After Prom, the spring semester seemed to unroll with shocking speed. For a week or so, the talk of the school was Mike and Brandy’s performance in the last waltz. Videos posted by other attendees seemed to have a charmed internet life, instantly going viral. Brandy and Mike, to all appearances, ignored the whole thing. Then, almost without warning suddenly the whole senior class was swept up in preparations for graduation.
Well, almost the whole senior class. Tom was fretting about the next regional dance contest that was due in the first week of summer break.
“Irina, I think we are going to need to work up one more dance. Depending on how the draw goes we might have a hole on our card and I don’t want us to have to scramble and pull back one of the routines from the last contest that we haven’t chosen to re-use.”
“Show me… Oh yeah. How the heck did I miss that? Depending on the draw you might have had around a fifty percent chance of ending up having to pull another dance out of a hat. Let’s see… Oh! I know. We’ll rework that Paso you did for the first big test, bring it up to competition standard. We’ve got a bit of a head-start on it already so adding it isn’t going to make rehearsals crazy or anything.”
“We’ll need to add a lot of new material to make it competition-worthy.”
“Nowhere near as much as coming up with something from scratch. Besides, you two set the place on fire with that one. Would be a shame if nobody ever saw it again.”
Tom smiled, his eyes going a little distant.
“Yeah, I guess we did.”
-----=====-----
“Anyone got any special summer plans?”
Graduation being a recent memory, school being officially out, the three couples were spending a fair bit of time hanging out together. Tom and Mike in particular were making the most of this. Each had a full-time job lined up to start in only a few weeks. For Tom it would make little difference, since he would be working at the dance studio, but Tolliver’s Heavy Engineering had made good on their offer to Mike. In three weeks’ time he would be starting a mechanics job there. What had surprised him was that when Tolliver’s had reckoned up all the time he’d put in working for them evening and weekends for the past years they’d figured he’d be officially an “apprentice” no more than a couple of months. The prospect of a full union-rate salary so soon after graduation was incredibly appealing, given his and Brandy’s plans, but that meant he didn’t want to pass up any chance to enjoy his short break before his job there went full-time. Hence his question about summer plans.
He looked around the picnic shelter in the park at the other five.
“I know what you and Tom are planning, Danette, rehearsals and more rehearsals for that contest, and I guess that’s going to have Irina out of circulation too, huh?”
“Not so much.” Frank grinned. “They have to do the hours and hours of hard work. At this stage ‘Rina pretty much has to do no more than look over their progress every so often and make suggestions. I’ll be what’s keeping her out of circulation, I hope.”
“With what you do to my heart-rate, my circulation is doing just fine thank you!” Irina joined in the laughter.
“I know what I’d like to plan.” This was Brandy, pointedly looking at Mike. “I’d like to find me a man who has his own vehicle, chuck a tent and a sleeping bag in the back and vanish for a week or so. You got any suggestions who might fit the bill?”
Mike smiled.
“I think I might be able to find the time.”
“I said ‘with his own vehicle’ – does that abomination you drive even qualify?”
The others laughed again while Mike did his best to put on an air of injured innocence. His pickup had been named, by mutual agreement, “The Frankentruck.” No two panels were the same color, the side mirrors didn’t match and the inside continued the theme, with mismatched seat upholstery and the variations in trim speaking to Mike’s semi-regular forays into a local junkyard to pick up parts that were in marginally better condition than the ones currently fitted. Mechanically, though, it was as sound as he could make it. Given his skills as a mechanic, the reason Tolliver’s was so eager to have him, “as sound as he could make it” meant that whatever his pickup looked like, it ran better and more reliably than many fresh off the dealer’s lot. Not that this stopped his friends teasing him about it or occasionally calling him “Igor.”
Danette looked up from her phone where she and Tom had been watching back videos of their last rehearsal.
“I think you should take the opportunity.” She looked around the table at all the others. “If you need cover for the fact you’re sneaking off together for your parents, you’ve got a few co-conspirators here if you need them.”
Tom was nodding.
“Yeah, no problem there, you’re off camping with some friends from school. Not your fault if the plans came apart and Danette, Irina and I discovered we simply couldn’t make it because of the pressure of rehearsals. Naturally we said you should go without us. Tried to persuade Frank to just ditch us and go too, since ‘Rina was going to be too busy with us but he decided to stick around.”
“We’ll try not to need it, but if necessary, we might just take you up on that.”
-----=====-----
“People, there is a vehicle I could not fail to recognize behind us blinking its lights. I am pulling over. I think it is your young sidekicks.”
“It is, Mikhail.” Donna spoke up from her seat in the back of the studio’s minivan. “I just got a text from Brandy.”
Mikhail pulled over by the side of the road. Sure enough, it was the Frankentruck that pulled in behind them.
“I am sure you have things to discuss that ‘Tasha and I should not hear. We will stay in the van.”
