Free Dance With Me by Hazel Hughes Page B

catching a butterfly with chopsticks.
    At eight o’clock she ordered takeout and got up for a stretch and a bathroom break. Peter had long since left for home, along with most of the other staffers. Even Frank’s office was dark. She guessed he had to have some kind of life, though in nearly six years of working under him, Sherry had yet to guess what shape it might take. Frank wasn’t much for small talk.
    She had just finished washing her hands when the ladies’ room door swung open, hitting the wall behind it.
    “Bitch!” Kim spat, her over-full lips twisted in an ugly sneer.
    “So I’ve been told.” Though her heartbeat had kicked up a notch, she’d be damned if she let Kim know she was the slightest bit ruffled. She turned her back on her enraged colleague and grabbed a paper towel.
    “Ballet is my beat.” Kim hit her hand against her chest for emphasis.
    “I guess you should have thought of that when you were racing up the subway steps in your Loubies.” Sherry wadded the paper into a ball and tossed it at the bin, missing. Shrugging, she turned to look in the mirror. She’d have to get Alexi to show her how he did it.
    Kim lurched toward her. “I’m not talking about that piece with the Russian dancer—”
    “Ukrainian,” Sherry corrected.
    “That was supposed to be a one-off. Now I hear you’re doing an exposé of the ABC, like you’re freaking Anderson Cooper or something. What did you have to do to get that? Blow Frank?” Kim was so close that Sherry could smell the jumbled mixture of all the products Kim used, like an explosion at Barney’s cosmetics counter. She had unusually large pores, Sherry noticed. Too much yang, her mother would say.
    “What I did, Kim, was write a fucking amazing article. Something you might try sometime. Just for a change of pace.” She had to brush past Kim to get out of the bathroom. Kim grabbed her, the talons of one manicured hand digging into Sherry’s bicep.
    Her jaw thrust out like a bulldog, she spoke through gritted teeth. “Something smells off about this. And when I find out what it is, you’re going down.”
    “You’d better let go of my arm, or you’re going to be the one going down, as in, on the ass of your emerald green culottes. I’m a black belt in jiu jitsu.” She looked at Kim, her face neutral, her eyes not blinking. She didn’t even know if you could get a black belt in jiu jitsu, but she was willing to bet that Kim didn’t either.
    Kim’s lip curled in a sneer, but she let Sherry’s arm go. Tossing her hair, she hobbled away, letting the bathroom door swing closed behind her. Sherry waited until she heard the bing of the elevator before she followed her out. Kim hadn’t scared her, exactly, just given her a little wake-up call. Being involved with Alexi while investigating his company was a knife-juggling act. Kim had just reminded her that if she happened to drop one of those knives, Kim would be on the sidelines, watching it slice through her professional dreams.
    Back in the newsroom, Sherry stuffed her laptop into her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “Hey, there,” she called to an intern across the room who was still hunched over his laptop. “You like Pad Thai?”
    Taking off his earphones, he nodded. She slapped a twenty on his desk. “It’s all yours. Should be here in five. I’ve got to go.” She had been planning to make some more calls before leaving, but the conversation with Kim had shaken her more than she wanted to admit. She needed to get out of there, ASAP.
    Two subway stops and a short walk later, she was back in her walk-in closet-sized studio. It didn’t feel like home anymore, she realized. Maybe it never had. It was just a place to sleep and change her clothes. Home, if she had such a thing, was the office. That was where she spent most of her time, where she felt most like herself. That was her safe space. But something had changed, and it wasn’t just because of Kim’s escalation of their