Waltz This Way (v1.1) (7 page)

Mel looked down at her feet covered in her old black ballet slip-pers with shame in her eyes, her heart tightening in her chest. “That’s it,” she choked, refusing to cry in front of strangers. “I don’t know how to breathe anymore. I can’t get comfortable in my own skin. Everything feels unfamiliar.” Everything, everything.

“That’s because Stan owned your skin, darling. But he doesn’t anymore. He chose to find new skin,” Jasmine pointed out, cradling Frankie’s little boy against her perfect breasts. “Look, we all know what it is to suffer through a high-profile divorce, Frankie being the expert here. We all also know what it’s like to be tossed to the curb and lose everything. Your friends, your house, your clothes, your world. We know what it’s like to have to start over with nothing while trying to understand some of the most basic of life’s lessons like balancing a checkbook and interest rates on a credit card. It’s like wandering around in a foreign country where the countrymen don’t speak Gucci.”

Mel felt her lip tremble. She hated that words of fear were tumbling from her lips, but there they were— tumbling in an outpouring of pathetic. “I went straight from my parents to marriage with Stan. I don’t know the first thing about surviving on my own. Everything was handled either by Stan or his accountants, business managers, maids, and drivers. I feel like an idiot.” Nay. You define “idiot.” She fought a groan.

Max snorted from behind her desk. “I get it. Are you ready for this? When I was in the middle of my divorce and living with my mother, I’d finally made enough money to contribute to the groceries. She took me to Walmart. I actually hadn’t been in a place where you could buy things at discount in almost as many years as I was married. How’s that for pathetically sheltered? I was pitiful. Look, I know you think all the gurulike stuff I spout is silly. You’re not some trendsetter there. I have all sorts of analogies and euphemisms for being an ex-pampered princess that are laughable. I had oodles of time to think while I job-hunted and took the place of one senior or another at the Village, teaching classes at the rec center. But if you at least give them a look, I think Jasmine and Frankie can tell you from personal experience, they work.”

Frankie nodded, twisting a strand of her hair around her finger in thoughtful contemplation. “I hated Maxine’s hokey advice— at first. But she taught me to suck it up. She made me shower. She helped me get a job. She encouraged me to come to the meetings here at Trophy where I met Jasmine, where I learned how to stand on my own two feet. I had no job skills other than being Mitch’s bitch. No one in the industry would hire me because Mitch blackballed me. If it wasn’t for Maxine, I’d still be at my Aunt Gail’s, buried under the covers.”

“And you’d really smell,” Max said on a chuckle.

Frankie nodded. “Yeah. There’s that.”

“Is your aunt Gail Lumley?” Mel asked. She remembered Gail backing up her dad when he talked about the kind of help Maxine offered, but she’d blown her off because she wasn’t receptive to anything but a bag of salt-and-pepper kettle chips at the time.

“That’s her.”

Mel felt a smile lift her lips. “I like her. She’s pretty feisty.”

“Indeed, she is,” Frankie confirmed. “She’s also who called Max to intervene. Just like your dad called us. He wants to help, Mel. So do we. So there’s really only one question, Mel— are you ready to suck it up and take back your life by learning all the things you would have if you’d lived on your own and found out exactly who Melina Cherkasov was before you devoted your life to that jerk?”

Without warning, tears, hot and stinging welled in her eyes again.

She made a frustrated swipe at them. “Maybe.”

“Well, it’s time you figure it out, Mel,” Max said, only this time it was without the cajoling warmth in her tone, which was replaced with a sharper edge.

“But it’s only been six months …” Which was a perfectly good excuse. Drowning your pain in junk food because you were divorced surely had a longer grace period.

Jasmine sighed, shifting on the couch. “It’s not like we’re asking you to hurry up and sleep with someone. We’re asking you to get off your ass and get back in the game. We don’t just mean earning a living either. Do you know what you like to do aside from dance? Maybe you like to spelunk, and you wouldn’t know it because you never took the time to figure it out. Those six months you’ve been mourning that dick are six months you can’t get back. I don’t know about you, but Stan the Dancing Man wasn’t worth six minutes of your life let alone half a year.”

Yeah. A small crack in Mel’s reluctance rippled inside her. “So what do I have to do? Is there a ritual ex-princess hazing?”

