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Flash Fiction

Dancing With the Stars Gold

Published : Saturday, 9 November, 2024 at 12:00 AM  Count : 3222
Audrey Ferber
Word got out that I liked to dance. Probably my agent; a dear heart, a dumpling, a mother hen. Maybe she told them that I was making a comeback at sixty, that I had a memoir, that I'd just had face work. Untrue. Well, just a little. Okay, sixty-five. 

I'm not exactly a star. Two good movies, then a few stinkers. Three divorces and two grown kids: Beckett and Brooklyn. I wouldn't mind a redo on the names. Weight up, weight down. Papped on the beach inhaling a slice of pizza, the photo of which kept me in bed for a month.

"I'll do it," I told my agent. I wanted the glitz, the glamor, the mirror ball trophy. I wanted the world to know that I was still alive!  

They assigned me Dimitri, one of the short Russians. The tall ones dance with the bigger stars. So the costumer decided nothing higher than a two-inch heel for me. Disappointing. I'd been counting on the leg extension, the pelvic thrust.
  
I told Dim that I had a wonky knee. I didn't mention my bad hip, the plantar fasciitis or the asthma. He held both my hands in his, pressed them to my chest, and said: "Forget all that caca. Now we dance!"

I copied the practice outfits of past-season Stars. Leggings rolled mid-calf, ripped tees knotted at the waist, and my hair in a messy pile, tendrils of which caught in my eyelid droop. Dim sweated a lot. Polyester is unforgiving, but his gelled hair always smelled like a piña colada, and his eyes, green lenses, looked bright as marbles.

We excelled on cha-cha night. I'd been dancing cha-cha at Bar Mitzvahs since I was a kid, but rehearsals for the next week's paso doble did not go as well.

"Your trunk's heavy," Dim said at rehearsal.

My hand shot to my nose, partly as a joke, partly because I'd heard more than one casting director describe it as Jewish. But then Dim swatted my butt with his towel. I guess he meant my lower trunk, which was no compliment either. 

On paso night, he looked dashing, bare-chested under a cropped matador jacket. The dresser girded me in shapewear: waist cincher, butt booster, tummy compression panels, and a military-grade uplift bra. They slithered a narrow black dress with a fringed hem down my body and yanked my hair into a low bun. The price of beauty, right? But when they jabbed a sharp-toothed flamenco comb into my scalp, I screamed "NO" faster than I remembered how much I wanted to win.  

We made it through paso. My heel caught twice in the fringe, but when the shawl they'd insisted on last minute-"arm wobble," one of the dressers had whispered-slid into a puddle on the floor, Dim valiantly kicked it aside with the toe of his high-heeled boot. My hip made grinding noises as we bounded up the stairs to get our scores, but our numbers fell respectably mid-pack. 

Disney week next. The director asked me which was my favorite movie.

"Don't have one, not really a fan. I loved South Pacific when I was a kid." 

One of his eyebrows shot up. 

OMG-mistake!!!  If I didn't have anything nice to say, honesty was not the best policy. I should have just shut my trap.
They assigned us Beauty and the Beast. Dim? the director? unclear who, revenge-cast me as a piece of crockery.
 
"And a little feedback," the director offered. "We want you more care-aboutable. Let's get some of your family in the audience."
  
"Brooklyn's in Hawaii and Beckett and I are on hiatus. But I've got friends." Friends who'd sell their mothers for a little camera time, I didn't add. 

But then on Disney night, wearing a strap-on dinner plate, wide white trousers and oxfords, I burst free. I stopped counting and muttering the steps under my breath. Maybe it was the loose pants, but I let go and just danced. 
 
"Stay on program," Dim hissed.

He resisted at first, but I reeled him in with the Lindy bridge I'd done as a kid and a little twist action. Then, we improvised-salsa, merengue, tango foot play, my leg twined around his. We ended with a rousing quick-step at the end of which Dim dipped me so low, my plate fascinator slipped off my head. I sailed it, Frisbee-style, at the judges.  

By the end of our number, I was wheezing but joyous, pounding with endorphins. The experts say dance is good for seniors, the combination of memory and footwork, but I had a ball forgetting the routine, letting go, rocking out loose and free. 

We fell to the bottom of the leaderboard. A word in my seventy years on earth that I'd never used before. We got eliminated.
 
"I want to say something." The only female judge stood, teary with empathy. "You're just terrific. A great little lady."
Little? I was taller than Dim.

"Sixty's the new forty," the judge with the interesting lapel pins chimed in. "Give me some of what she's taking!"
Ibuprofen?

"YOU'RE A SURVIVOR!!!" The judge who wears see-through shirts stood on his chair and clapped gravely until the audience joined in.  

Survivor! Now there's a thought. My next challenge! I'll get my agent on the phone.

Courtesy: Flash Fiction Magazine


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