Missed Connections (38 page)

Unfortunately, it wasn't male attention that she wanted. Oh, Vi had tried. She smiled when they approached her, she talked indie films and obscure bands when prompted, and tried not to see the irony in the men wearing more feminine jeans that she did. She went on dates because she had no good reason not to—or, not one she could tell her friends.

So, she always said yes and then, when her friends asked, said she and the guy hadn't had enough in common to have a relationship. But the trouble was she had
too
much in common with her dates. Movies, bands, and taste in women.

The memory of Cassidy—tall, beautiful, and talented—made Vi want to stick her head in the toilet and drown her sorrows.

Or, just empty her stomach.

She dropped her head onto her arm and groaned. This was Greg's fault, probably. He was normally the one who drank until he puked, while Vi watched judgmentally. It wasn't like she had been nervous enough to drink until she couldn't make rational decisions any more, or anything.

The thought of coming out—to her friends, to her coworkers, and worst of all, to her parents—almost physically hurt, something dark and heavy curling in the pit of Vi's stomach. But the thought of Cassidy coming up to the empty club and looking around expectantly, searching for someone who wasn't there, hurt almost as badly.  Vi wondered how long Cassidy had waited, sitting on a bar stool while the staff swept up, wondering where her date had gone.

Or maybe she hadn't waited at all. Maybe she had just shrugged when she didn't see Vi waiting for her and found someone else to go out with. Maybe one of the other dancers, tan and curvy and ready to have a good time.

As Vi rinsed her mouth with water and dragged herself out of the bathroom, she honestly didn't know which thought was worse.

*~*~*

On Monday Vi sat at her computer, tediously adding shadows to product photos. She wondered, sometimes, why a computer mouse hovering half an inch off a perfectly white surface was supposed to be more appealing than one sitting on a table like God intended, but she had learned not to question the Powers that Be. They paid her good money to implement rudimentary Photoshop skills. When she had first taken the job, high off of being hired and assuming that her bosses might actually know more about computers than she did, Vi had pitched a bunch of design ideas for the website.

But they didn't want design. "This isn't some arty nonprofit", her boss had literally said, as if there was a nonprofit in the world with a functioning website or the budget for design. So she added shadows under everything from computer mouses to closed garage doors—seriously—and counted the hours until she could go home.

To her empty apartment. Once again, Vi idly wondered if she should get a cat. Sure, they were judgmental as shit—but then, she already judged herself. She might as well have another, furrier, witness to her misery.

Greg texted Vi around lunchtime, to let her know—a mere thirty-six hours after the fact—that he had survived Saturday night. Normally, those kind of antics delighted her. It was one of the reasons why Greg was her closest friend. But today she just thumbed out of the message with a frown. It wasn't Greg's fault that she had spent Saturday night passed out on top of her duvet, still wearing her shoes, instead of in the company of a beautiful woman. But it was easier to blame him than herself.

No matter how hard she tried, Vi couldn't stop thinking about Cassidy. With every blurb of product description she artfully placed, with every shadow she drew, she thought about the dancer.

Not only had Cassidy been beautiful, but she had seemed nice. It was the memory of Cassidy calling her 'Peony', biting her lip to hide her smirk, that played most in Vi's mind—not the shape of her body or the way she had danced. It was the humor in Cassidy's dark eyes that made Vi think she had made a mistake.

By Wednesday, Vi found herself sneaking glances at the Joffrey website, wondering if she could find Cassidy. Of course, the site only had photos of the actual company—the leads and the chorus—and not the students enrolled there. Still, Vi mused, how many Cassidys could there be in the school?

She clicked out of the website as one of her coworkers walked by, hunching her shoulders guiltily in front of her screen. He probably thought she was watching porn, when all she had been doing was looking at photos of ballerinas. Although, her coworkers might actually find the latter stranger.

As late afternoon rolled around, Vi found herself thinking wildly about actually attending the ballet and hoping Cassidy would be there. Their eyes would meet in the auditorium, over the heads of well-dressed, unsuspecting patrons of the arts. Cassidy would realize how much effort Vi had put into finding her and forgive her instantly, rushing into her arms during the intermission.

