Chapter Three: The Plot Thickens

"In 1979, my life was always out of control whether I liked it or not."  Rick Archer

LEAD ME NOT INTO TEMPTATION, I CAN FIND IT BY MYSELF

It was a cold, rainy January morning, the kind of ugly miserable day that Houston is known for in the winter. The skies were gray, the trees were bare, and the whole world was soaking wet.  The lousy weather matched my mood to a T.

As I drove to the studio, I was steaming mad.  Susie was out of town in LA.  She had left yesterday afternoon.  She was there to visit an old boyfriend named George. Take a quick guess how I felt about that maneuver.

Susie and I had recently had a huge fight. Susie had sized me up and decided I had husband potential, but not until I got a respectable job. Now Susie was disappointed in me because I put my foot down and told her to quit handing me admission packets for law schools and MBA programs. 

This particular argument started when I lost my temper and threw a pamphlet from the Rice MBA program into the wastebasket. Now we began another one of our weekly 'why don't you give up playing in the rock band and get a decent education' arguments. She wanted me to quit wasting my time!

I reminded  Susie I had an education. I had a degree with honors from John Hopkins University. Plus I had already tried Graduate School. All this had gotten me was five years of boring, depressing, dead end jobs in social work.

Now teaching dance had given me my first taste of real satisfaction and self-esteem since I had been kicked out of Graduate School in 1973. After pursuing my hobby of learning to dance for four years, in 1977 and 78 I had gotten a series of lucky breaks that led to the best year of my life teaching dance. And thanks to being in the right place at the right time, Saturday Night Fever created an opportunity that led to an important discovery - I was a born teacher.

I was good at what I was doing and I told Susie that teaching dance made me happy.  I had just quit my social work job at the start of January 1979 to pursue dance full time.  Why not let me give it a chance?  Heck, I was making more money now than I did as a social worker.  Until this thing played out, I had every intention of seeing it through. I told her if it didn't work out, I always had the option to go back to school.

But Susie wouldn't give it a rest. Nag nag nag. Go back to school and make something of yourself.  I told Susie I was sick of it. Knock it off. 

A few days later Susie announced she would be flying out to Los Angeles to see an old boyfriend named George.  After I asked a few pointed questions, Susie said she was going out to see if there was any energy left between them. She just had to know!  I can't say that she said it out loud, but I assumed there were no guarantees she would come back to me.

The coincidence between the timing of our fight and this surprise visit to LA was inescapable.  Susie had just put me on notice that she didn't think it was worth her time having a serious relationship with a dance instructor.  What a slap.

Today I was meeting Joanne at Stevens of Hollywood. A couple wanted to learn some acrobatics and Joanne offered to help.  I was more than grateful to accept her help.

However my problems with Susie made it hard for me to concentrate during the lesson. All I could think of was that I was a nobody dance instructor according to Susie. I was wasting my time and my talent. I would never amount to anything. 

Did I have a chip on my shoulder or what?

I was having a very bad day.  When it was time to go, I made a tough discovery - my battery was dead.  Joanne was parked nearby and noticed I having trouble.  She drove over and asked if she could help.

I had some battery cables so we tried to jump my car.  But I made a mistake - I put the positive on the negative and vice versa.  The moment the sparks flew I knew something was wrong.  Now nothing happened when I turned the ignition. 

Uh oh.  I was stuck.  Joanne had a suggestion.  She knew a friend who was a mechanic.  Why not give him a call?

He said he would be right over. Sure enough, 30 minutes later, there he was.  The battery was not fried, just a couple of wires had been singed.  He replaced the wires, then gave me a jump.  I in turn gave him $20 for ten minutes of work and he was on his way.  Wow, that was easy!  Joanne had saved my day.  I was incredibly grateful.

Now as I stood there on the sidewalk looking at Joanne smiling at me, I felt my bad mood return. burned inside. My girlfriend (?) Susie had insulted me for teaching dance, but this woman admired me for teaching dance.  Why couldn't Susie appreciate me for what I was good at? 

Joanne could see something was bothering me.  She asked what was wrong. I really didn't want to talk with her about it.  All I could think about was how grateful I was to Joanne for all the help she had given me not just today, but yesterday, the day before, and the day before that.

And now Joanne stood before me in the misting rain on a cold sidewalk, unwilling to go until I left first.  Her hunger was apparent. I knew she had liked me for a long time, but I had always kept her at a distance.  Not today though. I felt myself respond to her unspoken call.  The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - and we both very lonely. There were no guarantees Susie would be coming back to me. That meant I was a free agent.  Why not?   If Susie could have George, I could have Joanne. So I gave into temptation.  My conscience was clear. I invited Joanne over to my house for lunch.  I didn't live that far away and... Joanne accepted before I could complete the sentence. We had a wonderful afternoon together.

