Chapter 4 #2
Russ was still looking at Cherry. “Is that true?”
“I don’t drink,” she said.
“She’s never even had a Mule,” Stacia said. “She won’t even try one.”
“They’re good,” he told Cherry.
“I assume so,” she said. “They come in a special glass and everything.”
“You can taste the copper,” Stacia said.
“You really can,” Russ agreed. He nudged his chin toward Cherry. “Why don’t you drink?”
“I like to keep my wits about me.”
“Your wits . . .” he said, stalling out. It sounded so witless that Cherry laughed for the first time.
Russ frowned at her and took a drink.
The Irish folk band kicked it up a notch. They were actually good, not just competent. Apparently they were from Kansas City. Their frontman could play every instrument that got handed to
him.
A few people had started dancing. Cherry and Stacia—and Russ—got pushed away from the stage, but the three of them stayed
together.
Russ seemed actively interested in the music. Not just drinking near it. “I was hoping you swing-danced,” he said to Cherry
between songs.
“Why?” She lowered her eyebrows. “Do you swing-dance?”
He shrugged. “A little.”
“That doesn’t seem like something people do ‘a little’ of. That’s like saying you do ‘a little’ karate.”
“Not really.”
“It’s a commitment,” she said. “You have to go to a special place on a special night, you have to wear special clothes . . .”
Stacia was listening and laughing at them both.
“You’re the one wearing a swing dress,” Russ said to Cherry.
“I just think it’s cute.”
He nodded. “It is cute.”
“I think it’s cool that you swing-dance,” Stacia said. “Is it hard?”
“Not at all.” He was still looking at Cherry. “I could show you . . .”
“Can you swing-dance to this?” Cherry tilted her head toward the bagpipe player.
“Absolutely. Let me show you.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Better not. I’m the designated driver.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It means I still have my wits about me,” she said.
“Coward.” Russ looked over his shoulder at Stacia. “Do you enjoy joy, Stacie?”
“It’s Stacia,” she said, “and I do.”
“Stacia.” He held out his hand.
She took it. “Are you sure?” she asked in a flirty voice. “I’m not wearing a special dress . . .”
Russ pulled her toward him. “That’s purely optional.”
Cherry stepped back to give them space.
Russ guided Stacia through a few back-and-forth steps. He was making eye contact with her, smiling. Stacia was laughing. He
held her by her hand and by her beautiful bare waist.
Once they were moving in rhythm, Russ swung Stacia away from him, then reeled her back in. Stacia squealed, delighted. She
was clumsier than he was, but that didn’t seem to get in his way. Cherry couldn’t help but smile.
After a few more moves, Russ wrapped his arm around Stacia, holding her close—then spun her out to the end of his reach. He
quickly kissed her hand, then said, “Your turn, Cherry,” and grabbed Cherry’s hand. For a second, he was holding on to them
both.
“Do it, Cherry,” Stacia said. “It’s so much fun.”
Cherry let Russ pull her close. “I don’t know how—”
“Just follow my lead.” He was stepping back and forth. His hand was on her hip. She looked down at their feet. “No,” he said.
“Look at me.” He was already swinging her out away from him. Then back. He took her other hand and swung her to the other
side. “Look at me, Cherry.”
She did. His cheeks were pink, and his eyes were sparkling. He reeled her into him, her back against his chest. “Relax,” he
said. “Just be momentum.”
“Momentum,” Cherry repeated. Russ’s arm was firm around her waist. He must be thinking about how much thicker she was than Stacia.
He could definitely feel her belly under his elbow.
He put his other hand on Cherry’s hip and spun her out again, under his raised arm.
Then back into him. Then away from him. Cherry went almost limp, letting Russ push and pull at her.
Had he spun Stacia this much? Cherry was getting dizzy.
She was laughing despite herself. Every time he whipped her around, her skirt flew out in a circle. She was glad she was wearing tights.
Stacia was watching them, laughing and clapping.
As the song ended—with a furious fiddle solo—Russ spun Cherry gently away and grabbed Stacia’s hand and held it over her head,
giving her one more twirl. All three of them were grinning. Russ’s face was flushed and sweaty. He was holding both their
hands.
“That was amazing,” Stacia said.
“I told you it wasn’t hard,” he said.
Cherry let go of his hand but couldn’t stop smiling at him. “You did all the work.”
“How did you learn to dance like that?” Stacia asked.
“I took classes in middle school.”
That made all three of them laugh. Russ was still holding Stacia’s hand.
Some guy walked over and bumped Russ’s shoulder like he knew him. “Hey,” the guy said, ignoring the girls. “We’re taking off.
Everybody’s going to your place.”
“Yeah, all right.” Russ looked at Cherry, then Stacia. “Everybody’s going to my place. You coming?”
“Yeah.” Stacia looked at Cherry, eyes alight. “Yeah, right?”
“Yeah,” Cherry agreed. “Sure.”
Cherry and Stacia couldn’t really talk on the way to Russ’s house, because Russ rode along with them to show them the way.
Cherry’s other friends came, too; Cherry was their ride home. Russ called, “Shotgun!” on the way to the car.
He lived in an apartment building not far from Creighton, in kind of a rough neighborhood.
