Page 26 of Wicked Dance
“Can I help you?” a woman asks. She is tall and elegant in a sheath dress, dressed very chic for a shopkeeper. She must do well with herquinceañeradresses, or else feels she must look a certain way to sell them.
Blitz speaks to her a moment in Spanish, and I turn to the racks of dance outfits. Most of them are for little girls, tutus and leotards in every bright color. Gwen, Gabriella’s mother, must shop at a place like this, as all the stores I’ve ever been to seem to only have variations of pink, white, and black.
The woman leads Blitz to another room and I drift slowly that direction. Every place I look, I see more beautiful objects. I want to take them all in. I feel exceptionally lucky in that moment. I could buy any of these things if I wanted. Blitz has been very generous. But I have no income of my own. I do nothing at all to help.
We live in a hotel, eating room service or the specific foods sent by Blitz’s trainer to stay in dance shape. I don’t clean or do laundry or even pick up around the suite. That is all handled by the staff.
I do teach the wheelchair ballerina class, but that is a volunteer position. I’m not qualified for anything.
I never even applied for college, because I left the SAT site without completing all the tests I signed up for, which disqualifies your results. At least that’s what the website says. But even if they sent me results, my father signed me up and therefore had the scores sent to him. I’ll never see them.
Who am I without Blitz? What would I do if something happened to him? To us?
My throat tightens.
I really should figure out something of my own.
Blitz reappears from the side room holding up a clear stick filled with glitter and stars. On one end is a heart, on the other, a trail of red ribbons.
“Is it perfect or what?” he asks.
My chest swells just looking at him, one of the most famous people in this town, picking out toys for young girls. What does he want? Could it really be to live a quiet life with only me? No show, no fame, no publicity?
“It is,” I manage to say. “Do they have enough of them?”
“She’s checking,” he says. He twirls the stick through his fingers and tosses it in the air. But he doesn’t consider the low ceiling and smacks it, showering popcorn paint bits into his hair.
“Oops.” He steps quickly to the side to catch the errant stick before it hits the hardwood floor.
I laugh and step forward, brushing the ceiling bits out of his hair. “At least we know it’s a tough prop.”
“True. They’ll probably hit the floor more often than not.” He smacks the stick against his hand and checks the toughness of the attached heart.
The woman takes a long time. We wander around. No one else is inside. I peek out the door and see several more men gathered around Blitz’s car. This would unnerve me, as I generally don’t like to attract attention, but Blitz is always laid back about it. I guess you don’t buy a car like that without expecting people to look at it.
“I’m going to go find her,” Blitz says.
I look down the street a bit and notice a gathering of young women with their phones. They are all talking excitedly and showing each other their screens.
I never had a big group of friends like that, although in middle school, when I still got to go to public school, two or three of us hung out together. My family couldn’t afford a cell phone for me, but my friend Laura had one. She was always texting a boy named Erik, who was obviously sexy because his name had a “k.”
The thought makes me smile.
Another car pulls up to the shop. And another. The girls on their phones look over at the door near where I’m standing.
Why would so many people be arriving here at the same time?
The new girls jump out of their car and wave their arms excitedly toward the shop. One of them has on a Blitz shirt.
Oh, no.
I jerk my own phone out of my pocket. I hurry to Twitter and check the #BlitzSighting hashtag.
It’s insane. Everyone is sharing and retweeting the address of the dance store.
We’ve been found.
I hurry through the shop. Blitz is not in the next room. There’s a door in the back wall. I don’t really want to go through it. What if the back part of this house is where they live?
