When we land in Texas and turn our phones back on, Blitz’s notifications go berserk. Everybody wants to talk to him about the Twitter trend, the possibility of letting me and the three finalists do a dance-off. All the entertainment shows, the big websites, several newspapers, and at least three network news reporters have inquired.
Blitz quits looking at them after we get off the plane, but I take his phone and continue to scroll through as we walk through the airport. Two girls notice him as we head toward the exit, but they are quiet and easily placated with a quick signature on their arms. I’m grateful there isn’t a mob and a thousand questions about the rematch.
Ted picks us up, and I’m glad to see him. Duke was nice, but I’m not sure I trust him. Blitz is subdued, and nobody talks as we drive back to the hotel.
Blitz’s bad mood doesn’t lift even when we’re inside our suite, the city lights of San Antonio twinkling outside the huge windows. I’m not sure what to do to help him.
He sits on the floor by the windows, looking out. I curl up next to him, my head on his shoulder.
“Want to talk about it?” I ask.
He’s quiet for a while, then finally says, “I’m worried about what the show will do to you.”
I sit up. “Me? Why are you worried about me?”
“Taya already talked about your dance skills. It’s brutal out there, Livia. People are damn cruel. They’ll pick apart your hair, your body, your dance, what you eat, what you say, where you come from. And they wonder why Hollywood is notorious for its addicts and suicides.”
I lean my head on his shoulder again. I’m not sure what to say. I’d like to think that after years of feeling nothing but shame and self-misery, inflicted by my own father, I would hold up to any fire.
But maybe I’m not strong. Maybe years of solitude and guilt would only make me more vulnerable than most. My wounds might open easily, and I don’t have a big support network to catch me. My family isn’t speaking to me. I was homeschooled throughout high school, so I don’t have a friend network. My best friend’s family blocked my number so I can’t reach her.
But I do have Bennett in my corner. And his wife Juliet. And Dreamcatcher Dance Academy. Danika. Betsy. Aurora. Suze.
“I’ll just have to get better,” I say. “Maybe double up. Dreamcatcher and Jenica’s.” My voice almost falters, just saying it out loud. Our one experience at Jenica’s Dancery was intense and scared the crap out of me. But I’d do it. For Blitz.
Blitz slides his arm around me. “You amaze me every day, Livia. There is nothing you won’t try.”
“For us,” I say. “I wouldn’t do jack diddly for Hannah.”
He laughs. “You might need your own manager in the end.”
The room is quiet, although from across the room I can hear the new notification I set up on my phone for #DanceBlitzRematch. Every few seconds, there’s another soft ping, another person agreeing that this is what they want to see. Another piece of evidence to the producers about the way the show should go.
The next day we take Blitz’s red Ferrari out to a dance shop in a quiet part of town to pick up red sparkle sticks for the wheelchair ballerinas.
It’s Sunday, and the city is already preparing for spring, because Texas doesn’t have much of a winter. Along the streets, piñata vendors hang their oversized Tweety Birds and princesses out on porches. Men push metal freezer carts full of ice cream and cups of frozen fruit.
I love these parts of San Antonio because I never saw them before Blitz. He knows all the mercados, big and small, the tiny taquerias with the best tamales, and where to find flamboyant tights you can’t find in normal shops.
We generally don’t have to worry about fan sightings or getting mobbed by crazy girls in these places. Everyone is friendly, and even if they recognize Blitz, nobody asks for more than a handshake and a smile.
In general, the car attracts more attention than we do. Several men line up to run their hands along the Ferrari’s hood as we park on the street in front of a low-key dance store that doubles as a place to buy dresses and accessories for a girl’s quinceañera.
Blitz gives the men a nod and leads me up the wood steps to the shop, which is a converted house nestled in the middle of a neighborhood.
Dresses with miles of ruffles hang over the porch. Inside the door are glass cases full of lacy accessories and guest books and pillows.
“I guess there isn’t an equivalent of a quinceañera for boys?” I ask, fingering another dress that is an explosion of tulle and netting, like a wedding dress, only in pink.
