Page 1 of Dancing Diva
1
CLAIRE
I don’t belong here. It’s not like I’m close with my cousins, Bridget and Beth, but family obligations are mandatory—at least according to my mother's warped idea of family. It's because of her that I agreed to be in the wedding and currently find myself here in Vegas, a part of Bridget's bridal party. I say a part of it, but I don't really feel part of the group.
On the flight out here, I was the odd person out, having to sit in the seat next to a guy who thought that drinking four gin and tonics would help with his fear of flying—and I guess it did because he passed out and kept trying to use me as a pillow the whole flight.
In the suite at the hotel, I tried to make small talk with Beth, but she seemed distracted or just uninterested in talking with me beyond polite pleasantries. Bridget's two other friends in the bridal party, Jessie and Veronica, seem nice enough, but they are having their own issues to deal with for me to get to know them too well. The airline lost Jessie's luggage, and Veronica is wound up so tight from all the wedding planning that I don't think she'll be able to relax at all this weekend. And Bridget is slowly losing it because she can’t get a hold of her fiancé.
By the time we walk from the hotel to Club Dominion, the lights and all the sounds on the busy Strip are already overloading my senses. It’s both exciting and terrifying to be here. My mother likes to say that I’m too naïve when it comes to going to bigger cities, but I don’t know what she expected. I became this way because she and my father kept me sheltered most of my life.
When people find out that I was homeschooled, they get a certain picture in their minds about how my childhood must have been filled with scriptures and prairie dresses. But the truth is my life was nothing like that. In fact, I would have gone to the same private school as Bridget and Beth because our grandmother was, and currently is, on the board of trustees. Maybe then we might be a lot closer than we are today. But when I was six, I got really sick. To protect my compromised immune system, my access to anyone other than my parents was extremely limited, so going to school with other kids was completely out of the question. And without any siblings to interact with, I never really got to learn how to interact with others until much later in life, when it should already have been second nature to me.
“Your boob is ringing,” Beth says, pointing to my chest.
I look down and remember that I had jammed my phone in my bra earlier when I was digging in my suitcase for the heels I let Jessie borrow since she had nothing to change into without her suitcase.
“Right,” I say, pulling it out and seeing the name “Mom” flash on the screen. “Hello?”
“There you are! I thought you were dead!” My mother shrieks into the phone by way of greeting.
I step as far away as I can from the other girls in the bridal party. I don't need witnesses to the scolding I'm about to get for not calling to check in when we landed.
“Ted! She finally picked up,” she continues, but instead of yelling at me, she’s yelling to my father in some other room of the house. “She’s not dead.”
“I didn’t think she was,” my father yells back.
I roll my eyes. "Mom, I can't talk right now."
"Well, apparently, you couldn't talk earlier either since you couldn't be bothered to pick up the phone and calm your mother's frail nerves and let her know that you've arrived safely in thecity of Sin,” she says that last part with such a note of disgust in her voice.
“I’m here because you made me come,” I hiss, trying to keep my voice low. “You insisted I say yes to be a bridesmaid. I didn’t want to do this in the first place.”
I don’t add the part about how I’m secretly a little excited to be here. This place may terrify me on a level I'm not used to feeling, but it's the perfect place for me to let loose. A place where I can finally step out of the sheltered life that has been my norm prior to and after the doctors cleared me of the disease that plagued nearly all of my childhood. I’m not sure I’d have the guts to try it, but since I’m with the girls in the bridal party, at least I know I’m alone.
“I didn’t think my brother would be so foolish to let his daughters go to Vegas and drag my child along.”
“I’m not a child,” I say, resisting the urge to stomp my foot.
It doesn’t matter that I’ve aged out of the standard size box of candles one gets to put on a birthday cake. My mother will always act like I’m some kind of kid.
She continues as if she didn’t just hear me. “And if something happens to you, I don’t know what I would do.”
"You should see the luxury suite he paid for us to stay in," I add, knowing that this will draw focus away from me and onto my uncle.
Sorry, Uncle Rick. But she can put her focus on you for a little while. I don’t want to be getting a call from her every hour on the hour for the rest of the trip.
This detail sets her off. I let her talk for another minute or so before I notice the line start to move.
"Mom, I've got to go," I tell her. We say our goodbyes and hang up the phone. I shut it off before shoving it into my pocket.
It looks like the bouncers are about to let us in. But right as he's about to pull back the rope that leads into the club, a group of shady-looking guys walk by us and inside. My instinct is not to make waves and draw attention to myself, but it's clear from the scene that Veronica is starting to make she isn't at all afraid to speak up for herself. I'm a little in awe of her at this moment.
I'm not sure if it's anything that Veronica says, but soon after, the bouncer pulls back the rope and lets our group inside.
The bass of the music playing in the club is louder than the pulse of my heartbeat. It reverberates in my chest, and I can't deny enjoying the feeling. My body starts to move in time with the rhythm of the music, and I can’t wait to get out onto the dance floor. One of the girls grabs my hand and pulls me deeper into the club with the rest of the group. Someone has secured a table which seems like an impossible feat with the way the club is filled with people.
There's so much going on around us, and I try to take it all in. I'm not sure if I’ve been anywhere with so many people before in my life. And that sad thought makes something click in my head because I'm tired of playing it safe. I'm tired of doing what I've been told to do. I'm just tired of letting life pass me by. A life where the odds weren't in my favor, and yet somehow, I pulled through. I owe it to anyone who didn't get a second chance the way I did to truly live my life.
