Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
My mom’s eyes go wide and she’s just about to start quizzing me when my dad places a hand on her arm, making her stop.
I turn away and head towards the bar.
The music starts and I start tapping my fingers on the bar to the bouncy beat as I wait for our drinks. I get us both dirty martinis because everyone is drinking them tonight and who doesn’t love a martini glass, and then make my way back where Cordy is.
Or… was, at least. I get there and look around. Because she is missing.
But then a ruckus erupts over on the dance floor. I’m tall, so I can see over most heads, but whatever is happening over there, it’s hidden in the crowd.
I nudge a woman next to me, who is also trying to get a peek. “What’s going on?”
“Oh!” She’s breathless. “It’s Cynthia Lear!”
“What? What happened?” I am imagining a million different humiliating scenarios. Cordelia broke a heel, ripped her dress, slipped on the dance floor—
But the woman stops my internal pessimism with her explanation. “She and her assistant are swing-dancing with an old lady!”
“Really?” I push my way through the crowd. “Tank. Coming though, ladies. It’s Tank.” I figure they know me better as Tank now, not Steve. And it works. A handful of seconds later I am at the edge of the dance floor watching my lovely Cordelia, Britney, and the ex-girlfriend of Howard Hughes lighting up the dance floor with a Charleston swing number that frankly stuns me silent.
They’re smiling and laughing as they perform groovy walks, bouncy twists, swinging kicks, and bee’s knees. They are moving in perfect unison to a breathless, relentless jitterbug beat. One moment face-to-face, the next side-by-side. Sliding in and out, changing partners, doing solos… it’s a routine, I realize. Something the three of them have practiced relentlessly to perfection and tonight—oh, what a great night it already is—they’re doing it for the world.
Well, for the romance world, at least.
I stand there—mouth open, eyes wide—gushing over this woman.
Gushing. A technical term. The feeling a man gets in the early stages of a romantic relationship when he suddenly realizes that his partner is way, way out of his league and he’s got to rise up to his fullest potential to hold on to her forever.
That’s the feeling welling up inside me in this moment.
Everyone is clapping and cheering and encouraging them. I have a moment of worry for Sheila because she has to be two hundred years old, but I have a feeling that woman cut her teeth on the Depression-era fascination of marathon dancing.
She never stops.
In fact, Britney and Cordelia are gasping for breath, making their way off the dance floor, even as Sheila keeps going. She doesn’t stay out there alone for long, though. Suddenly everyone is burning up the dance floor with her and the party is officially on.
Cordy’s eyes search the crowd and when they find mine, she smiles.
I think I melt when she directs that smile at me.
And then there she is. Right in front of me. Breathing hard, and bending over, and holding her side with her hand. “Oh, my God,” she wheezes, then starts coughing, holding up a hand. “Sheila has made… Britney and me practice that dance with her”—she’s gasping—“since I moved into her pool house. Said, ‘You never know when you might need to cut a rug,’ which I thought was weird, but maybe she has a crystal ball. Whatever. But this is… the first time… we’ve done it for that long. Whew!” She looks over her shoulder and, yep, Sheila is still going. “She’s crazy, that lady.”
I am so speechless, so enthralled, so captivated, such a prisoner, I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “Would you like to go up Mulholland Drive with me?”
“What?” She laughs. “We’re… in Vegas, Steve.”
“Au contraire, mon frère.”
She giggles. “Okay, mon frère.”
I set our drinks down on a passing tray and take her hand. “Come with me.”
I lead her back through the porte-cochère made of silver and white balloons and out onto the make-believe streets of yesteryear LA, then wave my hand at the cars. “Your chariot, madam.”
“What are those things?”
“Photo booths. But”—I hold up a finger—“not just photo booths. They take you up Mulholland Drive. The whole thing plays on digitized screens over the windows.”
“Shut up!”
“Come on.” I tug her over to a car, open the door, and get a flash of a woman’s underpants.
“Occupied!” a man screams.
“Ooops! Sorry.” I close the door. The next car is bouncing, so we skip that one. But the third is empty. I walk her over to the passenger side and open the door.
Cordy has caught her breath now, but she’s still flushed pink from the dancing. “Thank you, good sir.” And she slides in.
Then I slip around to the driver’s side and get in next to her. As soon as I sit down, the car starts. Well, it’s the sound of the car starting. The radio comes on too. It’s big band jazz, playing at a low level.