Adventures of a Salsa Goddess (11 page)

“I don’t know her,” said Javier. “Why?”

Eliseo and Lessie drifted by again, still oblivious to the world. They had melded together to such a degree that nothing short of the jaws of life could pry them apart. Truthfully, I was disappointed that Javier maintained a professional pelvises-several-inches-apart distance from me.

“Just wondering who’s who in the salsa scene,” I said, and could see from his expression that he didn’t believe a single word. Not that it mattered. I could tell that he liked me.

* * *

The phone rang at 6:30 the next morning, at least three hours before I’d planned on getting my first jolt of caffeine. Elaine Daniels was one of those people whose brains needed to be dissected and studied when they died, because she didn’t need more than five minutes of sleep a night to generate her usual amount of energy, enough to power the Hoover Dam. The woman practically glowed in the dark.

“Good morning, my dear,” she said so sweetly, I thought for a moment I was dreaming. “How’s your love life?”

“There’s a guy
I like,” I said, feeling an immediate flashback to the time I’d had a crush on Sal Marquardt, the star quarterback, who’d spent all of high school strutting past me as if I were something that had belonged in a petri dish.

“Tell me about him,” Elaine gushed as if we were two girlfriends gossiping during lunch period, which couldn’t have been further from how I felt. My preferred response would’ve been along the lines of, “None of your damn business,” but I quickly
rattled off the laundry list that I knew she’d want to hear—name, age, profession, and educational background.

“He’s a widower?” she said with a merry lilt, which she tried to cover up with her next statement. “Oh, that’s a shame. But it will generate a lot of sympathy. How many dates have you had with
him?”

“Two.”

“I don’t mean to pry, Samantha, but have the two of you ...?”

“No,” I barked, which was the same answer I would’ve given even if we had. I had no intention of inviting Elaine into my bedroom.

“Well, I guess it’s smart to make him wait a little. But we don’t want to be a prude now do we?” she said in a tone thick with condescension.

“Elaine,” I said, “I’d like to te
ll Robert why I’m really in Milwaukee. I’m starting to feel guilty about ...”

“Absolutely not, Samantha,” she snapped. “Your assignment must be kept secret. Once the two of you are engaged you can tell him everything. Remember, ‘La Vie’ is yours if you pull this off. Now, our readers are going to be thrilled to hear all about Robert. Fax me your c
opy about him by Friday. Ciao!”

Click!

My dream job, “La Vie.” Was it worth all the lying and the string of abysmal dates? And the answer had to be “yes.” Maya Beckett had done a decent job of that column for the past eight years. But what “La Vie” needed was, well, me.

I kept current on world events. I read
People
magazine. I’ve been to really bad nude performance art shows. At eight years younger than I, was it even possible Maya had experienced that dark-night-of-the-soul feeling, in the immortal words of B.B. King, that, “Nobody loves me but my mama and she might be jivin’ too”? I highly doubt it. Certainly, Maya had never suffered through the dating dry spells I had, droughts that could wither a herd of camels. I’ve seen the sky over the Brooklyn Bridge on a cold December morn ...

And, I’ve completely lost my mind.

I made myself some coffee and went out onto the patio with a cup. Hopefully by September I’d be engaged. No I
would
be engaged, and to a wonderful man. But what if I didn’t meet anyone I could fall in love with? Would Elaine stop at taking “La Vie” from me? Probably not. Next she’d fire me. Then, my failure would be exposed to the nation via a glossy cover photo compliments of
Tres Chic
. But after that, the worst would come: the talk show circuit.

“Well, Oprah, I’d had such high hopes for Samantha,” I could hear Elaine saying. “She’s such a lovely young woman. But how could I have known she’d be too picky and pass up dozens of eligible men whom she’d met in Milwaukee over the summer.”

“But what about her first date with Paulo the computer whiz and entrepreneur? What was wrong with Paulo?” Oprah would ask.

