by Tonya Plank
***
I was so depressed that night over the judge’s ruling. With Jamar’s confession being admitted at trial, the evidence was so stacked against him. And I truly believed he was innocent and the co-defendants planned the whole thing. It was hard for me to concentrate during practice. I kept making mistakes. I kept apologizing. And Sasha kept forgiving me. Greta wasn’t there; it was only Sasha and me.
But finally he turned off the music. “I know you know all of these steps like the back of your hand. I know you can do this. And you know it too. We’re not making progress because your mind is elsewhere.”
“I know, I’m sor—” I began.
But he stopped me. “No, you don’t need to keep saying that. Maybe we should just stop for now and you talk about what happened today. Get it out of your system. As much as you can, anyway.”
“Oh! Really? Thank you.”
I needed to talk. I walked to him, let myself fall into him. He wrapped his arms tightly around me and kissed the crown of my head.
“I just feel like this system is such a let-down to the people who need it. After Warren and now Jamar. Judges won’t look past facades and case law to see the real people. They don’t want to see the real person. I just can’t imagine not wanting to know whether a defendant is mentally handicapped or insane. Like that wouldn’t in any way be relevant to what they’re charged with, how they acted, their level of culpability. They’re just bad people. Period.”
“I completely understand, sweet. You’ve gotten to know them through interviews and reading their files and talking to their parents. They’re your clients. You see them as individuals. The judges can’t. They only see facts and laws.”
We snuggled up on the couch, me in a fetal position, his body cradling mine.
“Maybe that’s what the challenge is at trial when the jury is there,” he continued. “You’ll have actual people and not just judges and their laws. You can show the people in the jury the person your client is.”
I scrunched myself up further into a ball, basking in the sensation of being cocooned inside him. Sasha knew nothing about the law. This was my profession, not his. And yet he was so right. He was so wise. I felt like nothing or no one could hurt me in Sasha’s arms. It hadn’t ever been like that with anyone, besides my dad. And that was a long time ago. I hadn’t felt this in a long time.
“Your clients are so lucky to have you, Rory. You really care about them.”
Tears began to well at the backs of my eyes.
“It’s too bad of course that Gunther will be the one with all the power at trial,” he said.
“Oh but Gunther has the know-how,” I said. I couldn’t imagine conducting a trial of this importance, that could result in a death penalty, all on my own at this stage. I was way too inexperienced. “He can think on his feet and he knows how to handle judges and the D.A.”
“Yes, but you’re the one…the…uh, what’s the word…I don’t want to use the words nice or sweet or soft or whatever word I used before that got me into trouble,” he said with a chuckle.
“What do you mean?” I vaguely recalled the conversation. I’d mistaken his remarks for sexism. But that seemed so long ago. I couldn’t even remember what I’d thought he even meant at this point.
“You’re the one with empathy. That’s what I mean to say,” he said. “You’re the one who can bring a human face to your client and encourage the jurors to empathize with him.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet of you,” I said, melting into him. His arms tightened around me, pulling me into an even closer embrace.
Sweet as that it was, though, it kind of made me sick to my stomach to think of representing someone facing the death penalty on my own. At least right now in my career. Maybe ever. I’d so much rather focus on Blackpool, where losing was serious and upsetting but certainly didn’t mean anyone dying. Ugh, either I was bored out of my mind at my job or scared out of my wits. Taking a hiatus to focus on dance was sounding better and better. Still, I couldn’t imagine not being part of Jamar’s case.
Chapter 5
The next couple of weeks at work were dead. Back to boring, as usual. But it was good because I could really push myself with Sasha. I was out of practice and out of shape from all the missed time from the knee injury and eating problem. The good thing was that I was kicking myself harder than Sasha was. He knew I knew what my problem areas were and he knew I was working my hardest to fix them, so he wasn’t on my case all the time.
I was definitely improving on the nutrition front. I drank at least two of Sasha’s juices per day, and made sure I had at least two meals that included vegetables and protein. I started out with small but well-balanced portions. And I took copious notes of what I ate to present to my therapist and nutritionist each week. I also made good use of Sasha’s weight room. The machines helped to build muscle in my legs, upper arms and center—the places where I needed most of my strength.
***
Sasha and I took a nice drive up to Malibu to visit the costumer we’d be using for Blackpool. Her office was very unlike Drucilla’s. This was a storefront filled with sample costumes made by one brand only. That brand, Sasha explained, was our sponsor. They’d supply us with two costumes apiece—finalists, I found out, needed two costumes so they could change for the finals round. And we were definitely expected to final.
They, along with the shoe designer whose brand we’d wear, would pay our plane fare, hotel room and meals, competition costs, fees for hair, makeup, and bronzing, and any incidental costs, such as massages or waxes. And on top of that we’d get paid just to dance in their costumes. Wow, I guess we were getting everything paid for. Talk about pressure.
