by Nicola Yoon
“Gotta have some bravery,” he says.
“Yes, good,” she says. “You must be bold. You must have showmanship.” She rummages through the closet again and picks out a handful of CDs. “Last element is chemistry, but is for another time. Today we work on showmanship.”
She heads for the door. “Come, come,” she yells over her shoulder.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Come. I drive you to Santa Monica. You two are going to dance for your supper.”
* * *
——
I spend the entire car ride trying to talk her out of it, but she will not be deterred. From his spot in the backseat, X is unhelpful with his silence.
I catch his eye in the rearview mirror. “Help me out,” I say.
He shakes his head. “I say yes to everything, remember?”
I twist in my seat so I can face him. “You know, I thought about what you said yesterday, about living every day like it was your last.”
He leans forward, interested. “Yeah?”
“I decided that it doesn’t really work. If people lived like that, they would indulge all their worst impulses. They’d blow off their obligations, say and do inappropriate and immoral things, eat the wrong foods. It’d be a disaster.”
He throws back his head and laughs. The sound fills up the car. “Wow, that was a dissertation. But why do you assume people would do the wrong things with their last day? Maybe they’d eat all their vegetables. Maybe they’d tell the people they love how much they love them.”
I think I used to have as much faith in people as he does. I face forward. “No, they wouldn’t,” I say.
“All I’m saying is it could be nice to dance by the beach in front of a bunch of strangers.”
“Nice or no, you’re doing it,” Fifi says.
Fifi parks and unearths supplies from her trunk: tip jar, boom box and CDs. Then we’re on our way.
The Santa Monica promenade is basically an outdoor mall with a closed-to-traffic, paved-brick road running through it. In the spring and summer it’s packed with tourists watching street performers. There are B-boy dancers, the School of Rock kids, singer/songwriter types. My absolute favorite, though, is Grumpy Clown. He looks like a desaturated version of an actual clown. If he’s not stalking the length of the promenade smoking a cigarette and glowering at small children, he’s sitting on one of the benches constructing the balloon animals you see in your nightmares. Seriously, they’re terrifying.
Fifi chooses a spot right next to one of the dinosaur hedge-sculptures that dot the promenade.
She puts down the tip jar and seeds it with twenty dollars from her purse. “People are more likely to like you if they think other people like you,” she says to my questioning look.
X puts the boom box down next to our tip jar and Fifi loads a CD.
“Fifi—” I begin, trying to give my objections one last chance to make an impression on her.
But she’s not having it. “To dance on a floor with eleven other couples, you must be fearless. You must hold judges’ attention over other dancers. You must make other couples invisible.”
“Fifi, man, you make it sound like we’re going to war,” X says.
“It is war,” she says. “And right now you are not good weapon.” She claps her hands together. “Into position.”
I take two deep breaths to calm myself. The air’s a mix of ocean brine, floral perfumes and that new-leather mall smell. The almost-lunchtime sun is high and hot. It feels like a spotlight shining down on us.
“I start you off easy,” Fifi says, and stoops to press play on the CD.
At first, we’re Tin-Man-from-Wizard-of-Oz stiff. I’m hyper-self-conscious and, paradoxically, hyperaware of everyone walking by. I sneak a peek at our potential “audience.” We get vaguely curious glances from tourists. The locals—the people who actually work nearby and are used to all kinds of performances—ignore us completely.
Next to us, Fifi hisses corrections: “Infinity hips! Stronger frame! Eye contact!”
The first song ends, but Fifi doesn’t give us time to rest. She plays three more bachata songs in a row. The tempo increases with each, so that by the fourth I’m concentrating too hard to have time for self-consciousness.
By the time the last song ends fifteen minutes later, X and I are both breathing hard.
Fifi waves us over. “Tell me,” she says. “Why you think no one is watching?”
I don’t answer. I know a rhetorical question when I hear one.
Evidently, X does too, because he doesn’t answer either.
“Not watching because both of you dancing with head, not heart. And too busy paying attention to the people not paying attention to you.” She looks at X. “You are in band. You perform on stage. Where is boldness?”
“Singing and ballroom dancing are not the same thing, Fi,” he says.
“But you have to have charisma, yes? Where is charisma?” she asks.
She turns to me. “Technique is not terrible,” she says. “But you are smoke without fire.”
I’m sure she’s right. Still I want to point out that
smoke is very hot
and
people die just as much from smoke inhalation as they do from actual flames.
However, there’s no way saying any of that will help my case.
Some little kids climb onto the wall surrounding the dinosaur sculptures and start pretending to be dinosaurs. They roar and I kind of want to join them.
“Try again,” Fifi says.
X and I move back into position.
“Let down your braids,” he says.
I touch my hand to my high ponytail and frown at him. “Why?”
“Just say yes,” he says. “We’re letting it all hang out.”
Something about taking my hair down feels too intimate. It makes me shy and unsteady.
