Wallflower In Bloom

by Claire Cook

  “If I actually wanted to, I would,” I said sweetly.

  I rolled my eyes at Karen, just to let her know this wasn’t a voluntary conversation. She didn’t smile.

  “Fine,” Joanie said, “be a bitch. Do you have plants you want me to water or anything?”

  “They’re all dead,” I said, “but thanks for asking.”

  Joanie let out a puff of air right into my ear. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

  I sighed. “Thanks. I’m fine.”

  “Good. Oh, and Tag wants to know what his schedule looks like for the next few weeks. And he can’t remember where he put his password to log onto his computer.”

  I clicked the End Call button and handed the phone back to Karen.

  She shook her head. “And your mother wants you to call your brother.”

  “Sorry about all this,” I said.

  “If you’re having cell phone issues, let me know and I’ll hook you up,” she said as she wiped the phone on her sleeve.

  Ilya leaned back so he could look me right in the eyes. “I am a world-class teacher. A world-class dancer. I am the best at what I do. The best in the world.”

  “That’s very reassur—”

  “Shhh.” He started dancing again, turning us to the right and then to the left. “I can mold you, I can shape you. I can tear you down and build you into what I need you to be. I have created champions out of nothing. Out of air.”

  We looped around the perimeter of the room, spiraling in circles within a larger circle. It was like being on a Ferris wheel, only sideways, or on one of those awful cup-and-saucer rides. I wanted him to stop, but I didn’t, because I knew the room would just keep spinning. I wondered if a DWTS contestant had ever puked on her partner.

  “I was a world champion before I was seventeen. My father was a world champion before he was seventeen. And his father before him. My mother was my father’s professional partner. Together they have won sixteen international Latin dance championships.”

  “Wow,” I said, keeping my response to one word. I knew my limits, and it was the best I could do under the circumstances. I was thoroughly amazed at Ilya’s ability to dance and talk at the same time.

  We were still circling, but now we were crisscrossing the room in a figure-eight pattern. I was trying not to count the number of times I’d stepped briefly on my partner’s toes, but we had to be approaching double digits by now.

  “In my house, our entire world was built on one principle: Live to dance and dance to live. Dance was our religion.”

  “Not that I’m making excuses,” I said, “but I was brought up Catholic.”

  He stopped. I stopped, too, but the room kept spinning just like I knew it would. My mouth went dry and I began salivating the way I always did just before my stomach started heaving. I knew my only hope was to keep breathing, long and slow, in through the nose and out through the mouth.

  “Oh, boy,” my partner said as he watched me breathe.

  “Sorry,” I said. In the short time we’d been together it was at least my eighth apology.

  “Did your father never dance with you?”

  I took another slow breath before I answered. “Of course he did. My whole family danced around the house all the time when I was growing up, but only to the Grateful Dead.”

  Ilya seemed to think about that, or maybe he was thinking he’d be grateful to be dead himself right about now.

  “Show me,” he said.

  I put my hands over my head and waved them back and forth. Then I swiveled side to side as I played imaginary tambourines with both hands. Or maybe they were imaginary maracas.

  Ilya pressed a palm to his forehead, like Homer Simpson, only classier and without the doh. “You have no formal dance training at all?”

  He looked so sad I just wanted to cheer him up. “Of course I do. Intro to ballet, jazz, and tap. I can even Shuffle Off to Buffalo.”

  He raised one eyebrow. Most people have to raise them both together; he was that coordinated.

  I realized he was waiting for me to show him.

  Alone in a hotel room in a strange city, dancing my heart out, I’d fantasized this moment a hundred times before.

  I took a deep breath and headed for Buffalo. In my new dance shoes it actually worked pretty well, as long as Buffalo was to my left. But unfortunately, when I tried to shuffle back to the Buffalo on my right, I tripped.

  I took a couple of running steps, trying to find my balance. Ilya caught me before I fell.

