By the following Monday, Talia was finally ready to return to work. Emilia’s remedy worked like a charm, but she also realized she was just making excuses for herself. Juan Paulo’s persistence wasn’t going to keep her from being where she wanted to be anymore.
Bright and early that morning, she took the stage and put one of her favorite songs on repeat. For each run-through, she danced in a different style. Cha-Cha was the best fit by far, but it didn’t stop her from trying other things. She’d done this exercise in the past to experiment, seeing which dances worked with certain types of music and which didn’t. Other than giving herself a much-needed mood boost, she had one other objective in mind. Talia was such a perfectionist that she hated to take any time off. Even though she’d been off the stage for only a week and she had more than a decade of experience, she wanted to be sure her muscle memory remained intact.
Alejandro arrived a few hours later—literally having to take a step back upon entering. He clasped his hands tight over his ears and trudged to the edge of the stage. “Talia, this music is blaring! People can hear the bass on the other side of town!” This minor intrusion didn’t interrupt her rhythm for even a second, to which he let out a heavy sigh. Already anticipating a losing battle, he raced to the stereo system and reduced the volume to background noise levels.
Her lip curled, but her response was playful, “Coward…” as if she was privy to the funniest inside joke ever told. Yet she continued to dance without breaking form.
“You know, I can’t exactly follow your bossing me around if I can’t hear.”
The song ended then and it gave her a moment of pause as she considered the obvious. “It must sound like I was trying to drive out evil spirits.” She mused. “Very well. Watch the door. When the others arrive, cue it from the top. Fair enough?”
“Perfect. Plus I don’t think I could listen to that another 50 times. I don’t know how you do it.”
The wait wasn’t as long as they expected. Vanessa and Emilia arrived with Juan Paulo in tow. Because she had her back turned to the entrance, Talia remained blissfully unaware of this fact. Once the music hit her, she was back on her own planet, dancing to eradicate all the negative feelings that had been weighing her down. The voyage was tragically short-lived, ending the moment she turned around. Panning from Emilia to Juan Paulo and back again, she hastily signaled for Alejandro to shut off the music.
“What are you doing here? This is rehearsal time. Dancers are the only ones allowed to be here.” She nodded to the side. “Except for Alejandro, obviously.”
The two guys exchanged a friendly wave before Emilia came forward. “JP offered to be my escort this morning and since we live so close to each other, I didn’t think that would be a problem.”
Juan Paulo placed his hand over his heart, professing innocence, “Talia, if it makes you uncomfortable…”
She raised a hand to silence him. “Fine. But you can’t stay to watch. It would spoil the illusion. You understand, right?” She inclined an eyebrow at him; he wasn’t the least bit intimidated. His posture remained as calm as it always was.
He turned to Emilia. “What time do you want me to pick you up?”
“Wait,” Vanessa interjected, “while you’re here, I wanted to ask you something.”
“Oh…” A faint gasp of surprise escaped Talia’s lips without her meaning to. Only Alejandro noticed, fortunately. He advanced forward, meaning to assist her, but she waved him off. She took a seat at the edge of the stage before her weak ankles could render her completely helpless. Even as her heart fluttered, her reaction made no sense to her. This was just another man who meant nothing to her. But with their receptive body language towards one another, she knew the opposite was true and she cursed herself for it.
“Sure, Vanessa, what is it?” He inclined toward her and broadly smiled. They’d only met the one time at her birthday a week ago, but through conversations with various sirens, he felt like he knew her already. And judging from the glow in her eyes, the same was true on her side as well.
“Well, I just thought since you’re new here, I could show you some of the best places in town. We can even go to dinner afterwards.”
His eyebrows shifted as his smile became more pronounced, “Are you asking me out?”
“I mean, it’s ok if you don’t want to…” He immediately cut her off, “Sure. I’d been here for only a couple weeks, but I really haven’t seen much of this place except for a couple venues. Did you have a date in mind?”
“If your band has an early night this week, I could come see your show and we can go out afterwards.”
“That would be great.” Out of habit, he checked his watch, but it helped him recollect his schedule. “I’ll have to double check with Javi, but I believe Thursday is an early night. We’re only on until 9 o’clock.”
“Great, I know just the place to go for food afterwards.”
Throughout the tennis match, Talia kept her head down to hide her expression and grasped the stage tightly on either side of her. Vanessa seemed genuinely excited about this idea and she didn’t want to get in the way of that. But the conversation she had with Emilia remained fresh in her head about having one of the sirens check Juan Paulo out for her. She was all for this situation in theory, but now that it was happening, she wasn’t sure anymore. Between all of these thoughts and the fact this man confounded her to no end, she groaned and braced a growing migraine. Everyone’s attention was drawn to her immediately, but to cover her weakness, she muttered, “Can we get to rehearsal sometime today, please?”
“Oh well, duty calls. We’ll have plenty of time to talk later.” Vanessa saw him off with a smile before running into the dressing room to drop off her things.
“I’ll see you out, Juan Paulo.” Talia escorted him out with a light brush across his shoulder.
He rolled his eyes but maintained his sense of humor. “I suppose this is where you tell me to be good to Vanessa or else?”
“Not quite.” They kept walking until he was outside while she leaned through the doorway. “Vanessa has been on the dating scene a while. I know she can handle herself. This thing with Emilia… can I expect it to be a regular occurrence?”
“If it’s not a problem for you, yes, I would like to be Emilia’s escort. I know how you are about her wandering these streets on her own. Plus, we live so close we thought it made perfect sense.” Her eyes narrowed, suspicious. Arching his eyebrows, he confessed, “Scarlet gave me the whole rundown the other day. My word might not mean much to you at the moment, but I’ll give it to you anyway. Nothing will happen to her on my watch.” He reached into his shirt pocket and showed her the shiny ornate handle of his switchblade. “There are rough streets where I come from as well, so I know it never hurts to carry extra protection.”
She nodded, managing half a smile, “Thank you…” Not knowing what else to add, she did an about-face and promptly shut the door behind her. Exhaustion threatened to overtake her then as she rested her back against the wall.
“Hey Talia?” Vanessa joined her. “I’m sorry if that came out of nowhere, but… if you weren’t going to make a move, I thought I should.”
“I agree. If I were in your position, I might have done the same.” Taking a quick round of deep breaths, she clapped her hands together to resume rehearsal. Although skeptical of Talia’s mindset, Vanessa saw no other choice, but to go along with her charade for however long it lasted.
***
Music: "Telephone" by Lady Gaga
Music: "Telephone" by Lady Gaga
No comments:
Post a Comment