Max shot Mel a sympathetic look. “Your hazing began when you went to your studio and found out it was locked because Stan didn’t want you to have it anymore, honey. When he took you from the kids who so obviously loved you. You’ve been hazed enough, in my opinion, and of all of us, you at least began to try and get it together more quickly than we did. You might be filling the gaping hole of your depression with junk food, but you multitasked and did it while you looked for a job. At least it wasn’t booze and cheap sex. Those are messy interventions.”

She and booze had never worked well together. Too much to drink made her either cry or sing. Both of which no one wanted to endure. “Is there some type of award or maybe a merit badge for my chaste nature and sober state?”

Max’s laughter tinkled. “No awards. Your reward is you haven’t slid all the way down the slope. I thank God at the very least I didn’t have to drag you out of bed like I did Frankie. So here’s the score. Take this.” She held out a manila envelope in Mel’s direction. “Look at it. Mock. Look at it again when you’re past rolling on the floor in fits of laughter. In the meantime, I have good news for you.”

Mel took the envelope with a shaky hand. Max was right. She didn’t want it, and if some of the crazy catchphrases her father had picked up from Maxine were included in the divorce packet, she would indeed mock. “Thank you. So the good news?”

Max beamed. “You have an interview for a full-time job!”

Frankie and Jasmine clapped their hands.

But Mel was instantly skeptical. “People in Riverbend are hiring women who can spin without getting dizzy?” There really was a job for everyone.

“I saw your old competition videos on YouTube. You were truly beautiful to watch, Mel, and your partner, Neil Whatever, from Celebrity Ballroom—hellooooo,” Frankie commented with a sigh of exaggerated lust. “You were both so sexy at such a young age. Very sultry. Maybe sometime you can teach me how to roll my hips like that. I’m sure Nikos would appreciate it.”

“Were.” “Was.” All words that contributed to her now. Neil was part of her was. They’d kept in touch over the years and made a point of seeing each other whenever possible, but his job and her life with Stan didn’t always allow them the kind of time she wished they had together. Still, he would always be one of her best friends.

Max sighed just as breathy before saying, “Actually, yes. You have an interview at Westmeyer.”

Mel was taken aback. “The private school for boys who’re Mensa candidates?”

Max grinned. “That’s the one. God, I can’t tell you what it’s like to be around all those little geniuses. I feel like a total idiot. In fact, I am an idiot compared to them, but I can’t wait until you meet Dean Keller.”

Mel gave her a confused look. “Is this a private lesson? Does the dean want to learn how to samba?” She didn’t want to dance. Strike that. She didn’t want to move. She’d only agreed to Waltzing Wednesdays at the Village because she needed the money. As it stood, as the condition of her body stood, she was better off working at a Container Store.

“He might after he sees your hips in action,” Jasmine snorted.

Maxine laughed. “No. Westmeyer has a tradition. All the boys must learn to ballroom dance to hone their sorely lacking social skills. Most of the boys who attend Westmeyer are introverts with their noses always buried in a book. They don’t work well with others and are typically more awkward than your usual tween with girls. As you know, twelve and up is an age of discovery.”

“Oh, I love it!” Jasmine snarfed. “Hormonal smart kids who can waltz.”

“The tradition goes back as far as the early forties and is attrib-uted to the woman who opened the school— Leona Westmeyer. Her love of ballroom dancing and the traditional, in particular, was what led her to insist the boys learn how to dance. According to Dean Keller, the boys’ reluctance to socialize with anything other than a petri dish worried her enough that she mandated they all learn to dance and have fun. Lightening up being the key goal here. Back in those days, ballroom dancing was common. Everyone knew how to dance. Its resurgence on TV seems to please Dean Keller.”

“Leona Smith Westmeyer?” Mel asked.

Max looked down at her papers then nodded. “Yep. You know her?”

Mel clutched her hands in front of her, trying to remember what she knew of Leona’s history. “I know of her. She’s legendary in American smooth ballroom dancing. I had no idea she had a school for boys, let alone one for geniuses.”

“Her son was one, and he was who inspired her to open the school.”

“So what good does it do for me to teach boys to dance with one another?” She didn’t want to dance. God, she really didn’t.

