Page 9 of Every Time We Touch

“I was a little nervous,” Clancy admits.

“You didn’t look it.”

“Thanks for saying that.”

Our cocktails arrive and by the time I get my hands on that Skinny Bitch I’m more than ready for a long sip.

“I know you have a lot of questions,” Clancy says. “And I will be as open and honest with you as I can, but… I’d like to know more about you.” She looks me straight in the eye and it unsettles me again. I can’t quite put my finger on why that would be.

“Me?” I shrug. “I’m just a single woman, married to her job.” There’s that sinking feeling again.

“In that case, tell me all about your job.” Clancy follows up with the warmest smile.

About a year ago, this question would have been music to my ears and I would have told her all about Fluxx, but today, I can only utter a sigh.

“Bad marriage?” Clancy asks.

“More like a marriage gone a little stale, I guess.”

“You’re the one with the app.” She narrows her eyes. “Austin’s an engineer like Eric. Heather used to be a lawyer but is now a stay-at-home mom, and Lauren has a boutique on Rodeo.”

“Impressive,” I say, although there are far more impressive feats in life.

Clancy chuckles softly in response. “Not really.” She tilts her head. “I understand if you don’t want to talk about work.”

“The problem is,” I hear myself admitting freely to this woman I was, only a few days ago, still adamant to hate, “that aside from work, there isn’t much to talk about.”

“Surely that’s not true.” Clancy sounds convinced of this, as though a workaholic like myself is so uncommon in our generation.

“The past decade has been all about work for me and I loved every second of it.” I shake my head at the cliché I so easily fall prey to. “Obviously, not every single second. There were plenty of challenges, which I relished, but now… I sometimes get angry when I get my period and put the data into my own app.” I give a small, humorless laugh.

“Why?” Clancy’s face is all sincere interest.

“It’s not rational, of course, but when I first got the idea, it was still quite radical. Now everyone talks about their period as though they’re talking about the weather.”

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting a change in your life.” Clancy reaches for her glass and twirls it around—even her fingers look impossibly well-defined.

“That’s the conclusion I’m beginning to draw.” I’m not ready to go into detail about how risk-averse I am and how I’m the opposite of a change-junkie. This isn’t therapy. “How about you? How long have you been teaching?”

“Coming up to seven years.” She reclines in her seat. “Having to stop dancing competitively was a hard reality check.” A grimace crosses her face. “It’s basically your body saying, ‘You’re too old for this now.’ That’s tough.” Her gaze finds mine briefly. “When you get to an age where you could be the younger competitors’ mother.” She nods as though she has come to grips with this huge change in her life. “It’s so much better to teach them than to try and compete with them.”

“I watched some clips of you on Dancing with the Stars.”

She tilts her head back, then emits a strange kind of laugh—more of a scoff, I guess. “Yeah.” Clancy shakes her head. “Not a big success.”

“What happened?”

“I was only on the show for two episodes and they didn’t ask me back the next season.”

“I know that much.” I rest my elbows on the table. “But what really happened in order for that to be the outcome?”

“If I tell you, I might get sued.”

“Oh.” I sit up a little straighter. “Did you have to sign an NDA?” This is LA, where someone makes you sign a nondisclosure agreement the moment anything gets remotely interesting. I’ve signed plenty myself.

Clancy nods.

“Okay. I won’t ask again.”