Wallflower In Bloom

by Claire Cook

  Tag smiled. “Seriously. I gotta hand it to you, Dee. This is one genius way to extend my brand.”

  Bright and early the next morning, I was reminded how much my brother hated to be alone.

  “Why don’t you call Dirk?” I said. “Maybe he can get you a cameo as a hound dog on Animal Planet. Now that would be a great way to extend your brand.”

  Tag stretched and rubbed his eyes. He was wearing jeans but hadn’t put on a shirt yet. He’d pigged out on pizza and beer last night and there wasn’t an ounce of bloat on him. If I’d done that, I probably would have woken up five pounds heavier.

  “I was thinking I’d just tag along with you,” Tag said.

  Tag tagging along was an old joke, so I didn’t even bother to smile. “No, you can’t come with me. You can drop me off, you can borrow my rental car, but you absolutely cannot come with me. Rehearsals are private.”

  I wasn’t too sure how Karen the producer would feel about me loaning out the Land Rover, but I was going to have to pick my battles here. And apparently Tag hadn’t been able to handle renting his own car all by himself. I was actually surprised he’d managed to book a flight and figure out which one was the taxi. Unless Joanie Baloney had made his travel arrangements for him.

  I’d have to think about how to deal with Joanie later.

  I handed Tag half a peanut butter English muffin and put another one in the little white toaster.

  He took a sip of his coffee. “This coffee sucks. It has no smell.”

  “So go to Starbucks,” I said. I was standing in the kitchen. Since there was only room for one person, Tag was standing in the little dining area off to the side of the kitchen. He put one bare foot up on the seat of the chair, which really pissed me off.

  “Somebody has to sit there, you know,” I said.

  “I think several thousand people already have,” he said. “This place is a pit.”

  It was fine for me to call this place a pit, but where did my pit-crashing brother get off calling it a pit?

  I decided to save that question for another time, too, since I didn’t want to be late for rehearsal. I grabbed a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt off the back of the chair and headed for my bedroom.

  I fed Ginger and Fred. While they were eating I whispered, “Listen, I know he’s a little bit nuts, but underneath he’s a good person. And I wouldn’t let him near you if I thought you were in any danger.”

  Tag had managed to find his shirt and sneakers all by himself and was waiting by the front door with the keys to the Land Rover. When I held out my hand for the keys, he actually gave them to me.

  Just like us, everybody and their brother were on the road this morning. But even in the heavy traffic it was only a twenty-minute ride to the rehearsal studios. Tag channel-surfed and adjusted the bass on the radio while I focused on driving. I’d been feeling so good yesterday, but now with Tag here, my rhythm was off. The interrupted sleep had left me fuzzy, and I was torn between wanting to put Tag on the next plane home and being relieved that he was here.

  Sister Sledge started blasting out “We Are Family.” Instead of changing the station, Tag actually turned up the volume.

  I reached for the knob and turned it down. “Don’t start. It’s way too early.”

  He turned it back up again. “Come on. It’s our theme song.”

  “Are you on drugs?” I said.

  He didn’t hear me because he was singing at the top of his lungs. He loved that line about how I’ve got all my sisters with me.

  When he got to the “We Are Family” part, I couldn’t stop myself from joining in. I didn’t even like the song, but I had to admit it was somehow irresistibly singworthy.

  “Made you sing,” he said when the song finally ended.

  “Big whoop,” I said.

  We were coming up on the tall wrought-iron gate that protected the rehearsal studios. I’d been thinking that I’d just pull into the parking lot around the corner and leave the Land Rover idling while I jumped out and Tag moved into the driver’s seat.

  But if I let Tag know where the official parking lot was, then he might be just smart enough to figure out where the rehearsal studios were. Security was tight, so I didn’t think he’d be able to talk his way in. But given that he’d talked his way into my locked apartment last night, I wouldn’t put any money on it.

  So, brilliant strategist that I was, I kept driving past the big iron gate. I turned my head so that if the guard out front happened to be looking, he wouldn’t wave or anything.

