Ms. Taken Identity (8 page)

“So did you have fun?” she asks.

It must be obvious I’m the rookie, since everyone else is doing what she’s doing—changing into street shoes—and I’m the only
one with a free hand to pick my nose, if I wanted. I think of my haul of treasures.

“I did. Though I don’t think I have it perfected, so I’ll probably have to come again.”

“Ah. Slow learner, then.” Her hair is cocoa brown and thick and pulled back in a ponytail, and she has eyes that remind me
of honey, with that translucent quality. I’m trying to remember if I danced with her; you’d think I’d remember eyes like that.

“I don’t know if anyone mentioned this,” she goes on, “but there’s a bar across the street with a dance floor. A few of us
are heading over there for drinks and to work on our moves. Feel free to join us.”

I figure she must be joking, because it’s such a preposterous notion, more dancing after the dance lesson, like now that you’ve
stabbed yourself in the neck, do you want to chop your hand off? But her face is so open and honest, I can see it’s no joke.
I think about it: I could go and get more useful information, but if Fran comes along and says another word about her cats,
or Rosie does one of her
vavooms!
, I might just strangle one of them, and they’d haul me off to jail, and that would blow my cover.

“Thanks,” I say, making it clear I could go either way.

She packs her dance shoes in a gym bag and stands. She’s taller than I would’ve imagined, sitting there. I stand too.

“Well, if you don’t make it to the bar, I’ll see you next time,” she says pleasantly. She offers her hand. “I’m Marie.”

I take her hand in mine, and shockingly, it’s normal human skin, and we shake, and she stares at me, and I realize the reason
she’s staring at me is that instead of giving her my name, which Miss Manners would advise you to do in such situations, I’ve
allowed my jaw to drop.

“Oh, sorry,” I say. “I’m, uh, Jason.”

Thus do I make the acquaintance of Bradley Colson’s sister.

The place we go to turns out to be one of those sports bars with a hundred TVs, all tuned in to
Monday Night Football
, but they do have a decent dance floor tucked in the back, and that’s where we set up. They’re not playing the type of music
we heard in class—this is U2 and Donna Summer and something called Fall Out Boy—but word is you can still find the right beat
in any of this, if you listen. Thus, “She Works Hard for the Money” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” are salsas.
Who knew? Rosie did, and she’s more than thrilled to demonstrate, along with cologne-happy Dave and his goatee.

I’m glad Bradley hasn’t told me much about Marie, because this gives us a chance to have a real conversation, without my having
to play stupid. Yes, I know she’s a stylist and that she used to live in North Carolina, but when I find out she and Rosie
went to high school together and are best friends, and Rosie is also a stylist, and Marie works in Rosie’s shop, it’s all
news to me. (And gratifying news, since it means my hairstylist radar wasn’t completely off-kilter when it blipped at Rosie.)
For my part, I recycle the pharmaceutical rep line, since Steve and Jennifer are sitting right next to me and I more or less
have to, but I don’t embellish, don’t give her the drug name, don’t tell her I’m the number one salesman in my region or anything
like that, since this isn’t Katharine Longwell at Starbucks and I’m not interested in making her look like a fool.

We dance and drink and talk about topics such as cooking (Marie loves to cook), desserts (Rosie loves to eat), and weddings
(Steve and Jennifer’s favorite topic), but we also get around to other things, like our worst first dates (Dave had a girl
throw up into the glove box of his Camaro), or if a celebrity has ever had a baby and named it something like John or Helen
instead of Suri or Apple or Papaya, or whether it’s actually more ballsy to be under thirty and female and
not
have a tattoo, especially in the small of your back (Rosie and “I-used-to-have-a-lisp-but-now-I’m-a-speech-pathologist” Gina
have them; Jennifer and Marie, no). I also find out that Fran (who didn’t come) is the mother hen of the group and a maven
for crafts, so if she likes me, she’ll be bringing me a gift one of these days.

It’s all fun and entertaining and light, and even Jason manages to get caught up in the spirit and say things that aren’t
sharp or pointed or condescending, which means Mitch is content to observe, soak in useful information for the novel, and
relax. Only once does he jump into the fray, for the sole purpose of soliciting information—in other words, to be a spoilsport—but
it leads to the most interesting exchange of the evening.

