Wallflower In Bloom (32 page)

I walked around the little apartment naked while my skin absorbed the moisturizer. I never walked around without clothes, but maybe I’d start. I mean, there was no one here but me, so who was I actually hiding from? And maybe it was only my imagination, but things felt a lot less jiggly than they had a week ago.

When all that was left of the moisturizer was a soft glow to my skin, I put clean sheets on the bed. I found my laptop. I plugged it in, climbed into bed, pulled the sheets over my legs, and fired it up.

I stopped by Ilya’s and my TAG TEAM Facebook page. Hundreds of messages had been posted on the wall. There were some crazy ones and a few nasty ones, but most were messages of support and encouragement.

I skimmed past the crazy/nasty messages, but I read all the rest, one by one. I took the time to acknowledge them with a quick thank-you or a click of the Like button.

Dance, Deirdre, Dance!
one of the messages said.

You give hope to midlife women everywhere!
another one said.

Midlife
. I took a moment to think about that one. How could I possibly have reached midlife already? You’d think I should be able to get some sort of rebate for wasting so many years not really having a life. But if midlife was the middle point, then even though there was a lot of water under the bridge, there was still plenty up ahead. And I
had to admit midlife was a helluva lot better than endlife. I had a lot of living left to do.

Midlife Rocks!
still another message said. I liked it. Maybe when things slowed down I’d get a bumper sticker made out of that one. Or even a tattoo.

I kept reading.

I am so sick of this celebrity culture where you’re either famous or you’re nothing, you’re either 22 or you’re old
.

Seeing you out there is almost as good as seeing me
.

You’re dancing for all of us, Deirdre!

I finished reading and thanking everyone for their support. I put the laptop away and turned out the light.

And then I stared into the darkness until I figured it out.

I was okay with dancing for all of us.

But first and foremost I had to dance for me.

Once you get past the rocky parts, midlife really can rock
.

I
had to admit I was a little bit nervous about losing my spray tan virginity.

“Relax,” Lila said.

“Easy for you to say,” I said. “It’s not your first time.”

She fired up the air compressor. “You won’t feel a thing.”

I closed my eyes. “Why do people always say that right before they hurt you?”

I was standing in a corner of the makeup room that had been covered with clear plastic shower curtain liners. I was wearing only a strapless bra and a pair of itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny bikini underpants from my
DWTS
stash. Even though I’d had to goop it on thick last night, I’d been told not to use moisturizer today because it might block the absorption of DHA, the active ingredient in spray tan. Lila had helped me apply a barrier cream, a heavy petroleum jelly–based cream, just a little bit to extradry parts like my elbows and knees, and a thick layer on all the parts she didn’t want to tan. Who knew that tanning the palms of your hands or the soles of your feet, or even the webs of your fingers or toes, or your cuticles, is a sure giveaway that you’ve been spray-tanned by an amateur?

She tucked my hair into a hairnet and gave me a plastic eye cover.

“Wow,” I said when she started spraying me. “Now I know what a houseplant feels like when it gets misted.” The compressor had a tube that connected it to a little sprayer that Lila was sweeping back and forth in front of my body in long, even passes. It was cool and refreshing, and it smelled a little bit like a vanilla milk shake.

“Just wait,” Lila said. “The tan will help you get into character. As soon as the color deepens, you’ll feel all sexy and exotic.”

“Any chance you can put the leftovers in a take-out container for me?”

Lila laughed. “St. Tropez created a special signature shade for us that’s actually called DWTS. It’s the darkest one they make, and you can’t get it anywhere else. But their other shades are probably better for real life anyway, and you can buy them on the St. Tropez website.”

“Wow,” I said. “It’s a whole new world out there.”

“Okay, hon, turn around and face the wall. Do you want a tan line or not?”

“Excuse me?”

“Some people like a tan line across their back so that the tan looks more natural.”

I thought about it. “No thanks. I think I’d like to look like I had the nerve to go topless.”

“Do you want a full-frontal tan then?” Lila asked, as if she were asking if I wanted cream with my coffee.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think I just want to look brave from the back.”

Lila undid the rear hooks for me. I held the bra over my breasts.

Then I thought it through while she sprayed my back.

I threw my bra across the room like a Frisbee and turned around.

“What the hell?” I said. “You only go around once, so you might as well go around tan.”

Next came the panicure that Lila had promised—long fake
fingernails and a French manicure on my fingers, and bright coral polish on my toes. My fingers looked long and elegant, and my toes looked positively sexy, even to me.

From that point on, it was all a blur. Time sped up, like one of those clocks in an old movie with the big hands that start spinning around and around, faster and faster, to show the hours passing.

Ilya and I danced, careful not to sweat off our spray tans before they finished curing. We ate healthy food. We posted on Facebook and Twitter. I worked on one of the slide shows for Ilya’s website.

