Hendrix finished arranging her cupcakes, brownies and fruit tarts on the buffet table. A few dancers were already eyeing her new variation on the champagne cake she’d worked on all afternoon.
“What did you bring?” a man asked. She didn’t know his name, but she’d danced with him a few times. He looked dapper in his black zoot suit and red silk shirt. He also had a gold chain tethered to his suspenders.
“Try them all and let me know which one you like best,” she teased as she headed to the front doors. She went outside to wait for Donovan on the sidewalk. She couldn’t help wondering if he was coming or if he would be a no-show. She tried not to be nervous. She really wanted him to come.
Sally Morehead, the first friend Hendrix had made when she’d first moved to Reno, walked around the corner from the parking lot. “Hendrix, why are you waiting outside?”
“I’m waiting for a friend.”
Sally’s eyebrows went up. “You invited a friend?” She was a pixie of a woman, with long silky brown hair, cheerful brown eyes and an every-present smile on her face. All the guys loved dancing with her because she was easy to toss around in the aerial steps and back flips. Tonight she wore a pink poodle skirt and a white sweater with a pink scarf knotted around her neck. She had her hair pulled back into a pony tail and looked as though she was still sixteen even though Hendrix knew Sally was almost thirty.
“I sort of invited my boss,” Hendrix replied.
Sally grinned. “Okay. Why?”
“The words just leaped out of my mouth.”
“That happens to you a lot.” Sally waved at one of their partners, John Corning. He waved back and then went inside. When he opened the door, music blasted out to the street.
“I try to control my words, but some things just have to be said.”
“And you’re always the person to say it,” Sally said. “Love your pants.”
Hendrix glanced down at the black-and-white striped Capri pants she wore with a white silk blouse with a deep V in the front. “Found them on the internet, from the Pin-Ups Sex Kitten line. Not vintage, but perfect for dancing.” The outfit made her feel a little bit like the naughty sex-kitten Rizzo from Grease.
Sally nodded. Donovan pulled up in his car and lowered the window.
“Park around the corner,” Hendrix said, pointing. He nodded and drove to the parking lot.
“That’s your boss?” Sally said, admiration in her voice.
“That’s him.”
“I can see why you invited him. See you inside.” Sally opened the door and stepped inside.
Donovan walked around the corner. He wore black jeans and a white polo shirt. He had come dressed comfortably and Hendrix was impressed. He was ready to dance.
“You came,” she said.
“Of course. Wouldn’t miss this for the world.” He grinned at her and held out a hand while his eyes moved up and down taking in her outfit. From the look on his face, he approved.
She placed her hand in his, he opened the door and they entered the cool interior.
Music blasted from a sound system. The room was large enough for every couple to have their own spot. Hendrix started tapping her foot. She loved swing dancing. Once of her grandmother’s favorite clients had introduced Hendrix to swing dancing when she’d been in high school and she’d been hooked ever since.
While all the kids in her high school went to music concerts and attended wild parties, Hendrix had gone swing dancing. They’d thought she was weird. Hendrix hadn’t cared what they thought, which made her seem even weirder. While her girlfriends agonized over the popular boys, angling for dates, Hendrix would shrug. She had her whole life in front of her—why settle? Half her friends had gotten married the day after graduation but by the time they were twenty-one, too many of they were divorced with babies on their hips.
“Wow!” Donovan said, his eyes on the dancing couples. “I’ve seen swing dancing, but it always seemed a little intimidating.”
“I’m starting you on the bunny slopes.”
“I skied the Alps.”
“Is hurtling down inclines at breakneck speeds supposed to impress me?”
“You don’t ski?”
“No. If I’m going to break a leg, I’m going to do it here, as close to a hospital as possible.” She tugged him onto the floor. “Come on. I’m going to teach you the basics of the Lindy hop and you’re going to love it.”
* * *
“Back step, front step, triple step, step, step, triple step, step, step, front step, back step,” Donovan chanted. Moving to the music was easy enough, remembering the steps was going to be a challenge.
Hendrix was a patient teacher. While he went over and over the moves for probably the thousandth time, she started adding little wiggles to the movement of her feet and pushing up the speed after he mastered each series of steps.
He was enjoying himself. He tripped, regained his footing and flowed right into the next step, almost without thinking.
“We’re going to add a little spin here.” Hendrix positioned his hands on her waist. “This is a rock step, triple step, half step, triple step, rock step.” She showed him and he found his feet finally moving in harmony with her and following the tempo of the music. He wasn’t as familiar with the music, but he could pick out the beats and recognized the tunes of Cab Callaway, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and the present day Brian Setzer. Some couples had gotten fancy with jumps and slides and women being whirled. He recognized the woman who’d been talking with Hendrix when he’d first arrived. Her dancing was wild and uninhibited. She was being flipped and twirled by a man in a black fifties zoot suit with his key chain bumping against his leg.
The music ended and Donovan was almost breathless.
“Want to sit one out?” Hendrix asked.
“Water,” he gasped.
They made their way to the refreshment table and grabbed bottles of water. She found two seats in the gallery and they sat just as the music launched into another song.
