“Of course not. I’m just trying to get him to ask me out.”
“You know, you could ask him.”
“Hell, no. I’m too old-fashioned for that.”
Since I couldn’t really think of an adequate retort, I settled for sending her a disbelieving stare, at which she only smiled more broadly.
Anthony came back with my glass of wine, giving me the perfect opening. “Hey, Anthony,” I began.
“Yes?”
“What time do you get off work? Because Sydney and I are going over to Main Stage after dinner tonight. Want to come hang out?”
Sydney raised her eyebrows and gave me her best “oh, no, you didn’t” stare, even as Anthony replied, “We close at nine, so I should be able to make it by nine-thirty.”
“Perfect,” I said. “Meet us there?”
“Sure.” He was trying hard to sound casual, but I could tell he was looking forward to it.
At that moment the man from the couple next to Sydney waved Anthony over, so he was spared having to make any other comment.
“What the hell?” Sydney whispered fiercely.
“Well, he’s too shy to make the first move, and you’re just being stupid with that whole ‘old-fashioned’ thing, so I took care of it for you.”
“Oh, really? And what if he thinks he’s going there to meet you and not me?”
“He isn’t,” I told her. “He didn’t look at my chest once.”
She shook her head. “You’re impossible.”
It was my turn to grin. “Well, I try to be.”
* * *
We went out for pizza at Bocce after that, and had a few more glasses of wine. Well, Sydney did; I nursed one all through dinner, knowing we’d have more once we were at Main Stage.
“I figured out the perfect costume for you for the dance,” she announced midway through demolishing a piece of pesto chicken pizza.
“What is it?” I asked in guarded tones. Visions of the cheerleader costume Tobias had suggested to Aunt Rachel danced in my head.
Either Sydney didn’t pick up on the wariness in my voice or, more likely, she simply decided to ignore it. “You know how my friend Madison does all that crazy ballroom dance stuff? Well, she can only wear her costumes once or twice, and then she usually sells them on eBay to get rid of them. But she said I could have a couple if I wanted.”
“Aren’t those things really skimpy?”
Sydney let out a sigh. “Jesus, Angela, you’re worse about that stuff than Melanie Baxter, and she’s Mormon.”
Maybe that was true, but I just didn’t feel comfortable letting it all hang out, as it were. Talk about old-fashioned, but there it was. Still, I knew Sydney was trying to help me out, so I asked, “Okay, what are the costumes?”
“I’ll take the skimpy one. I think she used it for a rhumba or something, but since it has sparkly fringe all over it, I think I can turn it into a flapper dress. But the other one she wore when she was dancing a pass double, or paso…paso….”
“Paso doble,” I supplied. She shot me a look of surprise, and I added, “Strictly Ballroom is one of Aunt Rachel’s favorite movies.”
“Oh. Okay, so anyway, it looks like a Spanish flamenco dancer’s dress or something. It’s long. Yes, there’s probably some boobage involved, but that’s historically accurate, isn’t it?”
Maybe. I didn’t know for sure, since historical costume was sort of outside my field of expertise. I could ask Maisie about it, I supposed. Maisie was the “spook” of Spook Hall, one of Jerome’s most famous ghosts. She didn’t like to come out when the tourists were around, but Monday mornings were pretty quiet in Jerome, so I could talk to her then.
I just lifted my shoulders, so Sydney plowed ahead. “And we’re all more or less around the same size, so it’ll work out perfect. You’ll need better shoes, though,” she added, with a dark glance toward the cowboy boots hidden under our table.
“I’ll figure out something,” I said, making a mental note to dig through Aunt Rachel’s collection to see if she had anything that would work. It wasn’t that I couldn’t afford to get myself some shoes for the occasion…more that I really didn’t see the point for something I’d only wear once. Jerome’s uneven streets and steep hillsides made most “girly” shoes even less practical than usual.
She nodded, and we went on to talk about her cosmetology course — she’d be finishing in the spring — and whether she should get her own place once she was working full-time, or whether she should hang on at her parents’ house and save up for a while first. This whole conversation made me a little sad, partly because I was limping my way through an online bachelor’s degree in communications at the University of Phoenix and not enjoying it very much, and partly because Sydney, for all her outward craziness, had a pretty clear plan for what she wanted to do with her life. Finish her certificate, get some experience at a local salon, and then open her own place, preferably in much ritzier Sedona, where she could earn a lot more.