Chageet's Electric Dance

by Ashir, Rebecca

  Her first memory was grainy and choppy like a short video shot on Super 8 film, 1970’s black and white. She remembered sitting at the kitchen bar eating Cap’n Cruch or was it Pop Tarts? She wasn’t sure, but she did know that she was watching the cartoon Bugs Bunny and feeling very nervous about starting her first day of kindergarten that morning. Her twin brother David was standing in the center of the kitchen throwing plastic forks at the window above the sink. Then suddenly he vanished from her mind as if he had been edited out of the reel.

  Mama was standing over the stove like a beautiful, glamorous apparition. A bit of hot bacon grease splashed on her long, dark Crystal Gayle-like hair that hung below her knees. She appeared not to take notice, seemingly lost in thought. But Barbey noticed. She observed how gracefully Mama moved as she flipped a fried egg in a sort of movie-like slow motion, the oil sizzling loudly in the pan.

  Mama must have known that Barbey was nervous about starting school because suddenly, as if awakened by the flash of an epiphany, she suggested to her in her sing songy Southern Belle drawl, “For cryin’ out loud, why don’t you just change your name, honey. Then you can become a different person and start talkin’ like everybody else!” She seemed very excited and her pouty glossed lips opened very wide as she spoke.

  Barbey liked that Mama was addressing her because usually she seemed to not pay her any attention, being too absorbed in her own vanities and personal amusements.

  “You can pretend the past never existed,” Mama continued. “It works hon—it does. Before my name was Trudy Bardot, I went by an entirely different name, which I am not going to mention because that would just ruin my new identity. Pick a good name though—something sexy or exotic—a name you’d see on the silver screen because quite honestly, the only thing that really matters in life is being admired. When you’re adored, the world is yours, hon!”

  Barbey’s childish face looked as pale and lifeless as the drab washed out jumpsuit she had on. She looked away solemnly and gazed at the Barbie Doll commercial that was aglow in sparkles and lights on the television. A slight smile spread across her face, her eyes lighting up in unexpected wonder, as she watched Ballerina Barbie spinning on a pink plastic pedestal. Without taking her eyes off the television, she remembered speaking just a note above a whisper, loud enough for Mama to hear, “Call me Barbie.”

  The name went well with her last name Bardot, which was the same last name as Bridget Bardot’s, the 1950’s French actress who was referred to as a “sex kitten.” Mama came up with the idea to spell the name B-a-r-b-e-y with the exotic “ey” instead of the usual “ie” for “an added flare and sensuality,” as she put it.

  So from that day forth, with her new identity in mind, Barbey Bardot began to talk. Everything about her changed gradually. She started mirroring her personality after movie stars to seem more seductive. She got Mama to take her to salons to get her hair bleached regularly. She started wearing the most fashionable clothing. And Mama enrolled her in etiquette school and dance classes so that she could become as graceful and charming as a fairy princess. Mama always said that the day Barbey Bardot changed her name was the beginning of her new life. “Change your name—change your destiny,” Mama sang out loud over and over again that day.

  ****

  No. She still could not remember where she saw that mysterious guy before. He was so familiar. Was he an actor she saw on TV? He was certainly handsome and charismatic enough to be one. Maybe he was a rock star who she recognized from MTV. He was wild enough to be that. Or maybe he was a famous athlete. He had a good physique. But, would a heroic boy with healing powers even be interested in such pursuits? Wouldn’t he be above all that?

  He’s so high above me. There’s no way a boy like that, a boy who’s other worldly, would be interested in me. She would figure out where she knew him from eventually.

  After all of the dancers finished their auditions, the mysterious guy got up and walked out of the auditorium. Barbey was afraid he might get away without seeing her. Oh, no! Where’s he going?

  At once, Barbey asked Sage to save her seat. “I have to go to the dressing room to change out of my costume.” she said, briskly springing from the bench. That was a reasonable excuse. She was going to find him and talk to him even if she made a fool of herself. He was all she wanted.

  3

  At the bottom of the bleachers Barbey paused for an instant to gain her composure as she plucked off the remaining set of false lashes from her other eye and tossed it on the floor. She had to find the mysterious guy before he got away. Then with long-legged, lighter-than-air grace, she took flight once again, whisking her hands through her hair in a sort of hot-cat manner, a “I am sexier than Kim Basinger in 9 ½ Weeks way.”

  As she glided out of the auditorium door, biting her lower lip the way Kim did in all her movies, she nonchalantly surveyed the quad for the mysterious guy, but he had vanished. At once, she ran to the parking lot. He wasn’t there either. She searched through the trees and across the lawns. Where could he have gone?

  She paused in her step, momentarily distraught. All thoughts of movies and romance decomposed in her mind and she floated in sudden melancholy back through the quad like a strip of severed black tape, a scene cut from a movie reel, drifting along with the summer wind.

