Free Drummer Girl by Karen Bass Page A

shoulder, assuming he had to be talking to someone behind her. Heather and her guy were swaying to the music – he was pressed up against her back with his arms around her waist. Her cousin grinned at her and yelled over the music, “Answer him.”
    Sid mouthed, “Me?” Heather nodded. Sid eyed the guy. “Were you talking to me?”
    He nodded. “Want to dance?”
    Dance? In public? Someone – it had to be Heather – gave Sid a little shove. The guy with the goatee must have thought that meant she had accepted his invitation because he smiled, took her hand and walked toward the edge of the crowded dance floor. He released her hand and started dancing. Sid stood for a few seconds watching him with a surprised detachment. He was sort of cute, for an older guy. And he had asked her to dance.
    She hadn’t danced in public since being forced to in gym class, but she knew how. She danced down in her drum pit sometimes. Alone. In the dark.
    This is stupid, she thought. Except for Heather, I don’t even know anyone here. What do I care what they think about me? Sid started to dance, tentatively at first, but then the beat took over. Except for breaks when one band left the stage and another set up, she was on the dance floor for the rest of the night, her partners a blur of faces. When the headlining group came on stage and the drummer kicked in with a hard-driving rhythm that vibrated over her skin, Sid threw herself into the music. She didn’t care that she was in a crowd, didn’t care or even know who her dance partner was.
    She danced like she was alone in the dark, the throb of the drumbeat seducing her to let loose. She didn’t even know how long she had been dancing when the music slowed to a sultry sway. She stopped in the middle of the dance floor and looked around, confused by the change in tempo, feeling like she’d been jolted out of a trance.
    A guy with dark eyes and a five o’clock shadow stepped close, slid his arm around her waist and pulled her close. Sid stared, shocked by the intimacy of the touch. He smiled. “I like the way you dance. Are you good one-on-one, too?” He started to move his hips against hers in time to the music.
    Sid twisted out of his reach. She trembled as she wended her way off the dance floor, looking for Heather and trying not to bump into any of the swaying couples. She found her cousin at a table by the bar, sitting on her guy’s lap.
    â€œNot dancing the last dance?” Heather asked.
    â€œI’m ready to go,” Sid replied. She picked up a half-full glass of cola. “This yours?” Heather nodded. Sid downed the drink. Heather’s guy pushed his glass toward her so she downed it. A coughing fit grabbed her and she leaned on the table until it passed. “What was in that?”
    Heather giggled. “Just a little rum.”
    â€œFunny.” Sid glared at Heather’s guy. “You aren’t driving, are you?”
    â€œNo. Dean is. Don’t worry, Miss Prude, he hasn’t been drinking.”
    Another giggle burst out of Heather. “She wasn’t a prude on the dance floor.”
    Sid rolled her eyes and sat to wait. The rum had burned going down; now a ripple of dizziness was coming up. Suddenly she felt like total crap: tired, sore, and thirsty enough to guzzle a fountain dry. She rested her forearms on the table and laid her head on them. What felt like seconds later, Heather was waking her up.
    She dozed again on the drive home. In her room, she crashed on top of her covers without getting undressed.
    The next morning she woke up feeling hung-over. Or at least she thought this might be what hung-over felt like. Swollen tongue, bleary eyes, aching feet. She wanted to go back to sleep but knew that Heather was coming over again.
    Sid stripped to her underwear and snuggled in the thick blue terrycloth robe her dad had given her last Christmas. In the bathroom, she