Sweet Reunion (26 page)

However, by closely watching Lilly's feet and hands
and trying to imitate just their placement on the floor and in the air –
getting fancy with the movements could come later – Amanda was proud to admit
that she was achieving a decent approximation of the dance steps. Moreover, she
was having a blast! She couldn't remember the last time that she had just let
loose and danced, it's not as if her life really lent itself to situations
where that would be an option, and it felt so good to just let her body move to
the music.

This was made even easier by the way that Lilly
provided helpful cues as to what movements were coming next. By pointing in the
direction they were about to go in just seconds before they headed that way,
spinning her hands in the air right before the choreography would call for them
to spin around, or calling out well-timed instructions through her headphone
mic, Amanda almost felt as if she could just shut off her brain and let her
body copy Lilly's movements. It was the purest sense of freedom she had felt in
many long months.

Lauren also seemed to be having a good time, and was
catching onto the dances at, Amanda judged, about the same rate that she was.
Samantha, for all of her big talk, was the one among the four of them who
seemed to be struggling the most. Her athletic frame seemed to physically
struggle against the graceful flow of the movements, and she seemed constantly
about half a beat behind. She never seemed to just relax into the rhythm of the
music or to embrace the delicacy of the movements. Her steps were more like
stomps, and the more frustrated she became with her performance, the more trouble
she had.

However, on the opposite end of the spectrum, Karina
was the one among the four of them who seemed to truly have rhythm and natural
talent. All those years of rehearsing dance numbers for live performances,
Amanda reasoned, must have given her a lot of dance experience – maybe she had
even had professional dance training. Amanda had been to several of Karina's
concerts over the years, but had never been seated close enough to get a real
sense of Karina's movements as she danced onstage – her body had been but a
tiny speck from where Amanda sat, and the big screens behind the stage which
magnified her performance did not do justice to the grace with which Amanda
could now see that she danced. Karina was a natural.

The class went on like this until a point about three
quarters of the way through, when the opening strains of a song started pumping
through the sound system that sounded somewhat familiar. Amanda, along with the
rest of the class, began enthusiastically following along with Lilly's choreography,
until she noticed that Karina was standing stock still next to her. Amanda
touched her shoulder to see if anything was wrong, which seemed to bring Karina
around from her short trance, and she started dancing again.

When the lyrics started, Amanda felt like slapping her
palm to her forehead. It was Karina's voice! That's why the intro portion of
the song had sounded familiar, this was Karina's latest single, the one that
radio stations had dubbed “The Song of the Summer.”  It had been everywhere the
past summer – radio, television, it had inspired YouTube parodies and memes –
you name the place, and “Baby You're the One” had probably made an appearance
there.

Baby you're the one

Let's go have some fun

Got you on my mind

Thinkin' bout you all the time

It's love love sent from above

Baby you're the one.”

Amanda, Lauren, and Sam recognized the song as
Karina's pretty much simultaneously, and turned to her with excited faces. To
them this was a big event – they'd never been out with Karina when one of her
songs spontaneously began playing, although Amanda reasoned later, that must
happen to Karina all the time.

As her friends' attention turned toward her, Karina
shook her head subtly yet firmly, letting them know unequivocally that she
wanted nothing more from them at that moment than for them to remain cool.
However, even though all three of them immediately acceded to Karina's wishes,
the damage was done.

A few people in the row directly ahead of them had
noticed the exchange and turned around to look. Although no one had recognized
Karina before, now the combination of the song playing and her friends pointing
her out via their excited responses caused a few of the younger women in the
room to widen their eyes in wonder. Before too long, the news had spread.
Throughout the room, people were leaning over to those standing next to them
and making poor attempts at subtlety as they glanced at Karina and talked,
heads bent together.

All through the rest of the class, the four of them
could feel attention laser focused on the area where they stood. Although the
class did their best to hide it, a celebrity showing up in their midst was not
an everyday occurrence, and their surreptitious glances throughout the last few
songs were too frequent to not be noticed.

As the final notes of the cool down and stretch were
fading away, Karina said, “As soon as this song ends, I'm gonna run up and talk
to the instructor real quick. If I don't, it will seem rude. You girls come
with me, or else I'll get swamped with people trying to talk to me before I get
to her.”

After the song faded out, it was a short jaunt over to
the sound system, which was where Lilly had also headed, to take off her
headset and collect her iPod. Karina approached her with a wide smile on her
face.

“Hi, Lilly, I'm Karina,” she began, “I just wanted to
thank you for the great class.”

Lilly turned around, and when her eyes alighted on
Karina's famous face, they widened significantly. “Oh my gosh!” she said,
flushing, “Oh my gosh, wow, it's so great to meet you!”

She laughed, flustered, “Oh, wow, that must be what
people were talking about toward the end of class. I didn't realize...” she
paled perceptibly as the next thought occurred to her, “oh, man, if I would
have known somehow that you were going to be here, I never would have used your
song! How embarrassing!” and with that she buried her face in her hands.

Amanda was amazed yet again that even this woman, so
confident and in control of the entire class only moments before, was suddenly
flustered in Karina's presence.

“No, no, I loved it!” Karina lied to make Lilly feel
better, but then continued on with statements that were actually true. “There
was obviously no way you could have known, and besides, I found it incredibly
flattering. And the choreography was really fun!”

Lilly looked up, and although the vestiges of
celebrity-generated-shyness still clung to the edges of her bearing, pride in
her work and Karina's warmth and openness had conspired to make her almost
entirely comfortable in the conversation. “Thanks, that means a lot coming from
you. I do most of my own choreography.”

“Well, you're really talented,” Karina assured her,
“and I will definitely be making it a point to stop into class every time I
tour through Sacramento from now on.”