  “Excuse me.” Somebody grabbed her wrist from behind.

  Startled, she turned around, hoping it was the mysterious boy, but was surprised to see John Prince, the same talent scout who had approached her and Sage after school. He had changed out of his suit and was now wearing jeans and a light blue t-shirt. Now that his sunglasses were off, she noticed how attractive he really was with surfer blonde hair, dynamic blue eyes, and square athletic shoulders. The only thing was that he had some wrinkles under his eyes that didn’t quite fit his youthful appearance. He looked almost exactly as she imagined Prince Charming would look, but something about him was not quite fairy tale quality, not believable, like a poor imitation that would never get published. Barbey had these thoughts, this recognition of truth, but dismissed them from consciousness due to her habit of sustaining conditioned illusions. Opting to seek the distorted, biased propaganda stored in the media catalogue filed in her rubber head, she did not trust her intuition.

  The waning sun was hitting him just so that she could not get a sharp focus, but he appeared to have a tan complexion and his voice was oddly deep, forced and masculine. “I saw you dancing on the stage and you didn’t mess up at all. Totally rad.”

  Barbey looked at the guy curiously, unsure how to respond, finding his choice of language mildly unusual. She considered his physical appearance again briefly and decided that he definitely was attractive—she was completely certain of that now. If he asked her out, she should say yes. All her friends would be envious, except Sage of course, because she wasn’t particularly drawn to fantasy. Mass media was less of an influence in her life.

  He cleared his throat with an exaggerated confidence. “You never lost your spot on your chaînés turns and your switch leaps were very high.”

  Barbey couldn’t help but smile at the compliments, finding them delightfully coincidental that he gave her the exact validation she had sought from Sage earlier. She reassured herself that it wasn’t possible that he could have been spying on her from behind a bush or from beneath the ramp when she spoke earlier. What he was saying was his own sincere opinion and certainly true.

  “Thank you. It’s so nice to be noticed.” She was surprised how kind he was being to her now. Earlier he had seemed slightly uninterested and more in control of himself. He even seemed like an experienced ladies’ man in a sense, the kind of dream guy girls fall in love with. She felt a little sorry for him now.

  He adjusted his hair as if wearing a wig, but Barbey didn’t detect this oddity, entranced in her own self-absorption and the music playing in her head. “Oh, you were noticed,” he responded exuberantly.

  “Thank you,” Barbey beamed as she imagined becoming th
e next Christy Turlington on the cover of Cosmopolitan Magazine.

  Just then a group of mothers walked out of the auditorium and looked at Barbey and John Prince.

  “All right.” He turned away quickly, clenching his fists at his sides. “Be in touch.”

  Just as swiftly as he had approached her, so he was gone.

  ****

  The air conditioner was working hard against all the warm bodies now filling the auditorium. The bleacher seats and the center rows below were crammed with contestants and family members fanning themselves with their paper programs, awaiting the announcement of the one girl who would be chosen to dance in Janet Jackson’s newest video.

  When Barbey returned from the dressing room, after having made her way through the crowds back to her seat, she found Sage engrossed in her math book, working a problem out on a little pad of paper.

  “You are so boooooring!” Barbey admonished her cheerily. “Everybody’s gonna know you’re a geek now!”

  “Like I care,” Sage mumbled, not looking up from her pad of paper. “There it is—solved!” She folded the piece of paper into her math book and placed them both in her tote bag next to her feet. “They’re going to announce the winner anytime now.”

  If she won, an impressive career leading to stardom could take off for her. Her mind filled with all sorts of fantasies. She imagined becoming a sexy bar dancer like the movie character, Alex, played by Jennifer Beals in Flashdance. She loved the exotic costumes Alex wore and the high-tech, glitzy presentations of the live performance. Oh, and the choreography was exquisite. Maybe a talent scout could find her a job like that. Possibly, if she was hired as a bar dancer, she’d be offered a role in a dance movie such as the sequel to Flashdance. Oh, what a feeling! She had to win!

  ****

  The judges sat down in their seats that were now turned away from the stage and facing the audience. Barbey looked around at an auditorium filled with anxious people.

  “It’s ok if I don’t win,” Barbey said to Sage. “I’m just glad I got to dance.”

  Sage laughed. “Yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes.

  There was a drum roll and then the speaker system switched on with a screech as the announcer began to speak.

  That’s when it happened, the grand explosion, two simultaneous, cataclysmic events—the mysterious guy stepped into her perceived reality, paused for an instant just below the bleachers where Barbey sat. He looked up at her, penetrating her soul with his obsidian eyes that bored into her, while at the same moment the announcer proclaimed, “The winner who will dance in Janet Jackson’s next video is Barbey Bardot!”

