Chapter 14: The Pact

Susan Castle was used to hearing how good she looked for her age.

But the still-handsome, 60-something dance teacher was, at this particular moment, telling her age to shut up. A third floor landing? No problem for a fit individual who ran a marathon or two in her youth. But she forgot to factor in the two (not one?) bags that she carried with her at all times. One held the video equipment she couldn’t afford to leave in the studio or duplicate to always have at home.

The other held her day’s worth of laundry and boxes of DVDs for reviewing. Her job was in no way done at the end of practice, as she was always evaluating, studying moves and second-guessing decisions made on the fly. She also had recruiting tapes and DVDs to run and re-run; her studio was in regional demand and she self-imposed her enrollment ceiling. Susan Castle’s School of the Dance was especially well-regarded among advanced teens who still entertained thoughts of a professional career.

“Third floor walkup?” she muttered. “Sounds so ... nothing. Ha!”

But the instructor was able to arrive at the third floor landing unscathed, and her reward greeted her on the other side of the door.

“Aunt Susie! You’re home!” squealed her excited niece, 16-year-old Maria was jumping up and down like an excited puppy. “I won the lead in our school Christmas play!”

Freed of her baggage, Susan squealed and joined the teenager in bouncing up and down on her large double bed. A rising star, Maria was fortunate enough to have the phone number of her Aunt Susan when her parents made an illegal border run ... had it been eight years? All of the time and energy she had left from teaching dance, she invested in a home school program with a goal of landing Maria a scholarship or a fellowship. Susan worried about her obvious Hispanic background might be held against her locally, but so far the opposite was true.

Susan shared her Mexican blood, but was better able to hide hers behind a lighter complexion. Sixty-odd years ago, she was born Suzanna Castillo, but had opted to deny her heritage since middle school. To her chagrin, the lies continued once Maria showed up on her doorstep, eager and ready to dance but as illegal-in-country as the day is long.

Maria had arrived with a bi-lingual note and a map that led her to Susan’s door should the family fail to cross over into Arizona successfully. Theirs was a doomed attempt, as the smugglers in charge of their safe passage panicked for no apparent reason in the middle of the night and turned their guns on the two dozen or so men, women and children in their care.

Covered with the blood of others, Maria played dead beneath her mother and remained their for a day, at least. But before the massacre was found, she set out on her own with her map, a canteen and a tiny compass, and somehow crossed the border alive. How she accomplished this – much less make it 300 miles upstate – was a question she would or could not answer.

Susan simply knew she would never question the toughness or courage of this little dynamo even thought those were two of her favorite ways of motivating her dancers.

The teacher shook her head. Impossible to believe that was a decade ago, and Maria was only six when she undertook that impossible journey. In the time since, the two silently used their shared secrets to bond as sisters, and that bond was further helped when Susan hired Missy Arnovsky to be her full-time sitter. An excellent Spanish student, Missy became a great companion and also helped Maria through hours of what otherwise would be tedious, solitary translations.

“Tell me all about winning the role,” Susan said when both had finally danced themselves out and collapsed onto the bed. But like many born performers, Maria could not merely tell her guardian when she could show her.

“Mi tia, I was dancing on air!” she explained, jumping right on cue. “I knew every part, even the boys’ moves, and hit the mark every time!”

‘

“And?” Susan asked, quickly falling into teaching mode.

“And I was able to stay polite and keep my temper and behave like an adult,” she added, pausing in front of her aunt, “because I knew you’d be proud of me.”

“I am!” Susan cried, beaming. “You know, you have a birthday coming up. I need you to stay on this good behavior if you want your one-of-a-kind present.”

“I know! And I’m trying so hard!” she said, tears coming to her eyes in an instant...

“But I do have a treat for you,” Susan said. “I have a meeting to go to...”...

“Is Missy coming over?” she asked.

“Better than that! She’ll be spending the night,” Susan explained. “Your tia might have some big news when she gets home.”

“News? About Mama and Papa?” she asked hopefully;

“No. No news on your familia,” Susan said sadly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get your hopes up. Too late, I know.” But the mood was broken and the emotional young girl didn’t try to hide her latest heartbreak.

“It’s OK. I’m going to my room now, tia,” she said softly.

Susan could only nod as the girl, lower lip out in an exaggerated pout left her room. But Susan had no time to talk to the mercurial young prodigy because she had to get ready for what she hoped would be a profitable night for all concerned. Her mind gravitated towards things like her makeup.

It was tricky, being 60 with a 30-ish body. But some 30 minutes later, as she sat quietly, waiting for the knock at the door, she was dressed in one of her better travel outfits – not too shiny, but very much of a “I mean business” vibe.

She wouldn’t be wearing it home.

A knock at the door had her up in an instant and at the door. As expected, Missy Arnovsky was there, wearing a snug sweater and jeans, holding a green wardrobe bag.

“Here,” Missy said, handing it over. “It should be perfect for later.”

You’re so perfect! Susan thought as she smiled at her unsuspecting sitter. Instead, she said, “I owe you more than you ever know.”

“It’s one of my hotter outfits,” Missy whispered conspiratorially.

“Perfect,” Susan whispered back. “I have no idea how long this will take tonight.”

“Dad didn’t tell me much, but wish I was going to be a fly on the wall of this meeting tonight,” Missy said, sitting on the arm of the sofa.

