by Tonya Plank
“You can do it, honey. If anyone can do it, you can do it!” Paulina chirped.
“Are you going to teach at Infectious Rhythm? Or are you just gonna be a, you know, kept woman?” Sam asked, giggling harder.
“You’re such a goofball!” I said to her, shaking my head at her silliness. “Definitely a kept woman,” I continued. “I don’t want to ever have to work for a living. Hell no! I mean, gross!” I joked.
“I could see it. You as a teacher, I mean, not a kept woman! I’d love to be in your class, honey,” Paulina said.
But I honestly couldn’t imagine teaching there. I couldn’t imagine myself teaching at all. I was a student, not a teacher. But now I was a champion. The whole thing was still so surreal. What would I do?
I looked around the room, lost now in my thoughts. I spotted Tatiana in the corner, snuggled into the plush cream cushions of the sofa, mesmerized by an iPad with a pink back cover. She looked perfectly content to be by herself, alone with her new toy. Alone, maybe, with her thoughts.
For the first time since leaving my job I thought about Jamar. For some reason, Tatiana made me think of him. What was he doing right now? What was happening with his case? Would he ever find his brother? Would he spend his life in prison? And if he didn’t, what would his life be like?
I looked at Greta, in the opposite corner. She struck a starkly different figure. She wore a drop-dead gorgeous mauve floor-length dress and was surrounded by people, her fingers delicately laced around the stem of her champagne flute held high in the air. She threw her head back, laughing at something someone said, her smile radiant, her shiny platinum bob flying above and beyond her like a bright ray of sunshine. Could I be her? Did I want to be?
“Rory, oh my gosh, what’s wrong?” Samantha asked, suddenly startled.
“A penny for your thoughts?” Sasha said, approaching me from behind, wrapping his arms around my waist, rubbing his lips on my cheek. Now that our period of crazy-high stress was all over, I could laugh to myself at his Americanisms again.
My man. He’d struggled all his life to escape his small town, the smallness of the life he was born into. And he so had. He was culturally an American now, he was a champion, a star, and, thanks to his sister and her nutcase of a husband and the headlines they’d created, he’d achieved international fame.
I turned toward him, gazed upward into his sparkling eyes. “I’m just so happy,” I said. “You’ve achieved your life’s goal. At twenty-six. That’s so amazing.”
“What about you?” He laughed, his smile turning bemused.
“Me too, of course!”
“So where do we go from here? Is that what you’re thinking?”
I laughed and threw my hands up. “Exactly. Your ability to read my mind is a bit unnerving, you know!”
“It’s my job,” he said, his face completely serious now.
“Your job?”
“Yes, my job.”
“How’s that?”
“You are the woman I love, Rory. The woman I am meant to spend my life pleasing. I want nothing more than that now. So it works that I can see into your soul.”
“Aaawwwww!” Samantha wailed.
“Okay, sweetness overload. Methinks you two need to be left alone right now!” Paulina sang.
Just then a loud mambo began to blast over the speakers. Hips began swaying out on the balcony.
“And that’s our cue!” Paulina said.
“Okay, so tell me what it is I want?” I asked Sasha after the others had gone to join the fun.
He looked around the room and squinted, thinking hard, then said, “I think right now you just want to go home. To our house in the hills.”
Our house! I inwardly squealed.
I looked into the deep blue of his irises, closed my eyes, envisioned riding in his Porsche up those winding roads high into the hills above Hollywood The ballroom, its floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the breathtaking canyon. The winding staircase he’d carried me up many a time now. The warm, cocooning, healing bathtub. The bed…
“Yes, that’s exactly what I want,” I whispered. “Take me home to your…to our castle in the sky.”
