Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
“Looks fun,” Steve says.
“It really is. You wanna learn?”
“What? The Charleston?” Steve asks. I nod. “Yeah. Hell yeah. What kind of twenty-first-century man doesn’t wanna know how to Charleston? Let’s cut a rug.”
I laugh as he grabs me by the hand, and then we’re in the middle of the action, navigating our way around cool cats and hep dames all cutting up the carpet. (There is no actual carpet. Just parqueted hardwood. But I don’t think there’s a throwback expression for ‘parqueted hardwood.’)
We make our way up to Sheila, who doesn’t even look winded.
“Sheila?” She looks up at me as I say her name. “Sheila… this is Steve. Steve is…” I look at him. What do I call him? What do I say? Steve is SS’s brother? Steve is SS? Steve is the guy who invited me here and is maybe kind of changing my life in real time? But before I have to make a choice of any kind, Steve chimes in.
“Steve is a big, big fan of your tenant.” He takes Sheila by her jitterbugging hand and kisses it. She draws her head back, raises an eyebrow.
“Oh, well, aren’t you just… all of you?” she says, saucily.
“What does that—?” Steve starts to ask, but is cut off as Sheila grabs him by both hands and shouts…
“Swing me!”
He does. He spins her around and she twirls in place. Like the showgirl she once wanted to be and, in some essential way, still is. I watch for a moment as he spins her, counter-stepping with a grace and sophistication that I never would have expected. He slides, and twists, and moves Sheila around the floor like they’ve been dancing together for years.
And as I watch them I think… If I wrote this all down in a book, no one would believe it.
This whole week. It’s all just so…
Or no. That’s not necessarily true. Maybe they would. Maybe… maybe it’s me who wouldn’t believe it. Maybe it’s me who’s judgmental. Because I learned to be.
I tend to look for things like ‘thematic coherence’ and ‘narrative throughlines’ in everything. Like, in a real A+B=C kind of a way. But, since meeting Steve, the things that have happened to me have unfolded in an outlandish way that tests credulity and lacks what my brain tends to seek as a cohesive architecture.
And what is dawning on me now like a new day’s sun is… so what?
I’ve spent so much time in my own life trying to do the right thing and control my own narrative that I haven’t made much room for spontaneity and surprise.
One of the dictionary definitions of romance is: ‘A quality or feeling of mystery, excitement, and remoteness from everyday life.’
So maybe it would do me good to just… not care. Like Steve said, nobody cares.
What’s the worst that happens if all that’s going on with me right now isn’t exactly as I had planned it? Or doesn’t make sense?
The worst thing is that I might find that I love all this that has happened. That is happening.
Because this is my life. My real life.
I’ve had a great couple of days, all in all. People have been so nice. People have told me they’ve liked what I’ve written. People have seemed to like me. Steve has seemed to like me. And that’s what’s real. Not whatever future I intended for myself. The future doesn’t exist. It’s no more real than the stories I write. But this, here, now, this is real. And it’s wonderful.
Time to venture free from the life in your mind and into the life that you’re living, Cord.
I feel a hand on my shoulder. Britney. “Hey, girly,” she says, smiling. “You having fun? At all? You okay?”
I turn to her, a big grin on my face, and say, “Yeah. I’m having a great time.”
Her eyes go kind of wide as she smiles too. And then she gets teary, throws her arms around my neck, smothering me in a hug, and whispers, “Good. You deserve it.”
Just as she’s pulling away, I hear the song end and Steve’s voice say, “Sheila. Can flat-out. Torch.”
Britney and I break our embrace and I turn around to see Steve sweating. A lot.
“Yeah. She’s something,” I say.
“Looking good out there, son!” A handsome-looking couple whom I recognize as Steve and Essie’s parents walk up. “Nice moves, my boy,” his dad says, patting Steve on the shoulder.
“Huh?” Steve says, seemingly surprised. “Oh. Thanks, Dad.”
His mom smiles, looks at me and Britney, and introduces herself. “Hello. Phyllis Smith.”
“Uh, sorry,” Steve jumps in. “Mom, Dad, this is Cordelia Sarantopoulos. She writes under the name Cynthia Lear. And her friend, Britney Kincaid. Cordelia, Britney, these are my parents, Phyllis and Tom Smith.”
We all shake hands and exchange pleasantries and then Phyllis turns to Steve and says, “Well! Those dance classes we made you take in middle school finally paid off, huh?” It’s obvious that she means it as a good-natured joke, but Steve bristles a little.