Tiny Bubbles
Dawn's smiled, but her eyes showed confusion, "You say you want to Rumble?" She asked him.
Michael felt stupid. "No, Rhumba! Would you like to Rhumba?"
"I don't hear any thunder...." She sipped her drink, "Is it raining?"
"No," He sat down in front of her, realizing that he hadn't asked her permission, "The music's very loud." He said.
"No, you don't look like Gavin McCloud."
"Yes, I love my work, and I'm very proud of it."
"You think my dress looks like a shroud?"
"No, no, dancing is allowed.."
"Yes," Dawn smiled, catching on his original meaning, "The music is very loud."
Suddenly, the song petered off into a slow one, and Dawn asked Michael, "Now, what did you ask me in the first place."
Michael flushed, "I asked you to dance."
Without reservation, she offered her hand, "Certainly." She said.
They entered the dance floor, smooshing through the overloaded crowd, feeling the stinging sensation of elbows and knees. Michael placed his hand on Dawn's upper arm, not making the motion to bring her closer. She pulled him towards her a bit, placed her hand against his neck, and moved her body slowly.
Michael was in heaven. She felt like the dreams he had suffered through nightly, yearning breathlessly for his Petrarchian idol. But suddenly, she pulled herself away, dancing in waltz-like box steps. Disappointed, he looked into her eyes, and saw that they were focussed across the floor. He turned his head, and, from the corner of his right eye saw two familiar figures staring at them. Justin Credible and Lance Storm? He thought, incredulous. They were dancing together? Suddenly, they whispered something to each other, and then began to push their way through the crowd, zeroed in on Michael and Dawn!
Dawn reached down between them, grasping her little red lipstick-sized purse. Inside was a rolled-up flyer for a show. She uncorked a pen and, shocking Michael, used his shoulder as a table. He glanced over at Lance and PJ; they had been detained by a couple of fans. Dawn ripped whatever she had scribbled from her notepad, and then pushed it into Stevie's palm, "It's my number." She whispered, "Call me. And please give me yours."
The fans were wrapping up with their impromptu autograph session; in a moment of frantic worry, Michael looked around him for an easel of some sort. On the still shoulder of a bouncer, he quickly scribbled down his cell phone number, handed her back her writing supplies, and pushed his way back through the crowd and off the dance floor before the bouncer could catch him.
Dawn breathlessly tucked Michael's number among her items of feminine protection. Lance and PJ would never dare to touch them.
Their eyes locked one last time over the dance floor, then Michael disappeared out the door, taking Brian with him.
*****
"He's no good, Dawnie." PJ told Dawn in the car as they drove back to the hotel.
"You said my last boyfriend was no good," Dawn retorted, "He broke up with me and became a priest."
"That was a freak accident," Lance claimed, "He was scum."
"He was not."
"ALL men are scum, Dawnie." PJ claimed.
"Even the two of you."
PJ and Lance exchanged looks.
"Just watch for the right street." Lance said, "I'm all thumbs with these American roadways."
PJ snickered, "Right, Evers."
"Blow it out your tailpipe, Walker."
Dawn closed her eyes, blocking out the two's umpteenth argument. Carefully, she unfolded the paper upon which Michael had written his number. She wasn't used to such long, luxurious hair. She could set her watch to Lances, and PJ didn't have any. Tucking away the paper and locking it safely away, she imagined stroking his long, luxurious locks.
A sudden squealing of tires woke her from the reverie.
"Dawnie! Stop brushing that horse's mane and tell me which exit's the right one
****
"...And her hair, like skeins of bright burnished stalks/Of corn upon the sea..." Brian frowned, "Corn upon the sea, Mike?"
"Give me those!" Michael yelled, bounding out of his bed and chasing Brian across the room. He jumped atop his formerly-chubby friend, and, with all of his strength, pried the pages from his hands and carried them back to his side of the room.
"Boo. You didn't even let me get to the part about her eyes being 'Like whisky dewdrops of Ruby Dee.'"
"And you never will." Michael lovingly smoothed out the pages, then put it in his briefcase. He had changed the combination to something that Brian, in a million years, wouldn't have guessed.
"Did you change it to Dawn's Birthday?"
"NO!" He snapped, locking the case and setting it aside. "Why are you so obsessed with my poetry?"
"I think it's because it's so bad." Meanie offered.
Michael glowered at him.
"Come on, Mike, you're no Cyrano." He withdrew a tattered copy of quotations from beneath his pillow, "'Love and a Red nose Can't be hid.'" He quoted.
"How charming," Michael snapped in response, turning over in his bed.
Brian's quotations were driving him to sleep, and to aid that cause he took out Dawn's number.
"I wouldn't go trying to love that girl, Mike." Brian offered, "You'll end up with your heart broken and your ass kicked."
Michael denied that. There were ways, in this tangled yarn of life, to get what one really needed.
He was going to make her love him. Yes he would. Yes he would.
"And if you're going to go to sleep," Brian said lastly, "Turn off the radio!"