Page 1 of Sway

Cha Cha Cha

Swiveling her feet, she teased him with fleeting glimpses of her thighs. His confidence rose and he grabbed her, challenging her at her own game. She caressed his chest and lowered her hands to his hips, tracing his abs with her nails. He threw her into a split. Then, he brought her to his lips. She pulled away from him and he forced her back, straddling her leg around his waist. The game had only begun.

1

Salomé Sanchez

THEY SAY THAT television adds ten pounds. Fuck that. On my forty-two-inch plasma screen, Viktoria Brooks is her usual Popsicle stick self with D-cup boobs. I would even give up my World Amateur Latin Title to be her right now. Posing there in front of the whole country, air-kissing and waving as they hand her the Emmy. She just won it for Outstanding Choreography for her cha-cha routine with her dim boy band partner on the hit series Dancing under the Stars. Only, she didn’t choreograph that cha-cha.

I did.

“That bitch!” Jenny, my best amiga since forever, shouts toward the TV. “I can’t believe her! The woman wins an Emmy for your choreography and doesn’t even have the decency to thank you?” Her eyelashes flutter, but sexy ain’t the look she’s going for now. Right now, homicidal maniac is more her mood.

“I hate her,” she snarls and her pale face flushes red. “I’m calling the National Enquirer tomorrow and finally selling them all those pictures you have of her dancing at the O’Farrell Theater. Where are they Salomé?” She points a crimson painted talon on her index finger in my face. “Go get them, now!”

Part of me considers fetching the memory box that I’ve been hiding under my bed. But I don’t. My big ass stays put on my mother’s priceless ecru-colored leather couch because I’m just too shell-shocked to move. I’d swear someone just snapped my Achilles heel.

“Oh, come on, guys,” Diana says next to me, “what did you expect?” Dear Diana, always the voice of reason. At nineteen, she’s only a baby in Prada, but without her, Jenny and I would’ve been tossed in the slammer years ago. Being twenty-four doesn’t make the two of us any wiser. “Vika would never admit she stole a dance from her ex-best friend. Her image would be destroyed.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t that be a shame,” I say, finding the strength to talk, “considering she’s all image.” I down the rest of my strawberry margarita, laced with Don Julio Blanco Tequila, savoring the silky cinnamon aftertaste. Whoever invented tequila deserves a fucking Emmy. “Who am I to complain anyway? I got zero image. Z-E-R-O. No producer’s gonna put a frizzy-haired midget with no boobs on television just cuz she’s the best dancer.”

“Shut up, Salomé,” Jenny says. “You are not a midget. You’re just compact.”

“Oh, as if.”

Jenny flicks my forehead with her finger then heads to my parents’ bar to whip up her favorite Lychee Martini and make me another margarita. Diana pours herself a shot of red Hawaiian punch. Life as a Mormon is wild, ain’t it? When we hit the clubs in Tijuana, she orders sparkling water. Sometimes, when she’s really cutting loose, she’ll add a slice of lime. And no Starbucks? Where’s the joy in that?

But then, what do any of us know about joy? It’s hard to believe my career is already over. What am I supposed to do for the next sixty years? Watch inferior dancers win Emmys for my routines on Dancing under the Stars? Jenny, Diana, and I meet every Tuesday night to watch Dancing under the Stars and to play a drinking game that we’ve made up for the show. This week was my turn to host, so we gathered at my parents’ Tiburon estate. Why? Because at twenty-four, I still live with them when I’m not jetting off to a competition. All the money I earn from competitions and teaching couples how to dance waltzes for their weddings goes right back into my dancing expenses. Great life, huh? Anyway, the rules of the game are simple: drink one sip every time Judge Steve Samson talks about the lack of heel leads, two sips every time Vika rubs her tits in the face of her celebrity partner of the season, three sips every time Judge Karen Lopez shrieks like a cat in heat, and four sips every time Judge Benny Brooks says one of his funny Australian sayings. By the end of the show, we’re blazed senseless and glad for it. Well, not Miss Hawaiian Punch. I don’t know how she does it; Dancing under the Stars is meant to be watched through blurred eyes.

Technically, the Dancing under the Stars season is over. But tonight is the Creative Arts Emmy Award Telecast and we gathered to see if I—okay, fine, if Vika—would win. We should have watched water drip from the kitchen faucet instead. What a mind-fuck that woman is. We used to be inseparable. I don’t even know her anymore. Watching your best friend fuck a man old enough to be her grandpa can have a strange effect on a relationship.

Jenny serves me my drink and settles into my father’s Lazy Boy. Like the has-been D-List celebutards that grace the floors of Dancing under the Stars, the professional dancers on the show occupy a similar place on the ballroom world’s very own D-List. Just goes to show that people outside the competitive dance circuit don’t know the rumba from their rumps.

I glance at the soundless television. Vika is blowing yet another kiss to the cameras as if she just sang “Happy Birthday Mr. President.” At five foot ten, Vika has a body that looks like Michelangelo himself chiseled it.

Or Hugh Hefner.

Me, not so much. I can dance circles around the woman—hell, my feet are faster than DSL—but physically I’m the Bizarro Vika. I’ve got the bod of Hayden Panettiere on steroids.

Ay, Dios mío, help me.

I take a sip of my new strawberry margarita.

“C’mon, Salomé,” Diana slides over on the couch to pat my leg, jangling her five thousand dollar Tiffany bracelet, “look on the bright side—you technically won an Emmy. That’s kind of cool, right?”

“It’s just awesome.” I look back at the screen and spy Genya, my ex-boyfriend and ex-dance partner, and his gorgeous fiancée, Iza, in the audience. They’re also professional dancers on Dancing under the Stars. I can’t stand seeing his hand on her thigh. He just proposed to Iza last week on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. I know this because my People magazine gave me a play by play complete with romantic pictures of the happy couple and quotes about how they “can’t wait to start making babies.” He kisses her pouty lips and she places her delicate manicured ring finger, displaying her princess cut engagement ring, on his ripped chest.

Fuck my life.

I spit up my margarita all over my mother’s couch.

Jenny sees the margarita dribble on my face and motions to Diana to turn off the TV. I snatch my drink in one hand and scoop up my tuxedo cat, Rumba, in the other and shuffle onto my parents’ redwood deck. I lie down on a chaise and place my drink in the holder. I wonder how Genya would have proposed to me. It wouldn’t have been at an amusement park, that’s for sure. I look up at the night sky. The view doesn’t let me down: the Richmond, Bay, and Golden Gate Bridges, towering tall and majestic. Watching the fog gently hug them always calms me down.

The girls join me on the deck, drinks in tow.

“Seriously,” I say, “I don’t really care about the stupid Emmy. I mean, any promo for ballroom is good, right? It’s not like she hasn’t won any titles. She’s a decent dancer. I knew that the minute I first saw her dance. She used to be such a sweetheart. And she’s had a super hard life. Leaving her mother, emigrating from Odessa, living with her babushka in that smelly retirement home . . . and damn, could you even imagine sleeping with nasty ol’ Benny Brooks?”

Both Jenny and Diana gag like they just drank pickle juice. Vika has been married to the most respected and also most cocky and wrinkly sixty-five-year-old ballroom judge for five years. That fact alone qualifies her for a big award.