Donovan was completely fascinated by the dancing. “The dancers seem to be doing different versions of the same thing.”
“Let me educate you. There’s East Coast swing, West Coast swing, jive, Cajun swing, Carolina shag, imperial swing and about a half dozen more variations,” Hendrix explained.
“What kind of dance are you teaching me?”
“East Coast Swing. It’s a simple, six count variation on the Lindy Hop.”
“What did you learn?”
“West Coast swing, but as you go along you pick up other things.” She leaned forward to watch her friend gyrate through a particularly complicated series of steps. Her foot tapped in tune with the beat of the music and her body seemed to vibrate.
Seeing this new side of Hendrix was fun. He knew what a fifties girl she was at heart with her fashionable pants and white blouse. She’d pulled her hair back into a wild-looking pony tail that swung back and forth as she moved. He could picture her in the 1920s jiving to the music at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem.
He could almost imagine himself there with her. His imagination took hold and he finished his water and stood up. He held out a hand. “I know I’m not at the caliber of your usual partners, but I’m having fun.”
She jumped to her feet. “Of course you are. Did you think I would lead you astray?”
He laughed. “I’m hungry. Let’s check out the buffet.” He was always curious about food. He led Hendrix to the tables arranged alongside one wall at the back of the gallery.
He picked up a cupcake and set it on a paper plate. The cupcakes were glazed with a single half strawberry resting on the peaks. Hendrix gave him a nervous glance. “What?” he asked then looked down at the cupcake. “You made the cupcakes, didn’t you?’
She nodded.
He took an experimental bite, and with eyebrows raised in surprise, he said, “Wow! Why aren’t you serving these at the hotel?”
“I just kind of worked out the taste this afternoon.”
He rolled the flavorful cake around his tongue trying to figure out what the underlying taste was. “Orange peel?” He took another bite. “Cinnamon?”
“And licorice root,” she added.
“I can see how that would enhance the flavors.” He finished the cupcake and gestured at the dance floor. “Shall we?”
Back on the dance floor, she started showing him a few more moves and pushing up the tempo. He knew the role of teacher left her a bit impatient. She would glance longingly at her friend, the desire to swing apparent on her face.
After a while Donovan just stopped. He heaved breath into his lungs. “Listen, I’m going to sit and watch for a while. Why don’t you dance with your friends?”
“I invited you. I can’t just abandon you.”
“You need to have fun and stop being a teacher.” He waved at her as he made his way to the gallery. Besides he wanted another cupcake.
The moment he sat down, a man in a red zoot suit grabbed her by the hand and dragged her onto the floor.
Dancers started moving toward the edges of the floor leaving room for Hendrix and her partner. Suddenly, the man grabbed her waist, tossed her in the air and when she came down she slid between his legs and the dance competition was on.
Watching Hendrix dance was spectacular. She was graceful, light on her feet. She knew moves that made his back ache. And having her take the time to teach him was a compliment. He was sure he would never be as good, but he wanted to try.
He couldn’t help comparing her to his ex-wife. Erica had been a working model who was six-foot-one and weighed a hundred pounds dripping wet. She’d made good money modeling for catalogs and fashion websites. But she would have never gone swing dancing. Her hair would have gotten messed up. Erica didn’t do many things that would compromise how she looked. Hendrix didn’t seem to care.
She looked transported as she and her friend launched into a series of jumps, cartwheels, aerial maneuvers and twists. The woman Donovan had seen Hendrix with when he’d arrived moved onto the floor with her partner and the two teams started dancing together, their moves perfectly synchronized. They were having fun. Donovan’s feet tapped along with the music. He was having as much fun watching as dancing.
A strange woman approached him. “Come on. Hendrix got you started—you can’t sit here all night watching her.” She took his hand and pulled him to his feet. “Let’s dance.”
* * *
Donovan didn’t want the evening to end, but it did. He found himself dancing across the parking lot as he approached the hotel’s entrance. As he passed his grandmother’s RV, the door opened and Miss E. poked her head out. “What are you doing?”
“I went swing dancing tonight.”
“Are you’re not having a midlife crisis? You’re a bit young.” She stepped back and gestured him inside.
He half jumped up the steps into the RV. “Why do you ask that?”
“You never try anything new unless it’s in the kitchen.” She sat down in her recliner. An open book lay upside down on the table next to her. “Did you lose a bet? Why did you go swing dancing?”
“I can be fun.” Donovan sat on the sofa.
His grandmother grinned at him. “Of course you can, sweetie.”
“It was fun.”
“You went out with the cupcake girl, didn’t you?”
“Why would you ask me that? I would think you already know.”
She gave him a shrewd look. “I know everything, pretty much. I’m still trying to picture you swing dancing. Did you have a good time?”
“I had a great time. Hendrix is so uninhibited on the dance floor.” He still marveled at the moves she’d performed with her dance partner. He pictured her sliding across the smooth floor, while her friend danced over her.
“I once loved to swing dance. Went to Atlantic City for a dance competition.”
Very little surprised Donovan, but this did. He stared at his grandmother. “Really, Miss E.?”