Chapter 18
We hadn’t even left England when the emails from L.A. started flooding our inboxes. Sasha had received a phone call early in the morning of the last day we were there, the day of the final standard ballroom competition, from one of the Blackpool organizers, saying their office had been inundated with calls from Hollywood agents requesting our contact information, which of course hadn’t been public. She said she initially directed her staff to take names and numbers so we could return their calls but there were way too many and it was becoming too much to handle for them. She wanted to know if she could give out his email or cell phone number. He said no to the phone, but yes to the email, and within hours he had far too many to respond to. This was partly because when they didn’t get immediate information from Blackpool, many of the agents had called the owner of Infectious Rhythm—wonderful woman—who hadn’t bothered to check with us and had simply given out Sasha’s email. Anyway, the agents had heard about the events in Blackpool and had seen our pictures and seen us dance, and apparently thought we’d be perfect for TV or a feature film.
“But you turned down the reality shows before,” I said to him. “Do they think now that you’re a champion you’re going to reconsider?”
“They’d have no way of knowing I turned down the shows before,” he said. “The shows asked me directly.”
Sasha ended up spending the entire day reading emails, responding, and organizing times to meet when we returned to L.A. He’d found out over the course of the day that a total of three different projects were in the works that one or both of us were wanted for: two longstanding reality competition TV shows that paired celebrities with champion dancers—one based here, one back home—wanted to offer us an insane amount of money to become pro dancers on the shows. More than any of the pros had been paid before, according to the agents.
The second option was a new reality TV show that took a behind-the-scenes look at the world of competitive ballroom dancing. We’d of course be the first showcased pair of champion dancers. The show would follow us for the next year as we prepared for the World Championships, the U.S. National Championships, and Blackpool again next year, to see if we could continue our winning streak.
The third project supposedly in the works was mainly for Sasha: a movie with kind of a Cinderella storyline about a young woman from the wrong side of the tracks who meets a glamorous, sexy ballroom dancer and is whisked away to a fairytale world where she completely remakes herself and falls in love. I laughed at how much that sounded like my life.
“You’re not from the wrong side of the tracks,” he said. “You’re completely middle class.”
“Yeah, but I’m a lawyer.” I laughed.
He didn’t. He still didn’t get the anger and contempt much of the public held for lawyers.
“Different wrong side…or different track…never mind,” I said, giving up.
Anyway, that project was actually underway. The screenplay had been written and the lead actress had been cast. And she was a pretty big deal. She was such a big deal that they were having a hellish time figuring out who would play the dancer. No one seemed strong enough to hold his own opposite her. Please, I thought. Sasha, unknown though he was in Hollywood, had so much personality and charisma as a dancer, he could hold his own against frigging Angelina Jolie. The casting directors had been looking for a man for some time. One of the agents said the only thing was, as written, the male lead wasn’t Russian, which meant he’d have to be passable as American.
“That you are!” I shouted, pumping my fist in the air.
He looked at me dubiously.
“Oh my God, I’m so serious. Unless and until you get all upset and worked up about something—like, say, an imperfect practice before a dance competition—your accent is one hundred percent American and your gramm
ar is impeccable. It’s crazy! You can so do that role, Sasha!”
He cocked his head farther to the side and squinted his eyes more. This time I read his thoughts.
“Yeah, I know. There’s no role for me. I would love to do a project that we can both participate in. But…I don’t know. This is so you. The actress is huge. And it’s a movie, on the big screen. It could lead to so many other things. Sasha, I know how much you want this. You turned down the TV shows before for a reason. Do the movie.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Yeah but the reason I’d turned down the shows was that I was so hell-bent on winning Blackpool. I knew there was no way I could continue to compete with the work schedule required for TV.”
***
Of course I couldn’t stop thinking about it the whole flight home. Less than twenty-four hours ago I’d been trying in vain to envision myself as a teacher at Infectious Rhythm. Now our world was filled with possibilities. The latter, the one I’d wanted for Sasha so badly, wouldn’t include me, but Sasha had made it clear he’d do whichever one I wanted. And the other two had included me. I tried to imagine trying to teach a celebrity to dance. Blah! I’d be far too nervous around celebrities! And if I couldn’t envision myself as a teacher at a little ole ballroom studio how was I going to teach someone famous? No, that one might work for Sasha, but it wasn’t me. It just so wasn’t me.
