Strictly Friends? (19 page)

‘So you'll come?' Mari returned to her original topic. ‘Tomorrow?' She grabbed Megan's hands. ‘Please say you will. I promise we'll have a fab time.'

‘Well . . .'

‘Remember what I said. If you don't come, he's won. Don't let him destroy you.'

Megan couldn't help but laugh. ‘You are so overdramatic. All right. I'll come.'

Mari let out a whoop. ‘Excellent! Can't wait!'

‘THIS IS AMAZING,'
Mari remarked, beaming from ear to ear.

‘What?'

‘I SAID,' Mari bellowed, ‘this is AMAZING!'

‘Oh! Yeah!' Megan nodded enthusiastically.

The Ace of Hearts restaurant had been transformed into a Caribbean paradise. Plastic palm trees were attached to every pillar, while waiters moved smoothly around carrying coconut shells with various cocktails. Cuban music was blasting out of the speakers, and a large dance area had been cleared in the middle of the room.

Megan felt her spirits rise. Mari had been right, this was just what she needed to cheer herself up. Her feet were already tapping of their own accord as the music pounded through her body.

‘This way!' Corinne waved the group of girls over to a large table in the corner of the room. ‘I
brought my friend Candy along to keep us company.'

Candy, who had pink stripes through her hair and an open, friendly face, waved at them from her place at the table and seemed particularly pleased to see Mari. ‘I didn't realize you had taken up dance, Mari.'

‘You wouldn't have thought it, would you?' agreed Mari. ‘Not after the mess I made of dance rehearsals in
Romeo and Juliet
.' She turned to Megan. ‘Candy directed the play in the summer.'

‘I didn't realize,' Corinne was saying loudly, ‘but there are guest dancers too. Before we eat.'

‘Brilliant!' Mari clapped her hands. ‘This is the most exciting evening I've had since . . . the last exciting evening!'

Megan laughed. It felt so good to be out with friends again! She leaned forward eagerly as the music suddenly stopped and a man stepped into the middle of the dance floor to introduce the guest dancers. ‘Please welcome the Junior Latin Champions, Sylvia Palazzo and Cesar Mulligan!'

Megan's jaw dropped. ‘I know them!' she whispered excitedly to Mari as two teenagers took up position on the floor.

‘No way!'

‘They were at a competition up north last year! I
was entering with Jake, and they were in the exhibition. They're amazing!'

The music started, and the two dancers began to move. Megan sat spellbound; they were even better than she remembered! Beside her, she heard Mari breathe out, ‘Wow!'

The routine was so fast and so exciting, Megan felt an almost uncontrollable urge to get up and join in. Sylvia and Cesar's arms and legs were a blur as they tangled together and then always inexplicably came free again. Sylvia's tiny Latin dress was covered with sequins and feathers and glittered in the mirror ball above the dance floor. Cesar's black suit had flames of red licking up the sides and he whipped around the floor as though he were dancing on air.

When the music finished and the dancers struck their final pose, the place erupted in cheers and applause. Megan and Mari got to their feet automatically, cheering as loudly as anyone else. Sylvia and Cesar bowed to all four sides of the floor and then went off, waving and smiling.

‘That was AMAZING,' declared Mari. The rest of the girls around the table looked as excited as she was.

‘Did you see her
feet
?' asked Alys.

‘Did you see her
dress
?'

‘Did you see her
hips
?'

‘I was too busy looking at him,' Jackie said, shrugging. The others laughed.

‘He was totally hot,' Mari agreed. ‘And Megan actually
knows
him!'

The other girls gasped and turned to Megan, agog. ‘No way!'

‘I don't actually
know
him,' Megan admitted. ‘I mean, he's not a friend or anything. But I've met them both before. At a competition last year. They were really nice.'

The other girls looked impressed, and Megan blushed. She hoped no one thought she was showing off.

‘So, girls, you think you can do something like that at Christmas?' Corinne broke in, grinning.

‘
What
?' Mari looked aghast. ‘You are joking.'

Corinne laughed. ‘All right, maybe I won't expect quite that standard this Christmas. Maybe by next year . . .?'

‘Yeah, right,' Mari scoffed. ‘I couldn't be that good if I practised for
twenty
years.'

