A/N: So I've watched Dirty Dancing originally in the movie theater when I was in the 7th or 8th grade. I was in love with Patrick Swayze ever since I saw him in the TV mini-series "North And South" and in DD I fell crazily in love with him. Who didn't? Well, being the desperate shipper that I am, I shipped his character not so much with that of Baby, but with that of Penny. I always ship the underdog or the friend with the protagonist, and since they were both underdogs of sorts, and Penny was also the friend, my heart went straight into shipping Johnny with her. I've watched the movie several times since and tried to make myself ship him with Baby, but alas, the heart wants what the heart wants, lol. And so, the other day, after I haven't seen the movie in several years, I caught it on cable and this fic started writing itself in my head. Finding a Johnny/Penny deleted scene on You Tube only boosted it till I just had to write it down.
The fic moves between a present, a recent past (a few weeks' time) and a more distant past (4 yrs span) – all set in the time of the movie, i.e. the 60's.
To those who know me as the SVU fic writer and wonder why the hell fanfiction net sent them an alert on a new fic of mine and it wasn't for SVU, all I can say is that it's my first diversion from writing EO or Chriska, I hope you'll forgive me ;))
R.I.P. Patrick Swayze, gifted and gorgeous inside and out. You are missed.
Home
She drifts to sleep, safe in the haven of his strong arms that are wrapped around her, in the harbor of his body that is spooning hers, the crown of her head under his chin, as they lie naked in her bed. It's still strange to feel his body against hers like that, to know it like that, because, after all, her body has been used to his, has been perfectly synched with his for so many years. His arms, chest, hips, the quick and strong legs, his palms, neck, back and shoulders – she's known them all, touched them all. On the dance floor. In close embraces of a very young love and of a lifelong friendship. But now this newly added intimacy has melted all the remaining boundaries between them, body and soul.
He showed up at her apartment a week ago and asked if he could stay for a while. It was strange, because, first of all, he had his own little loft, and second, it wasn't the first time he'd stayed in her place, and she wasn't sure why he had to ask. They worked in mostly the same places, teaching here, performing there, the same thing they had been doing since they both were sixteen or so. They'd known each other forever, in sickness and in health, in better times and in the worst of times, really. He didn't have to ask if he could stay. She shrugged and let him in, into her tiny apartment, a little space she had finally managed to rent all by herself because at some point she'd felt too old to be sharing a flat with two or three other girls.
The bag he picked up from the floor, the one she had missed because her eyes were glued to his, told her the story. Johnny wasn't asking to crash on her second-hand sofa for one night like he sometimes did when he was too tired to go home after a whole day of running around between jobs, between two hours gigs here, another three there – their usual nearly hand-to-mouth routine. No, this time he was planning on a longer stay. He had finally left, she realized.
She didn't ask and he didn't volunteer any details. He took out his favorite beer from her fridge, the one she'd been keeping there just for him, sat down quietly at the kitchen table and watched her, as she started making them both pasta for dinner.
"Penny," he started and when no words came after that, she turned around and glanced at him. He bit his upper lip and nodded his head as if he was confirming something that she had already known. They didn't need words, she knew what he wanted to tell her. That he and Baby were done. It had been long coming. She pursed her lips and they just looked at each other.
They ate silently too and when he asked in a quiet voice, "how come you always know what I need?" she looked up from her plate and stared at him. She swallowed her mouthful and just sat there. A little smile flashed across his face and she somehow forced a smile back and he resumed eating in silence. But it wasn't a tensed silence or an awkward one. Such things didn't exist between them. It was the silence of two people who knew when the other needed space, when words were redundant, or when it wasn't time for words yet. It was one of the comfortable silences they sometimes shared, when just being next to each other was sufficient and there was no need for words because they'd known each other almost all their lives and because they'd been close to each other, almost always together, all these years.
After that mostly silent dinner they had shared, he helped her clear the table and do the dishes, and this time they talked. They talked about work, about the plans for tomorrow's dance class, about those two middle-aged women in the class they taught that were so keen on finding husbands that they practically reeked of desperation. They talked about the new record she'd bought and the ideas they had for a new dance.
When they took the few steps that separated her tiny kitchen from her tiny living room, Johnny slumped into the sofa. She changed the records on the record player and before she crashed down next to him, he looked up and said "dance with me."
They had been dancing all day long, really. They were teaching and auditioning and performing. That very morning they had spent four hours in a studio together, instructing a beginners' class, before they each went to another, separate job. Their day to day didn't look like their summers in Kellerman's when they were still craving to dance every night. Comparing to their usual rat-race routine, those summers were a ball.
She straightened up and extended her arm, he took her hand and got himself out of the sofa. Still holding her hand he moved over to the record player and turned the music louder, pushing the coffee table with his foot to make more room. They fell into the dance immediately. They didn't need preparation. They were dancing before his fingers left the volume button. Coordinated from the get go, his body perfectly moving against hers, every step, spin, catch and bend in sync. Their eyes locked together, they drifted in dance, accommodating themselves to the small space by keeping close together. It started as a performance number and soon enough it was one of those dances they hadn't danced in a while together. It was the type of dance they'd used to do in those summer late nights at Kellerman's staff lounge, not the clean dances of the studio where they were teaching couples and a few single people to do the Cha Cha or the Foxtrot, Waltz or Tango. It wasn't the dances that directors in Off-Off Broadway shows ordered them to dance. It was them, their dance, the kind that had them tangled in each other, smoothing, slithering and rocking against each other in a way that used to feel natural but now felt strange because it hadn't happened as often in the last four years, especially not when they were alone.
It's been two years since they last worked at Kellerman's. And when they did, in the summers, Baby had come there with her family first and then in the last year they were there she arrived with her sister and her new brother-in-law. Then last summer they worked in another hotel, but there it was different - they were part of a larger group of entertainers and the staff there wasn't as close as it had been at Kellerman's. They didn't have parties and their quarters were right next to the hotel manager's. It was much stricter and disciplined. They didn't like it as much, and now the summer is drawing near again and they still haven't secured a job for the season. Baby couldn't make it to that hotel last summer because she found a job in New York. It was the year she graduated from university and she couldn't take a lot of time off.
But summers are short. In the long days and weeks and months that passed between one summer and another, Penny and Johnny were too busy trying to get jobs and then keeping them and then making enough money to live off of them.
Baby tried to dissuade Johnny from working in the summers or working so hard in between and invest more in 'his future', which was a noble but vague term when you had to survive the present. He worked just as hard as he'd ever done, he didn't want to be dependent on her or her father. And she, Penny, was there all along. In the summers and in the in-betweens. In the cold winters of New York City, running around between gigs and in the summers of the Catskills, entertaining guests all day long. She was there when Baby was in college, she was there when Baby came back for Christmas, spring and the summer breaks.
And she has been in love with Johnny since the day she met him when they were just kids, twenty years ago. She's never stopped loving him, not even when he was engaged to another. All she wanted was for him to be happy.
And now he's in her apartment, with her, in her bed.