But the other project I could see. It would be the life we’d lived for the past several months, only we’d now be followed around and filmed. One agent had also mentioned that the show’s creators had hoped to film us going back to England for the Turner trial. I didn’t know how well that would go down with the English courts. Something told me there was no Court TV in the U.K. and that cameras, and the circuses they were wont to create, weren’t allowed in courtrooms. Even if they couldn’t get that footage, though, they might be able to gather pieces of the story separately. I thought about Tatiana’s journey. All that she’d gone through after leaving Siberia. I thought about what had happened to her in Tokyo. I thought about the exposé I felt someone should make. At the very least, someone really should look into that organization, what they were doing and how they might be taking advantage of poor girls. Maybe that reality/documentary project was about more than just the world of professional ballroom dancing, and could put some sort of focus on something larger.
***
As it turned out we were able to do both of the latter two. The movie casting crew auditioned Sasha and fell head over heels in love the nanosecond he walked into the room. But of course! They did want him to work with a dialect coach and take elocution and acting lessons. He’d definitely be working his ass off for that film.
But when the reality TV people found out he’d accepted the movie offer, they were even more excited about casting us than before. They totally changed the scope of the project, and what all it would focus on. They would now follow him around as he took all these lessons and prepared for the role, and as he struggled to do his work for the movie and still have adequate time to rehearse for competition.
I’d mentioned to the director the ideas I had for including the—let’s face it, flashy and sensationalistic—criminal activity we’d been inadvertently involved in without violating any fair-trial issues by focusing more on Tatiana’s story and what she’d been through. The director was young and biracial, and the more I spoke with her I realized she had a genuine interest in expanding the story so it wouldn’t just be about glamour and fame and the hard work of a dance competition, but about what happened to the people left behind as well, and the families and backgrounds of some of these international stars. She interviewed and really connected with Tatiana and wanted to include her story in our larger journey. They even wanted to accompany Sasha and Tatiana back home and film some footage there. Sasha didn’t seem thrilled about that, but he knew I was and said he’d do it. For me.
They’d also decided to film me as I prepared to be second chair in Jamar’s trial! Yes, I was going to be able to work after all on the case that had so ignited my passions! James and Jacqueline had called me numerous times after hearing about our ordeal on the news, Jacqueline in hysterics. I’d promised to see them when I got home. And even though the thought of seeing my sister and hearing her wail about all the mistakes I’d made and how my life was going to hell now that I was involved in criminal activity was not very appealing to me, to put it mildly, I kept my promise and saw them the week after we returned. And how glad I was that I did. She actually didn’t have anything negative to say to me at all. She’d come to terms with my decision to return to dance.
“You’re obviously good at it. Very, very good. I mean, holy hell, Rory, I know nothing about ballroom dancing and even I’ve heard of Blackpool!”
She had never, in my entire life, been supportive. I almost fell out of my chair.
“And, I mean, you’re the world champion. Just, wow!” James said, sounding sincerely impressed.
“Yep. I am,” I said, with a bashful smile.
And James had news that interested me greatly. He told me that the court for some reason had pulled Gunther’s office from Jamar’s case for some kind of ineffective handling of evidence. It was all over the legal news dailies. The court happened to have transferred the case to a friend of James’s.
“I called him up and told him you worked on it, and you really believed in the guy’s innocence and you had a lot of knowledge. Rory, I know in the past you’d considered becoming a public defender. I know you’re now a dance champion and I wasn’t sure if you still wanted to return to law in the future. But this is a big case. He really wants you to assist. It could lead to really good things. I mean law-wise. I mean if you still want that.”
