She couldn’t feel her feet. She couldn’t feel anything—only the waves of condemnation surrounding her. This was everything she feared. She was naked and ashamed and alone.
“You wouldn’t see me,” she whispered, her eyes cast down. “I had to tell you—”
“We have nothing to say to each other, Miss Anderson,” he said. “Nothing. I want you to leave.”
There was no arguing with him. Not with any of them. Still, she had to do what she came here to do. She thrust the folder at him. “Just read this. It’s all in here. Please just read it.”
But he wasn’t looking at her. No one was anymore. They were looking behind her. She turned.
Two security guards were there. She recognized one of them from the front door, and her heart plummeted.
The last spark of hope fizzled.
She could read the change in the expressions around her. No longer confusion or amusement. Just pity. Except for Derek. His read anger—straight and simple.
She turned and accepted the long, agonizing escort back to the main entrance—completely and utterly humiliated.
| 24
Melanie scratched her head. “So, you sent yourself as a bellygram?”
“I wasn’t really a bellygram,” Abby insisted. “I just needed to get up to the fifth floor. To give him that folder. To tell him there’s a chance he can save the paper.”
“But you were dressed as a belly dancer, and you told Jeanine you were a belly dancer. So, how’s that different from a bellygram?”
“Okay, fine, I was a bellygram.”
“Just so we’re clear. After all that griping about bellygrams degrading the art form, and blah, blah, blah.”
“You could be a little more supportive, you know.”
“Are you kidding? You didn’t even call me. I missed the whole Zenina spectacle.”
Abby wadded up an old class schedule from her studio desk and threw it at Melanie’s head. “I wasn’t a spectacle. Okay, maybe. A little. But only after I got to the fifth floor. That was pretty awful.”
Melanie’s laughter subsided. “Come on. How bad could it have been? A belly dancer in a room mostly full of men. It’s not like it was a hostile crowd.”
“You didn’t see the way Derek looked at me. That was hostile. I’m such an idiot.”
“Well, at least you got the information to him, right? So mission accomplished.”
Tears welled in Abby’s eyes. She fought them back and shook her head.
“You didn’t give him the folder?”
“I don’t know what happened to it. One minute I had it and the next the guards were showing me out and it was gone. It must have dropped somewhere, but there was no way they were going to let me go back and look for it.”
“They called the security guards on you? Wow.”
“Yeah, I’ll never be able to show my face in that place again.” Abby sank her head into her palms.
“Fine, so your grand plan backfired. It happens.” Melanie was trying hard to be chipper. “I told you he was bad news. You should just forget all that and focus on what’s important, like the benefit. Maybe something like which veils we should drape across the wall to make the stage. The purple or the red?” She held up two gauzy wads of chiffon.
Abby reached for a tissue and blew her nose. With another she dried her eyes. “I appreciate all the work you’ve done, and you’ve done a lot. You should know, though, that it’s probably not going to be enough. I’ve used up everything. I’ve pushed back every bill I can. If I’m lucky, I can make it another month, maybe two.”
“Don’t be so glum. I have a good feeling about it. Word has really been spreading. I think you’re going to be surprised by the turnout.”
“You’re right.” She forced a brave face for Melanie. And if nothing else, it was going to be a great party.
| 25
Abby had squeezed her way through the packed hallway and finally reached the storage room where the dancers were dressing when Melanie grabbed her arm.
“We should get started,” her friend said, trying to be heard over the Middle Eastern music coming from the dance room. “Are you still planning to do an intro?”
It was a valid question because so far nothing was going according to plan. For two hours, people had been piling into the studio. The three dozen foldout chairs they had set up for audience seating had been filled long ago and now bodies pressed against walls, sprawled on the floor, and crowded into the hallway. The dressing room was no better. The two dancers from Belly Dance Divas had arrived on schedule, but they had coaxed the five other principal dancers to join them. It was a welcome surprise, but required a quick shuffling of the schedule and prep space to accommodate them.
Abby would have panicked if she hadn’t already been in costume and makeup when she arrived to set up.
“Yeah, I still want to do it,” she said. “Did you see the donation box? I’ve emptied it twice to make room for all the envelopes, and it’s nearly full again. I don’t know what you did to get so many people here, but wow. You must be some kind of PR genius.”
Melanie cocked her head. “I thought it was you. I told some friends and asked them to post it online, and the entertainment editor put it into the paper’s calendar, but that was it. I don’t know half of these people and I have no idea where they came from. It’s crazy.”
Crazy only scratched the surface.
“How about letting me check on the dancers?” Melanie said. “You should go out there. The crowd’s getting restless.”
