“Yep.”
“Are you like that with women?”
Dan was glad the flush of sunset was fading. Long shadows were streaking up from the gully and crossing the park to where they lay. They didn’t bring with them the kind of bravery the cover of night did, but they put a softer focus on the unforgiving light of day, made a person feel just a little less defensive.
“This is not about me.”
“No, but I’m trying to understand.”
“I’m worse.”
“What’s worse than being controlling?”
“There’s worse, Alex.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.”
Shit. He sat up to look at her. “Hey, I’m not abusive or violent. I would never hurt a woman. You have to know that. A bloke who abuses a women is the lowest form of life.” He spoke way too loudly in his haste to convince her. Alex sat up and a couple of joggers made a wide circle around them.
She put her hand to his arm. “It’s ok. I don’t think you’d hurt anyone.”
He sighed, relieved. “I just mean that maybe it’s worse when you, what’s the word, ‘objectify’ women, and don’t see them for who they really are. It’s at least as bad as being controlling.”
“Is that what you do?”
“What do you think?”
“Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”
“I think you’ve just answered the first question.”
“Ah, you’re not getting away with it that easily. You could have just about any woman you want. I mean look at you.” She flicked him hard on the chest. “But I’ve never heard you mention a girlfriend. If you had one I’m sure she’d be around to watch with Mitch and Fluke.”
Dan groaned. “How did this become about me?”
“Clever, huh?”
“Ok, you want it straight? I did something stupid. I hurt a friend, so I’m taking a break.”
“Not following.”
“I got tired of the kind of life where women are disposable.”
“What, you’ve opted out?”
Dan heard Alex’s surprise. “I’m pretty sure it’s a temporary state.”
“Ok, so the abusive men aside, some men objectify and some men control.”
“And none of them are any good for you.”
They were quiet while the shadows stretched and the air cooled to balmy. Dan was thinking about what he’d like to do to Phil so Alex didn’t have this stress. “So what do you do about Phil?”
“I work a little harder to explain to him what’s important to me and I stop letting him decide what’s good for me.”
“Go girl!”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Sure. If a bloke loves you and you’re being clear about what’s important, there’s no way he won’t see things differently.” And if Phil didn’t and Alex confided in Dan again, then there’d be an entirely different answer to that question.
“Thanks Dan. I have no idea why I told you all this, but I feel better. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Why don’t you just change the way you relate to women?”
Now the shadows were all the way across the cement walkway and the sandy shore and stretched towards the sea. Dan brushed the sand from his hands, wished it were night and he were braver. He said, “Haven’t found anyone worth changing for,” and that was his best lie yet.
31. Heat
“Jesus H Christ!” said Ant, as they entered the Wentworth Arena. “We’ve just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.”
Dan could just about hear the plucked guitar strings, saxophone, horn, and bongo drums of the old TV show’s signature tune and Mitch helped out by going, “Deedee, deedee, deedee, deedee.”
There were five hundred people in the tiered stadium seating and more pouring in the various entrances. There was a large, highly polished wooden floor, a raised judge’s dais, a sound and vision desk, and enough disco balls and coloured lights flaring and strobing to cause a fit. But it wasn’t so much the weirdness of the venue as the view they were getting of the competing dancers strutting their stuff.
The women’s costumes were brief, flashy, and fabulous, their makeup heavy and exaggerated. They glittered and shimmered, flicking hair and hands in hypnotic ‘look at me’ gestures that made the boys instinctively follow their movements.
Some of the men looked equally dramatic. There were lots of well-fitted trousers and bare chests on display. Some of them wore makeup too, eyeliner and lip gloss, and several were shirtless altogether, their muscles oiled.
Alesha Dixon sang about a man with two left feet who got a second chance and Dan felt like he’d missed every chance to back out. He was an ignorant tourist visiting a foreign land with odd social customs he’d volunteered to participate in without reading the brochure’s fine print.
