by Smith, Skye
Gerry called a scrum. "I say we start off slowly behind the rest of these dancers until we get a feeling for our partners. If it works out, then I will call the photographers over for some fashion shots. The designer of those frocks will love us for it." He looked at Kevin. "Will Jeremy be okay if he sees photos of you dancing with someone else?"
"No problem, so long as it's with one of them and not you."
"Break, hup, hup," called Gerry. "That's the play." And that was the play. They stayed cautiously in the background, blocked from the sight of most of the room by the slow motion and the two-step plodding of couples dressed for a funeral. No, that's not fair. There were a half a dozen couples who must have been partners for years, and were graceful and skilled, but still dressed for a crow's convention.
"You dance well," Kevin complimented her after their first dance.
"I live with two gay men. Dancing is mandatory. I get a lot of practice around the house when we're all feeling good."
"Ah, would I know them?"
"Gerry does. Karl and Erik."
"Ah, the Heartbreak Kids. Up to their old tricks again, eh?"
The music started again before she could ask him what he meant. It was a very frustrating four minutes because the music was so loud so near the speakers. He occasionally stopped to show her some step that had confused her, but he was so strong, and she so light, that he turned most of her missteps into flourishes or lifts.
She watched Gerry and Karen. They danced like a long-time couple. They looked like a long-time couple. By the time there was another break in the noise, she no longer wanted to know about Karl and Erik but about Gerry.
He went thoughtful and then told her, "Gay is a bucket term that covers a lot of men with a lot of different types of mental and physical insecurities. Gerry sort of fits pattern number 4B. He so loves the company of women, that he would rather be a girlfriend than a boyfriend. As a boyfriend he would have to commit to one of them, and she would cut him off from the rest."
"And Karl and Erik?"
"The couple or the individuals?" He swung her easily to the new beat. He broke out of the simple steps occasionally to see how well she could follow. She was so light on her feet. He was more used to heavier partners, male partners. Perhaps he and Jeremy should go to the occasional straight dance and swing some women around for a change. He ended the song with a big spin and bent her over in the way of dance contests. So light.
"The couple," she said, a little breathlessly.
"They were either lovers who became best friends, or best friends who became lovers. Now they are inseparable, partially from addiction to each other, partially from addiction to the good life they have created. What's the old song. 'And Lord bless the sister, who comes between me and my man.' Don't go there, sister. The coffee shops of Kitsilano are littered with the broken hearts of the women that went before you."
"Yeah, I know. There was another one just the other day."
"The little fiends. I thought they had learned their lesson. Oh dearie, not yours?"
"Not yet, but perhaps soon. It's a baby thing."
"Oh dearie, not yours?" The music had started but he didn't move. He pulled her close to hold her if she had the need.
"Not yet, but perhaps soon." She unbalanced him on purpose to force him to step backwards and start dancing again. Gerry was nodding to them that they were ready. He had to yell over the music to say that once this song ended, he would ask the other dancers if they would mind some ballroom dances. If they didn't object, he would arrange it with the DJ.
While Gerry was charming the other dancers, Kevin came close to her and said, "The baby thing seems to be the conundrum of our age. My best friend is a woman just out of a very bad ten-year-long childless marriage. She wants children so badly, but her divorce has given her such a bad taste for husbands that it isn't likely."
"Your best friend?"
"Jeremy is my lover. We are still learning to be friends. I am connected to this woman in other ways. Should I offer to have children with her? I keep thinking about it and putting off the commitment. How long before she can't put it off any longer?."
"Thirty-five," Maya said glibly.
"Not forty?"
"Thirty-five. A woman doctor told me that just the other day. She said, like, the physiology of having babies hasn't changed despite fifty being the new forty." She saw the high sign from Gerry, so she grabbed Kevin and Karen and pushed them through the other dancers and out to where they could be seen by the rest of the room.
An older woman in black, but at least a swirly skirt, thanked them. "This new music has no grace, no romance. When I finally get him out to dance, I want the full romance."
And so started the romance of ballroom dance. Karen and Maya were swirled around the dance floor by their Mr. Bonds. They were like whirling rainbows of delight compared to the company of crows who watched them. They didn't have to see themselves in mirrors, because the endless flashes of the cameras told them how romantic they looked. As Gerry said, they would be on the first page of the third section of every paper tomorrow.
They danced a set of six, and then conferred while the applause died, not just for them but for all the dancers, some of whom were competition skilled. Karen called the shots. " Always leave them wanting more. Time to go," she said, picking up her purse from the table of some frumpy woman from someplace called Ottawa, who had her own security team.
Maya grabbed her purse from the same table and thanked the woman for watching the purses for them. Kevin took the opportunity to sit and talk to the woman, while the other three made good their escape.
Escape was exactly what it was. Word of the dancing had reached the photographers on the mezzanine and they all wanted Mr. Bond to twirl his women so they could capture the swirl of their skirts on film. Extra security was called to block out the paparazzi outside, so Bond and his Girls could get through to their limo. "I hope you like that dress, Maya dear," Karen called out, "because once these photos hit the press, the shop is going to give them to us."
