The applause was thunderous, so the judges couldn’t give their opinions for a few moments. Never mind. Danny Dove was beaming like a middle-aged cherub. When he could speak, he was almost giddy with praise, obviously relieved that his personal friend and counselor had acquitted himself well.
“Perfecto. Both of you. Glory be!” he added with a grinning play on the girl’s name. “Discipline becomes you, young lady. You floated like a butterfly, and better yet, like a beautiful, graceful bride. The Viennese waltz should be supernaturally smooth. It was for both of you. And, Matt, you were the perfect partner. The set of the man’s arms and shoulders in formal routines like this is critical and very unnatural to the untrained. Tatyana gave you the ideal frame.”
“Splendid,” said Leander Brock in his turn. “An excellent start to the evening and the show. Matt, your lead was impeccable, but, of course, Glory B. is a bewitching wisp of a thing to steer around. My dear, you were glorious! I expect great things from both of you as the competition continues.”
Glory B. was blushing like the bride she reminded everyone of as she and Matt hugged with relief and glee.
Then it was Savannah Ashleigh’s turn. Temple held her own and Zoe Chloe’s breath. Temple had recently inveigled Matt to moderate a panel Savannah thought she should have had the spotlight on. Would she bear a grudge?
“Well, I don’t usually like waltzes too much,” Savannah began, fanning herself with the judge’s scoring card. “It’s too easy for the girl to get away with sloppy footwork under all those swaying skirts, so I kept my eye exclusively on our friend, Mr. Midnight there, because men can’t get away with anything in pants, if you know what I mean.”
Everyone onstage kept a smile pasted to their faces at the syntax verging on the risqué.
“But his shoulders and his feet were right where they should be every step of the way, and Glory B. did keep up with him well. Nice job.”
Mariah was nudging Temple with excitement, even at the last, lukewarm review. Zoe Chloe, though, had to appear neutral, so she just smiled and nodded.
After the pair tripped hand in hand up the steps—Glory B. was wearing the usual high heels and Temple figured all the men would try to assist their high-heeled partners on the treacherous stairs—the judges flipped up their rating cards. A nine from Danny, an eight from Leander, and a seven from Savannah. Temple guessed she was still a bit miffed, and hoped she’d mellow by routine two tomorrow night, especially if Matt looked like a winner.
Crawford darted forward, mike at his lips.
“Matt Devine and Glory B. waltzed down the aisle into the judges’ and audience’s hearts. Now we’ll see what our second couple, Olivia Phillips and the Cloaked Conjuror, can do.”
The Cloaked Conjuror and Olivia Phillips made a dramatic entrance down the curved staircase in their black and scarlet costumes, and swept into a less agile but still stately waltz.
Only thirty seconds into the routine, crisis struck when Olivia’s red-satin spike heel snarled in the yards of her tulle skirt, almost jerking her backwards off her feet as if she’d been garroted.
The crowd oohed with horror at the impending crisis.
Molina and Rafi leaped to their feet.
Midnight Louie rolled out from Zoe Chloe’s tote bag. He raced out of the greenroom and around the corner to go skating and skidding onto the adjacent dance floor.
Then came one of those amazing, almost Maxlike “saves.”
The Cloaked Conjuror bent at the knees and swept the falling Olivia into his arms, turning with her in a circle, her gown trailing them both like a spectacular comet.
No one had expected the graceful gesture from this huge man in his cumbersome disguise. Everyone in the audience stood then, and whistled and shouted and applauded the potential disaster turned into a magical moment as he set her gently down and they resumed their dance.
That was why these dance competition shows were so popular, Temple mused as she sat again to watch a disgruntled Louie trot back to her. She was sure he had already plotted some dramatic move to save the day . . . and make him the hairy black hero of the hour.
A Maxlike move to save the day and the dance.
And hadn’t that been a Max “save”? Disaster magically changed at the last moment into triumph? Could it be a real Max moment? Both CC and Max at six-foot-four were tall and virtually interchangeable, and magicians. Anybody could hide under the Cloaked Conjuror costuming—any body—and CC’s separate dressing room to conceal his identity and increase his security could also cover a switch.