We’re talking about hair, more specifically haircuts, and Mitch perks up.

“Do men come into your salon?” he asks Marie.

“All the time.”

“And what about the charge: is it the same for men and women?” I go to one of those chain places where it’s the same price
for everyone—twelve bucks—but the characters in my book would never set foot in such a place. I need to get my facts straight.

“Usually,” she says. “But the price isn’t based on gender. It’s based on hair length, and the time it takes to cut and style
it.”

“So if I come in, you’d charge me less than him.” I nod to a guy with a ponytail, who, truth be told, probably isn’t the sort
who’d go to a salon in the first place.

“Right. But if you came in, I probably wouldn’t cut yours.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“You don’t need it.”

I lean on my elbow. “Wait, so you’re telling me you’d pass up a sale? Aren’t you afraid you’d tick me off?”

She shrugs. “I’d try to be nice about it and tell you your hair’s short enough. Maybe we could do a little styling, add some
product, but not a cut.”

I take the hard line. “Not good enough. I’ve come for a haircut, I’ve decided it’s got to go. Here’s my cash, now cut my hair.”

She traces a line of condensation on the side of her glass with her French-manicured nails, which I take for stalling. “Then
I guess I’d have to tell you the real reason.” She clears her throat. “I’d say, ‘Customer Jason, you have a handsome face
with very strong features. Short hair makes them jump out a little. With longer hair you get a little movement, and it would
make you look even more handsome.’” She goes back to fingering her glass. “That’s what I’d say.”

“To ‘Customer Jason.’”

“To ‘Customer Jason.’”

She buries her head in her drink and takes a long sip, but I think she’s beginning to blush. As, I think, am I.

We leave around eleven and troop back across the street to the studio parking lot. There’s a bit of an awkward moment when
I tell them I took the bus, since I don’t have a car, then I realize my gaffe—a pharmaceutical rep without a car?—and quickly
explain that I don’t have a car
tonight
because I don’t like to drive when I don’t have to, since I drive so much for my job. Get it? They seem to.

At home I make a transcript of the evening, write down what people said and wore and looked like, and when I see it on paper,
the whole lot of them—Jason included—seems like a gaggle of idiots. Like the characters I created last week. But it didn’t
seem so kooky when I was there. I…
enjoyed
it. Which leads me to believe that possibly,
maybe
, my characters and I got off on the wrong foot when they showed up in their Versace and Max Mara and Chloé, and started bragging
about their brooches and bubble skirts and booty calls, and I told them all to go to hell (or Barneys). Perhaps I played Mr.
Darcy to their Elizabeth Bennet, and we all rushed to hasty judgment. Now, I believe, we all have a better understanding of
each other. We may not read the same books or watch the same movies or apply the same brand of age-defying anti-wrinkle serum,
but we’re still human. We all bleed if you cut us.

Rosie’s the ringleader of the group, the engine that makes it go. If the studio and its inhabitants were a half-hour sitcom,
it’d be called
RosieTown
and she’d be the star: Rosie learns to surf; Rosie meets the Prez; Rosie wears a puffy shirt. But the one I keep coming back
to is Marie. She’s quieter, less flashy, cute in an Anne Hathaway-ish sort of way—I can say that about Bradley’s sister, right?—but
she’s no pushover, the kind who’d tell you that you had a piece of spinach caught between your teeth, not to embarrass you
or make you feel stupid, but so you wouldn’t feel stupid later when you got home and looked in the mirror and realized it
had been there all night. I get the feeling if she took a little time and did herself up, she could be the sort who just might
catch your eye. That is, if you’re the type of gent who doesn’t mind having a beauty school graduate hanging on your arm.

