Ms. Taken Identity (11 page)

My mom calls in the afternoon to apologize again and make sure I’m okay and ask me if there’s anything else she can explain.
I tell her not to worry about it. I’m fine. I understand. I get it. She doesn’t need to keep beating herself up over it. Then
my phone rings five minutes later and I think it’s her, calling to beat herself up over it again. But it’s not; it’s Marie.

“Hey there,” I say, flushed with panic, afraid I’m on speaker phone and Bradley is standing right next to me. Only my cell
doesn’t have speakerphone and Bradley is at Skyler’s.

“I hope this is okay, just calling you up out of the blue.”

“Yeah, absolutely. Call anytime. So what’s up?”

“Actually, I was thinking about your dance shoes. I forgot to tell you yesterday that it’d probably be a good idea to break
them in before tomorrow night. Take it from a woman, a new pair of shoes can kill.”

I’d like to ask her how, exactly, they can kill, especially a pair of Betsey Johnson Aries bronze peep-toe platforms, since
that’s what my heroine just bought. I refrain. Instead I ask a better question. “What’s the best way to break them in?” Duh.
How about put them on and wear them around the apartment?

“Well, you may just want to put them on and wear them around your place. Do some light dancing. In fact…” she seems to be
thinking on the fly, “if you want to, we could meet up tomorrow before the lesson, go over some moves from last week, get
you used to the feel.”

“Yeah, I’d like that. What time?”

“Say… seven?”

I run the bus schedule through my head, for the trip that way, and I think I’ve got enough of a grip on it to know it’ll work.
“Sounds great.”

And then, because Bradley’s not around and not going to be, I stroll to my bedroom, lace up my new shoes, and salsa a good
part of the afternoon away.

M
y comp class on Monday is normal, just like they’ve all been for the past week. For some reason, I figured after Molly visited
my office and got my number, things would get weird. Like she’d sit in class and pull out her black book and thumb through
it, pretend to dial a phone, chat with me, mouth all sorts of distracting things. Instead, she wears her T-shirts and speaks
her mind and gives me fits and does great work. We’re in a bit of a rut, if you want the truth, but it could be worse.

I leave for the studio after dinner and, as it turns out, I do
not
have enough of a grip on the bus schedule running that way: I miss a connector and wind up there at 7:45, forty-five minutes
late. But Marie shrugs it off and we still manage to find a corner of the floor not being used by the fox trot crowd. We work
on the underarm turn and hammerlock, and I do feel the difference being in dance shoes. I’m more in contact with the floor,
and the spins and turns flow more freely, and we have such a good connection during this warm-up time that once the real lesson
starts, we stick together and don’t change partners, which technically isn’t forbidden—Steve and Jennifer do it—but draws
the ire of the group in the form of boos and catcalls, especially from Rosie. Even Adonis seems to notice, and when the lesson
is over, he calls us over, presumably to have us scrub the floors or write five hundred times on the blackboard, “We will
learn to play with others.” But that’s not the reason at all. Instead, he tells us that he had his eye on us all evening,
and we looked great and have a ton of potential, and he wants us to be in the Showcase in November.

“The what?” I ask.

“The Showcase. Basically it’s a big dance party for all the students, but before the party starts, we have a few couples demonstrate
certain dances. The two of you really have the salsa down, and I thought it’d be a great chance to show off your stuff.”

“Wow,” I say. “So this would be dancing in front of… people?”

“Just other students from the various classes. It’s a friendly crowd. No judges, no rotten tomatoes, no trophies. I promise.”
He pauses. “Of course, you don’t have to decide now.”

Good. Because that’s what I’ll need: time. Which is what I’m sure Marie would like too.

“I’m in,” she says.

What
is
it with this woman? No asking questions, no hedging, no wanting to look at things from a hundred different angles. No wonder
she just picked up and moved from North Carolina.

I should just say
no
. I don’t have the time. I’m teaching. I’m scribbling away at my chick-lit novel every opportunity I get. I haven’t cracked
a book for my dissertation in two weeks. I’ll have to keep up this whole Clark Kent secret identity gig for so much longer.
Besides, it’s dancing.

“Fine. Yeah. Sure.”