"What are you doing, Johnny?" she asked him three days ago. It was the morning after the first night he'd spent in her bed. Till then he'd slept for four nights on her sofa. That morning, the vapors of the night's euphoria were gone and she nearly cringed when he hugged her from behind while she was making the first coffee of the day. She made it strong because that had been an almost sleepless night.
"What we both want," he replied, his mouth on her neck.
She tried to twist in his arms and turn around to face him.
"You're home, Penny, you're home," Johnny half-whispered, his cheek pressing against hers, his arms holding her flush against him, her back leaning on his chest. "There's nowhere else and no one else I feel at home with. Don't you get it?" he asked, slowly letting her turn in his arms.
"I get it, Johnny," she said when she finally faced him. "You're home to me too. But…"
"But what?"
"What about Baby?" Despite trying to call Baby 'Frances', they had all failed and at some point stopped trying. The name 'Baby' stuck with her.
"You know better than I do, Penny, and probably before I have, that it wasn't going to work. We gave it our best shot, but there are worlds between us. She's…I don't fit in there, not with her family, not with her friends, not with her. I just…she's trying to change me to a point where…I don't…it's not who I am. We're too different. I loved her, but…"
"You're going to regret this, Johnny," she said, slithering out of his hold.
"I'm not. D'you think I'd tamper with what I have with you for nothing? Penny, you and I…I just want to be home, Penny." His words made her stand still. She was close to him, but out of his arms.
"You can stay here, it's your home too, you know that, but give Baby a chance. We shouldn't…" she didn't finish her sentence. It was strange that this time she was the one who stopped them, while in the past it had been him. She had no idea how she was going to have him both at home and at work without succumbing again, knowing that he wanted her too, but she was willing to try, for his sake.
She failed miserably, obviously.
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"You're an artist, Johnny, you teach art. You're an art teacher, really." These words, along with others, helped Johnny have more faith in himself. She wishes these were her words, but they weren't. They were Baby's. She was smart and perceptive and kind-hearted. She was all of this and more. And this was where the problem lay eventually. Baby was much more than either of them had ever been, despite Baby's and Johnny's efforts to repress this fact. She had chances they never had, she was exposed to knowledge and way of thinking that they couldn't even imagine or dream of, and vice versa. The gap was too wide, too deep, too steep to overcome.
And he tried. He took classes in a night school, he started exploring textbooks, but it was just too hard. He was dead tired from trying to keep up with multiple jobs - and they had to have multiple jobs because none of these jobs were full-time jobs or paying enough to get by - and trying to catch up with the night school schedule and with homework, and with that issue of his with reading loads of text. "It's like I'm stupid or something, Penny," he said. "I can't concentrate, the words dance in front of my eyes, I keep skipping sentences. I don't know, it's like elementary school all over again," he sighed.
She tried to help him. With Baby being away in college, she met with him on almost every free night and every free weekend, whenever they had time. She did it although she was exhausted herself, reading out loud to him out of his textbooks and discussing the material with him. She liked it because that way she got to learn too, and she loved being with Johnny, talking about the history of art and of the cultural aspects of dance. They even danced while studying, trying to connect what they knew from their everyday to what they learned from the books.
Fifteen months he had lasted like that, lost sleep and even weight, until he decided to drop out of night school right before signing up to the compulsory math, English and science courses that were part of the high-school equivalent diploma he aimed for. He couldn't afford it either. Baby wanted to help financially, but he declined. "That's exactly what I need, her dad to see that I depend on his money," he said bitterly.
"Dr. Houseman is generous, Johnny, and he likes you," she told him. "Sort of," she added, smiling when she saw the grimace on his face, and they both laughed. It was true. Baby's father did come to accept him and was kind to him, but it was a sort of a distant or a bit cold type of treatment. It seemed he tried hard to like him for Baby's sake. It didn't help that Johnny lost his confidence around Dr. Houseman. He didn't act like himself near him. She was sure that had he been able to, Dr. Houseman would probably have liked him better. It pained Penny to see that it looked like Johnny was figuratively walking on eggshells or bowing his head when around Baby's father, and it didn't fit the Johnny she knew and loved. It didn't fit the Johnny that Baby knew and loved. And yet…
In any case, Penny went with him to the students' office to find out about scholarships and loans, because Baby had told him he "must qualify for financial aid." That terminology almost killed Johnny, but he wanted to persevere, he wanted to prove her dad, and Baby too, as Penny suspected, that he was capable of doing this, of becoming a student, an educated man.
He applied and got some support, but it wasn't enough. There were other students in his situation or worse at that night school. In fact, he had to earn less money in order to apply to some of those aids. "I'm not going to lie about what I make or quit these jobs just to qualify for that help," he told Penny after another reject letter had arrived.
This was before Baby graduated from college. When she did, Johnny was there with her parents and her sister at the graduation ceremony. He came back with his tail between his legs.
It took Penny a few hours to get it out of him. It was the first time he came face to face with how different he was among Baby's own larger circle. She introduced him to her friends and lecturers, and she looked proud of him. But some of the women eyed him "like I was candy on a fat farm," he said angrily and Penny had to restrain herself from laughing. But mostly, they treated him like some sort of an exotic creature that somehow landed among them.
"They're book smart, Johnny, but you…you're smarter than most of them without needing books, you know life like they never could," she told him. "I wish you could see yourself as I can see you," she said and then added, "as Baby can see you."
He looked up at her. He was sitting on her sofa-bed (it was in her previous apartment, where she had one room in a place she shared with two other girls), his hands between his knees, his head bowed down. When he looked up at her she saw hope in his eyes. When he left her room that night, he hugged her tightly and warmly kissed her forehead and she felt relieved that she could somehow help him.
It's been a year since Baby's graduation. She postponed her plans to join the Peace Corp and had to reject a few other good prospects because they meant being away from Johnny for too long. But she also kept postponing the talk of a wedding. He didn't push, he knew better than that.
In the last six months or so, things became more and more strained. There were more arguments between him and Baby, more misunderstandings. Perhaps she started resenting him for sticking her between two hard places. On the one hand, he wouldn't accept her dad's help, or even hers, and insisted on the hard work that had never really gotten him anywhere with the money he made. And on the other hand, Baby stuck with him, but that meant that she had to stall all her plans. When she finally took a great paying job in a department of a bank that works with the World Bank that helps third world countries, Johnny felt threatened by the fact that his fiancé was making much more money than he'd ever done.
"One day she'll wake up and see me as I am. No one," he told Penny one night, dropping by her place after another argument with Baby.
With tears stinging her eyes she approached him and placed her hands on his shoulders. "Don't you ever dare say something like that about yourself," she said. "You hear me? You're not no one! You're everything!" She didn't know these were words that Baby had once told him, almost four years prior. "You're the best man I know, better than her father. Better than…," but she couldn't finish the sentence because she burst into tears. Johnny took her in his arms and kissed her head as she was pressed against him.
"You're the best, Penny," he told her and not for the first time. What difference did it make though? She was second best and it was ok as long as he was happy. Only he wasn't.
She raised her head after a while when her tears had dried and soaked into his shirt. "Baby's never gonna think you're no one. You're everything to her," she said.
