Dancing to Nowhere

Carla sways her scrawny hips to the beat as she circles my living room. She announces, as she always does, she’s the best damn Latin dancer in our town.

She staggers as she cha-chas, spooking the cat and bumping into furniture. Every now and then she trips and tries to cover it up by yelling, “cha cha cha!” No one’s fooled.

Anyhow, my buds from work, Len and Ed, think this is hilarious. Ed’s girl Hilda, though—well, not so much. Len and I can’t make out why he keeps her around. No sense of humor, but at least she’s not a yapper. Not a smoker, either. She makes a big show of opening a window and sitting in front of it, gulping fresh air.

I wonder if the neighbors care about the music and the rowdiness and the cha-cha-ing. They’ve warned me about the noise levels before. Still, I hate to cut off Hilda’s oxygen supply, so I leave her alone and keep on drinking beer.

It occurs to me there‘s a bottle of vodka at the back of the freezer. I hid it there last week when Pops was visiting. Didn’t want the old man to have to face down his demons. I go and ferret it out, find some semi-clean glasses, and pour out six shots. One for each person present and a spare in honor of Pops. Which I down right before I kick back my own. What the hell, it’s my vodka.

One conversational bit leads to another, and eventually, we’re talking about drinking.

“How much is heavy? Who here’s an alcoholic?” I’m just shooting the shit. We’re all party-drinkers, able to tank up to the max on weekends but sober enough by Monday morning to make it in to work.

 “Ed’s an alky. For sure.” Len delivers this verdict in the voice of a wise old cartoon owl. He spoils the effect by slurring his words.

“No way, man. It’s you, asshole.” Ed points his stubby index finger in Len’s face. Len goes cross-eyed.

 I sit there laughing and knocking back more vodka; at least I can handle the stuff. I toast Carla as she cha-chas by, smacking into the coffee table as she goes. That girl’s in for some heavy bruising tomorrow, on top of a massive hangover.

I waggle the bottle at her and she lurches over. She can’t figure out which shot glass is hers so she wipes an unclaimed one on her butt and holds it out for me to fill. I don’t spill a drop as I pour, my hand as rock solid as a champion house-of-cards builder. Maybe I should take that up as a hobby, I think. I don’t want to waste a God-given talent like I’ve done often enough in the past.

Carla gulps her shot like a guy, sending it straight down her throat in one smooth move.  “Cha-cha-cha!” she yells, sealing the deal with the inevitable stumble. I stabilize her, then light up her smoke. Hilda glares at us and sticks her nose closer to the window screen. And Ed and Len are still arguing. “You’re the alky”—“no, it’s you,” and so forth.

After she stubs out her cigarette, Carla starts dancing again. She doesn’t see my battered leather ottoman in her path and down she goes. Her long, bleached hair pools on the floor, hiding her face, and her blue-jeaned ass sticks up in the air. I can see the top of a black thong, and above that a slice of tattoo. It looks like the top half of a fairy or maybe a hummingbird. I can make out wings but the rest is covered by cloth. I wonder when she got inked and what the design means to her.

Nobody goes to help her up. After a couple of beats, she raises her head, yellow hair flopping over her shoulders as she rises. She’s fine by the looks of things, but she has a dark expression on her face, high cheekbones jutting out over pursed lips.

Oh, oh, I think. Carla laughing and dancing dead drunk is A-OK with me. Carla serious and preachy is not. I’ve known her my whole life and recognize the signs.

“You guys talk about too much boozin’ like it’s some joke”, Carla says to us.  “’s not funny. Look at yourselves. All messy and slurry.”

“Hey, not true.” I hold out my house-of-cards building hands. They’re gunslinger steady.

“Well, not everyone here. Hilda’s fine. But Len and Ed? Seen ̓em drunk at work on the line, even. And check ̉em out tonight: they’re loaded.”

“And you’re not?” Len asks. “You just fell ass over teakettle, sweetheart. You’re the embarrassment.” His s’s come out sh’s.

“Yeah, Carla.” Ed leaps into the fray. “You’re the alky. And your dancing stinks, by the way.”

Now he’s done it. We can criticize Carla for many things. She knows she’s not as pretty as Hilda. She’s not as smart as me. But she sure is damn proud of her Latin moves.

She walks to the old hi-fi in the corner and turns it off. Her head is high and her steps are all hoity-toity as she returns to the ottoman and sits on it as snooty as if it’s a goddam throne and she’s the cha-cha queen.

My chest is tight. I realize I’m holding my breath and make myself exhale. Carla trains steely eyes on me. Here it comes.