“They have a big dance in December just before Christmas break, and then again in the spring with an all-girls private school— Thurston’s the name, I believe. Anyway, Westmeyer’s dance instructor retired at the beginning of this school year. Westmeyer begins earlier than public schools to allow for the heavy load of classes those boys endure. They’ve had a lot of trouble replacing the last teacher. It would seem there aren’t many ballroom teachers in Riverbend— you’re it.”

Lucky, lucky boys. “But what about the Village classes?”

“I’d appreciate you staying for a while at the Village— just on Wednesdays. You’re going to be hard to replace there, but I have someone in mind to take over your other duties.”

“But I haven’t danced in …”

“In six months. I know,” Max confirmed. “Your father told me. But it’s your best skill and the one that’s most marketable. This is a helluva lucky break to find something so well suited to you, especially considering it’s not a common profession. So if you want a job that’s full time and has bennies, dust off your leotards and suck it up.” Max smiled before glancing at her wristwatch. “And now we have to get going— you have an interview to get to.”

Mel clutched the envelope under her arm, her knees suddenly weak with fear. She’d never been on an interview. “I don’t … I mean …”

“You’ve never been on an interview. I know. Me neither before I was divorced, but I can tell you this, I got really good at begging. Just ask the manager of the Cluck-Cluck Palace, and then thank God I nabbed you an interview doing something you love instead of one that involves the mindless task of shredding cheese.” Max grabbed her purse and a light jacket.

“Don’t panic, Mel,” Frankie soothed, rising to give her arm a squeeze. “You’ll be fine. By the way, take my number, Jasmine’s, too, in case you ever want to talk. The three of us meet at my husband’s diner, Greek Meets Eat, once a week on Tuesdays, if you’re up to grabbing meat loaf and some coffee. Drop by.”

Mel took the slip of paper from Frankie and shoved it into the pocket of her skirt. Frankie’s husband. She’d remarried after that fiasco? Talk about the will to trust. No way was Mel ever getting married again. “Thank you …” She gave Frankie a faint smile of gratitude, trying to hide her curiosity about Frankie’s husband.

Jasmine handed the baby back to Frankie and reached out to smooth Mel’s rumpled sweater, then took hold of Mel’s shoulders and turned her toward the door of Max’s office. “Come hangout with us on Tuesday. You won’t regret the diner’s meat loaf. Now, go get ’em, tiger. Grrrrr.”

Mel sucked in a breath of air and followed Max out the door with trembling legs.

She rooted through her purse, praying she’d remembered to throw a couple of Hostess CupCakes in it before she’d left for Trophy.

Instead, she came up with a Ziploc bag full of carrots and celery with a note taped to it.

It had a smiley face on it and read,

Shiny.

Oh, and grrrrr.

“I hate to say it, but this looks like Frankenstein’s summer house,” Mel remarked as she and Max drove toward the imposing brick structure of Westmeyer on her first official day as ballroom instructor.

Max’s laughter filled her car. “It is kind of gloomy, but the foliage is gorgeous, don’t you think? I love when the trees begin to turn.”

Max’s words drifted to her ears. She just hadn’t had enough time to sit with this job thing. A career, as Max called it. It was bigger than she was right now. “That’s the ‘always look for the silver lining commandment,’ isn’t it?” Mel joked, folding her arms under her breasts in a protective gesture.

“It is. I knew you couldn’t resist my pamphlets. No one can.”

A glimmer of a smile wrestled with Mel’s lips. So, yeah. Guilty.

She’d skimmed the contents of the packet Max had given her last night over a salad and a piece of grilled chicken. She’d even tried the divorce journal writing thing. You had to laugh at some of the crazy things Maxine must have spent hours and hours thinking up. It was only right she honor the effort and the job Maxine had found for her.

“And yes, before you say it, it took a long time to come up with some of those witty words of wisdom. A writer, I ain’t.” Max gave her a knowing look and a raise of her eyebrows.

“You’re like a mind reader at a carnival. Spooky.”

“I have to be. If I don’t anticipate the cruel jokes you’ll make about my divorce advice, I can’t be prepared to fire back, now can I? So, how do you feel today? Did you get a good night’s sleep? Eat something nutritionally balanced and not slathered in chocolate?”