Waltz This Way

by Dakota Cassidy

  Nate knocked knuckles with Drew, who gave his son a grin of affection. “Hey, Dad. I found an awesome website about quantum physics.”

  His son’s genius left him ever in awe. “Quantum physics, huh? I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited as I am right now,” he teased. He and Nate had an understanding. Nate could be as smart as he wanted to as long as he didn’t expect Drew to match his IQ or his interest in everything Mensa.

  Drew didn’t pretend to get most of what interested his son, and Nate was okay with that. They found other things to do with each other.

  Nate laughed, his blue eyes so like his mother’s, giving Drew the amused-bored look he’d perfected since he’d turned twelve and had gone purposefully aloof.

  Drew clapped Nate on the shoulder. “Hey, you got your laptop?”

  “I didn’t find a new website on quantum physics by magic.” Nate snickered.

  “Can you look something up for me?”

  “Sure.”

  “You ever heard of a show called Dude… something?”

  Nate made a face. “You mean Dude, You Can Dance?”

  Drew shrugged with an outward show of indifference, hoping Nate wouldn’t question his interest in something so uncharacteristic of him.

  “Yeah, that’s it. I promised Aunt Myriam I’d look it up.”

  Nate nodded, moving his way through the throng of people to a corner of the living room. His lanky body folded into a corner chair by the arched windows in the dining area and he reached equally lanky fingers out to grab his laptop. “Aunt Myriam loves Dude, You Can Dance. So does Gram. Most girls do.”

  Drew watched his son type the words in on Google and caught a quick glimpse of a picture of Mel with those wide eyes of surprise his aunt had mentioned before Nate clicked on the website for the show.

  What a shitty way to find out your spouse had been unfaithful. Again, there was a familiar sting of understanding for Mel in his gut.

  “What do you want to look at, Dad?” Nate’s sharp eyes lanced his.

  What the hell had Aunt Myriam said Mel’s ex-husband’s name was? “Who’s the guy that runs the show? Do you know?”

  “Stan something,” Nate replied, clicking on the choreographer’s name. His picture appeared along with a loud blast of the show’s theme song.

  “Turn that down!” Drew ordered, his eyes scanning the crowded room. All he needed was for his meddling family to find out he had just a little interest in a woman, and it would be on. They’d never let up. Especially his sisters.

  But it was too late.

  Myriam pinched his sides from behind and snorted with laughter.

  “She’s a looker, that Mel. Knew you were interested.”

  Yeah. She was interesting.

  And just recently divorced in a public and ugly way.

  Which made her a little less interesting.

  Unless you counted her mouth and her hips.

  Those remained interesting.

  In fact, they left him all shook up.

  Chapter 3

  “Hey, Pop Rocks. How was senior speed dating?”

  Mel flopped on her dad’s rust-and-red-plaid couch with a deep groan. “Not so speedy.”

  Weezer sauntered over from his bed in the corner to impose his big head onto her lap. She absently rubbed his ears, loving their soothing velvety softness. Jake hopped up on the couch and put his paws on her, his eyes begging for attention.

  Her father chuckled. “Well, we’re old. Speed’s not on our résumés anymore. That cranky Myriam give ya more trouble?”

  Thinking of Myriam reminded Mel of her rakishly handsome nephew Drew. And then she stopped herself from thinking about him because that would only lead to trouble.

  Mel rolled her head from side to side to ease the mounting tension in her neck. “Myriam is the very definition of trouble, but she brings with her a good cardio workout. You should’ve come. You would have had fun.”

  Her dad grinned from his La-Z-Boy, a copy of The Divorced Woman’s Guide to Healing in his lap. Joe propped his glasses at the end of his nose. “I can’t show off all my best moves in front of my kid. You don’t wanna hear your old pop lay a line on a woman, do ya?”

  Mel winced and chuckled, planting a kiss on Jake’s head, then rose to head to her father’s small kitchen. “Okay. Stop there. You’re right. I don’t want to hear you make the moves on some poor, unsuspecting seventy-year-old.”

