Читать книгу dancergirl - Carol Tanzman M. - Страница 13

Chapter 6

Charlie calls ten minutes after the invite goes out on the net. Sonya’s having an end-of-summer party and he wants to make sure I’ll be there.

“It’ll be on the roof,” he tells me. “The footage will be awesome!”

City roofs are amazing. You can watch a sunset, secretly smoke or just plain hide out. When parents are on the warpath, they never think to check the roof.

Sonya’s is better than most. The perfect party place. Unlike my building, with its two-foot lip, her roof has a five-foot wall surrounding the edge. No matter how wasted someone gets, they’d have to try really hard to fall off.

The day of the party, Clarissa decides to play stylist. She brings over a bunch of clothes from her closet. We go with a pretty V-neck and short skirt. Makeup and hair take another hour but in the end, I’m happy with the look.

By the time we get to Sonya’s, the party is in full swing. Word obviously got out on some site or other because I don’t even recognize half the people. They’re packed together like at the Thanksgiving parade when the Snoopy balloon floats by. Cell phones and cameras snap as people dance and clown—a last hurrah. Clarissa and I elbow our way through the crowd, searching for Charlie. When we finally meet up, he gives me the once-over.

“Blue’s an excellent choice for the camera,” he pronounces.

“Hi to you, too,” Clarissa says. “And thanks. I picked out the shirt.”

I look from one to the other. I might as well be uncooked tofu for all they care. A little annoyed, I spot the cooler, grab a beer. Charlie follows. He points to an empty spot near the ledge.

“I like the lighting over there. Very end-of-the-world sci-fi.”

Suddenly, I’m extremely thirsty. I slug some beer. “What do you want me to do exactly?”

“Just dance, be natural. And make sure not to look at me.”

Before I can move, Luke Sorezzi strolls over. He’s dressed all in black and his hair has that “I don’t give a crap so I finger-comb” look.

“Yo, Ruffino. Saw the video on Zube. You looked good.”

He hands me a joint and I toke deeply. Even if I wasn’t worried about the video, there’s something about Luke that brings out the nerves in me.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know anyone was taping me,” I mumble.

“Riiiighht.” Luke smirks.

“I’m serious.”

“Then it’s just natural talent. The best kind.”

Over in the corner, Charlie’s giving me the “hurry up” sign. I hand Luke the joint. “Thanks for the hit. Umm, nice talking to you.”

“Hold on. The school’s best dancer deserves a little extra.”

Luke tokes deeply and pulls my head toward his. As my mouth opens in surprise, he blows smoke into me. I blink, not sure whether it’s the weed or the fact that his lips are so casually pressed into mine. Then he strolls away like he’s done that every day for a month instead of the truth—before the Zube video, he never even noticed we breathe the same sooty Brooklyn air.

“Alicia!” Charlie has come to get me. “I’ve been waiting.”

A final gulp of beer before we move to the chosen spot.

“Hold on, Charlie. You want me to dance by myself? Who does that?”

“You do. Well, not you, but the girl in my video. She’s a free spirit—think Audrey Tautou in Amelie.”

“Never saw it.”

Charlie waves it off. “Doesn’t matter. Don’t think you. It’s just…a dancer girl. And remember, don’t look at me.”

He backs off so you can’t even tell what—or who—he’s shooting. Not that anyone would notice. There’s a surge over by the cooler. Someone, I take it, has managed to scam more beer and the crowd is ecstatic.

Clarissa gives me an encouraging smile. I take a breath, about to start, when a window curtain shifts in the tall building across the alley. At least I think it does.

“Ready when you are,” Charlie announces.

Chills crawl down my spine. “I feel like I’m in a Macy’s window display right here. Can’t we move?”

“Fine!”

Charlie picks a different spot, still on the far end of the roof, but not so close to the alley. Just as I start, he yells, “Wait up.”

He motions Josh over, placing him and Clarissa so there’s a barrier between me and the party. That’s so no one can stumble into the shot.