Sorry to say, let's face it - This was more an act of revenge than an act of love.  Although Joanne was thrilled at this unexpected turn of events, I felt guilty because I had used her to get back at Susie.  Joanne was always kind to me.  She deserved much better from me.  And what would be the consequences?

Little did I know at the time, but this afternoon's indiscretion would set in motion a set of energies that would lead to one predicament after another for an entire year.  And the trouble I got myself into starting TODAY would not come to rest for another three and a half years.  Furthermore, as you will see, I ended up suffering a great deal. 

The important thing to observe is that I relinquished the moral high ground right off the bat. No matter that I got my ears boxed as my reward for playing with fire, I clearly deserved everything that would happen to me from here on out.

As they say, I made my bed and now I had to lay in it. 
 

THE PLOT THICKENS

That night I felt very shaky. I bounced off the walls haunted by alternating moods of rage at Susie and guilt towards Joanne. I could not sit still.  Finally I decided I had to go dancing or lose my mind. 

Cindy had invited me to join her at the Pistachio Club, our favorite hangout, for a night of dancing. She had organized the evening with a group of her married friends and wished I would come too.  This seemed like the best way to escape my killer mood swings. 

Since Susie was out of town, I showed up at the Saturday night Disco unattached.  As expected, there was Cindy.  She was there with her husband and her group. They waved and beckoned me to join them. 

Then to my surprise, I saw Joanne was there too. She was sitting on the opposite side of the floor. She smiled and waved at me.  As I acknowledged her, I bit my lip with worry as I wondered how this would play out.

My first destination was over to Cindy's group.  As I sat talking with them, I soon noticed that Joanne stared at me with Cow Eyes the entire time.  Whenever I looked up, her gaze was on me.  I made a point to look at her out of the corner of my eye.  Sure enough, Joanne was watching.  I began to fear the worst.  Maybe Joanne saw this as her big chance.  She had a huge crush on me and I had given her a reason to hope.

I was so preoccupied, I never noticed that Cindy was watching Joanne too.  Cindy could read the woman's expression like an open book.

I could not ignore my conscience any longer.  I excused myself from Cindy's table and went over to ask Joanne to dance.  We were always a marvelous dance couple. Joanne was beaming at me the entire time we danced. This was her moment in the spotlight.  As we danced, we drew significant attention from the crowd.

As I walked Joanne back to her seat, my pleasure was tempered by Cindy's frown and crossed arms. Uh oh.  I sat down and made small talk with Joanne for a while.  After we danced again, I made my way back to the group to face the music.  From the dance floor, I had already spotted a frown on Cindy's face.

Cindy asked if she could speak with me. She took me into a corner and nearly threw a fit right there in the Disco!!  As she chewed me out, I noticed that both Joanne and Cindy's husband watched her tirade with obvious alarm.  Cindy was oblivious to her husband's concern.  Let me remind you that Cindy's status at this point was FRIEND, not girlfriend.  Furthermore Cindy was MARRIED, but that minor detail never seemed to stop Cindy from expressing her inappropriate feelings.

Cindy wasted no time. Naturally the first thing Cindy asked was if I had done anything to deserve Joanne's cow eyes.  'Oh no, of course not', I lied.

Privately I thought to myself it wasn't any of Cindy's business.  But this was a warning signal from Cindy I could not ignore.

Previously Cindy had enough on her hands trying to polish off a beautiful, powerful rival in Susie. Now she had to worry about sneak attacks from this new woman!  Joanne was certainly not in Susie's league when it came to looks and education, but in a certain way, Joanne was still a legitimate threat.  Since Susie did not make an effort to improve her dancing, she did not comfortably fit into my world.  Unlike Susie, Joanne was a dance champion.  She could spin all night and never get dizzy.  And with her long, slender legs on display as her dress fly up when she turned, Joanne was a sight to see on the dance floor. 

Out on the dance floor, Joanne didn't just fit into my world, she fit me like a glove.  Together Joanne and I were among the finest dancers at the club that night. 
 

SERIOUS REPERCUSSIONS

The next time I saw Cindy at the studio, I could tell she was beside herself with jealousy and helplessness. 

We avoided talking about the Disco incident, but I could tell from her cold shoulder she was still angry.  I had a fairly good idea what was going through her mind.  Cindy had a crush on me just as big as Joanne's.  But what could she do about it? Cindy's hands were tied. 

Cindy was facing a dilemma.  Cindy knew she was just as pretty and smart as Susie, she was almost as good a dancer as Joanne, she was far better for my business than both women, but she couldn't have me because she was married.

Once Cindy concluded Joanne had a crush on me, she decided to give this quiet woman the "Susie Treatment" too. Behind my back, Cindy put the word out to all her girlfriends at the studio to give Joanne the brush-off. 

