Sway
Alana Albertson
Bolero Books
Copyright © 2018 by Alana Albertson.
Cover design by Aria Tan
Cover Photo: Sara Eirew Photographer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
Bolero Books LLC
11956 Bernardo Plaza Dr. #510
San Diego, CA 92128
www.bolerobooks.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Cha Cha Cha
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Foxtrot
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Rumba
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Official Press Release
Mambo
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Quickstep
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Swing
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Waltz
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Bolero
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Jive
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Tango
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Paso Doble
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Viennese Waltz
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Hustle
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Samba
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Also available by author:
Swing Excerpt
Blue Sky
Foreword
Blue Sky
Blue Sky
1. Tomatillos
2. Enchiladas Verdes
3. Burnt Toast
4. Cold Pizza
5. Huevos Rancheros
6. Soggy Cereal
7. Tortas
8. Tortilla Soup
9. Burritos
10. Hamburgers
11. Paella
12. French Toast
13. Ice Cream
14. Pazole
15. Guacamole
16. Canapés
17. Flan
18. Bacon and Eggs
19. Fish Tacos
20. Energy Bar
21. Spaghetti
22. Cherries and Pineapples
23. Chamango
24. New York Strip
25. Hotdogs
26. Chicken Mole
27. Caviar
28. Enchiladas Rojos
29. Cucumber Sandwiches
30. Dungeness Crab Cioppino
31. Street Tacos
32. Strawberries
33. Blueberry Muffin
Acknowledgments
About the Author
This book is dedicated to my boo, Giselle Peacock Rojas.
The best ballroom dancer in the world and the sweetest girl I know.
Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts,
because it is no mere translation or abstraction from life;
it is life itself.
– HAVELOCK ELLIS
Cha Cha Cha
Swiveling her feet, she teased him with fleeting glimpses of her thighs. His confidence rose and he grabbed her, challenging her at her own game. She caressed his chest and lowered her hands to his hips, tracing his abs with her nails. He threw her into a split. Then, he brought her to his lips. She pulled away from him and he forced her back, straddling her leg around his waist. The game had only begun.
1
Salomé Sanchez
THEY SAY THAT television adds ten pounds. Fuck that. On my forty-two-inch plasma screen, Viktoria Brooks is her usual Popsicle stick self with D-cup boobs. I would even give up my World Amateur Latin Title to be her right now. Posing there in front of the whole country, air-kissing and waving as they hand her the Emmy. She just won it for Outstanding Choreography for her cha-cha routine with her dim boy band partner on the hit series Dancing under the Stars. Only, she didn’t choreograph that cha-cha.
I did.
“That bitch!” Jenny, my best amiga since forever, shouts toward the TV. “I can’t believe her! The woman wins an Emmy for your choreography and doesn’t even have the decency to thank you?” Her eyelashes flutter, but sexy ain’t the look she’s going for now. Right now, homicidal maniac is more her mood.
“I hate her,” she snarls and her pale face flushes red. “I’m calling the National Enquirer tomorrow and finally selling them all those pictures you have of her dancing at the O’Farrell Theater. Where are they Salomé?” She points a crimson painted talon on her index finger in my face. “Go get them, now!”
Part of me considers fetching the memory box that I’ve been hiding under my bed. But I don’t. My big ass stays put on my mother’s priceless ecru-colored leather couch because I’m just too shell-shocked to move. I’d swear someone just snapped my Achilles heel.
“Oh, come on, guys,” Diana says next to me, “what did you expect?” Dear Diana, always the voice of reason. At nineteen, she’s only a baby in Prada, but without her, Jenny and I would’ve been tossed in the slammer years ago. Being twenty-four doesn’t make the two of us any wiser. “Vika would never admit she stole a dance from her ex-best friend. Her image would be destroyed.”
“Yeah, wouldn’t that be a shame,” I say, finding the strength to talk, “considering she’s all image.” I down the rest of my strawberry margarita, laced with Don Julio Blanco Tequila, savoring the silky cinnamon aftertaste. Whoever invented tequila deserves a fucking Emmy. “Who am I to complain anyway? I got zero image. Z-E-R-O. No producer’s gonna put a frizzy-haired midget with no boobs on television just cuz she’s the best dancer.”
“Shut up, Salomé,” Jenny says. “You are not a midget. You’re just compact.”
“Oh, as if.”
