle or Cheryl hadn’t brought back any of Rory’s body negativity.
“I am!” she said with a sweet smile, letting me know she could read my thoughts—and that her anorexia spectrum disorder wasn’t returning.
