The Bette Davis Club (14 page)

“Did you hear that?” Vera says, panic in her voice. “Samba first! Lordy, this is it. Ship going down!” She stares at the glass in her hand. “I should have told Rube to make ’em doubles.”

I feel sorry for Vera. She looks so unhappy, and I know this contest means a great deal to her.

Vera straightens her bare, well-developed shoulders and belts back her drink. “Moment of clarity!” she says, her eyes gone wild. “This possum ain’t playing dead! No sir, not tonight! We at least gotta try. Come on, I’ll show you some steps.”

“No,” I say, even as she’s pulling me from the table and over to an alcove at one side of the room. “Vera, listen, we need to talk!”

“Darlin’, you English girls are so chatty. But just do your best and try to follow.”

“No!” I say again, but she’s not listening. We’re standing in the alcove, facing each other. She has my right hand in her left, a tight grip round my waist, and she’s barking directions at me. “Feet together! Weight on your right foot!”

I cock my hip and shift my weight like she tells me, but only to buy a few minutes of time. The moment she calms down, I’m informing her I don’t think I can go through with this. It’s been too long since I danced with anyone, and it’s too difficult for me emotionally. Though I admit it’ll be hard getting a word in edgewise because Vera’s single-mindedly counting the beat aloud and saying things like, “Right foot back,
one
, left close to right,
and
, right foot stays in place,
two
.”

I feel a headache coming on.

Vera and I are still practicing in the alcove when the band returns from break, bringing along even more female musicians. Now there’s a large percussion section with all manner of Brazilian-style drums. Together with the horns, guitar, and piano they start in on something smooth and Latin-sounding. At the same time, the room lights dim and women ooh and ah as a galaxy of electric stars and planets appears on the ceiling. A glitter ball commences rotating above the dance floor.

Davita Maroni’s back onstage. She grasps a cocktail in one hand and the microphone in her other. “Ladies,” she rasps into the mike, “this song is ‘So Danco Samba’—that’s Portuguese, baby, for ‘I Only Dance the Samba.’ Oh my, yes! It’s Carnival time! Let’s all go to Rio! Let the games begin, let the best couple win! We begin our Latin Dance Competition with the glorious, meritorious, notorious . . . SAMBA CONTEST!”

Women
flood
onto the dance floor.

My mind’s spinning faster than that glitter ball overhead. Now that the contest is starting, the energy and sexual excitement in the room ratchet up enormously. As if in proof, Sally, the woman who insulted me earlier, winks at me as she passes by on her way to the dance floor. But it’s not a playful wink. It’s a rude, sarcastic gesture. It’s a put-down.

That does it. It’s Sally’s wink that tears it for me, that somehow puts me over the edge. So I haven’t danced in years, so I’ll never again dance with Finn. Vera’s a good person, and she deserves to have a shot at winning this contest. It’s not right that she could lose to the likes of Sally. And me? I
need
to get into Georgia’s room, I need to make fifty thousand dollars.

Vera’s in the middle of showing me how to do a basic samba move. “Step sideways with your left foot, close right foot to left—”

“Stop!” I say. “Vera, stop, I mean it!”

She ceases moving. She stands there, holding me in her arms and giving me her full attention.

“I’m a fake,” I say. “I’m not the person you think I am.”

“Well, darlin’, who is?” she says matter-of-factly.

“Oh, good point,” I say. “But the truth is—” I hesitate. I’m embarrassed. I’m embarrassed that, on some level, I’ve been misrepresenting myself—my sexual orientation, my dance skills—to both Vera and Ruby from the moment I met them. Nevertheless, I try again. “What I told you before was untrue. I do know how to dance.”

“You lied to me?” Vera says. It’s hard to tell if she’s offended or impressed.

“Yes,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

“Why would you lie to me?”

“Because,” I say, “I was confused, upset, ambivalent about things that happened in my past. Also, I was nervous. Nervous that, I don’t know, you might get angry if you found out I was . . . straight.”

“You’re straight?” Vera says. Her face is riveted on mine. “Lordy, little girl, you haven’t been listening. I don’t give a
hoot
if you’re straight, gay, bi. I just want you to stop being so damn frigid on the dance floor! Can you do that?”

“Yes,” I say, feeling both relieved and excited. “I think I can now. My dance partner and I were . . . well, we were very good. He taught me everything. We even won a trophy. And I do know how to samba. Quite well, actually. I’m rusty, but I can do it.”

“Samba whisk, traveling voltas?” Vera says, as if inquiring about Brazilian side dishes.

“Yes.”

“Botafogo? Shadow position?”

“All of it,” I say. “I know all the moves.”

Vera throws back her head and laughs. She has the most perfect set of upper molars I’ve ever seen in my life. “Darlin’!” she says. “You beautiful fraud!”

She takes me by the wrist, even more forcefully than before, and pulls me away from the alcove, out among the dancers. Carving out space for the two of us in the middle of the floor, she stops, drops my hand, then turns round to face me.

We stand there, looking at each other—she in her sparkling white dress, I in my classic black. Vera’s right hand rests on her hip. Her eyes are bright. She holds out her left hand to me. “Come on, Margo, show me. Show the whole damn room what you got.”

