The Ballroom Class (57 page)

She was about to go in when she realised Angelica wasn’t on her own; there was a man in there with her, dressed in black. He’d been standing to the side while she did some kind of semi-Flamenco stamping step, and now he took hold of her again, stepping back into the salida as their cheeks touched. The music changed tempo, and he walked around her as Angelica spun on the ball of her foot, her leg flicked back at a perfect right angle.

Katie’s heartbeat quickened as her nerves took hold. Was that Angelica’s own partner, or someone else she was giving private lessons to? Did she expect her to dance with him? They were pretty good together, and when Katie saw what the tango should look like when it was done properly her old despair that she’d ever learn to be that good flooded back.

I don’t really want to dance with anyone but Ross, she thought suddenly. I don’t want to meet new people dancing, I just want him to dance with me like that.

Angelica stopped and demonstrated a new step to the man, darting her foot in and out between his leg, so her red shoe flashed against the black of his trousers. He held her close, his long white hand low on her red dress, as the Argentinian music rattled and yearned in the background.

‘You’ve got it!’ she heard Angelica exclaim, with a delight that she rarely displayed in group class. ‘Perfection!’

Feeling like a voyeur, Katie sank back onto the bench and put on the shoes she danced in. She’d bought a new pair especially, gold leather with good slippy soles – as much glitz as she could manage to change into on her lunchbreak.

Katie looked at her feet and tried to imagine them doing the same haughty, sexy steps that Angelica had been showing off. It would have helped if she’d had time to give herself a pedicure; tango Argentino was the sort of dance that demanded bright red toenails peeking through fishnets.

For the first time in years, Katie actually wished she’d had time for a pedicure, and she shocked herself by wondering if the salon next to Sainsbury’s did lunchtime appointments. Maybe that was what Angelica meant about rediscovering her inner woman.

‘Come on, feet,’ she said, as she pushed herself off the bench and prepared to go in. ‘Do it for me.’

When she opened the door to the Hall, the music was still playing, but Angelica was on her own, sketching out a shape with her arms, stepping back and forth thoughtfully as she explored a new step in her mind. Her head bounced up when she saw Katie, making her ponytail flick. Up close, she didn’t look quite so young, with feathery lines around the eyes, but the unbounded pleasure in her face and the flush in her cheeks gave her a radiance that was more than beautiful.

‘Ah, hello!’ she said. ‘I’ve got a surprise for you!’

‘I saw,’ said Katie.

Angelica looked caught off-guard. ‘Did you?’

‘Yes, I saw through the glass – you were dancing with someone.’

‘That’s
part
of the surprise,’ she said, recovering quickly and wagging her finger. ‘The first bit is this.’ She stepped lightly over to the chairs and picked up a yellow Selfridges bag. ‘I think it’s time to take your tango lessons on a stage, now you know the basics, so first of all, I want you to pop into the loos and put this on.’

‘Another dress?’ said Katie, thinking of the amazing red encrusted number still hanging in her wardrobe, a kidnapped butterfly amidst her drab office suits. ‘But you’ve been far too generous already. I thought  . . .’

Angelica shook her head. ‘No, that’s a ballroom tango dress. Far too stagey for what we’re doing here. This is a real milonga dress, for the tango Argentino. Much sexier, easier to dance in. Go on, put it on.’

‘But that man,’ Katie said, taking the bag nervously. ‘Do I have to dance with him, because I’m not sure that  . . .’

‘You’re not my only student,’ said Angelica, sternly. ‘Now, off you go.’ She tapped her watch.

Reluctantly, Katie went into the chilly loos.

If the worst comes to the worst I could get the council to hire this place out to film crews, she thought, looking round at the cobwebby pipes coiling round the walls. Even the plumbing had been done with an eye to elegance, and the institutional blue-grey paint didn’t spoil its neatness.