  The audience cheered and Sage patted Barbey on her thin back with congratulations, but Barbey couldn’t move. She had been flashed out of physical consciousness by a sudden zap of euphoric lightning, the energy so strong, she could never return to her former state of being. Puzzled, shocked, and more alive than she had ever been before, her plastic body twitched for a moment. She covered her face in her hands to hide her emotions which transformed into millions of electrical needles shooting outward from within, creating millions of pores in her rubbery plastic flesh.

  As she came back to her senses, she saw that the mysterious guy was still staring at her fixedly, but from across the room now. His eyes did not waver. A chill shot through her body. His motionless intensity reminded her of a panther on the hunt just before it springs to attack its prey. Never before had someone looked at her in such a manner. He seemed inhuman and otherworldly. His confident uniqueness excited her.

  But, then she realized this mysterious guy wasn’t the same boy at all who had saved her in Tijuana. He wasn’t spiritually high. He was a bad boy, wickedly handsome and devilishly hot! The boy in Tijuana had eyes as blue as the day while this guy had eyes as black as the night. She laughed to herself at the mix up. The more she tried to remember the appearance of the boy from Tijuana, the less she could recall. This guy was entirely different, yet entirely sexy! He was all she wanted.

  4

  When she returned home that night with her shiny Janet Jackson trophy propped up beside her on the passenger seat of the taxi cab, she was not at all surprised to see that her mother was throwing a grand party at their home. The driver circled around the guests’ shiny cars that were lined up in formation like soldiers standing at attention while being reviewed by the valet, their commanding officer, on the cement esplanade, and parked in front of the airplane hangar where her father parked his jet.

  “Ok,” The Indian man said. “You pay me $22.”

  Barbey handed him the money. “Thanks!” She said cheerily. “Have a great night.” Then she handed him an extra $10 as a tip.

  “Oh, very good.” With that, he got out of the car and opened the door for her.

  “Drive safely,” Barbey said looking over her shoulder as she pranced with her trophy through the cars toward the house. She was so excited that she was chosen to dance in a Janet Jackson video! Her ego was soaring with the most intense pleasure.

  Even though she thought her parents were stupid and self-centered, she laughed tonight because she was in such a good mood when she looked at their house. It was round and stacked up in multiple layers like an enormous wedding cake with balconies circling every level. On the very top perched two massive sculptures of her mother and father like wedding cake figurines. Mama was gaudy and extravagant and her home reflected that.

  The house sat within a great white picket fence on ten acres of flat grassy land with horse stables to the west, dog kennels to the east, a pool in front, and an enormous water fountain with rotating dolphin figurines in the center of a circular driveway before the pool’s gate.

  Barbey entered from the side of the house into the kitchen to the sound of laughter and clinking champagne glasses coming from behind the door leading to the living room. Faintly in the background Dolly Parton’s “Apple Jack” was playing on Mama’s pink colored stereo system. Just then, Mama scuttled into the kitchen across the white marble floor, her high heels making tink, tink, tink sounds as she scampered past. Her striking dark hair bounced in waves to her rhythm and grace.

  She was dressed in a baby blue satin gown with pearl buttons from neck to bottom, her small waist accented by a white velvet sash. After fluffing her hair momentarily, she reached for a champagne glass overhead from a display cabinet. Admiring the sparkle on the glass, she blinked her doll-like hazel eyes framed in thick false lashes and smiled. Her red collagen injected lips brightened her porcelain face.

  “Back so soon?” she almost sang the words in her thick Southern accent.

  “Yeah,” Barbey frowned. “What do you think—the dance contest lasts all night? It’s for kids, for crying out loud.” Barbey opened the refrigerator, placing her trophy on the counter.

  Mama smiled and fluffed her hair. “You look pretty enough, Barbey, but you could use a little more blush on your cheeks before you meet the guests. That lipstick isn’t good for your complexion.”

  Barbey wiped it off with the back of her hand.

  “Ugh!” Trudy Bardot’s eyes widened. “I didn’t say take it off. Somebody might see you without makeup.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Here.” She quickly grabbed a lipstick from the drawer. “Put this on. It has a subtle shimmer.”

  Barbey took the lipstick and put it on.

  “Why don’ ya get changed into that lacy white gown your grandmother left you, put on a little more makeup and meet some of my friends. I’ve been talkin’ you up all night. I told the guests that my younger sister’s in from Louisville. Speak in a Southern accent. Why don’ ya, hon? That’ll really get their goats! Call me Trudy and then after we get ’em goin’ we’ll lay it on ’em and tell ’em you’re my daughter!”

  She was proud of her youthful appearance and was careful to never reveal her true age to anyone, not even to Barbey. This annoyed Barbey and it was true—occasionally, in a dark room, people did mistake Mama as her (much) older sister.

  “That’s ok
. I’m going to bed.” To irritate Mama, she took off the cap from the milk container and chugged it down without using a glass.