Charles & Claire Ch. 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Although Claire and I did the 'We're going to Disneyworld' promo in one take, we ended up going to Disneyland in California for four days instead. The trip to New York, and being on The David Letterman Show was quite a journey, we were both very happy to have gotten back home in our own beds for a couple of days, before starting back up at school.

School had been really different with every single student, along with every single teacher, stopping us and congratulating us for our Dance Award and the coolness factor of having been on Letterman, which seems to have 'raised our stock' at Independence Junior High School. We'd walk everywhere hand in hand, occasionally running into Brian and Susan, who were also always in each others grip.

School went well, with the last two months going by very fast. We were both anxious for it to be over, and to re-start going to the Bradshaw Family Cotillion again, for our second year there. It feels like déjà vu, talking about dances and steps all over again.

Last year, being thirteen-year-olds, meant we danced on Tuesday, but this year, since we're less than two months from turning fourteen, we're probably moving to Thursday.

However, we got a letter from Jimmy with the upcoming Cotillion schedule. Things have changed considerably; Monday is now 17/18 year-olds, Tuesday 13/14 year-olds, Wednesday 11/12 year-olds, Thursday 15/16 year-olds, Friday is the 9/10 year-olds, and Saturday earlier in the day, will be the 7/8 year-olds. This was explained by an almost 400% increase of new students wanting to attend the Bradshaw Family Cotillion. Maybe we should've asked Jimmy for a cut?

Having found a new, larger place than last year for Cotillion, the Cotillion will now start at six pm for ninety minutes for the younger age, and at seven-thirty, the older age will attend. Newbies and Returnees will be lumped together now.

Also, inside our envelope from Jimmy, was a personal invitation for both Claire and I to be full time teachers, as we become available, for the Saturday classes of the seven and eight-year-olds, with commensurate privileges, instead of payment, for purposes of maintaining our amateur status.

My phone rang. Without looking, I said. "Hello Claire - how's my girl?"

"Did you get a letter from Jimmy?"

"Yes, ma'am ... I did."

"Don't ma'am me, Mr. Newman, or I'll reach through the phone line and hit you over your pointy little head." She couldn't suppress a giggle.

"I was just kidding Claire. Interesting, how we'll still be going on Tuesday nights, and Kalista will be on Saturday, when we've coincidentally been asked to teach that class."

"Jimmy must've gotten a whole bunch of new students in, after we won our award," Claire said. "I'm so happy for him ... What time?"

"What time, what?" I asked, feigning knowledge of what she was asking.

"You butthead, you know what I'm asking ... schools out, what time tomorrow do you want me there to practice. We haven't danced together in almost four weeks."

"How about you and Special K come over at nine am, and bring your go-bags?"

"I'll be there promptly at nine o'clock, for my boyfriend to teach me something new."

That sounded a little ... I'm not sure what?

"See you two, tomorrow then. Bye Claire, Love you."

"Bye, Charles ... I Love you."

I went downstairs and saw Annie, pouring over a number of documents, scratching her head and looking very serious. She heard me enter the room.

Without looking up, she said, "Hi honey. What time are Claire and Kalista coming over tomorrow morning?"

"Mom ... how could you possibly ... were you listening in on the phone?"

"No, dear ... this is Sunday, two days before the start of Cotillion. You and Claire haven't danced in about four weeks, so I put two and two together and figured it out. I'm not stupid, you know."

"I'm sorry Mom, what's all this in front of you," I asked.

"I'm just trying to organize this seasons Competitions. They start in one week, there are eleven in all, at least the ones that are during your summer break."

"Claire and I don't have to go to them all, you know?" I reasoned.

"I know dear, but I still need to be better organized. Your father leaving us, has given me time and focus to really plan these events out better than last year."

Putting my hands on her shoulders I asked, "Mom? Are we doing all right? I mean moneywise?"

With a huge smile on her face, she said, "Honey, that sonofabitch ... your sweet dear father, is paying us plenty of money each month, to live and play like we want to."

"Yeah, but how're 'you' doing, Mom? I love you ... Claire and all the rest of them love you so much. Kalista lights up when she sees you, now that she understands the connection the two of you have. I just want to be sure that my Annie is happy."

