Read Online Whiskey & Charlie by Annabel Smith - Free Book Online Page B

Or, if you feel daring, you may like to call him James. I’ll leave that up to you. Now on your feet; let’s dance.”
    Everyone stood up, considerably more enthusiastic than they had been when they arrived at the gym. The James Bond speech had won them all over. Charlie could see he wasn’t the only one who had benefited from imagining himself as sharply dressed and debonair, even if, in reality, they were all sweaty and pimply with two left feet. He hoped his partner would call him Mr. Bond.
    Week one was the jive. The boys stood on one side of the room behind James Bond, the girls behind Carmel on the other.
    Rock step, triple step, triple step
    Rock step, triple step, triple step
    Over and over again they repeated the movements, girls on one side, boys on the other. Once they had gotten the hang of it by themselves, it was time to have a go with a partner. Partners were assigned by height, with no consideration whatsoever given to social status. Which meant that in some cases, the prettiest girls were paired up with nerds from the chess club, weirdos who stayed after school to play Dungeons & Dragons; the good-looking boys with girls who had braces and the wrong hairstyles, who spent their lunchtimes in the library. In these oddly matched pairs, neither partner felt comfortable. One inevitably felt embarrassed and unworthy, the other simply embarrassed. They did not know how to talk to each other. In some cases, they had never even said hello.
    Charlie’s assigned partner was Anneliese Spellman. Anneliese was widely acknowledged to be one of the prettiest girls at school; the year before, she had been a finalist in the Seventeen Covergirl competition. She had been photographed at the beach in a low-cut top and short shorts, and Charlie, who considered himself a legs man, had torn her photograph out of a copy of the magazine he had found in the dentist’s waiting room. Anneliese also happened to be the girl Whiskey had been hanging around with that term and who was to become, if you listened to gossip, the latest notch on Whiskey’s proverbial bedpost.
    Two places down the line from Charlie, Whiskey’s assigned partner was Karen Sand, the deputy library prefect. Charlie tried not to notice, but Whiskey caught his eye, gestured to himself and Karen, and then to Charlie and Anneliese, raising his eyebrows as if to say Clearly there’s been a mistake here . Whiskey gave the universal gesture for let’s swap partners . Karen looked at the floor. Charlie nodded his assent. What else could he do?
    â€œYou’re only a bit shorter,” Whiskey said as he came over. Charlie hated it when Whiskey made reference to their height difference. He found it a particularly annoying quirk that they were identical in every way, except for Whiskey being slightly taller. Charlie told himself he must still be growing, that eventually he would catch up with Whiskey.
    â€œJames Bond won’t notice,” Whiskey said, taking Anneliese’s hand. “He hasn’t got X-ray vision.”
    But apparently James Bond did have X-ray vision. Because when the music began, he was suddenly beside them. Without a word, he took Anneliese’s hand out of Whiskey’s and replaced it in Charlie’s. Then he took Karen’s hand in his own.
    â€œMay I have this dance?” he asked her, bowing graciously.
    â€œYou may sit and reflect on your ill manners,” he said to Whiskey, gesturing toward the bench that ran along the side of the gym.
    Whiskey’s face colored. Charlie looked away from him and away from Anneliese too. He concentrated on his feet and hoped his palms weren’t too sweaty. He could not think of a word to say.
    At home that night, Whiskey said he’d rather be doing algebra than ballroom dancing, that Randall was the biggest turkey he’d ever met and must have paid a minx like Carmel to marry him. Neither he nor Charlie mentioned the failed partner swap.
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