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Tony Perry was a hair under six feet, with thick hair dyed so black the bright stage lights didn’t reflect off it. His dark tan, overlaid with a new painful pink burn, had been so recently acquired she could still smell the coconut oil. His lips disappeared when he smiled. It was a tight, fake, assessing kind of smile. His eyes did the elevator, riding up and down her body in a way that made her want to throw off her trench coat and yell, “How’s this?”
She’d heard of him vaguely: he’d recently starred in some semipopular Broadway musical. Two to Tango was his first movie, and his overly curious, voracious energy announced that he was on a mission. He was going to be a big star if it killed him. Or her.
She hoped he’d relax a bit so they could dance together, but she didn’t tell him to call her by her first name. “Miss Jones” was fine with this guy for now. “Hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”
“Not at all, not at all!” Jared lifted a finger at the piano player, who carefully rested her half-finished cigarette on the edge of the piano before hitting a chord. “But shall we warm up a little? I have such plans for you, my lovelies.”
“Can’t wait.” Tony lifted an eyebrow at Pagan and smirked. “Shall we?”
Pagan removed the trench coat and threw it and her purse into the corner. “Let’s.”
Jared led them through a quick series of ballet warm-ups—pliés, ports de bra, coupés and posés, while the wizened one pounded out stately chords. Tony looked limber enough. But then the tango didn’t require great kicks, leaps or lifts. It involved close, complex footwork between the two partners and perfect timing, but you didn’t have to be a complete athlete to look good doing it.
Until Tony started pointing out how Pagan’s turnout could be wider, how her extension was limited, how, when he’d danced with Gwen Verdon, she hadn’t done it that way. He did it with long, lingering touches on her knee and thigh and in a patronizing “I’m here to help” tone low enough that Jared didn’t overhear him as he paced in front of them, declaiming over the chords from the piano.
Pagan stopped herself from swatting Tony’s hand and edged away from him. It was tempting to wonder out loud whether his bony arms were strong enough to lift her when required, but at this early stage of rehearsal, creating more conflict would only backfire. She was the one with the bad reputation. She was the drunk, the killer. So she had to continually earn everyone’s trust and respect. She found a halfhearted smile somewhere and produced it.
“And now, the tango,” Jared said. “A labyrinth of emotion, as it is a labyrinth for your feet. To truly dance the tango, you must have experienced great sorrow, yet still be open to joy. You must surrender to the music, yet remain alert. The tango is relationship as movement. It is the most demanding of dances, the most intricate. Yet at bottom it is very basic—listen to the music, pay attention to your partner, and love. That’s what the tango is—love. And we will use it to show how our characters may—or may not—be falling in love.”
He finished with his hands clasped in front of him, his head bent over them, as if in prayer.
Oh, the drama. Jared never failed to milk it for all it was worth, but that was part of a choreographer’s job. She didn’t mind it in small doses, but she couldn’t help hoping the director would be a little more no-nonsense during the shoot.
The scene they were rehearsing involved Tony’s seductive gaucho character, Juan, following Pagan’s lonely character, Daisy, as she walks down a deserted street in Buenos Aires after she’s left a party where no one would dance with her.
Pagan had been followed down empty streets before, but by men who wanted to kill her, so the idea struck her as the opposite of romantic. Nonetheless it was in the street that Juan would lure the reluctant Daisy into a passionate tango after a convenient accordion player shows up.
Jared used chalk on the floor to map out the lines of the “street” Pagan and Tony would walk and tango down, with the back wall of the studio serving as the line of buildings. Pagan had done this a hundred times with Jared in his cramped studio, but here in the soundstage she could take the longer steps he wanted up and down this pretend street in Buenos Aires.
Pagan began it seemingly all alone. The accordion would start (cue the wizened one at the piano hitting some mournful chords) and Daisy would do a few little dance steps sadly to herself, dreaming of doing them with a partner.
Jared put himself in front of Pagan and had her follow him as he reminded both of them how it went. Slow, slow, step forward, side. Then back, back, quick, quick, slow—and cross. The pace picked up as he did it again, moving into a forward ocho.
