Stay a Little Longer

by Dawn Lanuza

  Caty was laughing, her spirits higher than usual, and she sometimes squeezed his rib. After a couple of times, he realized that she did this when she was uncomfortable answering a question, and it happened more than once. When he felt the squeeze, he jumped into the conversation, and she rewarded him with a tap, a secret conversation they were having in front of everyone.

  Elan recognized a face in the crowd; it was Sarge Reynoso, someone he’d only seen on television but who was now in the same room as him, surrounded by people.

  When they passed him, Caty kept walking, but Sarge was quick to call out to her.

  She flashed a smile. “Mr. Reynoso, always a pleasure to see you.”

  “Hello, Catalina. I see you brought someone.”

  “Oh no, I just picked him up a second ago,” she retorted.

  Sarge guffawed in return. “You were always so funny. And so honest.” He turned to Elan and declared, “Isn’t she marvelous?”

  Before Elan could answer, Sarge had moved on to his next question, “Who are you? I’ve never seen you before.”

  “I’m a friend of Juliana’s.” His default answer, the only one he could think of on the spot.

  “Oh. Our prodigal daughter, Juliana. Did you meet in the city?”

  “Yes, sir. In law school.”

  “Ah, so you’re a lawyer like our Jules,” Sarge went on, “and have you fallen in love with our little town as well?”

  Elan couldn’t answer right away. Had he? He had spent a lot of time there this year. “I guess so.”

  Sarge clapped his back and cackled, “Hard not to. We have beautiful heritage houses, all carefully restored. Good food, good liquor. A bunch of interesting people.”

  “Like you?” Caty jumped in.

  Sarge smiled. “Why, thank you, young lady.”

  “Anyway,” she continued, “we should head over to—”

  “And what kind of work have you been doing? Are you saving trees like Juliana?” Sarge asked Elan.

  Elan laughed at the way he reduced Jules’s work to that—saving trees. In fact, she was doing much, much more.

  “No, sir,” he answered. “But I did plant a couple of trees for a volunteer mission.”

  “Isn’t he great?” Caty pulled at him, eager for an exit.

  Sarge opened his mouth to talk more, but Caty hurried on, leaving Elan to raise his hand goodbye.

  They crossed the ballroom from one end to the other.

  “Hey,” Elan took a big stride and grabbed her arm.

  She turned and asked, “We can still sneak out like you said, right?”

  He paused and frowned at her expression. She looked upset, and he wondered what had happened in between that changed her. “I don’t know what happened there.”

  She waved her hand. “It was nothing. I don’t like talking to him. He likes to pretend he knows everything about everyone.”

  So Sarge Reynoso was a sore spot for Caty.

  “Everyone’s been giving me the side-eye since I arrived,” she said.

  Elan looked around and reported, “No one’s giving you the side-eye. They may be looking at you, but come on. You showed up looking like an Oscar.”

  “An Oscar?”

  “Yeah,” he raised both his hands to illustrate a tiny trophy.

  “You’re telling me that I look like the Oscar, not that I look like I was attending the Academy Awards?”

  Elan thought about it and said, “Yeah, that may sound better. But you are the fucking Oscar.”

  “The Oscar is a figure of a man,” Caty pointed out, putting her hands on her hips, as if striking a pose. It was distracting.

  “It’s one of the most coveted things in the world,” he argued. “I mean, if you’re in that business.”

  Caty took her hands off her hips. “Oh. Well, if you put it that way.”

  “Who have you been watching?”

  That took her off guard. “What do you mean?”

  Elan looked around and found a table filled with couples, not all of the same age group. “All night, you’ve been looking back over your shoulder, craning your neck—”

  “I have not.” She started walking again.

  He squinted at the table to get a better look, trying to figure out whom she was watching. Maybe he could just find Jules and ask her. Then his eyes met those of a woman at the table, and it took him a second to recognize her.

  Elan turned around and looked for Caty, but she was already far ahead. He sprinted, avoiding people to catch up to her.

  “It’s her.”

  “It’s her what?” She didn’t look at him.

  “The girl from the day we met. When I dropped you off.”

  She came to a full stop, and her eyes bored into him. “You remember that?”

  “Sure.”

  “What else do you remember?”

  “I remember you not telling me what it was about.”

  Caty’s voice was clipped. “Good. That’s good memory.”

  She then proceeded to the bar.

  “Are we making her jealous?”

  She snorted. “Please. You’re cute, sure. But I’m afraid she’s married.”

  Elan craned his neck to look back at the table. “Then why are you making me do this?”

  “You can stop doing it. It was an experiment. It didn’t work. You are free to go around and follow Juliana as much as you like. You won’t hear a thing from me. I am a hypocrite, and I know what you’re doing too well.”

  He scowled. This, again. Is that what she really thought he was doing? Just following Jules around? He’d been sticking with Caty all night.

  She took a shot glass from the waiter behind the bar and thanked him. She was about to down it when she paused to look at Elan. “You want one?”

  “What is it?” He eyed the glass filled with clear liquid.

  “This is the strong stuff, Judy. Don’t drink it if you want to function tomorrow.”

