Personal Yummy #20
Following is the tenth excerpt that I’m sharing from my coming-of-age novel, The Grill on Murray Avenue—set in the nineties—about the inhabitants of an unassuming bar-and-grill in Squirrel Hill, a vibrant neighborhood in the east end of Pittsburgh. The story is told by Jenna, an idealistic, ambitious waitress who is at the center of it all.
If you’d like to meet the rest of The Grill’s characters, both the Kindle version and the paperback version of my novel are now available on Amazon.
Do you know how to cha-cha? If not, sign up for a class and get ready to have lots of fun.
An Impromptu Cha-Cha
The Carnegie Mellon University Ballroom Dance Club elite…
What an appearance they make.
There’s Drew, the president—brainy, stocky, and continually bald-headed (a condition he was born with)—sipping another Pepsi that I’ve just refilled. Liza, the vice president—a student in the School of Design; unabashedly frank and sexual—swishing around the stirrer in her gin and tonic. Pam, the secretary—blonde, friendly, and confident—taking another gulp of her beer. And Pat (short for Patrick), the treasurer—tall, nice-looking, and masculinely feminine—licking the salt off his margarita.
It’s quiet tonight, and except for my dance friends—and Rolanda, who is sitting at the bar feeding the electronic slot machine—the place is empty. And I have no clue why, but there’s something like elevator music playing on the sound system. So when Pam gets up and heads toward the wall jukebox, I’m not a bit surprised. What I am surprised about is that it took her this long.
She flips through the cards that list the selections, studies them for a moment, then pops in a few quarters and takes her pick.
DA! da da DA! da da DA! da da da DA! DA! DA!
DA! da da DA! da da DA! DA! DA! … Uh!!!
Oye Como Va…
Tito Puente’s catchy tune begins.
Pam sits back down, but her heart just isn’t in it. She looks knowingly at each of her friends, and without a word they stand up in unison, move the tables to the side, and break off into pairs. Rolanda turns around to watch, and Nick—can this really be happening? He dims the dome-covered, hanging lights.
As she rock-steps back on her right leg, Pam sexily juts her hip to the side, and Pat steps confidently toward her, the connection apparent between them. Liza shoots her arm high up into the air, with a curling flourish of her wrist and fingers, while Drew spins around two times. Pam then spins around too, falling into Pat’s arms as he lowers her to the ground and as she lifts her right foot to her left knee and her chin to the sky. Liza and Drew flick their heads backward at the same time, Liza’s reddish-brown hair snapping in the air. The couples pass each other in horizontal and vertical patterns, even switching partners every now and then, in some kind of ordered disorder. And the barely perceptible headlights of the cars, as well as the interested eyes of the passersby, glimpse through the window at the mystery of the moving figures within.
As for me, I stand off to the side, completely engrossed in it all, involuntarily doing a few cha-cha-chas of my own.
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