Lilly flushed with obvious pride, and Karina gave her
a hug, and waved a friendly goodbye as they exited the room.

Karina's ambassadorial duties were far from over,
however. Just outside the entrance of the studio, a rather large group of women
had gathered to talk to Karina, to get her autograph, and to snap pictures of
themselves with her. Karina's warm smile, which you would definitely have to
know her quite well to be able to tell was 100% false, was in full strength
through the entire encounter.

As time wore on, and it was clear that the women were
too enthralled with Karina to make any move to leave, and that Karina felt that
it would be seen as rude to cut the encounter short, Lauren took matters into
her own hands and went to speak to the front desk. As usual, Lauren's strategy
was a winning one, because when the spa staffer came over and warmly but firmly
said, “Sorry ladies, I need to steal Ms. Black and her group away now. She's
running behind schedule!” it allowed Karina the graceful exit of appearing to
be as disappointed by the turn of events as they were.

God, Amanda thought to herself, how does she stand it?
Sure, someone who liked attention, liked being in the limelight, or even liked
people, for God's sake – they would thrive in that kind of life. But that
wasn't Karina. Karina liked to hang back and observe, making dryly hilarious
remarks which cut to the heart of a situation. She wasn't the warm hostess, she
was the sarcastic wallflower. And that's what her friends loved about her.

But these people – all of these strangers that thought
themselves friends because they knew Karina through her sugar-coated music –
they would not have the patience or the depth or the context to understand and
appreciate the real Karina. Therefore, in order to please the public, Karina
had to put on this gracious mask, and wear it pretty much every time she was
around anyone who wasn't one of her very dearest friends.

How utterly exhausting.

--- ~ ---

Amanda, Sam, Lauren and Karina laid on their stomachs
on adjoining massage tables, covered only by thin sheets, folded in half and
placed strategically to hide their rear ends. As the strong fingers of each of
their individual masseuses dug into their backs and shoulders, Karina slowly
and luxuriously stretched her arms out above her head, and then shifted
slightly to face towards Sam and said, “So, Sam. Do you want to tell us a
little bit more about how you're going to kick all of our asses in Zumba
class?”

Sam smiled saucily and replied, “I was kind of
struggling, actually, until this really awesome song came on, that totally
inspired me! I think it went like...” she affected a perky falsetto, “Baby
you're the one, let's go have fun...”

Karina groaned and cut her off, “Touch
é
! Let's declare a truce on the topic. I think both
of us suffered an unexpected blow to our egos in there. Is it really horrible
when your own music actually gets on your nerves?”

Lauren said dryly, “I think it's at least an
indication that you need to rethink your artistic direction.”

“Amen,” Karina agreed, “Although, you know what David
Garza says. DJs won't spin your jam unless you say baby baby baby baby
baby...well, you get the idea.”

“Who's David Garza?” Lauren inquired.

“He's a musician. One that actually puts out good
music,” Karina pouted.

Sam sighed and said, “Let's just have quiet time for
the rest of the massage, shall we? We can deconstruct the unsatisfying states
of our respective careers while we're shopping. This is massage time. It's
supposed to benefit our contemplative souls as much as our sore shoulders!”

The girls agreed, and each settled into their own
thoughts.

Amanda's thoughts, as they tended to do during any
downtime or alone time in the past week, turned to Justin. The way he flashed
her his crooked grin. The way his fingers felt when they brushed her skin, even
when the contact was as innocuous as taking a glass of water or a plate of food
from her hands. The way that his jeans hung low on his hips, and the bare skin
of his back and chest glistened with sweat in the sunshine as he performed the
necessary maintenance tasks required for running Mountain Ridge Outdoor
Adventures.

Although she was doing her level best not to draw
direct comparisons between Geoffrey and Justin, for it wasn't fair to either
man, she could not help but think about how it annoyed her when Geoffrey
expressed haughty disdain over the mere idea of performing manual labor.

In fact, that brought up another very good point in
her mind. True, she had been trying not to draw direct comparisons between
Justin and Geoffrey, but if she
were
going to directly compare them, the
long list of things that Justin jumped in to do eagerly and which Geoffrey had
no patience for would each be a point in Justin's favor.

For instance, and this was the critical one, how he
was willing to be there for her, regardless of the inconvenience or the
personal cost to him. Geoffrey had bailed right in the middle of her father's
memorial service, much more concerned about catching his precious flight than
supporting her through that ordeal, and rather than being sorry, had merely
expressed annoyance that the service had gone on so much longer than had
originally been planned. Justin, on the other hand, had been concerned solely
about her emotional welfare.

Also, in the grieving process that she had been
struggling through since her father's death, Geoffrey seemed to have absolutely
no concern for her feelings and emotions at all, whereas that seemed to be all
that Justin was concerned about.

But, thinking about the concept of Justin being there
for her caused the true root of her concern about him to spring into sharp
relief. Being there for her, in a global sense, was really the one area where
Justin fell solidly behind. After all, wasn't he the one who had disappeared in
the middle of the night 10 years ago? Wasn't he the one who had packed his
things and fell off the face of the earth without so much as a jaunty wave
goodbye?

If she were to seriously consider going forward with a
life with him, she would need to be given some sort of assurances that he would
never do that again, assurances that so far, he had been unwilling to outright
give.

--- ~ ---

“I like this,” Karina said, holding up a flowing sheer
top under Amanda's chin, “This would totally set Justin's tongue wagging,” she
continued with a wink, draping the top over her arm, adding it to the growing
collection of clothing items that Karina had collected for Amanda to try on.

“Slow down,” Amanda admonished, “We only have a matter
of hours, not days, weeks, or months! I'll never get through trying on that
whole pile!”