  “Don’t you need to function tomorrow?”

  She raised a finger and shook it. “This doesn’t apply to the pros.”

  Caty raised the glass and finished the drink. She set the glass down and hissed, “Oh yeah. This isn’t for amateurs, Judy. Stick to the wine.”

  “How about we don’t drink for a while?”

  She rolled her eyes. “A party isn’t fun without a little kick. This is the only way I can start laughing at these people who kept digging up bones in my closet.”

  Elan didn’t say anything. He just waited.

  “So what do you do, since Sarge already asked you?”

  “Really?”

  Caty rolled her eyes, “Yes, really. The other time, you asked me what I do.”

  “Right.” He remembered. “Prop styling. How’s that working out for you?”

  “Really good memory.”

  “I survived law school,” he smiled. “Family law.”

  Her nose scrunched, “Sounds boring.”

  “Well, someone’s got to fix family squabbles. Sometimes, the best person is an outsider.”

  She pressed her lips and nodded, “That is so true.”

  Caty took a deep breath and then exhaled. “I feel warm all over now.” She raised her hand and pulled her hair back. He noted that she seemed flushed from the liquor.

  “Let me get you a glass of water.” He walked over and crossed to the other side of the bar. No one was manning it seriously anyway, with most of the waiters on the floor carrying trays of entrées and wine.

  Caty turned and asked, “Are you and my brother friends?”

  “I guess?”

  She smirked, “You’re not sure?”

  “I mean, we are. Yeah,” Elan nodded.

  “What else did you hear about me from the town?”

  That was a weir
d jump to another topic, but he could tell this was something that bothered her. “Nothing much, why?”

  “You already know about the summer before I left for Toronto?”

  Elan remembered what Jules had told him a couple of months ago. It was one of those conversations where Caty’s name was dropped, but it wasn’t truly about her. It was about the accident that happened when Jules was still a teenager. Caty, Jules, and another friend went for a drive and got into an accident. It was the reason why Jules was so secretive when they first met—she was carrying a burden and had only let it go recently.

  “Jules told me a little bit about it, yeah.”

  She frowned. Elan blinked, waiting for an answer she wasn’t giving. So he poured water into a glass and handed it to her.

  He watched while she drank, biding her time before the silence stretched on for too long. Someone should be changing the subject, but Elan wasn’t budging.

  Her eyes squinted, “Well. It was my fault. I was driving without a license. I was a minor. I hit someone.”

  His jaw tightened, and he reached for her glass to refill it.

  “She died.”

  Elan sighed, “No, she didn’t. She was hurt; you didn’t kill anyone.”

  Caty leaned back, impressed that he knew that much. “Okay, so maybe you do know things. What else do you know about me? What else did they tell you?”

  Elan shook his head. “Why would you say that about killing her?”

  “People believe that shit, you know.”

  “I don’t.”

  She paused, then she said, “Good, you shouldn’t believe most of what they say anyway. They’ve said worse things about me.”

  Her words were jumbled, as if she was hurrying to get it out, to make it in time before the window closed.

  “Worse than killing someone?”

  Caty laughed. “Maybe that’s the worst.”

  He smiled at how she still laughed, even if he was starting to realize that the gossip bothered her, and she cared a lot. She was in a room filled with people who thought badly of her, or at least she believed they did. Maybe that was why she kept looking over her shoulder. But there was another puzzle. “What’s the story behind that girl who chased you?”

  She scrunched up her nose, “Man, you’re not gonna let that go, are you?”

  “Fuck no.”

  “You’re really getting the hang of cursing in front of me.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “Jeez, Judy, I’m a lady.” Caty leaned her elbows on the bar. “I love it.”

  He smirked, but he was determined. “Don’t distract me. Answer the question.”

  “Fine. She’s married to this guy. He’s my dad’s friend. We . . . uh. Whatever. Fine. I was in love with him.”

  “How old were you?”

  She looked away. “I knew what I was doing.”

  “Okay, but did he know what he was doing?” Elan frowned, looking back at the table. Caty raised her hand, snapping her fingers in front of his face, “Hey, Captain Obvious. Stop.”

  “Are you telling me that you were in a relationship with someone much older than you when you were—”

  “Oh, come on. I had a crush on him as a teen, that’s all. Nothing happened ’til later on.”

  “But he encouraged it?”

  Caty paused.

  “Which one is he?” He tapped her hand away to get a good look at the table.

  “I’m not gonna tell you.”

  “The bald one?”

  “Excuse me. He’s really good-looking.” Caty looked back. Elan followed her gaze and saw a man sitting next to the woman he recognized. He was laughing and talking to everyone at the table. He barely noticed Caty looking at him. The idiot.

  Elan cleared his throat. “Fine. He kinda looks like that guy. From the Bond movies. Not the new one.”

  “Pierce Brosnan?” She turned back, as if checking it for herself, but all it did was confirm whom she was watching.

  “No, Connery.”

  Her jaw dropped. “I know you meant that as an insult, but how dare you! Sean Connery is hot.”

  “I mean, sure, that’s your type.” He was kidding of course, but she was laughing with him now, and he was mesmerized by the sound of it, loved that it was because of him.

