by Toby Neal
“Who, Boss?” The kid looks cross-eyed with stress so I enunciate very slowly and clearly.
“Jade Michaels. Green eyes. Auburn hair. About this high.” I gesture to my collarbone. “Rocked the audition so hard she danced an entire song and never got beeped off the stage.”
“Oh yeah.” The kid, whose ID reads Clay, looks down at his clipboard. I dimly remember he’s an intern from UCLA, and thus his ass is mine without pay for the next six months. “Number 260. I don’t see a checkbox by her name... looks like no one did the interview.”
I shouldn’t be so pissed, but I am. “Clay from UCLA. Are you frickin’ kidding me? Jade spiked viewer interest like crazy.” My voice rises. “Her interview segment was supposed to get done yesterday. Who screwed up?”
“Sorry, Boss. I don’t know. I’ll find out for you.” The little cockroach scuttles off with his head down.
Son of a... I want that footage, and finding out who screwed up isn’t going to get it for me. “Somebody find Jade Michaels!” I bellow. “I want that interview!”
“Yeah, Boss, on it,” another one of the interns, Tad from Yale, quavers. “I have an address of a motel in the Tenderloin.”
“You know, when you want things done right, sometimes you just have to do them yourself,” I snarl, and hand off my clipboard to Tad from Yale. “Get going on the things on this list, and if you screw up you’re gone from the show. I need a cameraman!”
I head for the bright green exit sign. Stomping as I go feels good. Gotta keep these people on their toes.
“You need to get laid,” Stu says as he gets into the cab with me after stowing his bulky camera equipment in the trunk. He’s the only cameraman brave enough to follow me out. “You’re way too wound up.”
“When we get to LA, maybe. Glad this part is over.” I didn’t follow through with any of the opportunities in stilettos at the hotel bar last night. Right now, I can’t even say why I’m so pissed off that Jade’s interview didn’t get done—or why I want to do it myself. I don’t want to think too much about it, quite frankly. I sit back against the lumpy upholstery and massage my temples as the cab moves out. “What I really need is more coffee.”
“It’s a dance show, not frickin’ rocket science. Why do we have to do this interview right now? We can catch her in LA.” Stu’s been my friend since college and working the show since it started. He knows me better than my own mother does—which wouldn’t be hard, come to think of it. He’s a skinny guy who dresses Goth and has ear gauges I’m always tempted to pull. Today he’s wearing eyeliner and three days’ worth of beard.
“You look like a freak. Dress professional when you come to work,” I snap.
“What? Like you?” He gestures to the running clothes I put on in the dark of my room before I jogged from the Fairmont to the studio. “Bitch all you want. I’m not your employee.”
Stu loves to remind me he’s an independent contractor whenever it suits him.
We drive in grumpy silence to Jade’s motel. It’s a fleabag in the worst part of San Francisco. Getting out of the cab, I spot a discarded syringe caught in a crack in the sidewalk. A dark brown sundae-like pile of dog crap near the curb smells suspiciously like human excrement. There’s a fritzing neon beer sign on one side and a head shop on the other. The motel’s creaky sign flashes VACANCY.
“Get a shot of this, Stu. Girl obviously doesn’t have a lot.” I feel anger stir in my chest. I know this family. Jade’s older sister Ruby is loaded, a lawyer married to some Boston blueblood millionaire, and Pearl is a highly paid supermodel, for crying out loud. “What the hell is she doing in a place like this?” I mutter aloud.
Stu gets his gear going and begins filming, panning around the filthy street and then walking slowly to the entrance, the stabilizer mount on his shoulder keeping the camera from jiggling.
Why isn’t the supposedly loving Michaels family doing anything to support their little sister? This place is downright dangerous. I’m even more pissed now that we got here. I pace up and down the sidewalk. No one will meet my eye, and I realize I’m looking for her.
“Get ahead of me, Brandon. I can get the whole seedy picture as you walk up those stairs,” Stu says, his camera ready. “Make sure to flex your ass. The chicks will love that in those tight nylon pants you’re wearing.”