It sounded perfect, until Vi remembered that the theatre was probably enormous and there was no way to guarantee that Cassidy would be there. And even if she were, would she want to be ambushed by Vi, who had walked out on her?

By Thursday Vi had decided it was hopeless. She was back to texting Greg, just so he wouldn't think she was dead, and trying to put the whole episode out of her mind. This was why she didn't go clubbing, she reminded herself. Or, not exactly this, because beautiful go-go dancers didn't come on to her with any frequency—or, at all—but the principle still stood. She was most comfortable in her local pub, and that's where she would stay, nursing a pint, listening to the drunk old men make fools of themselves, and occasionally stomping them in pub trivia. That was her environment, not the sleek, polished world of the downtown clubs, with desperate girls and even more desperate men, hard liquor, and pounding beats. She hated everything about that world, so there was no reason for her to think about going back.

By Friday, she had decided to go back.

She didn't know if Cassidy worked every weekend, or even if she'd be there on a Friday, but Vi had to do something about the nervous energy inside of her before it killed her. All week long she had underperformed even at a job designed for underperformance. She had barely texted Greg, and had avoided her mother's weekly phone call on the off chance she could read impure, homosexual thoughts through the phone line.

It had reached a breaking point, so Vi waved off the offers of after-work drinks, ignored Greg's multiple
TGIFFFFFFFFFFFF
texts, and went home to spend an hour staring into her closet.

Shockingly, standing there and glaring didn't actually change what she owned. She'd be more likely to miraculously find a fully functional spacesuit than to find cool clubbing attire in its depths. But she wanted to look better than 'decent', better than 'hip in some downtown coffee shops'. She wanted to look like the kind of girl who could walk into a club called "Crescendo"—seriously—and talk to one of its beautiful dancers.

Unfortunately, she didn't think H&M made jeans for that, so after agonizing, Vi settled for looking basically like she did every day. She put on her tightest, darkest skinnies, a plain black T-shirt—no dumb comic book characters or nerdy in-jokes to be seen—and an artfully draped scarf when the whole thing looked too dull.

Then she took off the scarf, because she wasn't trying to be a stereotype.

She put it back on just as she was heading out the door.

The Brown Line downtown was full of people who were obviously also headed for the clubs—girls fluttered their fake lashes and adjusted the straps on their painful-looking heels, guys messed with their hair gel in the reflection of the train doors and hoped to catch the girls' eyes.

Vi hunkered further down in her seat.

She had been trying not to think too much about what would happen once she reached Crescendo, because she was pretty sure she might vomit if she allowed that train of thought. But now, as she stepped off the train and out onto the downtown street, she regretted her decision.

What would she say to Cassidy? 'Hey, sorry for abandoning you'? 'I'm not actually a dick, I'm just in the closet'? Neither seemed like a great opener.

The club was pretty empty when Vi forked over her twenty bucks and stepped past the bouncer. It was barely ten and she knew things wouldn't get going until eleven, or even midnight. The dancers wouldn't even hit their platforms for at least another hour. Vi headed to the bar for something to do, but sternly told herself that she wouldn't get drunk this time. She would be sober—
nearly
sober, she amended hastily—when she spoke to Cassidy.

If the girl was even there.

Vi sucked morosely on the tiny black cocktail straw and watched people filter into the club. It felt strange being there by herself, like everyone was looking at her and wondering why she didn't have any friends. Vi felt like women only came out alone if they were desperate and looking for a hook up, then blushed fiercely when she realized that, in some ways, that was exactly what she was doing.

She kind of wished she'd invited Greg, for all he had cocked things up the previous weekend. But she knew that if she wanted to talk to Cassidy there was no way Greg could be present. Not that he would necessarily judge her, but Vi wasn't ready for anyone to know. Not yet.

After thirty minutes of constantly checking her watch and the door, Vi slid off her barstool and headed towards the restroom, telling herself that the half a drink in her system meant pressure on her bladder. She nodded curtly to the bouncer at the foot of the stairs and headed for the pinup-girl door. It was about this time six days before that she had first entered this bathroom—to her shock and horror. At first.

