Comet! (an Ell Donsaii story #5 ) (20 page)

Ell nodded
minutely,
hoping he’d keep his voice down.

“I saw the vid of you dancing at the Cat’s Cradle. Awesome!”

“Thank you.”
Ell’s lips dropped the straw
back
in
to
her Coke.

“Well, I guess not as amazing as your routines in the Olympics! But still pretty fantastic. Do you do anything else besides breakdance?”

Ell nodded, “Swing,” and put her lips
to
the straw for another sip, eyes slanted up at his.

“Oh great! I
teach
swing dancing, would you dance with me?
It’d be amazing advertising for my studio. A dance with you woul
d mean the world
to me!
”

Ell looked around the dance floor. People were freestyling and a few were still line dancing. Emma was dancing freestyle with the occasionally staggering Joe. Vic wasn’t to be seen. “Uh, no one’s dancing swing.”

He grinned, “Well we’ll just have to show them how! Sorry, for not introducing myself. I’m Will.”

“Ell.” She put out her hand and he shook it. “OK. If you think we can wedge a swing dance into that dance floor I’m up for it.”

“Fantastic! Do you want to set your drink down on my table here?”

Ell nodded and Will led he
r out into the crowd
ed
dancers saying, “We’ll have to dance tight ‘cause we won’t have much floor.”
He pulled her
off to one side where it wasn’t quite so crowded and spun her under his arm.

As he did it Ell grasped what he meant by “tight.” He’d spun her into a small space where there was barely room for her. If she’d traveled like she was used to she’d have run into the freestyling dancer just past. His hand on hers pulled to keep her from going there but if she hadn’t had her elbow
bent
up tight she would have run into them. He turned her several times then caught her left hand with his
,
shuffling in place with her a moment then turning her into a cuddle.
This is so different from the
way we danced in Vegas,
she thought.
It’s amazing how he’s managing to do the same kinds of turns in so much less space.

Will
felt astonishment. He
’d
taught dance lessons
for years
and had never had anyone pick up the flow of
a
dance so easily
.
She’d immediately copied his foot work as if she’d known what he was going to do!
Even with an experienced partner i
t was
usually
very difficult to dance swing in a crowded bar like this one. Most amateur dancers were used to big movements and couldn’t tone them down to keep from running into other people on the floor.
She’s following
so
effortlessly
it’s like she’s
a professional
!
Where did she learn?!
He took her through some pretzels
and
every bit of
every
turn flowed effortlessly.
My God
,
it
feels like I’ve personally been dancing with her for years!

Will
doubled the tempo.

Ell enthusiastically followed
,
excited over the challenge of dancing such complex steps at such speed in such tight quarters. With some disappointment she felt the other dancers backi
ng slowly away. They were
still shuffling
in
rhythm but turning to watch
in amazement
.

Will, seeing that they had more room
,
wondered if she
knew how to do
aerials?
He tried a lindy flip
,
That was easy!
Cannonball
.
Waterfall.
One aerial after another, each one effortless. Normally he’d
feel the strain
after two or three because of the exertion required
lifting
the girl but not this time! It was like she divined what he was about to do and launched herself so perfectly that he had essentially no lifting to do!

Emma sensed a commotion on the dance floor and thought there might be a fight. Looking that way she
peered between the ring of people surrounding the area and
saw
a couple
dancing.
S
wing
d
ancing
! My God, that’s amazing
!
The twirling and spinning and flying through the air seemed effortless, yet incredibly physical.
S
he
stepped closer.
Yep it’s
Ell.

Gordon, looking down on the dance floor from the stage
,
had recognized that something extraordinary was happening before Emma did. First people started making room on that side of the dance floor, then turning to form a circle of watchers.
The couple they were surrounding
was
spinning and whirling at an incredible pace. Then the girl started bouncing and spinning up into the air over her partner’s head! Gordon finished the chorus and as the instrumental break in the song
began
,
he
pointed to the dancers
, “Holy crap, look at those two
dance!”
he boomed. T
hen his eyebrows crawled up his forehead.
Could that be? Ye
ss
s!
“
Ladies and gentlemen,” he pointed again, “
Ms
. Ell Donsaii!!” He
hoped that someone was getting good
video of this and planning on posting it
to the web
. The club had some video
cameras;
maybe he could pull something off of
them and post a video himself?

Gordon leaned to the mike,
“This is the second time she’s shown up at one of Velos’ shows. Oh yeah! Last time she did some break dancin’. Let me tell you the girl can breakdance too! Go girl
,
go!” The chorus came around and Gordon started singing again
,
hoping against hope that he could talk to her at the next intermission. However, by the time the song ended she’d faded into the crowd somehow
.
W
hen the next break came around he hadn’t seen her for a while.