‘I wouldn't mind trying that twisty thing they did with their arms,' Alys said. ‘You know, where she sort of went under his arms, like loops . . .'

The discussion turned technical.

‘One thing's for sure,' said Mari decidedly. ‘We have to have one of
those
.' She pointed at the mirror ball hanging over the dance floor.

Corinne laughed. ‘They're expensive, Mari. And complicated to light.'

‘I don't care.' Mari looked obstinate. ‘We can't have a Christmas dance party without a mirror ball.'

Megan grinned. ‘Agreed.'

Corinne rolled her eyes, amused. ‘All right. I'll see what I can do.'

Dinner was a mixture of Mexican and Caribbean food, in keeping with the salsa theme. ‘Delicious,' mumbled Mari, her mouth full of chicken fajita. ‘Pass that fried banana stuff.'

The conversation was serious and silly by turns, and Megan couldn't remember the last time she had laughed so much. By the time dessert was being cleared away, she wasn't at all sure she'd be able to move, let alone dance.

‘Oof.' Mari echoed her thoughts. ‘I must have put on at least a stone.' She patted her stomach. ‘But it was worth it.'

‘You can work it all off again when we start dancing,' Megan told her.

Mari looked horrified. ‘I can't possibly dance, I'll be sick.'

‘I danced once when I was sick,' Megan said, remembering. ‘Properly ill, I mean. With flu. It was horrible. And I didn't do very well anyway. I should have just stayed home.'

Mari sat forward. ‘So tell us about this competition where you met those two dancers. Last year.'

‘Oh, it was just a competition I entered with Jake,' Megan said. ‘It wasn't very special really.'

‘Jake?' Jackie had pricked up her ears. ‘Is this your mythical dance partner from the wilds of Yorkshire?'

Megan laughed. ‘Not exactly wild. In fact, you can't get much further from “wild” if you're talking about Jake.'

‘What's he like?' Mari asked.

Megan pushed her hair behind her ear. ‘He's – he's just
Jake
,' she said, shrugging. ‘He's my best friend.'

Mari pulled a face. ‘That's no good, Meg. Come on, you'll have to do better than that. What's he look like, for a start?'

Megan considered for a moment. ‘Well, he's got brown eyes and brown hair. Sort of sticky-up on top, you know, the sort of hair that never lies flat, even if you cover it in hair gel. We had real trouble getting it to look posh for competitions.' She giggled. ‘At one competition, they had called our names about three times and we were still trying to stick Jake's hair down
because we were doing the tango and it had to be all slicked back. In the end, my mum got so exasperated she emptied a pot of my little brother's glue over Jake's head.'

‘She tipped glue on him?' Mari snorted. ‘Did it work?'

‘It did actually,' said Megan, ‘though we got seriously told off by the floor manager because we were late for our slot and they had to wait for us. We placed third though, so it was worth it. Though' – she grinned – ‘it took him half an hour of solid shampooing to get all the glue out. And in the end he had to use Fairy Liquid! He complained he smelled like an air freshener for the next week!' Megan felt a warmth spread through her, the way it always did when she thought about Jake. ‘He's really nice, Mari. You'd love him.'

‘What about you?' Mari asked curiously.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Haven't you ever – been out with him?'

Megan shook her head. ‘It's not like that. We're strictly friends. He's sweet and kind and makes me laugh, but we've never gone out.'

‘Sounds to me like he'd be the perfect boyfriend,' commented Mari.

Alys, who had been listening in, nodded. ‘And he
can dance too! He's like the perfect match for you, Megan.'

Megan tried to laugh. ‘Oh, I don't think of him that way. We've never been . . . you know.' But inside, something was flickering like a tiny flame. Why
hadn't
they ever gone out? Alys's words struck a chord. They did make the perfect couple, didn't they?

Mari raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, if you ask me, he'd be much better for you than . . .
you know who
.'

Megan shrugged and tried to sound casual. ‘He's my best friend. I wouldn't want to spoil that. Besides, he lives two hundred miles away now.' Her mind was spinning. It was almost as though the pieces of her life were shifting and coming down in a different pattern . . . what
would
it be like to go out with Jake?

