Waltz This Way (v1.1) Read Online Free Page A

pal?” Then she whipped around, her finger pointed. “And you,” she yelled to a man, hovering in the departures area with a camera around his neck. “If you take that picture, you’ll find out how yoga gives this woman a strong core.” Turning back to Mel, she said, “Hurry up and get out of here before I have to embarrass Frank all over Tinsel Town.”
    Mel gave her a quick kiss. “I’ll call you.”
    “You’d better.”
    She gave Weezer’s leash a tug, hobbling behind him before turning one last time to wave goodbye to Jackie.
    And every single thing in her life as she knew it.

CHAPTER TWO
    Six months later . . .
     
    “Myriam Hernandez!” Mel skidded to a halt at the exit door of Leisure Village South’s rec center, wincing when her still-sore toe caught on one of the vacant chairs left at table number nine. Her breathing was irregular, and her heart beat a dance in her chest so harsh, she thought it might pound out of her.
    She really needed to build her endurance back up— or maybe actually move occasionally. When a seventy-year-old could beat you in a sprint from one end of the room to the other, it was time to reevaluate your mattress time versus your upright and awake time.
    Taking a gulp of air, she bellowed, “Myriam!”
    Myriam’s silver head cocked at the sound of Mel’s voice for only a moment, clearly considering an escape route, then she made a break to pop open the door and flee her bad behavior.
    But Mel was too quick for her. She planted herself in front of the steel door on a stumbling skid, crossing her arms over her chest, and cocking an eyebrow in inquiry.
    Myriam gave her a brief guilty look, but her thinning, coral-glossed lips said she knew her sharp tongue was going to have to atone. She narrowed her dark eyes at Mel, preparing her defense.
    “Who was it? Damn Nancys, the lot of them,” she grumbled.
    “You mean who nearly knocked me over to tell me your latest madcap entry to the Pillage and Plunder Diaries?”
    Myriam grunted, her smile begrudgingly tinted with a hint of admiration. “You’re funny.”
    “You’re work.” Mel blew a lock of her hair out of her face with a tired breath and fought a smile. Stern. She must not feed the beast in Myriam. If she let Myriam know her razor-sharp tongue and lightning-fast wit made Mel chuckle herself to sleep at night— she was doomed.
    Myriam cackled, slapping her on her arm. “I like that you’re a ‘take no horseshit’ gal.”
    “Good. Then you won’t mind giving me no horseshit. You know, sort of as a gift for all the prior horseshit you’ve given me?” Mel teased.
    “C’mon,” Myriam cajoled. “Who was it?”
    “Who do you think it was?”
    Myriam shrugged with indifference, hoisting her prim shoulder bag with the butterflies on it to the front of her body in a defensive stance. “I don’t know. There’re at least a dozen stoolies in this place. Bunch of namby-pambies, they are. Could have been anyone who ratted me out.”
    Mel hid a smile, one of the first genuine smiles she’d experienced since she’d come to Leisure Village. “So, what you’re saying is, you didn’t tell just one available male senior, but a dozen, they had wilted winkies and couldn’t handle the likes of all your womanliness?”
    Her bottom lip curled with indignation. “I did not say ‘womanliness.’ I said ‘my feminine curves,’ and I’d bet my Celebrex it was that sissy Norm Peterson. He’s always talkin’ like it’s the size of a blue whale’ s— those are the biggest winkies on record, by the way”—she made a wide gesture with two hands—“but Mildred Stein says different.”
    Mel sighed. She just wanted to go home and sit with her dad and Weezer and watch Yard Crashers. “So why do you antagonize? If you keep being so cantankerous, I’ve heard talk about a petition to ban you from all social activities. Tonight it’s senior speed dating— last week it was sunset shuffleboard. You can’t just whack someone