I was floored when Sasha told me all this. So it wasn’t expensive to compete, since someone else was footing the bill, and paying us in addition. This was only for top contestants though, Sasha made clear. People who would make the costumer look very, very good. In exchange, we were to pose for pictures wearing the clothes and shoes, which would be blown up into posters to be used for their sales purposes. We were also to sit in front of the costumer’s booth in the main shopping pavilion in Blackpool’s Winter Garden for several hours on the day following the competition, signing autographs and posing for pictures with fans. Wow. I had no idea. How many fans would there be? It was like the Olympics or something and having our faces plastered onto cereal boxes!
I fingered the costumes on display while Sasha went into the back to meet the head designer. These costumes looked much more sophisticated than Drucilla’s. They had double and even triple layering for both shadowing effect and so wardrobe malfunctions were much less likely. The material felt soft, plush and richer, and most of the costumes were delicately hand-embroidered with colorful rhinestones.
These costumes were definitely way more expensive. I was so relieved we didn’t have to pay. I just hoped I could do mine justice. Absent were any photos of other dancers, like there had been at Drucilla’s. I guessed that was because Drucilla tended to cater to amateurs who looked up to the pros; this place catered to the pros themselves who might become competitive or annoyed by pics of other pros. Here the fabrics and designs sold themselves to us.
***
“Hello, hello, so nice to meet you. I am Daiyu. Welcome to my store, Daiyu Dance.” A very beautiful young Chinese woman stood before me, and actually gave me a slight bow.
How sweet, and how young to have her own store! She had an accent but her English was very good.
“So, you have ideas? Or you want to see catalog?” Her tone was animated, her eyes so bright and wide.
I’d been a little overwhelmed at first but right away she made me feel warm and excited, like I had a world of possibilities before me. I felt like I was in a really expensive candy store.
“That would be gre—” I went to say, just as Sasha said, “I think we know what we want.”
Sasha and I looked at each other.
Daiyu laughed.
“Oh. O
kay, why don’t you take a flip through some of the catalogs then, and I’ll point out anything that looks like what I’m thinking,” Sasha said to me.
The catalog was so enormous, Daiyu could barely hold it in her delicate little hands. Inside were so many designs. Wow, this woman could do anything. There were uber-sexy belly-button plunging necklines with only mesh between the breasts, and sleek, body-hugging turtlenecks. There were short Carmen Miranda-era puffed sleeves, long, Greta Garbo-esque sleeves that wrapped around the fingers to resemble chic elbow-high gloves. There were cute swingy-looking halter tops. There was every size, shape and design of skirt from ruffles to shimmies, to ankle-length but with a slit that rose all the way up to the hip bone. There were costumes with no skirt at all, but just a leotard that rose practically to the waist, or that extended lower like cute sailor-type boy shorts. There were bikinis with rhinestones circling the boobs and lining the triangular pubic area. Those looked like mad fun, though more like something you’d see on a Vegas stage than in a ballroom competition. Maybe for a performance but not a competition! There were costumes where practically the entire thing was made of mesh except cutouts for the nipples and a super skimpy bikini bottom. Oh wait, I recognized that as the costume I’d first seen Xenia wear at The Beverly Hilton.
I started to feel a bit lightheaded just thinking about how hot but seriously uncomfortable I’d feel in most of these. I couldn’t dance freely knowing my big ole boobs were constantly on the verge of busting out of the teensy tiny bra.
“You okay?” Sasha asked, recognizing the shift in my demeanor.
“Um, yeah. I just need something a little more…”
“Subtle?” Daiyu said with a light laugh. “Yes, we just put these up front because they are, how you say…flashiest.”
I was so relieved I wouldn’t have to defend myself for being a prude. She took about an inch of catalog pages between her fingers and flipped to nearer its middle. “These are a little more covering.”
“Thank you,” I said, seeing costumes that were clearly more my style. Slightly diaphanous organza skirts but with a lower-cut leotard underneath, wide but not plunging necklines, dresses that fully covered the front but then were cut sexily low on the back. Sexy but not gauche.
“Yes, I can see you in some of these, like this one,” she said pointing to the very one I was admiring with the low back. Her smile was golden.
“Your name is so pretty,” I said. “What does it mean?”
“Thank you. It means black jasmine.”
Oooh, very cool, I thought. We were representing Black Jasmine Dance. The name totally fit Sasha somehow. Like, complicated beauty, beauty with shading, with a strong sense of mystery.
“Yes, that’s not too far from what I was thinking, actually,” said Sasha. “Can we go into the back and do a sketching?”
“Of course!” Daiyu said.
She led us to the far wall then parted a thick red plush curtain with gold trim, and brought us into another room. On her way she said something in mellifluous Chinese to a young man in one of the rooms. He said something in response and walked out to the front. We entered a large room surrounded by windows looking out onto a grassy green lawn, and we sat across from her at a large metal table covered with sketch paper, charcoal, pencils and drawings.
She opened a drawer and pulled out a drawing. “Here is the one I was working on, based on what you had told me,” she said. She began to hand the paper to Sasha then looked back and forth between the two of us. She ended up placing the paper between us.
I glanced down at it as he picked it up.
“Oh, I didn’t realize you’d already talked,” I said.
“Just briefly,” he said, his attention focused on her work.