Abby could hear them. She made her way to the stage and took the microphone. The guy running the sound turned down the music, and the voices hushed. She took the stage and looked out at the faces. So many strangers, but many she knew. Fellow instructors and former classmates. Her own students, other local dancers and musicians. It gave her a warm and fuzzy feeling. She’d crawled into a hole after her father died that only deepened when her ex left her. She’d felt alone, and the fiasco with Derek had only made it worse.
But she wasn’t alone. She could see that now. She had friends. She had Melanie. And if tonight was going as well as she thought it was, she was going to have her studio, too. One day, she’d have someone special again. Until then, this would be enough. And with so much support and encouragement around her, it was impossible to feel anything but love. And gratitude.
“Thank you for being here tonight,” she said into the microphone, “for our Save the Shimmy Shop Benefit and Show. Like many of you, this is where I took my first belly dance class. Eight years ago, I walked into one of Almira’s Tuesday night classes, and I never looked back. I owe so much to this studio. This is where I met Almira, my amazing mentor and friend. It’s where I met my best friend, Melanie, who made tonight possible. And it’s where I discovered how much I love belly dance.
“Last year, when Almira announced she would be retiring and planned to sell the studio, I knew I wasn’t ready to say good-bye to this place—”
Derek’s face in the doorway stopped her.
“It means everything to me,” she continued, trying to focus, and trying to ignore his inscrutable expression. Why was he here? Why tonight? “You can’t imagine how much it means to see that it means something to all of you, as well.”
She couldn’t think straight. She couldn’t think at all. She searched for Melanie. For anyone. She could only see him.
“So, thank you for being here, and thank you for helping me keep this place going…”
A Belly Dance Diva peeked around the corner. The Divas! She had to remember to mention the Divas.
“We have many talented dancers performing tonight, including the amazing Belly Dance Divas. But leading our lineup tonight is Janaya, a local dancer and one of our instructors, performing a tribal fusion choreography featuring an authentic Damascus steel saber.”
The room erupted in applause and Abby left the stage as a lithe young woman with circus-colored dreadlocks appeared, carrying a curved sword in front of
her like a ritual relic.
Instantly, Melanie was at Abby’s elbow. “Are you all right? You looked a little rattled up there.”
The words hardly registered. Abby searched the room for Derek, but he wasn’t in the doorway anymore. He wasn’t anywhere.
“Where’d he go?”
“Who?”
“Derek. He’s here. Or he was.” She thrust the microphone at Melanie. “I have to find him.”
Before Melanie could stop her, Abby pushed her way through the crowd and into the hallway.
She spied him through the glass, standing under a parking lot light, talking on his phone.
She pushed her way out and waited for him to end his call.
“Definitely a go. Right. Metro section front page. Okay,” he said into the receiver before ending the call.
“Look,” she said, “I just want to say I’m sorry I barged in on your meeting. I know it was stupid, but you wouldn’t take my calls and I had no other way to contact you. I’m so, so sorry and—”
He raised his hand to stop her torrent. “You don’t have to apologize.” He lifted a folder. The one she thought she’d lost.
“That’s what I was trying to get to you. Before the meeting.” She shook her head. The meeting that had already happened. “Before it was too late.”
“Gladys found it, and it wasn’t too late. You know, no one—not my father, not my uncles—had any idea my grandfather had amended the bylaws to give descendants the power to block sales and acquisitions. When I made it clear I intended to exercise that right, they decided to listen to my proposal.”
His wide, satisfied smile loosened the grip on her chest.
“What was your proposal?” she asked.
“Well, you’re looking at the new owner of the Orange County Herald.”
“Really?” She could feel the joy radiating off him. She wanted so much to throw her arms around him, but she held back. “Congratulations,” she said coolly. “I know how much it means to you.”
“It means everything.” He looked around, taking in the studio and the Shimmy Shop sign glowing red and orange against the night sky. “Like this studio apparently does to you.”
She flushed, embarrassed that he’d witnessed that emotional moment on the stage. “I think I went a little overboard with my speech. I guess there’s a reason I’m a dancer, not a public speaker.”
“No, the speech was perfect,” he said. He tugged at his tie like it was making him uncomfortable. “It was from the heart.”
“Thanks,” she said. It was so difficult being this close to him and not being able to touch him. If only she hadn’t ruined everything. If only she had been honest. Maybe there would have been a chance.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get past that thought. It was as if every nerve ending in her body was aware of him, from the citrus scent of his aftershave to the way his nostrils flared softly with each breath. Tonight he was more like the sweet, tender man she had known that first night. That amazing night that felt like a lifetime ago.