“Screw you.” But I do flex a little, walking up the stairs. Can’t hurt to add a little something to the dailies, since I didn’t dress right for being on camera.
The desk clerk is so tatted up his features are hard to make out. His eyes slide around in the gift wrap of his face like shiny brown olives.
“Jade Michaels. What room is she in?” I throw down a twenty on the counter. Stu has his camera on the guy, and the man makes a waving gesture to get it away. “I can’t give out confidential information on our guests.” But his eyes dart down to the twenty. I hold up my hand for Stu to turn the camera off—we got the atmosphere shot, anyway.
I throw another twenty down on top of the first. “Memory getting any better?”
“Matter of fact it is. The girl checked out already.” The weasel grabs my money so fast I can’t get it back. My arms are twitching with the need to hit him as I stare him down.
“Let’s get another shot outside for filler,” Stu says in the low voice people use for calming babies and old people.
Outside on the curb, I head downhill, not sure why. I just need to move, and Stu needs to grab background clips that can be interspersed with Jade’s interview. My brain is buzzing with questions for her—questions I realize aren’t right for her on-camera interview. Questions that have to do with me knowing her family, because I dated her sister—a sister she clearly didn’t want to discuss. “We’re not close,” Jade had said, and that sweet, lush, exactly-like-Pearl mouth closed, an expression on it like sucking an old penny.
I hear music. A little tinny and hollow, but loud enough to tickle the ears and tantalize—and it’s disco.
Who the hell plays disco on the street in San Francisco?
I reach the corner and look further downhill. Halfway down the next block, in front of a busy coffee shop, I see a crowd gathered around two dancers doing pop and lock. One of them is Jade.
I recognize her immediately as a gleam of sunlight hits her hair. What color is that? Is it red? Or like, a deep mahogany? Reminds me of my mom’s good dining room table—the one we never sit at except for what I call Melissa’s “state dinners,” when she’s entertaining potential clients.
Jade is dancing with that Puerto Rican kid with the loose hips. Man, the dude can move. He’s like a robotic Gumby.
“Stu!” I bellow. “Get your camera over here!” I set off down the sidewalk and hear him running to catch up. Stu sticks to my back as I hit the edge of the crowd watching our two contestants work the sidewalk.
“Get the shot. Whatever you do, get this shot,” I growl, pushing rudely through the crowd and making a way for the cameraman. We reach the edge and Stu gets the camera on the two of them, who appear oblivious to us and everyone watching.
They’re playing a game of follow-and-lead to the beat of Hot Stuff by Donna Summer, a totally incongruous clash of styles that weirdly works. First, the kid, whose first name I mentally dredge up as Alex, does a mime-in-the-box and then an ab ripple. Jade, across from him, repeats it and then does her riff: a shoulder ripple that ends in a triangle shape with her arms and a little Egyptian head-and-neck funky chicken.
Alex imitates her perfectly.
The crowd applauds. Coins rattle and bills rustle into a Chicago Bulls hat set on the sidewalk next to a Walkman and speaker combo.
The song ends as they both bust out with some freestyle breaking. I can’t believe the crispness and aggression of Jade’s moves. She’s wearing ballet gear, too, pink tights and leotard, one of those filmy wrap skirts that teases the imagination, and her hair is braided around her head in a crown like she was going out for Swan Lake. The contrast makes her unforgettable. Alex, shirtl
ess, bronzed, and wearing baggy MC Hammer pants, provides a great foil.
These two are serious contenders. I can feel a grin stretching my cheeks. Some damn fine moves there, and the fact that they’re both eye candy doesn’t hurt their chances. The song ends, the money rains down, and Stu is grinning from ear to ear, pasted to his viewfinder.
“Yeah, Boss,” he says out of the side of his mouth. “I got the shot. And it’s gold.”
Jade
Alex is doing his stripper-picking-up-bills imitation as I pose like a marionette with its strings cut, one elbow up and swinging, the rest of me dangling limp. My eyes stay down, in character, but out of my peripheral vision I track a TV camera on us, held by a man that looks like a strip of black licorice.