Pagan followed him easily. These were the basic steps of the tango, the first thing beginners learned, moving into slightly more complicated flourishes. She mimicked Jared’s sad little slump in the shoulders and the dreamy tilt to his head, so that he clapped once, loudly, in approval. People always thought you were doing it right if you did it exactly like them.
“And that is when you—” he gestured to Tony “—take her hand and begin the dance for real. All right? Now, together at last!”
Tony stepped into Jared’s spot and took Pagan by the waist with one hand, taking her other hand in his. His grip, like his handshake, was a little too firm. But she stepped backward in a surprised back ocho, as she’d rehearsed it, and Tony did a good job of keeping up.
Pagan’s character went through a predictable series of emotions as her solo dance became a duet. Taken aback at first, she then tried to run away from Tony, only to have him interpose and show her a few more beguiling steps. Pulled in for a few seconds, she would reject him again, and again, as he pursued and persuaded, until at last she was swept up in the dance.
The more she thought about it, the more obnoxious Tony’s character became. If a girl doesn’t want to dance with you, leave her alone! The more she thought about the script, the worse it seemed. But she’d said yes to it. She was as much to blame for the darn thing as Jared, Tony and Universal Pictures. Might as well give it her all.
Clearly Tony had been rehearsing in New York with someone, as Pagan had been practicing with Jared here in LA. They promenaded smoothly through the first part of the dance three times.
However, Tony’s eyes kept dipping down to her cleavage. His hands pushed and pulled her roughly. Whenever he could, his hot hands pulled her hips in so close his hip bones poked her waist, which was both nauseating and wrong, tango-wise. Jared had to keep correcting him.
But Tony seemed to think that because Pagan’s character was playing hard to get, Pagan must be doing the same. He dug his thumbs into her waist and stroked her palm with a finger at odd little moments, and when she startled or pulled away, he treated it as part of the dance.
You didn’t have to like your costar to act with them. But the more Tony Perry manhandled Pagan and flashed leering smiles at her neckline, the tenser and more resentful she became. Her shoulders tightened, her arms stiffened to keep him at bay.
Maybe it was good for the dance because the fifth time they did it, Jared clapped twice, nodding. “We are getting there. Your resistance is excellent, Daisy, but you need to melt more when we get to the sentada. Again, but with more feeling, please. Remember, Daisy—” he’d taken to calling them by their character names “—Juan here is the center of gravity, and you circle around him, like a planet around the sun.”
Or like a girl around a black hole, Pagan thought. She really did not want to cross Tony’s event horizon.
Tony grinned, his lips vanishing against his teeth, which gleamed unnaturally against his newly tan skin. “I’ll make sure she stays in my orbit.”
Men. Always the center of everything.
She did her damnedest to set aside her percolating dislike as they ran through it again. Pagan was a better actress than a dancer, but years of lessons and hard work enabled her to keep up with anyone and give it a bit of flair. She tried to make up for anything lacking in her dancing with her acting, lending her reluctance a subtext of longing and desire. Rex Harrison couldn’t sing for beans, but he’d acted up a storm while he sang in My Fair Lady and it turned out wonderfully. Maybe she could do the same for dancing.
It finally started to flow. She was feeling confident, graceful, sexy, until Tony threw her backward into a deep, romantic dip, brought his cheek to hers and whispered, “We’re gonna do it after this, right?”
Pagan’s head reared back, and she shoved at him with her free hand, trying to get her feet back under her. His grip on her right hand tightened painfully, and they struggled, with Pagan still dipped over backward.
“Let me go!” Pagan snapped, and he dropped her. She thumped to the floor, flat on her butt.
“What is this?” Jared spread his arms wide. “It was going so well.”
Pagan got to her feet, roping a leash around her mounting rage to keep herself from striking Tony. “That,” she said to her costar between clenched teeth, “was not appropriate.”
“Oh, come on,” Tony said, pushing greasy hair out of his narrowed eyes. “You put out for Nicky Raven, and I’m better looking than him. No reason you won’t put out for me.”
Pagan’s stomach contracted; her throat closed. For once she had no smart remark. She was shrinking inside, getting smaller and smaller. Soon there’d be nothing of her left.
