Midweek Mayhem
Pt 2/3

Wednesday after work both Andy and Sharon had rushed home in order to get the boys in dance class on time. Andy had told Nicole it was stupid to get someone else (ie. herself) to drive through the town to drop them off only to have him drive after to watch the class (Nicole had had no problems with Sharon's request, she had only smiled wide and told him a yes straightaway). She had agreed, surprisingly easily, so it had been decided that this Wednesday's dance class was all grandpa time.

So, that Wednesday, when, not an hour later, he had arrived to pick Sharon up for their outing, she was already waiting outside, clearly excited. In teasing he had asked whose dance class this was anyway, hers or the boys, to warrant such excitement. She had coldly replied that she had thought he had always appreciated the time she had spent in dance classes. He had, very much, but never had he thought to say it aloud.

But she was excited enough for all of them. Andy had thought it was going to be two hours of getting bored out of his mind, then a little fun time with the boys. The boys were less than enthusiastic when Nicole had opened the door, even going as far as asking 'do we have to go?'. None of that mattered, for after the next twenty minutes of Sharon's chattering and smiling every one of them wanted that class to start.

Sharon made it up to the parents' gallery first, leaving Andy to get the boys ready. He had frantically whispered he didn't know what to do, but she had only rolled her eyes and told him to ask the boys. Not happy about the amount of direction he got from her, Andy had grumbled something unkind to which Sharon had responded with another roll of her eyes and less than caring 'yeah yeah'.

Getting seated and still laughing about the adorable helplessness the man exhibited, she didn't notice the woman coming up the stairs almost right behind her.

"Sharon!"

She searched the surroundings and her eyes came to land on a blonde her age.

"Uh, Carolyn. Hello."

"Fancy seeing you here. What is it, twenty years, and still the same places. We don't graduate much, do we?"

"No, it would seem not."

"So," the woman said, sitting down on Sharon's left side, "how's Emily, still going to classes?"

"Yes, you could say that. Professional dancer. Tina never went back?"

"No, God no. I'm here with Julie's kids. Mommy's too busy dancing to take the kids dancing."

Joyous over another girl making it, Sharon smiled.

"Really?"

"Well, not this kind of dancing, between you and me. But I don't complain." The tight voice told Sharon that 'not this kind of dancing' was definitely the point to complain about. Why, she didn't dare to guess. Carolyn dropped her purse on the floor and turned around with a cat's smile. "A professional, fancy that. She was always good. Hard-working."

Sharon's hackles raised. Why 'hard-working' was a negative in this woman's world she would only —

"You!" Sharon's head snapped around to see Andy comically carrying as much stuff as you would on a camping trip. He was not amused. "You knew they wouldn't need me there at all! They only used me as a glorified clothes rack."

She couldn't fight the smirk.

"Well, finally someone found you a job to match your skills."

"Not your usual opinion," he said with an affect huff, "And I have it in writing."

Sharon tittered and refused to look at him. Well, he did have that in writing, as unfortunate as it was for everyone.

She missed Andy juggling with the too many loose things, one of them being his jacket and tie (he clearly hadn't taken the time to change between work and leaving to pick her up).

He thrust his jacket at her and only when it was already almost in her lap, she took it. She heard him fumble with something, but being too busy to think if it would seem rude to change seats, didn't look up.

"Here, Sharon," Andy finally said with a slightly annoyed tone at her denseness, "could you hold on to these?"

She raised her eyes to see what 'these' were and on the palm of his outstretched hand lied his cufflinks. At that moment she had only four questions in mind; one: why did the man wear cufflinks to work on a regular day, two: why didn't he at least change his shirt, three: why should she take care of them, four: what did this look like.

She asked none of those, instead reached out to take them.

"Uh, sure."

Slipping the things in her purse, she noticed the scrutinizing gaze directed at them.

No, this was not going to just go away.

She sighed and made the introductions.

"Andy, Carolyn Reeves. Carolyn, Andy Flynn."

Andy nodded at the woman, still fiddling with the boys' backpacks and things (why he didn't leave them in the locker room, Sharon didn't dare to ask).

"Carolyn's daughters danced with Emily for... For more years than you need to know," Sharon added as a way of explaining everything.

Carolyn only stared at Andy, almost with glazed eyes.

"How's Jack?" she asked after a moment of waiting for her context clue that didn't seem forthcoming.

Sharon cleared her throat and looked at her hands — mostly obscured by Andy's jacket. The sound got Andy glancing at her.

"Jack's..." she started, but immediately paused to look for a good description.

"Last I heard of him," Andy said matter-of-factly, "same as always. Good for a laugh." Seeing Sharon looking up at him with a vacant expression, he offered a little misdirection, "Hey, did you have the car keys?"

"Of course I have the keys." She squinted at him. "Since when I don't?"

"Yeah, forgot the lady's always in charge," he joked, but she didn't laugh. Directing his next words over her to the woman he had been introduced to, he tried a boyish smirk. "Sorry, not a dance parent."

The woman still looked at him in a measuring silence. "That's alright."

Right then, the boys emerged and waved at the gallery. Sharon responded with a wrist-sized half-circle of a wave.

The gesture didn't slip past Carolyn.

"Cute boys."

"Very;" Sharon said with a small smile.

"Not Ricky's kids surely?"

"No, no. They are..." She looked at Andy to fill the sentence with what he thought best.

"My grandkids," he offered immediately, "My daughter's boys."

"I see," Carolyn tried to place the piece of information, "Your daughter's... Nicole?"