I leaned toward him so I could see. The dress appeared to be a two piece. It was sleeveless, with spaghetti straps and a tube-like bikini top. The skirt connected to the top through long strands of fabric on the sides but the midriff was bare. The skirt was asymmetrical, slit high, up to the pelvis on one side, cut down about an inch above the knee on the other. It looked absolutely nothing like the design I’d admired in the catalog. The bra part was what worried me most. I didn’t think I could fit into such a thing and it would only accentuate my top-heaviness.
“I don’t think I’d feel comfortable in that top, Sasha,” I said. “I really like the one I saw in the catalog. Can we have her sketch one like that?”
“Well, it’s just that the other design was from a few years ago, Rory. This is more in the current style.”
“But shouldn’t we be original? Do we have to wear what everyone else is wearing?”
“Tired and old is not the same as original, Rory.”
“Fine. But can we modify it? I just won’t be comfortable in that.”
“Let me just clarify that all of our designs are basically costume-malfunction-worry-free,” Daiyu piped in. “Believe me. We use triple layering and stitching, with many invisible straps. It won’t expose anything you don’t want it to.”
“I believe you. But…that’s not the problem.”
“What is the problem then?” Sasha asked.
“Because I won’t be comfortable. It’ll expose my disproportions, Sasha.”
“What disproportions?” He laughed. “Rory, you are a beautiful woman. Please be proud of your body.”
I breathed deeply. I wanted to be comfortable with my body. That was definitely my goal. But I wasn’t completely there right now at this point in my life, and this wasn’t going to help. At all. “I want to. But please Sasha, this is only going to exacerbate the problem. Please listen to me. I know.” My pulse increased. I didn’t want to fight with him. Why don’t men understand women’s body issues? “Why can’t we just keep the whole thing attached? I mean, no bare midriff?”
“Because that would look so plain,” Sasha said. “It would just be like a sack or a frock or whatever it’s called.”
“It would not be like a sack,” I protested. “It would still be form-fitting, and maybe cinched at the waistline.”
He shook his head. “That look has been done. I’ve been at this a long time, Rory. I know the styles that have come and gone.”
“Can’t we somehow update it, then?” I said.
He shrugged, a look of disappointment now engulfing all of his features.
“Sasha, is this seriously that huge of a problem? Isn’t my comfort more important than whether a look has been done at some point in the past? And, besides, isn’t nothing new under the sun?” That was a double negative and sounded ridiculous, but he knew what I meant.
“Unfortunately, yes, ridiculous as it may sound to you. The ingenuity of your costume is part of what the judges are looking at. If you repeat old styles it works against you.”
I looked at him square on. He had to be kidding. The judges really cared about something as superficial as that?
He squirmed under the weight of my stare. “I’m not kidding, unfortunately. But there is a change in the judging this year with the committee not allowing coaches and former champions who coach to judge. It’s supposed to bring in a new pool of judges. Maybe they won’t have the same focus past judges have had. But maybe they will. It’s just…” He looked around the room, disappointment on his face growing more and more.
“What?”
“This design is so sexy and fun. I thought your confidence was returning. Confidence comes from within, not from what you are wearing.”
“Sexy and fun. I feel like that’s all you care about. That I look sexy.”
“I didn’t say—”
“You care more about the way I look than the way I dance.” I was starting to fume.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I—”
“If you didn’t, you’d want me to be comfortable so I could dance as full-out as possible, not hold back.”
“Might I make a suggestion?” Daiyu said, sitting upright and holding her hands up as if in surrender.
Her voice actuall
y made both of us jump a bit. As if we’d forgotten she was there.
“Yes, please,” I said, feeling like from what she’d said before, she was on my side.
“I think that toga-style tops are soon going to be very in. I’ve seen them on the runway in Milan just last month and they looked very sharp. I mean at a regular fashion show. Trends in ballroom follow general trends. That kind of top would give you more support and cover. And then I could make the costume one piece, and it wouldn’t be plain at all because of the remarkable cut. And it would not be rehashing a tired style. It would be, if anything, updating a classic.”
“You mean, like a Greek toga?” I said.
“Yes, like that.”
I thought about it. I couldn’t really imagine what it would look like in a ballroom competition. All I could think of was Pebbles from “The Flintstones.”
“I could make a weaving-like motion with the fabric so that there are waves. And it would be form-fitting, not like a typical, loose toga,” she said, reading my mind. “Also, we could keep the asymmetrical skirt and have the line cut opposite to the top, so that the strapless part would have the shorter leg line. That would make it unique.” Her eyes were bright. She seemed excited. And I found her excitement contagious.
“That sounds fun. I think I’ll be comfortable.”
“We can play around with the fabrics and colors too, for two different but similar looks for the regular competition and the finals. Don’t worry, I’ll throw together a sample and then you can try it and see what you think,” she said.
“Sounds good to me!” I chirped, my curiosity now really piqued. Judging by her other designs and her confidence, I trusted her.
We both looked at Sasha. He didn’t look as excited as me but the look of disappointment had dissipated considerably.
“Come on,” I said. “We need to compromise, Sasha.”