Mom got up and stood before me, opening her arms to accept mine, "Charles ... you've gotten so tall since you started dancing. I had to look down to see you, now I'm not anymore. Honey, I'm very happy. My youngest son is a nationally recognized dancer, who has the girl of his dreams as his dancing partner. Things couldn't get better than that. Why don't we go over there, unannounced, and pick up Claire and Kalista. Right now."

"Mom, are you going through PMS?"

I must've caught her unaware, because she started to cough and choke a bit. When she'd gathered herself together, she asked, "Charles - why'd you ask me that?"

"Well, I went on the Internet, and found the symptoms, which include mood swings, irritability, anxiety, angry outbursts - like the one you just had, and headaches - which it looks like you've been having as well. I'm just worried about my Mommy. You're the only one I'll ever have, so I worry."

"Well, Charles ... first, I'm too young to be going through 'the change', as it is often called, and I appreciate your worry, but I assure you that I'm OK. Your father leaving, was a blow to my ego, and I'm still recovering from all that, so let's go and surprise the girls, Loverboy."

"MOM! Stop it - you know Claire has started calling me that too. There's nobody to blame, except you for that ... you know," I chuckled.

We got in the car, and started the drive to the McArthurs.

"Get over yourself, Charles ... we're just teasing. When you kissed Claire on Letterman, last year, oh ... you remember all those letters you got from young girls. Well, I got letters from their mothers, telling me how inappropriate it was for my fourteen-year-old son to be kissing a girl at all, much less on National TV. They all thought I was a terrible role model, and Mother."

"You got letters from the moms ... about me kissing Claire? Why are you just now telling me this?"

"Now, Charles ... it's OK, now ... they stopped, and all of us have grown up. Speaking of growing up, when you and Claire start dancing at Cotillion, you might want to go back to putting some space between the two of you when you dance?"

"Why, Mom?"

"Two reasons, Charles ... if you know what I mean?"

"Oh, yeah ... Claire's got her breasts now."

The car suddenly swerved into an oncoming lane. Mom pulled it back into ours.

"Charles, what a ... reckless thing to say."

"Well, it's the truth ... Oh, Mom, is this one of those 'think it, but don't say it aloud' things we talked about last year?"

"Right honey ... Claire can't control what's happening to her body, and saying anything to her about it, will only cause trouble between the two of you, and I mean 'between' in all ways possible."

"So, you're saying, we can't dance chest to chest anymore, Mom?"

"Well, now I guess it would be, to use your words, chest to breasts, and Claire may have a physical problem with you dancing that close and ... rubbing up against her ... chest."

"What do you mean 'physical problem', Mom?"

"OK, Charles here goes ... I'm likely to embarrass both of us here, but I'm going to have to use some blunt language. I better pull over, first. There, we're parked."

"What Mom?" I got nervous all of a sudden.

"What do you know about breasts, Charles?"

"They're mostly fatty tissue, but on women they grow in various shapes and sizes, the numbers and letters I don't begin to understand. At the front of the breast is ... something called the areola, and in the middle of the areola is the ... nipple."

"Anything else, Charles?"

"No ... yes, when a women is pregnant, they fill up with a kind of milk that the mothers feed their babies."

"Very good, Charles ... anything else?"

"No ... that's it, Mom. How long after a baby is born does the milk keep being replaced?"

"Well, I breastfed you from when you came home from the hospital, until you were eighteen ... no, nineteen months old. We moved you to a bottle and my breasts stopped making milk about two months later."

"So, your body knows you stopped feeding me, and it just sort of shut down on it's own?"

"Yes, Charles ... that's an excellent way to put it."

"How does all of this relate to Claire, and dancing too close, Mom?"

"Charles, you mentioned the nipple ... well, when a woman is ... how do I say this ... aroused, the nipples go from dormant to erect, you understand what I mean by erect, Charles?"

This just became uncomfortable to me.

"Yeah, mom ... I know what 'erect' means." We smiled at each other. She chuckled a little.

When Dad gave me 'the talk', I was ten; none of this stuff was talked about. This is kind of weird talking to Mom about this, but - oh well.

"Dancing chest to chest may cause Claire to get 'erect' and may intensify the kind of ... problems you two were having last year."

"OK, Mom ... I think I understand. Now, can we never admit to having had this conversation, so I can concentrate on learning to dance with my girl?"

Mom turned back on the car, and we started going again. She looked over at me and smiled. I caught it, and smiled back at her. That was pretty gutsy, explaining all of that to an almost fourteen-year-old boy. Mom's pretty cool -- and pretty!

