Flirty Dancing

by Jenny McLachlan

  ‘Why are you so sticky?’ I ask.

  ‘I painted me with chocolate spread,’ she says, licking her arm. ‘Bea want some?’ I leap out of bed and head for the shower. Emma is the best alarm clock.

  I do everything in a daze. I wash my hair, dry it, get dressed, eat the toast Mum has insisted on making me and check through my bag. Mum’s coming up to London this afternoon and Marion will be taking Emma into the hospital so they can watch me on TV with Nan.

  Mum keeps giving me hugs and asking annoying questions like, ‘Do you think you should take a spare pair of knickers?’ (no!) and, ‘Will I embarrass you if I wear my plunge bra?’ (yes!) and ‘Can I run onstage if you win?’ (you probably won’t have to worry about that one), and I’m relieved when Lulu turns up.

  Emma shrieks, ‘Holly! Holly!’ and dives into the car, climbing on Ollie’s knee and clinging to his leg. I climb in after her and pull her off him. She transfers her affection to me and wraps her arms round my neck demanding, ‘A big French kiss!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I say to Ollie. ‘It’s not as bad as it sounds.’ I hold Emma’s face between my hands and then shower her with kisses on both her cheeks. Satisfied, she lets Mum lift her out of the car.

  ‘This is it, Bean,’ he says.

  ‘It certainly is, Holly.’ As we pull away from the kerb, we both wave to Mum and Emma, who is being restrained in her arms.

  Lulu is driving us up because, now we’re finalists, we’re worthy of parking at the studios. Ray has come along too and Lulu puts on some rock and roll, and he sings along as we cruise down the motorway. Ollie and I stare out of the window, make the odd make sure you do this comment, and I start to get a really, really, pukey feeling in my tummy.

  ‘Apparently,’ says Lulu, cutting Ray off in the middle of ‘Bim Bam Baby’, ‘loads of pubs in town are going to be showing the finals and hosting Starwars parties. I saw it on the news last night. Everyone wants you to win.’ That’s a lot of pressure. I imagine angry drunks throwing crisps at my face on a big screen after I screw up the pancake.

  As we drive into London, we fall silent, and when the Big Town Playboys sing ‘The Wobble’ I think we all know what they mean. Too soon, we’re pulling up at the security gates and being directed to our parking space.

  It’s all a bit different to the semi-finals. This time, Gem greets us by name and we’re taken to our very own dressing room. Admittedly, it’s tiny – just a box room with a sink, sofa and lots of mirrors – but it has ‘Jive Monkey’ on the door (with stars around it) which Lulu makes us pose by for a photo. We’re told not to get changed because first we rehearse and they want our hair and make-up perfect for filming.

  Lulu and Ray disappear to the hospitality room with all the other chaperones and Ollie and I are taken to an empty studio, where all the finalists have gathered.

  As Gem stands up to talk, the door opens and The Pink Ladies come in looking unusually flustered. I look at Kat, but she turns away from me. Her cheeks are red. She’s been crying.

  ‘Find a seat, girls. Right, listen up because I’ve got a lot to tell you,’ says Gem, and she explains exactly what we will be doing for the rest of the day.

  From her position on the floor, Pearl scans the room, presumably looking for Ollie. When she sees where we’re sitting, she smiles and mouths, ‘Hi!’

  I go to turn away, then look back. Pearl is staring straight at me, waving. Automatically, I wave back. What is going on? Then I let my hand drop down and turn back to concentrate on what Gem is saying.

  ‘Right, in a moment, you’re going to go back to your dressing rooms and then you’re all going to have the chance to rehearse in this studio,’ she says. ‘You won’t be watching each other because we don’t want any of you being put off or getting last-minute jitters.’

  Ollie smiles, knowing Gem’s words will automatic­ally give me last-minute jitters. ‘Food will be brought to your dressing rooms, but I’m afraid there’s going to be quite a lot of sitting around. I hope you don’t get too bored. Right, off you go.’

  The first group stays in the room and the rest of us leave. The Pink Ladies wait by the door.

  ‘Hi, you two! Oh my God, we are, like, sooo nervous. How d’you feel?’ says Pearl, giving us both a big smile.

  I look at Kat – she must know just how odd this is. She’s looking better, but her eyes are still red. Holly and Lauren start chatting to me too. Clearly, it’s now ‘allowed’. Even Ollie notices the difference and gives me a questioning look.

