Confessions of a ballroo.., p.5
Confessions of a Ballroom Diva, page 5
When he’d gathered himself and faced me, I knew he needed to obsess about something else for a while. I pointed each foot at him and revealed the delightful beige two-inch heel pumps with nude-colored elastic across the instep. They’d been delivered to my residence inn very early this morning.
He stared at my shoes and scowled. “You have no right to have this much energy this early in the morning.” He set the cup down on top of the mini-fridge in the corner that the studio kept supplied with bottled water for us.
“Bad night, sweetie? I’m sorry. Actually, I’m surprised you came in and didn’t call for your understudy to take over. But you are here, which tells me you need to work.”
He nodded and gulped back another sob.
Exchanging the shoes for ballet flats, I took up a position at the barre in front of the second story windows. After three weeks together, I found his stretching routine familiar and invigorating.
“I couldn’t sleep after. . . after Johnny’s death,” he admitted, keeping his back to me as he too touched the barre for balance and began the complex bends and stretches required to warm up muscles still stiff from sleep.
“According to the newscasts this morning, the authorities are looking for a rabid bobcat. A tragic accident. He surprised the sick creature while it was suffering a horrible death.” I touched his shoulder in commiseration.
The camera crew that followed us everywhere on the studio lot came in and caught us in a suitably sad moment. They fitted us for mics and battery packs, then motioned us to continue our rehearsal.
“Yes, a tragic accident,” Alexai said. “But our lives continue, and we have a competition to win. Viennese Waltz this week. You chose the right shoes for it.”
“What’s the music?” I asked, slipping the shoes back on. At our first rehearsal Alexai had insisted I learn the dance in the shoes I would perform in. Other pros liked to teach in flats, ballet slippers, or athletic shoes. We wanted my muscles to remember the steps in the performance the way we rehearsed. I knew right off that my balance was different in heels than more comfortable shoes.
“The studio assigned us the love song from that new Broadway musical, Franklin, more like a minuet than a true waltz.” Alexai nearly spat, or had to deeply swallow back his grief. “Given what happened last night, I think we need something less lively. Something sad and sweet. More English ballroom waltz than Viennese.”
He touched the play button on the sound system. A solo violin began the wistful tune of Waltz Triste, by Sibelius. I closed my eyes and just listened, letting the three-quarter time engulf me in sweet memories of the young blond-haired man running around backstage with his inevitable clipboard and headset. I remembered people listening to him, following his suggestions rather than panicking. An island of calm in a world of chaos.
I sniffed and opened my eyes. Alexai stood in front of me with arms extended to take me into a classic dance hold. “This rendition is a bit slow, so I put a call into the show’s music director to see if we can up the tempo to something more suitable to ballroom.”
I took his hand and shoulder and proceeded to spend the next half hour learning proper waltz posture, barely moving my feet at all. Backward tilt from the shoulder blades up, chin over my left shoulder, also tilted back, “For balance.”
Oh my aching back.
~~~
Bryant paced Caesar Granger’s office like a caged panther. He counted his footsteps, twenty to a side, around and around the massive desk. He slapped a rolled-up newspaper against his open palm with each step.
Not a single piece of paper littered the entire room. No filing cabinets, just a miniscule desktop computer and a telephone on the desk. The high-backed swivel chair loomed behind the desk like a throne, unoccupied at the moment. An elaborate coffee machine with clean, porcelain cups beside it, presided on a rolling cabinet in the back corner. Sugar and creamer must fill the shelf behind the pressure-release door of the cart.
Nearly noon, and the producer had not yet arrived. The window for dealing with East Coast executives was rapidly closing. Maybe he did a lot of his business by phone at home or on the golf course.
A light sound in the outer room alerted him, and he dove for the big chair, propping his feet on the desk, then opening the newspaper to page six, where the continuation of the front-page headline explained Johnny’s death at the studio.
“Who? What the hell are you doing in my chair?”