“You have to take your dreads down too, then,” I say, trying to get my footing back.
He pulls out his hair tie with one hand. His locs fall around his shoulders and frame his face.
Our eyes meet and there’s a thread of something—an extra awareness—between us. A small, unwise part of me wants to hold on to that thread and see where it leads. The larger, more sensible part of me wants to find huge metaphorical scissors and snip that thread into tiny pieces.
The next song begins. Maybe it’s because our hair is down or because Fifi basically dared us to stop sucking, but for whatever reason, this dance is different.
The singer is a crooner. His voice sounds like he’s just found the meaning of life and he’s about to tell you what it is. Beneath his voice, the 4/4 rhythm is insistent. X throws his shoulders back and smiles into my eyes. His lead is confident. Somehow my hips have unsprung. Infinity hips achieved.
We slip into another song and then another. By the time we stop, there’s a crowd of fifteen or twenty people around us. Some of them even walk over to drop money into our tip jar.
I wait for them to drift away before I count up our earnings. “There’s fifty-seven dollars in here,” I say, shocked.
“Minus Fifi’s twenty, that’s thirty-seven bucks in forty minutes,” X adds.
That’s pretty good, actually.
“So how’d we look, Fi?” X asks.
I know we danced those last songs better than we ever have, but that doesn’t mean it was actually any good.
Fifi is uncharacteristically quiet.
“You’re scaring me,” I tell her.
“Me too,” says X.
“It’s still early stages,” she says.
“Yes,” I agree.
She turns to me. “And hips are better, but still nonsense.”
“Okay,” I say.
She turns to
X. “And you couldn’t lead a cow to grass.”
He just laughs.
“But maybe together you might have something,” she says smiling.
“Mostly me, though, right?” X says.
“Definitely,” she says.
“Hey,” I say, “just because he’s hot—”
X’s head whips around. “You think I’m hot?”
Gobsmacked is the word I’d use to describe his face.
In situations like this, most people wish for a hole to open up and swallow them into the ground. But I don’t want that. What I want is to be the hole. I don’t know what that sentiment means, but I’m sure I mean it.
“I meant to say she thinks you’re hot,” I say, stabbing my finger at Fifi.
Fifi cocks her head and stares at us the way you’d look at a piece of art you don’t quite understand in a museum. “Huh,” she says.
“What?” I ask.
“Finally, I understand what problem is.”
“Great. Maybe you could tell me,” X says.
“Never mind problem,” she says. “I have solution. Tomorrow instead of practice, you two go out and get to know each other.”
“We’re fine—” I begin.
“Not fine,” she counters. “One of most important elements of ballroom is chemistry. Go out and get to be friends.”
Put like that, it almost sounds reasonable.
X grins. “Yes, whatever it takes,” he says, because, annoyingly, he says yes to everything.
Of course I have to agree too.
We dance three more dances and earn another eighteen dollars.
Fifi takes a ten-percent cut.
Back at the studio, X and I exchange phone numbers before going our separate ways.
* * *
——
There’s a subgenre of romance books I like to call Shipwrecked. In them, the unsuspecting (and usually feuding) main characters are somehow forced to spend enough time together that they realize how much they like spending time together. For example, the couple is trapped in a (small, romantic) cabin in the woods because of a snowstorm. Or the couple is stranded on a (beautiful, tropical, not-at-all-dangerous) deserted island because of stormy seas.
What I’m saying is that Fifi is a storm, X and I are the unsuspecting main characters, and us getting to know each other for the sake of dance chemistry is a small cabin in a snowy wood.
CHAPTER 18
A Strict Definition
Sophie, “Me,” Cassidy and Martin >
Sophie: So what you’re saying is you’re going on a date with the sexy new guy you met at your sexy new hobby. Do I have that right?
Me: It’s not a date
Sophie: I’m using the strict definition of the word
Cassidy: Which is what?
Sophie: Two or more people meeting at a fixed location at an appointed time for a predetermined reason
Martin: Where are you going?
Me: Ughhhh
Me: Ughhhhhhhhh
Me: He wants to go on one of those celebrity tours
Martin: Ew
Me: Right?!
Sophie: I’ve always wanted to go on one of those
Cassidy: Rlly? didn’t think u’d b in 2 that
Sophie: What? I can be shallow
Cassidy: I like that ur not shallow
Me: Are you guys flirting? It feels like you’re flirting
Cassidy: We r not flirting
Sophie: Exactly
Me: ANYWAY
Sophie and “Me” >
Sophie: Why’d you say that thing about Cassidy flirting with me
Me: I was just kidding
Me: Why?
Me: Do you want her to flirt with you?
Sophie: Of course not
Sophie: It was just a weird thing for you to say
Cassidy and “Me” >
Cassidy: No tongue on the 1st date
Me: Shut.
Me: Up.
