Summer Attractions

by Beth Bolden

  “No, no, no,” Lina cried out, “not like that! Like this!” Finally Lina seemed to have given up on Jemma’s miniscule but useless adjustments and came over behind her, making free use of Jemma’s limbs, rearranging them herself.

  “There,” Lina said triumphantly. Jemma looked in the mirror and didn’t know how it was somehow easier for Lina to arrange Jemma’s own arms than Jemma herself, but that seemed to be another mystery in a long line that she’d encountered since they’d arrived at the samba school.

  Jemma heard a snicker behind her, and briefly contemplated turning and shooting a glare in Gabe’s direction, but that would also mean disturbing the effect that Lina had finally achieved in her upper body. So Jemma had to settle with giving him a pointed look in the reflection of the full length mirror lining one side of the dance studio.

  “And you!” Lina exclaimed, moving away from Jemma finally and heading in Gabe’s direction. “You’re no better! Your mäe would be appalled, after all the reals she spent on your dance lessons.”

  “And here I thought you were a newbie like me,” Jemma said smugly.

  “Oh, no, no, he should be much better than he is.”

  “I’ve not danced the samba in fifteen years,” Gabe whined.

  “No excuses!” Lina grunted and clapped her hands together loudly. “Now that we have the posture and the arms correct, we do footwork.”

  Jemma held back a bit of a groan. She couldn’t even figure out how to hold her arms right; how was she going to manage any footwork?

  As it turned out, the footwork itself was not complicated. It was all about bending and switching the leading foot. In fact, Jemma thought she was actually catching the hang of it, her hairline growing damper as she moved along the slower music that Lina had provided, but then it all abruptly stopped and Hurricane Lina was back.

  “No!” she exclaimed loudly. “You have no soul!” Without another word, Lina’s hands were on her hips, pushing and pulling them much as she’d done with Jemma’s arms.

  Jemma tried to find the rhythm, the slow, sensuous grind that Lina seemed to be looking for, but after a few minutes, it was becoming clear it wasn’t something that came as naturally to her as Lina hoped.

  She threw up her arms in exasperation and threw a confused look back at Gabe. “You are sleeping together, yes?” she asked.

  Jemma’s mouth fell open. She glanced up, completely startled, and found Gabe’s eyes in the mirror’s reflection. He too looked a bit floored, like that question wasn’t something he’d been expecting.

  “Oh, please,” Lina continued. “It’s obvious. And natural. But here, you come over, Gabriel, we fix Jemma right up.” She beckoned Gabe over, and with a somewhat reluctant expression, he came, stopping directly behind Jemma. She could feel the heat of him through her thin cotton tank and she couldn’t help the shiver that went up her spine when Lina took his hand and placed it rather forcefully on the curve of Jemma’s hip.

  “Now,” Lina said, “now, you will dance together. And remember the rhythm. Remember the way you feel together. Yes?”

  As if Jemma could forget the way they moved together. Some days it felt like she’d always known the way Gabe felt, slow and steady and maddening as he rocked into her, the way his hips stuttered when he got close. It had only been a few weeks, but it was already beginning to feel like forever.

  “Ah, yes,” Lina crowed with satisfaction as they began to move together, and it was as she predicted, Jemma thought ruefully and with a trace of embarrassment, they moved much better together than they did apart.

  “I guess we aren’t very subtle,” Gabe murmured into her ear, his warm breath over her sensitive skin giving her goosebumps.

  “I can’t imagine why,” Jemma retorted, loving the way his hands touched her body, fingers skimming over the curve of her hips like he couldn’t get enough. He’d never been particularly shy about displaying his desire in private, but he’d been somewhat reticent in public, with the exception of the first night when they’d practically humped on the dance floor. But now, he held and moved her in a rhythm so sexually explicit that she couldn’t help but flush at Lina’s presence in the room.

  But Lina seemed supremely unconcerned—even pleased—as she walked around them, giving their movements a critical eye.

  “Good, good,” was all she said, though. As if all this was perfectly normal and expected, and maybe, Jemma thought, it was.