"Not anymore," he replied. "Shit became too real, Penny. She's not used to this, you know. Being broke like that." He sighed. She was still held in his arms. "How come we work so hard and we never get anywhere?" he then asked.
"We're not anywhere, Johnny," she urged. "We're doing better now, we're getting better gigs, the new dance numbers we worked on and that show we were on last year opened more doors for us. We're progressing, it takes time," she tried to remind him.
"We're 30, Penny, that's slow progress. And besides, even if you're right, I don't think Baby sees this."
"She does, I know she does, Johnny," she said with no real proof, except knowing that Baby must love Johnny just as much as she herself did.
"She doesn't talk about getting married anymore, you know?" he then said, tilting his head back so he could look her in the eyes.
Despite the beat her heart missed, she managed to ask "what are you saying?"
"That it's convenient for her, that her parents are off her back knowing that we're engaged, but it doesn't' seem like she wants to really get married anytime soon."
"Do you want to?" she dared asking. She got so used to him and Baby being together that she wasn't afraid of his answer anymore.
"I used to think that yes, but I don't know if I want to live like that," he said, all these months ago. "I'm not right for her, Penny," he continued when he saw the question in her eyes. "I don't…I don't feel at home."
This was five months ago. Since then he and Baby have broken up once and gotten back together, but instead of improving, things actually became worse. There was hostility there. Up until her graduation, they'd met only a few times a year and the aura of vacation colored those meetings, but now that they were together on an almost daily basis, things changed, became more real.
Worse of all, Johnny was suffering, he felt that he wasn't good enough in every aspect. Instead of making him feel better, like Baby had used to do, being with her now actually brought all his insecurities full on.
"I said maybe two sentences the entire night," he told Penny after going to a fancy dinner party with Baby's colleagues. "I didn't even want to talk to these stuck ups," he added. "They didn't say anything that interested me the whole evening. And you know what? I was scared, Penny, actually scared, that someone would put on dance music and I'd be the circus monkey that finally gets applause because that's the only trick he knows."
She didn't really know what to say to this. She felt his pain, she wanted to take it away, she wanted him to be that confident guy she knew he could be, the one who had been proud of his work, his talent, his abilities. It was like he couldn't see it anymore. So after a short pause, she ended up saying "will you dance with me, circus monkey?" And although they had danced together earlier that day at work, it didn't feel like they had really danced for themselves, so without words Johnny smiled, took her in his arms and they danced a whole number in his shabby loft. They were so into the dance and so immersed in each other, that when the record stopped they didn't notice and continued dancing to silence.
Baby's new brother-in-law wasn't making it easy on Johnny either. He was a good guy and treated him with respect and good humor, but he projected to Johnny what he'd never be. He won Baby's parents' hearts immediately. He graduated from Harvard, was a resident doctor in a hospital and came from a good middle-class Jewish family. The perfect match for Lisa. The complete opposite of Johnny Castle.
So even in Baby's family circle he was an outsider, and maybe in a perfect ideal world all of this wouldn't matter, but in the real world, it did. In the real world where conversations were held, where topics were discussed, where perspectives were shared, where abilities were conveyed, where people asked what you do, where you live, where you went to school, and where you're working – in this real world it did matter. Because Johnny didn't feel he could match up to them, didn't share their interests, their perception of the world, of money, of life. There was an ocean of experiences, knowledge and way of thinking that separated him from them, and from Baby.
And last week, he suddenly appeared on her doorstep with a bag of clothes and when she later asked why he'd left his apartment, he said "I needed to clear my head. And Baby can't drop by here as she does at my place".
The fact that he had insisted on keeping his little loft on the wrong side of the city was a thing Penny had tried dissuading him from. "Move in with Baby," she'd told him more than once. "Her parents are beyond that by now, you two are engaged, and it's 1967." But he'd refused, though he and Baby had spent more time in the much better flat she'd shared with a friend from college. The flat belonged to Baby's parents and she herself insisted on paying them rent, though none of them mentioned that it was about half the price they could have gotten had they rented it to someone other than their own daughter.
"She'll come looking for you here, you know that, right?" Penny said.
"Can I stay?" he only repeated.
"Of course you can," she replied.
They didn't plan on it. They really didn't. They have known each other for most of their lives. They were even a couple when they were fourteen and fifteen. He was actually her first kiss. His was Isabella Belandi, at thirteen, a girl from their neighborhood that Penny hated for that exact fact. "I only kissed her once," he'd told her when she'd teased him about it years ago.
They shared puppy love, but she didn't lose her virginity to him. By the time she lost it, she and Johnny were more like best friends, dance partners. After her mother had kicked her out of the house at sixteen – claiming that Penny had tried to seduce her old suitor, while Penny had actually been trying to avoid the man's straying eyes and hands - she lived in various places, at friends' houses, a distant aunt, she stayed with Johnny's family for a while, but they weren't much better off, and she had to move around. Johnny took care of her back then, he helped her find the next place and the next and the next, and snuck her into his house whenever he could. He dropped out of school about then and worked with his dad and uncle painting houses. He gave her half the money he earned, escorted her to a shelter one night and stayed with her there, and it was enough for him to realize that she couldn't stay there alone. Finally, they found together a place for her to stay at an elderly woman's house who lived in their vicinity. Penny paid for the board by cleaning, cooking as much as she could, doing the grocery shopping, ironing and anything that the widowed Mrs. King needed doing. Johnny painted the rooms for her. "Additional pay," he told the nice old lady, who hadn't asked for it.
Penny dropped out of school too and took a part-time job so she could have money enough to dance. She and Johnny were always good at this and her dream was to become a professional dancer. The opportunity had occurred not long before her mother kicked her out. Johnny had come to tell her that a bunch of them had been invited to take a test at Arthur Murray's dance studio and he'd wanted her to go and do the test with him. They had gone and both got picked. She needed money to travel across the city to the studio, to auditions and rare gigs, to buy appropriate dance shoes, leotards and dresses.
Through all this, she and Johnny stuck by each other. A year later, Mrs. King's son came to visit from California with his family and demanded that his mother would take in a paying boarder instead of her. He tried to grope Penny too, which cost him a punch to the jaw from the 17-year-old Johnny.
She had to move out. Soon after, she met Paul, a 30 years old dance club owner and he was her first. She moved in with him. She thought she was in love. Johnny didn't like him and kept an eye on him the whole time she was living with the club owner. For her 18th birthday, she got a fat lip from a drunk and jealous Paul, who thought she danced way too close and way too sexy with "that fucker friend of yours, Johnny." Having seen her and Johnny dance together at his club a million times before didn't matter. Having enjoyed the fact that their dancing there had brought him more crowd didn't matter either at that point. He'd just had enough of her by that time and was drunk enough to hit her.
She swore Johnny to not try beat him up because Paul wasn't something that Johnny could handle, at least not alone. She packed her bags and moved out, crashed at a friend's house for two weeks and then Johnny managed to rent a dingy room on a roof with his cousin, which they split using a drywall that Johnny's father donated to them, and they took her in.