There’s someone beside him. One of the producers. My eyes track up his body slowly—well-turned legs in tight gray Adidas running pants. Trim hips, big hands resting on them. A matching nylon mesh-paneled running shirt with short sleeves that hugs a body too thickly muscular to be a dancer’s. Wide, tanned neck. Square jaw. Short blond hair. Hazel eyes, pinned on mine.
Brandon Forbes. The show producer that helped me off the stage at my audition.
The guy who used to date Pearl. I cut my eyes back down. The heat in his eyes as he looks at me is Pearl’s leftovers. And I won’t be Pearl’s leftovers in any way, shape, or form.
I unwind fluidly and stand upright. I give a plié and curtsy to the applauding crowd as Alex sweeps a bow beside me like a shirtless genie, and we finish our act.
The crowd disperses and Forbes and the cameraman approach.
“That motel is no place for you,” are the first words out of Forbes’s mouth as he looms over me.
I tip my head to glare at him. “I didn’t see a voucher for anything better in the packet you gave me, thank you very much.”
That shuts him up.
Alex inserts himself between us with an extended hand. “Hey, Mr. Forbes. I recognize you from the show—you’re the main producer, right? Dare I hope you were filming us for one of those mini-interviews you guys do?”
“Yes.” Forbes finally stops glaring at me and turns to Alex. “We came looking for Miss Michaels here, and were lucky enough to catch your lucrative performance.” His brows snap back down over those golden-green eyes as he swivels back to me. “If you needed money all you needed to do was ask,” he growls at me.
“Why? Because you dated my sister?” I flare back at him. “I’m doing this on my own time and dime, not that it’s any of your damn business.”
I never snap at people like that. “Miss Mouse” is what I’m called at the studio. I can be so quiet people forget I’m in the room.
“Ahem,” Alex interjects with his charming grin. “Ms. Michaels is a little giddy from her exertions. She’s thrilled with the opportunity of this interview and the support of Dance, Dance, Dance. In fact, she graciously accepts your offer of better lodgings, since what you see here is pretty much the kind of place we planned to get in LA.” Alex slings an arm, unpleasantly hot and sweaty, over my shoulders. “We’re roommates.”
I think Forbes is going to blow a gasket at that, but he nods. “Fine. I’ll put you two on an expense account. We can’t have our contestants getting mugged. Let’s get back to the studio and shoot your interview before we have to clear out and leave for LA.”
He spins and takes off, walking at a speed that makes the rest of us jog to keep up. Alex helps the poor cameraman with his heavy gear. I keep my eyes on Forbes as he stalks up the hill, scanning for a cab and waving one down.
He holds the door for me and I scramble past him to enter, my backpack and purse, which we’d been using to prop up the ball cap, clutched close. He ends up sitting next to me with Alex on the other side of him and the cameraman up front with the cabbie.
I plaster myself against the door but Forbes is wedged against me. His whole body is large and hot and most of it’s touching me: his shoulder against mine, his bulky arm against my side, our thighs aligned.
I’m suffocating. All this touching, and in a confined space. I turn my head and plaster my face against the cool, curved glass of the window, my gaze on the passing buildings. I count the streetlights to calm the racing heart and sweating palms brought on by being crowded against him. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven...
The counting calms me and I breathe a little easier once I reach lucky thirteen. I begin over again with one.
“You two were good.” Forbes’s voice is a warm pleasant baritone and I can feel it vibrate through his shoulder. He sounds calmer, too, and like he’s trying to be nice, but his voice interrupts my counting and I have to start again, moving my lips silently.
“Thanks. I’m from the East Bay and earn some money on the weekend street dancing,” Alex says. “Turns out this girl has a few moves too, and isn’t too stuck up to partner with me.”
I struggle to keep counting but have to mutter the numbers aloud to keep track. “Seven, eight...” I press the button to roll down the window repeatedly, but nothing happens. The driver must have it locked.
“What are you doing?” Forbes asks, ignoring Alex. I wish he would leave me alone.