  He pulled me back into dance position. He straddled my legs and started bending me over backward as if I were a reluctant Gumby. “Turn your head. Like this.”

  I turned my head. “Gee, that’s comforta—”

  “Shhh.” He bent me as far as I could go, then circled me around from the waist. He lifted me up. He started leaning away from me. “Put your weight on me.”

  “Seriously?”

  By way of an answer he dragged me across the shiny hardwood floor. I could feel the toes of my new dance shoes getting scuffmarks.

  “Even you I can turn into a dancer,” he said.

  Up until that moment, I was still under the illusion that I actually had some skills, some talent, even if my shimmering potential had been cut short as a child.

  I waited till he stopped sweeping the floor with me and stood me up again. “I’m that bad?” I asked as casually as I could.

  “No,” he said. “It would be worse if you had no rhythm.”

  It wasn’t much, but it made me ridiculously happy. It was all I could do not to break into a jazzy rendition of “I Got Rhythm.”

  Ilya held me by one hand and walked me over so he could pick up a tiny remote. He pushed a button and changed the music on the stereo to something sultry and sexy.

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  “Shhh.” He brought me back to the center of the room. He pressed his front side to my back side and grabbed my hands. He started circling both our hips seductively, completely controlling the movement of mine.

  Then he started circling our hips in the other direction, around and around and around again.

  He stopped suddenly, his front still pressed to my back. I waited to see what would happen next. Maybe he was finished and it was time for a cigarette.

  “Aaaaaaaaaand,” he said, moving our hips in a slow, teasing circle.

  “Give-it-to-me,” he said, our hips doing a sudden bump and grind.

  “Aaaaaaaaaand,” he said again.

  I held my breath.

  “Give-it-to-me.”

  I pressed my lips together so my teeth wouldn’t rattle while we bumped.

  “Aaaaaaaaaand.”

  I heard a sigh and realized it was coming from me.

  “Give-it-to-me.”

  If Mitchell had danced like this, I might have tried harder to make things work.

  Ilya let go of one hand and spun me away from him with the other. He reeled me back in like a yo-yo. Then he put his hands on my shoulders.

  He shook his head. “But we have only seven days. Even for the best of the best like me, this is an impossibility.”

  Wouldn’t you know it, just when I was starting to get into this. I wondered if he was going to try to trade me in for a newer model. Say it’s not so, Ilya, I wanted to plead.

  I waited.

  He didn’t say anything.

  I couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. “So what does that mean?”

  “Basically,” my DWTS partner said, “it means we’ll do what we can.”

  Practice what you preach, and remember that preaching takes practice.

  I fell asleep like a ton of bricks, maybe even two tons. When I woke up I was a whole new simile: I felt like I’d been run over by a golf cart.

  “That fish bowl is looking pretty good to me,” I said to Ginger and Fred.

  I inched my way out of bed and hobbled into my little white bathroom. My calves felt as if they’d atrophied overnight and were now pulling m
y heels and knees in to meet each other. The muscles of my arms and shoulders were actually trembling, and the rest of me wasn’t far behind.

  Reaching in to turn on the shower was a challenge. So was stepping over the side of the tub. I closed my eyes and waited for the hot water to work its magic.

  When the water turned cold, I got out. It was possible that I was a little bit less stiff, but it was also possible that I was imagining it because I wanted it to be true. I wrapped a towel around me and hobbled out to my little white kitchen. I put an English muffin into the little white toaster that I’d discovered toasted only one side of the bread. While it was half toasting, I started a pot of scentless coffee.

  I couldn’t believe it was morning already. I picked up my cell phone from the counter and thought about turning it on. Not because Joanie Baloney wanted me to, but because it might be a good idea to check messages one of these days. Tag and my parents were settled in at home by now, and basically this was a golf week for Tag. And a bowling week for my parents. Tag would be churning out some new chiasmuses between holes and texting me all day long with them. He’d want to talk strategy. He’d want me to hang out with him. He’d want to yell at me for what I’d done.