Martin and “Me” >
Me: I think something’s up with them
Martin: Yeah, maybe
Me: I blame spring
Me: It’s like the pollen makes people extra kissy
Martin: You’re saying kissing is an allergic reaction?
Me: For which there is no cure
CHAPTER 19
Not a Date, Part 1 of 3
I GET TO LaLaLand Tours with fifteen minutes to spare. The office is in a strip mall with a pawn shop on one side, a check cashing place on the other and Hollywood Walk of Fame stars stenciled into the sidewalk in front. Irony, thy name is Hollywood.
As soon as I walk in, a pretty but entirely too-animated young white woman holding a clipboard and wearing a LaLaLand Tours T-shirt hands me a sheet of paper. On one side is an FAQ with a prominent disclaimer reminding us that we are not guaranteed to see celebrities frolicking in their natural habitat on this tour.
X walks in ten minutes after when we said we’d meet. I think one side effect of living in the moment is that it makes you late for appointments. As usual, his dreads are up high on his head. He’s wearing skinny black jeans, a short-sleeved white button-down and blue floral canvas sneakers. I watch him move about the room and realize I’m not the only one watching him. Besides his looks, there’s something compelling about him. Maybe it’s the openness of his face? Or the way he seems so interested in the world, like right here, right now is exactly where he wants to be.
Pretty clipboard woman hands him his FAQ/disclaimer.
He flashes his absurdly beautiful smile at her.
She takes off all her clothes.
I’m kidding.
She doesn’t do that.
But she wants to.
“X,” I call out to him so she knows he’s actually meeting someone here.
Clipboard lady gets everyone’s attention and shepherds us all outside. The bus is an open-air double-decker behemoth festooned with pictures of famous landmarks and grainy photos of surprised, not-entirely-pleased-looking celebrities.
“Upper or lower deck?” X asks.
I choose upper. It’s a nice day and just overcast enough that we won’t bake in the sun.
“How many of these tours have you been on?” he asks as we climb the stairs.
“None,” I say.
“Really?”
“I’m from here,” I remind him.
“All the more reason,” he says.
The first half of the tour is, to my surprise, pretty interesting. Even though we don’t see any celebrities, our guide tells us funny stories about previous sightings. There was one famous reality TV star who they caught picking his nose when the tour bus pulled up next to his car. She doesn’t say who the star was but gives us enough clues to figure it out.
When we hit Sunset Strip, X turns to me with an are you seeing what I’m seeing? look on his face.
“What?” I ask.
“That’s the Roxy,” he says. “And Whisky a Go Go.” Both the Roxy and Whisky a Go Go are famous nightclubs. He says the names with such reverence that I can’t help feeling a little excited for him.
I look out at them, but I know that where I’m just seeing another average building, he’s seeing history.
“You haven’t gone yet?” I ask.
“Not yet,” he says. He gets out his phone and starts taking pictures. “Man, you know what kind of legends played the Roxy? Bob Marley and the Wailers. George Benson. Jane’s Addiction. The Doors were Whisky a Go Go’s house band for a while.”
I look back out at the buildings, already starting to see them differently. “So your dream is to play there?” I ask.
“I’ll get there,” he says.
“Are you always so…confident?”
“You were going to say ‘cocky,’ weren’t you?”
“No,” I lie.
He gives me an I don’t believe you at all smile.
It’s a nice smile. I move us on from it. “You want to be a musician?”
He shifts position so he can face me better. “We’re really doing this thing?”
“What thing?”
“What Fifi told us to do. The get-to-know-each-other thing.”
“If there was a ballroom dance mafia, Fifi would be the kingpin. Our lives will be easier if we just do what she says.”
“I feel you,” he says with a quick laugh. He looks back at the clubs as we pass them. “I’m a musician already. What I want is to be a rock star. I want world domination. I want the big stadium. The sold-out shows. The cover of Rolling Stone. The induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”
“The groupies,” I interject.
He laughs and shrugs.
“But the odds are so against you,” I say.
“Yeah, so I’ve heard.” He sounds defiant and tired at the same time.
I’m sure I’m not the first person to tell him that his probability of making it is low. I wonder how his parents feel about his big dream. Parents don’t usually love it when their kids take risks with their futures.
“You know what, though?” I say. “If everybody thought about the odds, there’d be no rock stars in the first place.”
His smile comes back, and I’m happier about it than I probably should be.
Our bus pulls up to a stoplight. A few pedestrians wave like we’re the actual celebrities.
“So you moved out here to become a rock star?”
“That’s part of it.”
“What’s the other part?”
He examines my face for a few seconds. I get the feeling he’s trying to decide how much to trust me with. “A friend of mine died last year. Clay. He was our bassist.”
“Oh, X, I’m so sorry.”
He nods down at his hands. “Me too.”
I don’t think he’s going to say anything else, but then he does. “The band was me, Clay, Jamal on drums and Kevin on keys. We almost called ourselves The Lonely Onlys.”