“Nothing.” I press my forehead into the window. Hard. The pressure kind of helps and I start counting again.
“Do you want the window down?” His breath tickles the loose strands of my hair around my ear and I shiver.
“Yes.”
“Driver! Put the left rear window down,” he barks, so loudly that I jump.
The cabbie turns his head. “You got it.”
The window rolls down and a rush of cool air flows over me in blessed relief. I hang my head out the window like a panting golden retriever. “Thanks. I don’t like small spaces,” I say over my shoulder.
Forbes doesn’t reply. His gaze is intent, and his face is too close, even with the open space the taxi’s window has created. There are crinkles beside his remarkable hazel eyes, and a shadow of beard on his jaw, and his mouth is a contrast of cushiony lips and hard angles.
I wonder how much older than me he is. He seems a couple of years older than Pearl, but not too much older. Maybe six or seven years older than me?
Just right.
Just right for what?
Rattled, I snap my head around and start counting again.
Mercifully, we reach the studio within another couple of blocks and the minute the taxi stops, I scramble out of the back seat. I hurry into the studio building without waiting for the others and head straight for the bathroom.
I lock the door and wash my hands thirteen times.
It works. By the end of thirteen, I’m ready to look at the parts of me that touched him and see if any need to be washed. It’s okay though. I was covered—tights on me, pants on him. Our shoulders were covered.
Still, somehow I’m left with a sense of his body imprinted on mine. I’m so unsettled by it. I want to shower just so I can erase the feeling.
There’s no shower here. I will just have to get used to this, and a lot more touching in the days ahead.
I brace myself on the sink and count thirteen slow breaths, and slowly my heart rate settles.
A knock at the door spikes it again.
“Jade?” Alex’s voice sounds worried. “Mr. Forbes wants to interview us. You okay in there?”
“Sure, of course. Just freshening up. I’ll be there in a minute.” I dig in my bag and put on some pale rose lipstick, blusher, and a little kohl eyeliner and mascara. Everyone says the camera bleaches you out, and I need all the help I can get.
Chapter 4
Brandon
Jade’s taking forever in the bathroom as Stu and I set up a drape in the corner of the studio. Most of our stuff has been packed up already. Rows of Pelican cases filled with sound and camera equipment are waiting to be loaded up, piles of cord wrapped into bundles stacked beside them. We rented this filming area furnished and have our own fully equipped studio down in LA, so as long as this place is packed up
as good as we found it, there’s not much more to do than pull together our personal items and get on the plane.
But I want that footage first.
Stu plugs in a couple of spots and hangs a reflection umbrella.
I put on a new, pressed shirt and pale green tie that the stylist hands me, but keep my running pants on. They won’t show in the shot.
Jade’s still not out of the damn bathroom, so I interview Alex first.
The kid’s confident, funny, and self-deprecating, and I can tell by Stu’s expression of semi-rapture that the camera loves him. Alex’s gayness also becomes abundantly clear, illustrated by feminine gesturing and a flirtatious manner.
I shouldn’t be so relieved. I have no reason to give two shits about his orientation, but I didn’t like the way he threw an arm over Jade and so confidently claimed her as his ‘roommate.’
Jade finally comes up beside Stu, who has his camera on a tripod now that we’re in a stable location. I wrap up the interview. “So glad you could join us for Dance, Dance, Dance, Alex. After what we saw on the street, I’m sure you’re going to be a strong competitor for male Dancer of the Year.”
“Thank you.” Alex hops off the stool and executes a showy pirouette ending with a bow. “I dance to win.”
“Sounds like a bumper sticker.”
“Make it so,” he intones, in exactly the tone of Patrick Stewart on the Star Trek show, and I laugh and make the wrap motion. The kid’s really charming.
I glance down at my notes, and review the questions I’m going to ask Jade.
She’d really seemed on the verge of a panic attack in the cab—and that murmuring she was doing sure sounded like counting. She seemed better after the window went down, but still couldn’t get out of the cab fast enough—almost like she was fleeing from me, like touching me freaked her out.