  ‘Hey,’ says Pearl, as we walk down the corridor. ‘Did that girl say when we’re getting our make-up done?’

  ‘As soon as we’ve rehearsed,’ replies Ollie. ‘Hopefully, they’ll be able to sort out Bea’s black eye.’ Silence falls, and he looks steadily at Pearl.

  She hesitates then seems to come to a decision. ‘Oh! Look, babe –’ she steps forward and puts her arm round me – ‘let’s forget about all that.’ Then she squeezes me to her, smothering me in her perfume. ‘Yeah?’

  By now we’re outside our dressing room. I know that the easiest thing to do is say, ‘Yeah, OK!’ and six weeks ago that’s exactly what I would have done, but that girl isn’t me any more. I pull away from her. ‘Do you want me to forget about the coin?’ I say. ‘Or about everything? The drawing you did of me, the photo you took, what you said at the party, the texts? You see, that’s a lot to forget about.’

  Pearl looks at me, trying to decide what to do. She expected me to be grateful, relieved to be given the opportunity to be her friend. Holly’s mouth hangs open, amazed that I’m passing up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

  ‘God. What is your problem?’ Pearl asks, that familiar cold voice creeping back in.

  ‘Yeah, Bea, Pearl’s trying to sort everything out. You’re not being fair,’ adds Lauren.

  So now I am being cruel to Pearl. I suddenly feel totally exhausted by the weeks and weeks of having to be constantly on guard, waiting to see what Pearl will say or do next. I screw up my toes in my shoes and shut my eyes for a second, trying to get to a point where I can sound normal.

  ‘Stop it,’ says Kat, quietly. ‘This is what I was talking about, Pearl. Why can’t we just do our dance? Why can’t you leave Bea alone?’

  It’s as if Kat hasn’t spoken. Pearl peers at me and says, ‘Ah, she’s going to cry!’ Life has rewound to the day on the bus, the day that started all of this, when she was waving Emma’s Barbie around, glitter and tea leaves falling on her nails, and I stood there and let her do it.

  ‘I’m not going to cry,’ I say, surprised that it’s true. ‘But I don’t want to spend time with someone like you, Pearl.’

  I open the dressing-room door and walk in. Ollie follows me, shutting the door behind him. I sit down on the sofa and breathe deeply. He sits next to me and all of a sudden I realise that we’re going to be in this tiny room for three long hours. I become aware of everything about Ollie. I notice that his jeans are frayed and that his arm is resting across the back of the sofa. That he’s half looking at me – he could be checking out the multi-coloured bruise that surrounds my eye, but I don’t think he is. This is one small sofa we’re sitting on.

  ‘Are you cold?’ he asks. I nod. I’ve left my jacket in Lulu’s car and our dressing room has chilling air conditioning. He passes his hoodie to me, the grey one with the fleecy lining, and I put it on. It smells of Ollie, warm and safe, and I have an urge to snuggle my face down into it and go, ‘Mmmm.’ Thankfully, I suppress this urge. Then he pulls a chair in front of us, kicks off his trainers and puts his feet up, leaving room for mine. I slip off my shoes and put my feet next to his.

  I’m wearing socks that have individual toes, sort of gloves for my feet. Actually, I didn’t realise I had them on. I wear them round the house like slippers and, in the panic this morning, I forgot to change them. Each toe is knitted a different colour and has a weird Japanese cartoon character on it – one of my dad’s last-minute presents from abroad.

  ‘Coo
l socks,’ says Ollie.

  ‘Thanks.’ I wriggle my toes. ‘Same goes for yours. Is Bart naked?’

  ‘Yep. They’re my lucky socks,’ he replies, and we both stare at our feet, which are resting on the chair, centimetres apart. ‘Do you want to know something, Bea?’

  ‘What?’ I’m just thinking how funny life is, here I am in heaven when five minutes ago I was on the verge of tears.

  ‘I really like your socks.’ And Ollie sort of strokes my toes with his feet. I stop breathing. I have fireworks in my toes and they’re spreading through my whole body. I breathe again, but really quietly so that Ollie doesn’t know his toes have the power to stop my breath. He leaves his foot just resting against mine.

  Never in the history of the universe has the meeting of two socks felt so amazing.

  ‘Do you want to know something else?’ He has stopped looking at our toes and is now looking at me.

