“Promise me one thing, Xander,” she said in a quiet, weary voice.
“Anything, Mom.”
“Don’t stop dancing when I’m gone. It’s part of who you are, don’t deny it because it makes you think of me.”
“Mom. . .” Xander began.
“Promise me,” she repeated.
“I promise.”
“Hey, Dad,” he began as Zach stepped out onto the street.
His father smiled. He had heard the music too. “Go ahead. Give me a call if you want a ride later.”
“Yeah, sure thing. Thanks.”
“Of course. Have fun.”
“You know I will.”
Zach walked away down the street, headed toward the parking garage where they had left the truck. Xander strolled across the boulevard to the simple red double doors that lead into the club. He took a deep breath, eager for something familiar in a strange place, even if it did remind him of his mom. He opened the door and music blasted out, riding the back beat and drowning out the sound of feet keeping time on the dance floor like a hundred heavy metronomes. The energy of it lifted Xander’s spirits immediately and the soles of his feet itched with the urge to dance.
A bouncer sat on a stool at the end of a roped off line, taking money. Xander waited while a few of the people who had walked in before him paid and went in. He leaned around to check out the club while he waited. On the stage was a five piece band and a singer. A short man in his thirties wearing slacks, a striped vest, and an outrageous tie ran his fingers over the piano keys like they were in a race. On trumpet was a small giant in an orange zoot suit. A tiny woman in a flapper dress cradled a stand up bass with surprising ease while another woman in a sleeveless evening dress played the drums. Another man, barely out of his teens by the looks of him, slouched over a jazz guitar almost possessively. At the mic was a woman with dyed red hair who looked like she’d stepped out of an Elvgren pin-up calendar.
“Ooo, ooo, I wanna be like you-oo-oo,” she sang.
Xander knew them. Knew them well. Hep Catz Alive often played the Century Ballroom and he had spent time dancing or hanging out with all of them. Erik, the guitarist, was only a couple of years older than Xander from the same neighborhood in Seattle. Xander stepped up to the bouncer.
“Hey, I’m with the band,” he said.
“Yeah, right, kid,” the bouncer said. “Fifteen bucks.”
“No, really. Look!” Xander said, showing the man his Washington driver’s license.
“Nice try,” the bouncer nodded. “Fifteen bucks,” he repeated as the song came to an end.
Xander leaned past the bouncer and shouted, “Carolyn! Carolyn! Hey, Carolyn, it’s me! Xander!”
The bouncer stood up, blocking his way bodily. “Come on buddy, that’s enough. You have to pay or I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Carolyn!” Xander shouted again over the man’s shoulder, waving.
On stage, the singer looked out over the crowd to the commotion. Surprise flashed across her face, then she smiled. “Let him in,” she said into the mic. “That cat’s with us.”
Xander pushed passed the disappointed looking bouncer, muttering an apology. He stepped up to the floor, all eyes on him now, many of them irritated.
“Sorry for the interruption, everybody,” Carolyn apologized. “Johnny, you take this one. Sometimes a girl’s gotta dance.”
The trumpet player nodded, holding his trumpet at his side as he slid up to take her place. With a smirk, he spoke into the mic, “Better you than me, Xan. This one’s for you.” With that, he turned back to the band, said something quiet and the band began to play Frank Sinatra’s, ‘I Won’t Dance.’
Xander took Carolyn by the right hand, pulled her into a closed position and began to bounce gently to the music. A few dancers had started to dance, but those closest to the front waited to see what happened next. Xander looked at his partner with a twinkle in his eye and she said, “Careful, not too high, I wasn’t planning on dancing tonight.” He laughed and nodded. No bloomers. Once they had the beat, his hand pushed out, opening Carolyn to a 90 degree angle before he brought his hand back and pulled her into him. Crouching down as she came in, he turned his palm to create a support for her. After the second it took for her to connect and build momentum, he stood and tossed her into the air and away from him. She landed lightly and immediately dropped into a swivel step as they began to dance a Lindy Hop.
When the song came to an end they were both breathing heavily. They gave each other a light hug common among dancers. Carolyn said, “Thanks, Xander. That was fun.”
“Always is, Carolyn. Good to see you. Vista Bay is the last place I expected to run into you.”
“We play here about once a year, it’s a good scene. You living here now?”
“Yeah, we just got in.”
“A good place for you.”
“Thanks. I hope so.”
Carolyn went back to the stage, taking the mic back from the trumpet player. “Ladies and gentlemen, Johnny Sinatra!” she said to the crowd, who applauded and whistled. Without missing another beat, they began the next song, one of their original pieces.
Xander turned to walk off the floor, looking around to see if anyone caught his eye that he might want to dance with. As he did, a girl about his own age came out of the bathroom, another two girls in tow. Her hair was tied in a tight bun beneath a black pinstripe fedora. A matching vest with a halter neck covered a sleeveless collared white shirt. Black pinstripe slacks tailored from fit to loose barely covered a pair of sturdy Aris Allen wing tipped heels. He watched her walk over to a table of guys across from him. Her stride was confident, her hips rocked from side to side without a catch in her gait. Two steps in, he knew he had to dance with her. The way she moved told his dancer’s eye volumes. Even if she wasn’t a very experienced dancer, any dance with her would be fun.
