Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
A unicorn made out of catnip wrapped in melted cheese
“You were going to tell me about the new production.” Johnny’s prompt startles me out of my depressing realization that it’s past ten o’clock and I'm back at square one when it comes to sourcing a decent dance partner for a session of horizontal mambo.
“Time for another partner exchange! This time ladies, move six spots forward in line and gents, you stay still,” the lead singer announces over a melodic transition.
“Guess that’s my cue. Thanks for—” I flap my hand in a vague circle, not sure what all I’m including.
“No thanks necessary. See you again soon.”
Not if I see you first. Refer to above vow re avoiding addictive things.
“Sure thing.” With another awkward half wave, I scuttle away.
Probably I should add obsessive daydreaming about sweaty sex with blue-eyed, good smelling, engaged men to that list of behaviors to avoid. Phooey.
Acting like a sensible human of mature years is a drag.
Blowing out a judgy breath—Who came up with adulthood anyway?—I count men until I reach my designated spot.
My new partner smiles in welcome, laugh lines fanning out from a pair of familiar, true-blue eyes in a face the double of one I’ve come to believe I would recognize from touch alone.
He takes me in his arms, and we fall into an easy, mid-tempo swing, matching steps as though we’ve had years of practice.
Three fantastic dance partners in a row is either a miracle or a sign of the apocalypse.
Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket. If I win, I can buy Vanessa her own theater. Or film the pilot of City Romance and see if I can finally get one of the streaming services to bite on a full season.
Tomorrow. I’d buy a ticket tomorrow.
Tonight, I have the spitting image of my secret celebrity crush right here. If he’s not involved, gay, or a total ass, he could be the one.
Baron Bam and Scram.
Count Cram and Lam.
Earl Ecstasy and Flee.
Cocking my head at a coquettish angle, I give a little flutter of my eyes, ready to flirt my way into his pants.
“If you’re not Johnny’s twin cousin, I’ll eat my shoe.”
“We can’t have that now. Burdock Mack, at your service. And you’re that pretty actress Johnny likes, Evelyn Long.” He grimaces. “Shoot. I meant Strong, of course. He’s always on my case about details. When we were really young, we would try to swap identities, see if we could fool our parents.”
“I’m sensing a key detail overlooked.”
“He’s a righty and I’m a lefty.”
“That would do it.”
“We didn’t get really good until we were teens.” Burdock smiles at a memory before shaking it off. “A couple of miscreants, our grandad always said, but he was a character himself, and I always figured his pronouncement was less judgement and more wistfulness talking.”
“Seems like you turned out okay.”
“Haven’t robbed a bank yet, but the night’s still young.”
He waggles his eyebrows like he's giving me the signal that we ride at midnight, and I laugh as intended. For the next few songs, I’m charmed by stories of his wayward youth and teens. His and Johnny’s. I push the interloper out of my head. No crashing my party, dude.
With a breezy overview of what brought me to New York, I lean into the funny moments and soon have Burdock chortling. Satisfaction adds a little bounce to my step. Maybe my last film was a stinker, but I can still make people laugh no matter my middle-aged female status.
“Honored guests, are you having a good time? Working up an appetite?” the lead singer asks.
Foot stomps and shouts fill the room.
“Excellent! A buffet has been set up in the hall. While we're taking a short break, y’all refuel and we’ll meet you back here in twenty minutes. Don’t forget to drink some water!”
A Motown classic grooves through the sound system, the signal needed for the crowd to get moving, either back to the tables or toward the waiting food.
With a light hand between my shoulder blades to lead me off the floor, Burdock leans in and asks, “Care to grab a bite and continue our conversation?”
His warm breath sends a pleasant raft of goosebumps fanning down my neck, but their momentum peters out somewhere north of my decolletage.
No delicious ripple of anticipation down my spine.
No nipple tightening action.
No swoony incineration of my panties.
This doesn’t bode well for my plans.
Damn it, though. Pleasant isn’t the worst. With a little effort, pleasant can be coaxed into pleasure.
Same root word, right?
In the middle of arguing with myself, I spy Johnny and his fiancee listening to Arlo relate something with generous punctuation from his hands. Arlo’s mom drops her head into her palms, shaking it back and forth. Johnny throws his head back, his body engulfed with laughter.
A family unit, even without the official wedding vows.
A fourth man walks up and the others adjust their positions, squaring the triad without a hesitation. I come to a stop, turning my back on the tableau to answer Burdock.
