John Lutz - Dancing with the Dead

“You got it,” Helen said. “First thing’s to see what we can do with makeup so your black-and-blue marks don’t show too much tomorrow.”

“I think that’ll have to wait till morning, when we know how much the bruises have faded.”

Helen stood up, making the bed creak. “Okay, then let’s unpack and go downstairs and register, find out when we’re scheduled to compete.”

Mary removed her two dresses from the garment bag and hung them carefully in the closet.

“You got a couple of great outfits,” Helen said, holding up her own competition dresses on their hangers, a pink and white gown, for smooth dancing, a low-cut red dress for rhythm. She was apparently waiting for Mary’s comment. A little confidence boosting was in order here.

“You, too.” Mary actually thought the red dress was a bad choice; it would showcase Helen’s gelatinous upper arms.

“I got real long gloves to go with the Latin dress,” Helen said.

Mary hoped they were long enough. She hoisted her suitcase onto the bed and began unpacking.

When she unzipped her shoe bag and withdrew the new black Latin shoes, she saw that both heels had been reduced to stumps less than an inch long, their truncated ends shredded as if they’d been sawed or whittled with a dull knife.

Jake! Jake with a parting gesture of disdain, a final slash at hope before her flight took off.

Her stomach tightened and blood rushed from her face. For an instant she thought she might have to dash into the bathroom and vomit.

“Whazza matter, Mary?”

She held up the shoes.

“Oh, Christ!” Helen said. “Goddamn him!”

Mary sat slumped on the edge of the bed, suddenly very tired. Weary of fighting Jake and circumstances and the world. And herself.

“What now?” she heard herself ask. “What in God’s name am I gonna do now?”

Helen’s hand was on her shoulder. “I front you the money for a new pair, that’s all. It’s no major deal.”

Mary looked up at her. “It took me four months to find that pair, Helen. I’ve got feet like an extraterrestrial.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Helen said. “Probably the places you sent away to for shoes have all got booths downstairs. There’s supposed to be a whole room full of merchandise down there, every kinda dance paraphernalia you can imagine. That’s what Nick told me. I’m planning on looking for a different pair of shoes myself.”

Maybe Helen was right! Maybe it was possible to replace the black shoes. And if the new shoes weren’t perfect, the hell with it, she’d dance anyway. She wouldn’t let Jake do this to her. She was finished with that.

At least her stomach had calmed down; it wasn’t tightened and drawing her body forward like a tautly strung bow. No way to dance feeling like that. “Helen, it’s great of you-”

Helen waved a hand as if swirling water. “You’d do the same, blah, blah, blah. C’mon, Mary Mary, let’s head down to the lobby and find out where we register. Then we’ll hit the vendors’ room and romp through those acres of shoes Nick told me about.” She was already striding toward the door.

Mary left her suitcase and cosmetic kit on the bed and hurriedly followed. There’d be plenty of time to unpack later.

On the way out, she hurled the mangled dance shoes into the wastebasket by the desk, listened with satisfaction as they thunked against the metal bottom. There was a solid finality to the sound.

Jake! she thought. So long, Jake.

A pair of wide escalators serviced the Hyatt Regency’s ballroom on the third floor. They’d taken the elevator to lobby level. Now Mary stood behind Helen as they ascended. Behind them was a spacious atrium with encircling marble steps that also served as benches. A few people were sitting on the steps talking. A man with a ponytail was strumming a guitar so softly Mary couldn’t hear it.

Mary and Helen turned left at the top of the escalator and saw a carpeted area outside the ballroom doors where rows of dance supply vendors had set up tables or booths. There were racks of colorful feathered and sequined ball gowns; displays of gaudy costume jewelry to complement dance outfits; stacks of instructional VCR tapes; rows of tuxedos on hangers.

And tables lined with new dance shoes.

Mary immediately felt relieved. If Helen would lend her the money, finding replacement shoes here was certainly possible.

They told one of the women behind the registration table they were signed up for competition, and she located their information packets containing program books and tickets to the various events.

Mary and Helen immediately stepped aside and leafed through the program books. The pages were stiff and slick, and they crackled when they turned. Mary experienced a thrust of near panic when she saw her name printed among the contestants for the first dance in the Newcomer category, a cha-cha at ten the next morning.

“The lower categories like ours compete earliest each day,” Helen observed. “A fine way to lose your breakfast.”

“We compete nose to nose in three dances,” Helen said.

Mary said, “Good luck, but not too much of it.” Which was exactly how she felt about tomorrow.

Helen apparently understood and didn’t seem to mind the remark. Probably she felt the same way. They slipped their registration packets into their purses and returned to the vendors’ area.

More people were browsing among the merchandise, many of them wearing jackets or shirts that advertised dance studios from different parts of the country. A trim, blond couple was wearing matching sweatshirts that bore the logo of a studio in Britain. Off to the side, a woman in jeans and a man in a tuxedo were practicing a fox-trot step. An elderly woman had tried on a low-cut yellow gown and was twirling in front of a full-length mirror to see how the yards of pleated skirt material flowed.

“She couldn’t have worn that dress even twenty years ago,” Helen said.

Something made Mary stop and stand staring at the closed double doors to the Regency Ballroom. In every life were doors of critical importance; sometimes they were recognizable.

“Let’s peek,” Helen suggested, and led Mary to the doors.

She pushed one of them open and edged aside so Mary could see beyond her.

A cool draft eddied from the ballroom, and Mary was instantly struck with fear. In this place she was committed to something she yearned to do but that terrified her. The gleaming parquet floor was vast, surrounded by pink-clothed round tables. A mile away, toward the front of the ballroom, was a long dais where judges and various dignitaries of the dance world sat. On the right, a row of video cameras was being set up on tripods on a raised platform. There were more cameras on the balcony that ran along the left side of the ballroom. OHIO STAR BALL was spelled out with pink, white, and red balloons on the balcony facade; strands of tiny lights were wound among the balloons, illuminating them. Workmen were stringing cables. More were setting up balloon decorations that would form a soaring arch above the dance floor. Behind the judges’ dais was draped a massive purple curtain lettered OHIO STAR BALL in silver, with a glittering silver star for the “A” in “Star.” Tiny bright lights were strung down the curtain’s folds, like evenly spaced drops of water frozen and glimmering in suspension.

I don’t belong here, Mary thought, intimidated by the size and glitter of the ballroom. I’m not nearly good enough. She was furious with Mel and Huggins for suggesting she come here so she could make a fool of herself. Everything was larger and glitzier than she’d imagined. It was for the pros, the talented, not for a thirty-five-year-old closing woman from South St. Louis.

“We gonna be able to cut this?” Helen asked. Even she sounded uneasy.