Funny, but I’m ready to do exactly that. When I put my hand in Vera’s, I no longer feel conflicted. I feel like I’m about to do something right for a change.

Vera raises our entwined hands to just below her own eye level. Her right hand reaches round and cleaves to my left shoulder blade. I rest my left hand on her right shoulder. In dance, this is called the closed position, but I don’t feel closed at all. I feel open. I feel like myself.

For once, Vera and I are in sync. And when a sultry, long-haired woman in a floor-length gown moves to the microphone and begins crooning “One Note Samba,” Vera and I . . . well, that is to say—

We dance.

Except this is better than ordinary dancing. It’s more fun. That’s because the samba is all rhythm and joy. It’s a flirtatious, happy dance, with a sexually provocative hip movement. And as you might imagine, Vera has the hip thing down perfectly.

For the first time all evening, I’m at ease. I’m comfortable now with Vera, who really is an incredible dancer.

The vocalist is good. After “One Note Samba,” she sings “The Girl From Ipanema” and an assortment of other Latin standards.

Davita passes by, clutching a cocktail. She and the rest of the judges move through the dancers, tapping couples on the shoulder and directing them off the floor. Occasionally, there’s a short scuffle when an inebriated twosome resists being eliminated.

Dancers are weeded out. The floor becomes less crowded. The singer goes into a tune I recognize from my youth. It has a samba beat, but it’s called “When In Rome (I Do as the Romans Do).” Well, I think, that’s appropriate.

The song is carefree and upbeat. A lively piano and bass come in. And horns. The spring-mounted dance floor quivers with the movement of the dancers.

Vera’s wearing some sort of herbal scent—vetiver?—that drifts through the air. “You’re doing great,” she tells me. “And you look fabulous, darlin’. You are one gorgeous armful.”

Of course, flattery is the oldest trick in the book of dance. The superior dancer always does everything possible to build up a weaker partner’s confidence. Nevertheless, Vera’s comments have their effect. I lift my head a touch higher.

The singer is at the apex of her song, belting out the lyrics. Pumped up with gin, adrenaline, and the rhythm of the music, I throw myself into the dance. I’m determined to help Vera win her trophy. I also happen to look round at the other dancers. Most of them are dreadful. The word “clumsy” comes to mind. Also “inept,” “amateurish,” “drunken.”

Everyone in the place has consumed vast quantities of alcohol, and there’s a great deal of aimless wiggling going on. Many couples have altogether given up attempting to samba and are simply grinding away at each other in an explicit hip-hop manner.

Off to one side, Davita and a disgruntled contestant get into a fistfight. Bystanders pull them apart, but the mood of the contest has changed. It’s become more aggressive.

As the remaining dancers struggle to stay on the floor, the competition takes on the ruthlessness of a Roman chariot race. When in Rome, indeed! Elbows, knees, and spiked heels become makeshift weaponry. A dancer intentionally stomps on my instep. I realize it’s the obnoxious, insulting Sally. I can’t believe she’d physically attack me like that, and I stare after her. She and her partner look back, laughing.

“She hurt you?” Vera says.

“It’s nothing,” I say, glad there’s enough gin in my body to deaden the pain.

“Sorry,” Vera says. “It’s sorta my fault. I had a one-nighter with Sally a while back. When I sobered up the next day and told her there wasn’t going to be no more, she was none too happy about it. Still, she has no call to get nasty with you.”

“I’m all right.”

“So you say. But let’s have some fun anyways.” Vera maneuvers us across the room, near Sally and her partner. Then she swings us round, and we do the dance move known as a kick ball change, which—as Vera sways hard to her left and forcefully kicks her left foot—comes off as a sort of body slam into Sally’s partner’s backside. Sally and her partner go sailing off into a table and chairs.

“Guess they got eliminated,” Vera says.

The remaining couples whirl through a few more songs, but it’s obvious who’s the best dancer in the room, and in her arms I’ve become the second best.

Soon, all the contestants are directed off the floor except Vera and me. Vera beams as the room fills with applause. A spotlight bathes us in light.

We do a quick victory turn and then one of the judges—not Davita—hands us a large trophy. Vera clutches the prize, as we move in tandem toward the bar. I’m winded, but Vera’s hardly ruffled. We make it over to where Ruby stands, applauding. “Lover, you won!” she says.

“You bet we did,” Vera says. “Course, the judges are all bombed. Look at Davita over there.” She points to where Davita, her eyes spinning like pinwheels, stands clinging to a table, trying not to fall over. Vera gives a throaty laugh. “What the hey. I guess everybody in this place is tits up.”

Vera sets the trophy on the bar. “Sweetheart,” she says to Ruby, “make me a whiskey sour? Margo’s buying. Margo wants a—”

“Double martini,” I pant.

Vera slaps me on the back. “Double martini, single woman!” she says. “A wicked combination.”

I smile. I’m proud we won the contest. Like Vera, I stare at the trophy as it gleams in the light. It looks pretty much like every big, shiny dance trophy you ever saw in your life. It even looks a bit like the prize I won with Finn. Except there’s something special about this trophy that will cheer Vera’s heart every time she looks at it: the happy couple on top is one-hundred-percent female.