  They were working on a couple’s version of the samba—Lina had pronounced them “more than ready to move onto that part of the lesson”—when a group of men about Gabe’s age walked in, chattering in Portuguese. They took one look at Gabe and broke off into exclaimed shouts. The dancing stopped then, and Gabe greeted them all with embraces and responses in equally rapid Portuguese.

  He turned to her after a minute or so of excited discussion. “Do you think you can continue with Lina on your own?” he asked. “There’s a pickup soccer game.”

  She didn’t really want him to leave her with Lina, who was liable to eat her whole and then spit her out again, but the enthusiasm in his eyes gleamed bright and Jemma found she couldn’t tell him no.

  “Go on,” she said, “I’ll be fine here.”

  “We’ll come watch in an hour or so,” Lina chimed in. “I’ll take of her, Gabriel.”

  The men left with Gabe, who gave her a quick peck on the cheek and a last reluctant caress to her hip.

  “Now,” Lina said, “we dance.”

  Jemma shot her a disbelieving look as she wiped the sweat off her hairline. “I thought we were already dancing?”

  Lina just laughed and turned back to the stereo.

  “You know,” Lina said, as she and Jemma walked down the sidewalk to the empty lot where she said they liked to play pickup games, “I might make a dancer out of you if we had lessons every day.”

  “I’m not sure whether I’m flattered or regretful,” Jemma said. Thankfully the buildings provided some shade as they walked down the street, or else she might be sweating off what was left of her makeup. She’d tried to repair part of the damage in the tiny bathroom in the dance studio, but the mirror had shown her frizzy hair and flushed cheeks, and there wasn’t much to be done about either of those things.

  “You’re definitely flattered,” Lina stated.

  “I’ve never thought I could be a dancer,” Jemma confessed.

  “You’ve got great natural rhythm,” Lina said, which was the nicest thing she’d said to her since they’d first met nearly two hours before. “I mean, you dance like a frigid virgin, but good rhythm.”

  Jemma could only laugh. She hadn’t known what to make of Lina’s forceful honesty, but she’d finally settled on amused. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “You should,” Lina said as they crossed the street toward the lot where a number of observers had gathered on a set of makeshift bleachers. The lot was a pitted, cracked concrete field, and the only greens were wild grasses growing between the crevices. The goals were set up with old, battered traffic cones that at one point might have been orange, but had been baked by the sun into a pale salmon shade. Lina looked over at Jemma and raised an eyebrow, practically daring her to say something. Jemma wisely kept her mouth shut.

  “Do you ever watch football at home?” Lina asked as they joined the crowd lining the edges of the “field.” Jemma spotted Gabe, who’d changed into a pair of athletic shorts and taken off his shirt. She was so distracted by how amazing he looked nearly naked that she nearly missed Lina’s question.

  And as it turned out, she was sufficiently distracted, she did the two things she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do. “Yeah, all the time actually. I have a good friend who plays. He actually got picked first in the NFL draft this last year,” Jemma said blithely, only realizing the fundamental error she’d made as Lina shot her a dirty look.

  She’d mixed up football with American football.

  And she’d mentioned Colin, which was something she was trying no
t to do.

  “You Americans and your heathen football,” Lina said, the judgment rife in her tone.

  Jemma shrugged awkwardly, tearing her eyes away from Gabe stretching so she wouldn’t make another humiliating mistake because she was distracted by the way his abs flexed.

  Just last night, she’d touched them, sliding her hands down his broad chest, right down to where his shorts began . . .

  “Should I leave you two alone?” Lina asked with amusement, gesturing to the distance between Gabe and Jemma.

  “Uhhh,” Jemma said, perfectly aware that she’d not only been caught red-handed by Lina, but by Gabe himself, who was looking quite satisfied himself. Like maybe he’d actually been showing off, that jerk.

  A really hot jerk, but still a jerk.

  “You’re good for him, I think,” Lina offered, as though Jemma had asked, even though she most definitely had not.

  “We’re . . . I guess we’re not really together,” Jemma was forced to awkwardly explain. “We just met.”

