Cat In A Topaz Tango

Olivia was so winded it looked like she’d do a Marie Osmond dive before the judges let her vanish backstage to the greenroom cameras for a postmortem on their scores and the dance. José managed to uphold her and swoop up his abandoned cape and sword en route to the judges’ table.

The judges rained praise down on the couple, Danny incisive and urbane, Savannah Ashleigh making a total fool of herself rhapsodizing over José, who offered a deep bow and sword salute to the only female judge.

What a showboater!

“Fabulous,” Danny (the traitor) said. “Perfect tempo, perfect intensity, a thorny rose of a pasodoble, totally flammable.”

Leander was already nodding. “What can I add to that? I was utterly absorbed in the dance and the emotions. You both have outdone yourselves. The ideal partnership and you two are the ones to beat in this competition.”

“Well,” Savannah said, and then paused. Of course everyone held their breath. She was always contrary. “You two were shocking . . . shockingly good. Olivia, you are my ‘vamp of Savannah,’ and you make the real one look like an ice cube, if I say so myself.”

The results: nine, nine, nine.

Temple calculated. Matt had drawn either Glory B. or Wandawoman as a partner. She prayed it was Glory B. As Matt had reported that Danny had noted so naughtily, Matt was used to slinging a petite woman around and this was what the pasodoble asked of the man.

The seriously muscular Wandawoman? She’d been a rhythmless lump in her dances so far. Given the small number of contestants, it was too likely they’d draw each other again.

So, fingers crossed: Matt and Glory B. And then . . . Dancing With the Celebs glory. It would take a lot to overtake José and Olivia, but Matt and Glory B. could do it. Maybe.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, our third scintillating couple,” Crawford announced. “The Cloaked Conjuror and Glory B.”

No! Matt had drawn Wandawoman.

A hand pushed down on Temple’s shoulder. “Take it easy, Ms. Ozone,” Molina’s husky voice whispered in her ear. “You’re hyper-ventilating.”

In the greenroom, the clustered Los Hermanos Brothers rooted for CC, liking his massive masculine presence. None of them looked en route to massive. They were clean-cut teenage boys who could attract tween-age girls’ ecstatic devotion, with the only sexual pressure being in everybody’s heads.

Temple remembered that stage of girly development well.

So she would have to sit there, subdued, and watch CC flourish his usual cloak and toss Glory B. around like a graceful handkerchief. It would be his best dance, because his partner was so easy to handle.

The Cloaked Conjuror’s usual cloak lined in crimson satin was now the toreador’s cape. Glory B., a tumbling leaf of scarlet burnt black around the edges came hurtling and spinning and sliding into the center spotlight. Her blond hair had morphed into a dead-black, high-piled wig edging her face with a wrought-ironlike mask of brunet spit-curls. She looked small and poisonous, like a teen pop tart Medusa, with a long-stemmed rose in her small white teeth.

A mere webbing of black laces held her costume to her torso and the skirt was a peacock-tail grand swoop of scarlet ruffles overcast with spiderweb black lace.

The routine began slow and sultry, CC’s bulky masked persona more suited to the role of bull, but making a commanding toreador.

CC and Glory B. did not fight the battle of the sexes, but rather went through the motions with intensity, if not passion. The audience’s applause announced that they were pleased but not bowled over.

“This dance,” Danny told the couple before the judges’ table, “is a paean to power. There is a ritual stalking element, which you both captured well, but beneath the controlled moves lies guts and glory, a life-and-death drama, and you danced right over the top of it.”

Savannah jumped in out of turn. “Well, I thought the rose in the teeth thing was just too ‘cute.’ And when he tore it away and stomped on it, all I could think was those thorns must be hell on lip gloss.”

“The thorns had been stripped off,” Glory B. interjected.

“No pain, no gain, honey.” Savannah shrugged to display her ruffled off-the-shoulder neckline of scarlet silk roses, in case anybody viewing the show didn’t know who really ought to be out there shaking her flounces and stomping her high-heeled jackboots, so to speak.

In the greenroom the girls giggled nervously.

“She is so lame,” Mariah said.

“So old for that dress,” Sou-Sou added. “Her shoulders look fat.”

“And her mouth is just a funny blob,” Patrisha pointed out.

Zoe Chloe resisted making a crack that obviously Savannah’s collagen had shifted to her collarbones. After all, she was the “older” woman in this youthful bunch and didn’t need to pile on here.

Leander Brock shifted magisterially in his seat when he commented.