* * *
Hero exited the Lady’s room with Jaimie and another of their girlfriends, Leana, as the trumpet player finished singing ‘I Won’t Dance’. Evan, Jeremy, and their friend Brian were waiting for them at a big table near the hardwood floor. Leana had called a girl’s meeting as soon as she finished her last dance with a creepy guy who had asked her to dance three times in the last half hour. Leana was a newer dancer who was still under the impression that you always had to say yes when someone asked. Hero had spent the last five minutes trying to convince her otherwise and wasn’t certain it had worked.
“Did you see that guy?” Brian said to the other two as Hero and the girls joined them.
“Yeah, he’s crazy good. Apparently he’s with the band or something?” Evan asked rhetorically.
“She probably just made him look good,” Jeremy said.
“What’s going on?” Hero asked as she stood behind her chair with her back to the dance floor.
“Oh, some guy with the band made a fuss to get in, then danced with the singer,” Evan told her.
“You said he was good?” Hero asked.
“Yeah, really good,” Brian said.
“I think Brian has a dance crush,” Jeremy joked.
“Was he hot?” Jaimie interrupted. Evan gave her an irritated look.
“Just asking,” she said with a teasing grin before sitting on his lap and giving him a kiss.
“Oh. Yeah. He’s hot.” Leana answered for them, awe in her voice.
“How would you know?” Hero demanded. All of her friend’s eyes widened and Jaimie pointed toward the dance floor, nodding her agreement.
Hero’s eyebrows furrowed and she turned to look behind her. There, on the edge of the dance floor barely three feet away, stood a man about 18 whom she had never seen before. His shoulders stretched the simple black cotton shirt he wore above deep indigo jeans and it wrapped around his broad chest like a second skin. She swallowed and her eyes met his, which were almost as blue in the low light of the club as any cloudless sky. They were riveted on her, staring from beneath sandy hair gelled to sp
okes at the front. When she finished turning he offered her his hand without a word. Normally she would have made him ask aloud, but before she knew it her hand was in his.
As Xander lead Hero to the dance floor, Carolyn caught his eye and winked. She gestured to the band and the bass began to pick out the background of Bill Wither’s ‘Ain’t No Sunshine.’ The crowded floor thinned out as the dancers less comfortable with the close embrace of Blues dancing slipped off to the side. Xander looked a Hero and raised his eyebrows in a silent question. She smiled wryly, a smoldering look in her eye, then nodded. He spun her once to the right, hands crossed as if shaking hands, then slipped an arm around her waist as she turned. His arm pulled her close, so close that barely an inch parted them as she draped the fingers of her other hand over the fingers of his.
They moved, together, somewhere between tango and swing. Their motion carried them across the floor, weaving through other pairs of dancers. Their travel came to a stop and he brought her down into a high crouch with the barest suggestion of his hands and body, swinging across, up and into an outside turn. Hero took a moment at the peak of their distance and swayed, rolling her body in a sensuous S. He gave her the space of a few beats for her improvisation before pulling her into a free spin that drew them together like gravity, two stars circling each other until their force became equal and they stopped again.
Hero lost herself in the dance, perfectly in tune with her partner. When his firm, gentle lead asked for a roll of her hip, she rolled as if she had planned it herself. When he dipped her in the middle of the song, it was if he knew what she wanted as the hand on her back moved to her shoulder and allowed her to slide up under his arm and away to arm’s length. She was oblivious as the dancers around them unconsciously formed a circle, then stopped to watch.
Xander had been dancing since he was a child, but had never danced with a woman who could move like this one. She was as connected to herself as she was to him and constantly in motion almost as he thought the lead to the next move. He swallowed and tried to ignore the surge of hormones rushing through his blood stream as the next turn brought her whole body in contact with his. The dance was all that mattered. It was just dancing.
They were two stars flashing through the night sky and quickly lost track of the the passage of time. For all they knew, they could have been circling each other for eons, or seconds. It felt like the former. Too soon, the song began to end, a force stronger than the cosmic magnetism their movement created. It threatened to rip them away from each other and Xander knew that such a dance deserved a supernova for a finale, not the exhausted collapse or awkward uncertainty that marked the end of so many other solar systems. He drew Hero into a side-by-side cuddle, then spun her away so they posed, his right hand holding her left while they both faced the band. The song’s last note resonated through the room: the last breath of the universe they had brought into being over the last few minutes.
Xander flipped his hand in a slight hook away from them and Hero twirled back toward him. His fingertips found the small of her back and his arm wrapped around her waist as she spun three hundred and sixty degrees. His arm wound around her as she turned, drawing her close and supporting her as he began to lower her into a dip. She threw her right arm around his neck and willingly put her trust in his strength without a second thought. After following his lead for the course of the song, she knew him better than someone who hadn’t danced with him ever would. As the spinning woman turned in his arms, Xander slid out of the way and let her plunge in one fluid motion toward the floor.