  Lina shot Jemma an incredulous look. “And yet you nearly had sex in my studio.”

  “You wanted us to do that!” Jemma exclaimed. “You said I was dancing like a prude!”

  “Right, well, you were,” Lina said dismissively, as if this explained everything. “Now, the game’s starting.” Jemma glanced over at her, and couldn’t miss the amused expression on her face. “Do you need me to explain the rules?”

  “No,” Jemma ground out, “I know the rules.”

  “Good, then maybe you can actually focus on the game instead of on your boyfriend’s ass,” Lina pointed out, sounding quite pleased with herself.

  Jemma had said she knew the rules of soccer, and she swore she did, but there seemed to be both a flexible freeform and yet a greater finesse in this simple pickup game played in Gabe’s old favela.

  The men moved with such grace, the ball flashing between them so quickly Jemma would’ve lost track of it if it hadn’t been bright yellow against the dull gray of the concrete. And despite that he’d never mentioned playing on his own time, Gabe held his own with the others, swiftly stealing the ball from another player more than once and heading down toward the opposing team’s goal, his body a blur in the late afternoon sun.

  “He’s really good,” Jemma observed, after Gabe’s team celebrated another goal that he himself had assisted on, more to herself than to Lina, who greeted this comment with another eye roll.

  “Of course he’s good,” Lina said. “He grew up here.”

  “How long have you known him?”

  Lina leaned against the fence, her dark hair gleaming in the setting sun. “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know him,” she admitted, her voice growing softer than it had all afternoon. Jemma, who hadn’t gotten a single whiff of romantic interest, tensed despite knowing better. Gabe wasn’t hers. They were just . . . having some fun. That was all.

  “Oh don’t worry,” Lina laughed. “It’s not like that. Hard to see someone as a man when you watched him pee out the front door as a three year old.”

  Jemma laughed, feeling her heart relax. The dream she wasn’t even quite voicing to herself that they could discover a deeper connection when they returned to LA was still safe. He wasn’t planning on losing his head over a gorgeous Brazilian beauty like Lina.

  “We’re practically like family,” Lina continued. “So . . . just . . . no.”

  “I thought he moved away when he was ten?” Jemma asked.

  “I stayed with him for a while in LA, when I was a teenager. With Gabe and his mom. But I came back here a few years ago, opened the dance studio. I wasn’t meant to leave. I missed Rio too much.” This she said wistfully.

  “It’s a beautiful place,” Jemma agreed. “I’m surprised Gabe didn’t want to come back either.”

  Lina waved a hand. “Oh, he wouldn’t have. He has a life in America now. He moved on. But me, well, Rio’s too close to my soul. I tried to leave and it didn’t take.”

  The game was drawing to a close, and even though it had seemed mostly friendly, Jemma could see the edge of desperation as the opposing team tried to get one last goal in. “Trying to make the score respectable,” Lina murmured smugly as one of the players made a play to sneak the ball past Gabe. He twisted his body suddenly and the player hit him like a wall, going to the ground in a heap of limbs. Someone whistled, and the game was over. Jemma looked away from where the man had fallen, and the smear of fresh blood on the dirty concrete.

  “Hey,” Gabe said when he jogged over, sweat gleaming in the setting sun. She wanted to reach out and slide her fingers along his skin, but was suddenly and acutely aware of the impression she was probably giving to everyone who’d gathered.

  No doubt, much like Lina, everyone who saw her look at him had a very good idea of what was happening between them. Maybe Gabe, who’d never really said a word about what the end of the Games might mean, might not want everyone to know.

  “Great game,” Jemma said, resisting the urge to touch by tucking her hands behind her back.

  “I’m going to be paying for it tomorrow,” he said wryly. “I don’t play that often anymore.”

  Jemma wanted to tell him that he’d looked perfect, graceful and sure and effortless, but she’d caught the amused look on Lina’s face and so she didn’t. She’d already made it far too obvious how gone she was for him; no need to add further ammunition.