“You’re the one who should be ashamed,” she says to me. “You killed my dreams.”  She gets up and marches over, grapples the vodka out of my hand, and without even reaching for a glass upends the bottle and takes a few heavy swigs. Somehow she does this looking dignified and stern. I shrink back.

“Now, Carla,” I start, but she cuts me off.

“Don’t you ‘now, Carla’ me, buckaroo. We were shoo-ins for city finals. Best novice dancers of the bunch. And then you went and quit.” She glares icepicks at me.

It’s dead quiet. Ed and Len are staring at me with bugged-out eyes. Even Hilda has turned away from sucking in fresh air at the window to study me. Carla hoovers the last drops of vodka from the fifth and tosses it across the room. It lands on some cushions. Too bad. I could have used the distractions of shattered glass and sweeping up right about now.

Finally, Len clears his throat. “You were saying, Carla? Our friend here was a champion dancer?” He smirks like he’s my cat and I’m a canary.

Carla looks at me. I can almost see the wheels turning in that tightly coiled brain of hers. Don’t do it, girl. Then she grins, flaunting her dental work, and sucker-punches me on my shoulder. Through the haze of alcohol, I feel the sharp edge of pain.

“Nah. This guy? Two left feet, if he ever hit the dance floor at all. I was pulling your legs.” She walks over to the bar fridge and grabs one of my last beers. Then she does that trick of hers, the one that involves popping the cap using her teeth. No wonder she’s had a few replaced.

“Yeah, I’m no dancer. Football for me, all the way.” I start to clear up some of the bottles. It’s freaking two in the morning and I want to call it a night. If these numbskulls don’t catch on, I’ll announce the bar’s closed and kick them out.

The situation is saved by Hilda, of all unlikely candidates. She comes up to Ed and yanks him to his feet. She hardly even reaches his chest but she goes on tippy-toes to nuzzle him. I think she whispers something in his ear. He blushes and turns to leave.

“Gotta go. Hilda’s tired.” He reels as he walks toward the door.

“You’re not driving now, are you, Ed?” Leave it to sloppy drunk Carla to be the booze police.

“Nah, Hilda’s in charge. Dropping off Len first, too. Aren’t you, hon?”

Hilda holds up car keys, flaunting flamingo-pink nails. She slithers the other arm through the crook of Ed’s elbow. They leave, followed by Len, unsteady on his feet.

Carla stands in the middle of the room, head bowed. She dangles her half empty beer bottle between thumb and index finger. I walk over and take it from her, and drain what’s left.

“Great way to wreck an evening, Carla.”

“Sorry.” She’s still looking at the floor. I can’t tell if she’s sincere.

“You promised never to bring up the dancing thing. I had to tackle a lot of two hundred pounders before guys stopped harassing me.”

“I know.” She uses a tiny voice. It shakes, but she turns her back on me and I can’t tell for sure but I think she’s crying. Ah, shit. I didn’t mean to do that.

Carla goes to the stereo and switches it on. The music is sultry. A rumba, I think. She doesn’t react to the beat. She just stands there, facing away from me. Her shoulders are skinny and she looks like a little kid. Like the kid who was my dance partner all those years ago. Before I quit, wanting to get the hell away from Mrs. Mervin’s Dance Studio and the abuse I got for it at school. Right before the city championships.

I walk up behind her. I touch her shoulders and she turns and enters the circle of my arms. Her eyes are moist but she smiles as we begin to move to the rhythm, our feet stepping to the beat, hips swaying slightly after. It’s like we’ve never stopped being partners, that’s how natural it feels. Except I never knew just how damn sexy this dance is. Likely, at twelve, I was clueless about stuff like that.

“You always had the moves, Carla.” I’m not lying. She’s melding herself to my body and mirroring everything I do.

“Thanks.”

“I wish you hadn’t quit just because I did.” It had always made me feel lousy. Maybe I didn’t want to sashay around Mrs. Mervin’s stupid studio every week in polished shoes, but I never meant for Carla to stop going. She loved dancing more than anything in the world. She always said it was going to be her ticket out. Far away from a home that left marks on her body and who knows what else locked inside her soul.

“It’s okay. Long time ago. Water under the bridge.” She’s using her tiny voice again.

“Yeah.” We’re silent for several bars, allowing our bodies to follow the beat.

“And we’ve done okay.” I put a finger under her chin and tip it back so I can see her face. It’s blank for a moment, and then it crumples.

 “We were the best,” she says. “And then we were nothing.” She sniffs as she sobs.  “We’re always going to be nothing.”

I try to find words to comfort her but none come. Instead, I hold her tight as we execute circuits, watched by my cat, our only audience in this shabby room. We dance past the worn-out furniture, bypassing the sticky spots from spilled liquor, our posture perfect, our steps smooth.