by Tonya Plank
I sat down, put my elbow on the table, hovered over the scorecard, and studied it for several minutes. I was pleased. Very pleased. They’d ranked us exactly the same as Micaela and Jonathan. So they liked us, thought we were just as good as the reigning couple. We didn’t beat them, but we were tied.
“Tell me!” Rory insisted. I felt Xenia’s glare. I didn’t want to reveal my thoughts to Rory with her watching.
With a deep breath, I rose and extended my hand toward Rory. I lowered my chin to her so Xenia couldn’t see my face, and flashed Rory a quick but wide grin. Rory was so excited, she jumped up and put her hand in mine. So much for secrecy and discretion.
“Okay, we’re going to go home and get a good sleep,” I told Bob.
“Thanks so much, Sasha. Very, very good job. Both of you,” Bob said, smile partially returning. “You did it, kiddo, you really did it.” He hugged Rory. “Bless you,” he added, kissing her head.
Nice guy. Very nice. It was a good night for us.
***
“What was that all about? What did the scores show?” Rory chirped after we’d left the Winter Gardens and were out of earshot of anyone on the team.
“England came in first for ballroom, which is why they won. But the U.S. came in first for Latin.”
“That’s us! We did?” she squealed, squeezing closer to me in our arm-in-arm walk home.
“Yes. But don’t get too excited. It’s mainly because Xenia and Piotr were better than their second couple. The scores they gave us and Micaela and Jonathan were very, very close. In fact, neither of us actually won. That’s why I was taking so long to read the score sheets. We tied in samba, cha-cha, and paso doble and we scored one point higher in rumba and one point lower in jive. Xenia and Piotr were only a quarter point behind us in samba and paso. It’s going to be a very serious competition tomorrow night, Rory. The judges like us. But we have to keep it up.”
Her stomach jolted. I could feel it through our connection. “My adrenaline is doing crazy things with my body,” she said, realizing I could completely read her.
I felt a crooked, mischievous smile overtake my face. I was so wholly in my element. I loved this. It wouldn’t be Blackpool without it being this close. I would never be a ballroom competitor if it was easy. I lived for this.
“You really get off on this, don’t you!” She laughed. She could read me as well as I could read her.
I stopped and turned toward her, planting my lips hard onto hers. I lifted her by the waist. She let her right leg brush off the ground, did a little arabesque in bent attitude position and pointed her toe. Sweet. Not to mention gorgeous. As always. I bent over and dipped her, wrapping my arms more fully around her. Just like that couple in the famous photograph of the lovers after the soldier had returned from war. But our battle was far from over.
Chapter Twelve
“Oh my gawwwd, baby. You looked soooo gorgeous out there!” Paulina was sitting at a lounge table in the bar closest to the hotel entrance waiting for us to return, her legs crossed and her patent leather red pump swinging in the air. I loved this woman more and more each day.
Rory had texted her, Raj and Sam about the after-competition parties in our hotel lounge, while warning them she wanted them to come and enjoy themselves but that we couldn’t stay for very long tonight. And she couldn’t drink. The real party would have to wait until tomorrow night.
I was immediately rushed by fans, most of whom I didn’t know, making me all the more glad Paulina was there for Rory.
“Honey, you took my breath away,” I heard Paulina say. “I was actually jealous of you, and I’m not the jealous type.”
“Seriously?”
“Never been more serious. I couldn’t believe that was you. You’ve just…transformed yourself.”
I kept one eye on Rory, not daring to lose her here again, and listened to them for a bit, while signing autographs and posing for pictures. Valentin, Sergei and Max walked in. When they saw me occupied, they ventured over to her.
“Very, very good tonight,” I heard Val tell her in broken English.
“Yes, splendid! Delightful! Brilliant. Lovely!” This was Sergei.
I had to laugh at them. These words—where did they get them? She giggled and introduced them to her friends. We now shared friends.
When nearly forty-five minutes had passed, I held my hand up, promising the rest of the crowd I would be available at Daiyu’s tent in the Pavilion from two o’clock onward on Thursday afternoon. I assured them there would be plenty more time for signings and photos.
Rory said goodbye to her friends and took my hand. We walked together arm in arm to the lift.
“Well, what did they have to say?” I asked.
“They said I not only did all the steps right but that I looked good doing them! That I was actually in my element. Paulina insisted I totally owned that floor! More than anyone else. And we were on with Micaela! And Paulina looked so sincere. I mean, I knew I was doing the steps right, because I wasn’t screwing us up, but I was so focused on that, I didn’t know how I actually interpreted everything. Whether it came across, you know.”
I laughed. “Of course it came across.”
But she was on a roll. “And then Sam said she couldn’t believe it was me out there, her friend, a recent beginner. She said I just looked like a huge star. Like…you! She swore I looked as much of a star as you!”
“Rory, you’ve got to realize, you’re here for a reason…” But then I stopped. This wasn’t an issue of her lacking self-confidence. It had really hit her that this was a huge stage, and she was on it.
“I mean, it just hadn’t even occurred to me that we were on the floor the same time as they were. I couldn’t see anyone else when we were dancing, so I’d plumb forgotten there were even other people up there with us! I got so lost in us!”