“Fifteen-year-old boys do not want a fancy party,” Blitz says, scanning the place. “It’s bad enough having to go to the girls’. Dance stuff over here.”
I linger on the dresses. Gabriella doesn’t have any sort of Mexican heritage, but I picture her in one of the dresses anyway, her long black hair flowing down.
Then I realize in my image of her, she is standing up, and I shake it from my thoughts. I’ve never known exactly what happened during the car accident that killed her adopted father and injured her, but I know it was bad. I saw pictures of her in the hospital on Facebook. They were dark days, ones I could not see her through.
“Can I help you?” a woman asks. She is tall and elegant in a sheath dress, dressed very chic for a shopkeeper. She must do well with her quinceañera dresses, or else feels she must look a certain way to sell them.
Blitz speaks to her a moment in Spanish, and I turn to the racks of dance outfits. Most of them are for little girls, tutus and leotards in every bright color. Gwen, Gabriella’s mother, must shop at a place like this, as all the stores I’ve ever been to seem to only have variations of pink, white, and black.
The woman leads Blitz to another room and I drift slowly that direction. Every place I look, I see more beautiful objects. I want to take them all in. I feel exceptionally lucky in that moment. I could buy any of these things if I wanted. Blitz has been very generous. But I have no income of my own. I do nothing at all to help.
We live in a hotel, eating room service or the specific foods sent by Blitz’s trainer to stay in dance shape. I don’t clean or do laundry or even pick up around the suite. That is all handled by the staff.
I do teach the wheelchair ballerina class, but that is a volunteer position. I’m not qualified for anything.
I never even applied for college, because I left the SAT site without completing all the tests I signed up for, which disqualifies your results. At least that’s what the website says. But even if they sent me results, my father signed me up and therefore had the scores sent to him. I’ll never see them.
Who am I without Blitz? What would I do if something happened to him? To us?
My throat tightens.
I really should figure out something of my own.
Blitz reappears from the side room holding up a clear stick filled with glitter and stars. On one end is a heart, on the other, a trail of red ribbons.
“Is it perfect or what?” he asks.
My chest swells just looking at him, one of the most famous people in this town, picking out toys for young girls. What does he want? Could it really be to live a quiet life with only me? No show, no fame, no publicity?
“It is,” I manage to say. “Do they have enough of them?”
“She’s checking,” he says. He twirls the stick through his fingers and tosses it in the air. But he doesn’t consider the low ceiling and smacks it, showering popcorn paint bits into his hair.
“Oops.” He steps quickly to the side to catch the errant stick before it hits the hardwood floor.
I laugh and step forward, brushing the ceiling bits out of his hair. “At least we know it’s a tough prop.”
“True. They’ll probably hit the floor more often than not.” He smacks the stick against his hand and checks the toughness of the attached heart.
The woman takes a long time. We wander around. No one else is inside. I peek out the door and see several more men gathered around Blitz’s car. This would unnerve me, as I generally don’t like to attract attention, but Blitz is always laid back about it. I guess you don’t buy a car like that without expecting people to look at it.
“I’m going to go find her,” Blitz says.
I look down the street a bit and notice a gathering of young women with their phones. They are all talking excitedly and showing each other their screens.
I never had a big group of friends like that, although in middle school, when I still got to go to public school, two or three of us hung out together. My family couldn’t afford a cell phone for me, but my friend Laura had one. She was always texting a boy named Erik, who was obviously sexy because his name had a “k.”
The thought makes me smile.
Another car pulls up to the shop. And another. The girls on their phones look over at the door near where I’m standing.
Why would so many people be arriving here at the same time?
The new girls jump out of their car and wave their arms excitedly toward the shop. One of them has on a Blitz shirt.
Oh, no.
I jerk my own phone out of my pocket. I hurry to Twitter and check the #BlitzSighting hashtag.
It’s insane. Everyone is sharing and retweeting the address of the dance store.
We’ve been found.
I hurry through the shop. Blitz is not in the next room. There’s a door in the back wall. I don’t really want to go through it. What if the back part of this house is where they live?