Meanwhile Susie had come back in the picture. After Susie returned from LA, she swore upside and down that the magic with George was gone and that maybe I was right to pursue something I loved.  She apologized for upsetting me with her trip to LA and said she wanted to start over.

Caught off guard by her conciliatory tone, I agreed to her suggestion. As far as I was concerned, I didn't believe a word Susie said about George and her LA trip.  Not a word.  However, even if Susie was lying and she had strayed, so had I.  As long as we were even, I was willing to try again.

Meanwhile Joanne had not put any expectations on me.  I had told her that fateful afternoon that Susie and I had broken up.  Now that Susie was back, I at least had the decency to tell Joanne the bad news.  Joanne realized it was time to retreat to the shadows and play the waiting game again.  She continued to value my friendship and said nothing further about our encounter.  I felt like a jerk where she was concerned, but what should I do?  I shrugged my shoulders and crossed my fingers that we could remain friends despite my selfish encounter.

Thanks to my warning, Joanne stayed off Susie's radar.  She may have avoided Susie's intuition, but not Cindy's.  Cindy watched her like a hawk. Two months after that fateful Saturday in January, Cindy's clandestine dirty work came to fruition. Joanne's assassination took place on March 11 at our second big Pistachio Party. After the huge success of the December 1978 Pistachio Party, our dance students clamored for another event. Plus all the people who missed out on the first event wanted a second chance.  As before, Cindy worked many hours talking up the event and getting people interested. I watched Cindy in awe as she worked the phones.  One phone call after another.  She was so good at this!  I had never seen someone with Cindy's skill as a promoter.  I asked her about it. She said the secret was to keep calling even when someone turned you down. Don't take rejection personally. It was a numbers thing. People might be busy the first time, but if you had a good idea, they might take you up on it the next.  In the meanwhile, the more people you called, you might get a powerful word of mouth going which in turn would multiply the energy.  Cindy was the master. The night of party, I shook my head in appreciation as the people strolled in.  Sure enough, Cindy had repeated her December success.  She had attracted another crowd of 300 to the Pistachio Club.  What an amazing woman!  There was no doubt that many of these people were friends of our students who would quite likely sign up for one of my classes in the near future after the great dancing they would see tonight.  Cindy's work was sure to pay off handsomely. Early in the evening at the second Pistachio Party, Joanne asked me to dance. The floor wasn't crowded yet, so we did an impromptu demonstration that drew every eye in the building to us.  Joanne danced so magnificently that the whole crowd oohed and aahed.  Several people clapped in appreciation.  We left the floor smiling after a job well done.  However Cindy, the one who was responsible for the crowd being there in the first place, felt upstaged. She wanted blood.  When Joanne got to the sidelines, she was met by the frozen stare of Cindy... and the frozen stare of Susie too! I had expected a knife from Cindy, but the intensity of Susie's anger surprised me. Susie must have seen something too.  Why the hell couldn't Joanne learn to hide her feelings?  The woman's naivety was a real curse. I watched in dismay as Joanne visibly paled at the intensity of their hate.  Joanne hastily beat a retreat to a corner of the room. In a remarkable display of non-verbal cooperation, these two bitter rivals had teamed up to deal with the new threat.

Joanne froze up in angry silence. She put on her Ice Queen mask.  Practically no one spoke to Joanne for the rest of the evening. Most men were too intimidated by her dancing ability to ask her dance. And with that frown on her face, they didn't dare come near her!  Joanne looked like she was ready to bite someone's head off. The women left Joanne alone on Cindy's orders.  And all the people who were there casually did not understood why Joanne looked so unhappy. Nor did Joanne help her plight. She sat there glowering. I think she had just realized how hopeless it would be to keep caring about me.  What should have been a night of triumph for Joanne instead became a night of bitterness.  Joanne sat alone for the remainder of the night.  She never moved from her seat in the corner.

Do you have any idea how stressful all this soap opera stuff was? 

I just wanted to teach dance classes.  But this messy business with Joanne marked the first time I realized that Cindy had gotten her hooks so deep into my business.  I was starting to worry.  I didn't see how I could extricate myself without a huge fight.

Was the fight necessary?  In hindsight yes, this would have been the time to brush Cindy back based on her over-the-line jealous behavior.  But if predicting the future was so easy, then Hitler would have been stopped long before things got so far out of control in Europe. 

So I continued my policy of appeasement with Hitler, uh, excuse me, I meant Cindy.

A CALCULATED RISK

The sexual politics at the Second Pistachio Party had been a real eye-opener for me. This was the not the first time Cindy had shown her dark side in public, but it was the strongest confrontation to date. I had been stunned by the effectiveness of her ruthlessness. 

She wanted to be the Disco Queen and was openly after Joanne's scalp. Well, she succeeded. Joanne had been completely humiliated. 