He’d rather have walked though fire or had teeth pulled without anaesthetic. He stood, holding his comparatively plain, despite Gwen’s rule about the undone buttons, costume in a suit bag, with Ant, Mitch, and Fluke, and watched the whirl of colour and the twist of dancers and felt physically ill.
Trevor had explained that for a half hour before the competition began any of the couples could use the floor to rehearse. It was a psych-out tactic, useful if you wanted to show off a particularly difficult move to put the fear of failure into your opponents. Of course, there was no guarantee you’d use that risky move in your competition routine and this little piece of theatre was often responsible for couples hastily amending long finalised routines to add an extra piece of drama only to screw it up and realise it was a ruse anyway. Trevor didn’t want Alex and Dan having a bar of it and for that Dan was eternally grateful.
Ant brought him out of his stupefied state by slapping him across the back. “Your funeral, mate. It’s gonna be a hoot.”
They found Scott and Trevor with Gwen in the competitor’s area. No Alex and, Dan noted, there was no sign of Phil either. He left the boys to continue gawping around the stadium and followed Scott to the change rooms.
“Any last words?” he said, when he’d shed jeans and t-shirt for his black trousers and shirt and wore a look of what he hoped was contained terror on his face.
“Forget everyone else but Alex.”
“Forget everyone else but Alex,” Dan repeated and breathed out heavily. “I can do that.”
“And try not to barf out there.”
Back in the competitor’s area, Dan got his initial look at Alex. His first thought was a swear word, his second that Gwen was a genius.
Alex’s dress attached to her body with tiny transparent strings around her neck and a heroic amount of good luck. She was bare skin on her right side from the edge of her ribcage to the curve of her hip, where a longer spray of fabric trailed to her knee. Her skirt was otherwise cheerleader outfit short. The dress, if that’s what you could call it, was black and glittered with tiny silver stars inset in the fabric. Alex had glittery pins and feathers in her upswept hair and her makeup made her eyes look like two gold pearls riding storm clouds.
The last time Dan reacted to how Alex looked he’d gotten himself into trouble, but in his pre-event panic state, he was beyond high definition memory recall and his mouth was in gear before he’d engaged sufficient brain function to temper his vocalisation.
“Fuck me, you’re beautiful.”
It was Mitch who reacted first, jumping up and ramming his hand over Dan’s mouth. “He means you look great, Alex.” Mitch looked at Gwen. “Dan’s not a bad guy. He just needs to watch his mouth.” He gave Dan’s hair a ruffle and released him, laughing.
“Thank you, I think,” said Alex and her brows were frowny, but her smile was dazzling. “Come here,” she beckoned Dan closer with a curling finger. “Mitch has mussed you up.”
“Sorry!” called Mitch, but he didn’t look sorry. He watched while Alex finger combed Dan’s hair back, ready to jump up and mess with it all over again.
“Sorry,” Dan said, when he’d step
ped clear of a laughing Mitch and was eyeballing Alex again. “You look incredible, but if I touch it, will it fall apart?”
She shook her head. “It’s very secure, don’t worry. There’s glue involved.”
“Really?”
“No, but I hoped it might make you feel better.”
“No fair. I’m worried enough without thinking I might rip that thing off you out there.”
“You won’t. We’ll be fine. Just keep looking at me.”
“That won’t be hard. You’re the only thing I can see anyway.”
Alex screwed one eye closed and squinted at him. She said, “Oooo-kay,” drawing the word out like you might with someone who was dense. “You might want to look at that now for a while.” She gestured to the floor where dancers of all ages and experience were congregating for the first heat of the open competition.
The open was a no-points knockout event worth five thousand dollars prize money. Even though Dan and Alex’s event was into its third heat, this was the kick-off for the open competition. Tonight fifty couples could compete with eliminations occurring over the next five rounds until the last couple standing walked with the cash.
As the dancers took to the floor, Dan could see both Cooper Perry and Collin Davis. No doubt Collin’s choreography would get an airing. He was partnered with a young girl in a nude coloured costume that made Dan look twice.