The four youngsters piled out of the van and walked back to the truck. Brandy rolled the window down.
“Guys, we were coming back into town and saw you guys heading out. Is this thing you’re going to tickets only or can anyone show up to watch?”
Danette handled the reply.
“It is, but as competitors, Tom and I get a pair of comps each for friends and family. My folks couldn’t get the time off to come this time and Tom’s grandma isn’t able to travel from out of state, so all his “family” here are part of the team. Do I take it you want to come watch?”
Brandy nodded.
“Yeah, when we saw you heading out I said to Mike that we’d heard all about these contests and seen you working your tails off training for them, harder than any school squad ever trained for major sports meet but we’d never actually seen one. Next thing I know he’s hanging a U and has his foot down to catch you up, the dork.” She smiled and shook her head.
“Well, do you want to go as my guests or Tom’s? Either one of us could get you in.”
“Don’t matter.” This was Mike from the driver’s seat. “Seems to me that every time the gym squad competed anywhere, as many of the school as could turned out to support us. Well, we’re part of this school, aint we? Shouldn’t we turn out to support the varsity squad?”
Danette took a closer look at the couple in the hideous pickup. Both were slimmer, toned up and sporting very healthy tans.
“Looks like wherever you went agreed with you. Brandy, I gotta say it, you look gorgeous.”
The puma grinned.
“No tan lines, neither. Not a one. When you get out into the back country where you don’t see even a ranger for weeks let alone anyone else, why add to the laundry by wearing anything but your fur? Besides, Mike’s got such a nice ass to follow down the trail.”
“Dress code for the audience at these things is smart casual – got anything in your bags to suit?”
“We do. Packed it as ‘restaurant rig’ in case we wanted to go into any towns to eat.”
Mike had a smile on his face almost as wide as Brandy’s.
“Yeah, not like we don’t have practice changing clothes in this truck without anyone outside noticing.”
“Cool. I’ll tell Mikhail you’ll be following us. I’ll ping the destination to your phone as well, Brandy, just in case.”
-----=====-----
“Holy shit, Mike. I thought the guys judging your gym performances were picky bastards. These guys are evil.”
“Tough as hell, that’s for sure. Mind, it’s only through watching some of their rehearsals we even know what the judges are being picky about.” He shook his head. “Don’t think we need to worry about our buddies in this round though. Half of the folks out there made mistakes even I could see.”
Frank nodded from the other side of Brandy.
“Yeah, but half of them go out on this round too. Then after the next round the judges cut it to the final ten… Hey, look down there – ‘Rina’s getting her notebook out. Tom and Danette must be up in the next batch.”
-----=====-----
Ladies and gentlemen. Please re-take your seats. The judges have conferred and we would like to ask the following couples to join us out here…
“They’re in! They are in the final ten!”
… As you know, ladies and gentlemen, the previous two rounds were a dance selected by the judging panel. For this final round, the couples will be taking the floor individually with a dance of their choice, provided only that it is a permitted style for this contest and it is not one of the dances previously performed. Each of our final ten couples has already submitted a music choice and their final round dance style to the committee. The committee has drawn the order in which our final ten couples will dance at random and no announcements of scores will be made until all our final ten couples have danced.
-----=====-----
Backstage, Tom and Danette looked at each other.
“Bit different from the first time we performed it, huh?”
Danette smiled.
“Easier. Natalia Ostrakova is not on the judging panel… But one thing is just the same.”
“Oh?”
“I still love you. More than the first time, Tom, if that’s even possible. And I’ve only one thing to say to you before we go out there.”
“What’s that?”
“Kiss me after the dance.”
Now please welcome to the floor, dancing the Paso Doble, couple number thirty-two, Terrence Marks and Danette Clarke…
“Whew, Brandy… They danced this as their first big test? How in hell was Danette not pregnant as Caesar’s wife before they even made it back to the dressing rooms?”
“Because they are smart. Besides, it was different that time. I’ve seen the video. There’s – I dunno – somehow just ‘more’ here. The first time they had never been to bed together, you know, neither of them had even said ‘I love you’ until just before they went out to dance it. Now, look at them. If anyone had any doubt from the first two rounds that those two are so thoroughly in love with each other and are partners in bed as well as on the dance floor, those doubts have to be gone. Plus, they are both better dancers now than they were then.”
“Yeah. And we all thought at the time they were doing each other like rabbits already.”
Suddenly, the venue was erupting in applause as Tom and Danette held the final position of their dance. Seconds later they were back on their feet and acknowledging the applause.
As they walked from the dance floor, Tom looked down at Danette, his eyes sparkling, and whispered, so softly that only she could hear.
“After a performance like that, it would be a crime to stop at merely kissing you.”
Just as softly, Danette replied.
“I was rather counting on that. Do you have something specific in mind?”
“Well, since you asked so sweetly before the dance, I intend to start by kissing you… everywhere. After that we’ll just have to see.”