The same month as Pistachio II - March 1979 - Cindy starting to teach dance classes for me. Up till now she had been my assistant, but she was ready for more responsibility. She was of course a great success as a teacher.  She was funny and charming.  Her students loved her.

Thanks to her efforts, Cindy had expanded my business so much that she had created a place for herself. The business had grown to the point where Cindy would teach a class in one room while I taught another class in a different room at the same time.

Cindy had begun the process of doubling my business. Where there had been one class per time slot, now sometimes there were two. Cindy had taken my dance program to the next level.  People were signing up for follow-up classes, e.g. taking Intermediate after finishing Beginner.  Many of them were there strictly because Cindy had talked them into it.  Talking people into taking more classes had never been a strength of mine, but I certainly didn't object to letting Cindy do it.  Due to my own shortcomings, getting "rid" of Cindy was practically unthinkable. But if I had judged my success by what I had to give up in order to get it, my optimism would have given way to a frown. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.  Cindy was starting to scare me.  Her possessiveness was off the charts.  And this crush of hers kept smoldering.  Would it warm my heart or burn down my house?  Would she be content to stop at being the "Disco Queen" or would she try to take things further?  As long as she stuck to business, we would be okay.  At this point I decided the sensible thing to do was let Cindy continue to help build the business and take my chances.  This was my bargain with the Devil. I was well aware that Cindy was becoming a dangerous double-edged sword, but I honestly believed she would never leave her marriage. In other words, I gambled that Cindy's marriage would keep her under control.

To my surprise, after the March Pistachio Blowup, things didn't get worse, they got better.  Cindy and I had our best month ever in April 1979.

My dance instructor informed me was now only available during the daytime on weekdays. He had become too busy with his dance company for weekends. I needed a dance partner for these lessons and finding someone with talent on weekdays wasn't going to be easy.  Joanne worked during the day so she was not a choice. I discovered that another woman did not have enough dance talent. A third woman stood me up. So I asked Cindy, but not without hesitation.

Cindy's days were free when her child was at school.  I had avoided asking Cindy because I was afraid of where this might be headed, but she was clearly the logical choice. It was a "Calculated Risk" and this story is all about Risk.

Sure enough, Cindy and I would meet for the lesson. Then we would go to lunch. Then we would chat.  We grew closer.  Make that DANGEROUSLY closer. No touch, but just barely out of reach. 

If you don't want to meet the bear, don't go in the cave. If you don't want a girlfriend, don't meet a beautiful woman for lunch.  One day I felt myself losing control.  I told Cindy that cheating was no solution. Our friendship was based on respect. The guilt that would follow would ruin that. "Cheating" was not the road to follow. I told Cindy that if she told her husband she was calling it quits and moved out of her house, then I would be there for her. But unless that happened, no Hanky Panky.

Thankfully, Cindy agreed with me. We had come very close to the edge that day. We were playing with fire.
 

JOANNE TRIES TO BACK OFF

Meanwhile Joanne had more than one enemy. Susie was growing angrier by the minute. One night in April Susie threw a jealous fit at me for playing backgammon of all things with Joanne.  Joanne watched us argue in the corner and got the message loud and clear.

After our "Talk" following Pistachio II a few weeks earlier, Joanne was doing everything she could to handle my rejection like a lady.  I would like to say for the record that Joanne was clearly a very decent woman. She did not deserve the treatment she received, but she wasn't flashy or verbal enough to stick up for herself. She didn't know how to defend herself, so her only strategy was to retreat. 

Joanne may have had strong feelings for me, but she had voluntarily kept a respectful distance from me ever since the talk I mentioned.

In fact, Joanne had even begun to date one of the men at the studio as a way to cope with her feelings for me. I was grateful to her for her classy withdrawal.

If the right hand doesn't get you, the left one will - Susie was the least of Joanne's problems. The real menace was the Blonde Tornado. Once Joanne was on Cindy's Threat Radar, Cindy never relaxed her vigilance.  Cindy went after female threats the way Knights of the Round Table used to slay dragons. 

Immediately bad things began to happen.

One afternoon after our private dance lesson, Cindy cornered me and insisted I find someone to replace Joanne Wilson as my assistant.  Cindy said Joanne could "participate", but she would be forced to the background. This meant Joanne's favorite source of attention - Being the Dance Diva in class -  would be gone. I put my foot down and said enough was enough.
 
I said until the woman crossed the line, Joanne did not deserve to be treated that way. I said Joanne was at the studio one lousy night a week and to leave her alone.

That's when I found out Cindy could not have cared less what I said. She took the backdoor route instead. Cindy had put the word out - don't talk to Joanne.

The next time the group went out Disco dancing on a Saturday night, Joanne walked straight into an ambush prepared by Cindy.  No one would talk to her.  Cindy had put out the word that Joanne was trying to get Cindy's job at the studio.