  “Hey,” he called from the living room. “You’re not gonna eat chocolate frosting for dinner tonight, are you, young lady?”

  “Actually, I was considering vanilla. You know, because it’s made with a bean and beans are technically vegetables,” she halfheartedly joked, pulling the can from the fridge.

  Joe was suddenly in the kitchen, filling it up with his large frame, his thick hands buried in the tops of his suspenders. “That’s funny. Gimme that.” He grabbed at the can of frosting, successfully stealing it from her grip. “Now before you go wallowin’ like a pig in mud in that can full of sugar, you got a phone call while you were out.”

  Mel grinned, swiping at his hands to make him give the can up.

  “Jackie?” She was the only person who called her lately. Ever. The few friends she and Stan had made as a couple were now Stan and Yelena No Last Name’s friends.

  She was just a little bitter about that.

  Joe held the can high, daring her to jump for it, a game they’d often played when she was younger and trying to develop strength in her legs. “Nope. Maxine.”

  Her steam ran out and she sank almost to the floor in a plie that left her knees creaking. Mel got the feeling Maxine was lying in wait for her to come to her senses and allow Maxine to preach her divorced words of wisdom.

  Maxine had minions, too. Minions Mel had mentally dubbed the Hare Krishna’s of Single, banging on their tambourines while they spread messages of self-love and empowerment.

  “She say why?”

  Her father pitched the frosting over her head and into the garbage with a remarkably deft shot for someone who was seventy-two. “She said you gotta meet her tomorrow at Trophy, nine o’clock sharp. Which means no sugar for you or you’ll be up all night with the jitters. Can’t have that. I made you a nice salad and some pasta. Just like your mom used to cook. No more junk or you’ll rot your teeth.”

  “My teeth will survive. I had them all capped at Stan’s request. My butt, on the other hand, probably could use less frosting.”

  Joe chucked her under the chin. “You knock that off. I won’t have you wanderin’ around the house callin’ yourself fat anymore. You’re not fat. You’re beautiful. No daughter of Joe Hodge can be anything but. Just like your Mama was. Now quit buyin’ into all that crap Stan the Ballerina fed you. What does he know about beautiful when he’s porkin’ a woman who looks like the skeleton I hang on my door at Halloween?”

  “Dad!”

  Her father and the word “porking” were too much after tonight and all the seniors’ sexual innuendo she’d heard while she’d drifted from table to table. Who knew you could utilize a walker like that?

  Joe’s eyes held no apology when he shook his head at her, the wrinkles in his face deepening. “It’s true. I don’t know who you are anymore, little girl, but you ain’t the kid I sent off to New York all those years ago who told me she was going to pursue her dream whether I liked it or not. Even after your mother and me argued with you about it for weeks before you left. Remember that?”

  Mel’s eyes fell to the floor in self-disgust. No. She wasn’t even a mere shadow of the girl he’d sent off to New York to audition for a Broadway play she couldn’t even remember the name of now. This was somewhere Mel didn’t want to go. The place called “Who Mel Used To Be.”

  Her father grabbed for her, pulling her into a bear hug and kissing the top of her head. She buried her nose in his shoulder, inhaling the scent of Old Spice and spaghetti.

  “Hold your head up, meat loaf. I’m tired of seein’ you staring at the floo
r all the time. You got nothin’ to be ashamed of, Mellow-Yellow. You were a good wife to that shit. He was a bad husband. Stop beating yourself up about it by abusing your body and eating all that garbage.”

  Mel tipped her head up, tears glimmering in her eyes. “Have you been going to some sort of therapy I don’t know about, or did you get that from the divorce books you’ve been reading?”

  Joe chuckled and ran his knuckles over her scalp. “I’m not above watching those doctors on TV or reading a book so I can find a way to help my kid. You’re eating all that garbage because you’re depressed. That’s gotta stop, and you have to get to bed at a decent hour tonight instead of sitting up and watching Hoarders all night long. You’re not getting enough sleep. You’re not eatin’ right. You’re not dancing. You’re worrying me, Mel.”