  ‘What?’ I whisper, staring intently at Bart’s little yellow bum.

  ‘I really like you,’ he says.

  I repeat the words slowly in my head and I feel as though I’m hovering at that point in the moon flip when I could fly on over or crash to the ground. I know that while I look at his toes I’m safe, but if I raise my eyes to look at him I’ll find out what he means. Does he like me, or like me?

  But I’m still far too shy to look at him. Instead, I do something incredibly fierce. I lean towards him and rest my head on his shoulder. It’s something I’ve longed to do for weeks and it’s even better than I imagined. There’s a second when I’m not sure how he’s going to react and I keep very still, waiting for my next clue. But he doesn’t leap up off the sofa screaming, ‘Get off me!’ Instead, he pulls me closer.

  Keep breathing, Bea. Keep breathing. I find the courage I need to look at him. Our eyes meet for a second, we smile and then I go so red I have to bury my face back in his shoulder.

  ‘Sorry, Ollie, I’m just too embarrassed to look at you right now.’

  Then, as if in slow motion, I sit up, he puts his other hand on the side of my face and, as smoothly as a perfectly executed dance move, our lips touch . . .

  ‘Sandwiches!’ The door is flung open and a man pulling a metal trolley backs into the room.

  Ollie and I leap off the sofa, our lips having only met for a fraction of a second. In fact, I’m not even sure if they met at all. ‘Now, what do you want? We’ve cheese and tomato, cheese and pickle, ham, oh, and cheese.’

  ‘That’s a lot of cheese,’ says Ollie in a relatively normal voice as he studies the trolley, choosing one of the paper plates and then passing one to me. ‘Here you go, Bea, your favourite: cheese and pickle.’

  And they are my favourite! I mentioned it once, weeks ago – I can’t even remember why – and he has remembered. I feel as though I’ve been given a bunch of roses rather than a slightly stale sandwich wrapped in plastic. Just as the sandwich man is backing out of the room, Gem sticks her head in. ‘Don’t eat those. Time for rehearsal and make-up.’

  My jive ‘look’ requires a good hour in make-up and when I get back to our dressing room, I know Ollie must be inside. Self-consciously, I hover outside, before opening the door and slipping into the room.

  Ollie looks up from his phone. ‘Hello,’ he says. ‘Have you seen Bea Hogg, my dance partner?’

  ‘Very funny,’ I say, perching on the edge of the sofa. I have been brushed and painted all over, even my shoulders have make-up on, and I hardly dare sit down.

  ‘That is a serious amount of make-up,’ he laughs.

  I look closer at him. ‘Are you wearing mascara?’

  ‘Hey, she said she wanted to define my, quote, “lush” eyes.’ We hesitate. I need to get changed, but I don’t think one almost-kiss with Ollie has prepared me to strip down to my knickers and bra quite yet.

  ‘Right, I’ll wait outside,’ he says, like a gentleman. Nan would be impressed.

  When I’m ready, I stand in front of a mirror. I have an entirely new outfit. Starwars took over our costumes for the finals and organised them with Lulu. We can’t dance in jeans any more because the routine is so acrobatic and, according to Lulu, skirts are ‘more fun’ for aerials. Personally, I think they’re more draughty, but here I am wearing a short flirty black skirt, a tight red shirt that fits me – and my bazookas – like a glove, and not one, but two pairs of the most massive sports knickers ever.

  I study my reflection and although I know I look just right, I still can’t bring myself to open the door and show Ollie. Get a grip, Ladybird, millions of strangers are about to see your pants. I pull open the door. He’s leaning on the wall opposite.

  ‘I’m ready,’ I say. Well, obviously.

  He comes back into the room and he looks at me in that way he has, totally open and relaxed. ‘Bean, you look beautiful.’ Yes. Beautiful. That is the word he just said. Bean + beautiful. I repeat it a few times to prolong the glow that is spreading over me. ‘Now,’ he says, ‘assume the close hold, but not too close, or you’ll smudge my make-up.’

  ‘Are we practising?’ I ask as we do a miniature version of our dance – minus the aerial moves – around our dressing room.

  ‘Sort of,’ he says, and we step around the room with Ollie providing the music. Hundreds of questions flash through my head involving the words, ‘like’, ‘kiss’, ‘beautiful’, ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’, but I don’t ask any of them because I don’t want anything to change.