As a result Joanne sat alone practically the entire night. She was shunned by everyone in our group.  Despite the fact that Joanne had never done anything to deserve punishment other than look at me a bit too longingly, she rapidly found herself even more ostracized than before.

One week later after this incident, Joanne got another dose of the cold shoulder at a Disco called Annabelles.  Sitting alone for twenty minutes without one person talking to her, Joanne got up left.

Then the second shoe hit the door.  At the same time as Cindy was busy casting her evil eye, Joanne was hurt badly when she discovered she was being two-timed by her new boyfriend/ Disco dance partner.  It was more than Joanne could take.

In disgust at both developments, Joanne decided to quit the Disco Scene for good. She didn't want to ever give people the chance to play their cold shoulder game again and she sure didn't want to take the chance of running into her jerk ex-boy friend/dance partner.

 

THE HONKY-TONK BLUES So in late April of 1979 Joanne decided to turn to the world of Country Dancing.  Joanne made this move at a time when the Urban Cowboy movie had just begun its filming.  Joanne went "Country before Country was Cool".  With the Urban Cowboy dark cloud looming in the distance, Joanne officially became the only person I knew who had ever been western dancing.  She didn't want anything more to do with the Disco Scene.  Instead Joanne decided to make a retreat to her membership at "Joanne's Country Club" (along the lines of say the River Oaks Country Club).  Joanne may have been quiet, but she had a sarcastic wit if you could get her to talk. I actually smiled at her joke. Although Joanne didn't want to have ANYTHING to do with Cindy, Susie, or the Disco Scene, out of loyalty to me (I was still her friend) Joanne continued as my assistant one night a week.  She did this despite Cindy's constant disapproval (or maybe because Cindy disapproved!).  It helped that Cindy was nowhere near the studio on Mondays. However like I said, Joanne no longer joined the group for any after-class dancing. After class was over, I would head to the Disco and Joanne would head to some Kicker Joint she had found way out Westheimer, aka Sunset Boulevard.  One night I actually went with Joanne to check it out her personal "Country Club". I did it as a "scouting mission".  I figured, don't knock it till you've tried it. The dive we visited was as dreary a place as I have ever been to in my life. It was some dump with 10 unhappy people dancing at 1 mile an hour to the most awful music I had ever heard in my life.  "Yer Cheatin' Heart!" I asked Joanne if smiling was forbidden in this place.  True to her own sarcastic nature, she grinned at that one. She suggested I go tell one of the patrons some of my jokes, maybe cheer 'em up a little. I politely declined. That's when I realized Joanne could have me killed if I didn't behave so I started to watch my mouth a little bit. My visit came about the time when some of the Discos were first starting to change their stripes and go Western, but this was the Real Deal. It was an authentic Country Bar with a rough blue-collar crowd. Nor were the girls making any fashion statements with the latest Urban Cowboy outfits I had seen popping up around town. All I could think was "Thank goodness I'm wearing jeans".  One word from Joanne along the lines of, "This guy says Disco Rocks, Country Sucks" and that would be my epitaph. She had my life in her hands. The music was bad enough, but I was even more depressed when I saw the dancing. Boring!!  Side - Touch, Side - Touch, walk walk, boy's forearm locked around the girl's neck, girl's right hand grabbing the boy's belt loop looking like she was hanging on for dear life. Joanne begged me to dance, but there was NO WAY IN HELL...  I refused to participate. I realize she wanted me to show any sort of approval I could for her new world, but so help me, this placed was WORSE than my imagination had ever possibly dreamed it could be. Disco Dancing was fast footwork, sexy clothes, move your body, spin the girl six times, intricate patterns, beautiful women, flashy lights, gyrate to cool energetic music... This Country stuff was "girls wearing ugly clothes go backwards real slow to awful music/no one hand turns allowed". I quickly left in total disgust.  My bad attitude towards Western dancing had just grown much worse.  As I drove home, I remember being consumed by bitterness towards the entire Western scene that threatened to push my Disco Dancing to extinction. Disco was getting dumped for this?  I was beyond incredulous.  It made no sense to me. THE LAST STRAW A month later in June 1979 Joanne decided to go Disco dancing with us after class for old times sake. Now that I think about it, I probably encouraged her to join us. I missed dancing with her.  Although we came in separate cars, since we came from the same place we showed up together at Annabelles. This is where the ssqq in-crowd of the day was hanging out including Cindy. I did not know Cindy would be there; this was her 'off' night. I immediately headed over to Cindy's table first or risk being beheaded on the spot. Watching me come in with Joanne, Cindy already had a frown.  Put on your seat belts, boys and girls, there's going to be some turbulence.    Joanne went to a safe location across from Cindy.  Several people from our studio saw her walk by.  Joanne was still famous as the "Disco Superstar" in our group. Several people recognized her and invited her to sit with them.  One of the guys asked Joanne where she had been. Joanne made the mistake of telling them the truth. They began to frown at her answer. Unfortunately Joanne's interest in C&W dancing was way ahead of the rest of us. She had no way of knowing how angry many of my students were about the impending doom.  In other words, Joanne's new lifestyle was too far ahead of the pack for this group to tolerate. They didn't realize she had done it only to escape pain. Instead she was seen as some sort of weird traitor to the Disco World. Following a maudlin script that could have been lifted from a B-movie, once the Disco crowd discovered that Kicker Dancing was the reason behind her disappearance, they began to tease her about her desertion.  The people at the table began to take their frustration out on Joanne. Pretty soon the teasing turned to taunting, you know, the usual stuff like how southern zoos put recipes under the animal names and a quarter horse is what you ride in front of Kmart, and you know you're a redneck if you take a fishing pool to Sea World, etcetera etcetera. Furthermore no one would ask the little Country Leper Girl to dance.  Joanne felt the meanness loud and clear. She left shortly after.  The people were on the floor and no one was looking.  No one except me - I watched the whole thing in disgust. I didn't know about the taunts, but I could see Joanne's expression turn grim. Something wasn't right. Unfortunately, tethered by Cindy's watchful eye and disapproving frown, I was unable to come to Joanne's rescue.  I think that's what hurt the worst. She felt betrayed by me. As I watched Joanne's harassment at the Disco over her crime of going Country before Country was Cool, I knew Cindy had nothing to be jealous about where Joanne was concerned. But Cindy would not accept that. If I had come to Joanne's rescue, this move would have been akin to confronting your boss and your girlfriend at the same time. No way I was going to take that kind of risk!! The woman who doubles my business can also reduce it to rubble. I wasn't willing to take that gamble. Joanne was a pawn in this Passion Play that had to be sacrificed to appease the imperious queen.  And to say you never realized that a dance studio could have treachery the equal of Hamlet's castle?? However Joanne had taken her last lick as Cindy's Human Punching Bag.  She had had enough. The next day Joanne called to resign as my once-a-week assistant. I apologized as best I could, but I could tell Joanne was furious with me for not coming to her defense. Joanne had a legitimate beef, but if she had ever taken a step in my "tip-toe through the mine field" dancing shoes, she would have understood. This time Joanne was gone for good.  She went back to her Country Club and made no further appearances at the studio or at the Pistachio Club.