They were forced to sit in the limo outside the hotel and wait for some traffic jam to clear. They could see flashing lights. Gerry got out and talked to one of the photographers, and the photographer came over to his still-open door to catch a shot of the two glamour pusses in the limo.
"They'll have you out of here soon enough," the photographer said. "Some old dude just had a heart attack in his car up in the parking lot. I got some photos before the cops cordoned it off."
"Well, thank goodness it happened in the parking lot, so he didn't wipe out some mom and kids in the street."
"Yeah, right. It would have been a shame to crash that car. Nice car. Brand new Bimmer. How about one more with a little more leg? Oh, come on. Some cheesecake for my readers."
Once the limo could move it was mere minutes to Karen's hotel. Gerry got out with her. Maya grabbed her arm and pulled her close. "Like, you do get that he is gay, right?"
Karen pulled away from her, then turned back around and whispered back, "He used to be married. Let me be. I enjoy his company. He's a good man."
"Yeah, like this is Vancouver. All the good men are gay. He is gay. Ask him to commit and he will be gone."
"That's because he's a man, not because he is gay. Hey, you're one to talk. See you tomorrow, but make it later. After ten."
She reached home again very late, again to a dark house, again after her guys were already asleep. She washed up in her bathroom so she wouldn't wake them. She even thought of sleeping in her own room. No. No,no,no. She didn't want to be alone.
Karl found her fifteen minutes later leaning with her forehead against her bedroom window and staring off into space. "Hey, you okay?" He pulled her into his arms and let her lean back against him while she stared out. She was cold to the bone. He wrapped his robe around her and held it closed around her with his arms. "You need to talk?"
"You were right, Karl," she murmured, "it is better knowing the formula than the n
ame."
"Huh," he replied. "Oh, the Poli Sci game, thanks. Can we go to bed now? Come on. Erik's keeping it warm for us." He and Erik were going to have to have a long talk about their girl. Something was going on.
* * *
* * *
MAYA'S AURA - the Refining by Skye Smith
Chapter 16 - In present day San Francisco
Karen was following the midwives' instructions to the letter. Diet, exercise, everything. She wanted a natural childbirth. She needed a natural childbirth. A Caesarian could end her career as an actress because of the effect on her stomach muscles. Maya spotted for her as she strained and grunted and farted to the exercise count on the video.
When Karen had finished, and then wobbled off to the bathroom, Maya ejected the video so she could continue watching the news of the protests. They were growing in size and in number of cities. Even in small country towns, unemployed youth were holding up signs to motorists which said, 'I am one of the 99%'.
The big corporate media networks were downplaying the importance and sloughing it off as a youth fad that would soon melt away. Government officials were warning that it was too well-organized and there must be foreign agencies at work. Meanwhile, in the Middle East the oil companies had paid to have another dictator bombed out of existence by high tech weapons, so that they could again control that country's oil.
At least that was what she assumed was happening, because all that the corporate network media was saying was "blah blah blah evil dictator blah blah blah democracy movement blah blah." Meanwhile, the National Guard was being assembled in case their help was needed to protect America's democracy from the millions of demonstrators on American streets, who were demanding that the crooks on Wall Street be put in jail instead of being bailed out for billions.
Of course, only old farts believed the news pushed out from the corporate media anymore. The young and educated pulled their real news, their believable news, from the web. From the worldwide media and from worldwide blog sites, just like Maya did. She chuckled. The old guard politicians just didn't get the web, not at all.
She turned the TV off to silence the ridiculous 'bought and paid for' point of view of the news announcers. Karen was calling. She wanted an aura massage before the midwife arrived to give her a last checkup.
* * *
* * *
MAYA'S AURA - the Refining by Skye Smith
Chapter 17 - Three years earlier in Kitsilano, Vancouver
Lin was sitting behind the counter in the shop when Maya dropped by in the morning. Maya stood back until a flood of little girls left with their candy. "Have a red licorice," Lin said. "My father is angry because I am giving them away. I don't care. It keeps me surrounded by children."
"Sorry I haven’t been over in awhile. I, like, have this job and I'm working long hours."
"I know, Erik told me. I think," she pulled her crystal out from under her blouse, "I think my crystal is running out of batteries."
"How are you doing?"
"I'm out of bed. I'm giving candy to children. It's all good."
"Still weak?"
"Sometimes so weak I can't lift anything."
"Uh huh. I have to go to work soon. Do you want me to work on your back before I go?"
"There is no one else here. I have to watch the shop."
Maya turned around and switched the sign on the door from 'open' to 'closed', and locked it, and pulled the blind down. She took off her coat and shook off the rain drops and hung it up. "Take off your blouse and lean over the counter."
She first stilled her aura and then let it strengthen slightly. She skimmed her hand over the woman’s back and tried to find differences from the last time. There was a difference. There was no sense of gray at all between her shoulder blades. The other dark places hadn't seemed to have changed much.
"Umm, can you lift your body off the counter for a minute, so I can check something out?" When she did, Maya moved her hand around to the front and explored the same non-grey area from the front. Her hand touched something. The crystal. "Ohmigod. It's the crystal."