Marie is pleased, Adonis more so, and he says he’ll do everything he can to help us work on a routine, including putting in
extra time before or after lessons, whatever works with our schedules. This is exactly what I’ll need, plenty of extra time,
but I can see it also means more comings and goings at odd hours, more mishaps trying to figure out the bus schedule, more
looking like a bumbling, irresponsible idiot when I show up late. I need a more reliable means of transportation than a fleet
of Bi-State buses. In other words, I need a car.

I drove a beat-up Cutlass in high school and it got me where I needed to go: school, a few concerts, dates. I sold it when
I went off to Wisconsin for college and did like everyone else in Madison—got a bike. I haven’t owned a car since; my legs
or bike wheels or the bus or MetroLink or a girlfriend’s car or Bradley have always been just fine. But now I inhabit a different
world: I’m a Showcase dancer.

I go to the lease lot Tuesday morning and tell the guy I sell pharmaceutical products and need a car for a while and what
kind of car does he recommend. He shows me cars that are far too big and expensive, since, of course, he makes the mistake
of assuming I actually do sell pharmaceutical products and make that kind of money, as opposed to being a PhD candidate/writer/teacher
and making
that
kind of money. I look at the compacts, something that’s fuel efficient, but those seem tiny, so I finally settle on one that
isn’t the kind of car I’d always dreamed about when I dreamed of getting a car, but it has four wheels and it’ll do: a sandstone
metallic Chevy Malibu.

We talk terms of the lease and I’m a little thrown, since I don’t know how long I’ll need it. At least till the Showcase,
possibly longer, so I settle on a round number: three months. We do the insurance and paperwork, and I sign my name a hundred
times and I write a check and he gives me the key, and just like that I’m pulling out of the lot, drumming my fingers on the
steering wheel of my brand-new car.

I kick off Wednesday’s class with a freewrite, and here’s the way it works: a student brings in a prompt—a poem, a quote,
a picture, anything to set their minds abuzz—then they all scribble away till I call “time.” It’s more a stream-of-consciousness
sort of thing—no concerns about grammar or spelling or punctuation—and tends to jiggle the wires on the creative side of the
brain, which is good for them. This morning, a pimply- faced kid named Patrick uses his iPod and docking station to play the
Beatles’ “Yesterday.” It’s a good choice, I think, since who can’t come up with something after that melancholy melody and
those lyrics? They get busy in their notebooks, then I stop them when three minutes are up.

“I like that song,” pint-sized Jan says brightly, like she’s found a new friend. “Who sings it?”

Now, I have to remember that these kids have been weaned on the likes of Baby Boy Da Prince and Ludacris and Insane Clown
Posse, not acoustic ballads of the sixties by mop-topped Brits. Also, as their instructor, I am a font of equanimity, nonjudgment,
and encouragement, and to say anything that casts me otherwise would be a mistake. However, with her peers, she’s fair game.

“You gotta be kidding me,” snorts Pete, with a blend of disbelief and disgust I find just right. “Ever hear of a freaking
band called the Beatles?”

“Sure,” pint-sized Jan says, trying to shrug it off. “Just not that song.” But you can tell he’s gotten under her skin, rattled
her a bit, so she does what any female in the class would do backed into a similar corner: sends up a flare to Molly.

Molly heeds the call. “Hey, I agree with him. You probably should know that. Since I’m sure he knows everything about every
other classic song from
forty years ago
. Like who did, say, ‘The Ghetto.’”

Pete pretends to bite his nails, frightened kindergartener style, then elbows the guy next to him, like
Watch this
. He turns to Molly. “Sorry, didn’t quite hear you. Were you talking about ‘
In
the Ghetto’ by Elvis, or ‘The Ghetto, Part 1’ by Donny Hathaway?”

There’s something of a gasp from the class, since this is the first time all semester that anyone, including their instructor,
has been able to sting her. Even Molly looks a little dazed. But before she has a chance to gather her wits, get back on her
feet, and kick his ass into tomorrow—this is Molly we’re talking about: it’s only a matter of time—I ask for volunteers to
read their freewrite.