She and Johnny became dance instructors and could finally work at what they loved doing best. But it wasn't easy, as they had to compile a full-time job out of multiple gigs, which weren't always available. After a lot of hard work, at the age of almost 21, she became a Rockette. It was the best time of her life. She busted her ass seven days a week when they were performing and doing other gigs when they weren't. She moved out of Johnny's place then, though they were inseparable as ever.
Three years later the Rockettes 'refreshed the lines' and she and a bunch of others were let go. But with this in her resume, it was easier for her to get jobs for over two years. She took Johnny with her to all the jobs she got that required male dancers and they worked a lot together. But then it became rough again, she wasn't even sure why. It was about then that they started working at Kellerman's in the summer. The next year, he would meet Baby.
She dated a few men here and there but nothing lasted. They were too interested in her Rockette persona than in herself. And she hardly had time. But most of all, they couldn't match up, they weren't him. They weren't Johnny. He too dated a few girls here and there, but it wasn't something too special either.
What no one else knows is that when she lived in his place for over two years, she and Johnny almost slept together, twice. They kept it a secret, especially from his cousin, because they didn't want to ruin the atmosphere in the tiny place they were all sharing. The first time was not long after she had moved in. Billy wasn't home and Johnny came in to find her crying, took her in his arms and soon enough they were kissing and caressing each other like they did when they were fifteen, and before she knew it, they fell onto his bed. But a few moments later he stopped it.
"We can't," he said. "I can't take advantage of you like that," he added and she had no idea what he was talking about.
"I love you, Johnny, how is that taking advantage of me?" she asked.
"I love you too, Penny. You know I do. But I'm not going to…sleep with you," he lowered his voice at this, "when I can't marry you. I can't support a family."
"Johnny, you don't have to marry me. What are you talking about?"
"So you're ok with me just…just…it's wrong, Penny, you're the last person I'd ever do something like that to!" he said.
Back then nice girls didn't do that, and the fact that she'd shacked for almost a year with a 30-year-old man had rattled Johnny enough at the time. He didn't want to be someone who does the same to her without marrying her, and back then it was out of the question - they were too young, too broke, too clueless, living in a box with his cousin, taking turns on who got to sleep in the half room and who on the mattress near the kitchen sink. The shower and toilettes were outside. Johnny wanted to give her his half room permanently but she refused, so they stuck to that turn-taking routine for two years.
For some time, it was hard to be so close to each other after that, especially when they were living together and working together in some of their jobs.
And so it happened again after a while. One night after they came back from a club where they had danced for fun, not for instructing. They'd danced the way years later they would teach their friends at Kellerman's to dance, but back then it had been a novelty. It was something they had caught in the small clubs that were mostly frequented by Puerto Rican immigrants. They'd perfected the moves even more, added their own style to it. These dances were so sensuous, so lustful, that in one of those nights it was clear to her while still on the dance floor that Billy's absence from their boxed rooftop was going to be celebrated that night. As soon as the door closed behind them, Johnny's mouth was on hers, his arms around her, his body clinging to hers, their bodies still wet with salty sweat, swaying in the should-be-outlawed dance they'd just done at the club, but this time there wasn't even music playing.
It was the first time she really felt completely immersed in someone else, the first time she let go, the first time she felt really loved body and soul. She was old enough then to realize that beyond loving him as her closest friend, and family, really, because he was her family, she had never fallen out of love with him ever since she was twelve.
She has no idea how he did it, because they were so into it, they were already half-naked on his bed, touching, kissing, caressing, licking, when Johnny suddenly broke from her and breathlessly said "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Penny, I'm so sorry," and she thought he was apologizing because he didn't want her and tears were making their way to her eyes, but then he said "Christ, I want you so much, but I can't do this to you, I can't, not like that," and she realized he was trying to save her from herself.
She got up and got dressed in Billy's half room and slept on his bed, crying herself quietly to sleep. Johnny wasn't in love with her, she thought, not enough to marry her. Sometime before the sun rose, he suddenly appeared next to Billy's bed, sat on it and caressed her hair. He took her hand in his. "Will you forgive me?" he asked and she nodded, because she could never be angry with the only person who loved her for who and what she was and had been by her side in every step of the way and had never forsaken her.
It was harder for the two of them after this. That thing between them felt too natural. She knew that he felt it too. It surfaced a few more times in the years that have gone by since. But they were too busy surviving and holding each other together through the shit that life threw at them. She came to realize, or convinced herself, that he didn't want to ruin what they had, because they needed each other and it was safer that way. Safer for their ability to stay together, safer for their livelihood.
In any case, not long after that she became a Rockette, and not much after that she managed to rent a room of her own. She and Johnny remained close as always, but it took everything in her to disregard that pull inside of her that needed him even closer than that. Good thing she was busy.
Two years after she finished with the Rockettes, they found the job at Kellerman's for the first time. Before that, they tried to work in that other hotel but Kellerman's was better – better money, better living arrangements, better schedules. It was also a longer term job, it lasted from mid-May to mid-September. The manager and his grandson were a pain in the ass, but it was worth it. They made a lot of money that summer. Especially Johnny, who was very popular among the middle-aged female guests and their daughters. Penny never directly asked what he did that got him the big tips he received.
The second summer at Kellerman's she met Robbie. He was handsome, smart, a Medical student, and he was interested in her, very interested in her. He wooed her and sweet-talked her and she thought she'd finally met the guy that could be the one, at least the one who could somehow fill the void in her heart. Little did she know. He didn't have any hesitations about sleeping with her, so she did. Johnny didn't trust him but he kept quiet for her sake. He didn't know how far things between her and Robbie had gone. She didn't want him to know. Two months later Robbie got bored and started flirting with other girls from staff and from among the guests. When she confronted him about it, he dumped her. A few days later she realized she was pregnant.
At first, she didn't know what to do, she couldn't tell anyone, not even Johnny. Especially not Johnny. She was afraid of his reaction, of what he'd think of her, of what he'd do. So she told Robbie. He dismissed her and said it wasn't his problem because it wasn't his baby. She consulted one of her friends in staff and heard about a doctor that could help take care of 'the problem'. But she didn't have enough money.
She turned to Robbie again, telling him that all she needed was a loan and that she'd pay him back. "I'm not going to throw my money on your problems," he told her, "I know your kind, I'll never see that money again."
Your kind. This is what broke her. So two whole weeks after she found out that she was pregnant, she realized she had no choice but to turn to the only person she could always trust. Johnny was furious that she hadn't told him the moment she'd found out.
He and Billy started checking about that doctor and Johnny started raising the money. With her salary and over half of his, some of Billy's and some money he was thinking about loaning, he thought he could help her. But they were still short. Johnny knew there was no point in addressing Robbie about it, he had to hold himself from punching his face as it was anyway. But he used every opportunity to tell him what he thought of him. Good thing that to the most part the dining room waiters, who were mostly college students, kept to themselves and didn't mingle with the rest of the staff.