  I counted two blocks, then pulled over in a loading space.

  Tag looked out his window. “Wow, you practice in a barbeque place? Did they set that up especially for you?”

  “Funny,” I said. “So funny I forgot to laugh.” I hadn’t thought of that expression in decades. If Tag kept pushing my regression button, before I knew it all I’d be able to say would be gaga and goo-goo.

  I put the Land Rover in Park and waved my hand vaguely. “No, it’s over that way. But it’s really hard to find and I don’t want you to get lost. Anyway, I’ll give you a call when we’re getting ready to wrap for the day.”

  Tag slid his designer sunglasses down his nose and looked over them. “Wrap for the day? Sounds like little sis has gone Hollywood.”

  When pretending to have people, one may talk in the third person.

  Anthony made me close my eyes while I tried on my costume.

  “I want it to be pure, unadulterated perfection when you set your eyes on it, sweet pea,” he said. It was a little bit weird to be standing in the middle of the wardrobe room wearing only two sets of undergarments while I scrunched my eyes shut and held my hands up over my head, but I went with it.

  “Careful, darlin’, careful,” he said. “We’re really working the illusion mesh on this baby.”

  I poked my hand through a sleeve that felt lighter than air. “Just promise me it will give the illusion that I can dance.”

  “You got it, honey bunches of oats.” He pulled up a zipper that stretched the length of my back. Other than that brief kiss with Steve, it had been months and months since a man had touched me, and now they couldn’t seem to keep their hands off me.

  “What’s so funny, bunny?” Anthony said.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I was just imagining how irresistible I must look.”

  As Anthony poked pins into my hem, I tried not to think about how short my costume felt. Instead I focused on the fact that he’d pinned in a few places on the sides, too. The apartment hadn’t come with a little white scale, and I had to admit it was kind of nice not having to wake up every morning and decide whether or not I dared weigh myself. But even after just two days, I felt lighter already. Maybe the DWTS diet would finally be The One. I mean, dancing five hours a day had to do something, right?

  I raised my arms again while Anthony slipped my first dance costume off and my practice costume on. I felt almost like royalty. Having an official dresser would probably get old fast, but it sure was a nice change of pace.

  Karen the producer was standing right outside the wardrobe room. I’d turned off my phone again after I left the message for Steve so that I wouldn’t get distracted from my work. Or possibly so I wouldn’t notice if he didn’t call me back. Or maybe I was just avoiding calls. In any case, Karen handed me her phone.

  “What?” I said into the receiver, my new standard greeting.

  “Have you heard from Tag?” Joanie Baloney asked.

  “Um, not lately.”

  “I can’t find him anywhere.” Her voice hit a high note the way it always did when things weren’t going her way.

  “Gee, that’s too bad,” I said. “I bet that makes it a lot harder to steal my job, doesn’t it?”

  I pushed the only red button I could see and handed the phone back to Karen.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Up to you, but you might want to consider blocking that number.”

  She was already scrolling through something on her phone
. “Hmm,” she said.

  I had an urge to reach for my own phone so I could stare at it while I said hmm, too.

  She finally looked up and sort of smiled. “So, we’re still waiting to connect with Tag. Does he have any other people I can try?”

  I sort of smiled back. I certainly didn’t want to let Tag in the DWTS door, but I also didn’t like the inference that I was incompetent. “His people are her people, too,” I stalled randomly. “And they’re pretty busy these days.” When pretending to have people, one may talk in the third person popped into my head. I wasn’t sure it was technically a chiasmus, but it was close enough, so I filed it away in case my family ever let me sit at the dinner table with them again. Though Marshbury seemed like a million miles away right now.

  “We’d like to get the word out that he’ll be sitting in the front row at the premiere,” Karen said.

  I shook my head to bring myself back to reality, or at least to the general vicinity. I really needed to think this through. Okay, on the one hand, if Tag were in the audience, his fans would know he was cheering for me, and they’d vote for me. But on the other hand, the last thing I needed was Tag showing up and making everything all about him the way he always did.