Vi took a deep breath before pushing open the door, bracing herself.

For nothing.

A single woman stood in front of the mirror, needlessly applying another layer of mascara. The sound of someone peeing rang out from a far stall. There wasn't a dancer in sight. Vi looked down at her watch and then back up at the bathroom, as if that would make Cassidy and her fellow dancers appear.

The blonde at the mirror shot her a strange look and Vi hurried into a stall, turning the lock forcefully behind her.

The dancers weren't there.

Maybe they didn't work on Fridays. Vi frowned in indecision. Should she come back the next night, hoping for the best? How many nights would she waste, hoping to see Cassidy again?

Maybe the previous week had been her only shot—and now the universe was slamming that door in her face, chiding her for blowing it. Vi flushed the toilet just so the other women wouldn't think she was a creep and slunk out of the stall morosely.

She didn't even know what she was doing there. If Cassidy had been in the restroom with all the other dancers, Vi probably would have just fucked it up anyway. It was better this way. She could remember that a girl had once liked her, without dealing with the inevitable humiliation when Cassidy realized she was twenty thousand leagues out of Vi's reach.

Vi wearily climbed the stairs back to the main floor of the club, wondering if it would be difficult to get a cab at this time of night. The pounding of the bass in the club was louder than when she had gone downstairs, signaling the start of the evening. Vi wrinkled her nose and prepared to breeze past the dance floor and out the front door. But a gyrating blonde in her peripheral vision made Vi stop in her tracks.

The dancers were back.

On top of the platform nearest to Vi was a buxom blonde, shaking her hips and tossing her hair to the beat of the music. She wore a variation on the costume Cassidy had sported the week before, and Vi's eyes flew to the other dancers practically before she could process what she was seeing.

She looked and looked—knowing she probably came off as a crazy person—and for a moment her heart plummeted yet again as she failed to find that one tall, lithe form.

And then a giant of a man moved and Vi could see, just beside the gleaming length of the bar, Cassidy dancing.

She moved just as well as she had the previous week, her motions sinuous, her lines perfect. Vi had spent more time than she was willing to admit on Joffrey's website that week, looking at photos of the dancers and watching videos, hoping for a glimpse of Cassidy. She knew what classical lines looked like now, and she could see them in every move Cassidy made, no matter how down and dirty her dancing was.

It was mesmerizing, the mingling of mainstream and culture, go-go and
pas-de-deux
. Vi could have watched it all night, and found herself sinking down on a barstool without another thought. When the bartender came over, she ordered in a daze, barely glancing at the man.

She only had eyes for Cassidy.

*~*~*

After another hour of dancing and another beer, Vi reluctantly sought the restroom again. The dancers were still going, sweat gleaming on their bodies, multi-colored lights bouncing off their skin.

Tearing her eyes away, Vi hurried for the ladies'. She needed a moment to clear her head, a moment away from the shaking of Cassidy's hips. The sudden silence of the lower floor was a much-needed respite and Vi allowed herself to take a deep, steadying breath.

Watching Cassidy dance was intoxicating, but Vi knew she needed to plan her next move. She would wait all night, if she had to, until Cassidy's shift was over and they could actually talk. The waiting wasn't the hard part—it was figuring out what to say.

Vi didn't have any experience talking to beautiful women—ones she was interested in or otherwise. She had shied away from other girls starting back in middle school. They were like sharks, the pretty, blonde Ashleys and Caitlins; they could smell her discomfort, her strangeness, and came after it like blood in the water. The beautiful girls were always the mean ones, and so Vi gave them a wide berth.

Even looking a girl like Cassidy in the eyes was a triumph, let alone anything more.

The bathroom was empty and Vi let herself sit for a moment behind the closed door of the stall, her head in her hands. Someone came in after her and the tap turned on at the sink as Vi focused on not chickening out again.

It was just past midnight, and Vi knew the dancers worked for another two hours, until the club shut down. She probably should have come later, instead of sitting around the whole night, letting her nerves mount.