Free Ralph's Party by Lisa Jewell

looking, glowing with health and vitality; al the stuff that had waved goodbye to Siobhan years before. And she had such lovely hair.
    It was Karl's leaving party at the Sol y Sombra, just a few drinks with his students, some of whom he'd been teaching for five years, to wish him luck in his glittering new career.
    'She's one of my students, didn't I tel you?' Karl was drinking from a bottle of lager.
    Definitely not. 'I don't think so. You might have, I don't remember.'
    Cheri didn't realy strike Siobhan as the Ceroc type, she seemed more aerobic, more of a sweating-at-the-gym sort of girl.
    'She's very, very good actualy. She was my partner for a while, after you stopped coming.'
    'Oh, realy.' A filthy flash of unaccustomed jealousy pierced her stomach. Brightly, brightly, keep smiling, Siobhan; don't let him know you're jealous.
    'You realy don't like her, do you?' Karl asked unexpectedly.
    'Wel, I mean, I don't know her. She just doesn't seem like a particularly nice girl, that's al. Not realy my! type. She doesn't pass the Pub Test.' Karl knew about Siobhan's Pub Test; it was her way of ascertaining whether or not a girl was her type. She imagined being in a pub with the girl in question. If she could envisage sharing a couple of pints, a bag of crisps and some easy chat with her, she passed; if not, she was happily consigned to the not-my-sort-of girl pile.

    'Yeah, I don't like her either.'
    Briliant! 'Oh realy, I thought you thought she was al right.'
    'No, you were right, Shuv. She's a selfish cow. I didn't even invite her tonight, one of the other girls did.'
    'So what don't you like about her?' Siobhan's curiosity was aflame.
    She wasn't used to Karl forming such forthright opinions about people, doing vindictive things like deliberately not inviting people to parties, caling people 'selfish cows'.
    'I don't know. I just agree with you, that's al. There's something about her I don't like. I can't put my finger on it.' In fact, Karl was furious. He'd told the little bitch not to come tonight and she'd promised she wouldn't.
    'Why would I want to come to some sad little drinks with al those sad little Ceroc people? Don't worry. Bring your fat girlfriend —
    she'l be safe, I promise you.'
    And now here she was, dressed up to the nines in some skin-tight black cotton dress with a low-cut back, drinking lager from a glass and flirting with poor Joe Thomas, the permanently sweaty looking bank clerk with the Buddy Holy glasses and too much Brylcream, who looked as if he was about to die of entirely unconcealed excitement.
    Karl couldn't remember who'd started this whole mess any more. Obviously he'd noticed Cheri—any man would notice Cheri. But then, life was ful of women to be noticed; if you started doomed affairs with al of them you'd never get anywhere. Picking up women wasn't Karl's style. It must have been Cheri.
    He'd bumped into her one day at the front door, struggling for her key. He'd just got back from a dance class, so he had on al his fifties gear, and she'd asked him if he'd been to a fancy-dress party.
    When he'd explained about Ceroc, she told him that she was a dancer, that she'd trained as a balerina until she was twenty, that she loved rock 'n' rol, her father had taught her to jive as a child.
    So Karl had invited her along to the Sol y Sombra, and she'd come.
    In retrospect, knowing what sort of a girl she was, she'd probably been flirting like mad with him then, sending out frantic sexual signals that he - honestly — had been completely oblivious to.
    It wasn't until the first time he danced with her that he felt anything beyond a purely aesthetic appreciation of her. She was quite simply the best dancing partner he'd ever had. Her classical training added beauty and grace to the most basic Ceroc moves and she felt like a holow dol, light and effortless, feathery and feminine. Ceroc was a man-led dance, and she folowed his moves almost telepathicaly, injecting just the right amount of energy and