Max had always said naked was the best disguise. The Cloaked Conjuror was a friend of his. A switch would be easy, and Max could move faster and dance better than CC any day.
Temple forced her attention back on the competition. How pathetic! Did she have to see Max under every disguise in Vegas? Maybe she would, for longer than she’d like.
“Wonderful,” Danny told the Cloaked Conjurer. “Your persona and costume would seem to keep you heavy on your feet and your side vision obscured, but you reacted swiftly and sharply when your partner had a wardrobe malfunction. And Olivia, the moment you touched toe to dance floor again, you were right on time. Your heel caught in your skirts, is that it?”
“No,” she answered. “It almost broke all the way off. Just folded out from under me.” She bent to gather up her voluminous skirts and reveal her left foot. The red satin heel swung from the last like a pendulum, affixed only by the cloth covering. “Since the women all have to dance on their toes anyway I just continued, arching that foot a little more so the heel wouldn’t drag.”
“A championship effort,” Danny decreed. “The mishap recovery was so smooth that although we’ll have to dock you for it, it’ll be much less than a fall would have been.”
The audience protested that, but Leander Brock patted his palms downward for their silence. “The judges have no other choice, but the viewing audience can call and e-mail in to support their favorites no matter what happens, and every vote will add to our callboard of success.”
He pointed to the large glitter-decorated LED board that would record the votes for each contestant by name and the cancer fund amount.
“I, too, applaud our sorely tried dancers, and especially Miss Phillips, who is very game to try this at an age, not that she looks it, when many women would be afraid of serious trouble from a fall. You remember the Frank and Ernest cartoon. It’s one of my favorites for the distaff dancers: ‘Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only she did it backwards in high heels.’ ”
The quote got the expected laugh. “Right on, Leander,” Savannah Ashleigh said, waving her placard and displaying her score, eight, ahead of time. “I don’t dock a performer for a wardrobe malfunction.”
Danny revealed his grade, a seven. Leander also flashed a seven. The crimson couple left the stage for the greenroom to wild applause.
For the first time Temple considered the sympathy vote. Matt might be a little too perfect for the viewing audience. He’d striven all his life to meet high ideals and had made it look easy to be smart, polite, and caring. Good looks on top of his natural charm and civility could spur jealousy.
At least no matter how the votes went, the children’s cancer fund came out a winner.
“And now,” Crawford trumpeted at the mike, “Olympic fencer José Juarez exchanges foil for a female partner, the awesome Wanda-woman, queen of the wrestling arena. Be interesting to see who leads here, folks.”
José Juarez brought on the Hispanic drama as he led Wandawoman down the stairs and then around the floor at a gallop, like Mad Max wooing a human jonquil. Wandawoman had moves, but not for the waltz. She looked clumsy.
“Again,” Danny raved, “a male partner with impeccable posture. Your sport requires it, so it’s not quite as remarkable as it was for Matt, but bravo! Wandawoman, you are a wonder on the wrestling mat, but I’d never give you a waltz to dance. Decent job, under the circumstances, but not designed to showcase your lit
eral strengths.”
Leander was in accord. “The amazing Danny Dove nailed it. Here’s hoping, Wandawoman, you fare better with tomorrow’s dance. Everybody is learning as they go.”
“José,” Savannah enthused. “How can one go wrong with a sexy Latin fencer? Looks, charisma, flexibility, yet really a great upright profile. Wandawoman was just too big to float in a waltz and all that yellow . . . my dear, you should shoot the costume department.”
The scores, from Danny down, were seven, seven, six.
The last couple was the unluckiest.
Motha Jonz did her best, but floating like a butterfly was not her shtick either. Although her sophisticated café-au-lait gown with trailing scarves hid her stocky figure, she resembled a dancing cocoa bean. Keith Salter’s dance for the show was worse than his dress rehearsal. His spine looked like it had been sewn to his stomach to the disservice of both. He was far too stiff.
The judges gave them sixes across. Even allowing for lower scores to start with, it was a glum couple that thumped up the four steps together to return to the greenroom backstage.
