Cat In A Topaz Tango

Shaken, Not Stirred

A clot of hovering dancers and support staff blocked the door to rehearsal room three.

Whispers rustled the grave, nodding faces like a wisp of wind in a flower bed.

Danny, Matt figured, had seen a lot of rehearsal accidents, but Matt knew about ministering to the distressed.

So he pushed inside behind the choreographer, while Tatyana peeled off to gossip with her fellow and sister pros, who might know exactly what had happened.

The room mirrored his and Tatyana’s rehearsal area: portable wood floor laid over impact-absorbing material, wall mirrors, any spare chairs pushed to the perimeter.

But this room also hosted the metal-pipe jigsaw structure of a jungle gym.

That’s where Danny joined several people hunching over something on the floor.

The sight had Matt’s heart pounding as if he’d just done a six-spin airplane lift with Ambrosia to hold up.

He rushed over, calming only when he saw a small figure half sitting, answering questions.

“It was scary,” she murmured in a daze. “I don’t even know how I feel. The fall. Everything’s tingling, but I can move stuff. My toes. My fingers.”

“Stay still,” a man in a dark suit carrying a walkie-talkie ordered. “We have a hotel doctor and EMTs on the way. You don’t move until someone with medical expertise is here.”

Glory B. looked up, wide-eyed. Her left hand was holding her right wrist, but she didn’t seem aware of what that might mean.

“It just . . . gave,” she said. “When I was on the top rung. Jesse said I needed to work on my agility and balance.”

“I’m sorry, B.,” said the young male dancer still crouched next to her. “I tested the bars myself after it was erected. Did spins and flips all over them. They were solid. At least for me. I’m sorry. I just don’t get it.”

Danny knelt to gently test her limbs and rose.

Matt nudged Danny’s arm. As he stood again, Matt whispered. “You and I need to take a fresh look at the jungle gym once Glory is taken away.”

Danny mouthed, “Why?”

“Temple Barr disease,” Matt whispered back.

Danny got it and nodded, his forehead a broad ladder of worry lines.

Temple Barr disease: never settle for benign equipment failure as an explanation when malign interference might be a cause. And this was a highly public, highly charged competition, with a lot at stake for the producers and performers.

If a muscular male dancer bounding all over the device didn’t find the weakness, why would a wisp of a girl who was practicing with uncertainty do it?

For now, Glory B., hot up-and-coming teen pop tart with attitude, was just a scared, possibly hurt kid. Matt thought about Temple out there somewhere, on the trail of another lost kid.

Everyone except Danny and Matt followed the ambulance gurney with Glory B. on it out the door. Camera flashes danced like heat lightning in the hall outside. Matt cringed for Glory. No wonder she was a self-involved media brat, with that kind of center-of-the-universe attention 24/7.

Meanwhile, Danny was doing awesome acrobatics on the jungle gym. Matt watched his taut form spin around the high bars and leap down to the balance board. He switched to the high bars again, then suddenly twisted and vaulted to the floor.

“That’s it. The right side of the high bar. It’s ready to break away.”

“Why didn’t it come down with Glory B.?”

“She’s a lightweight amateur. She stressed and bent the bar, but didn’t break it. Her grip broke instead when the horizontal support wavered. You could be right and that bar was rigged to collapse. Luckily for Glory B., she triggered the collapse but didn’t fully cause it.”

Danny was straddling the bottom horizontal bar—ouch!—jiggling the joint where the top bar met the upright supports, using Glory B.’s fallen warm-up jacket as a latex glove.

“Yup. Here it is. Wiggles. Probably sound until the unit was used. I don’t know who’s going to investigate this equipment, but I bet if you pull the pipes apart, one of them has been cracked mostly through. These things are houses of cards.”

Danny thumped down to the floor, eyeing Matt. “I’ll have hotel security witness me taking it apart.”

“Photograph and save the pieces,” Matt suggested. “Are you sure we shouldn’t call the police?” he asked doubtfully.

“Overkill. There’s no concrete evidence here. It could be metal fatigue. Setting up equipment in non-normal dance venues makes for shoddy assembly. Accidents happen in rehearsal. And . . . these amateur dance contests get heated. Might be some overeager fans around. I’m thinking I need to keep an eye out for sabotage as much as good form and talent. So, just in case . . . watch yourself.”

Matt nodded. Who would have thought ballroom dancing could be so dangerous?