Saturday Night Salsa

I called my friend Jason to make sure we were still on. “Yep,” he answered. “And my friend Savannah is coming along, if that's okay.”

“Savannah? The ex-girlfriend?”

“Well, yeah. But we're just friends now.”

“Ok, but it's not going to be weird is it? Because I'm along?”

“No, no, she's okay with it. We're just friends.”

From the second I stepped into the car, it was odd. She babbled incessantly. I chalked it up to nerves, here she was with her ex-boyfriend and another woman she didn't know. For all I knew, she could want him back. Plus, she had to be wondering. After all, it's unusual for a male and female to just be friends...was there something more there? Something starting? Something about to start? In the midst of the babbling, I realized she was telling us all about the process of teaching her seven year-old son to shoot a gun. Seven? She rationalized that she wants him to learn respect for guns. That's fine and dandy in theory, but at seven, you're a child. Respect has a modicum of fear. Curiosity has no fear. And children are curious.

Her next subject was sex. She's quite proud to say she's taught him all about sex. No sense in him learning it from other loser children at school. She'd rather it came from her. Wow. It never occurred to her that perhaps her son is one of those loser kids teaching it to the other children. And maybe some parents aren't okay with their child learning it from others.

Then she began to zing on Jason. “He's totally boring,” she assured me.

Jason, good-natured soul that he is, agreed with her. “I'm sure some people do think I'm boring,” he said.

“You're not boring,” I snapped. “You're comfortable. Trustworthy. Predictable. Nothing wrong with that.”

“No,” Savannah drawled in her pretentious way. “Trust me. He's boring.”

That started another string of barbs aimed at her ex. It reminded me of the movie, The Hangover, in which the dentist's girlfriend is the cruel, abusive bitch who beats him. And the poor boyfriend tells his friends it was his fault, he should have known better than to anger her. He knows she has a temper.

Other than that, everything was fine, even when we got to the club. It was a little early, so we grabbed a drink and sat down. Immediately, Savannah began chatting it up to a man sitting next to her. She went out to dance with him.

I felt bad for judging her. Maybe Jason was right. Maybe they were just friends, and she wasn't interested in hooking her claws back in. Maybe I'd misread things and she was just an incessant babbler, but harmless.

But like most women, I need to trust my first instincts. It's the female intuition thing.

So Jason and I danced, since Savannah was tied up with her new squeeze. A couple of times, I went off and danced with a few other people, while Jason did too. At one point, I met up with him again and we went back to the bar for more drinks.

“Savannah okay?” I asked.

“She seems fine. Still dancing with that one guy.”

“You know, Jase,” I said, in my delicate way which I know several of my friends are snorting at right now, “Do you think she knows it's over? Because I think she might be trying to make you jealous if not.”

“Oh, it's definitely over. But I guess I should probably tell you, Savannah's bipolar.”

I slapped my forehead to keep myself from slapping his. “Jason! You didn't think to share that earlier?” Because it certainly would have explained a lot. And halfway through the night, Jason came to find me. “Hey, I'm going to run Savannah home. You stay and have fun, I'll be back.”

“What? Are you kidding? What's wrong with her? Do you just want me to leave, or find my own ride home?”

He rolled his eyes. “She's just having an episode. I guess you were right earlier. But right now it's easier to go along with it than to rile her further.”

“Okay,” I said. It was an okay time of night for him to leave, all the dancing had warmed up, and people had gotten to know each other. I didn't have a lack of partners, so there were no boring moments like when you first get to a club. So I danced. And danced. When I realized quite a bit of time had passed, I texted him. “Where are you?”

“On the dance floor.”

HUH? He came to find me, a smiling and now-bursting-with-happiness Savannah in tow. “Wow,” she leaned in, eyes bright and voice bubbling,“You've been having some fun,” she said pointedly, looking at my wild hair which had been spun round and round the dance floor. “ I'm going to run to the little girl's room,” she said, skipping away.

I turned to Jason, eyes huge. “What the hell was that?”

He sighed. “I never did take her home. We just needed a talk. She felt I wasn't paying enough attention to her, so I had to devote this past hour all to her to keep her happy.”

“Jason, you are broken up with this woman, right?”

“Yeah,” he nodded miserably. “I just didn't want some big scene. But I'll definitely never bring her along again. Especially when she says she just wants to come out dancing. I'm going to just straight up tell her, I'm going dancing and you're NOT invited.”

She kept up the bubbly fake laughter as we headed out to the parking lot. Then, she all but mowed me over to get to the front seat of the car.

Wow. Really? Were we ten again?

During the drive home, she kept the conversation going on and on about the old times between her and Jason. But she was so happy, not at all jealous.

Until, with her entire body facing forward, her head spun around Exorcist-style. Her beady eyes stared right into mine, unblinking.

Creepy.

“So, Reeeeeena,” she drawled. “You're single.”

She didn't phrase it as a question. She didn't make it a statement. It was...a threat.

“Why, yesssss,” I drawled back. “Yes I am.” There was no apology in my voice, I like it like that. I've had boyfriends, I've had flings, I've had plain friends.

The head spun back around.

I called Jason the next day. “No more,” I said. “If you're going salsa dancing and she goes along, I'll just meet you there. Take my own car.”

“No worries,” he said. “I won't be taking her again.”

Last night Jason and I decided to have a mellow night. I've been in a mood, dealing with some emotional demons and some bad choices I've made.

“I can't go salsa dancing,” he said. “Savannah said she was going tonight. I think she's going because she knows it's become my handout.”

The choice was easy. The local karaoke bar that Moe and Trish and Helen and I hang out at, maybe the country bar afterward for some people watching. Something low key. It was fun, afterward we headed to Village Inn for empty calories to fill our stomachs before bedtime.

“You know how Chris always texts you last minute when he knows you're with someone else?” Jason asks. “You should text him now and invite him.”

“Okay,” I agree. Like vindictive teenagers, we text. “Hey,” my message said. “Jason and I are out. Wish you were here.”

Jason and I giggled like morons. “You attract drama,” he said.

Then his phone rang. “Savannah,” he mouthed, like she could hear through the rings. He let her leave a message, then played it for us.

“Hey,” she began in her sing-song voice. “It's mee-eeee. You know. The one you didn't invite tonight. The one your refused to invite. Not that it matters, I'm just saying. I can't believe you refused to invite me.”

“You attract psychos,” I returned.