All this talking about breasts made me glance over at my mom's chest for a split second. She caught me, smiled and said, "Claire's might get as big as mine, Charles; maybe even bigger, which could be an issue as you two get older," she giggled, "and closer."

"Mom?"

"What Charles?"

"Never mind, it's not important."

We arrived at the McArthurs, with both of us getting out of the car and walking up to the front door. Sarah opened the door and welcomed us in.

"Were we expecting you, did Claire forget to tell me something," she asked?

"No, no, no Sarah. We just dropped everything and thought we'd come over and see how everybody was doing? We hadn't seen each other in a while. Charles and I started talking, and I decided to just come over. If this is a bad time...."

"No, you know that you two are always welcome here. I do want to express my condolences about your marriage and everything."

"It's OK, Sarah ... I've never felt so empowered in my life as I do these days. I'm almost glad he left," Annie said with a good deal of self-respect in her voice.

I heard a shriek coming into the room, or was it two shrieks? Claire running up to me while Kalista was running up to Annie.

Claire practically screaming into my ear said, "Charles, why are you here? I thought I was coming to you tomorrow morning?"

"I couldn't wait to see all of you, and we have to get ourselves practiced up, for Cotillion, and eleven Competitions this summer."

"Eleven Competitions ... isn't that more than last year, Annie," Sarah asked?

"They added one more, earlier in the summer ... remember we didn't start going to them quite as early last year."

Kalista walked up to me and I ignored her, saying, "Where is Little Kalista ... I don't see Little Kalista anywhere. Does she still live here?"

Grinning, K said, "Very funny, Charles ... ha - ha. You grew taller, I grew taller, and Claire's got boobies now."

Claire's hands went up to her face, as she started to cry. She turned around and ran back into her room. I looked over at Sarah, and she gave me the OK to follow her and console her.

I knocked on her door; "Go away," was all I heard. I tried knocking again. I heard her get up off her bed and walk towards the door and she asked, "Who is it?"

"It's Me, Claire - Loverboy."

I heard a giggle, and she opened her door. I walked in, asking her to keep it open for our mother's sake.

I sat down on her bed and patted next to me, for her to sit down. She came over to me and hesitantly sat on the bed, but about three feet away from me.

I scooted over to her, putting my arm around her and just held her for a moment. No kissing, no talking; just comforting.

After a minute or two had passed, she laid her head on my shoulder, and I heard a sigh come from her.

"I don't mind if you have boobies Claire - if you didn't, you'd be one strange girl now, wouldn't you?"

She picked up her head off my shoulder as if to say something, but decided against it, and put her head back down. It felt real nice. I heard a giggle from her.

"What's that for?"

"You don't mind if I have boobies? Of all the things I expected you to come in here and say to me ... that wasn't one of them."

She giggled again.

"Claire," I said raising her off my shoulder and looking directly into her eyes. "I'm certain of a few things in my life right now; one, I love and adore you, no matter what size your breasts become; two, I also love and admire, your mother, Kalista and Annie; third, we need to learn all new dances to all new music; and fourth, I'm certain that Sarah, Annie and Kalista are right outside the door, listening to every word we're saying to one another."

With that Kalista came in first, saying, "I'm sorry Claire ... Charles was being a big butt. I apologize, tell me you forgive me, please?"

Claire got up and walked to Kalista and gave her a great big hug, and they both cried a little, but they seemed OK.

"Annie, Sarah ... all clear, come on in," Kalista said, also too loud.

Annie walked in snickering saying, "Mister, you seem to have kissed the blarney stone. You seem to be able to talk yourself out of just about every situation you get yourself into. I sure hope I'm not there when your luck runs out."

"Who needs luck when I have the four of you to keep me in my place. Are you girls ready to go? Claire and I have some new dances to learn, and just as importantly, new routines to learn. Everything from last year must go ... all new music, all new routines."

Sarah responded, "Does everybody do that Charles, change it all?"

"Charles & Claire don't do anything like anybody else does ... that's how we're going to break our own record and win all eleven summer Competitions."

There was a group 'Wow' that went through the room, but that's OK. I wasn't going to let anybody ever forget that Charles & Claire were dancers.

"Get out of my room, Loverboy," Claire said. "I need to pack."

We all got out, with Annie and Sarah both laughing under their breath. Kalista also giggled as she left.

