Part 27 (2/2)

Because that just isn't right.

Of course, if I didn't have to be so cautious, I could kick his a.s.s, on or off skis. Since I don't want broken bones right now, however, I'll pick my way to the bottom of this pine tree slalom course.

Finally it intersects a long beginner run where I can pick up enough speed to catch Duvall.

It isn't hard, considering he's waiting for me at the fringe of a small stand of cedars. He waves rather frantically for me to join him. Check it out, he says, pointing into the trees. Jesus, O'Connell, you turned her, like, gay. What's he talking about?

I lift my goggles, look hard at where his finger is aimed.

Two girls on s...o...b..ards...

wait. What the f.u.c.k? It's Cara, for sure. She's with that girl, the one with spiky hair, now frosted blue. They are chest to chest, and they are kissing. Not just kissing like friends do. Kissing like people who are in love do.

Andre

People Who Are In Love Expect certain things.

Time together, to learn all there is to know about each other. Falling in love can happen to complete strangers. Staying in love requires being best friends and that means accepting the person beneath the veneer. What complicates things is s.e.x.

Loveless, it's easy. Insert Tab A into Slot B. Enjoy what happens naturally. But under love's influence, the directions aren't quite so straightforward.

It is then, striving for perfection, you realize that all Slot Bs are not interchangeable.

When It Comes To s.e.x I was kind of a late bloomer. Not that I didn't know what it was, or think about maybe having it one day. At eleven or twelve, I started having all the problems young guys do, waking up sticky and sometimes turning into walking wood, wrong place, wrong time. Embarra.s.sing stuff. My first actual encounter was with an Oakland girl-one of Gramps's neighbors.

She was a couple of years older than me. Every guy should have an older woman for his first. She taught me every move in the Big Book of s.e.x. Guess she liked playing teacher.

I was fifteen. After that, I kind of got a taste for it, and let me just say, private school girls aren't exactly all prudes.

But none of them can come close to Jenna when it comes to doing the dirty. Part of it is because I love her, and love really does put a whole different spin on getting naked together. But Jenna knows more than that Oakland girl and my preppie lays all rolled up into one.

Without carrying a single iota of shame.

I have no idea where she learned what she knows. To tell the truth, I really don't want the details.

Enough to have her for my own, doing those things to me.

Hopefully, we'll be doing them tonight.

This Afternoon, Though I'm helping Liana teach a dance workshop for a bunch of underprivileged kids. Some of them are really young-like four.

First, I want you to see how the body is meant to move, Liana tells the group, who are sitting on the floor beneath the barre. Andre, will you please dance the jazz routine-the one to Coltrane.

She fires up ”While My Lady Sleeps,” superb cla.s.sic sax from one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time.

Beat comes first, and it remains steady under the sad song of the saxophone.

The music closes around me, and I draw it inside, a flowing current that my muscles float upon. Contract. Release.

I am the music, and the music is my body.

And when it stops, I come out of the trance that is jazz dance. If there is a G.o.d, he listens to John Coltrane.

The sound of clapping hands pulls me back into the studio. Lots of little hands. And some bigger ones too.

Shantell has appeared, like a backlit cloud reflected on still water. The look on her face is hard to read.

But then she smiles as Liana says, Okay, kids. Let's break up into groups. Shantell, Andre, help divide them up, and each of you take a group of ten or so.

Today is all about movement.

Let the music tell you what to do, like Andre did.

Awesome Day The kids are amazing, so eager to learn.

I never thought about teaching before, but I really love working with them. It makes me feel like I've got something to give, and I'm sorry it has to end. Guess we all have places to go, though. There's a chorus of thank yous as they leave, and when the studio has emptied, Shantell comes over. I really hate to say this, and have it go to your head and all, but you are an incredible dancer.

How long have you been training? She waits for an answer she probably doesn't want to hear.

”A little over a year. I started after we moved here to Reno.”

As I suspected, she reacts with a scowl.

That's it? What made you decide to take lessons, then? Did you, like, wake up from a dream, doing plies?

G.o.d she's funny. ”Not exactly. Actually, it was that TV show- So You Think You Can Dance. I've always liked street dancing. Used to do it some when we lived in the Bay Area. I saw this b-boy picking up ballroom and thought maybe if he could, I could.

I found Liana online, and that was straight from heaven.

She tapped something inside me I might not ever have found without her. That's my story. The end.”

But She's Not Quite Finished With me. So what are you going to do with all that talent?

Go pro? You could, you know. There are- I stop her with a shake of my head. ”No way my parents are going to let their only son make a living onstage some place. It was always just for fun. Dancers don't make the kind of money I need to be comfortable.”

Now she looks totally disgusted. Money?

You can't be serious.

Dance isn't about money. It's about heart.

If it isn't, you d.a.m.n well don't deserve the gift G.o.d gave you.

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