The only respite she had in all this was on the dance floor with Johnny, in the evenings and late nights, when she could for one or two dance numbers forget herself and feel the excitement of giving her best on the stage and then dancing with him half the night in the staff lounge. The rest of their days was just hard work of entertaining the guests and giving dance lessons, usually separately, in the studio.
Then, in the second half of August, the Housemans arrived at Kellerman's.
She hadn't really noticed Baby before the night Baby saw her crying in the kitchen. She was used to seeing Baby's type in these hotels – the spoiled, good girls, who lived wrapped in cotton wool all their lives, who had never known what it was like to work for their living, who had parents and grandparents, great homes, fancy clothes, trips abroad, education, a future.
That night she swallowed her pride and approached Robbie again, asking him to help cover just the sum she was still lacking. "Don't dare connecting me to this shit, Penny," he said. "Why don't you ask one of the willing sugar daddies here to chip in?" After that, she couldn't make herself go back to the main hall or the gazebo and dance with older men, that although most of them were nice and respectful, there were a few who had tried their luck with her, and Robbie's words made her feel dirty and worthless, although she had never let any of those men touch her. She wandered towards the kitchen, which she knew would be closed, and there she collapsed in the dark in one of the corners.
Baby saw her then and had Johnny come there and he took her in his arms and brought her to one of the staff cabins. She wasn't very nice to Baby then, but the next night, while she was dancing with Johnny in the staff lounge, doing her best to forget her problems, which was relatively easy while she danced with him, Baby handed her $250.
She had too many issues at the time to be worrying about Baby and Johnny, except for making sure that Baby could cover for her in that Sheldrake hotel performance. She had realized that Baby was a good-hearted girl, but she still looked at her as the very young, naïve and rich girl who thought she could fix the world. She hadn't realized that Johnny, who was always warning her from getting involved with "these people", would fall for her.
"They can pay for anything, Penny," he had told her, "they can pay for people too, and you need to be careful, don't mix up with them, stay away." He knew what he was talking about, because she had seen how some of these women had been treating him. But he was a man and it was a different case. "Don't worry about me, I can take care of myself, I know when to stop," he had told her when she'd confronted him about a few of the women she could see had been too keen on him. But she really didn't suspect Baby would be the one who'd win his heart.
She couldn't ignore the pain that gripped her heart once she found out, and she couldn't overlook the jealousy. Johnny was her everything, always had been. But she owed Baby a lot, and she knew she was one of the good ones, and she hoped that, despite her own doubts over the chances of such an affair to succeed, Johnny would be happy and would get a chance to break that vicious circle of perpetual hand-to-mouth they were caught in.
When he was fired for "fiddling with the daughter of one of my special guests", as Max Kellerman had put it when he dismissed him, Penny wanted to go with him, but he wouldn't hear of it. "I don't want you to lose the gig here," he said. He knew what that job meant, especially then, because he knew that she was planning on paying back the Housemans, even if it took her years. "You're the best," he then told her and moved to hug her. They were standing by the trunk of his car and she tried to convince him to let her come with him. She was going to cry.
"Don't make me cry, asshole," she said, but he pulled her into his arms and they hugged. "I will see you in a few weeks," he said, his eyes locked on hers, and she knew he would, so she agreed to stay. Baby was waiting for him by the car, so she retreated to let him say goodbye to the new woman who had entered his life.
When he suddenly reappeared the next day at the end of the season party, she was thrilled to see him there. True, he performed the last dance with Baby, rather than with her, but seeing him courageous and proud like that, filled her own heart with pride and her eyes with tears. Here was the Johnny she had known, rather than the one who had cowered and lost his confidence in front of those high and mighty that had tried to put him down. Having lost his job already meant that he wasn't afraid of the bosses anymore, but showing up there like that, getting on the stage with Baby, treating the place as his own – that was something that had been inspired by the renewed confidence he got from Baby. She encouraged him to fight for himself and so he did. Penny was thankful to her for that.
That night he and Baby came with them all to the staff lounge and they all danced till dawn. Johnny danced with her too and promised he'd meet her as planned in New York in two weeks' time because she still had to work at Kellerman's till the very end of the season. They both sublet their rooms in New York while being away, and she couldn't wait to be home again, to be with Johnny again, even though it meant they had to start looking for jobs in the city all over again. The only job that was still waiting for them was the ten, fifteen or twenty hours a week as dance instructors in Arthur Murray's studio, but that, even with the tips, wasn't enough to pay the bills.
Funny, but after that, for months on end, it was easy for her to forget Baby's existence, because she was away in university while Penny and Johnny kept their usual work and life routine back home. She even felt that the rat-race they got back to, dwindled down the first excitement of the affair. It was a summer thing and that was all. But when Baby wanted something, she got it. She was persistent.
In Christmas, she came to visit. She had never celebrated Christmas before, so it was her first with Johnny and his family. Penny was there too, being considered as part of the Castle family anyway. Baby was welcomed by his parents and brothers and Johnny drove her back to her own family late that night. "You had to see that house, Penny," he told her when he returned to his parents' house over an hour later, after crossing the entire city twice. "I didn't go inside, but that was quite a neighborhood," he said and she could hear the concern in his voice when he came face to face again with the difference between him and Baby.
Baby visited on Spring break too and sent Johnny letters in between. Before the summer of 1964, Baby's father made sure that his friend, Max Kellerman, would hire Johnny back to work for the summer. He did this for his daughter's sake and the Housemans came to spend three weeks at Kellerman's. It was then that Johnny and Baby got engaged. Her parents wouldn't let her spend time alone with him out of their sight, so Baby offered that they'd get engaged.
He didn't have money for a ring, but his mother gave him an old ring that ran in the family. "I've always hoped he'd give it to you," Mrs. Castle told Penny quietly after Johnny had left the room, and Penny's heart sank even lower. She and Johnny had made the drive in his car from the Catskills to his parents' house on their free day to bring that ring as a surprise and Johnny was quiet almost the entire way.
"Are you excited, Johnny? You're getting engaged!" she told him, trying to break the silence.
"She's great and her father finally likes me," he said and smiled and then kept driving silently. He was nervous and she thought it was natural.
She loved him still, as always, but she buried these feelings as deep as she could because they were irrelevant. She wanted him to be happy and he seemed happy, she wanted him to be loved and he was loved, she wanted him to succeed and he was full of aspirations and renewed confidence, and that was all that mattered really.
But with the years things became different, very different. And last week he appeared on her doorstep and has stayed ever since. And three nights ago…
Three nights ago they were sitting on her sofa and Johnny suddenly blurted "let's go to Spanish Harlem."
It'd been a while since they had gone there to dance in one of the clubs, but she was up for it. This was where their favorite music played, where their favorite dances were popular, where no one looked at you funny, this was where they were free to dance how and as much as they wanted to, and this used to be their cure, their lifeline.
Johnny drove them there in his car and talked excitedly about the club they were going to, the music, the people. "It's been, what, a year or more since we've been there?" he asked and she didn't want to tell him that it had been that long since this had been when Baby graduated and he hadn't wanted to take her to these clubs, thinking that it'd be a bit too much for her. "Remember the night Billy kissed that girl there and her father chased him down the street?" he continued and they laughed and talked all the way.