TRIANGLE ONE HEATS UP - CINDY TALKS ABOUT THE "IMPOSSIBLE"

Joanne was gone. Cindy had finished off one dragon, but she had started to wonder who the next threat would be.

Joanne's interest in me pushed Cindy much closer to the edge.  Due to Cindy's status as a married woman, she was furious at her helplessness to dictate to me who I could date and even "whether" I could date.  I said I was going to keep dating even if Susie was gone. But that didn't keep Cindy from trying to stop me!!   Furthermore Cindy knew I had mixed feelings about a romance with her because I had said so. 

Cindy also knew that Susie was almost gone because she got a progress report from me during one of our lunch time chats.  However in the back of her mind, Cindy was having one of those 'be careful what you ask for' debates.  Susie was so mediocre at helping my career that Cindy had basically isolated her as a serious threat.

Instead now Cindy was wondering if there was a chance that I might just find someone better for me if Susie was gone. Cindy had an uncanny ability to weigh odds and see angles.

Cindy decided to bring up the subject of moving in with me.  Sometimes I think she did it because she was worried some other woman might grab me first!!


WHAT DID I WANT?

I wanted Cindy to stay with her husband and work with me. That was clearly what I wanted.  If Susie and I couldn't work it out - and it was looking pretty bad these days - then I would look for another girl friend.

However because Cindy talked about living together, I was forced to seriously consider the idea. 

My romantic side said this was a one-of-a-kind beautiful woman who totally shared my vision.  Women like this are quite rare.

My cynical side said it would never work. 

If Cindy did NOT have a kid and if Cindy did NOT have a husband, then I would have wasted no time chasing Cindy. But those were two mighty big "IF"s.

For the record, when she first brought this subject up, I gulped. I was scared out of my wits.  I never thought she would do it.  But what if she did?


WHAT DID HER HUSBAND WANT?

What about her husband?  She said she had actually talked about it with him. He was getting so fed up, her husband's response was, "Good riddance. If he can afford you, he can have you." 

What her husband really wanted was for this nightmare to end. This was not only his wife going off the deep end, this was the mother of a small child who needed her.  Trying to see things objectively, the only thing I thought he might have done wrong was be guilty of working too hard and neglecting his wife a little. If that's the worst case, then shame on Cindy.