“Me too, sweet,” I said, pulling her to me as we arrived at our door, and kissing her long and hard on the lips. “Yes. Me too.”
***
The next morning, Rory went down to the breakfast lounge while I showered. I was standing at the mirror drying my hair when she walked in. I was wearing nothing but a towel. We exchanged mischievous glances, then simultaneously remembered our bargain. No sex until tonight. After the comp. It would be a present to ourselves for having gotten through it all. For having won. Before then we’d only have moments of smoldering passion, as we’d had when she’d only been my student. We’d so been there before.
But then my eyes traveled down to the item in her hand and my stomach dropped. She held a copy of the Blackpool Daily. “Oh no, Rory. Don’t ever read those things during competition. Ever.” I grabbed it from her and threw it in the trash. “I’m serious. You read it after the comp is over. Only after. Otherwise it will really screw with your head.”
She pursed her lips and widened her eyes. It already had. I took a breath.
“I see it already has. What? What was it?” I asked. Now I needed to know. If something had upset her, I needed to know it.
“Nothing,” she said. But she knew I was right. She knew I could see it had already screwed with her mind. “It’s only good.”
“I don’t even want to know that. Even being aware of how much critics like you can give you too much pride, get you off your game. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. No more thoughts about it now.”
“Okay, no more words, no more thoughts, I promise.”
“Good girl,” I said, cupping my palm under her chin, pulling her face toward me and kissing her lightly on the lips.
Of course I couldn’t help glance at it, my curiosity now piqued. The headline read Mystery Woman Steals Sasha Zakharov’s—and Blackpool’s—Heart. There was a photo of her wrapping her leg around my waist in arabesque, our favorite move. I saw words—mesmerizing, ballet background, and best partner yet.
Wow. Okay, enough. I refrained from picking it out of the trash, reminding myself of my own words.
***
We had a s
etback on our way to the Winter Garden, and I blamed it on the paper. Even though it had nothing to do with our little tiff, our emotions were brewing.
“Tonight will be a lot different than last night,” I warned Rory as we walked down the cobblestoned street. “For one thing, there will be a lot more people on the ballroom floor, especially in the early rounds. Floorcraft will become more important, and that’s where following will come more into play. If it looks like we may run into someone, particularly on the traveling dances, I might have to change the routine a bit or move us out of the way. I need you to be amenable.”
I felt her pulse race.
“What?” she said, stopping abruptly. “You can’t change the routine on me now, Sasha. It’s in my muscle memory.”
“Calm down, Rory. We very likely won’t have to. I’m just warning you it’s a possibility. Anything can happen out there.”
“Well, could you have thought to tell me this before now? So we could have practiced an alternate routine?” Her words were coming out fast and jumbled. She was getting way too worked up.
“We can’t practice an alternate because I may have to change that as well, depending on what’s happening on the floor. If we’d prepared alternate routines, I would have to think of every possible situation. That would be impossible.”
I was getting too worked up as well. This was only a slight possibility. I stopped, tightened my grip on her hand, took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I was sure I’d told her all of this before. But no use fighting at this point. She didn’t remember. I tried to shake off the stress.
“Okay, don’t worry,” I continued after a few seconds of deep breathing. “I am just telling you to prepare you for the absolute worst. Honestly, I’ve only once had to do it. If I have to tonight, I will alter just as slightly as I can.”
She breathed heavily and nodded. We resumed walking but I could feel her pulse. It wasn’t returning to normal. She was freaked out, to put it mildly.
“When did you have to change it before?” she asked.
“During paso. The floor was too crowded behind us for me to do a full-out tour jeté. So I did another basic and moved us over a few feet.”
“Couldn’t you just not have done it? Or done a less full-out jump?” Her voice was laced with panic.
“That’s an important step, Rory. I couldn’t do it half-assed.”
“But wouldn’t the judges have known what you were doing?”
“Yes, but in that case, if I moved us slightly it would have been fine. Which is why it was more important that I moved us. It was more important for the judges to see that Xenia could follow my lead. It would have looked worse if I just did a half-assed jump when there was a better alternative. Do you see?”
She threw her hands up. One was still connected to me, so my arm came up as well. “Sasha, Xenia is at a totally different level than I am. You need to not do that to me. We needed to prepare slight alterations if—”
“No, she is not. You are at a higher level. The judges told you so last night. There was no dance where she came out with a better score than you.” My voice was firm, but not raised.
“Sasha, that’s not what I meant. I’m relying on muscle memory here.”
“And me.” I looked at her, peering into her eyes with all the serious intensity I could muster. “You are relying on me. You need to trust me. Have I ever let you down?”
She looked up at me. Her eyes softened.
“Would you answer me, please?”
“No, of course you haven’t,” she said.
“And I don’t intend to start now.” I was now holding both of her hands. I caressed her palms with my fingers.
“It’s not you who I don’t trust,” she said, her voice cracking with a threatening tear. “It’s me.”