“She looks like his butt naked granddaughter,” said Scott.
“They’re good,” said Trevor. “Cooper too.”
Cooper’s partner was a cute blonde with big baby-doll blue eyes and a short red jewelled dress that showed off endless tanned legs. Cooper sure had nothing to complain about.
In less than five minutes, six couples had been eliminated. In the next five, another four were tapped on the shoulder by judges and asked to leave the floor. Both Collin and Cooper and their partners made it through.
Dan watched the eliminations with a growing lump of dread fermenting in his gut. Apart from one couple who’d made an obvious stumble, he couldn’t see why any of the others had been voted off the island.
“Should you be watching this?” said Mitch.
Dan felt Mitch’s hand on his knee and realised he’d been bouncing it nervously. He stopped. “Maybe not. Shit, how did I get here?”
“Major brain fart if you ask me,” said Fluke.
“Yeah, I’d have that checked out,” said Mitch.
“Have you tapped that yet?” asked Ant, leaning forward to look at Alex who was deep in discussion with Scott and Trevor, safely out of earshot.
Dan followed Ant’s line of vision. “No. She’s got a bloke.”
“Why isn’t he here?” said Mitch, scanning the group for someone they didn’t know already.
“Good question.”
“So, you’re going to?” said Fluke.
“Nope.”
“Are you sick, Dan?”
“Nope. Except for right now, I’m great.”
“You look fucking gay,” Fluke exploded.
“You mean like Scott?”
The four of them leaned forward to look at Scott. Everything about him said masculine from the square cut of his jaw and his carefully crafted stubble to the width of his shoulders and the muscles across his chest and in his arms. Even the broken foot said he-man, so Fluke’s comment wasn’t about Scott, it was meant to be a dig at Dan. He dropped a hand on Fluke’s shoulder. “Are you ever going to give this up?”
Fluke played it ignorant. “What?”
“It’s been weeks and instead of getting over it, you’re just getting meaner. It doesn’t suit you.”
Fluke snorted and Dan dropped his hand. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to eat shit, Dan.”
“Lay off, Fluke,” said Mitch.
Fluke didn’t. “I want some kind of proof that you’re the friend I thought you were and the thing with Katie was a bit of madness and you’re going to do something about changing like you said.”
“Not the time, mate,” said Mitch, glaring across Dan at Fluke.
“If you haven’t already done it with Alex, I’ll be a friggin’ ballerina. I saw you dance with her. You don’t get to look at each other like that, just from dancing with a girl. You’ve got to be fucking her, which means you haven’t done anything about changing, and you’re not sorry about Katie.”
“Shut up, Fluke,” said Mitch, but he’d missed his moment. Fluke had said his piece, the whole time sitting forward and watching the dancers, his elbows on his knees, hands gripped tightly, knuckles white, suspended between his legs.
Mitch rocked forward to look at Dan who was sitting in the same position as Fluke, legs apart, elbows on knees, hands clasped, but he had his head down, studying the stadium floor and his own shoe laces, determinedly not watching the first couple compete in his own event heat. If there really was a Twilight Zone, he was deep in it.
“Earth to Dan,” said Ant. “Is that what you’ll be doing?”
Dan looked up. A single couple danced in a bright white spotlight. It looked like their feet never touched the floor. “Yep, eating shit,” he said and then excused himself and stepped across Mitch and Ant to get to the aisle. He wanted out of the arena. He didn’t want to watch anymore, or even hear the music. He heard Mitch say, “That was fucked, Fluke,” and then he was in the corridor behind the seating and it was mercifully separate and quiet.
He leaned up against the cool besser brick wall and tried to collect himself. There was nothing he could do about Fluke’s rage. He’d hoped time would sort it out, but now it looked like time wouldn’t be enough. He hadn’t made a start on the Charger and maybe Fluke would reject the gesture anyway given the rusted, sour mood he was in.