  Besides, I had everything pretty much under control without him. Ilya was a great teacher and my dancing had come a long way already. And I didn’t really need Tag to get his fans’ votes. I just had to pretend to be him. So I simply had to jump back on Facebook and Twitter and also send out an e-blast to our list, and we’d be good to go. Piece of cake. Or at least a Skinny Cow fudge bar.

  “Tell you what,” I said to Karen, just to get her off my back. “I’ll make a point to track Tag down today and see if I can get him to commit to that front-row seat.”

  “Beautiful,” she said.

  “Why, thank you,” I said jokingly, but she was already screen-tapping her way down the hall.

  As I walked along in my tight black practice costume, the fringe tickling my thighs, I did feel practically beautiful. I’d never really understood the whole costume thing before, but now I got it. It was amazing the way a little piece of shiny black fabric and some sequins could transform me into a far more exotic version of myself. Gone was bland, boring, wallflowery Deirdre Griffin and the safe life I lived. Maybe if masquerade balls came back in vogue, I might actually start dating again.

  I could almost believe that along with my shiny black practice sheath, I’d put on a more daring persona. And I needed one. There was a Robert Frost quote hanging on the door of one of the practice studios that read, “Dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire.” I understood that now, too. Here’s what they don’t tell you about ballroom dancing with a professional partner: It’s a lot like seduction. With a stranger. Who is lean and fit and handsome, and just happens to be about ten million times better at it than you are. Every bit of insecurity you have—body image, coordination issues—floats right to the surface.

  As if Is he touching my back fat? and the tricky dance moves aren’t tough enough, the other thing they don’t warn you about is that basically you and this stranger will spend an inordinate amount of time bumping and grinding away at each other. Wearing really thin clothing that pretty much gives you the lay of the land underneath. It’s both creepy and oddly, inappropriately sexy. But you’re not allowed to pull away and say, Whoa, time-out. You’re supposed to get all hot and steamy and into it, and let’s not forget, point your toes at the same time. And then, at the end of the dance—wham, bam, thank you, ma’am—you’re strangers again, like it never even happened.

  It was Oscar-worthy acting with killer choreography thrown in. When it came to the amount of transformation I needed to get into character, a costume barely covered it.

  The sun was just starting to peek into the windows on the far side of our studio. Another beautiful day in Southern California, and if I was lucky enough to survive the next five-plus hours, maybe I’d even get to spend a little bit of time outside in it. Hopefully I’d have enough energy to find a sidewalk café near a beach somewhere with Tag. At some point, I knew I was going to have to get him out of here, but it might be nice to have someone to hang out with for a little while.

  When I walked into the studio, Ilya was leaning back against the wall, wearing black jeans and a tight black T-shirt and scrolling through messages on his phone.

  He looked up. “Good morning, sunshine.”

  “Ha,” I said.

  As soon as I sat down on a folding chair and started buckling my dance shoes, he put his cell away and reached for the iPod remote.

  The muscles that connected my shoulders to the back of my neck tightened at the first notes of “Smooth.” I had an overwhelming urge to whine. Or to beg for a nap. Or even to eat something huge and decadent and smooth, like a hot fudge sundae with extra whipped cream.

  When Ilya held out his arms, I made myself let go of everything but the music. We went through the sequences over and over and over again, separately and then all linked together. Ilya had broken the dance down into four parts to make it easier for me to learn. On the one hand, I was starting to feel optimistic that I sort of knew the steps now. On the other hand, I couldn’t imagine that my overloaded brain could possibly remember all this come D-day.

  “That’s it,” Ilya said as he circled me around from the waist. “You got it, baby. Now give me some more.”

  I gave him some more. I gave him more than I even thought I had.

