Romance: Dance with Me (California Belly Dance Romance Book 2) (21 page)

Melanie crossed the floor and wondered what was on that sheet to indicate she knew Taz. Had he left a note? Was she already doomed?

She didn’t have time to worry about that, though, because when she opened the door to the check-in room, she got her first look at the competition. She’d expected dozens, but there had to be more than a hundred women in there. Tribal dancers, cabaret dancers, fusion dancers—even goth dancers.

A young man with platinum, spiked hair and a lanyard around his neck sat behind a folding table. In front of him was a line at least twenty dancers deep. She stepped behind the last one.

A half hour later, when she reached the front, she gave him her name and he found her on his check-in sheet.

She watched his expression. There it was. A slight downturn of his lips. Was it surprise or disapproval? She couldn’t tell.

“Why do people keep doing that?”

He looked up. “Doing what?”

“Why do you all look so surprised when you see my name on the sheet? What’s it say there?”

He leaned forward and rested his arms on the sheet, covering what little she could see. “I don’t know what you mean, but if you’ll just pin this to your shirt.” He slid over a laminated card with the number 124.

She glanced back. There was no one behind her and no one within earshot. As she leaned forward to pick it up, she asked, “Is Taz Roman around?”

The guy’s expression contorted. “I doubt it. You know he’s not going to be with the tour this year, right?”

It was like the ground gave out beneath her.

“Why not?”

The guy shrugged. “I couldn’t say,” he said, though he looked like he knew more. “If you’ll have a seat, we’ll call your number when it’s your turn. I suggest you get comfortable. It’s going to be awhile.”

She grabbed her dance bag and turned toward the mass of folding chairs and bodies in various stages of warm-up, chill-out, and deep concentration. Finally, she was here. She was in. No more drama or obstacles.

She should have felt excited or at least relieved. So why did she feel so miserable?

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44

Melanie rushed to the bathroom, overcome by nausea. It all made sense now. Everything Gina had said, the reason Taz hadn’t called her back. The bloggers were right. This was all her fault. Melanie had done this, with that one stupid and spiteful remark.

How could she have believed he would quit? Of course he wouldn’t. He loved the show. He lived for it. And she’d gotten him fired.

The sick feeling subsided. She wrapped her arms around her middle and tried to make sense of what she’d heard. She was stunned by what it all meant.

She swiped at a runaway tear, and her arm brushed the number pinned to her chest. She pressed it to her skin. The reminder why she was here. The reminder it was all she had left.

She had to pull herself together. No matter what it took, she had to make it through the next couple hours.

It took every ounce of determination she possessed not to run out of the building, but finally she was standing in the wings, watching number 123 perform on the stage. The dancer was pure Egyptian cabaret with a strong ballet flair. Pointe shoes, pirouettes, the whole shebang. It looked great.

Melanie found herself enjoying the show before she remembered this was a competition. The woman wasn’t that great, Melanie told herself. And what had Taz told her? Garrett preferred more belly than ballet in his dancers. It gave her hope.

The dancer’s music was beginning to wind down when a shout came from the audience seats.

“Thank you,” the voice hollered abruptly. “We’ll be in touch.”

All the stage makeup, all that glitter and poise, none of it hid the woman’s disappointment. She moved quickly offstage, and Melanie could feel the heartbreak as the woman breezed by.

Her heart went out to her, but it gave her courage, too. There was still a chance for her. She repeated it over and over in her mind.

A thin woman in skinny jeans and a clipboard took the stage. Into her headset microphone, she said, “Next up is Melanie Drake.”

She pointed to a man in the orchestra pit operating a panel of controls. He turned a knob, pressed a lever, and Melanie’s music began.

Fear and excitement traveled through her with the rhythm. This was it.

After two deep breaths, she smiled and stepped out of the wings, slinking, swaying, and letting the music lead her. Trying to forget that the rest of her life depended on the next three minutes.

She concentrated on the music, forcing herself to follow it instead of anticipating it, but then the music was its own reminder. Every drum beat a reminder of him.

Don’t think about that now!

Her fake smile faltered. She’d been so sure she would see him today, so sure what had gone wrong could be made right again.

She stretched her smile. She had to focus.

The truth was, she was nervous about seeing him, but knowing she might never see him again was so much worse.

To know that it was because of her, because of her idiocy, it was almost too much to bear.

She stumbled a step and tried to recover.

“Sorry,” she said aloud, as if that mattered.

Focus!

She couldn’t help but think
he
should be here. He loved this show. He loved this world and the music.

But so did she, a defiant part of herself insisted. She should be here, too. She deserved to be.

No. A week ago, maybe. Two or three weeks ago, definitely. Not now. She couldn’t do it, if it was only because she had taken it away from him.

She loved him.

She froze. The music continued, but she wasn’t following it anymore. She stared helplessly into the darkness beyond the spotlight’s glare. In the wings, Skinny Jeans was whispering furiously into her headset and staring at her.

The woman waved her hands. When that didn’t work, she marched toward Melanie. “What is the problem?”

“I have to say something.” The words came out meek and thin, and they were nearly lost in the music.

Skinny Jeans turned to the audio guy and made a slashing motion at her throat. The music stopped.

“I have something to say,” Melanie said again, more boldly this time to the faceless people she knew were sitting in the sixth row.

From the look on Skinny Jeans, she may as well have said there were Martians crawling in the curtains.

Skinny Jeans turned blankly to the bright abyss and waited for direction.