I begin again. Being videotaped is like being onstage. Nerve-racking at first but then the movement, and adrenaline, of performance take over and something magical happens.

Two songs later, Josh approaches. “Can I join you? Or does that mess with your concentration?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Charlie give me the thumbs-up. “Guess not.”

Josh’s face lights up. Did he do this on his own—or did Charlie send him? Either way, I worry that my freestyle is boring, so I kick it up a notch by double-timing everything. Josh sweats buckets trying to keep up.

After another song, I’m done. I head for the Styrofoam cooler and check out the party. Sorezzi’s in the southeast corner, surrounded by a circle of “admirers.” Clearly, he came to the party to do a little business of his own.

Clarissa bustles over. “Charlie let me see the playback. The outfit’s perfect. I’m sure he’d let you see—”

“Yo!” Sonya weaves over to us, well on her way to getting trashed. “Having fun?”

“Sonya!” Clarissa squeals. “Did you see Charlie shooting Ali?”

“Uh-uh. I was talking to Laura Hernandez. Why? What happened?”

She spots Charlie but it’s Josh, intently watching the playback, who makes Sonya’s face turn brittle. It suddenly penetrates that she spent most of the reggae concert talking to Josh.

Uh-oh. Sonya has a habit of crushing on the wrong guy and getting scorched in the process.

“Nothing happened,” I inform her. “And to answer your question, it’s an awesome party.”

“I guess.” Sonya’s buzz is gone. She ducks down, roots through the cooler. “Laura asked about Jacy. Is he coming?”

“Haven’t talked to him since Wednesday. We sort of had a fight.”

Clarissa’s eyes widen in expectation of a gossipy score. “What about?”

“Who knows? You know how Jacy gets. I stopped by the apartment earlier today, but nobody was home. Again.”

Sonya pulls a forty from the cooler. “Maybe he went to the Shore. Don’t his parents have a place in Wildwood?”

“Yes, but you’d think he’d have mentioned he was going. Or texted back. I’ve left, like, three messages.”

“It’s Jacy we’re talking about. He probably left his phone charger under a heap of dirty laundry.” Clarissa shudders. “I don’t know how he gets away with that.”

“If they’re at the Shore, why didn’t his folks hold the mail?” I demand.

“Because they forgot?” Sonya pops the top from the forty before she and Clarissa head off to find chips.

I think about Jacy’s red eyes, Mrs. Strode’s mascara-streaked cheeks. The kiss that wasn’t a kiss. Something’s going on, and I want to know what it is.

It takes two days for Charlie to edit the party footage. After he posts, I watch it in the privacy of my bedroom.

Charlie invented a character. Shyboy101. He saw me at the band shell but was too afraid to approach. Then he shows up at the party. The camera pans across the back of Sorezzi lighting up and there I am. As I dance, drink beer and talk to my friends, we hear shyboy’s voice-over.

“There she is—dancergirl. But she doesn’t even notice me. To her, I’m invisible. Should I go up to her, say something? Not a chance! All I can do is watch from afar. Hoping that one day, she’ll see me.

“Until next time, this is shyboy101.”

It’s surprising how real it looks. Like there’s truly a shyboy who never met dancergirl, let alone talked to her.The fact that I didn’t look at the camera really does make shyboy seem invisible. And since everyone, well, everyone except maybe Luke Sorezzi, has felt like a nobody at one time or another, the audience can’t help but root for shyboy to talk to the cool girl.

Cool girl being…me?

Which is a joke. I‘ve never been anyone’s idea of cool, unless you count the Fairy Tale Dance kids. The little ones think I rock, but that’s not saying much. Still, it’s fun to see myself on the screen—although I spend the next four views critiquing my dancing. Not bad, but I could do better.

The only drawback is that I can’t show Mom. She’ll kill me if she discovers both the weed and the beer. She has a serious thing about underage…well, underage anything.

Then there’s Strode. Wherever he is, if he doesn’t have his cell, I certainly hope Jacy’s got his laptop—and a decent connection to the net.