“Not a thing, Oprah. Paulo was an extraordinary man, but I guess not good enough for our precious Samantha. Apparently some
women really don’t want to get married after all,” Elaine ‘would add, sighing deeply.

Then I would have only one option left: run away and join the circus. Come see The Spinster, the oldest living never-married woman in the universe!

In order to avoid a career as a circus freak, I went on two more dates over the next five days, one from Single No More, the other from Brunches or Lunches. On the bright side, I didn’t drop dead of boredom during these dates. The fact that I’d had to hold my hand in front of my mouth a few times to check if I was still breathing might not be enough to deter some women from going on second and even third dates with these guys. But I’m not one of those women. I’ve never learned how to choose practical versus passion, the dull diamonds in the rough over the exciting bad boys. And the reason for that was simple. I’ve never been able to follow The Three Date Rule. I got up and grabbed my journal. I was so excited by this idea for “La Vie,” that I didn’t even have coffee first.

I spent the rest of the day preparing my weekly report for Elaine about how my dates were going and working on my humor columns in my journal, all while trying to stifle my excitement about my private lesson with Javier. I’d debated what to wear to an afternoon private lesson, and had decided that subtly sexy was the way to go—a pair of black rayon pants with little slits at the ankles and a black V-neck sleeveless cotton shirt.

I’d arrived precisely at four and Javier greeted me with a huge smile and a kiss to my cheek.

“On these two walls I’m going to have floor-to-ceiling mirrors and a ballet bar,” said Javier with a sweep of his arm around his dance-studio-to-be. “And I’m going to buy a sound system and have a special wood floor installed, the kind fou
nd in professional dance studios. And the ceiling is going to stay just the way it is.”

We both looked up. I’m terrible at judging distances, but the ceiling had to be at least fifteen feet high and was covered with old-fashioned etched tin squares of the type commonly found in older buildings. That was lovely, but the rest of the room could use some work. The linoleum floor was cracked and faded, and a stained couch with a broken spine sulked against a wall next to a rusted sink with a dripping faucet.

After we had practiced salsa for about an hour, I collapsed on the couch and Javier pulled up a chair and sat across from me, taking deep gulps from a bottle of spring water. I noticed his Adam’s apple moving up and down under the caramel-colored skin of his throat. Aside from the dimple, on which I was passionately and irrationally fixated, he was far from being classically handsome. In fact, if I walked by him on the street, I don’t think I would notice him. But after spending time with him, I was struck by the way he radiated the inner peace of a person who was completely at ease with himself—the rock in the storm. Javier wasn’t trying to impress anyone and yet he’d impressed me far more than I’d wanted to admit.

“I can tell you really love to dance,” I told him, and then reached down to brush some dust off my new dance shoes, a pair of silver ankle
-strap high heels.

“Well, I have two people to thank for that,” Javier told me. “The first was my father. He was a musician in the Dominican Republic. As a kid he worked on a farm. When he was eleven, his uncle gave him a guitar. He taught himself how to play and at eighteen he moved to Santo Domingo, worked construction during the day and at night played in merengue bands. So, I guess you could say the music is in my blood.”

I could listen to Javier talk all day. He was so open, so easy to talk to, and so remarkably refreshing after David, my ex-fiance, who seemed to have problems divulging what he’d eaten for breakfast.

“Who’s the second person?”

“I saw Celia Cruz perform once a long time ago in Miami. The next day I went out and bought all of her albums,” he said. He ran his hand back and forth through his thick hair.

“I don’t know who she is,” I said.

“She was a famous singer from Cuba. She died in 2003. Some people called her the Queen of Salsa, others, the Salsa Goddess,” he said.

Wow! Salsa Goddess. I wanted someone to call me that, just once in my life.

“Is teaching at Cubana your full-time job?” I asked him. It occurred to me that, as drawn to Javier as I was, I knew very little about him.

“No, that’s just three nights a week. My real job is roofing,” he said, and then gestured as if pounding a hammer. “My father and I own a roofing and siding company. Eliseo and a few other guys work with us part-time.”