I didn’t need James’s convincing. I still wasn’t sure I wanted to return to a career in law, but if I did it was going definitely to involve defending the underprivileged. I’d always believed in Jamar, I’d never really stopped thinking about his case, and I wasn’t about to say no. I got up and reached for James’s hand. “Jamar’s case means a lot to me. Thank you,” I said.
He also had some other interesting news. Though he’d changed firms, he’d heard through the grapevine that Mitchell and Cheryl were undergoing divorce proceedings. Cheryl had moved in with her new, much younger ballroom instructor.
“Yes!” I said, punching my fist in the air. That would keep her occupied and out of my business for good. And good for her. She’d found her passion too and found someone who appreciated her and could give her what she wanted. I suddenly understood she was a woman in need of something more out of life, just like me. She was profoundly unhappy with Mitchell, as I’d been with James. And she was married, so it was much harder for her to extricate herself from that relationship.
It didn’t justify her tripping and injuring me. But it did explain her jealousy and anger. A bit, anyway.
***
After a couple weeks, Tatiana moved into my old apartment. I’d moved into Sasha’s house—well, our house as he insisted I call it. Sasha had hired permanent bodyguards for Tatiana and me—you just never knew the power of someone like Tucker—who remained stationed outside her apartment building and my house respectively. So he didn’t worry as much about not keeping both of us under his watch 24/7, which, with his now insanely busy schedule, would have been impossible anyway.
Tatiana was shy around me, but she seemed to like living on her own and being self-sufficient. She took classes in English as a second language and was preparing for the S.A.T. She’d told Sasha she wasn’t too keen on being a non-traditional college student but wasn’t sure what else to do. She wanted to be an actress but Sasha wasn’t sure how long it would take for her English to come up to par. Her linguistic skills were a lot weaker than his. And she didn’t want to dance and follow in his footsteps. I knew that feeling all too well. Following in someone else’s footsteps always meant you were one step behind. She’d find her way, though. She’d find what was right for her and what she w
as brilliant at. For some reason I had faith in her. Probably because she was the sister of the most hardworking, ingenious, ferociously talented, wonderfully generous, insanely capable man on the planet.
***
I returned to Infectious Rhythm once a week, just to take an advanced class with Bronislava, simply to keep my mojo. Okay, and also so the filmmakers had a reason to film at the studio where it all started for me. I really wanted to give my friends—Paulina, Raj and Sam, Kendra, Pepe, Mitsi, and Bronislava herself—little cameos on the show. Their personalities were all so over the top, the filmmakers had a blast capturing it all.
Josie, Kendra’s girlfriend, never returned to the studio. But funnily enough, she ended up with a small role in Sasha’s movie. She’d wanted to be an actress too, but had never revealed it to anyone out of fear her dream would never come true.
After I met with James’s friend and had decided to become his second seat on Jamar’s case, I called up Melinda Berenson, the appellate attorney for Mr. Warren, needing closure on that earlier case of mine that had so befuddled me. What she told me made me simultaneously sick and relieved. The psychiatrist who examined Patrick Warren, my first pro bono client, had found him to be a paranoid schizophrenic, just as I’d suspected. He was currently in a mental hospital, on medication, and would go to trial after he was declared—by a mental health professional, this time—mentally fit to stand trial.
“If he would have gone to prison and remained untreated for this condition, he almost definitely would have deteriorated, making him all the worse—and far more dangerous to his ex-wife and to everyone else when he got out. Now he’ll get the help he needs,” she told me.
Yes. Much needed closure gotten.
***
So, I was now living a very Hollywood life out in L.A., totally at odds with the life I’d originally planned for myself here. I trekked downtown via my friend the good old Metro Red Line to work with the new attorney on Jamar’s case, took ballroom lessons with my good friends at my old studio, and spent evenings with Sasha and Greta in our magnificent ballroom overlooking the canyon, choreographing new routines for the Worlds, all while being followed around with a camera in my face. No, my life had not ceased to be surreal from the moment I laid eyes on Sasha.