  She gave him a squeeze and a pat on his broad back. “Don’t worry, Dad. Please. I promise my will to live will come back. I’m just not sure when that’ll be,” she joked.

  Though these days, since her life had changed so dramatically, she wasn’t sure that was really true. She’d been drifting since she’d arrived in New Jersey—going through the motions because she wanted everything to be all right again.

  It just wasn’t. She had a hole in her soul and nothing to fill it up with.

  She missed her rundown studio. She missed the children who’d attended her dance classes. She missed her house and her bathroom with the antique claw-foot tub. She missed the ballet barre Stan had installed in their basement.

  She missed.

  Oddly, in all of the things she missed, Stan didn’t so much factor into the missing she was doing as of late. Stan and his lies were something she definitely didn’t miss.

  So many lies. Lies she’d so foolishly bought. She no longer knew when he’d begun to lie or if he’d always lied and she’d just been too stupid to know. The rumors were endless, and while it didn’t take away the sting of his public betrayal, it made missing him an item at the bottom of her list.

  “Listen to your pop. Being the newly informed guy I am, I’ve learned something about your divorce, and not just from TV and a book. From Maxine, too.”

  Mel pushed away from him, placing her hands on her hips.

  Maxine… the Zen to all things divorced. If you listened to her father, Maxine’s ex-trophy wife advice to divorced women was considered on par with the soothing chants of Tibetan monks.

  Just the idea that she’d been labeled an ex-trophy wife by the press made her want to dig a hole and climb in. The label implied she’d never done anything but shop and drip diamonds, which was totally untrue. Sure, she’d had some diamonds and credit cards with no limit, but most of her time had been dedicated to teaching her kids to dance and staying out of Stan’s critical line of fire.

  “Oh, more Maxine insight. I’m on tenterhooks.” At her father’s request, when Maxine had hired Mel part time in the Village, she’d also given her the Trophy Job Employment Agency pitch.

  A pitch filled with uplifting messages and words Mel would rather gag on than put to use. The divorce journal being high on her list of gag-worthy suggestions. Writing was never her thing—all her creativity flowed through her limbs—not a pen and some paper filled up with emotions she didn’t understand well enough to describe in meaningless adjectives. In fact, she’d come close to failing English her junior year.

  Joe’s gray eyebrow rose in disapproval. “Maxine knows where you are because she’s been there, too. I remember what she was like when she first moved here, and she was just like you. Don’t put her down for doing something about it. She scooped—”

  “Poop. Jake’s poop. Big poop. I remember.”

  Mel heard the pride in her dad’s voice when he spoke of Maxine. He made her sound like she’d saved the world in her Donna Karan dresses and Louboutins instead of simply surviving an ugly divorce.

  Joe ignored her pettiness. “I’ve learned that you should be sad your marriage is over. Especially after the way it ended, so sudden and all. But you should have lots of other things that fill you up and make you happy, sweet face. Things that help you get through the sad. I’ve figured out, you don’t have them. All you had was Twinkle Toes—he was your priority, and that’s a cryin’ shame.”

  Her throat clenched tight. That wasn’t entirely true. “I had the studio, and the kids…”

  “Yep—all owned by that shit of an ex of yours. He pulled all the strings, and he only let you keep the studio because it looked good in the press for his wife to teach kids people considered underprivileged. But he complained about it all the time, didn’t he? No, don’t answer. I know he did. When he decided he didn’t want you to have those things anymore because he wanted out for a younger chippie, he yanked the rug from under you and took it all away. You let him have all that control. Not a good thing in this day and age.”

  Mel sank to the captain’s-style kitchen chairs, resting her elbows on the table. If Stan having all the control meant he had his business manager, Jerry, handle everything financial, then, yes, he’d been in control. If never making it her business to know what that included was at best naïve, then stupid her.

  Yet in all the years they were married, Stan had never withheld money—he’d never threatened to take away her credit cards because she’d overspent. Though to her credit, she wasn’t much of a shopper to begin with. Her studio had been her passion.