  Our dance finishes when Ollie’s phone rings and it’s not long before Gem pops her head round the door to let us know our families are here. ‘Less than an hour to go, guys!’ she says as she leaves the room.

  At eight, a speaker in the corner of our dressing room bursts into life and we hear the Starwars theme tune. By now, we are both sitting on the sofa and staring at the wall. Although we can’t actually see the first dancers, we can hear their music, Shad’s commentary and the audience’s reactions. This has the same effect as a slow drum roll.

  Soon, a runner arrives to take us to warm-up and, before we know it, we’re backstage, holding hands and listening to the applause for the dancers who are leaving the stage. Gem holds up her hand and begins her countdown. Five, four, three, two . . . then she gives us a shove, and we run on.

  Our music fills the studio as we enter the stage, find our position, and step into the close hold. Out of the corner of my eyes, I see a blur of cameras, lights and faces. Then, a second later, we start our dance. At first the tempo is slow, very slow for a rock ’n’ roll song, and we waltz in slow-motion for a couple of seconds. I can feel our hearts beating as we force ourselves to keep the pace down. Then the music speeds up and so do we, flying into the moon flip at a speed I never dreamt we’d achieve when we began to dance together.

  We’re so fast you can tell the audience isn’t expecting me to spin over. We hear a collective gasp, then we’re surrounded with cheers. Swinging through our solos and aerials, the audience responds to each stage of our dance until we’re coming to our final lift.

  I’m grinning as I turn up and over Ollie’s shoulder, where he holds me until the last beat of the track. He lowers me to the ground and we let the applause wash over us, holding hands, laughing and trying to get our breath back.

  ‘How about that, ladies and gentlemen?’ Shad runs over. The applause starts all over again. ‘Now, Ollie, you promised us something special, and you delivered it. How did you do it in such a short space of time?’

  ‘Well, we have great teachers, my sister, Lulu, and Ray. They’re here tonight –’ through the glare of the spotlights I make out Lulu, waving at a camera right in front of her – ‘and I have an amazing partner.’

  There is a collective, ‘Ahhh!’ from the audience.

  ‘So, Bea, anyone you’d like to mention?’

  ‘Just my nan. I wish you were here, Nan.’ Unlike Ollie, I don’t have the ability to make up perfect sound bites on the spot.

  ‘Great, so hello, Nan, and thank you, Jive Monkey –
you were spectacular!’ We run offstage to a final round of applause.

  As we are one of the last acts, we don’t have long to wait until everyone is brought back onstage. The Pink Ladies are at the opposite end to us and looking as nervous as everyone else. Shad welcomes back the viewers and begins to describe the wonderful opportun­ities that await the winners.

  Ollie and I squeeze hands.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, tonight there can only be one group who performs in the West End. The judges have made their decision. Dancers, if you hear your name read out, I would like you to take a step back: you have not won Starwars.’ After an agonising pause, he reads out the first name, ‘Bollywood! I’m sorry.’ The group of girls next to us draw in their breath and one of them gives a cry as she realises that they haven’t won. They stand back in the shadows beyond the reach of the spotlights.

  Shad continues eliminating groups and Ollie and I hold hands so tightly I can’t feel my fingers. ‘Bo Salsa!’ With each name he pauses to allow the cameras time to film the disappointment on the dancers’ faces. ‘The Follies! Element! The Pink Ladies!’

  I hear Pearl gasp at the end of the row and then she shakes her head as the others hug by her side.

  ‘Please take a step back,’ reminds Shad. They dis­appear from sight.

  He reads out several more names, ending with Dance Collective. A drum rolls. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have three groups remaining.’ The stage is now almost empty except for two other groups. One is made up of five girls wearing tailored trousers and waistcoats. The other is a group of seriously athletic street dancers. ‘Kiss, No Angels and Jive Monkey, you are the acts our judges have been agonising over. Unfortunately, there can only be one winner tonight . . .’

  Shad pauses and takes a gold envelope out of his pocket, which he opens as the drum roll gets louder. ‘If I read out your name, you have not won Starwars.’

  I take a deep breath and shut my eyes.

  ‘Kiss! I’m sorry!’ The audience groans and claps. Relief surges through me and I open my eyes to see the girls wearing the waistcoats step back. ‘Jive Monkey and No Angels, there is one name on this card,’ says Shad, coming to stand in between us.