The dress didn’t look very big in the bag, just a little puddle of black jersey, but when Katie pulled it over her head, it fell over her body and hung perfectly where it hit her shoulders and hips, flattering her white throat and the curve of her shoulders with the deep v shape in the front.

She looked at herself in the mirror, half amazed and half horrified at how sensuously it clung to her body, highlighting every inch of what little shape she had. The fabric was heavy and swung as she turned to see her back exposed in a matching v.

It swung so sexily that Katie found herself swinging back the other way, just to see how it would feel. It felt fabulous, rippling against her knees, so she swung back again, this time turning her head over her shoulder to peep coyly at herself in the mirror.

A sultrier Katie peeped back, and she nearly laughed in surprise.

There was a big silky red rose on a comb in the bag too, which Katie pushed into her hair, holding her fringe up at one side. The music had started up again in the Hall, and with a final check in the mirror (where had all those curves come from?) she stalked back out, already holding herself differently, so her post-Jack tummy bulge wouldn’t draw more focus than her shoulders.

Angelica clapped her hands when she saw her, although Katie detected something else in her face too – a shadow of something that she tried not to let Katie see, but it must have been quite a strong emotion because it showed in her eyes, even though her red lips were smiling generously.

‘You look stunning!’ she said. ‘Stunning! From now on, that’s your tango outfit.’

‘But I can’t possibly  . . .’

Angelica waved her hands. ‘I’m getting rid of a lot of my old gowns. I’ve got a whole box for Lauren to dress up in. Now then, as I said before, you can only learn so much dancing with me. You need some tension to play with, so you can find that inner vamp we talked about.’ She patted Katie’s hand to temper the words with kindness.

‘So I’ve found you a partner.’

Katie’s heart began to beat more quickly. This was it. This was taking it a bit further, and she wasn’t sure she even wanted to practise moves like that with someone other than Ross.

‘He looked pretty good to me,’ Katie started to say, ‘I hope you’ve warned him that I’m a total beginner  . . .’

‘He’s a beginner himself,’ said Angelica, and pulled the door to the ante room open. ‘We’re ready for you now.’

The man in black stepped into the Hall, running a familiar hand through his dark hair, and in that instant, Katie realised it was Ross.

It took her a second to match her Ross with Angelica’s self-assured partner from a moment ago. Ross, dancing with that sort of assertiveness? Really?

Angelica was smiling as if her face would split, and turned her back very deliberately while she went over to the CD player, leaving them staring at each other, as if they’d only just met.

‘Katie?’ he said, lifting an eyebrow.

Katie couldn’t think what to say, but she could feel herself blushing, though she didn’t know why. Ross looked masculine and unfamiliar, in a black polo neck and tight trousers. Another man’s clothes. He’d done something to his hair too, because it was gleaming and pushed off his face, showing off his eyes, and he walked with a confidence that bordered – she couldn’t quite believe this – on a swagger.

The effect made her skin prickle with excitement.

I really fancy him, thought Katie, as shock and attraction and delight ran through her like a massive jolting shot of espresso. He is a
gorgeous
man.

Ross narrowed his eyes, and said, ‘
Bailamos
?’ as he held out his hand.

He didn’t say it entirely seriously, but there was no trace of his usual self-deprecating humour, and it only added to the delicious strangeness of the situation.

‘
Si
!’ said Katie, in the same pretend Spanish accent, and without warning, he swept her into the closest possible hold: his arm tight around her back, his hand clasping hers right up by her cheek. She felt her whole body melt into his as he tipped her slightly off balance, but his leg was strong against hers, bearing her up, and she let him feel the weight of her against him, so their bodies touched the whole length of her thigh.

Their noses were almost brushing and his breath was warm on her face. They were so close to each other that she had no choice but to look deeply in his face, and for a moment the rest of the room blurred into nothing as the shock of being so intimately connected after months and months of physical detachment swept through every nerve ending in her skin.

