Dance, Lust And Them

 It was what had made him a good student back when he was still enrolled in school. Though he would occasionally raise his hand and ask questions for his participation grade, Vance was quiet in class and kept to himself. There were a number of reasons for this, one of them being that if he spoke too much in class then some of the other thugs they went to school with would beat the hell out of him. The other reason was that he was quite shy and didn’t want the teacher to think he was strange for wanting to know so much.

 These habits translated into his adult life, making him both a good listener and a confident boss. Growing up around the streets and around drug deals helped him to become more cunning and powerful, while keeping his mouth shut and becoming the eyes and ears of his studio made him more empathetic and knowledgeable about the going-ons of the other girls. He couldn’t believe some of the gossip that the girls would say behind each other’s backs, and at times it was quite entertaining to sit back, relax, and listen to what they were saying.

 Just the other day Vance caught them talking about Janelle. What had started out as a girl complaining, quickly turned into the other dancers sticking up for Janelle. They spoke about how she was a powerful dancer and how she was good at what she did. Some of the other girls were even jealous of her moves and the fact that she could show up on the scene so quickly and gain so much success. It surprised Vance that what was once such a negative conversation could turn around quite quickly into something positive. This was one of the many reasons he found human beings fascinating.

 At that very moment, while Curtis and Janelle were arguing and teasing each other about who remembered a Halloween party’s events clearer, Vance was eavesdropping on another table. It was a couple, a man and a woman, and they were out on their first date in months. From what Vance gathered, they had a child at home being taken care of by a babysitter. The woman was now accusing the man of infidelity, claiming she saw him flirting with the babysitter on numerous occasions. The man continued to tell the woman no, that wasn’t the case; she was just accusing him of things because she was stressed out over work.

 Vance always wondered why men and women cheated on each other. Maybe it really was because they weren’t meant to be in monogamous, one-on-one relationships. He knew Janelle was interested in both himself and Curtis at the same time—why didn’t they all go for it? He’d had doubts at first, of course, like any man would when entering into a situation as complex as this one. But he knew they would be able to fix anything bad that came their way, especially if they were a unit, working together on the same problems.

 He wanted to tell Janelle about his revelation but he didn’t want to bother her. She seemed so interested in her conversation with Curtis. To Vance, it seemed like the two had been close for a long time. Curtis was the kind of guy to wait in the wings for the perfect opportunity to strike, or in this case, to ask Janelle on a proper date. She’d obviously come with baggage, but that was nothing he or Curtis couldn’t handle. It was all part of being in a relationship with another human being.

 Janelle ate her food so quickly that she forgot her plate was once full. She was eager to get out into the garden, to run around the maze and watch as the other children got lost playing hide-and-go-seek. She had a hazy memory of her mother and her hanging out at one of the fountains with a statue of Aphrodite in the middle. Janelle knew this memory couldn’t possibly prove true, as she’d wandered the garden endlessly and had never come across such a statue, or fountain. It made her sad to think that some of her memories were made up, but it was comforting at the same time.

 Maybe if she thought of her mother enough times she would be able to create a fictional universe to live in where her mother was still alive and well. It had crushed her father to lose her so quickly into their marriage, but he’d powered through it and had come out an amazing single dad. Regardless of Janelle’s grandmother and her unnecessary input, everything had turned out okay, for the most part. In fact, there wasn’t much Janelle disliked about herself or her upbringing.

 There were times she wished she were more like Curtis, whose parents were still alive and well, thriving in their marriage. But that was unrealistic and Janelle knew that. She needed to move on from this fairytale idea that all things would come to her neatly wrapped in a package. Real life was messy and complicated and not at all how anyone ever planned it to be. The things that came to people that actually mattered—those needed to be worked hard for, over, and over again. Just because Janelle had landed this hip-hop job didn’t mean she could stop practicing in her home.

 Every day she worked hard to become a better dancer and a better person. It was nice to hang out with Vance and Curtis and to reflect like this in her own head. The conversation naturally shifted between the two of them, and Janelle didn’t feel left out. She sipped her beer and stole some of Curtis’s fries, prompting him to swipe at her with his soft fingertips. She noticed he had a new tattoo wrapping around his wrist. It was a length of the rosary bead with a cross at the end. She never took Curtis for being the religious sort. It must have been there for a specific reason.

 Thinking of her own cross, her fingers immediately started fiddling with it. When she wasn’t paying attention, a chocolate lava cake was delivered to her. Vance and Curtis told her they ordered for her while she was daydreaming.

 “I was not daydreaming,” Janelle said.

 Curtis laughed. “Yes you were. Whenever you fiddle with the cross around your neck, that’s how I know that you’re daydreaming about something.”

 “Was it at least interesting?” Vance asked, taking a bite of his key lime pie.

 “It was okay,” Janelle teased, cutting open her lava cake. Thick chocolate spilled out of the center and mixed with the ice cream. The trio finished up their deserts quickly before paying the bill and running off into the maze.