Patrick’s hand shoots up immediately, which is a bad sign, since it means he brought the song in for the specific purpose
of playing it, then talking about why he played it: in other words, he set us up. Unfortunately, he’s the only volunteer,
so I’m forced to give him the floor, which he uses to gloomily tell us that he’s been playing the song nonstop, since yesterday
all his troubles
did
seem so far away, but now it looks as though they’re here to stay, and of course it’s because of a girl: she cut him loose
and he can’t seem to get over it and at the moment he’s stuck. A chorus of sympathetic “
Aws
” rains down from the girls, and I can see, musically speaking, that we’re about to leave “Yesterday” behind and move on to
the Bee Gees’ “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?” Jangly braceleted Donna is chomping at the bit.

“What’s your favorite food?” she asks him.

“Pizza.”

“Then eat it whenever you want. With extra cheese. It’ll make you feel better.”

Pam: “And ice cream. Eat a
ton
of ice cream. Ice cream helps you get over anything.”

Estella: “Go shopping.”

Tory: “Hang out with friends.”

Cassandra: “Get a facial.”

The guy Pete elbowed earlier sits up. “What?”

“Don’t look at me like that. I read that Denzel gets one once a month. And no one better tell me that Denzel’s not fine.”

A guy named Lou starts to stir in the back. Lou wears a braided gold chain and sleeveless shirts that show off his muscles,
and with his sleazy good looks you get the feeling Lou might know a thing or two about messy breakups, especially causing
them.

“Look, Pat, all that eating and shopping and other crap may help you forget her for a while. But she left a hatchet in the
back of your head, man, and every time you lie in bed, you’re gonna feel it. You need to put yourself in a win-win situation.
Get over her or make her want you back.”

Lou has the attention of the entire class, and probably the entire universe, if they could hear him.

“How?” Patrick asks.

Lou considers this a long moment, like he’s a trained professional with vast experience, and this stunt should not be tried
at home. But he proceeds, with his voice lowered. “Go to where your ex hangs out, make sure all her friends are there, bring
another girl. Be laughing, happy, but don’t overdo it, almost like you’re embarrassed she noticed. Then scram, let gravity
take over. Her friends will close ranks around her, tell her she was right to dump you, that the girl you were with was nasty.
But the more they do it and harsher they are, the more she’ll get paranoid that they’re just saying those things to try to
protect her, since you looked happy, your date looked happy, and everyone knows it. She’ll start to question herself, replay
the whole relationship, ask herself if you were really that selfish or ugly or thoughtless or whatever the problem was. Maybe
your stock goes up. At best, she gets in touch, says she’d like to work things out. At worst, you’ve saved a little face,
proved to yourself life hasn’t stopped, gone out with another girl.”

“Just be sure she’s hotter than your ex,” Cal chimes in, who’s either aware of the technique or a very quick study. “That’ll
really make her feel like she lost out.”

I’m not sure if the hottie part was crucial to Jedi Master Lou’s plan, but he doesn’t object, so he must be okay with that.

All the students seem lost in their thoughts, imagining, I suppose, what it would be like to see an ex with another person,
and the ex was happy, and the other person was hotter than you, and you and your friends and everyone else in the room knew
it. Lou of the gold chain and muscle T-shirts could be on to something.

“So that’s what that was all about?” growls Cassandra. “My ex bringing that floozy around, parading her up and down, acting
like he’s never been happier in his life. He was just trying to mess with my head?”

“Maybe,” Lou says, poker-faced. Then he gives her an oily smile. “Or maybe he’s never been happier in his life and he thought
you might like to know.”

Cassandra shows Lou a fist. All the guys try not to laugh.

Glad to see I’m opening up the lines of communication between the sexes.

Fran breezes into Thursday’s lesson bearing gifts for me: scarf, hat, and a pair of gloves, all of which she’s knitted herself.
She wants me to be warm this winter. I let her know how much I appreciate it by putting everything on and dancing a few steps
with her and singing “Let It Snow,” which makes her laugh but makes everyone else ask what I’ve been drinking, since it’s
pushing ninety degrees outside, and the AC’s not cranking too well inside, and I’m dancing in wool. Rosie of
RosieTown
seizes on the general theme of the remarks—dancing, warm weather, drinking (but not so much wool)—to suggest a group trip
out to a winery in Augusta a week from Saturday night. Most of us say we’re in.