“Really,” he said, “you don’t have to do it now. This can wait.”

“I want to. And anyway, it relaxes me.” I added another picture of Ilya, in classic ballroom hold with his wife, Kateryna, his unbuttoned shirt matching her glittery champagne-colored costume. She was gorgeous. They both were.

“How did you two meet?” I asked.

Ilya ran a hand through his hair. “Our families were friends in Ukraine. When we met again at a competition in the U.S., there was an immediate connection. We both knew what it was like to try to fit into a strange new world.”

“How old were you when you came over here?”

“Thirteen. With almost no English.”

“Wow. I can’t even imagine. Kids are so mean at that age.”

Ilya picked up the iPod remote and twirled it between two fingers. “You can’t get bogged down in what happened. You have to move past it and learn to be thankful for it.”

“Huh?” I said. “I mean, I get the first part, but what do you mean, learn to be thankful for it?”

He shrugged. “Whatever comes at you, it’s all energy. You have to take it and make it work for you. My best dances come from that place.”

Maybe my best dances could come from that place, too.

We headed over to the
DWTS
ballroom for another practice run.
This time we took our steps right out to the very edges of the stage, and when I finished my final three spins and landed in Ilya’s arms, the judges’ table hardly appeared to be moving at all.

I flashed the three empty judges’ chairs my biggest smile.

“That’s it,” Ilya said. “Give it to ’em. Knock ’em dead.”

We jumped in the Land Rover and headed back to the practice studio. We went over the trickiest steps again. And again. We drank some more water and ate another snack.

I went to my wardrobe appointment. Finally, Anthony let me see my costume.

It was amazing. Truly amazing. It was a tight sheath like my practice costume, but the color was a deep, rich purple, almost an eggplant. The whole thing was covered with tiny black beads threaded through clear translucent sequins, with ultralong black fringe layered over that. Anthony held the hanger up high and swished it around. The fringe danced back and forth elegantly, gracefully. Even if I froze, at least my dress would keep dancing.

But most amazing of all, the dress part was attached to what looked like a see-through long-sleeved flesh-colored T-shirt dotted randomly with the tiniest semitransparent glittery sequins.

Anthony slipped it over my head and helped me work my arms gently through the sleeves.

“Illusion mesh,” he said. “It’s a beautiful thing.”

It really was a beautiful thing. There was almost nothing to it. It was lighter than air. But it had stretch, heavy-duty stretch, and plenty of it. It was like being naked but with reinforcement.

The teardrop cutout in the front showed some serious cleavage through an almost-invisible illusion mesh safety net. I turned around and looked over my shoulder in the mirror. The dress dipped low and looked almost completely backless, but I was fully locked in without a trace of back fat. I turned around again and lifted my arms out to my
sides. I watched my upper arms while I shimmied. Not even a hint of a wiggle.

“Ohmigod,” I said. “This stuff is amazing. If you could make me a full-body suit, I’d probably walk around naked for the rest of my life.”

Gina and Lila came out of the other side of the room.

“Hot,” Gina said. “Totally hot.” She pinned my hair up off my neck to get the full effect.

“Smokin’,” Lila said. “And guess what? I have forty-two new likes on my Facebook page.”

“I’m right behind you,” Gina said.

I’d forgotten all about Anthony’s Facebook page, so I put one together quickly and promised to give him a tutorial later. Then he let me take my costume to the practice studio for a test drive.

“You’re a beautiful woman, Deirdre Griffin,” Ilya said when he saw me.

I checked myself out again in the wall of mirrors. “Thank you,” I said. “Who knew.”

A chiasmus appeared like a rainbow:
Once you get past the rocky parts, midlife really can rock
.

Suddenly, as if we’d been transported by magic, we were standing in the parking lot and Ilya was saying, “Get some sleep. Tomorrow’s the big day.”

I bit my lower lip. “But, I don’t think—”

Ilya put his hands on my shoulders. “Exactly,” he said. “From now on you don’t think. Get out of your head. Your legs are our moneymakers now.”

“Ha,” I said. “If that’s the case, I’m thinking we’d both better keep our day jobs.”

Success is getting what you want, but happiness is wanting what you get
.

L
iiiiive from Hollywood,” the male host said. “This is the season premiere of
Dancing With the Stars
.”

The ballroom was big. The state-of-the-art entrance staircase that moved on a rising platform was steep. The camera lights were hot and bright. Lights, lights, and more lights—one enormous glowing chandelier and a series of smaller ones, strands of twinkling lights, waterfalls of undulating lights, crisscrossing trippy strobe lights—made everything feel like a mirage.

I’d made it down the stairs in one piece during this morning’s dress rehearsal. Our cha-cha had gone well, too, and we’d even hit all the marks we’d worked out during our camera-blocking session. But could lightning strike twice, and if so, could it happen for me?