“Rory.” I rolled my eyes, then let go of her hands and turned away in frustration. “You have to trust yourself. You owe yourself that much at this point. Please,” I said, turning back to her.
She blinked back tears and took a deep breath. Then she frowned. Her eyes darted around and she focused her gaze on something over my shoulder. I turned to look. I saw only tree branches.
“Rory, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to work you up. I want you to calm down. What I described has hardly ever happened. It’s something that happens in standard ballroom a lot but very rarely happens in Latin. I just wanted to warn you in the extremely unlikely event—”
But she wasn’t focusing anymore on what I was saying. She looked wary, and turned to glance over each shoulder.
“What is it?”
She blinked hard, took a breath, then forced her lips into a smile. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
There was a rustle in the trees. She gasped. We both looked up to see a small bird taking off. She laughed.
“Okay.” She gazed up at me. “I’m sorry I got so worked up. I’m done now. It’s good you warned me, though,” she whispered, seeming to recover from both the worry and fright.
“Okay, good,” I said, kissing her forehead. We continued walking, past the bird-ridden tree. “There is just one other thing I need to remind you of. Tonight is going to be much more a test of endurance than last night. There will be a total of fourteen rounds. We have already practiced with that many rounds, so I think we will be prepared. Plus, we will have breaks in between. But I just wanted to remind you.”
Her eyes widened again and her hand began to tremble. It seemed she couldn’t shake something.
“Tell me what it is,” I insisted.
She shook her head. “No. I’m just remembering bad things. I don’t want to talk about them. Please, let’s just go on. You were saying something. Please continue.”
I wondered if the bad memory was of Uncle Oleg or Cheryl. But I wouldn’t make her talk and relive anything if she didn’t want to. “We will have plenty of time between rounds, at least for most of the competition. It gets more difficult from the quarterfinal rounds through the finals because there is only one heat per round. And they will still give us a few songs to recover while they open the floor to general dancing,” I said, trying to get her mind back to dance.
She nodded, indicating I was succeeding.
“That’s why it was so important to build up strength and endurance,” I continued, softening. “Which you did, my love.” I kissed her cheek. “And we have our big bag of food that we bought at the market. That will be kept in the tent. I need you to go to the tent and eat whenever you feel hungry or fatigued. We’re moving so much there’s no way you will gain a thing. I promise.”
“Sasha, I’m so beyond the anorexia at this point,” she said, matter-of-factly. She still seemed preoccupied by something else.
“You will need to go to the tent frequently for makeup touch-ups because we will be sweating so often. Plus, it’s a good place to go to relax and calm down between heats. You might as well take advantage of the food while you’re in there,” I went on.
“I will. I promise. I’ll go to the tent frequently.” She began walking faster.
“And breathe with your mouth open, like last night. Your muscles need oxygen or you can lose balance and even faint.”
She opened her lips as I said this, breathed deeply.
“Oh good, we’re here,” she said, reaching out for the doors of the Winter Gardens. I turned around. She was spooked by something outside? More than the bird-tree?
“Rory,” I began. But she gave me a don’t-ask-and-make-it-worse look. So I didn’t. “We are,” I said, and opened the door for her.
Chapter Thirteen
After we were made-up and costumed by Daiyu’s assistants, we walked toward the ballroom. I wanted to stop off and wish Svetlana good luck. I’d texted her a congratulations on the Rising Star comp and she’d texted back thanking me, saying she was competing in the main Latin pro competition as well, and inviting me to stop by the main changing room. She and her partner had staked out a back corner.
“Should we be going through here
? I mean, together?” Rory asked as I opened the door.
“Why not?”
“I mean, isn’t this the women’s room?”
“What? No.”
“Sasha, it says right there.” She pointed to the sign above the doorway.
I laughed, forgetting once again she was new here. “Rory, that’s for the general public. No one pays attention to those things here. Everyone’s all together. Come on.”
We walked into the large room of men and women together in various states of dress, changing and helping their partners. Yes, there were breasts and men in dance belts, their asses exposed. She initially looked a bit mortified, then recovered, and laughed it off.
“My modest American,” I said, kissing her cheek.
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know if being American has anything to do with being a bit weirded out by seeing people out in the open standing around in nothing.”
“Yeah but isn’t it the same backstage at the ballet?”
She thought, then shrugged. “I don’t know. I never got that far. I never performed.” There was no sadness in her voice when she said this. No painful memories of things that hadn’t ended up happening, like there had been when she’d talked about ballet before. Just matter-of-factness.
I kissed her again. She was over it. She was happy now. Here, with me, in the world of ballroom.
“Well, no one has any time to focus on each other’s bodies. Everyone’s too worked up about the competition, and too busy fixing buttons, pins, zippers. Everyone’s hyper-focused on looking and dancing the best they can.”
“Yeah, I see that now,” she said.
Fortunately, Svetlana and her partner were both fully dressed.
“Thank you for coming!” Sveta said in Russian, hugging me.
“This is Josef, from Beverly Hills Dance,” she said, introducing her partner. We shook hands.
“You were stunning last night,” Svetlana said to Rory, in accented but good English. “You stole the show! Go you!” She pumped her fist in the air.