  Side by side, we went into a series of kicks. Flick-flick-chachacha starting with the right foot. Flick-flick-chachacha starting with the left. More of the same facing all four walls. Then some slide-slide-turnturnturns, walk-walk-runrunruns, reach-reach-bumpbumpbumps, straddle-straddle-chugchugchugs. We finished the sequence, and then Ilya scooped me into his arms again and danced me around the room.

  Our flirty finale involved my partner miming hey, you, come here, and me spinning around three times by myself—on three-inch heels, no less—and right into his waiting arms. Ilya didn’t wear a catcher’s mitt, but I’d noticed that he gauged my trajectory like a baseball player and somehow managed to casually and gracefully position himself just where he needed to be to catch me. For which I was seriously grateful.

  “Outstanding,” he said after the third full run-through.

  “Really?” I said.

  He raised his eyebrow. “It’s an expression. But we’re getting there.”

  I took a deep breath in through my nose and let it out through my mouth. “It would be a lot easier if this stupid room would stop spinning.” Ilya was still holding me, which was probably the only reason I was still on my feet.

  He let go and ran a hand through his hair. I was starting to know all his gestures now—hand through hair, one eyebrow up, twirl of the iPod remote, automatic reach for his cell anytime we took a break. We were already like an old married couple in some ways.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Did you work on your spotting last night like I told you to?”

  “Right. In my two-foot-by-two-foot apartment. Where the biggest open space is the bathtub.”

  “Okay, five times, all the way down to that wall and back, no stopping, tight turns the whole way.”

  “You’re such a slave driver,” I said, but I did it anyway. If you’ve never tried spotting, what you do is focus on a nonmoving point in the distance. When you turn, you let everything else become a blur, and then when you come around again you find that same point as soon as you can. Theoretically, the dizzy stuff that makes the room appear to be spinning instead of you slips away because your focus is on that nonmoving point. It actually worked pretty well when I was doing it in a drill. But I knew that once I started dancing again, spotting and remembering the steps would seem a lot like patting my head and rubbing my stomach at the same time. While running on a treadmill.

  When I turned in one direction, I focused on a rectangle of blue paint between two white-trimmed windows. When I turned in the other direction, I focuse
d on the center of the closed door. Five big step-turn-steps would take me across the length of the room if I stretched out my legs, six or seven if I made the circles tighter.

  “Crisper, sharper,” Ilya said after the first pass. “Looooook-turn-looooook.

  “Better,” he added after the second.

  After the fifth set, I dropped my head and rested my hands on my thighs. “I think I’m getting the hang of it,” I said between breaths. “I hardly feel like puking at all anymore. Okay, your turn.”

  Ilya laughed. I didn’t think he’d really do it, but he stepped into the center of the room, turned his head toward the far wall, and extended his arms. Then, boom, it was like an explosion of grace as he spun the length of the room and back so quickly I couldn’t even count the turns.

  When he stopped, I heard clapping behind me.

  I turned. Tag was leaning back against my spotting spot on the door, his legs crossed at the ankles, the Land Rover keys dangling from one hand.

  “Wow,” Tag said. “Impressive.”

  “What—” I said.

  “Not you. Him.” My brother flashed his million-dollar smile at my dance partner.

  Ilya cat-walked over and held out his hand.

  “Ilya,” I said politely. “This is my brother, Tag. He was just leaving.”

  Dancers are the athletes of God, but is God the athlete of dancers?

  I’m a big fan,” my dance partner said to my brother.

  “Yeah, who isn’t,” I said.

  “Ditto,” Tag said. “It’s like watching poetry in motion. I’m humbled.”

  “That’s a first,” I said.

  Tag ignored me. “You know, Einstein said that dancers are the athletes of God.”

  “But is God the athlete of dancers?” I said. Nobody laughed.

  “So what do you do in the off-season?” Tag asked, as if Ilya really was an athlete, maybe a hockey or football player. I rolled my eyes at his cluelessness.

  “My brother and I run a small chain of dance studios,” Ilya said. “And my three kids are all competing now, so that keeps my wife and me pretty busy.”