Away from the bright lights and in the comparative silence he tried to set the distractions aside and focus, to run the dance in his head one more time. But his brain was so fried by the strangeness of everything that he wasn’t able to visualise anything beyond a few scattered images of Alex. He couldn’t remember how the routine started, how he was supposed to move, how they finished, or anything that happened in between. He could feel anxiety getting ready to flip into panic and was about to go grab Scott when Alex’s voice cut though the thick fog of forgetfulness in his head.
“Are you ok?”
A lie seemed the more masculine response. No point her knowing he was Aeroplane Jelly brain. “Yeah. I just needed to get away from that,” he jerked his thumb towards the bricks to indicate the outside world where everything glittered and didn’t hold still.
She came closer. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” He was getting good at this lying business.
She nodded. “I’ll see you back out there in fifteen,” and in a flash of thigh and shoulder, turned to leave.
He grabbed for her hand. Was that in or out of the lines? She came into his arms easily, softly, with a flicker of her skirt against his legs and her arms around his neck. “You’ll be fine.”
“You might need to keep saying that.” He rested his forehead on hers, smelled the perfume of her makeup and hair products.
“You’ll be fine,” she repeated obediently.
“Not hearing you.” He should kiss her. The pleasure instinct side of his brain was functioning well enough to know if there was any time to stray over the lines and get away with a kiss, this was it. It would be easy to shift slightly, angle his face, nudge her cheek.
He hesitated and she said, “Don’t,” but gently, more a suggestion than a warning. He wasn’t sorry she knew what he wanted. Let it stand. It was the truth, but not the note to end on, too wimpy, too defeated. He lifted a hard from the curve of her waist and slapped her butt, not hard, but the sound of his hand connecting with her body, fast and sharp, reverberated in the low ceilinged corridor and her gasp of protest as she pushed back from him was the right note, a fighting note, its blood heated and raring to go, just as the way his hand tingling was a call to arms.
Th
is was as ready as he was ever going to get for this particular fight.
32. Spotlight
He might as well have been abducted by aliens. Dan remembered nothing about their four minutes and thirteen seconds in the spotlight. Nada. Zilch. Zip. His brain was a blank white void, with all the live action sucked out.
He could tell from the fuss being made that they’d made it through without him tripping Alex, dropping her, tearing her dress off, or falling over. Alex’s hug and her whispered ‘thank you’, Scott’s thump on the back, the look of expectation on Trevor’s face, and Gwen’s big smile told him that.
He’d wanted to hold onto Alex longer when she wrapped him in that hug, because he had no memory of holding her on the dance floor, but she was gone too quick, over the aisle separating their seats, laughing excitedly with Scott and Trevor, hugging Gwen.
Then the boys were there, talking at once, jostling him, pulling at his shirt, messing with his hair, even Fluke was all teeth and rounded cheek bones, high colour, and loud-voiced.
“So we did ok?” Dan sat, trying to work his memory muscles for recall of anything beyond the heat of the spotlighting.
“You were fucking awesome,” said Fluke and Dan had to look at him to check for sarcasm. Nope, even Fluke’s freckles looked heartfelt, so it must’ve gone ok.
“Not as good as this lot,” said Ant, gesturing to the couple now on the floor.
“But not as crap as we thought you’d be,” said Mitch.
Ant leaned across Mitch and poked Dan in the arm. “You need to sort it with Alex, mate. Get rid of the boyfriend. She’s a friggin’ goddess. Can you imagine how good the sex would be?”
Now Dan was thinking alien abduction might have been preferable. The huge drafts of adrenaline that coursed through his body started to dissipate. His limbs felt heavy, he was aware of a roaring hunger, and mostly he wanted a swim in the sea, a good cup of tea, and a mattress to go flake out on. How pathetic was that? But he had to say something about Alex and he had to say something to Fluke. If he could get both of those things accomplished together, maybe he could survive the Martian brain probe and go home unharmed.
Grease Monkey Jive Page 19