On the dance floor, dancing the Mambo, Cha Cha, Bomba and Plena with Johnny, this was where she felt the most alive. And Johnny was Johnny again after months of being a shadow of the man she had known and loved. In his black pants and black buttoned shirt that hid a black t-shirt underneath that waited to be exposed when he would get too hot, he was gorgeous. She was in a red swinging skirt and a white shoulders-revealing shirt, and they danced like a couple of crazies. At some point people were clearing the dance floor and standing around to watch them dance, cheering and toasting them with their drinks. It was heaven.
After midnight the music changed and they danced close, very close, there was no more space between his hips that were rocking against hers, his thigh that was wedged between her legs, and his arms that tightened around her, holding her, swaying her, swooshing her body along his. They were wet with sweat, their hearts picking up rates and dropping, all along with the music. They were used to dancing like that together, but something felt different again that night; it felt like it had all those years ago. She felt that their bodies were not only synched in the dance because they were professionals that were used to be partnered together; no, it was different, it felt wrong all of a sudden, and she knew why. It felt wrong because there was something else there again in the way Johnny touched her, in the way he reacted to her, in the way he looked at her; it wasn't just a dance, it was foreplay.
What she remembers from the ride back home is how every now and then Johnny looked at her, as she sat quietly, nervously, by his side, and how once or twice he sent his hand and caressed her hair. She remembers that as soon as the door closed behind them, just like years ago, Johnny wrapped her in his arms and his mouth was on hers. He tasted familiar and strange all at the same time. Some distant bell inside her head told her that she should stop, that this was wrong, but she couldn't stop it, she couldn't. She loved him so fucking much.
They made love on her bed till the sky turned to silver in the window.
And after two or three hours of sleep she got up and made coffee and Johnny sneaked behind her and hugged her, and then she told him that it was wrong and he told her that she was home and that he wanted to be home.
She tried to resist it, but she couldn't, not really. It was a Sunday and they spent it together. In the early evening - after they got back from spending an unusually free morning in Central Park, lying on a blanket in the sun, to which she'd insisted they'd go because she knew that if they'd stayed in, she'd defy her promise to herself - they stumbled to bed together again. Half a day she lasted. But she couldn't be blamed. It was Johnny, the love of her life, and he wanted her, and he whispered "I love you, Penny" to her, and caressed her and kissed her, so she let go and followed her heart.
It's been like that in the last three days. Love and work, work and love. Johnny.
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He can hardly take his hands off of her these days, and it's not like he's lacking opportunities. They're working as dance instructors together almost every day and have a few dancing numbers in an Off-Broadway musical that plays three times a week. And then they come back to the same little apartment every night. Some evenings he arrives before her and some nights it's the other way around, and sometimes he waits for her outside the place she works or auditions to take her home in his car instead of letting her drag all the way by a bus or subway, and in the musical show nights they return home together in his car.
It's like they're back to that routine they had years ago when they were living on that rooftop with Billy. Only now he's sleeping in her bed and making love to her and she feels like she's on the edge of heaven. The days are more bearable now - the running around, the waking up, everything – because Johnny is not just there by her side, he's there as hers, and there's no better feeling in the world.
The only thing that bothers her, that is always right there on her mind, is the question of when will he realize that he's making a mistake and will go back to Baby? She remembers his words on that stage in Kellerman's four years ago - 'Somebody who's taught me about the kind of person I want to be' – and she thinks about her own role in his life. She's carrying the burden along with him, she's sharing the hardships, she's there for him, his best friend. But has she ever inspired him the way Baby did? Has she ever made him want to be a better person?
Maybe not, maybe because to her, he had already been that better person, the best person. When he said that Baby had taught him "that there are people willing to stand up for other people no matter what it costs them," she wanted to tell him that he didn't need anyone to teach him that, because he was already the kind of person who stood up for others no matter what it cost him – that was exactly what he had done for her, repeatedly, and especially that summer when he had stood up for her and by her, and had taken the responsibility for a baby that hadn't even been his, disregarding the danger to, or consequences for, himself.
He tells her he loves her, he shows her he loves her, she feels his love for her, there's no denying of that. But why now? What has changed? Why after all these years? Is it because he's realized that he should stick to 'his own kind'? Is it because for now she's some sort of a refuge, a consolation, and soon enough he won't need her anymore? Because if he does, she won't be able to survive it. Not after really being with him. She won't be able to go back to how they used to be.
He told her all about his break up with Baby. About how he told Baby that he'd had enough, that it was not going to work, that it hadn't been working for a long time already, that he'd fallen out of love with her.
"You said that? You told her you weren't in love with her anymore?" she asked him incredulously.
"I didn't have to. She already knew. She said it herself – 'you don't love me anymore'".
"And what did you say?" she asked.
"Nothing. It was bad enough," he replied.
They'd had this conversation before they were sleeping together. It was on the second night he spent on her sofa. They went up onto the roof of her four-storey building and sat there with two beer bottles. She was cold at some point, wrapping her sweater tighter around her, and after a while, Johnny pulled her to him, put his arm around her shoulders and rubbed his hand along her bicep to warm her up.
"She gave me the ring back," he said. "I wasn't going to ask for it, but she took it off and put it on the table and I took it with me when I left her apartment."
"Oh, Johnny," she muttered in response and her heart ached for him and for Baby. Because although she was in love with him, she had also learned to live with it and she liked Baby a lot.
"She pushed too hard…to the point I couldn't…I wasn't really enough. Eventually, she wanted me to be someone else. And I…I thought she was different, or maybe she was but then she changed. I don't know. It doesn't matter really. I just realized that I don't feel the same about myself anymore, not when I'm with her, and that I don't feel the same about her either."
He took a swig from his beer bottle after that. They were both staring at the street that was stretching beneath them, at the rooftops of the buildings on the other side of the street.
"I'm sorry, Johnny," she half-whispered because she didn't really know what to say to that.
"It's ok, sweetheart," he replied, pulling her closer to him. And then, she thought he was trying to cheer her or himself up when he said, "I'm myself when I'm with you." But instead of cheering her up, this actually made her sadder, because she thought that she was just letting him be and not inspiring him to be better.
"Did she try calling you?" she asked him after a few days and then later again.
"No," were his short responses.
After a week of staying with her, when they were already sleeping together, Johnny stopped by his loft with her one evening, on the way back to her apartment, after he had picked her up from an audition in Broadway. "I need a new set of clothes," he said. "Come up with me?"
She went up and when they reached his floor, a paper bag was leaning against his door. It contained a few clothes, one record and a shaving brush and foam – the only items he had left at Baby's.
They looked at each other and Johnny opened the door to his loft. As soon as she was in, she went to open the windows, the place smelled stale. Johnny in the meantime picked up more clothes and shoved them into another bag. Penny then went over to the mini fridge he had there and checked that nothing was rotting in there. She poured a bottle of milk down the drain and bagged the few rotting items so that she could throw them out when they left. She wondered when he would be back to his loft again. She was happy to have him living with her, especially now, but she didn't want to raise this question, she preferred it'd come from him.
