Lindy was starting to feel as if she were in a comedy sketch. Was there a camera somewhere, filming her reactions for some weird YouTube stunt? Or was this man just being strange? Amusement warred with exasperation. “As I said, there is availability. Do you or do you not want to register?”
She’d meant to sound friendly, gently mimicking him, but the question came out with a bit more hostility than she had intended. With all the challenges she’d faced in getting her school up and running, and the fact that it was nearly seven on a Friday evening when she could really do with some ice cream, wine, and Netflix, she did not need some random pedant arguing with her over the phone.
“I do wish to register,” the man answered in a tone stiff with both dignity and affront. “But that is not what you originally asked.”
“What—”
“You asked if I was interested in learning to dance, and I am not. I thought I made both points equally clear.”
“Funnily enough, you didn’t,” Lindy answered and then she started to laugh. She didn’t mean to; she knew already it would offend the man excessively, and yet somehow she couldn’t stop. The giggles escaped her like bubbles, and she knew she was on the verge of losing it completely, and starting in with the kind of breathless, belly-aching laughs that went on for at least five minutes. This was so not good.
“I fail to see what is so amusing,” the man answered, after several seconds of her helpless laughter. Now he definitely sounded offended.
“I’m sorry,” Lindy gasped as she tried to stifle the laughter that was now coming out in little hiccups. Tears streamed down her face. “I’m so sorry. But surely you can see how funny this conversation is? I feel like I’m in the middle of a Laurel and Hardy sketch.” Her tone, she hoped, invited him to see the joke, but of course he didn’t see it at all. He most likely never did.
“I do not know to whom you are referring,” the man replied. He did not sound quite as offended, but he was definitely still annoyed, or perhaps just perplexed. His sense of humour, if he’d ever had one, must have been surgically removed some time ago.
Lindy’s laughter morphed into a sigh. “Never mind,” she said. “You have said you’re interested in registering, and I am interested in having you register. Why don’t you give me your details, and I’ll put your name down for the class?”
“Very well,” the man answered. “My name is Roger Wentworth and I will be attending the class with Ellen Wentworth. I trust there is space in the Monday evening class for adult beginners for two individuals?”
“There is,” Lindy confirmed. Her urge to laugh had, quite suddenly, completely deserted her; she now felt quite flat, although she couldn’t have said why. “The first class is on September seventh,” she added dutifully. “Is that all right?”
“I have already marked down the dates of all the classes in my calendar,” Roger Wentworth replied with some asperity. “I hardly would have taken the time to ring you and enquire about availability, if I did not believe I could attend the classes as they were scheduled in your promotional material.”
Of course not, Lindy thought with an inward sigh. Already she could tell he was the sort of man to schedule everything, including his own trips to the toilet, no doubt. Having him in her dancing class was going to be interesting, to say the least. Excruciating was probably more like it.
“If you come on the first Monday a few minutes early, you can fill out the registration form,” she told him. “The class starts at seven, and we should be finished by nine.” No doubt he knew that already, and was about to tell her so, but fortunately Roger Wentworth seemed to have had enough of verbal nitpicking for he simply said, “Thank you,” and then, quite abruptly, he hung up.
Lindy was left holding her mobile, shaking her head at the surreal nature of the call, and wondering if Roger Wentworth—as well as Ellen—would actually show up two weeks from Monday. She couldn’t decide if she wanted them to or not.
Chapter Two
“Come on, darling, this is going to be so much fun.”
That, Roger reflected, was an inaccurate statement, if not an actual out-and-out untruth. This was not going to be fun at all. It was going to be humiliating and horrendous, and he was under absolutely no illusion whatsoever that any part of it would amuse him in the least. Quite the opposite.
Ellen beckoned to him appealingly, one hand held out, a half-smile on her face, as they both stood on the pavement before the ridiculously named Waggy Tails Bakery. The Take a Twirl School of Ballroom Dancing—also a ridiculous name—took place above it, according to the promotional material Roger had in his possession. It seemed to him an unlikely pairing—although dog and bakery was also an unlikely pairing, so perhaps he did not understand what sort of things belonged together.
“Please, Rog,” Ellen said. “I don’t want to be late. You’re the one who signed us up, after all.”
And she knew precisely why he’d done that, Roger thought, not that he would ever verbalise it. They spoke about the C-word as little as possible, which suited him fine, even if Ellen insisted upon bringing the subject up on unfortunate occasions, as if she were his therapist rather than his mother.
Yes, she was his mother. He, a thirty-eight-year-old unmarried man, was actually taking ballroom dancing lessons with his mother. He was either pathetic or strange or even a bit scary, in an unpleasant Norman Bates-like fashion. Whichever it was, and perhaps it was all three, he knew that coming to this class did not put him in a good light. At all.
The exceedingly awkward telephone conversation he’d had with the school’s proprietor hadn’t, either. Even two weeks later Roger mentally cringed at how ridiculously pompous he’d sounded on the phone, like a complete prat basically, which was always how he sounded when he was out of his comfort zone, which was about ninety-eight per cent of the time, at least in dealing with other people.
“Rog?” His mother was still waiting for him to enter the building, which he was reluctant to do. Yet the fact that he’d signed up for the classes, given his card details by email, and embarrassed himself in the process, compelled him onwards. He’d got this far. Why not go a little farther, and make his humiliation complete?
Roger Wentworth was not a dancer. This was a gross understatement. He had not been sporty in school; quite the opposite. Some teachers had called him clumsy. And when he’d thankfully outgrown the clumsy stage—there had been a period of four or five years when he’d been nothing but sharp-angled elbows and knobbly knees—he had still remained stiff and awkward, a man who seemed uncomfortable in his own body, although he wasn’t, not particularly. He just didn’t how to be.
Unless he had a spreadsheet or a crossword in front of him, Roger did not know how to act. He tried, heaven knew, and often his attempts were at least somewhat successful. He had learned the art of at least appearing to know how to make chitchat, and he managed to get by at work with the usual social niceties, although to say he was friendly with his colleagues would be something of an overstatement, although perhaps not a gross one.
“Rog.” His mother was starting to look exasperated, and Rog could hardly blame her. He’d been standing on the pavement for at least ten minutes, which was just another sign of his inherent awkwardness. He followed his mother into the bakery, which did not have any of the usual pleasant olfactory associations with the word, but rather smelled like a pet shop or a vet’s, and then up a narrow, rickety set of stairs to the room above. Roger bumped his head on the ceiling. Twice. He was still rubbing it as he emerged into a narrow corridor, the premises of Take a Twirl School of Ballroom Dancing ahead of him.