  “I think you should stop watching all those talk shows. It’s easy for Oprah to say, ‘Have your own checking account apart from your spouses, ladies’ because Oprah probably owns at least ten financial institutions. It wasn’t like Stan would have told me I couldn’t. I just didn’t feel like I needed control of our finances because Stan never, ever made money an issue.”

  And he hadn’t, which made leaving her with nothing so much more painful. She’d been a good wife—supportive, low maintenance.

  A real Suzy Sunshine in a world where wives of rich men spent more on Botox injections than they did on a year’s worth of groceries.

  “Don’t you defend him, young lady! I think you don’t like hearin’ the truth, but that’s too bad. Twinkle Toes stiffed you the first opportunity he could.” He shook his stout finger at her.

  “I…”

  Yeah. Stan had stiffed her. There was no defense she could summon for the truth. No matter how good he’d been to her in their marriage. In the end, he wasn’t living with her father in a two-bedroom retirement home.

  Joe gave her a pointed look. “Exactly. So now you have to go out and get your own life, Mel—and your own checking account—and start all over, but in the process, I don’t want to see you mopin’ around. You never leave the house unless you have to walk Weez or help Maxine at the rec center. I know it’s been tough trying to find a full-time job in this economy with no work skills, and I know you and Maxine have been lookin’, but there are other things you could do in between—things you enjoy.”

  She had agreed to let Maxine do some job searches for her and make inquiries into some college courses she might be able to take in order to find a job. God, being broke sucked, and even if she had money, she was still a little fuzzy on how to handle it without Stan’s accountant.

  That was another reason she didn’t want to attend any of the group meetings they held at Trophy Jobs, because the titles alone for each self-empowerment class made her feel pathetically naïve.

  “Discover Is the Name of a Credit Card—Not a Shopping Journey: How to Establish Credit in Your Newly Single Life Without Falling into the High-Interest Trap.”

  “I don’t have any money to spare to enjoy anything right now, Dad. I have just enough to buy Weezer’s food and contribute for some groceries.”

  Clearly, her father was accepting no excuses. “You don’t need money to take a walk in the animal park. You don’t need money to go to those singles get-togethers they have at the VFW hall every month. You don’t need money to dance. But you don’t dance anymore, Mel. I remember when I used to have to climb over y
ou to get past you doing all those stretches in the living room of our old house. I haven’t seen a single stretch since you got here. Won’t you lose all those pretzel moves you do, if you don’t keep those muscles limber?”

  Who cared if her muscles stayed limber? She had no students to be limber for. So her muscles could just eff off.

  “Listen, Mr. Answer for Everything, I’m still trying to adjust to not being half of a couple. Almost all my adult life I’ve been half of a couple. I don’t know how to be any other way. It’s kind of taken the wind out of me, and somewhere along the way, I can’t find a reason to dance, okay? And not a chance I’m going to some singles get-together.”

  Her father went to the fridge, pulling out a plate he’d covered in cling wrap. “That’s part of the problem. You’re not supposed to be half of anything. You have to be a whole you all by yourself.” Joe dropped the plate in the microwave and pressed some buttons.

  “I think you should quit hanging around Maxine.” Please, please, please quit hanging around Maxine.

  “I think you should quit bein’ resentful because she has it together and you don’t,” he retorted with a stern tone and a frown.

  Ow. Yet, there was a niggle of truth to what he said, and she found herself resenting the hell out of it. She’d heard all the stories about how Maxine had one-upped her ex-husband and begun her employment agency. She was legend here in the Village, and if Mel was honest with herself, a nice lady and easy to work for.

  “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m being petty.”

  “You sure are,” he agreed, dropping the plate of soggy noodles slathered in red sauce in front of her. “Now eat something decent for a change, or you’ll hurt my sensitive feelings. I’ll get your salad.”

  Mel twirled her fork in the pasta and, while her father wasn’t looking, held it under the table for Jake, and then Weezer.

  You couldn’t drown your sorrows properly in soggy pasta—even when it was made with love and the wish for you to hurry up and heal.

  Chocolate frosting made everything almost bearable.

  That it had so generously given her back the ten pounds she’d been down just before her divorce was neither here nor there.