"All done?" she asked, looking around to see if there was anything else they should do before closing down the place again.
"Yeah, let's get out of here," he said, "let's go to dinner somewhere."
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It's been several weeks now since he first came to stay with her, and they have developed a routine of practically living together. When she looks at her apartment, Penny realizes that Johnny has pretty much moved in with her. Most of his clothes and most, if not all, of his records are in her apartment. They do the grocery shopping together, they share the expenses, the random cleaning or cooking, all those mundane little things that need doing and that indicate that you're home.
And a few nights ago, there was a knock on her apartment's door at around 8pm. She and Johnny were perched on her sofa, listening to some records, their empty dinner plates on the table, and they were planning the next few classes they were to deliver, talking about the new dance they were working on and discussing their options for the summer. The Off-Broadway musical gig wouldn't last the entire summer and they needed to find new ways to bring more students on as well as perform as hires in various places.
"I got offered to go to Vegas again," she told him.
Johnny tilted his head to look at her. "You'll melt there, Penny."
She let out a tired laugh. They'd been over it already the year before, when he hadn't wanted her to go there and had told her he wouldn't come with her, and without him she'd had no intention of going to the other side of the country. "It's not a place for dancers like you, Penny," he had told her. "They're not just dancing there, you know," he'd said and she'd had to agree, hearing the same stories about the way girls like her had been treated there.
"Not if you're there with me," she told him now.
"We'll manage here, I promise. We don't have to go look for jobs 3000 miles away, Penny, I promise."
It was then that the knock on the door surprised them.
Deep down she knew who it'd be, and as if Johnny thought the same and could feel or guess the way her heart sank, he had planted a kiss on her lips before she managed to get up and walk over to open the door.
Baby stood there, dressed in a smart suit, which told Penny that she just got back from work.
"Hi," Penny's voice came out hoarse as she opened the door all the way and let Baby in, gesturing with her head towards the tiny living room, where Baby could find Johnny sitting on the second-hand sofa.
Baby just nodded her head once and walked in. Penny closed the door, took a deep breath to brace herself and followed Baby to the living room. Baby had already entered, and she and Johnny were looking at each other. Penny stopped to stand behind Baby. "Do you want something to drink?" she asked.
"No, thanks, Penny," Baby replied, turning her head to look at the taller woman.
"I'll be in there," Penny told Johnny who locked his eyes on her. She gestured with her head towards the bedroom, as she wanted to give the two some privacy.
"No, stay," he said, but she slightly shook her head and turned to walk away.
She closed the bedroom door and heavily sat down at the bed's edge, burying her face in her hands, forcing herself to breathe.
If Johnny was going to leave for Baby…she didn't even want to think about it.
At first, she didn't hear anything, but then she heard their muffled voices as they spoke louder. She couldn't make out the words yet. But two minutes later they were loud and clear.
"Thanks, but I don't need your favors," she heard Johnny saying.
"Come on, that proud blue-collar routine is getting old," Baby replied loudly. "It's your money. You'll have to pay it back, all I did was make sure you have enough guarantees, that's all. Why do you have to be so ungrateful?"
In the bedroom, Penny stood up and didn't know what to do with herself. Her hand was covering her mouth, and she paced over to the window, and then back to the bed. Some of Johnny's clothes were thrown over the vanity chair and his black shoes were somewhere by what had become his side of the bed.
They were muttering again out in the living room and she couldn't hear what they were saying again for a minute or so. But then Baby said something that she could hear perfectly well. "You're finally sleeping with her, aren't you?"
Her palms shot back to cover her mouth. She couldn't hear Johnny's reply, but she heard Baby's words again, that were sputtered out. "Well, I hope you two will be very happy together." A few seconds later the apartment door slammed as Baby left.
The bedroom door opened and Johnny walked in.
Wordlessly, he walked over to her and took her in his arms. He pressed her to him, his fingers weaving into her hair as his palm nestled her head. He breathed in the scent of her hair and leaned his head against hers. She buried her face in his shoulder. Was this goodbye?
A moment later he tilted his head back and she pulled back too and they gazed at each other, still held together. "I'm sorry," he said and her stomach plummeted. "I'm sorry you had to hear this," he then added and she took a deep breath. She couldn't release it yet because she was still scared that he was taking his leave from her and going to follow Baby. But Johnny didn't go anywhere. He leaned his forehead against hers and his hand slid from cupping the back of her head to join his other behind her back. "You know I'm not just…sleeping with you, right? Right?" he asked, their eyes watching each other blurrily in this close proximity.
She nodded her head because this was what she was hoping he'd say, but to hear him say it again was a relief. "Will you marry me, Penny?" he then said and her head jolted back in surprise.
He laughed. "I'm serious," he said through a smile. And then, with a serious expression, his eyes piercing hers, his arms tightening around her, he said "it should have happened a long time ago. I love you."
"I love you too, Johnny. I always have," she said. He angled his head as if he knew she wasn't done yet. "But are you sure you're not just doing this to replace Baby? Because you're angry?"
"You're not a replacement, Penny, you're the real thing. The best. I've always loved you. And I'm not angry."
She licked her lips and watched him, she wanted to be sure. "Why now?" she asked.
"It's always been there, Penny, you know that," he said and she knew he was referring to the times when this thing between them had surfaced. "But I guess I should have gone through this experience to realize that what I always really want is to be with you, that no one else makes me feel the way you do. Penny, I…I love you, I'm crazy about you."
His palms slid up to her biceps and then to her shoulders as he was trying to hold her gaze so she could see it all in his eyes.
"But I've never…," she hesitated. "I've never inspired you the way she did, to be better, to know who you want to be."
"Are you kidding me?" he asked, throwing his head back. He then brought his eyes back to hers. "You inspire me every single day, Penny. You inspire what I love to do the most! Without you…," he stopped as if he couldn't find the words, "without you I'd be half the dancer I am. Half the man I am. You make me better every day and you've been doing it for the last twenty years." Her eyes were stinging with tears at that point but he just kept going, his eyes searching for hers because she had to break their eye contact, hoping that he wouldn't see the tears that were forming in her eyes. "Penny, look at me." He tilted her head up with his finger under her chin. "You know who I am, you know me like no one else, and you make me a better person without changing who I really am."
She was silent, fighting the tears that were clogging her throat. "I should've told you all this long ago," he said. A few beats passed and then he added "you're the first who made me dream of my own dance studio. Remember? You said 'why can't we do this too, Johnny? Let's do this.' I've never dared thinking or dreaming about it before, but you made it sound right. To be my own man, my own boss. Do it my way." He smiled then.
"It was just talk, Johnny, just dreams," she managed to say.
"We'll see about that," he said, still smiling. "So, will you marry me? Please?"
Only then she dared letting a small smile form on her lips. "Yes. Yes, I will," and by the time she said 'will' her smile was wide and a careful happiness coursed through her.