Breath came heavily as the scene resolved, a whistle from someone in their audience barely noticed. Xander rested on one knee, and Hero, straight as a board, floated scarcely four inches from the floor. His knuckles were closer still. She let out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding and met his eyes. He stared back into hers and her lips parted slightly, the remaining gravity of their motion still drawing them together. Xander leaned in, inches away, then stopped. He shook his head.
“No, I’m sorry. It’s too easy,” he said without thinking.
She slapped him.
He dropped her.
Hero hit the ground with a gentle thud. Their surroundings transitioned from surreal to real abruptly, startled from the fantastic universe they had created. No one in the room moved a muscle. It was as if the almost instant change from passion to anger had turned them all to statues. Xander met Carolyn’s eyes. She shook her head softly, full of pity, and he flushed red. On the ground, Hero glared around. She was embarrassed to have an audience in the first place. Embarrassed to have an audience for her rejection. Embarrassed to have been dropped in the first place, and the fall, while admittedly short, just made her feel worse.
Xander stood up and offered Hero his hand, “Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t. . .” he began.
Hero slapped his hand away and scrambled to her feet as Jaimie and Leana rushed over.
“You’re an asshole,” Hero said as she shoved Xander, hard. He stumbled back without a word as the girls cut through the crowd and pushed out the door. The three boys followed after them, crossing the dance floor in front of the off balance young man.
“Nice moves,” Evan sneered as he went by.
“Classic ending, wish I had popcorn,” Jeremy said with a smirk.
“Sucks, dude. That was pretty intense. Too bad you blew it,” Brian said, almost supportively.
One they were gone, Carolyn picked up the pace with ‘Zoot Suit Riot,’ and the dance went on, the event not quite forgotten, but left to conversations off the dance floor that were impossible to hear over the music. Xander sighed and shifted his shoulders uncomfortably at the stares and furtive glances directed his way. He took a deep breath and waved goodbye to Carolyn, who blew him a kiss. Then he left.
Camelot
Xander opened the door to the Brighton House and stepped inside. Water ran down his face and his clothes were soaked from a summer rainstorm that had snuck in while he was walking home. Light crept into the dark foyer from a hallway and he headed toward it. His dad was in the library. From the smell of it, he was re-staining the built-in oak bookshelves. Small puddles of water trailed behind in Xander’s path.
“Hey, Dad,” Xander said as he stepped into the room dripping. Zach was leaning over the top of a ladder, using a brush to smooth the stain into the corners of the shelves. A paperback copy of Shelley’s poems lay open face down on top of an unused bucket. “Going to fix the whole place in one night?”
His father turned to greet him, but wrinkled his eyebrows when he saw his clothes and the puddle forming at his feet. “I see you got caught in the storm. I distinctly remember someone promising me it barely ever rains here.”
“I said there were three hundred and fifteen days of sun. No one told me we were moving to Camelot.”
“The rain may never fall til after sundown?”
“Apparently.”
“Why didn’t you give me a call? I could have picked you up. Speak of which, what time is it? I didn’t expect you to be home so soon. Was the dance slow?”
“Ah, no. It was great. At least for a moment. Hep Catz Alive was there.”
“Really? Here? Did you say hi to Carolyn for me?”
“Sure,” Xander said noncommittally. “We danced once, then I danced with this absolutely incredible girl.”
“So you needed a cold shower?”
Xander threw the Shelley at his dad. It missed and bounced off the ladder to the floor.
“Hey now, have some respect for a dead poet.”
“Wouldn’t Shakespeare have said he was immortal?”
“Not for long, if callous children are so careless with his words.”
An unused paint stirrer followed the book, missing by a much wider margin as its flimsy shape spun to the floor. Zach laughed.
“So tell me about this girl. What happened?”
“I dropped her.”
Zach’s eyes widened. Xander wasn’t a wild, tho
ughtless dancer who made a habit of putting his partners in danger of being dropped. Zach himself had never been as interested in dancing as his wife and son, but had learned enough that he could spend an evening on the floor if Sara dragged him out.
“How?” he asked.
Xander paused, embarrassed, and dripped on the floor for a moment before answering. “She slapped me.”
His father’s eyebrows raised. There was definitely something different going on tonight.
“Did you deserve it?”
“Ah, I understand why she did it, but no.” He told his dad what he had said.
Zach laughed. “I’m sorry, that’s not really funny.” He laughed again. “You were trying to do the right thing. To be a gentleman. I think that was one of those moments when actions would have spoken louder than words, son.”
“Yeah. I know. I wasn’t thinking.”
“I hear that happens to teenage men.”
“I’m running out of things to throw at you, Dad.”
“You should probably go dry off, then. There’s probably enough mildew in this house without you contributing to it,” his father said playfully.
The West Wind Page 2