  “Oh my God, he’s not even that old. You’re the worst,” she said, wiping her eyes as her laughter subsided.

  She took a long look at him before smiling. “I’m glad you’re here, Judy.”

  “Oh, no, no, no,” Elan shook his head. “That story wasn’t done. Tell me what happened with this guy.”

  “Nothing,” she replied.

  He gave her a look.

  “Nothing, I mean it,” she insisted. “I came home for a short while, we met, we had this fling. It ran its course. I went back to Toronto, and he married her instead.”

  He didn’t say anything, but he could tell she had more to say.

  “I should have been her, that’s all. I shouldn’t think that way, but I can’t help it. I felt replaced, and I didn’t like it. Also, I was the last to know, so imagine coming back home to that.

  “It feels odd to say that out loud,” she added, then groaned. “Everything sounds petty when you say it out loud.”

  “But you’re not her.” He handed the full glass back to her.

  Caty hissed, “I believe I was already rubbing it in, don’t need help on that.”

  “What were you trying to do with me then?”

  She took the glass and held it close to her mouth. “I don’t know. He hasn’t looked at me this whole night. Hasn’t even tried to contact me since I came home. I thought if I had someone drooling all over me, he’d at least spare me a second. I’m so annoyed. I’m not sure if I’m more annoyed at myself for caring or with him for not.”

  Elan looked behind her, straight to the table where he saw the man staring back at them. Elan’s fingers curled, and his hand turned into a fist before he grabbed her shot glass. The bottle was just sitting there, so he took it.

  Caty watched him. “Judy. I’m warning you.”

  He restrained his laugh as he poured. He raised the glass to her. “Just so we’re even.”

  Elan tipped the glass and felt the liquid pass through his mouth to his throat. It didn’t take long before he felt it burn straight to his stomach. He stammered, “Goddamn. Shit.”

  “It’s the town specialty.”

  “You let people drink this?” He cleared his throat.

  Caty smiled. “No, we only give this to the ones we want to stay for a while.”

  “Why?” Elan tilted his head, letting the burn settle. He sensed Caty watching him with absolute glee, and it made him feel a little better about drinking the shot.

  “Okay.” He clapped his hands when he felt good enough to get things going again. “Let’s do it properly this time. I wasn’t sure what I was doing earlier. But now I am.”

  “Do what?”

  “Make him regret not choosing you.”

  seven

  Who knew that stepping in as his sister’s dance partner would finally pay off? Gia brought Elan to her dance class when they were kids because there weren’t enough boys enrolled. Boys were mostly doing other things like guitar lessons, basketball clinic, karate, etc. Elan chose to do nothing for the summer, simply because he wanted to watch TV all day and play outside.

  But Gia dragged him to dance class every Tuesday and Thursday. He couldn’t say no, because their mother asked him to do it.

  Gia wanted to be a part of Dancesport ever since she’d seen that movie with Patrick Swayze. Elan thought it’d be cool if he could start lifting girls from his sister’s class like Swayze did in the movie, but then he glanced at his reflection in the studio mirrors and knew it was a long shot.

  H
e did go through with the classes for the whole summer, though. Gia was a good dancer, and surprisingly, Elan wasn’t that bad either. He didn’t step on her toes. He was able to understand the steps and remember them.

  Gia’s dream only lasted for that summer, but Elan never forgot the dancing. He wasn’t Dancesport material, but he knew how to lead.

  “What are we doing? Wait, what are we doing?” Caty tugged at his arm as he walked ahead of her. He had drunk the poisonous drink that was the town delicacy, and it was spreading heat throughout his body.

  “They told me you dance.” He turned around.

  She blinked. “When I was younger, yeah. Wait, they told you that? What else do you know?”

  “Things,” Elan answered as he offered her his hand. “We’ll take it slow—just follow my lead.”

  Caty looked at his hand, then back at him. Her jaw dropped. “Oh my God. You dance.”

  He eyed the couples already on the dance floor. “Only when needed.”

  She smiled and took his hand. “Am I even wearing the right dress for this?”

  “You’re wearing the perfect one.” He stepped to her side, his hand still holding hers. Elan raised an eyebrow, willing her to walk with him. He didn’t want to make her think this was a big deal—it was just dancing.

  The room had been playing big-band tunes, and, at that moment, Elan actually knew what was playing. He even liked the Ray Charles song.

  Caty took her first step, eyes glued on him, waiting for him to make the next move. They walked to the middle of the dance floor. Then he stretched out his hands, feet apart, and told her, “Twirl.”

  She hesitated for a beat but did what he said. Caty rolled to her side, and his arms enveloped her as she reached him. He caught her by the waist before her other hand landed on his. Although she wasn’t facing him, Elan caught a glimpse of her smile as she turned.

  The main thing he’d picked up from those classes was that girls love to twirl. So he made her do it again, on the other side. Caty turned with more confidence the second time, landing in front of him perfectly, arm hooked on his neck as she faced him.

  Caty’s hand found its place on his shoulder while his hand slid down her back. Her skin was warm, and so was her smile.

  “Ready?” Elan asked.