Michelle and Sam went the following Saturday evening to the bar where Sam first taught Michelle to dance.  Though it was early and the bar was virtually empty, the management still felt it necessary to play pop music at an inhumane volume.

They arrived early and sat in silence.  Both drank water with lemon.

Sam fidgeted with her paper napkin and kept glancing at the entrance.  She looked older – fine lines framed her red mouth and onyx eyes.  Her brow was knitted.  After fifteen minutes, the napkin she held was in pieces.

Gracie walked in.  She didn’t see the dancers as she made her way to a quiet table for two and waited.  Sam inhaled a quick gasp.

“Go,” Michelle said.

Sam smiled, teeth pearlescent and gleaming.  Just before she stood up, she winked at the ballerina.

Michelle watched as Sam joined Gracie at the table.  After a moment of nervous body language, a few inaudible words, and an impulsive laugh or two, both were smiling.  As minute flowed into minute, their laughter rang out sporadically over the pounding beats and synthesizers of Annie Lennox’s “Sweet Dreams.”  A smiling Sam pointed to Michelle over her shoulder, and Gracie, grinning, waved to her.

As the two spoke, Samantha’s skin seemed to fill with blood, darkening and dulling, and her face lost its razor sharpness, did not seem so dangerous.  Michelle’s eyes were no longer pulled to her by magnetic force, but rested on her like on any other unremarkably attractive woman.

The two left to a pop-punk cover of “I Saw Her Standing There” blasting mercilessly over numerous speakers.  Hand in hand, with wandering steps, they walked with one another.  As they opened the door to the street, Gracie slid her arm around Sam’s waist, and Sam looked over her shoulder to wave goodbye to Michelle.  She winked again and walked out.

Michelle sighed and took a drink of her water.  After another fifteen minutes, the bartender asked her please to stop loitering.

The next night, customers at The Caribou overflowed into the streets.  Every table, every seat, and most every foot of floor space was filled with a panoply of people of varying ages, classes, and genders.  The ambient chatter was so loud that John had to turn the music up to deafening levels to be heard.  Michelle pushed her way back to the dressing rooms alone.

Most of the girls were on the floor.  Only Julie sat in the dressing room, applying makeup to the bruises which still remained on her body and face.

“Hey,” Michelle said.  “Do you know what’s going on?”

Julie picked up a folded newspaper off a chair.  She opened it to the Lifestyle section and tossed it to Michelle.

“They wrote another story about Princess,” she said.  “The story of her life.  It’s pretty interesting, really.  Crazy shit.  They called her Princess Sakura.  That’s her real name, Sakura.  It’s Japanese for cherry blossom.  All those people came to see her.”  She patted a makeup-dipped sponge lightly on her face.

Michelle changed her clothes.  “How are you?” she asked as she slipped off her underwear.

Julie patted her face, tap tap tap, with the sponge, then dabbed it back into the makeup.  “I’m still negative, if that’s what you mean.  I got checked out two days ago.  Other than that, I’m alive.  I’m surviving.  That’s all anyone can ask for.”

Michelle locked her clothes in her locker.  “Yeah.  I guess.”

Princess sat on a table, legs crossed, her foot resting on a chair.  A small crowd surrounded her on all sides, watching her as if she was the most fascinating thing they had ever seen.  She sat topless in boy-cut bottoms, and was speaking.  Her audience drank every word.

“When I foun ou I was positib, my whore word fer aparto.”  Sighs.  Empathetic nods.

Money and energy surged through the club like electricity through a dynamo.  Girls made three hundred dollars from a single stage dance.  No one went five minutes without a request for a private dance.

“Isadora,” John called over the sound system.  “Please make your way to the stage.  Up next we have the lovely Isadora, folks, put your hands together.”

Michelle took the stage to “Criminal” by Fiona Apple.  As she began to sway, she let herself sing along.  When she felt the beat as her heartbeat, the very rhythm itself coursing through her veins, she began to dance.

The club seemed to stop.  Princess was silent, and those who listened to her turned their heads to watch the girl doing ballet twirls in lingerie.

In Michelle’s mind, she was back on the beach as a little girl.  She was dancing for the first time, the first time music moved her.  She was lying with her brother, quiet and loved.  She was sitting on Samantha’s sofa, letting their worlds meld and mesh into one.

The people in The Caribou had grown still.  Lucy stopped rushing from table to table to stand and watch Michelle dance.  When the second song ended, Michelle looked around at a sea of eyes staring back.  She wiped the sweat off her brow and walked back to the bar.

“Hey, can I get some water?” she asked Mina as she approached the bar.

Mina looked at her oddly and handed her a glass of water with a lemon wedge.  For a moment she looked as if she might say something, but turned and walked to another customer.  Michelle drank her water in seconds.

“Hey,” called a male voice from down the bar.  Michelle looked to see Abe lounging five seats away.  “Michelle!”

“Yup?”

“Come ‘ere Michelle.”

She walked over and sat next to him, still sweating.

He wiped his mouth with his hand and looked at her out of the corner of his eye.  “You’re a real professional, you know that?”

“I know,” she said.  “You told me before.  You gave me a sort of raise.”

Abe stared into space.  “Ah, at’s right, at’s right.”  He hacked a quiet, rattling cough.  “You seen that friend of yours, Samantha?”

“I saw her yesterday.”

“Where is she?  She coming back?”

“I – I don’t think so.  She’s… she’s in love.”

Abe let out a wheezing laugh.  “Love?  She’s in love?”  He shook his head.  “You know, if I didn’t believe in love, I’d think you were lying.  Sam, she was the best dancer we ever had.  Loved her work.  Talk about professional, she was a professional.  Beyond professional.  I figured only love or death could tear her away from here.”

He paused, coughed again, spoke again.  “Take Claudia and me.  I wanted to open my club in Canada, and she wanted to be a social worker here.  Well, neither of us got exactly what we wanted.  I ain’t in Canada.  She ain’t a social worker.  Well, she ain’t a traditional social worker.  But we’re happy, ma belle.  We’re happy.”

A thin, twitchy young man approached and asked Michelle for a private dance.  She looked back at Abe.

“S’alright,” he said, waving his hand.  “Go make your money.  You deserve it.”

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