“I think everyone in the class will be aware of this meeting soon enough,” Susan said. “We might even see some of your former classmates return if Mr. Childers has his way.”

Susan put Melissa’s bag in the trunk of her Prius, the double checked her mirrors – before starting the car. She broke out her secret shame – glasses due to progressive night blindness. She sighed and re-checked her rear view – but grinned a slightly evil grin at her reflection.

She’d made the cross-town trek to Alice Miller’s 19th century manor (at least, that’s what Susan called it to tease her). It sat, manor-like, on a small hill above the street, but Susan knew that Alice had a) a big garage in back and b) a luxury car in that garage – one of the few perks she allowed herself after selling the studio.

Susan parked the Prius on the street, drug the overnight bag out of the trunk and slung it over her shoulder without batting an eye at the steep flight of stairs leading up to the front door.

Her glasses sat, discarded and forgotten, on her dash.

Alice was well past the age of pacing nervously, but her distress was apparent by the wringing of her hands.

She was stressed to the point that she actually jumped when her antique doorbell rang in its joyless manner. Stubbing out a cigarette, Alice stopped and checked herself in the mirror before she opened the door; her greeting did not include a smile.

“Susan, what is this about?” Alice asked by way of greeting her co-worker. “Are we about to be shut down?”

Susan did not mean to laugh at her slightly elderly friend, but could not help it at this moment.

“Shut down? Alice, sweetheart, do you think I’ve been violating some kind of health code?” she said though her laughter.

“Health code, or loan, maybe; I don’t know,” she sniffed. “I don’t relate to these girls any more. Hell, Susan, I don’t even relate to their parents.”

“Don’t let that bother you,” Susan said, tears forming as she began getting tickled. “Many of the parents are the bigger head cases then their daughters.”

That brought a chuckle of agreement from Alice, but she was far from comforted.

“You don’t seem worried about this meeting. What’s it about, really?” she pressed.

“A meeting which we’re about to be late for, woman,” Susan said, clapping her hands together and faking agitation. “This meeting is about our future, according to Dr. Harris. But Alice – the girls and their parents love us. This is about some kind of ... bonus maybe. We might even be talking about relocating!”

“Maybe,” Alice answered in a whisper, as she felt a little light-headed. “And you were going to let us be late!”

Susan, surprised yet again by her co-worker, had to hold back a tear in earnest.

Old girl, you have no idea, she thought.

“I’ll drive,” Alice said, heading back to her garage, “since it looks like you forgot your glasses.”

LARRY

The private dining room was already abuzz with activity, with parents meeting parents for the first time in years in some cases; the night before, in others.

The smell of fresh sex was merely minutes away.

Mitch Evans and a dazzling Sara Wilson (whose hair had never been redder) were doing the main meet and greet. Chuck was advising me as I tapped away on the well-used laptop. We had the luxury of entering everyone’s name ahead of time and I made sure that no one got too loud, too drunk, or too excited until such time as we explained the terms of the pact we had devised.

Oh, and Chuck made sure that everyone was okay with his smoking.

Attending the “pre-meeting” in this same room two hours earlier were the true minds behind this little pact: Mitch, Chuck, myself, Sara, Bud, Joanie – and Stacy (minus her new plaything). We’d all seen the awesome power of Master PC and in many cases, enjoyed the fruits. More importantly, we were all aware of the program and specifically programmed not to reveal it to anyone without a vote.

“So all this is going to be part of the baseline program?” Chuck asked, ash falling onto the pages of notes he was studying.

“We need to clean this room up before anyone else gets here,” said Joanie, being perfectly reasonable except for her outfit. She wore a brown collar, brown leather skirt, black nylons, black heels and nothing even close to resembling a blouse. But every man in the room knew a dark gold chain hung between her two new friends.

“Clean up and maybe start over,” she continued. “We don’t need the late arrivals to realize we had a two-hour head start on them.”

I nodded towards the two waitresses we hand-picked for our meeting and the two college freshmen with newly endowed EEE cups (and a big, big nipples) came in to clean up. I took a moment to suck one of blonde Mary’s inch-long nips while Joanie swapped tongue with a once-petite redhead named Sandy.

Bud and Chuck sat on either side of us (Chuck next to Joanie, naturally) and watched with wonder and amusement as we toyed with the servers, whose uniform tops and bras were discarded beneath our table. I held up one – Victoria’s Secret.

“Joanie, can Todd fill this?” I asked.

“That’s cute. I bet he could,” she laughed in a manner that made her breasts wobble in every direction at once. She slipped the pricey bra in her bag. God, I loved Joanie.

When our two servers (who thought all was normal) finished cleaning up our area, Mitch had joined us.

“Getting the cop in here may take your server bimbos doing a pole dance in the parking lot,” he said.

“Well, we can do that,” I offered.

“Be serious,” Chuck said. “Let’s run through the template, checklist first.”

“Girls or parents?” I asked. My question drew crickets.

“Bunheads first,” Mitch said, making his first executive decision.

“Okay. Run through the list,” I said.

“Starting with ... Stacy Childers,” Chuck began, glancing my way as if expecting a reaction. Neither Stacy or I gave him one. “ ... Belle Wilson, Missy Arnovsky, Angel Harris, Jacy McKinnon, uh, Michaela McKinnon?”