He was not a mean man by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, Cindy used to irritate the crap out of me by telling people how wonderful he was in social situations whenever people asked about him.  But that was my problem so I kept my mouth shut.

Perhaps his other mistake - the one he was criticized for by his friends - was that he did not put his foot down and simply say: "Choose. Stay home or we get a divorce. You lose the kid."  I can imagine that kind of brinksmanship would have been pretty frightening, but my hunch is it would have worked.

Instead - like me - he avoided a showdown. He kept giving Cindy more leeway hoping she would come to her senses.  In other words, we BOTH did the same thing. We both played a waiting game.  The difference was that he had a lot more to lose than I did, at least at that point.

Her husband was pretty fed up with his willful wife's antics.  He had asked her to quit the studio, but she constantly defied him.  He was getting sick and tired of watching his wife walk out the door to head to the studio one too many times.  He was disgusted with having to explain to his daughter where Mommy was going tonight.  In his mind, he had done nothing to deserve this.

He was extremely successful in his career, he was a great father, and he had certainly never chased other women.

He was a good man. I liked him and I respected him. He had to be lonely staying at home at night with his child wondering what he had ever done to deserve this.

If I ever get the chance to meet this man again, I would say tell him I am sorry and that this whole mess was the single biggest mistake of my whole life.  I would ask him to forgive me.  I hate myself for allowing things to go as far as they did.


WHAT DID CINDY WANT?

I have addressed this issue before, so I will be brief. Cindy wanted it ALL.  She wanted the dance world.  She wanted the popularity. She wanted to be a great mother.  She wanted to be married to her husband.  She wanted me all to herself.


WHAT DID SUSIE WANT?

Susie wanted Cindy to get the hell out of my personal life so she could see where she and I stood without Cindy's constant interference.  Sometimes I think Susie stuck around as long as she did simply because it irritated her to leave me to Cindy. Sort of like the dog who doesn't want the bone, but doesn't want anyone else to have it either.
 

SUSIE FLIPS HER LID On Thursday, May 3, I was sitting on the couch reading a book in the living room of her apartment - I had a key.  I was waiting for her to come home so we could talk. We had another bad fight the previous night.  I heard the sound of her laughter a long way away, so I knew she was coming.  Then I heard more than one set of footsteps climbing the stairs. Now I was wary. I watched in shock as Susie opened the door and walked laughing into her apartment. Right behind her was a man named Bob. Then she stopped cold. She was startled to see me there. Her face turned pale white with horror... probably from being nearly caught in the act.  Susie recovered quickly though by saying that Bob was merely escorting her safely home.  I didn't believe a word she said. I got angry. I stood up, tossed her the keys to her apartment and left.  It should have ended right there.  I shook my head. I had another cheating woman on my hands. This was her way of paying me back for Cindy. Me and Sue. That guy too.

Believe it or not, that night Susie decided to hang on to our relationship. In an act of pure desperation, she called Cindy's husband on the phone and they talked for an hour.  She had decided to blow the whistle on Cindy and me.

My guess is she was going "scorched earth" - if Susie couldn't have me, she didn't want Cindy to have me either.  She figured Cindy's husband would throw a fit and Cindy's little friendship with me would get toasted.

By some miracle, that didn't happen. Even more miraculously, Susie and I got back together.

First Susie swore to me that "nothing" had happened with Bob or was going to happen. He was simply walking her to the door (although I recall him walking through the door without any hesitation...)

Second, I went over to Cindy's house to assure her husband that nothing had happened (which was the truth). He calmed down.  By coincidence Cindy and her husband had to go out of town the next day on some trip.

With them out of the picture, Susie and I actually got along very well. Maybe Susie was right after all. Without Cindy around to meddle, we did make a good couple.

I took two actions. First I insisted to Cindy and Susie this bickering had to stop. They agreed to a "face to face" meeting to iron out their differences.  Next I should have tried Israel and Palestine, right? 

My second action was to write out a May 23rd "Agreement" that would serve as the ground rules for Cindy and me to follow. It basically said, "We will be friends, we will work together, and we won't touch".

Here are some quotes:

"Be best friends in the eyes of the world"

"We agree to be lovers in spirit ONLY unless permission is granted by both our spouses either actively by their word or passively by their departure from our lives."

"Act in cooperation with one another in our joint effort to build a dance empire."

It is nauseating to read, but you get the picture, right?  It meant HANDS OFF.  I signed it and she signed it.

In other words, the Agreement reflected what I wanted all along. I felt good about everything. Maybe now Cindy would come to her senses and start kicking butt at the studio again.  Maybe Susie and I would have a chance to patch things up without Cindy's interference. Maybe the husband would issue some head-turning ultimatums to his headstrong wife.  Maybe there would be peace on earth after all.
 