Jenny flicks my forehead with her finger then heads to my parents’ bar to whip up her favorite Lychee Martini and make me another margarita. Diana pours herself a shot of red Hawaiian punch. Life as a Mormon is wild, ain’t it? When we hit the clubs in Tijuana, she orders sparkling water. Sometimes, when she’s really cutting loose, she’ll add a slice of lime. And no Starbucks? Where’s the joy in that?
But then, what do any of us know about joy? It’s hard to believe my career is already over. What am I supposed to do for the next sixty years? Watch inferior dancers win Emmys for my routines on Dancing under the Stars? Jenny, Diana, and I meet every Tuesday night to watch Dancing under the Stars and to play a drinking game that we’ve made up for the show. This week was my turn to host, so we gathered at my parents’ Tiburon estate. Why? Because at twenty-four, I still live with them when I’m not jetting off to a competition. All the money I earn from competitions and teaching couples how to dance waltzes for their weddings goes right back into my dancing expenses. Great life, huh? Anyway, the rules of the game are simple: drink one sip every time Judge Steve Samson talks about t
he lack of heel leads, two sips every time Vika rubs her tits in the face of her celebrity partner of the season, three sips every time Judge Karen Lopez shrieks like a cat in heat, and four sips every time Judge Benny Brooks says one of his funny Australian sayings. By the end of the show, we’re blazed senseless and glad for it. Well, not Miss Hawaiian Punch. I don’t know how she does it; Dancing under the Stars is meant to be watched through blurred eyes.
Technically, the Dancing under the Stars season is over. But tonight is the Creative Arts Emmy Award Telecast and we gathered to see if I—okay, fine, if Vika—would win. We should have watched water drip from the kitchen faucet instead. What a mind-fuck that woman is. We used to be inseparable. I don’t even know her anymore. Watching your best friend fuck a man old enough to be her grandpa can have a strange effect on a relationship.
Jenny serves me my drink and settles into my father’s Lazy Boy. Like the has-been D-List celebutards that grace the floors of Dancing under the Stars, the professional dancers on the show occupy a similar place on the ballroom world’s very own D-List. Just goes to show that people outside the competitive dance circuit don’t know the rumba from their rumps.
I glance at the soundless television. Vika is blowing yet another kiss to the cameras as if she just sang “Happy Birthday Mr. President.” At five foot ten, Vika has a body that looks like Michelangelo himself chiseled it.
Or Hugh Hefner.
Me, not so much. I can dance circles around the woman—hell, my feet are faster than DSL—but physically I’m the Bizarro Vika. I’ve got the bod of Hayden Panettiere on steroids.
Ay, Dios mío, help me.
I take a sip of my new strawberry margarita.
“C’mon, Salomé,” Diana slides over on the couch to pat my leg, jangling her five thousand dollar Tiffany bracelet, “look on the bright side—you technically won an Emmy. That’s kind of cool, right?”
“It’s just awesome.” I look back at the screen and spy Genya, my ex-boyfriend and ex-dance partner, and his gorgeous fiancée, Iza, in the audience. They’re also professional dancers on Dancing under the Stars. I can’t stand seeing his hand on her thigh. He just proposed to Iza last week on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. I know this because my People magazine gave me a play by play complete with romantic pictures of the happy couple and quotes about how they “can’t wait to start making babies.” He kisses her pouty lips and she places her delicate manicured ring finger, displaying her princess cut engagement ring, on his ripped chest.
Fuck my life.
I spit up my margarita all over my mother’s couch.
Jenny sees the margarita dribble on my face and motions to Diana to turn off the TV. I snatch my drink in one hand and scoop up my tuxedo cat, Rumba, in the other and shuffle onto my parents’ redwood deck. I lie down on a chaise and place my drink in the holder. I wonder how Genya would have proposed to me. It wouldn’t have been at an amusement park, that’s for sure. I look up at the night sky. The view doesn’t let me down: the Richmond, Bay, and Golden Gate Bridges, towering tall and majestic. Watching the fog gently hug them always calms me down.
The girls join me on the deck, drinks in tow.
“Seriously,” I say, “I don’t really care about the stupid Emmy. I mean, any promo for ballroom is good, right? It’s not like she hasn’t won any titles. She’s a decent dancer. I knew that the minute I first saw her dance. She used to be such a sweetheart. And she’s had a super hard life. Leaving her mother, emigrating from Odessa, living with her babushka in that smelly retirement home . . . and damn, could you even imagine sleeping with nasty ol’ Benny Brooks?”
Both Jenny and Diana gag like they just drank pickle juice. Vika has been married to the most respected and also most cocky and wrinkly sixty-five-year-old ballroom judge for five years. That fact alone qualifies her for a big award.