Once they got into the band dressing room he turned to his bandmates, “Hooee,
Ell Donsaii!” Joe, Belle and Emma came into the dressing room again, “Hey did you guys see that!
Ell Donsaii!
Man I hope that gets us some more hits
on the web
!
Emma, where’d she go? Can you take me out and introduce me to her?
”

Emma
grinned at Belle but then
shrugged, “No, she left. She was here in
Raleigh
when I called her so she said she’d come by ‘cause she likes your band. But then when everyone started making a big deal over her dancing she bolted. Believe it or not, she’s kinda shy and hates it when everyone makes a
fuss
about
her.” Emma raised an eyebrow and, looking directly at “Belle
,
” said, “Kinda weird actually.”

“But she must have spent so much time learning to dance like that! How can she not like the attention it gets her?”

Emma hadn’t considered the effort that must have gone into learning to dance
that way. T
hen she remembered how astonishing Ell had been at Foosball. Well, and gymnastics too. She tilted her head questioningly and said, “It might not take all that much effort to learn to dance like that when you have
Olympic gold medal
coordination?”

Gordon’s eyes widened. “Holy crap
. You think gymnastics came easy to her too?
!”

Emma shrugged and glanced at Ell who was staring at her a little wide eyed. Ell gave her a minute head shake.

The door opened and Vic stepped in. “Vic!” Gordon stood and gave him a big hug. “
W
hat you did for our sound
… that was amazing
!” He looked at Emma, Ell and Joe. “What did you guys think out there in the club
...
was it cleaner?”

Ell, glad that they’d stopped discussing her, nodded her head. Emma and Joe enthused over the improvement in the sound.

Gordon said, “You should really go into the sound business.”

Vic shook his head, “Nah. My Dad’s really good at it and he barely makes a living… I do think about opening my own club someday though. I’d like to try to design one with great acoustics
.
” He sighed,
“
I have fantasies th
at bands
would want
to come there because they sound so good in
my
club. Maybe…” he waggled his eyebrows,
“
so good that they wanted to come to record live shows there?”

Gordon said, “You should talk to Belle. Her crazy aunt financed Velos to get us out on the road. Maybe she’d invest in your
club?”

Everyone turned to look at Ell and she shrank back. Emma’s eyes were sparkling in delight a
t her discomfort. “Well…” Ell frowned,
“
if you wanted her to look at it, you’d have to give me some kind of fleshed out plan. I’d have to tell her more than, ‘I’ve got a buddy who wants to open a bar.’ There’d have to be some analysis of the prospects and upfront costs and that kind of thing.”

Vic lit up. “You really think she might invest?”

Ell shrugged. “Send me a
business
plan and I’ll forward it to her.”

When Ell and Emma were safely back in her truck Emma hooted. “Your ‘crazy aunt’? You mean to tell me you
financed
Gordon’s
dropping out of college and going on the road with his band? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” She doubled over laughing.

Ell looked sheepish. “When I first suggested it I had pictured them traveling to gigs on weekends
but
staying in school. I didn’t realize that wouldn’t work. Then he seemed so pumped I thought I should help him try out his dream.” She shrugged, “I
am
a little ashamed. But if it doesn’t work out they’ll only lose a semester.
Everyone deserves a shot at their dream.
”

“Crazy aunt,” Emma giggled, “that’s a good one. How much did you invest in them?”

“Thirty thousand.” Ell shrugged again, “I can afford it and it’s a big deal to them.”

Emma said, “Someday I hope I can just shrug about
crappy
thirty thousand dollar investments!”

“You don’t think they’ll make it?

“
Low percentage bet.
Musicians hardly ever do.” Her eyes lost focus, “
But
they
are
really
good
..
.
” She looked back over at Ell, “
I think they need to hire Vic to go with them and
work
their sound at each venue.”

***

“So should I just run a story
saying that
NASA won’t comment on the
risk
of Comet Hearth-Daster hitting the earth? Saying that there obviously must be some risk but that NASA won’t respond to questions about it?”

“You
are
aware the freedom of speech doesn’t cover shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater aren’t you?”

“What! Are you trying to tell me that if I publish you’ll have me arrested?”

“I’m telling you that the risk from Hearth-Daster is very low. And that if you even submit a story implying otherwise
or suggesting a cover up
you
will
go to prison. You won’t just be arrested
, you
will
go to prison for an ‘attempt to incite world wide panic
.
’
The story doesn’t have to be
published;
you just have to
try to
submit it.”

Chapter
Seven

Emma couldn’t find Ell. She went into the machine shop. “Manuel, have you seen Ell?”

Manuel looked up from a stack of what appeared to be some type of ports. They had a knob of Dexin coated material at one end typical for the electronic package used to drive the far member of a paired port. Instead of a flat disk like a normal port they had little tubes attached to them. Well, actually some of them had flat discs and it looked like he was rolling the port discs
up to make
the
tubes?
“She’s out in the parking lot setting up her new telescope.”