Johnny leaned in and kissed her long and deep. A few moments later, as if he suddenly remembered something, he darted towards his jacket that hung on the chair. She turned around to look at him. He took a step towards her, then stopped and got down on one knee.
Her palms were thrown to cover her mouth once again. He was holding a ring. The ring. The one that was Baby's for the last three years. "Penny Johnson," he said, his eyes locked on hers, "please have me as your husband."
Instead of answering, she took one step too and wrapped her arms around his neck and Johnny pressed his head to her stomach, wrapping his own arms around her. She then slid down to her knees and they were face to face, both kneeling down. He cupped her face and kissed her, and then, seriously, excitedly, put the ring on her finger.
She watched him doing it, feeling happy like she had never been in her entire life. It felt strange though, to use that ring, but it had been his mother's and she and he were used to reusing things, even when they bore meaning, because when you can't afford expensive new things, you use what you have and the intention is what counts, not the object itself. Life has taught them that much.
When they made love on the bed later, their fingers intertwining, Johnny stilled and brought their entwined palms between them, looked into her eyes and then on their interweaved fingers and the ring that gleamed through. He kissed her ringed finger and then her lips and then sank deeper into her, his free palm sliding along her body and over her thigh that was wrapped around him, as their bodies were entangled together.
"What money were you talking about?" she asked him later, when they laid in bed, his fingers brushing her shoulder lazily. Her head was resting on his chest and his arm was wrapped around her.
"Her bank approved a loan for me," he replied.
"What for?" she asked.
"Our dance studio. Yours and mine," he said and she could hear his smile.
"What?!" she asked, perplexed, raising herself to lean on her elbow so she could look at him.
"We will do this, Penny," he replied, smiling, and then added, his smile gone, "but it will have to wait. I'm not taking this money."
"Why not, Johnny?" she asked now, confused.
"A few months ago I thought 'why not try to check it out'. Baby wanted to give me the money, but I asked for a loan from the bank. They refused, I got it in a letter while she was still trying to get it approved. Now it was approved, turns out I have 'guarantees', so she came here to deliver a letter of approval, but I don't want it. I don't want favors," he said, and here was the stubborn Johnny she knew all too well.
"Don't be silly. We'll pay it back, just like I did then." She referred to the time he'd told her she'd be stupid not to take Baby's money and how she had paid every last cent to the Housemans. They could do the same now. They could. Take the loan, even if Baby had to interfere so he'd get it, and then pay it back later.
"It's a lot of money. I can't take this money," he mumbled and pulled her to him, kissing her head that he pressed to his shoulder.
"Why not?" she insisted and pushed herself up again. "Johnny, we can do this. We won't owe her bank forever, we're already doing better than before. And…and we've seen how the good studios are managed, some of the best ideas were ours." Her tone was hopeful, optimistic and her voice rose as the excitement in her built up.
"She wants you back," she then dared saying, guessing the reason for his refusal to take the money.
"Maybe, but it belongs to the past and I don't want us to owe her." He brought her hand to his mouth and placed a kiss in the soft palm of her hand. Her gaze followed his movements but his gaze was fixed on her eyes, and she brought them back to lock with his.
She then laid her head back on his shoulder, her face burrowing in his neck, inhaling his skin. They were silent for a few moments, and then his gravelly voice reverberated in his chest and she felt it vibrating under her. "So? Do you want to open a dance studio with me?"
She raised herself again to lean on her elbow. A smile danced in his eyes. "Yes?" she said for the second time that night, but it came out as a question, as if she was hesitating. Where will they take the money from?
"Is that a yes I'm hearing?" he smiled fully now.
"Yes," she replied definitively this time and kissed his lips.
"So we'll make it happen," he replied, kissing her, wrapping her fully in his arms and rolling them over till he was lying on top of her again. They kissed for a while and then he stopped. "Remember the names we came up with for our studio?" he asked, reminding her of their conversations on that topic that usually had just felt like they had been sharing a dream sequence rather than making real plans.
"PenJo", they said simultaneously and laughed.
"Yeah, we'll need a better name," she said through her laughter.
"Johnson's Castle was another," he said, chuckling. "I like this one better. It has truth to it."
"We'll find something," she replied, scrunching her nose. "God, I have to get up at 6," she added, sighing with frustration.
"Not so fast, Missy," he said, his lips teasing hers, then sliding to her chin and along her jawline towards her ear, where he huffed "we've got a lot to celebrate, beautiful," and got her burning all over again.
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One year later
She noticed the perfect place for their studio while she was on her way to meet Johnny at the end of a workday in Midtown. She passed by the building and the To Let sign, did a double take and then met up with Johnny and brought him there. The next day they arrived to check the place. They were smart about it – checked the history of the property, the owners, the distance to the subway and to other dance studios and of course the rent and terms and conditions. They made a financial plan with the help of the loan department in Baby's bank. Baby herself was not involved, but Penny dragged Johnny with her to Baby's office floor and they thanked her. It was two months after her visit to Penny's apartment.
Without Johnny noticing, Penny had taken the engagement ring off her finger before they stepped into Baby's office. She didn't want to cause more trouble and pain. The meeting was awkward for all of them but she felt they owed her at least that much.
A month later, while they were still working on the place to prepare it for opening, as it needed some refurbishing, they got married in city hall.
Johnny's family was present and a few of his and Penny's mutual friends, and at night the newlyweds along with Billy and several other friends went to celebrate in a Manhattan ballroom that allowed all kinds of music genres, including their beloved Spanish Harlem style.
The studio has been opened for eight months now and so far has been a success. They've had people following them from the other studios they worked in, and they have new students as well. They have even plans for a dance group.
They named the place Dance Castle.
The best thing about having their own studio is that they don't have to run around between different jobs, they don't have to take any bullshit from capricious bosses and they make more money. True, they bust their asses to make the place a success, they work long days, but they're working for themselves, not for someone else, and they can make their own dreams and plans come true. And every now and then, they still take performance gigs because they both need to be more than dance instructors, they both need to be on stage too.
Saving the rent on his loft that he gave up soon after they'd gotten engaged, has helped them pay for a bigger apartment, closer to the studio location. They can finally wake up at saner hours, drink coffee together and then head to work. They're happier than they've ever been.
She turned 31 and the thoughts of when she's going to take a break and have a baby is something they talk about. She wants to get the studio fully operating before she does. "Knowing how fast I can get pregnant when I don't watch out for it, I wouldn't worry about it," she told Johnny teasingly in one of their discussions about it, then started laughing when he jokingly made an angry face. "Let's wait another year," she then said, "trust me, it'll be alright."
"I just don't want to be too old to teach her how to dance," he replied.
"It's going to be a 'she'?" she smiled.
"Of course she is! A beautiful little dancer, talented and gorgeous like her mother," he responded and kissed her.
Yes, they're a bit cheesy like that sometimes, but she loves it. They've seen the coarser side of life, and indulging in tenderness is soothing.
She doesn't have doubts anymore, not about herself, not about Johnny, not about their future. It's just the journey they had to go through to get to where they are now, and they've gone through it together every step of the way, mostly dancing their path up. They can do it. They're doing it already.
Finis