I felt a stab of disappointment. A roofer. I don’t know what I’d been expecting him to say, but it wasn’t that. Elaine and my mother would never approve.

“It’s not my first choice,” he quickly added. “When I was younger, I wanted to be a professional dancer. Well, the truth is, I wanted to be a movie star. Picture John Travolta in
Saturday Night Fever
except it was going to be me starring in a salsa dancing movie. After I graduated from high school, I drove out to L.A. with five hundred dollars. I figured that was plenty since I was sure it would only take a couple weeks to get my first part.”

“What happened ?”

“I slept on my cousin’s couch and went to every audition I could,” he said with a be-dimpled grin. “The first dancing job I was offered was ... well, this is even more embarrassing—I don’t know if I should tell you.”

“I swear I’ll take it to my grave,” I said, and could tell by his expression that he was anxious to tell me.

“A Chippendale dancer.”

“Really,” I said in a playful tone, looking him up and down like I was selecting a stud from the stable.

He shook his index finger at me like a kindergarten teacher at a boy who keeps pulling all the girls’ ponytails. “You promised, Sam, to your grave.”

“Okay. Then what happen
ed?” I asked, assuming the attitude of mere salsa student once again. I knew I needed to stop flirting with him, but I was having problems controlling myself with him.

“I turned that job down and then nine months later I made it to the big-time. I was in a movie,” he said.

“You were? Which one?” I asked excitedly.

“Calm down. It’s no movie you’ve ever seen or heard of,” he said. “It never even made it to the theaters, went straight to video. I was one of the back-up dancers. I’m in three scenes, no lines.”

“What’s the name of it?”

“
Salsa Inferno
,” he said, rolling his brown eyes. “It wasn’t even a B movie, more like a D or an F.”

“I want to see it.”

“Believe me, you don’t,” he said shaking his head. “It has no plot and the choreography sucks.”

“What happened after your movie debut?”

“My father got hurt, fell off a second-story roof and fractured his back. He was in traction and therapy for months and couldn’t work for almost two years. I had to go back to Miami and take over the business to support my mother and sister. And here I am, let’s see,” he paused and counted on his fingers, “... thirteen years later,” he said, shaking his head. “What about you, Sam? Do you like what you do?” he asked.

“Not really,” I said, which was true. But I felt a stab of guilt
because Javier was someone I didn’t want to ever lie to. “I want to do more creative writing,” I added, staying as close to the truth as possible without blowing my cover.

“Like what?” he asked me, leaning forward on his elbows, all ears.

I couldn’t speak for a moment. It had been so long since a man had seemed so genuinely interested in my hopes and dreams. He was probably just being polite. Besides, you’re too old for him, Sam, and you need to stay focused on your assignment.

“My dream would be to have my own humor column in a magazine or newspaper,” I said matter-of-factly.

“I’d like to read some of your stuff, Sam, if you don’t mind sharing it?”

“Only if I get to see your movie,” I told him with a smile. Stop it, Sam! Stop flirting with him. Next lesson I’ll have to have some duct tape handy to wrap around my mouth.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” he quipped. “You drive a tough bargain, Miss Jacobs,” he said, standing up. “I want to teach you a new dance. It’s from the Dominican Republic and it’s called bachata.”

The steps were more difficult than merengue, but easier than salsa. Bachata had a high-energy beat, but the melody was completely different. Salsa was complex, brassy, and sophisticated, while bachata was simple and folksy.

“One two three tap, one two three tap,” said Javier. I had to concentrate so I wouldn’t lose the step.

“It’s such happy music,” I said, as the guitar twanged its upbeat melody out of a
boom box on the coils of an old-fashioned radiator. “I love it!”

“This song is about divorce,” said Javier. “The last one was about a man who is in love with a woman who doesn’t love him
back. Some people call bachata
musica de amargue
which means ‘music of bitterness.’”