  Just before I’d climbed into bed last night, I’d thought again about calling Steve Moretti. But who even answers their phone anymore? If only my father had written my e-mail address instead of my phone number on that little piece of paper he gave him. Although e-mail seemed pretty formal these days, too. Maybe I could text Steve instead. But it would be hard to fit whatever it was I had to say in a text message. I mean, yo, whassup? didn’t quite cover it. So maybe I could text him to ask when he might be available for a phone call, because what if I just called and took him by surprise and he didn’t even remember me and I could hear it in his voice. Or worse, what if he didn’t want to talk to me anymore and instead of just ignoring the ring until it went to voice mail, he pushed the End Call button, the ultimate blow-off. Somehow not answering my text would be less painful. At least I could pretend it had gotten lost in cyberspace.

  I sat on the couch and gazed up at the poster of the DWTS mirror ball trophy that I’d adhered to the opposite wall with four chewed pieces of Orbit spearmint gum, since I hadn’t thought to buy tape. Back when we were in junior high and mirror balls were called disco balls, Tag was the first person I knew to get one. He hung it from a hook on the ceiling of his room and rigged up a spotlight with interchangeable lenses made out of blue, red, yellow, and green plastic. When you turned on the spotlight and gave the disco ball a spin, hundreds of mirrored facets flashed endless patterns of light all over the room. I used to sneak in there when Tag wasn’t home, find a good song on his transistor radio, like Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” or the Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian,” and dance for as long as I dared.

  I closed my eyes and meditated on what it would be like to stun the whole world with my amazing grace and charm and dancing ability. To carry the mirror ball trophy home with me, hell, maybe even buy it its own first-class seat on the plane. To hold the glittering orb in my hands as I assumed my rightful place as the new family star.

  The coffeemaker gurgled and sent a final spurt of coffee into the pot, snapping me back to the new day. I put my cell back down on the counter. I had enough going on. As soon as I got the dancing thing under control, I’d reevaluate. But right now it was all about survival.

  The English muffin popped up. On the one hand, I knew how much better it would taste if I turned the halves around so the other sides could toast, and on the other hand, I was really, really hungry. And if yesterday’s busy schedule and my fear of eating in front of my partner and his rock-hard abs were indications, peanut butter on an English muffin might be the high-calorie point of my day.

  I slathered the peanut butter on thick, poured a cup of coffee, and added some milk. Then I grabbed the fish food and brought it into the bedroom so Fred and Ginger and I could have breakfast together.

  When I opened the apartment door to leave, the super was standing there with his fist up, ready to knock.

  He switched hands and held out his cell phone. “It’s your sister.”

  “Which one?” I said.

  The super glared at me. “Listen, lady, this isn’t in my job description.” He was barefoot and his hair was wet. A trench coat was belted around his waist like a bathrobe, and water was dripping onto the linoleum floor.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I just remembered. I don’t have a sister.”

  Joanie Baloney’s voice squeaked from the super’s cell. “She does, too.”

  I reached for the phone. “What?”

  “Listen, I’m just trying to be a good sister. Mom and Dad and Tag are never going to speak to you again if you mess things up. Oh, and Dad says Mom wants you to call Tag, but honestly, I can just give him a message for you.”

  “Everything’s under control,” I said. I was pretty sure it was even true, at least if you factored out the dancing part.

  “Tag was just thinking how much easier it would be for you if I took a few things off your plate.”

  The super made circles with his index finger, telling me to wrap it up, Hollywood style. A small puddle was forming between his feet.

  “Sure,” I said. “That makes total sense.”

  There was a beat of silence. “Great,” Joanie said.

  “Okay, well, have a nice day.” I couldn’t find the hang up button so I just handed the phone to the super.

  “Wait,” Joanie yelled.

  The super shook his head and gave me the phone again.

  “What’s the password?”

  “Guess,” I said. As I handed the phone back to the super yet again, I took a moment to imagine everything grinding to a halt without me around to manage things. I had to admit, I was thoroughly enjoying hearing my little sister squirm.