I pause to knock. “Blitz?” I ask and wait. No answer. Was there another way back? I glance around.
Then I realize — phone. I text him a quick note.
We’ve been sighted. Mob descending.
Within seconds, a door I didn’t notice, tucked in a corner behind a rack, pops open.
Blitz storms out empty-handed and pulls on my arm. “The owner did it,” he says. “I caught her sending out a picture.”
He pulls me to the front door.
As soon as we step out, dozens of cell phones lift into the air.
“Great, just great,” Blitz says. He plasters on a smile and waves.
We try to head straight for the car, but the crowd surges forward.
“This is nuts,” I say as we push through. “How did so many get here so quick?”
“She sent out a Tweet before we even got on the porch,” he says, opening my door, waving at everybody, but firmly keeping them back.
The first girl shouts, “Blitz, I love you!” and then the noise just erupts. They wave paper, pens, notebooks, phones. Blitz manages to shut my door, but he’s completely trapped trying to get around to his side.
He signs a few things, still trying to smile, and attempts to walk forward.
But the girls are aggressive. One of them starts shouting, “Rematch, rematch!” and the whole group takes up the chant. From my spot inside the car, I can see at least five live Facebook feeds are broadcasting them.
I’m about to open my door and scream at the lot of them when a couple of the men who had been looking at the Ferrari take charge and start pushing them back.
Blitz manages to go around the front of the car and get to the opposite door.
Then he’s in.
“I guess we’re not going anywhere else public for a while,” Blitz says as he starts the car. When the engine rumbles, the crowd steps back.
“This wasn’t happening before,” I say. “We’ve been going to restaurants and shopping for clothes, and we haven’t had more than a few passersby stop and chat or ask for a picture.”
“It’s got to be the finalists,” Blitz says, dropping the car into gear. A couple girls try to get in front of us, but the men pull them back so he can get a clear path out onto the street.
“What are they up to?”
“They must have social media people scouring for mentions and blowing them up.”
I open my phone again. I check for #BurnBlitzBurn but there isn’t much there. The #BlitzSighting is huge right now, but I go back and back through time until I spot older mentions of his whereabouts to see if I can connect any dots.
Then I see it. A Twitter profile called “DanceBlitzRematch” has been promoting Tweets that show our current location. It has maps and even offers prizes, free DVDs and T-shirts, to people who post live updates if they see him and start the “rematch” chant. It is only two days old and already has half a million followers.
I lean my head back against the headrest.
“I’m guessing you found the source,” he says.
“Who does your social media?” I ask.
“There’s several of them,” Blitz says, eyes on the road as he carefully eases away from the crowd.
“They’ve got a whole account set up to promote the rematch,” I tell him. “They are offering incentives to fans to start the chants anywhere they can spot us.”
Blitz slams his hand on the steering wheel. “They just won’t let up, will they?”
“Let’s fight fire with fire,” I say. “Have your people put up fake location spottings to decoy them away from us.”
Blitz laughs. “Love it. I bet I can get Duke to drive my old car around LA and get the sightings even more credibility.”
“If they think we’re in LA, then we can discredit the ones that are real,” I say.
“I’ll get them on it,” Blitz says. “Because I really don’t want crazy people showing up at Dreamcatcher.”
“Exactly,” I say, my heart hammering. “And we can’t live like this.”
“I’ve been living this way for two years,” Blitz says. “But I do think it’s time I got the gray rental back. This car is just too obvious.”
“I know exactly who to have drive it around town,” I tell him, then get a case of the giggles so bad that when we stop at a red light, Blitz has to thump me on the back so I can catch air.
He’s laughing too. “What is your evil mind cooking up now?”
“We’ll give this car to the bodyguard, Ted. He’ll handle the crowds.”
Blitz nods. “I like it. And that boy could use a real set of wheels.”
We get on the highway for a while, making sure none of the zealous girls are trying to follow us. Our hotel is pretty secure, used to celebrities and politicians, but there is no point in making it easy to find us.
We’ll up our game to keep our privacy, but one thing is pretty obvious now.
We’re going to have to deal with the three finalists.