“Vitaly is never saying die,” he had told me over the phone, sounding as energetic as a soggy string mop.
The dark blue silk robe he wore with VOLOSHIN embroidered across the back gave his skin the pallor of a day-old corpse, but he managed a smile when I got to the table. Maurice showed up moments later, an elderly student on each arm. They were the pair I’d heard arguing the day Rafe died. The lanky one wore a stunning silver gown I suspected was vintage Valentino and the plumper one had on a hot-pink number with enough ruffles to make it fit in at the Copacabana. At her side walked the harlequin Great Dane, a green vest around his middle that read SERVICE DOG. His cropped ears were pricked forward and he sniffed interestedly at everyone who crossed his path. The threesome sat at the table and the dog rested his chin on it, his nostrils working as if trying to figure out where the food was.
“Service dog, my eye,” the woman in silver said. “You’re not blind or crippled, Mildred, even if your knees creak like a rusty gate when you dance.”
Mildred patted the dog’s head and he lolled his tongue happily. “Hoover is a service dog. He keeps away people who annoy me, don’t you Hoover-love?” She made kissy noises at the dog and he licked her face. “Give Edwina a little sugar. Sweeten up her sour attitude.”
The dog obligingly moved toward Edwina, who rolled her chair backward and swept her skirts out of the way of his huge paws. “Don’t let him drool on my gown. It’s Valentino!”
“See, it works,” Mildred said triumphantly, patting her thigh so the dog lumbered back to her.
“Hmph.”
I shot Maurice a look and he shrugged his shoulders in a “what can you do?” gesture.
The students competing with us in the bronze Latin heats trickled in and the competition kicked off only a few minutes behind schedule. My student was a fiftyish man with all the rhythm of a two-by-four, but he loved the Latin dances and jiggled from foot to foot as we waited in the holding area just off the dance floor, near the table laden with computers, scorecards, and schedules. Judges ringed the floor, clipboards at the ready, as the announcer called out the competitors’ numbers and we filed onto the floor with eight other couples, including Vitaly and his student. Samba music boomed out of large speakers and someone hastily adjusted the volume to something less than shuttle liftoff decibels as we began to dance.
Heats lasted only a minute and twenty seconds with dancers filing off the floor and new ones hurrying on in a choreography almost as complicated as the cha-chas and jives that livened up the dance floor. At this early hour, few spectators besides other competitors ringed the floor or sat in the lines of chairs carefully set out by the hotel. We danced for ourselves and the judges alone, and I felt my student relax into the music. I whispered words of encouragement or step reminders as the music flowed around us. We stayed on the floor, moving from one heat to the next, as the judges made notes on their scorecards and runners took the cards from the judges and ran them up to the score collators seated behind computer terminals. By the time I left the floor, Taryn and Sawyer were seated at our table alongside Sherry Indrebo with a man I guessed was her husband, and Leon Hall. The latter kept his eyes fixed on his daughter, much the way I imagined a U.S. marshal might keep an eye on a convicted felon he was transporting. All that was missing were the handcuffs.
“Have you guys warmed up?” I asked brightly.
“We should probably stretch,” Sawyer said, seizing on the excuse and rising.
“There’ll be room in the hall,” Taryn said. She slipped gracefully between the tables, which were situated too close to one another and headed for the door, the turquoise chiffon of her dress fluttering behind her.
Her father foiled their plan to snatch a little privacy by plodding after them. Sherry and I watched them go.
“He acts like he’s her jailer,” Sherry observed, unconsciously echoing my thoughts. She pulled her cashmere robe more tightly around her slim figure. “You’d think she was six instead of sixteen. By the time I was that age, I’d already worked on my first political campaign and traveled to D.C. by myself for the inauguration festivities.”
The story impressed me and I realized I didn’t know much about Sherry. “Have you always been interested in politics?” I asked.
“Always. It’s my life.” Sincerity rang in her voice. As if embarrassed about her response, she immediately turned to face the dance floor and studied the jiving couples as if she were going to be quizzed on them later.
Her husband, a distinguished-looking man in his late sixties or early seventies with steel-gray hair, squeezed her arm. A cane hung over the chair arm on his left side. “I told Sherry the first day we met that she could get elected to Congress. I’ve always been one to put my money where my mouth is, so I backed her and she was on her way to D.C. the next November. It’s been a winwin situation for the American people and Sherry.”
“And you,” Sherry said, a note of petulance in her voice. She shrugged off her husband’s hand.
I tried to remember his name. Ruben? Rudy?
He seemed unperturbed by her pettishness, letting his hand drop to the table. A heavy gold ring set with a dark red stone winked dully from his ring finger, drawing attention to a large-knuckled hand more suited to farming or blacksmithing than steering a Fortune 500 company. “We’ll be living in the governor’s mansion before we’re through.”
“Or the White House?” I suggested, half joking.
“Never say never,” he agreed.
“Ruben.” Sherry frowned at her husband like he’d said something indiscreet.
A flicker of movement from the far end of the ballroom caught my eye and I looked up to see a slim, dark-haired woman staring at me. Wearing jeans and a denim jacket, she turned away when she saw me looking her way and hurried out of the room. My brows drew together; she looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place her. Obviously not a dancer-probably just a fan, or a relative of a dancer trying to figure out where to sit. It could be confusing. I dismissed her from my thoughts and rose to join my student as our next heat was called.
The day progressed pretty much as usual, although I found myself missing Rafe more than I’d realized I would. I kept looking for him to share a glance or a raised brow about a judging result or a misstep by one of our fellow pros, but he wasn’t there. Vitaly’s ongoing commentary was more trenchant, and occasionally amusing-“He is looking like the hunching back of Notre Dame with that weak frame”-but I didn’t have the connection with him I’d had with Rafe. Having to break the news of his death to the few pros and friends who hadn’t heard about it put a damper on my day, too. Our students did well in the day’s heats, though, and came off the floor glowing when the judges handed them ribbons during the rapid-fire announcement of winners at the end of each division.
Late that afternoon, as the day’s competition was wrapping up so dancers could grab a quick meal before the evening’s heats started at seven, I finished a conversation with the woman selling off-the-rack ball gowns and Latin costumes and cut through a darkened conference room that adjoined the main ballroom via one of those folding walls. A shuffling sound in the corner made me realize it wasn’t empty and I found myself gazing at Sawyer and Taryn, locked in the kind of clinch that convinced me Taryn’s baby would probably sport Sawyer’s strong nose and high forehead. I took a surreptitious step backward, planning to ease myself out of the room before they came up for air, but halted when I caught sight of another figure staring at the oblivious couple, his rage visible even across the shadowy room. Leon Hall.
“Taryn Adrienne Hall!” he bellowed, charging toward the couple, who split apart guiltily. “Why are you kissing that… that poofter?”