-----=====-----
“Why am I so nervous? We’re in the top ten, which is a fantastic result!”
“If we medal, we’re in the nationals for sure. That’s enough to make me nervous as hell.”
“Irina looked pleased, as did Natalia. I couldn’t read Mikhail at all.”
“I know we did well. I just want to know if we did well enough.”
…Thank you to our seventh place couple. Now, the fifth and sixth places were tied on their final dance scores. Accordingly the judges referred back to each couple’s scores in previous rounds to break the tie. In sixth place, couple thirty-two, Terrence Marks and Danette Clarke!
-----=====-----
Frank was riding back with Brandy and Mike. In the minivan, apart from Mikhail who was concentrating on driving, the topic of conversation was, inevitably, an intense debrief of the contest.
“One thing we must address immediately.” Natalia looked up from her phone. “I have run the numbers. Until you compete in a third qualifying event you will have no official national ranking. On the last two contests placings, you are only just outside the top twenty percent in the regional rankings. You approach the threshold I would expect to make national qualification a certainty but you are not yet there. The next contest you are entered in is a smaller one, it is a regional professional event and therefore feeds into national rankings but it will have fewer participants. Because of fewer participants you must beware of dropping too many places from this performance – each couple that beats you will have a greater effect on your ranking than in a larger event. In addition the best couples at that event will be specialists in this style of dance. For the next contest, Irina, no offense, but I intend to work closely with you on the choreography.”
“I was actually going to ask, Mom.” Irina shook her head. “The next contest is pure Latin dance and you’re a lot better at that than I am.”
“So, you two.” Natalia focused on Tom and Danette. “Now that you have the individual judges’ scores, what would you change in the hope of an improvement?”
Tom and Danette looked at each other for a moment before Danette spoke for them both.
“Not a thing. I think we needed to do exactly what we did, only do it better. That dance was good enough to have won if our dancing had been up to it. We just got beaten by folks who danced their dances better than we did ours on the night.”
Natalia smiled, and when she answered there was definite pride in her voice.
“That, Danette, is exactly right. The routine you created, Irina, and then developed with Tom and Danette as dancers, was truly world-class. It is a thing of beauty. It is also a profound challenge to those called to perform it. Tom and Danette, you rose to that challenge. And now you all three feel things you cannot describe about it, ways in which it truly worked, ways in which you wish you could have made it work. On this night, in this performance, you didn’t but you know how now. This is because you are not simply a couple who can dance. It is because you are dancers.”
-----=====-----
“Ow!”
“Tom?” Are you ok?”
“Yeah, but I think I just pulled something. Sorry, Danette, but I think I need to call it for the afternoon. Can you chuck me an icepack, please, ‘Rina?”
Irina had already retrieved one and launched it across the studio for Tom to catch. “Incoming!”
“Both of you take full weekend off. I do not wish you back in the studio until Monday.” This was Natalia standing in the doorway. “Yes, Terrence, I know it is minor and you would be more than capable of resuming practice tomorrow. I have been watching, do you think I was not? You are both pushing too hard. Dance is sometimes painful, of course I know this. At my age, better than you two I think! If you push yourself into these minor injuries constantly they will become bigger ones. Learn! Yes, you will need to work through pain sometimes but pay attention to the pain too, do not ignore it. You have to stop before the pain becomes damage and you injure yourself. You only discover where that point lies by experience, true, but you should have that experience by now and this most recent should not have happened.”
Her eyes narrowed as they fell upon Tom holding the icepack at the front of his right hip then she turned to Danette.
“I must rely upon you for this, Danette. He is a man and when the woman they love takes off her clothes, men think only with their balls. So. No sex tonight. Nothing beyond a cuddle. If I see him hobbling around with a full-on groin strain instead of recovering from the minor pull he has now, I shall know you have let me down.”
Danette and Irina giggled, while Tom rolled his eyes. Natalia’s eyes remained narrowed, though, until Danette nodded.
-----=====-----
“Probably a good idea we take it a bit easier anyway, Tom. Natalia was right, we have been pushing the practice awfully hard. It’s not like we won’t have little choice about it in another week since I’m back in school after that.”
“Wish she hadn’t made you promise to take it easy another way tonight, love.”
“Tom, stop that. I intend to keep that promise even if I have to find an alternative use for an icepack rather than do the sensible thing and just make you sleep on the couch.”
“Eep! I’ll be good!”
“So what are we going to do with our weekend off?”
“Tomorrow I’m going with Mike to look over a place he’s thinking of renting. I think he wants me to distract the landlord while he pokes around a bit more thoroughly than the landlord would wish.”
“Yeah, I’d definitely be a third wheel on that.”
“You might be a more effective distraction for the landlord. You’re a lot easier on the eyes than I am.”
“The only man I want to distract that way is you.”
“But not tonight.”
“Icepack. Go to sleep.”
“OK, fine….”