Mari said nothing, but Megan saw her exchange glances with Alys. There was no time for further conversation anyway because just then the sound system blared into life again, and the infectious Cuban rhythms soon had everyone leaping for the dance floor, full stomachs or not!

The girls from the salsa class more than held their own on the dance floor. Jackie managed to find herself a cute boy to dance with, even though their dancing seemed to consist more of jumping up and down
than actual salsa. Mari, having declared herself far too shy to dance in public, was the most outrageous of them all! She shimmied and swung, waved her arms around like a maniac and shouted with joy at the top of her voice. Megan laughed at the sight of her friend having so much fun. ‘Can't all our classes be like this?' Mari yelled to Corinne.

Corinne, face flushed and swaying with the rest of them, smiled. ‘I wish!' she called back. ‘Think how much your lessons would cost then!'

Time flew by in a haze of music and heat. Megan couldn't believe it when she looked at her watch and realized it was ten p.m. ‘Time to go!' Corinne was calling to the girls, whose faces dropped with disappointment when they heard her.

Mari pulled her mobile phone out of her bag and then grimaced. ‘My battery's dead. Megan, can I borrow yours?'

Megan dug around in her bag. ‘Yeah, of course. Here you go. Isn't your mum picking you up as arranged then?'

Mari avoided her gaze. ‘No, I said I'd call her when we were leaving. It's only five minutes in the car.' She glanced at the phone. ‘No signal in here. I'll just be a minute.'

‘Oh, right.' Megan thought it was a bit odd, but
Mari disappeared out of the front doors, Megan's mobile clutched in her hand. Megan busied herself making sure she had everything in her bag and that she'd handed the money over to Corinne for dinner as agreed.

Mari reappeared within minutes. She handed the phone back to Megan. ‘Thanks.'

‘No problem.' Megan vaguely noticed that the screen was showing ‘Address Book'. Mari must have knocked the button when she finished her call. Megan quickly cancelled it and re-locked the keypad.

The group made their way out to the street, chatting and laughing. Stepping outside was like stepping into a fridge, though, and within minutes people were hurriedly waving goodbye and getting into warm cars with waiting parents. ‘See you at salsa.' Mari gave Megan a hug.

‘Your mum's here already?' asked Megan. ‘Wow, that was quick.'

‘Uh – yeah. Um . . . it went to voicemail when I rang; she must have already set off. Well, see you! Hope you've got that jive routine all ready for us!' Mari waved and ran off.

Megan saw Bryan sitting in his car on the other side of the road. ‘Thanks, Corinne,' she said. ‘That's my dad over there.'

Corinne gave her an unexpected hug. ‘Really glad you came, Megan. I hope you had a good time.'

‘I did, thanks.' Megan smiled. ‘It was fab.' She crossed to the car.

‘Had a good time?' Bryan asked. ‘Actually, don't answer that. I can see you glowing from the inside out.'

Megan got into the welcoming warmth of the car. ‘You know what, Dad? That's the best time I've had since we moved to Parchester.'

‘I'm glad. Looks like you've found a nice bunch of friends there too.'

‘Yeah, I have. I'm sorry about what I said the other day.'

‘You've already apologized, Megan, you don't have to do it again.'

‘I know. I just wanted to say it's not all bad here.'

Her dad reached over to pat her hand. ‘I know it's been hard for you, being uprooted from everyone you knew. I'm really proud of the way you've coped. And if it's any consolation, I don't have any concerns at all about
this
group of friends.'

Megan grinned back at him. ‘Me neither.' But on the way home, she found herself thinking not of her new friends but of Jake.

That tiny nagging flame inside – was it trying to
tell her something? All this time she'd thought of Jake as a friend . . . had she been completely wrong? Was he really the perfect match for her?

She'd known him for most of her life. He was her closest friend, the one she turned to when she needed advice or a shoulder to cry on. He knew her better than anyone. They had shared so much over the years . . . birthdays, Christmases, holidays, school . . . and dancing.

Dancing with Jake had always been the best feeling. They seemed to move instinctively together, almost as though their feet had some kind of telepathy. Dancing without him felt wrong, as though a part of her was missing. And Megan realized she didn't want to dance with anyone else – how could any other partner ever know her as well as Jake did? She couldn't believe that they wouldn't ever dance together again . . . surely that was impossible! They were partners for life, weren't they?