"What, what about the crystal?"
"Where you wear the crystal there is, like, no sense of darkness. Lie back down. I'll work on your gray spots and then work on your crystal." She prayed to increase her aura, and then she started skimming her hand along Lin's back. This time wherever she could sense a darkness, she held her hand still and pushed whiteness into the darkness.
Afterwards, while Lin put her blouse back on, Maya searched for and found some boot laces on the store shelves. She took Lin's crystal and shortened the shoe lace, and took her own crystal and strung it on the boot lace, then she hung them both over the nose of a garden gnome for sale that had at least five years of dust on it. She opened the lotus and charged them both, and then tied one high on Lin's neck, and the other around her waist. She pulled both crystals around to hang down Lin's back.
"Perhaps what is needed is a continuous soft aura like, from the crystals. We'll see."
"Do you think that your white aura is actually killing the darkness that you sense?"
"I have no idea."
"I heard a Jewish comedian on TV last night." said Lin softly. "He was making cancer jokes. He wasn't funny so much as quirky. Did you here the one about the chemotherapy? It was completely successful. It killed the cancer. They bury the guy tomorrow." She tried to giggle but it came out as sobs.
"Maybe that explains the effects of my aura, and why it has sometimes gone so wrong. Maybe with some things, if I get rid of all the darkness, there is nothing left for the body to use to survive." Maya handed her a wad of tissues from a box behind the counter. Lin nodded her thanks and blew her nose. She dabbed at her eyes and took a shaky breath.
"When they gave me my chemo treatment they monitored my blood all the time."
"Could you ask your doctor for some blood tests? Tell him you are feeling stronger and you want it checked out."
"Of course." The sobs were gone, replaced by a smile. "Why shouldn't I still be having lab tests? Just because I am not on their silly drugs doesn't mean I should just give up. Oooh, that felt good."
"My aura?"
"My anger. I'm mad," growled Lin. "Just because I said 'no' to continuing with chemo, they've dumped me. No way. Where's the phone? "
"I have to go now. Uh, when you see the doctor, like, you may want to take off the crystals."
"Yeah, yeah, get going. You'll be late for work, and I've got some ears to twist."
"Oh, I almost forgot. I brought you some things." Maya put a small paper bag on the counter.
"For me, what is it?" She picked out the small plastic bottle and started reading the label. Leave in Hair Conditioner.
"Well, now that you have hair again, like, you should be gentle with it and keep it silky. Regular conditioner has such harsh chemicals in it that you have to rinse it out. This is natural, so you don't need to rinse it out.
Down south where I come from, it's what all the surfer chicks use cause ,like, their hair takes such a beating being in and out of the water all the time. It makes it really easy to grow your hair long, and really fast to take a shower. Just shampoo, rinse, get out of the shower, rub in the leave-in, finished. There should be something else in the bag."
Lin looked in and pulled out a small spice bottle. Cayenne Pepper.
"My mom uses it. Licks it of her wrist like salt with a tequila shooter, then holds it under her tongue," Maya told her. "She used to get these horrible headaches like, when the big storms hit the Mendocino coast. Well, at first she thought it was my cat, so like she got rid of it. Then she thought it was the blossoms you know, and wouldn't let me have flowers in the house. Nope. It was the storms."
"But why?"
"Oh, because the cayenne worked so well, she did all this research about it. It strengthens your blood and it makes your little blood vessels wider so the blood can get to all the places it is supposed to be getting to. If it burns your mouth too much, then sp
rinkle it on tea or coffee. Anyway, I though it would be a good idea, you know."
"Why, thank you, dear. And all I gave you was red licorice."
"Well then, I will take some more." Maya reached into the candy jar and pulled out a dozen. " 'Cause there are always school girls riding on the bus I take to work."
Lin waved the young woman out of the shop, and then peered out the window and watched her until she was out of sight behind the giant weeping willows. She felt all warm and lovely and she instinctively went to touch her crystal and remembered that Maya had swung it around so it was in the back. She twisted the shoelace around and let it hang between her breasts again. She liked it there.
* * *
* * *
Something was going on. Maya knew it because everyone in the studio suddenly wanted to be her friend. Wendy rushed up and linked her arm into hers. She was beaming. Why wouldn't she beam? Ten percent of fifty thousand was five thousand. "Have you seen the papers yet?"
"No, are we in them? Gerry thought we might be."
"In them, honey, you are them. Hurry, there's a stack of them in the projection room and you just have time to look at them before they show the first attempt at a trailer for the movie."
Gerry and Karen were already there, connected at the hip and spreading them out across the long table. They pulled her into their huddle and started showing her the best ones. "The society photographers put us on the front page of section three," Gerry told her, "but it was the political photographers that the federal politicians brought with them that put us on the front page." He caught her questioning look.
"Well, duh, you were the only colorful women at the event. God, look how all the women in black disappear into the dark background of these shots. In contrast it was like you two were walking around under a spotlight."
"Look at this," Karen said, "remember that nice lady that watched our purses while we danced? She even got onto the front page when she was handing them back. She was from Ottowing or something. Someplace north of New York."