Melanie shielded her eyes with her hands and could make out three silhouettes. Garrett Sheffield had to be one of them.

“Hello?” she offered tentatively. “I need to say something about Taz Roman.”

Skinny Jeans reached for her, probably to drag her offstage. Melanie pulled away.

Taz’s name seemed to silence all the chatter in the room, all the ambient noise. Melanie knew every eye in the theater was now riveted on her.

Every instinct told her to stop. She was ruining any chance to ever get into the troupe.

Still, Taz didn’t deserve what she had done to him, and it certainly shouldn’t have cost him his job. Worse, it had cost him his music, and just when he was preparing to launch his own solo album. If only he had said something.

Why hadn’t he asked her to set the record straight? Why had he shut her out?

It didn’t matter. This was the right thing to do. She could learn to live with never being a Belly Dance Diva. She could never live with what she’d done to Taz.

“Mr. Sheffield,” she began, “there are some things being said about Taz that aren’t true.”

She paused and waited in the spotlight’s glare for some kind of permission to continue. There was only silence and the thrumming of blood beating in her ears.

She cleared her throat and continued. “That blog said Taz was trading special treatment in the Divas’ audition for favors.”

She could hardly believe she was saying these things. It was as if all the blood in her body was swimming around in her head, drowning her.

“And…” said a familiar British voice in the darkness.

“None of it’s true.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m the one who said it.”

There were audible gasps from backstage. She spun around and saw dancers gathered in the wings, listening to everything.

It didn’t matter. She had to say it. She had to tell the truth.

“I’m the source they didn’t name. I was angry and frustrated when I said it, and I didn’t mean it. He never did anything wrong while we were together.”

“While you were together?”

Crap. Why had she said that? “It’s not what you think. I was just living at his house because he wanted me to pretend to be his girlfriend so his sister would leave him alone.”

Oh, God! She was babbling. She should just shut up.

“So it was a platonic arrangement?”

She envisioned Taz in the bed beside her. And beneath her. Could they see her cheeks burning red?

“Mostly,” she mumbled.

She could hear the tittering behind her, and her face burned hotter.

“Look,” she said, “he needed a fake girlfriend, and I was available. I asked him to coach me. That wasn’t his idea, initially.”

Spilling her guts like this had passed the point of being mortifying. She was almost numb. And now that she’d begun this awkward confession, she couldn’t stop.

“I’ve wanted to be a Belly Dance Diva forever. It’s my dream, and I’ve never wanted anything as badly as I want this. I thought I’d be crazy to pass up the opportunity to have someone like Taz Roman help me. The thing is, even when he agreed, I didn’t really believe I could do it. He changed that. He made me believe in myself. But he never, ever promised something inappropriate. He never promised to get me in the troupe.”

She stopped. Her chest heaved, and her breath was short. Her throat collapsed in some phantom death grip. She wanted to run, but there was still more to say. 

“The day I said what I did, I was angry. I was hurt. The fact was, I was jealous. I was an idiot and thought Taz’s help meant something more than it did. It’s so embarrassing to admit now, but I thought he was interested in me. He never was. He was always very clear about where we stood with each other. I was the one who made the mistake, not him. When I realized my mistake, I lashed out. I just wanted to vent. I never meant for it to hurt anyone, especially him. What people are saying about him now, it just isn’t true. He’s a good guy, he’s a great drummer, and he doesn’t deserve what happened. He deserves to be in the show, not me.”

She paused and waited for someone to say something. The audio guy dropped a CD case, and the clatter shot through the hall. Even the woman with the headset stood silent.

So, that was it. There was nothing else to say.

She searched the blackness again. The three silhouettes didn’t move.

“Thank you for your time,” she said. “I’m sorry for all of it.” With her eyes on the stage floor, she hurried off the stage and collected her bag. 

The spiky-haired guy was walking toward her as she headed for the door.

“How’d it go?” he asked cheerfully.

“I’m sure you’ll hear all about it,” she grumbled.

“Oh,” he said in that way that really means “I’m sorry I asked.”

Melanie didn’t go directly to the parking garage. She didn’t hold her head high or try to pretend she was fine. What she did was slip into the women’s restroom, hole herself up in a stall, and when she was sure she was completely alone, she cried like a little girl. Like the day her mother told her that her father had moved out. 

She cried until the hurt washed away—for the audition, for her mother, for her life. She cried until she couldn’t possibly cry another tear. She cried until she was just plain tired of crying. The hardest part was, no one else had made this mess. Taz had played his part, but this was her mess. She owned it, and she would deal with it.

When she emerged from the stall, she checked the damage in the mirror. Eyeliner smeared around her eyes and in rivulets down her cheek. Lipstick smudged all around her mouth. Her
teal
rose hairpin had slid down to her neck.

She laughed. Just a chuckle at first, but then it was a full, belly laugh she couldn’t stop. She looked like one of those devil-possessed clowns in a hacker film. She looked like a hot, stinking mess.

It was funny, though, even if it was her life.

She pulled two paper towels from the dispenser, wet them, and went to work cleaning up the worst of the damage. Makeup, hair, attitude—when it was all in better order, she peeked into the lobby.

Still empty. She hurried across the floor and slipped out one of the glass doors. The sun was high in the sky and bright. Bright enough to scatter the shadows that still lingered at the edge of her thoughts. She didn’t know where she was going. It didn’t matter. She’d figure it out when she got behind the wheel. Maybe Laguna for a walk along Main Beach. Maybe the Huntington Pier.