The position of power, currently occupied by Bryant, didn’t seem the likely throne for the short and squarely built man in a white linen suit with a bright red dress shirt unbuttoned nearly to his hairy navel. The colors emphasized his swarthy, Mediterranean skin. His broad cheekbones, hooked nose, and almond cast to his eyes hinted at a lot of mixed blood in his ancestry, as much Greek and Spanish as Italian. Or maybe Mexican, now that illegal immigrants had a bad rep.
“I’m calling you to account,” Bryant said succinctly. He didn’t think Caesar understood subtle. “In fact, I’m thinking about taking over your job when you resign.” He folded the newspaper so that the headline glared at them. Young Production Assistant murdered at Studio 23.
“I have no intention of resigning. Now get out of my chair and go about your business, Thomas, or you’ll be the one resigning mid-season.”
Bryant held up his phone, thumb poised over the call icon. “Six influential gossip columnists await my return call.”
“So? Gossip is what runs this business.”
“I will also add that the CEO of the network, your boss, wants to run for Congress on a family values platform. He’s anxious to avoid any trace of scandal anywhere near him.”
“I have nothing to apologize for.” Caesar stalked forward, clenching his fist as if to plant it in Bryant’s jaw.
“Bambie Bright has joined the #MeToo movement.”
Caesar blanched, his bright shirt making his skin look sallow and ill.
“Before I leave this office, you will draw up a new contract for Ms. Bright, overriding all previous contracts. This one will reserve the job of hostess for the duration of the run of the show with no morals clause. You will then write your letter of resignation to the network, naming me as your successor to the executive producer position. I’ll let you cite family reasons, or medical, as an excuse for walking away with no control over any aspect of the show. The third document will remain private among the three of us, it will acknowledge paternity of Ms. Bright’s child and promise a suitable support payment until the child reaches majority or finishes college, whichever comes first.”
“And how am I supposed to fork over child support for a baby that could belong to any one of a half-dozen men if I have no job with the network?” Caesar sneered. He made a shooing motion with his still-clenched left hand.
Bryant stayed put, feet still insolently on the desk. “You could tap into the funds you’ve embezzled from the show budget over the last five years. My sources suggest the sum approaches fifteen million. But they are known to underestimate figures like that.” He thanked the Guild for allowing him access to off-shore accounts and their owners.
“Sources? What sources?” Caesar charged Bryant and slapped his feet off the desk. Blood flushed his face back to its normal ruddiness.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Bryant clicked his tongue. “You really shouldn’t anger an agent of my caliber.”
“Agent?” Caesar blanched again.
Bryant fished his ID folder out of the inside pocket of his athletic jacket. His black, karate-cut jeans, as usual, had minimal, small pockets for stashing things. Nothing to impede his movements if he needed all four limbs to fight off an attacking vampire or demon.
With a single motion he flipped the folder open to reveal his Guild badge, designed to look surprisingly like the ones issued by the CIA but with enough subtle differences he wouldn’t get into too much trouble for impersonating a government official, as long as he never said he was CIA, or NSA, or Homeland Security, or Interpol. He folded and pocketed it again just as quickly. “Ever wonder why I travel so much for my day job? I know a lot more than you want revealed to your wife or the D.A.”
~~~
A discrete tap on the studio door, gave me a brief reprieve from endless counting of ONE, two, three as I stepped LONG, short, short in boxes and turns, over and over and over again. “Rise and fall, Janet. Rise and fall,” Alexai repeated. “Deep, tall, tall.”
My thighs burned and quivered.
The door opened and Margot Tremayne stalked in. The music director of the show wore khaki shorts, leather sandals, and a floral tank top. Her auburn hair threatened to tumble from its casual clip atop her head while she clutched a brown leather satchel to her chest as if her life depended on it. Elegant, casual, and harried all at the same time. She was maybe thirty-five, at most. Worry or strain lines around her eyes and mouth added years or suggested a bunch of them spent in pain. Still, she was considered the best in the business when it came to music. Young for the amount of respect afforded her by the professional dancers and crew. Suddenly I wanted her on my show a lot more than the executive producer. Just looking at her made me hungry to hear her story.