"Yes," Andy replied taking his seat next to Sharon. "Step-kids, but that distinction —"

"Of course." She returned to staring at Sharon, who exhibited all the signs of purposefully not noticing someone's scrutiny. "I'm sorry, I'm just... surprised. Curious." Sharon offered her a thin smile, which encouraged her to continue, "Is Jack totally out of the picture?"

"Not totally, no. We get together now and again. The 'you don't ask about me and I don't ask about you' policy has been working mostly well."

"I see." Carolyn looked between Sharon and Andy. "So you two...? Are you...?"

Are we what? Sharon wanted to ask. Are we sleeping together? Dating? Friends? Faking a relationship? Are we... what exactly?

"We —" she started, but was cut off by Andy.

"We are friends."

She smiled at the response. "Yes, we are friends. I'm here just as an extra pair of hands and to see the new generation of dancers. Addiction is hard to fight."

Realizing what she had said, she reached to squeeze Andy's hand. He didn't let her go so easily, rather flipped his hand around under hers and squeezed back.

Their moment was interrupted by the now-familiar voice.

"I think one of the boys needs some help."

"Yeah," Andy sighed, seeing the trembling lip the younger one was sporting, "I'll go."

However, Sharon shot up to her feet quicker. "I'll go."

"Sh—" Andy started, planning to thank her for her concern but anticipating a difficult, maybe tear-including conversation with an upset boy, thought it a little too much ask from her. Taking care of the boys was his responsibility first. His protest died at the nervously pleading look in her eyes. "Okay," he told her softly and backed it up with an encouraging smile and a nod.

He wouldn't have been surprised to hear a sigh.

Andy watched her trotting down the stairs. Odd, very odd. He hadn't seen her get so nervous around him, ever. Trying to run through everything that happened in case he had done something weird or inappropriate, Andy barely registered other people coming up those very same stairs or Sharon appearing in the room with the boys.

"She still does demi-pointe," the woman Sharon had talked to earlier said with amusement.

Still trying to think through their interaction (with no results, however), the words snapped Andy's focus to the scene below.

"Demi—?"

Andy thought he knew what the pointe part meant, on toes. Sharon often mentioned it. The first few times she helped him to understand with a visual, the latter times he admittedly played dumb just to see her enthuse over explaining.

"That heels-off thing," Carolyn cleared pointing to Sharon talking with the boys, holding the younger's hands, and intermittently pushing herself on her toes. "En pointe, fully on toes. Demi-pointe, on the balls of your feet."

Ah, so she did demi-pointe, a different animal.

"Hey, do you know does she do the full pointe?"

"Sharon? No, she's not a dancer. She always did the demi, probably to encourage Em. Or just to horse around like she does."

"She does have a strange sense of humor."

"With her life, no surprise." Before he could think of a way to get this — Andy forgot the name, was it Carolyn? — to explain the remark without prying, she laughed and exclaimed, "Look, now she's trying to do the Spanish fourth with the boys!"

He watched Sharon stand tall, one foot a step behind the other, one set of toes pointing left, the other right. It looked uncomfortable even before he studied her hands raised into a position like he had seen in flamenco. Sharon glanced at the boys tapping her chin up. The boys mimicked her, down to the patting of chin. When she proceeded to move, Carolyn laughed.

"I don't know why she's doing that, more importantly like that, and I hope none of the kids pick that up."

"Is that wrong?" Andy asked, since to him it looked fine enough. Even graceful.

"It doesn't make much sense."

They boys held their stomachs and giggled as Sharon dissolved into laughter. She pulled the younger brother in a sideways hug and leaned down to say something to him. The reply she got was a nod which she returned before letting go of him.

There was a tap on her shoulder and she turned around.

"That's the teacher," Carolyn told Andy.

The man said something to Sharon, she replied with a smile and shaking of her head. The teacher said something else, shortly which made Sharon still, look around and purse her lips before raising her hands like they were in what Carolyn had named 'Spanish fourth'. The teacher rounded her, said a word, two and she corrected her position. After one command, she glanced at the teacher and raised her heels off. A couple of steps and movements later the teacher nodded, addressed the kids, and Sharon relaxed and received applause. She smiled and made a theatrical stage bow before leaving.

"She got made an example of," Andy let out in a mixture of disbelieving amusement. If only he had a camera... And too late he realized that cellphones came with one. Damn.

"Good work, though," Carolyn appraised.

Not many seconds later, Sharon came through the door and received another applause. She smiled bashfully and nodded.

Andy's grin was wide.

"Nice work, Ms. Raydor."

"Andy, don't," Sharon admonished, clearly flailing between amused and mortified.

"What, honest compliment. You have hidden talents, ma'am."

Walking around his legs to her seat, she swatted his chest. Andy's grin only got wider.

As she had settled down, he leaned closer, lowering his voice.

"Was there a problem?"

"No, not really. He was a little worried that we were watching."

"Why, we've seen him dance before?"

"But that's a different thing. This is practice and he was worried he would mess up or bore us."

"So you showed him...?"

"I showed him if I dared to do that without warming up, without knowing what I was doing, with all the strangers looking, he should be proud of anything he did. And since I don't know how to do that correctly I needed to watch him closely."

At that moment he realized there was a great divide between her skills and his. If he had gone down, he would have said 'why' and 'that's silly' and those probably wouldn't have helped anyone. Maybe no tears, but no grins and waves while the teacher wasn't looking.

"You are great with the boys," Andy said, stroking her back. "Thank you."

Sharon flashed him a relaxed smile and squeezed his hand.

"No need to thank me. My pleasure."