Ross gazed into her eyes with a passion that made the colour flood into her cheeks; his eyes were nearly black and it was obvious that he was seeing a different Katie, just as she was seeing a different Ross.

She stared back, not letting herself smile and spoil the drama of the moment. So this is what those magazines mean when they tell you to dress up as different people and meet in a bar, she thought, dazed. It’s Ross, but not Ross. Tango Ross. I know he’s going to be seductive and masculine and everything else the dance tells him to be, and he knows I know. He knows I’m going to be sensual and defiant, and he can’t wait.

Their lips were still inches apart, and neither of them could look away, for fear of breaking the electric tension crackling between them. Katie knew she couldn’t hide anything from him, and a kind of fearlessness spread through her at the dare in his eyes.

Yes, sure, it was pantomime, but Katie couldn’t remember ever feeling so attracted to Ross, and because she could tell he felt the same way, an old sexiness crept over her. The same tingle she’d felt when they first met, and she couldn’t believe he fancied her as much as she fancied him. I want him to feel that again too, she thought, desperately. And if he won’t listen to me at home, he’s going to listen to me now.

The music started, and without speaking, he led her into the basic salida. Their hips brushed as he stepped around her backwards step with a deft confidence that made her trail her left foot with more vampishness than she’d summoned up with Angelica. They did it again, neither varying the steps as they measured each other up, like two cats prowling in a circle.

Just when Katie thought they were going to get through another basic – with a touch of disappointment – Ross suddenly led her into the figure-of-eight spin that made her swivel first one way, then the other, up on her toes, as he stood back, watching motionless apart from his eyes, which followed her as her hips turned to push into the spin.

‘You dance this step to tease your partner,’ Angelica had told her, demonstrating with a provocative flick of the knee that Katie had thought she’d never master. ‘You’re flirting with him, making him wait to carry on the dance.
You
decide how many ochos are enough.’

Her skirt began to flare the first time she turned, and Katie knew it was rising up around her knees, showing off her slim calves. She spun once, twice, then as Ross started to lead her back into the basic, she flashed a stern look at him from under her eyelashes and did another spin, then a fourth.

Then, and only then, she let him step around her to finish the salida, and without thinking, her head arched back proudly, just like Angelica’s had in the lesson.

She met Ross’s gaze, and a thrill of excitement shivered through her as he let a small approving smile tug at the corner of his mouth. Not the puppyish, eager grin he usually gave her, but something much more sexy, more difficult to please. She’d pulled off that move perfectly, and he was impressed, she could see in his face. And in his eyes, and his hands which stroked her back, and his breath, which was quick on her neck, much quicker than their slow pace required. Katie slid her feet languorously along the floor as they stepped round once more in the basic pattern, and Ross led them off at an angle, into the centre of the room.

Katie was vaguely aware of the door swinging shut as Angelica left, but she wasn’t really listening any more. Every part of her tingled when it came into contact with Ross’s body, when their legs grazed against each other in the close steps, when he pulled her so close that their chests touched, when she trailed her ankle teasingly against the inside of his calf in the darting hooks and flicks while he stared at her with his dark, hungry eyes.

They were moving without thinking, and Katie had never felt so inside herself, acutely aware of her movements, and of the breath rushing in and out of her lungs. She had no idea where the steps would go, whenever they started the basic pattern. Sometimes Ross let the steps linger, going doubly slowly on the long beats, and sometimes he would speed up, and the blood raced around her veins as she followed his lead.

The Spanish accordion soared above the rattling percussion, while a woman sang words Katie couldn’t translate but understood perfectly: they were about needing, wanting, loving someone. She was racing with adrenaline. Being able to move inside the music, in harmony with another person, was the most astonishing feeling in the world, and a million miles away from the classes they’d stumbled through before. With this dance there were no rules to get wrong, or right – where they went around the room was as much up to her as Ross, and the excitement of knowing that her steps would guide his steps kept her on the very edge of concentration as she scanned his face for clues.