How had he known? Or was it only a guess?
She was accustomed to the hatred that came her way for killing Daddy and Ava in the car crash. But most of the world didn’t know the intimate details of the ten months she’d dated Nicky. Pagan’s image until the crash had been sweet and spotless. Good girls didn’t sleep with their boyfriends. Good girls waited for marriage, and she’d seemed like a good girl till it all came falling down.
After the crash, few people ever learned she’d started drinking at age twelve. The studio’s publicity team had made sure any previous, smaller incidents were never brought to light.
Fewer still knew that she’d gone further with Nicky than good girls allowed.
Jared took Tony by the shoulder and pulled him aside to speak with him alone on the other side of the room. Tony looked over at her, his nose wrinkled with contempt, and she had to look away.
Pagan had started dating Nicky when she was fifteen and deep into the bottle to numb herself after Mama’s suicide. Having Nicky’s delighted attention, knowing he desired her above all else, had been almost as intoxicating as the martinis. He’d nearly filled the dark hole in her heart. For that reason alone she would’ve done anything he asked, as long as he loved her.
And Nicky had truly loved her. He still might, even though he’d impregnated and married another girl, a girl who looked an awful lot like Pagan.
Whether or not she’d truly loved Nicky, Pagan wasn’t so sure now. The alcohol had clouded her judgment, to say the least. She’d done a lot of things she might not have, if she’d been sober. She regretted so much, but before the accident there had also been good times. That period in her life could be smeared with either a gritty or a rosy haze, depending on the day.
She realized she was leaning against the bare wall, shoulders hunched, so she forced herself to stand up tall. Good posture was the key to faking self-assurance, Mama had said. And once you fooled everyone else into thinking you were confident, somehow you fooled yourself. Right now she needed to fake it, hard.
Jared left Tony and came to stand in front of her, a watchful look in his eye. “How are we doing?” he asked.
“I’m fine.” She kept her tone cool, distant. At least she wasn’t trembling.
“I’ve asked Tony to change his attitude, and he has agreed. We need to make this work. How do you feel about that?”
Pagan glanced over at Tony. He was staring fixedly at a chalk mark on the floor.
“I think we should take a break for the rest of the day and try again tomorrow.”
Jared shook his head. “We need to get you both back on the horse immediately, to mend this. Then I’ll let you go.” He paused, trying to get a read on her face. “You’re still not up to speed, my dear. You need the practice.”
Pagan kept her face very still. She could do this. “Then let’s practice.”
Jared smiled and leaned in to speak in a lower tone. “You know he’s an insecure little bitch and you’re going to dance him off the screen, right?”
It was a transparent attempt to bolster her, but she couldn’t help a tiny smile. Underneath her humiliation, a little spark ignited and began to burn it away.
People said ugly things because they were ugly inside. Or at least that would be her theory until she got through the rest of this rehearsal.
“Excellent. Tony, let’s do it a few more times, please. Nadia?” Jared cued the wizened one at the piano as Tony got into position and Pagan began her lonely initial steps.
Tony stepped in and grabbed her hand vigorously. Stiff, Pagan turned toward him and did her back ocho in surprise. As he pulled her in again, she couldn’t help it; her resistance was real, and his grip on her hand tightened until her finger bones cracked.
Only a few more steps. She forced herself to melt, to yield as they went through the dance. She twirled around him, resentful planet to his glowing, annoying sun, yielding to his pull.
The last flurry of intricate moves involved hooking her leg around his, then withdrawing, followed by a series of little flicks of her heel as she pivoted within his embrace. As they began, Tony shoved her this way and that.
“Angle, angle your hips!” Jared shouted at Tony. That was how you guided your partner, not by force.
But Tony wasn’t listening. The angry glitter in his eyes, the power in his grip, was frightening, as if he might throw her instead of dip. He pushed her hip too hard and squeezed her hand cruelly. Pain shot down her arm.
She managed the first two kicks perfectly, anyway, but on the third she pivoted too far. The pointed heel of her dance shoe jabbed right into Tony’s groin. He let out a sickened grunt of agony and released her.