Temple scored Matt and Glory B. tops for a flawless waltz, with CC and Olivia the crowd-pleasers for sudden drama. The other two were ill-matched, but that would all change tomorrow.
She was so busy analyzing Matt’s chances of partner she only realized it was her turn in the spotlight as she heard Crawford’s oily baritone summoning Zoe Chloe Ozone.
She quickly joined him at the sidelines near the judges’ table.
“Here she is, folks, the dainty darling of the YouTube set, our junior emcee, the petite pint of dye-no-mite, the little girl who puts the Goth in ‘Goth, she’s good,’ Miss Zoe Chloe Ozone.”
Temple grabbed the mike and put several steps between her and the self-proclaimed “emcee of excellence.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Zoe Chloe riffed, “it is time to sit up and stand up for the next generation of dancing dervishes. The jazzy junior division debuts its first A-list couple, dreamy Dustin of Los Hermanos Brothers and Sou-Sou Smith, putting all the sass in the mambo that the older folks do.”
Out they pranced, miniature versions of the adult dancers. Sou-Sou wore a short, tight spangled costume as cute as a pink rhinestone butterfly pin. Cuban-heeled black Mary Janes encased her tiny, flashing feet. Her nonexistent hips flounced to the rhythm as the older boy managed the odd hips-back moves of the adult male dancers, which was as if an invisible string from their butts went straight up to the flies above.
The junior pair was impressive, and too cute to believe, until Sou-Sou suddenly stepped away in a series of turns from her partner . . . and kept on turning, her rouged little face screwing up in an agonized cry, her feet prancing high off the floor as if she were tap dancing on a red-hot stovetop, or doing the tarantella, not a slick, hip-slinging samba.
For endless, awful seconds she was like the girl in the Red Shoes fairy tale, dancing and spinning endlessly, unable to stop. She twirled finally to her hands and knees, and her slim body kept on rolling as she scrabbled as wildly as a water bug across the polished floor. Her appalled partner followed, stunned, his hands reaching out to stop her.
She ended sitting on her sequined rear, kicking her heels on the floor and bawling like a three-year-old, her red face making the hot pink of her costume pale by comparison.
Onlookers rushed toward her.
Her mother, obviously, was the larger version of blond and rouge and glitter that swooped to her side first. The thump of six twelve-size shoes on hardwood came hard on her heels as three Oasis security guards arrived to hold back concerned onlookers.
Oasis security uniforms were unisex and more discreet than at most Vegas hotels: khaki cargo pants and short-sleeved safari jackets. Even the essential duty belts were low-profile, which was both good and bad.
Molina and Rafi and Zoe Chloe’s disguises kept them held back among the concerned onlookers being pushed away, but Midnight Louie slipped and slid between the gathered forest of legs, which included the spindly shanks of Sou-Sou’s three rival junior dancers, Mariah, and the three other Los Hermanos brothers.
Then something dark and huge swooped down to pick her up. Sou-Sou left the stage in the strong arms of the Cloaked Conjuror, whose persona awed her long enough to forget the cause of her distress for a few key moments. She was swept behind the rear velvet curtains, her mother and the security forces trailing them, the rest of the cast and crew and audience held back.
“Rats,” hissed Molina as her group retreated as ordered by Crawford Buchanan’s deep bass over the microphone. “No badge, no gun, no authority. Undercover sucks.”
“No kidding,” said a retreating videographer who overheard her, lowering the camera to reveal his face.
Dirty Larry.
“Welcome to my world,” he said.
“Did you film anything important?” Rafi demanded.
“Kid squalling. Couldn’t tell why. We’ll go over all the footage with a magic-tech program later.”
“Who’d sabotage the junior contestants?” Temple wondered.
“Someone wanting to raise a ruckus,” Dirty Larry said promptly.
“To create a distraction.” Rafi turned away, lifting a cell phone to his ear to warn his security forces to watch the adult competitors.
“Take Mariah to the suite where she’s staying with the rest of the junior dancers,” Molina ordered Temple. “I’ll be along as soon as I can check on the injured girl backstage.”
Zoe Chloe Ozone could have pointed out that she didn’t babysit, but at least Molina wasn’t ordering her daughter home, which would have produced a tantrum that would have made Sou-Sou’s distress look like an attack of the sniffles.