“Oh my God, Abby!”
Abby whirled around. Melanie was barreling through the studio door, waving the front page of the Herald. “Did you see this?” She stabbed her finger at the space above the fold reserved for the Friday Night Hot Pick. “It’s us. The Hot Pick is us! That’s why all these people are here. And there’s a photographer here. Snapping the performers and the crowd. He asked me about you.”
The puzzle pieces fell into place. Abby turned to Derek. “You did that, didn’t you?”
He shrugged. “I figured it was the least I could do. It wasn’t as much trouble as you went to for me, but, well, you look a lot better in a belly dance costume than I do.”
That was a smile on his face. Definitely a smile.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” she said. “So is that why you came by tonight?”
“Mostly. A reporter who may or may not have been working on a personal matter for me pitched a story for tomorrow’s paper that I wanted to check out for myself. Something about a local girl trying to save a beloved, but quirky, dance studio. I thought I’d come down and have a look.”
“A story about the studio?” Something like that could bring in dozens of new students. It could turn the place around.
“I think it’s a good story. Lots of possibilities. Place with a long, colorful history. Scrappy girl fighting against the odds. Following her heart.” He paused and his head dipped closer to hers. “She is following her heart, isn’t she?”
“I think that depends.”
She could see her answer surprised him.
“Really?” he said. “On what?”
In a flash, she could see he wasn’t as confident and self-assured as he wanted everyone to believe. He was vulnerable, just as she was, and in his way he was trying to reach out to her just as she wanted to reach out to him.
He wanted her, just as she wanted him.
All the harsh words and hurt feelings between them vanished as if they had never existed. All the mistakes and regrets. She forgot everything and said, “It depends on this.” She laid her hands on his chest, rose up on her tiptoes, and kissed him. She filled it with all the longing and pent-up emotion, every feeling and desire she had suppressed since the day she had accepted his job offer. She surrendered everything in that kiss, and when she felt his arms entwine around her back, she knew he had surrendered, too.
A camera flash interrupted them. Out of nowhere a photographer was behind them.
“Sorry. I didn’t know it was you, boss,” the young man said when Derek whirled around.
“I’ll expect that picture on my desk Monday morning,” he said.
“Of course, boss,” the man said, relieved. “She’s all yours.”
Abby wrapped her arms more tightly around Derek’s neck and whispered in his ear, “She sure is.”
THE END
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Books by DeAnna Cameron
CALIFORNIA BELLY DANCE ROMANCE SERIES
Book 1: Shimmy for Me (25,000 words), available now
Book 2: Dance with Me, coming soon
Also these stand-alone, but linked romantic historical fiction titles:
The Belly Dancer
Dancing at The Chance
Dedication
To the belly dancers of the world for keeping this beautiful and inspiring dance form alive.
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank some special people who contributed in important ways to this novella:
The writers who join me on Thursday mornings to write and chat over coffee, and all the O.C. Writers who make time to support, motivate, and learn from one another.
Martha Trachtenberg and Anne Victory, for their keen editing eyes.
Sommer Stein, for the beautiful cover.
Kerri-Leigh Grady, for believing in the story, and the four months when she virtually kicked my butt to finish it.
Novella Ninjas Janice Foy, Jennifer Savalli, Suz Jay, and R.J. Garside, as well as Tari Jewett, Liz Sc
ott, Diane Becker, and Alane Canzone for their feedback and encouragement on early versions.
Austin and Chloe, for giving me my own happily-ever-after.
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Fine Skylark Media
P.O. Box 1505
Lake Forest, California 92609-1505
Shimmy for Me
Copyright (c) 2014 DeAnna Cameron
ISBN: 978-0-9908146-0-3 (ebook)
ISBN: 978-0-9908146-1-0 (print)
Cover by Sommer Stein, Perfect Pear Creative Covers
Cover photography by Valua Vitaly and Denys Kurbatov via Dreamstime
All rights reserved.
Dance with Me
A California Belly Dance Novel
By DeAnna Cameron
Coming Summer 2015
| 1
The man in a vintage tuxedo gazed down at the belly dancer and crooned with bedroom eyes as she pressed her shimmies against him. A warm flush came over Melanie, as though she were intruding on a private moment, not one played out for a movie camera more than sixty years before.
“Aren’t those old black-and-white films great?”
Melanie spun away from the television at the sound of her friend’s voice and nearly knocked a box of hip scarves off the glass display case. She fished it back and composed herself.
Shimmy for Me: A Novella (California Belly Dance Romance Series Book 1) Page 8