  I found my way to the practice studio without a hitch. Ilya was already there. If he noticed that the black yoga pants and baggy T-shirt I was wearing today looked a lot like the black yoga pants and baggy T-shirt I wore yesterday, he didn’t let on.

  I sat on the edge of the small practice stage, easing out of my flip-flops and strapping on my dance shoes. I’d expected blisters, but I couldn’t find a single one. Amazingly, even though my feet hurt, they didn’t hurt any more than the rest of me.

  Ilya and I had practiced for more than four hours yesterday. The DWTS rules said that you could only practice for five hours a day, and you had to take a thirty-minute break every two hours. You also had to take one day off a week, but since I’d already had the first seven days off, I was pretty sure that was not going to happen this week.

  Ilya was already dancing around the room with an imaginary partner. I had to admit she was a lot lighter on her feet than I was. If I tiptoed away now, I wondered if he’d even miss me.

  I pushed myself up into a standing position.

  Ilya stopped. Maybe he heard my muscles scream.

  He smiled. “Today the real work begins.”

  A wave of buyer’s remorse hit me with tsunamilike force. What had I gotten myself into? I had a perfectly nice little life back home in Marshbury. I was good at my job and almost never felt like I was in over my head. Now I was so far over my head that I wasn’t sure it was still attached to my aching body.

  Maybe my best bet would be to tuck my tail between my legs and catch the next plane home and face the inevitable family meeting.

  “What,” my mother would say while one of Afterwife’s dinners heated in Tag’s professional-grade oven, “in the world were you thinking, Deirdre?”

  “Apparently I wasn’t,” I’d say.

  I’d peer down at my folded hands. The more pitiful I made myself look, the faster this would go and then we could eat. I was pretty sure I smelled Afterwife’s famous turkey-asparagus potpie.

  “What a loozah thing to do,” Tag would say. Over the years, he’d developed just a hint of Madonna’s fake British enunciation. His Boston a
ccent came back only when he was really, really mad.

  “Give her a chance, son,” my father would say. “I think the guiding principle here is that we’ve all got to practice what you preach and remember that preaching takes practice.”

  “Not now, Dad,” Tag would say.

  “I think,” Joanie Baloney would say, “what we really need to discuss here is who can best handle Tag’s interests from this point forward.”

  I’d glare at her. “Oh, shut up.”

  She’d glare back. “You shut up.”

  Maybe I’d stay in the DWTS competition after all. I took a deep, ambition-building breath.

  “I’m pretty sore,” I said. “Do you think we could take it a little slower, just for today?”

  Ilya crossed his arms over his chest. He was wearing jeans and a tight purple short-sleeved shirt unbuttoned one button too low. Possibly two. His resemblance to Felix the Cat had completely disappeared. Today he looked like a dancer. I could only hope this would help my focus.

  Ilya did his famous one-eyebrow raise. “No problem. Perhaps we should skip today entirely given that you are pretty sore. There’s a McDonald’s around the corner. Perhaps we could grab a breakfast sandwich and a double order of fries, and hang around and chitchat until the mall opens.”

  I knew he was kidding, but I had to admit those McDonald’s fries sounded pretty good right about now. And I still needed to buy underwear.

  “And then, in six days, when our first performance puts us. . .”

  Ilya ran a hand through his slick-backed hair and stopped halfway, his fingers still in his hair.

  “. . . At. The. Bottom. Of the. Leaderboard. . .”

  I closed my eyes.

  “Perhaps we can celebrate our embarrassment with a double-dip ice-cream cone.”

  I pictured the huge black DWTS leaderboard sign with Ilya’s and my names way down at the very bottom. What would our combined scores on the first dance be? 14? 12? 6? How low could that leaderboard go?

  Whether or not you are good at discipline, discipline she is always good for you.

  I couldn’t think of another option, so I opened my eyes.