She hadn’t meant to do it.
Had she?
Either way, his anguished grimace was very satisfying. She stepped back as he doubled over, hands clutched between his legs.
“Sorry,” she said, her voice calm, as if she’d stepped on his toe. “My fault.”
Tony fell to his knees, sucking in air. “You bitch,” he said with a groan.
Oh, yes, she was feeling better now. Amazing what a little accidental violence could do for your spirits.
“Your face is purple,” she said. “You might want to change your tanning oil.”
Jared rushed to Tony’s side, eyes wide. “Are you going to be able to keep dancing?”
Tony shook his head. His lips completely disappeared as he pressed them together.
Pagan gathered up her trench coat and purse. “Same time tomorrow?”
Tony’s burning glare as he struggled to sit up was a balm to her soul.
“I think tomorrow maybe we’ll go through your little rumba number with David instead,” said Jared.
David was Pagan’s other costar, a dim, sweet boy she could wrap around her finger with one flutter of her eyelashes.
“If you think that’s best,” she said, and sauntered out the door, even as her spirits sank. Tony Perry and the terrible script were only the first challenges this movie was going to throw at her.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_921dfc07-b125-5d59-870d-e6bec30aecbe)
Buenos Aires, Argentina
January 10, 1962
CÓDIGO
The code of behavior which governs the dance.
Eight days of rehearsal and several grueling flights later, Pagan and Mercedes landed at Ezeiza Airport in Buenos Aires, rumpled and grouchy.
Devin Black was not waiting for them.
It was at a sunny eighty-five degrees as they made their way down the rickety metal stair onto the tarmac. A strong humid wind nearly snatched Pagan’s pillbox hat off her head and whooshed the skirt of Mercedes’s Zuckerman pink cotton piqué sheath dress so high her garters showed. The Pan Am stewardess in her chic blue uniform ran easily down the stairs after them to ask for an autograph for the captain, smiled her regulation Revlon Persian Melon lipstick smile and trotted back up the stairs.
“How does she look so unwrinkled?” Mercedes asked as they straggled into the terminal.
“I know,” Pagan said. “My garters have found a new home, embedded in my thighs.”
Inside they found a short, square man in a neatly pressed black uniform and cap holding a sign that said Señorita Jones.
“My name is like a terrible alias,” Pagan said to Mercedes. “Buenos días, señor. Soy Pagan Jones.”
He blinked at her and Mercedes, then looked down at his sign and back up at them. “Buenos días, señoritas,” he said. Under his formidable black mustache, his uneven teeth flashed in a smile. “I’m sorry. They didn’t tell me you spoke such beautiful Spanish.”
Pagan laughed and continued in Spanish. “Mercedes is the real expert. What’s your name?”
“Yo me llamo Carlos Cavellini,” he said, except he pronounced yo and llamo with a zsh sound at the beginning of the word instead of a y. He gestured for them to follow him and they fell in as he led them through the airless, bustling airport. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Pagan said, “Cavellini. That’s a beautiful name. Is it Italian?”
Carlos’s smiled widened. “There is an old saying. A Porteño—that is what we who live in Buenos Aires call ourselves—a Porteño is an Italian who speaks Spanish, lives like a Frenchman and wants to be English.”
They tucked themselves into the backseat of his big black car as Carlos and a porter loaded their luggage. Beyond the airport were green fields, but as they drove, the gray smudge of a city lurked on the horizon.
“They weren’t kidding when they said it’s summer here,” Pagan said, rolling her window down to feel the wind in her hair.
Half an hour later they pulled up in front of a ten-story building that looked like something from a movie about Paris in the 1920s, with flags from a dozen countries waving over the grand entrance. The entire neighborhood reminded Pagan of Europe, with grand boulevards, green parks and many-storied gracious buildings dotted with window boxes and fancy decoration over the doorways.
“The Alvear Palace Hotel,” Carlos said. “Finest in the city.”
“Which barrio is this?” Mercedes asked, folding up a map she’d been studying. She’d read two books on Argentina before the trip, and had agreed to do a report for her social studies class at school when she got back. Pagan, as usual, was going in blind.