And maybe it’s this combination of factors—reflecting fondly on my stint in
RosieTown
, thinking about Marie, not being such a bully toward my previously mannequin-like characters—that leads to a breakthrough
with the writing. (This, and an excellent
Oprah
episode with Mr.
He’s Just Not That into You
himself, Greg Behrendt.) I spend Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday going at it, and with such fervor that I catch myself
glancing at the clock, startled by how much time has passed, and frightened that I’ve forgotten someone else at the airport.
But I haven’t. In fact, I have no obligations except for my comp class on Wednesday, which I skate through as fast as I can,
and I’ve begged off doing anything with Bradley, so that by Thursday evening I’m feeling good. I have a plot: a down-and-out
second-tier model (pajamas and jeans for Target and K-Mart—the Marie type) gets discovered by a bigwig, then—
poof
—instant makeover, and she’s off to Monte Carlo with her wacky group of friends, led by a Rosie-type, where it’s fast cars
and yachts and all sorts of superhunks and paparazzi chasing after her, and tons of exotic food and sex. I have an outline:
sixty pages and counting, complete with beginning, middle, and end, and ideas for dozens of scenes. And I have another date
at the studio. And that’s where I’m getting ready to go when the phone rings. It’s Scott. He’s shaken and out of breath.

“Dad had a heart attack.”

“
What?
When?”

“This afternoon. He was out at the course and having chest pains and blacking out and they called the ambulance and got him
to the hospital. He just got out of surgery. Emergency bypass.”

“And…?”

“It went fine, thank god, as far as they can tell. But he’s still unconscious and in intensive care. I’m on my way there now.”

I don’t say anything.

“Mitch, are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“Do you want to know what hospital?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Jesus. You’re not even coming, are you?”

“You said he was in intensive care. He’s unconscious. What can I do?”

“You can come out. You can give some support to Leah and the kids. He might even come around tonight.” His voice is much louder
than it needs to be.

“What, and see my face hovering over his sickbed? You want him to have another heart attack?”

There’s sputtering on the other end, just a collection of sounds and half words, and none of it English, till he finds what
he wants to say. “You are fucking unbelievable.”

My brother doesn’t often curse; this one got him.

“You handle it your way, I’ll handle it mine,” I tell him.

But I do get the name of the hospital, just to humor him.

T
he crowd at the studio hasn’t changed from Monday night, but I have. I’m official now, legit, one of the group. I’ve been
in the trenches with these people, sweating, swiveling my hips, counting it off—quick/quick/-s-l-o-w, quick/quick/-s-l-o-w—distributing
my weight on the syncopated beat, providing a lead that’s not too rigid, not too noodly, and minding all the other nuances
of chin placement and shoulder squareness and toe pointing, and they see it and appreciate it. Plus, I’ve harmonized portions
of “Come on Eileen” into a beer bottle microphone with them. I’m in.

We review the basics from Monday night, and they all come back with surprising ease, then we move on to more complicated steps
and holds and turns. I get these, too, at least the stepping and holding part, but there’s a problem with the new turns; they’re
sharper, quicker, and my rubber-soled tennis shoes keep sticking to the floor when I try to spin or pivot. Not only does this
have a tendency to throw my timing off (timing, for all you non-dancers out there, is what dancing’s all about: even if you
know nothing about dance, you can still look at a guy and say, “This guy’s got it,” or “What a clown”), but it also creates
a high-pitched squealing noise that would be commendable at varsity basketball practice (“Way to hustle, son”), but here gets
me looks. I do my best to smile and shrug, but I can tell I’m in danger of earning a nickname like Squeaky or Screech or Chirpy.

After the lesson, when everyone else is sitting on chairs changing their shoes and I’m sitting on a chair not changing my
shoes, Marie addresses the problem straight on.

“If you’re going to stay with this, you need a pair of these.” She holds up her shoes. “You’ll spin and turn a whole lot better,
plus no racket.”

To my eye, they’re black leather sneakers. Mine are off-white. “What’s so different about them?” I’m not in the business of
spending money just to spend it.

She tosses me one. “Turn it over.”

I do. The sole is soft and fuzzy, almost like suede.

“That’s why we don’t wear them into class. They’d get chewed up on the pavement.”

Ah, so that little foo-foo habit of changing their shoes that was starting to get on my nerves—
Look, I’m a dancer! I’m changing my shoes!
—actually has a reason.

“Just make sure you get practice shoes, not performance shoes,” she cautions. “They’ll wear better and last longer. And watch
out for the heel. You want flat soles.”

“Get the ones that lace up with both Velcro and shoelaces,” offers Gina, enunciating her
s
sounds with particular precision. “You can control the tightness better. And they’re unisex, so don’t be embarrassed about
that.”