  “Stop by the studio if you want a shower,” Lina said. “You know how to get in. I’ve got to get set up for tonight.” She said her goodbyes and went off with a different group of young women who’d been standing on the other side of the empty lot.

  “Dancers from her school,” Gabe explained as he pulled on his white t-shirt. “You could go with them, if you want. I’m sure Lina wouldn’t mind if you tagged along.”

  “I’m certain she would,” Jemma said, because she couldn’t tell him she didn’t want to leave him.

  He laughed. “She’s a bit blunt, yeah?”

  “Like a club,” Jemma agreed, as they started retracing their steps back to the studio. There was quiet between they walked down the narrow, winding streets, lined with brick buildings, some of the concrete crumbling with age and neglect. Weeds grew through every crack in the old, pitted sidewalk, but every few feet, someone had painted a vibrant, colorful design.

  “Her heart’s in the right place, though. Came back from a great life in LA and started this place,” Gabe said, as they reached the dance studio, tucked back from the main road off an alley. He slipped out a brick in the wall and dug out the key that was hidden there.

  “Isn’t that a little unsafe?” Jemma asked as he unlocked the door and let them in.

  He just shrugged as they walked through the darkened waiting room through the studio they’d danced in earlier that day, and to the back, where there were changing rooms and a shower.

  Jemma sat down on one of the benches and tried not to look as he shed the shorts and his boxer briefs. The mirror behind him gave her a flawless view of an even more flawless ass, and her mouth was a little dry. Because you walked here and it’s warm tonight, Jemma told herself, not because Gabe is hot. You’ve seen him every day for almost two weeks. You should be used to it by now.

  “I know it seems unsafe to outsiders, and it is unsafe to outsiders,” Gabe explained. “But in the favela, we protect each other. We look out for each other. If someone broke into Lina’s dance studio and stole something, they’d find themselves in big trouble.”

  “With the police?”

  He shook his head and laughed. “We’re our own police here.”

  “You protect your own,” Jemma said softly, even though he’d already walked from the room into the bathroom and the running water no doubt drowned out her words.

  His explanation helped her understand a little better why he’d been so determined to protect Nick—and then in Nick’s place, her. Because while they weren’t a traditional neighborhood or even a family unit, they were
all still connected. And Gabe’s desire to protect people he cared about would extend to her, even if he’d never met her.

  There should’ve been a part of her disappointed, because she’d wanted to believe that his need to keep her safe was motivated from a different place, but all the realization did was make it crystal clear that he was the sort of person she wanted to be with. Now, and in LA. For whatever time they had left in Rio, and for a long time after.

  Jemma didn’t know how to make that happen, but she was determined to at least try.

  When they emerged back onto the streets, dusk had fallen, and it turned out, nighttime in the favela on the evening of a street party was completely different than the day. Jemma could already hear the pounding, relentless beat of the samba and a distant cheer.

  As they walked closer to the center of the neighborhood, the music grew louder, more insistent. “It’s a little wild,” Gabe warned, as if he’d been able to read the hesitancy in her mind. “If you don’t like it, we can go.”

  The last thing Jemma was going to do was deprive Gabe of a chance to enjoy something he hadn’t gotten to experience in years. And the truth was, she was determined to enjoy it herself.

  The center square of the favela was blocked off by cars, speakers mounted on the hoods of cars and in the beds of pickups. Lights were scattered through the edges of the square. There were long tables of food on one side of the square, the medley of dishes making it obvious as they passed it that it was a neighborhood effort. And the middle of the square? It writhed with dancers, every body moving to the booming rhythm as though they’d been born to it.

  Gabe reached over and grasped her hand, giving her a reassuring squeeze. “Do you want to eat?” he asked. “A drink?”

  The other side of the square was one long makeshift bar, the older women and young boys all mixing up drinks for anyone who had a few reals. With the bloom of nerves in her stomach, Jemma pointed to a table and they stopped in front of it. A few words of Portuguese exchanged and a few bills, and he was giving her a plastic cup that gave off a strong aroma of alcohol when she held it to her lips.