She silently clutched Alexai’s shoulder and closed her eyes as she mouthed, “So sorry.”
Then she dropped her hand and raised her chin. “The pricks at network need to pull their heads out of the sand and let us all acknowledge the depth of your loss.”
Alexai nodded, tears welling up again.
Margot Tremayne fussed with the portfolio she still clutched to her chest. “So what’s this about disrupting my playlist and the composer’s tried-and-true tempo of a classic?” she demanded, pausing only long enough to seek out the spinet piano shoved into the corner behind boxes of junk and posters draped over the top.
One of those posters was of Alexai and me from an early rehearsal/promo. The camera guys hadn’t felt like hanging it up for “special” shots this morning.
“Please, Margo. Please understand that after last night I cannot bring myself to use the bright and peppy music assigned,” Alexai said. He approached the director with hands folded in front of him as if begging. He opened his lovely brown eyes wide and gave her his best starving-puppy look.
I’d seen him pull the same act with Mildred the costume mistress when she wouldn’t pad the shoulders of his costume shirt. He didn’t need the enhancement and Mildred had won that argument.
I don’t think she ever lost an argument.
“You are supposed to choreograph the music you are assigned. I’ve already distributed sheet music. Ninety seconds, perfectly cropped to highlight the melody, with enough dynamic changes so you won’t have to work too hard to create a simple dance.”
I took the opportunity to down half a liter of water and use the restroom.
When I returned, the camera crew scrambled to clear the piano of debris and push it toward the mirror so Ms. Tremayne could see the reflection of Alexai and me dancing over the top of her sheet music. She flexed her fingers and dug her thumbs into her palms in a deep massage before sitting on the spinning stool and running through a couple of scales.
“I overrode your decision. Sibelius is much too dark. You want poignant.” She played the opening bars of a tune I almost remembered. “Mr. Fix-It Thomas approves. Now, Sokov, I haven’t got all day. Let’s get this worked out now.” She stroked the piano keys, like a lover.
Alexai stopped in the middle of the room, biting his lower lip. A single tear moistened the tips of his lower lashes. Then he abruptly shifted into professional dance mode, grabbed me by the elbow, and pulled me into the dance hold we’d been practicing all morning.
Ms. Tremayne nodded. “I wrote this song for a musical, after my own loss. No problems with copyright.” Then she counted an opening of a full twelve counts, one-two-and-three, one-two-and-three. She blended the notes into the melody. Her voice came through as a ghostly whisper,”
I see/ your ghost/ today,
I saw/ you yes/terday.
And I cried.
Yes I cried.
I’m alone
Now you’re /gone
I feel your ghost at night
You never could give me fright.
And I cried
Yes I cried.
We’re no longer we
I’m alone, just me
And I cried. . .
Ah, the poignant closing number to a spooky, haunted mansion, Off-Broadway musical that had closed a couple of years ago. I’d seen the show and loved that song. But I couldn’t remember the plot, only that song.
“Follow my lead,” Alexai whispered to me as he stepped forward on his right foot, forcing me to step back with my left.
I stumbled through the first waltz box, back, side, together, front, side, together. Six counts. Okay, I’d done that before. We repeated the move. Then pressure on my back from Alexai’s fingers told me I should angle into a turning box. Yeah, we’d done that, too. Another turning box and I ended up where he had begun.
I started to understand why the contorted position of my back was important. I could shift my weight and direction and still keep my balance.
Then my partner switched gears, releasing my back with his right hand and shifting how he held my right hand, raising his arm, and. . .and I spun effortlessly. Two turns, six counts.
My mind clicked. My body responded. I almost knew how he was going to lead me before I got the signal from his hands and the angle of his body.
“That’s right, Jannie. Let the music flow through you,” he said quietly.