Cherry was expecting his apartment to be disgusting—three college guys lived there—but it actually wasn’t so bad.
There wasn’t much furniture, but it was clean.
Wood floors, high ceilings. There were already too many people crammed into the living room by the time Cherry and her friends got there.
There was rap music playing, and some people were dancing.
Cherry recognized a few of them, from classes and her dorm.
“There are drinks in the kitchen,” Russ said.
Stacia and Cherry’s other friends—Grace and Elizabeth—headed that way. Russ stuck by Cherry.
He ran his fingers through his hair. “Is this fun for you?”
“What?”
“Staying sober while everyone around you gets progressively blitzed.”
She shrugged. “It varies.”
He hummed.
“It beats sitting in my dorm room by myself,” she said, “and I do enjoy being smug and condescending with everyone the next day.”
“You must be really popular.”
“So popular.”
He ran his hand through his hair again. “Do you know what I remember about you, from ethics class?”
“My sweaters.”
“Beyond the sweaters.”
She shook her head.
“When we introduced ourselves on the first day, you said you were an art major.”
“I am.”
“Art majors don’t have to take ethics.”
“Ethics are universally relevant,” she said.
He looked amused. “Are they?”
“I thought it sounded interesting.”
“So you took ethics as an elective . . .”
She nodded.
“I took History of Rock,” he said.
“That also sounds interesting.”
“It was.” The music had gotten louder. “It was!” Russ shouted, just in case she hadn’t heard him. “Cherry . . .” He leaned
closer, his mouth by her ear. He was still shouting. “I think you’re interesting.”
She pulled her head back so she could see his face. “Are you drunk?”
Russ laughed. “No. I think I’m totally sober.”
Cherry didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know how to stand. She turned away from him, toward the people dancing in front
of the couch.
“Do you want to dance?” Russ asked.
She looked back at him. “I don’t know. Can you swing-dance to Lil Wayne?”
He grinned. “I mean . . . I can.”
He held out his hand. Cherry smiled and shook her head, but she still took it. Russ put his other hand on her hip. What happened
next wasn’t really swing dancing—it was normal house-party dancing, with a bit more hand-holding and a few unnecessary spins.
But the next song, “Low” by Flo Rida, apparently was a good swing-dancing song. Russ pulled Cherry closer and tried to lead her through some slightly more elaborate steps. She
couldn’t keep up. They were both laughing. Almost everyone at the party was dancing now—there wasn’t space for Russ to fling
Cherry around. He held her hip and twirled her right in front of him, so they were eye to eye every time she spun back to
face him.
Stacia and Grace and Elizabeth came dancing in from the kitchen.
Stacia was holding two drinks. She danced up to Russ, holding out a drink for him, her arm moving with the music.
He took it from her, matching her rhythm.
He was still holding Cherry’s hand. He held it over her head and twirled her away from him, then let go, still dancing—sort of with Stacia, sort of with Cherry—as he took a sip.
Grace grabbed Cherry’s hand and shouted the chorus of the song at her.
Cherry nodded along. “Low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low.”
Cherry looked back at Russ. He was twisting down to the floor. Stacia was dancing over him, her arms in the air—halter top
riding up so high, you could see the little cross tattooed just under her left breast.
Cherry let go of Grace’s hand and backed off the dance floor. She felt a little disoriented.
A girl was standing on one end of the couch, dancing. Cherry sat at the other end and tucked one of her heels under her knee.
She watched Russ dance with Stacia. And another girl. And then with two of his guy friends.
Another song had started before he looked over at Cherry. He held his arms up, like, What gives?
Cherry just waved.
Russ stood still for a few seconds, the only still thing on the improvised dance floor. Stacia was right next to him, flicking
her hair from side to side, with her arms folded behind her back, pushing her chest out.
Cherry smiled at Russ.
Russ smiled back. He took a step toward her, holding out one hand.
One of his friends—a big guy waving around a beer bottle—stumbled between them. Russ caught the guy. Then started dancing
with him. (Boys didn’t really dance together. They stood near each other and held their drinks in the air and shouted into
each other’s faces.) Russ kept glancing past his friend at Cherry.
Cherry got up to use the bathroom—and to steady her nerves. She’d swear she felt Russ watching her as she left the room.
The bathroom was down a hall. It was also less gross than she would have expected. None of the towels matched, and Russ and
his roommates used an old picante-sauce jar to hold their toothbrushes—but everything was clean.
Cherry looked in the mirror. She was flushed from her cheeks down to her neckline. Her eyes were extra shiny. She shook her head. Then shook her head again. Then reapplied her red lipstick.
She made a decision:
When Cherry walked out of this bathroom, she was going to stop shrinking away from Russ. When he reached out to her, she was
going to reach back.
Against all odds and all her past experiences, this cute, charming guy seemed really interested in her. He’d literally said that he was interested in her.
And Cherry was very, very interested in him.
She was going to stop turning away from him in disbelief. She was going to start moving in.
She opened the bathroom door and walked out to the living room.
Russ was right where she’d left him . . .
Making out with Stacia.
A couple hours later, Cherry drove Grace and Elizabeth back to the dorms.