When the cake dishes were taken away, the dancing began. The live band wasn't bad, but they weren't all that great either. They played mellow wedding reception classics while Celia and Greg did the traditional first dance as a married couple, as Celia and her dad danced, and as Celia and her brother danced. Finally, open dancing began and the band started to play faster tunes with more of a beat to them. The couples flooded out onto the dance floor one by one until it was crowded with well dressed bodies.
"C'mon, babe," Jake said, standing and taking Helen's hand. "Let's do it."
Helen wasn't the best dancer Jake had ever shaken his booty with. In fact, she was one of the worst. She liked music and liked physical activity but did not seem to possess much of a sense of rhythm. And, since she knew she wasn't good at it, she always felt like people were watching her, which tended to make her restrict her moves to the point where she was almost standing still, her feet never leaving the floor. This, of course, ended up attracting more attention than if she'd just let it all hang out.
"Oh... Jake," she said. "You know I hate dancing."
"The only way to get better is to keep practicing," he told her, tugging on her hand again. "I told you, just dance like no one is watching."
She refused to get up. "Not in these heels," she said firmly. "And not with a freakin' photographer from People magazine floating around."
Jake knew she was not going to give in. She had her stubborn expression on her face. The best he could hope for here was a compromise. "Okay," he said, acquiescing, "but will you at least dance the slow ones with me?"
"Jake, these heels and this dress..."
"You don't have a hair on your ass if you don't," he told her.
It was an insult she couldn't abide. "Okay," she said. "The slow dances only. Are you happy?"
"Ecstatic," he told her. He turned to Celia's fifteen-year-old cousin who was sitting next to Helen. "Come on, Margarita," he said, holding out his hand to her. "You're not afraid to be seen with me, are you?"
She looked at the hand, her eyes wide. Finally, she said, "No way, Jake. Let's go!" She took his hand and he led her out onto the crowded floor where they twisted and turned to the beat of Simply Irresistible and then Shakin' It Loose Tonight.
Once he was seen dancing with one Valdez female, the floodgates opened and a constant stream of them approached him on each subsequent song. He danced with Celia's sister, her aunt, her mother (who had moves that her younger relatives could only stand in awe of), and more cousins than he could count. Fortunately, he had recently come off tour and was still used to jumping around for more than an hour at a time without rest. He did not get winded but he did start to sweat pretty good after the first thirty minutes. By the time the first slow dance started up and Helen took her place on the floor with him, his undershirt was damp and he had discarded the overcoat and the bow tie.
"You're quite the hit with Celia's family," Helen told him as they moved slowly to the beat of the wedding band's version of How Am I Supposed To Live Without You? "I haven't seen nearly as many of them dancing with Greg or with Michael Stinson."
"I have international appeal," Jake told her, leaning in and giving her a brief kiss on the lips.
"I think you're gonna have a lot of Venezuelan females putting their hands in their panties tonight while they imagine your sweaty body against them."
"Any American females?" he asked innocently, earning a knee into his lower leg.
As soon as the slow song ended, the band launched into a particularly fast number that Jake knew well. It was one of his songs: Living By The Law from the first Intemperance album. It was strangely ironic that Jake himself would be in breach of contract if he were to perform the song for this crowd but that the marginal wedding band could do it with impunity.
"I am so out of here," Helen said as she heard the opening riff.
"Chicken," Jake called after her as she fled.
Helen was quickly replaced by another Valdez. This time it was Celia herself.
"My cousins have all been bragging about you," she told him. "So let's see what you got."
He smiled at her. "At least I'm familiar with the beat for this one."
Even in a bulky wedding gown and with awkward heels on her feet, Celia was an incredible dancer. She moved her body in exacting tempo with the rhythm of the song, all the while managing to keep the swell of her breasts exactly six inches from Jake's chest. The two of them touched hands a few times, shaking their butts, moving their feet, moving back and forth without ever running into another set of dancers. During the guitar solo (which the wedding band guitar player absolutely mangled — Matt might very well have kicked his ass had he been there to hear it), they turned away from each other, their backs together, their hands touching in the air above their heads while their hips shook in unison. This delighted the other dancers who saw them and they broke into spontaneous applause when the move concluded. The two singers turned back around to face each other and did a few more moves, including a spin and then a double reverse spin just as the final crescendo of the song began. When it was over they shared a brief hug.
"That was great, Jake," Celia squealed as they made their way off the floor.
"You weren't too bad yourself," he replied.
"My turn! My turn!" yelled one of the Valdez cousins, this one a sixteen year old who was very well developed for her age and who was wearing a dress that The Vatican probably wouldn't have approved of.
"Hon," Jake told her wearily, "I gotta rest for a few minutes. I promise you'll be next."
"Awww," she complained. "No fair!"
"Life isn't fair, Anna," Celia said to her. "Hasn't anyone told you that yet?"
Anna responded in Spanish. Celia looked shocked at what she said but got over it quickly and giggled. "No," she said, and then followed it up with an extended burst of rapid fire Spanish of her own. Anna giggled back, told Jake she would see him later, and then wandered off.
"What was that all about?" Jake asked.
"She asked me if I'd ever seen you naked."
"She did not," Jake said.
"She did," Celia insisted. "I told her 'no, I never have'."
"Uh huh. 'No, I never have' is four words. You said at least twenty back to her."
"Sometimes it takes more words to get across a simple concept in Spanish," Celia said.
"You're a horrible liar," he told her. "Give it up. What did you say?"
"Just what I said," Celia told him, smiling.
"I'll ask her," Jake said. "And you know she'll tell me. No teenage girl can resist my charms."
Celia blushed a little. "Okay," she said. "I told her, 'no, I have not, but if I wasn't married and he wasn't with Helen, that might've changed after that dance you just gave me'."
Jake laughed. "My my, Celia," he said. "It seems you're not the innocent little virgin the press likes to portray you as."
"I guess not," she said, giggling again. "Come on. Let's go get a drink. I think it's time I started tying one on."
Jake danced two more times with Helen, at least ten more times with various Valdez women (including Anna, who not-so-subtly suggested that she would be willing to slip away into a dark storage room with him somewhere), but no more with Celia. True to her word, Celia began pounding down Long Island iced teas like prohibition was going to be reinstated in the morning and was soon a giggling, happy drunk. She hugged anyone who walked within five feet of her, including one of the People magazine photographers.
At last, the final stage of the reception came. The happy couple was pelted with rice as they emerged from the reception hall. They climbed into the back of a limousine that had been decorated with Just Married signs and had cans tied to the back bumper. They were not going far, just to the other side of the resort where the honeymoon suite had been reserved for them. Early the next morning they were flying out of Logan to Zurich, where they would start a two-week tour of Scandinavia.