“Bring Louie along when you come back,” Temple told Molina.
“I’m not toting your alley cat anywhere.”
“I’m not babysitting your daughter unless I have a bone fide feline icebreaker present. Louie will distract those girls into speaking truth.”
“I’m not hunting all over for a cat.” A smug light dawned. “Maybe I’ll call Rafi to bring him to me backstage.”
“Whatever floats your barge. Just trust me. Bring him.” Temple turned to Mariah, who’d watched their battle of wills with sharp eyes and ears. She was getting a whole new take on her mother.
“Come on, big-time manager,” Zoe Chloe told Mariah, who sat beside a dazed EK, “we gotta get tight with our homegirls before any more of them end up dancing on hot coals.”
“She’s a little bitch,” Mariah said as they left, trailing the mothers shepherding their dancing daughters. EK, her eyes bigger than dinner plates, trailed them. Mariah was her ersatz mother. “Isn’t she, EK?”
The girl nodded, and from her wince at the phrase, Temple guessed Sou-Sou had been meanest to the most defenseless of her competitors. And maybe the most talented. EK had a quiet intensity and intelligence that was almost disturbing in a girl so young, if you didn’t know she’d escaped a terrible political situation.
Who knew what EK had already needed to do to survive? Maybe a bit of sabotage was child’s play compared to what she’d already faced—loss of home and family, starvation, and death. Who could guess how badly she wanted, needed, to win to ensure a scholarship to guarantee staying in this country?
“Wow!” When the party arrived at the elevator to the suite, one of the girls ahead turned back to regard the trio taking up the rear. It was skateboarder Patrisha. “Zoe Chloe is hanging wi’ us, sistahs! Kewl.”
The mothers frowned and blinked at the gaudy Zoe Chloe persona, mystified.
“For sure,” ZC answered, moving forward to high-five her fans. “I’m gonna see you girls and mamas get safe home to your hotel suite, so these hunky boys in uniform can guard your door.”
One of the two security guys who’d joined the party, probably on Rafi’s orders, was under thirty, but one was fat, bald, and on social security.
He was the one who chuckled and said, “You betcha, ladies. We
’ll keep the big, bad bedbugs from your door. You can count on Roy.”
The three girls collapsed in giggles at the idea of this old guy being hunky.
“I’m Hank. Hank Buck,” the younger, buff one said. “I’m in charge of operations for this jamboree, so you’ll be seeing me around. You’ll never know when and hopefully anybody bad won’t know when either. I’ll be looking out for you girls, trust me.”
“We are getting more security than Los Hermanos Brothers,” Meg-Ann boasted to her friends as they rode up in the elevator.
“That rocks!” Patrisha agreed.
Zoe Chloe stood outside the suite’s double doors as mothers and daughters and mini-manager filed in, the girls still giggling, as they passed the guards, eyeing the younger one.
“Don’t you belong in there, miss?” Roy, the older guard, asked. “It ain’t very safe out here.”
“No, sir,” Zoe said, all pretend pouty. “I guess media stars like Los Hermanos Brothers and me don’t rate attempts on our performances and sanity. Pooh! We’ll never make Excess Hollywood that way.”
The senior citizen guard glowered at her irresponsible attitude, but the young one eyed her overexposed fishnet-clad gams. He was only, like, twenty-nine and had no idea she was an older woman.
Kewl.
Temple bopped Zoe Chloe Ozone outa there into the hall before she triggered a response from some lethally jealous tweenybopper. Girls just want to compete.
Maybe to the death.
Hotfooting It
If there is anyone in this entire place who is fully qualified to smell a rat, it is I.
I mean this quite literally.
A lot of scents assail my highly developed sniffer during these recent, critical moments since I pushed my way past a phalanx of human legs to the side of the little doll who was most cruelly afflicted.
First, human foot odor. Arghh!
This alone is enough to knock a sensitive dude—a short, sensitive dude—off his four pins. Why will they insist on confining and cooking the unhappy aroma of their pathetically unclawed feet inside these thick leather and canvas boxes?
Cat in a Topaz Tango Page 18