Gorgeous, with a droll wit and a kind manner—and enough of that young rascal populating his stories of the present to make me certain he’d work hard to shift that needle from pleasant into volcanic. He checks so many of the boxes on the list I made this afternoon. But I can’t.
I can’t do it.
Like with Arlo, it wouldn’t be fair to take the man to bed, wishing it were his boyhood brother-in-pranks instead.
“Part of me really wants to say yes and see where this leads,” I say.
“And the other part?”
“Is hung up on someone else. Someone otherwise engaged.”
“Ah.” A world of understanding fills his soft utterance. Lips pulling down, he glances toward the quartet then back to me. “I find myself in a similar position. Not a happy place.”
Oh, no. He has a thing for Johnny’s woman. What a trainwreck.
“Damned aggravating, if you ask me. If a writers’ room offered me this plot twist, I’d tell’em to shove it.”
“But I bet the ratings would go through the roof,” he says, the hint of a laugh lurking at the edges of his voice.
“You aren’t wrong. It’s good that I don’t aspire to be a writer. All the characters would be friends, and any conflicts would be dealt with on the first page.”
“Probably wise not to quit your day job.” He shakes his head, chuckling.
Taking my hand in his, he says, “Now that we’ve shown our cards, so to speak, come grab some food with me.
Or I’ll get the food, and you can eat off my plate.
We’ll just be two new friends getting to know each other better, no other aim or ambition. ”
“Thank you, Burdock,” I say, giving his hand a quick squeeze, “but not tonight.”
“He doesn’t know what he’s missing.” Drawing my hand up, he presses a kiss of appreciation to the back before letting go.
“And she’s an utter fool if she does know what she’s missing.”
Exchanging a final shared look filled with pained amusement at the situations we find ourselves in, we part ways, my chest tight with the knowledge that I’m walking away from one of the good ones.
Too keyed up to think about returning to the guest cottage and getting ready for bed yet, I head for the ladies’ lounge, at last ready after all that dancing to avail myself of the facilities.
After completing my business, I check my reflection.
Lipstick hasn’t wandered off. Hair still gathered in place, though a few wisps of red have escaped their bonds to frame my face.
Good enough. I slip into the quieter sitting area, planting myself on one of the cozy davenports in the sitting area so I can check my texts and see how Vanessa’s night is going.
Fishing for my phone in the built-in pocket of my bra, my fingers brush the pair of hopeful condoms Van armed me with earlier.
Guess we can mark these safe from Evelyn. I’m not seeing any action tonight, that’s for sure.
Ah, well. Better to prepare and not need than be needy and not prepared.
The outer door crashes open and heels attack the marble tile until their rapid fire ratatat is dulled by the plush carpet of the sitting area.
“That boy is an adult. You want Arlo at your fifth wedding, you ask him. Don’t put me in the middle.” Johnny’s fiancée marches into the middle of the sitting area, phone to her ear.
Seeing me, she stops, points at the phone, pantomimes strangling it, then rolls her eyes.
Not wanting to intrude on her private business, I grimace in sympathy and gather myself to stand, tucking my phone back in place. She waves me to stay where I am and parks herself beside me, placing a hand on my forearm to hold me in place, a casual, friendly intimacy I don’t see coming.
“No, you listen, Mama. You want a relationship with my son, you put in the work.” She makes a series of semi-approving grunts, then says, “Well, that’s a start. Now, will we see you for dinner on Monday? Good. Seven o’clock. Okayloveyoubye.”
Thumbing the End button, she tosses her phone onto the cushion next to her and shifts so she’s angled more toward me.
“Hi. I apologize for crash landing into your private convo earlier with Johnny, one, and two, then not having the decency to introduce myself as your number one biggest fan, though Johnny might wrestle me for the title. Running at full tilt is kind of my M.O. I’m Elf—short for Elfreda, because my mother is special—and I hold a watch party of your epic Christmas movie trilogy every December.
” She takes a big gulp of air and keeps going, “Thank you for being so lovely to my Arlo tonight. He was in heaven. But when he gave me the blow by blow, I swear, I wanted to crawl under the nearest table. Haliford says Arlo comes by his motormouth honestly, so I guess that’s two things I gave him, dancing and chatterboxing, but he asked me to marry him anyway and I’m not giving him an out, he should have thought things through before he offered.
I hope we can be friends. I promise I’m not a stalker.
I’ll share my secret eggnog recipe as a gesture of good faith. Can you tell I’m nervous?”