I wasn’t planning on seeing her again. I wasn’t even planning on calling her.
But after I left school and drove around for a while, I went home, and Braden was being all hyper, and my mom made this huge lunch and everyone was pretending like they weren’t bothered by the fact that my dad had taken off again and I was home in the middle of the day.
It was such bullshit, the way the two of them sat there, eating their dumb fried chicken (which wasn’t even real fried chicken; it was stupid Shake ’n Bake) and acting like everything was fucking A-OK. Even Braden was pretending like everything was fine, obviously forgetting that he’d called me all panicked just a few hours before. No one even asked me why I was home from school early.
And then for some reason Harper popped into my head. So I looked her up on Facebook, and before I even knew what I was doing, I called her at work.
When I walk into the dance studio at eight, there’s a young couple in the front dance room, seemingly in the middle of a lesson.
“No, Jeremy!” the girl screeches. “You need to lead me. I’m the woman! You lead me. Not the other way around.”
“I’m trying,” Jeremy says. “But it’s hard when you keep stepping on my feet.”
“This is awful,” the girl says. “We’ve been here for five hours, and it’s just not working! Who has a five-hour dance lesson? It’s insane! I’m canceling the whole first dance. In fact, maybe I’ll just cancel the whole wedding!” She marches over to a little table against the far wall and pulls her cell phone out of her purse. “I’m calling my mom!” she yells. “I’m calling her right now and telling her this dumb wedding is off.”
She looks at Jeremy, daring him to stop her. But he just crosses his arms over his chest. “Fine with me.” He shrugs. “I wanted to elope anyway.”
This infuriates her. She throws her phone down onto the ground, and it smashes into a million pieces.
“Wow,” I say, shaking my head. “I didn’t know dancing was so dramatic.”
The tall woman who’s with them, I guess their teacher, turns around and glares at me. She’s older, like my mom’s age. Her hair is pulled back into a severe bun, and her eyes bore down at me.
“Yeah, I’m here to see Harper.”
“Harper?” She looks surprised.
“Yeah. Harper Fairbanks. She works here, right?”
“Yes, she does.” She looks me over. “Are you a friend of hers?”
Huh. I’m not sure how to answer that. “Is she here?” I ask, intentionally avoiding the question while sort of half nodding my head in what might be considered an answer.
Jeremy walks over and picks up his fiancée’s ruined phone. I look at him, barely able to contain my disgust. How can he let her treat him that way? “Have some balls, man,” I mutter, before I can stop myself.
He turns around, and for a second I think maybe he wants to deck me. But instead he just shakes his head and gives me one of those What can you do? kind of looks. Talk about being whipped. Not that I should have expected anything else. The dude’s wearing a lime-green shirt.
“Look, is Harper here or not?” I say to the teacher. “Because she told me to meet her here and—”
A door against the side wall opens, and Harper comes walking out.
“Oh,” she says when she sees me. “You’re here.”
“I’m here,” I say, looking her up and down. She’s wearing the same outfit she had on in school, but she’s taken off the white shirt, leaving her in only a tank top and a pair of jeans. I let my eyes wander up her body. Damn. Until just now, I’d never realized how curvy she is. I realize I’m about to have her, alone, in my truck. And then I wonder why I didn’t take advantage of that fact earlier. “Ready for my private lesson.” I give her a suggestive smile.
“Harper,” the woman teacher says, all stern. “Who is this young man?”
Right. I guess I shouldn’t have been so glib in front of her boss. But who really cares? It’s not like Harper can get fired because I was being a little flirty with her.
“Oh.” Harper still looks startled, the way you do when different parts of your life are colliding and you don’t really know what to do about it. “This is Penn. Penn, this is my mom.”
* * *
“I don’t think my mom liked you,” Harper says as I lead her to my truck.
“You think?” I open the door for her, and I can tell she’s impressed. It’s not that I like being chivalrous. It’s just that I’ve learned that if you are chivalrous, you have a better chance of getting what you want. I know that sounds horrible, and it is. But old habits die hard.
“What did you say to her before I came out?” she asks when I get into the car.
“Nothing.” I turn the key in the ignition, and my truck roars to life.
She looks at me skeptically.
“I didn’t say anything to her.” God, everyone’s always so suspicious of me. “But I said something around her that might have gotten her a little annoyed.”
“Like what?”
“I told that guy in there that he should grow some balls.”
I expect her to turn up her nose and look at me in disgust, because I’m pretty sure a girl who’s afraid of the school nurse won’t appreciate me using the word “balls” in front of her mom. But instead she just starts laughing. “He should grow some balls. You know that’s their seventh lesson, and they still don’t know the steps.”
I shrug. “Is that bad?”
“It’s really bad.” She shakes her head. “But still. Now my mom’s gonna hate you.”
I shrug. “No offense, but I don’t really give a fuck what your mom thinks about me. Parents don’t usually like me.”
“Why not?”
“Really?” I raise my eyebrows.
“No.” She shakes her head and grins. “It was rhetorical.”
“Good.” I like the fact that she doesn’t care that I’m not trying to make a good impression on her mom. The last thing I want her to think is that this is a date or something. Because it’s not. Is it? I can’t figure out why I’m here exactly, why I’ve come back to see her, why I looked her up on Facebook and made a whole effort to try to find out where she was. It’s very strange. “So,” I say, “you told me you were going to give me a private lesson, but apparently that was a lie.”
“I told you I wasn’t a teacher.”
“Yeah, but aren’t you a dancer?”
“I’m a choreographer. I’m good at coming up with steps for people who already have some dance knowledge. I’m not very good at teaching beginners.”
I glance at her. “Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m good at teaching beginners.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.
Harper shifts again, then pulls at the sleeves of the shirt she’s put back on until they almost cover her wrists. As she moves, her tank top slides down a little in front, exposing some of her cleavage. I avert my eyes.
“Come on,” I say, shaking my head and pushing away the less-than-PG thoughts I’m having. “If you can’t teach me, then I’ll teach you.”