Diana abruptly stops laughing and steps away from us. “Yeah. I guess I’m happy for Vika, too. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do . . .”
The silence is awkward for a second. Diana knows too well what a girl has to do. And so do we.
“Anyhoo,” Diana finally says, changing the subject. “Sal, trust me when I say, anyone who knows anything about dancing knows you’re the best dancer in the world. I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with that craziness anymore; I don’t even miss dancing at all. Not a bit. Seriously. I can’t wait to marry Robert and have his babies. Dancing under the Stars is for losers. We don’t need it.”
Jenny and I exchange sharp glances. Diana would dump her fiancé in a heartbeat if she found a new dance partner and we both know it. As much as a dancer’s life can break you, it also is the very air we breathe. Dancing is in our soul.
“You know what?” I get up and throw my glass over the rail. It shatters on a towering Oak tree in the back yard. “That show is stupid. Vika can have it. I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. How pathetic. Teaching all those loser has-beens how to dance . . . No, thank you!”
“Hear! Hear!” Jenny proclaims, taking out another tree with her own cocktail glass. “I don’t know why we even watch it. We’re way too good for that shit. It’s racist, too. Why has there never been an Asian-American movie star or professional dancer on it? Huh? Can you tell me that? Huh?”
“Uh, Jenny,” Diana says. “Don’t you remember . . . Lara Lu was on two seasons ago? She danced with Jared Brooks and they had that torrid love affair . . .”
“Oh, please! Lara Lu doesn’t count. She’s a sell-out. She paraded her affair with a white man all over primetime television just to insult all Asian-American men. I hate her. I wouldn’t go near that show if they paid me a million dollars.” Jenny picks up Diana’s punch glass and raises it. “I propose a toast.”
“Excuse me,” I say, gesturing to my empty hand. “I think we’re missing something here . . .”
“Oh, for crying out loud, Salomé, go get yourself a Dixie cup or something. You’re ruining my moment.”
“Ay, chica.” I laugh as I dash in to grab and fill glasses of punch for Diana and me. The show is over so there is no excuse to get hammered. Jenny defines drama queen. I love her, although hanging out with a dancer who is also a Harvard graduate gives my parents another reason to pick on my lack of education.
When I get back onto the porch, Jenny is still in full toast pose.
“Is your arm tired?” I ask.
“No darling, one of the benefits of dancing Standard. You Latin girls don’t have a clue.” Jenny gracefully raises her free arm and flips me off.
We all lift our glasses. Jenny clears her throat.
“Okay, here we go,” she says. “To the real dancing champions: Salomé Sanchez, Diana Young, and Jenny Ming. We have each won a United States National Championship, and our very own Señorita Salomé has won Blackpool and a World Title. We have placed higher than every professional dancer on that show. On the earth. May we all keep our dance integrity and vow to NEVER, EVER be pathetic reality television stars. Gan bei.”
I raise my glass higher. “I’ll drink to that, girl.”
“Ditto,” says Diana.
We clink our glasses together and drink the night away as the fog creeps higher on the world’s most beautiful bridges.
2
Viktoria Brooks
BENJAMIN BROOKS PINS me up against the hallway leading to our kitchen. “Hey Lassie, why don’t you come up to room 216 later and sit on my face?” He raises his furry eyebrow and attempts to give me a sexy look.
My husband is a pig. Those Don Juan words were the first that he said to me, ten years ago, at the Holiday Ball in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve. He was fifty-five—I was fifteen. I fondly remember being so excited to meet the most successful judge in ballroom dancing. It was not your usual pickup line, but then again, we’re hardly Kimye.
Sticking with the tried and true one-liner, Benny is less successful today. “Not now,” I squirm out of his embrace and give him a kiss on his pudgy face. “I have to head to a
spa at Eden Roc to get ready for tonight.” Pouting, he creeps upstairs, dragging his slippers on the marble. I push through the swinging kitchen door and grab the smoothie my assistant Marina prepared for me in the kitchen. One scoop Myoplex Lite Chocolate protein powder, one scoop frozen raspberries, amino acids, super greens, flax seed oil and skim milk . . . It’s a new recipe, but Benny’s ex-wife says it’ll shrink my ass in minutes. She would know—she hasn’t had any real food in years. Sure beats my old diet of cabbage soup and strawberries.
“I’ll be back in two hours. Tyebya lyubly.” I slip out the door and hop into Benny’s newest toy, a convertible Jaguar F-Type.
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