She stood up and moved toward the storage cabinet behind the driver’s chair. She pulled out an album and sat down next to him. He’d never seen this album. When she opened it, her younger face stared back at him from the very first photo. She was in the arms of a strange man and they were half crouched in a dance move.
“Who’s the man?”
“That’s your granddaddy,” she said almost sadly.
She never talked about her husband. All Donovan knew was they he’d left her early on in their marriage with a son to raise all by herself. He’d never come around again, at least not that Donovan knew of.
His grandfather was a handsome man. He could see bits of pieces of Hunter and Scott in the man’s face. Even a tiny bit of Kenzie who appeared to have inherited the shape of his eyes.
“That’s grandpa?” Donovan didn’t even know she had a photo of him. As a child, he’d once asked about his grandfather, and Miss E. had told him Granddaddy Clive had his troubles. She’d never said one bad word about him, just let them know that Clive couldn’t be there for them.
“That’s Clive. He was a handsome man,” she said with a little sigh.
“What happened to him?”
“I don’t know. He’s around somewhere, I suppose. After the divorce, we went our separate ways. But he could set the dance floor on fire. I think that’s why I fell in love with him.”
She stroked the photo tenderly and Donovan noticed that age spots discolored the backs of her hand. One finger was twisted with arthritis and two more didn’t quite move properly. When had Miss E. gotten so old? Seventy-eight wasn’t old anymore. Not like it had been fifty years ago.
“You never wanted to remarry?” Donovan said.
She took a deep breath. “I didn’t have time. And I wanted to be independent. I didn’t want a man just to have one. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have men around, but once your daddy was grown up and you, Hunter, Scott and Kenzie landed on my doorstep, being married didn’t seem so important anymore. I had all of you.” Her look was tender as she smiled at him. She patted his hand. “And now I’m going to have a great-grandbaby to watch over. I’ve been fortunate. I have a wonderful life. And now look, I own a casino.”
Donovan paged through the album. Most of the photos were of him and his siblings at various ages. But the one photo he truly loved was of his grandmother at a picnic watching them fondly. “Can I be you when I grow up?”
“You’re already plenty grown-up.”
They lapsed into silence as Donovan looked through the album. Miss E. bent her head close to him and when he was done, he closed the album and handed it to her.
“I see,” she said, “that food revenues are up.”
“Going through all the trash was really smelly and eye-opening.”
“You would have eventually figured it all out by yourself, right?”
“I don’t have time for eventually. I needed to know now.” Hunter’s job with the casino was done. He’d finished the spa in the casino and was picking up local jobs around Reno and Lake Tahoe now that he’d closed his office in San Francisco. Scott’s job wasn’t to make money but to keep everything safe. But Donovan and Kenzie were directly responsible for making money and keeping the machine going. He couldn’t afford to fail.
“Donovan, what are you thinking?”
Brought back to the present, he sighed. “Sometimes it’s overwhelming. This behemoth...is a business like any other business,” she said.
“Yes, but a lot is riding on making the casino a success. A lot of things have to fall into place—the shops, the casino, the extra services like the spa, the entertainment and the f
ood.” Always the food. “All these things need to work together to keep the machine running smoothly. Knowing that every little cog in this machine has to run smoothly is almost terrifying.” And his cog was one of the biggest.
Miss E. slid her hand over his. “Donovan, everything is running smoothly. We have a good general manager and all the different divisions are slowly falling into place. Revenue is up 7 percent from this time last year. And next year will be even more dramatic. We’ve been filling almost 60 percent of our rooms and Nina’s media campaign is really starting to show. She has a lot more ideas that are still in the planning stages.”
“Things are running well,” Donovan conceded. “I have to admit, I was getting bored in Paris.” The exciting part was opening the restaurant, coming up with new ideas for food and watching the restaurant grow. “Creating food here is a huge challenge. A restaurant has a steady clientele of people who order the same things time after time, but the casino has different people all the time and we’re competing against the big conglomerate hotels that have bottomless wells of money.”
“Trust me,” Miss E. said with a grin, “Reed has bottomless pools of money.”
“And we’re going to meet him when?” Reed Watson was his grandmother’s partner in the casino/hotel. Everyone was curious about him.
“Soon. His father is not well and Reed has a lot on his plate right now. But he knows we’ll do the job. Now, tell me about cupcake girl. Do you like her? I don’t know what I love more, her champagne cake, the cannolis or her chocolate brownies.”
“Hendrix does have a way with creating unusual tastes that work,” Donovan said.
“Nina, Lydia and Kenzie think she fabulous. And Nina can hardly wait to see what kind of wedding cake she creates.”
“Has anyone discussed that with Manny?” Manny Torres was Nina’s father and owned a very popular restaurant in Los Angeles and had already spoken to Donovan regarding the menu for the reception. Donovan had worked out a menu of his own and was now trying to find a happy medium between the two very different palates the wedding guests would bring to the table. He had the feeling Nina was leading toward a buffet that would allow guest to pick and choose what they wanted, but she hadn’t made a final decision.
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