Ten minutes later, Claire, Kalista, Annie and I, were on our way home. Claire promised to check in with her Mom at least once a day, so Sarah knows what's going on. Last year, there were a couple of times we went three or more days without Sarah knowing what was happening. She'd expressed concern ... not over anything specific. We just needed to let her know what her little girls' were doing.

As usual, Kalista got in the front seat with Annie, while Claire and I nuzzled each other in the back seat. I quietly told her about Annie's concern about our dancing close, and Claire admitted there might be a problem. We'd just have to find out. Claire also said that she thought we should keep 'Sunrise Sunset' in our wheelhouse, since it was our first dance routine. That was what we danced to on the David Letterman Show. I agreed with her, as her head fell on my shoulder for the rest of the drive to our house.

Back at the house, everybody sat around, and talked for a while. I was looking through the music for a new Waltz number. What is the name of that great Louis Armstrong number, it's been in movie after movie?

"Mom, I've got a song in my head, by Louis Armstrong. It's a waltz tempo, but the name of it escapes me."

"'What a Wonderful World', Charles? Could that be it honey?" she replied.

"Yep, you're the greatest, Mom. But I don't want him singing, I want a more modern version just at the same tempo."

Claire said, "I know that song ... Leanne Rimes recorded it just a few years back. I've got it in my room ... I'm sorry Charles?"

"What for ... you've got it? Maybe we can get your Mom, or Josiah to bring it to us? Anything I don't have to download. Now a Foxtrot, I want to make a statement with our Foxtrot. I think it's one of our weaker dances. We need to spiff it up a bit. Oooh, Lady Gaga, anything of hers scream Tango, Claire?"

"How about 'Bad Romance', isn't that a fast tango, Charles," Claire said?

"Yeah, it is ... I wonder who's covered it. Just a second, guys ... I'm going to the computer to find a different version. Her stuff all seems so over-produced. Be right back." I went into ITunes and a group called the Vitamin String Quartet, covered 'Bad Romance', making it perfect for Charles & Claire to dance to.

"What did you find, Charles? Mom asked.

I replied, "An extraordinary version by a modern string quartet, Annie."

"What else do you need Charles?" Kalista asked hopefully.

"Maybe a newer song to Foxtrot to?"

"Charles honey," mom responded, causing a giggle from the other girls, "Have you ever heard of Michael Bublé?"

"Oh, Yeah Mom, he's real good ... he makes all those older songs sound fresh. You have a song of his in mind?"

"Yeah, look for 'At This Moment', It's a Waltz, not a Foxtrot," mom said.

I found it and listened to it - I really liked it. "Thanks, Mom - Honey."

Everybody giggled again.

I turned around and said, "OK, Claire ... Loverboy is ready to learn some new dances, how about you?"

I went over to the sofa and pulled her up and asked her, "Which of those - Waltz, Slow Foxtrot or Tango, would you like to re-learn, Ms. McArthur?"

"Re-learn?" she said, with a quizzical look on her face.

"Yep, now that we're using 'all' of the proper techniques and principles, including dancing real close together, I think we should learn all the steps over again, but with the knowledge that we've gained in the last twelve months," I said.

"I agree, Mr. Newman," Claire responded with a giggle. "That's a real good idea, this way we'll rebuild our foundation of skills on a broader knowledge base."

I heard giggles from the sofa. I looked over and said, "Did you have something you wanted to add to that Kalista?"

"You two suddenly sound so much older, it's kind of weird how you two have grown up so much in the last year," Annie responded. "I think Kalista was giggling because the two of you seem so intuitively in sync with each other."

"Foxtrot, Charles ... I'd like us to learn the Foxtrot ... Think that Michael Bublé might have a song for us to Foxtrot to?" Claire said.

I looked and found Mr. Bublé's cover of 'You're Nobody Til Somebody Loves You', and said, "Found one."

"OK, Claire ... first the Feather Step, oh yeah ... now the Three Turn, gosh Claire ... good memory, now the Natural Turn. Let's do those again; You're right Claire, this song, this dance and the girl in my arms ... will win us, our next Competition."

"Oh, you," she blushed. We kissed for just a second.

"Let's go through those again, and polish them up a little. Claire, my god...wait until they get a load of this. Let's add the Reverse Turn and Feather Finish ... nice - the Closed Impetus ... good anticipation Claire. The Natural Weave, now lets change direction - and finally the Basic Weave."