A few more steps and Ms. Tremayne brought the music to a drifting end, notes and voice lingering in the air. I was in mid step and didn’t want it to end. I had to finish. . . .
“Okay. I know what you need. I’ll download a recording to you in an hour or two.” The music director folded her sheet music and carefully placed the pages flat in her satchel.
Without another word she was out the door.
I felt as if she’d taken half the air in the room with her.
“A bit curt,” I mumbled. Then I remembered that the cameras were still rolling, and my mic was still live. I wanted to slam my fist into my forehead. Not a good move on reality TV, even though the audience would drink it up. The network would frown. They wanted to portray peace and harmony among the crew. The only tension they left in the “package” of backstage interaction had to be between the dancers.
“She was a star, back in the day. A genuine prodigy on the piano,” Alexai said, his voice tinged with awe.
“She does know her stuff,” I admitted. “I’ve heard a lot of pianists in my day.” They didn’t know precisely how long I’d been listening to music. Though back at Woodstock when Zach had called me his dancing sprite, I was more into wailing electric guitars and mindless gyrations. The music was as much a drug back then as hash and LSD, both passed around too liberally. I hadn’t yet learned just how much of a drug I could let music be.
“I’ve got the music in my head now. I can choreograph and alert costuming and production to the changes. I want you in ghostly white draperies and a misty background. We’ll learn the dance tomorrow. Then rehearse it properly on Sunday night, Monday, and Tuesday before we air on Wednesday. Unless you have a problem with working on Sunday.” Alexai began briskly packing up his gear.
The camera people did likewise. I handed over my mic and battery pack, grateful to be free of the invasive tools.
“What about Friday and Saturday?” I asked, suddenly panicking that I wouldn’t have those extra two days of practice.
“You are on your own. You can use the studio during our scheduled times to rehearse on your own. Or you can grab an understudy. I’ll make sure you have the music.”
“It’s not the same,” I whined. “Are you trying to sabotage my chances on the show?”
He stilled, then looked at me in alarm. “Of course not! I need my dancers to stay on the show as long as possible. You are the first celebrity I’ve been given with a chance of making the quarter-finals. I need you to succeed to advance my own career.”
“Then why do we have to miss three days of rehearsal?” My stern interviewer persona took over. I’d pry answers out him just like I would a politician who had said something stupid and wouldn’t back down.
“Because I dance in the Ballet du Ciel when I’m not coddling celebrities who think they are ballroom divas, and I have performances in San Francisco. Two shows on Friday and Saturday each, matinee on Sunday. I’m flying out of LAX this afternoon, right after our rehearsal.”
“Do you do this every weekend?” An edge of panic I couldn’t control crept into my voice. I knew he didn’t because we’d worked together seven days a week for three weeks.
“No. Most weekends we perform here in the city. I don’t have to allow for travel time and getting used to different stages.”
“If I go with you, will you have time to rehearse with me?”
He chewed his lip while he mulled that over. “An hour here and there. But it would mean you camping out backstage during my schedule. And you have to pay your own way. I doubt Granger will foot the bill for travel outside of show duties.”
Mentally I ran through my expense account for both Dance From The Heart and Janet Dryer About Town. Airfare, food, and lodging for three days. I could manage it. Just. Without taking anything away from the money I’d planned to transfer to Charlie’s trust. “Let’s go for it.” And I might be able to line up some of my own interviews at the same time. That would mean I could push more of those expenses onto my show.
I’d also be out of Bryant Thomas’s reach for a while.
Wait a minute. What had Margot Tremayne said about “Mr. Fix-It Thomas”?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Bryant stomped into his trailer behind Studio #23. Sheesh, who knew that a producer’s contract would be five inches thick! He had to read it to see how much of his life and carefully hoarded finances he’d signed away just to save Bambie’s career and set up an anchor for himself. The bonus was he’d get rid of one of the many slime-bucket producers in the business.
