Page 33 of Vistaria Has Fallen
“Me?” Minnie asked.
He nodded.
Minnie let Duardo lead her to the other dancers. He placed her next to Elvira. Elvira picked up her skirt again and tapped out a simple, half-speed set of steps and Minnie followed. After three repetitions, she nailed it with a big smile and a laugh. Then Elvira repeated the step at the properspeed, rapping it out with a Spanish-looking flourish, the castanets adding their compulsive rattle. Then she paused and waited for Minnie to repeat it.
Minnie repeated the pattern, with almost the same flourish and Calli laughed aloud with sheer joy.
Elvira repeated the pattern. Minnie immediately followed with her own repetition. Then they both danced out the pattern, and kept going. Duardoclapped the rhythm, encouraging them. Elvira showed Minnie how to turn and move while keeping the beat and Minnie followed, her hips swaying with the same elegant motion as Elvira. Hesitantly, she added arm movements.
Calli smiled, exuberance bubbling through her veins. Apart from the incongruous denim skirt and short hair, Minnie looked like any of the women dancing there—flirtatious, seductive.Duardo moved around her with the strutty motion the men made as they preened beside the woman. They sent smoldering glances at the women over their shoulders, while their hips echoed the movements the women made. It was as sexy a dance as any tango Calli had ever seen and she tapped her own feet, her hips twitching in time.
“Now you will know how,” Pietro said and picked up her hand. “You understand.”
Calli followed him to the group of dancers and Elvira flashed her a wide smile when she saw her. She showed Calli the step and Calli surprised herself when she executed it perfectly. It made sense to her, the beat and the motion falling into place along with the music. Only, the flat, rubber-soled sandals she wore wouldn’t move easily on the tiles.
Elvira frowned and, over the music, called outsomething to Menaka, who sat in her armchair clapping as enthusiastically as anyone watching the dancers.
Menaka nodded and called back. Elvira slipped between the bordering ring of spectators and disappeared inside the house. In a moment, she returned with a pair of black heeled shoes in her hand, each with a fine strap over the instep. Dancing shoes.
She thrust them at Calli. “Easier for—”and she stamped out a step or two, the heels of her own shoes rapping on the tiles.
Calli slipped out of her sandals and put them on. They fit, which surprised her, for her feet were in proportion with her height and Vistarian women seemed to be generally petite. She stood up and gave an experimental stamp and immediately sensed the improvement. Her blood beating a tattoo in time with the guitarsand the clapping, she moved to stand between Elvira and Minnie and picked up the pattern they followed. Excitement flooded her as the flow of the dance became clear. She relaxed her concentration, letting her instinct guide her instead. The pattern came easily, naturally. Did she have a latent talent for this? Or had she simply been immersed in this culture for long enough to absorb the attitude,the...sexiness?
Wholesome, exhilarating energy flared as she turned and tapped in time to the music. Her hands came up into the air of their own accord, weaving patterns that felt natural, inevitable. The clapping and shouting of the onlookers encouraged her to continue, to fling her head back and fall into the spell of seduction woven by the music and movement. Her hair tickled the back of herhips where the skin showed between her jeans and tee-shirt and she laughed aloud for sheer joy once again. Calli hadn’t been this alive in years—with one recent exception.
She looked over and saw Duardo move behind Minnie and shadow her movements. It completed the pattern in her mind. Such a seductive dance must have an audience, an intended target. It would be natural for the target to respondas Duardo responded, to be beckoned. He reached out to rest his hands on Minnie’s hips, then they moved in unison.
A hand came down on her own hip and Calli looked behind her. Pietro winked at her. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “Just friends.”
She understood and fell back into the beat. Pietro followed her, his hands on her hips, lifting as he turned her, leading as they moved around the floor.Pietro was a good dancer and Calli learned more as she followed his lead.
The music seemed to grow more frantic, the beat faster. She whirled, caught up in the rhythm. Abruptly it peaked and with a final staccato beat of heels, they came to a halt, the music at an end.
For a tiny second silence held, while Calli drew an unsteady breath, her blood pounding in her ears. Then everyone clapped andlaughed, applauding themselves. The dancers broke up, cups were refilled.
Acute disappointment circled through her. She didn’t want the dancing to end.
“Later, okay?” Pietro said, plucking at his AC/DC tee-shirt. “Time for rest.”
“Sure,” she said, forcing a smile.
Duardo, his hand still resting on Minnie’s hip, passed them and said in a low voice intended only for Pietro, “Rojo.” He noddedtoward the house.
Calli’s chest locked with a sudden, overwhelming mix of dread, hope and the return of the seductive excitement of the dancing, only this time more primordial, more basic. It was pure wanting, bereft of any flirtation.
She turned toward the house, holding her breath. Was he...?
Nicolás Escobedo sat on one of the straight-backed chairs, a boot resting on the seat of another,his chair pushed back and balanced. Black jeans, a dark olive green shirt with the soft glow that spoke of silk.Silk, her mind whispered.
Two men approached him. Nick spoke a few words. An exchange of greetings. Acknowledgments. They made no fuss over him, no fanfare. She understood that Nick was not here as an Escobedo. Duardo had named him correctly. He was here as the quiet man who movedamongst them, directing, managing, putting things to right.
A few words for each of them and they moved on, leaving him to his privacy. Alone, he settled back in his chair and turned back to look at her, his gaze direct, uncompromising. Had he watched her dance?
Her heart gave a little thrill of a beat at the idea. The she remembered the lily.
She walked over to stand in front of him and pushedher thumbs into her pockets, her hands curling into fists. “You were invited to this party too?” she asked.
“I’m invited everywhere.”