MY TAR BABY RELATIONSHIP No matter how hard I struggled to extricate myself, I just kept getting in deeper.  Once I let Cindy start helping me with my business, she became indispensable.  Once I let Cindy into my personal life, I just kept getting stuck deeper into a direction that could only lead to misery.  What was my mistake?  Where did I go wrong? I was ambitious. I was driven to succeed. You have no idea how important my dancing was to me. I was consumed by it. I loved teaching dance classes more dearly than anything I had ever done in my life. I had always wanted to be a teacher as far as a my daydreams in high school. I just didn't know what I wanted to teach. Now that I was teaching dance for a living, I was fulfilling my dreams. I was happier than I had ever been in my life whenever I was teaching.

I felt like I was literally on "Destiny's Train Track".  Call me "wacko" if you wish, but one coincidence and lucky break after another had occurred out of nowhere to get me to this spot.  At this point I honestly believed I was put here for a reason. No matter how screwed up my personal life was, I still felt like I was leading a Charmed Life where the studio was concerned.   So when a talent of Cindy's magnitude came along out of nowhere, I had a strong hunch she too was sent to me for a purpose. Sure enough, this amazing woman literally put the studio on her shoulders and LIFTED IT to another level.  She had people skills I could never equal. That part of the devil's bargain I don't regret. But like the main character of all good soap operas, Cindy was a deeply complicated woman who wasn't even sure what she wanted.  Or more to the point, she wanted it all and had the nerve to think she was talented enough to pull it off!!

JULY 1979 - SUSIE AND I BREAK UP

On June 7, Cindy and Susie had their "Summit Meeting". The detente didn't last long.

Two weeks later Cindy and I performed at a private party held at the Sugar Creek Country Club while Susie watched on.  This event provoked a three-day unending feud between Susie and me over Cindy's place in my life.

I had had enough. Susie had had enough. We should have broken up a month earlier when Bob came calling. Why couldn't we just throw in the towel?

Because we were both scared we were losing something good.

About this time Susie and I had seen a movie called "Swept Away". It was the story of a rich, glamorous and deeply snobbish woman who is stranded on a deserted island with a poor, ill-mannered, uneducated, unsophisticated man.  It is Adam and Eve all over again. But as the superficial veneer of "society" began to erode, they fell deeply in love with each other.  They were incredibly happy. Then one day a ship came calling to rescue them.  The man was very curious to know if their love would survive off the island.

The love did NOT survive. They quickly returned to their roles in society. The woman returned to her rich husband, the man returned to poverty and a wife who nagged him constantly. Society was more powerful than their love.

By coincidence, Cindy was out of town visiting her parents in another state over the Fourth of July.  Susie and I talked about our deserted island where we could be happy together.  We did some serious crying that night.

Then the night Cindy returned to town, she had the nerve to call for me over at Susie's house at 10 pm to ask an innocent business question. Yeah right.

Susie had a fit at Cindy's nerve to butt into our life. She went off on a tirade.  I couldn't take it any more so I left.

Three days later I ran into Susie and Earl as they were walking out of her apartment.  The fact that I kept running into these men every time Susie got mad at Cindy led me to a certain inescapable conclusion.  It was time for me to leave.


"Well, Linda was mine
’til the time
That I found her
Holding Jim
Loving him

Then Sue came along
Loved me strong
That’s what I thought
Me and Sue
That guy too

Don’t know that I will
But until I can find me
A girl who’ll stay
And won’t play games behind me
I’ll be what I am...  A solitary man"
 

Lyrics from "Solitary Man" by Neil Diamond, circa 1967
 

IMPASSE Cindy had managed her to kill her second dragon. Having watched her in action, by this point I was starting to believe it was true that "Whatever Cindy Wants, Cindy Gets."  Despite the dual handicaps of Marriage and Motherhood, she had driven off two women.  I have to say I was impressed. I turned my full focus to Cindy. In essence I said, "Are we going to do this or not?"  I assumed with Susie out of the way, Cindy was going to put her actions where her mouth had been. To my surprise, Cindy balked. Now that she on the brink of her "Leap of Faith" into my arms, she wasn't ready to make her move. While she was visiting her parents over July 4th, she sought out her father for advice. His words? "This man does not love you. He will never marry you.  Disco will be gone tomorrow, Dancing is a fad, and you are being used by a Playboy".   Ouch.

July came and went. August arrived.  Cindy still lived in her home. We began a cat and mouse game of negotiations. Cindy began to inspect me with a fine tooth comb. Looking back on my notes, her biggest fear was that I made promises of "goodies", but would I deliver?  In others, could I support her?  Or would I support her?  Would I be successful enough to duplicate the comfortable lifestyle she now enjoyed?  Maybe depending on the earnings of a Disco Dance teacher suddenly seemed shakier than before, especially since the Era of Kicker Dancing seemed right around the corner. In other words, she compared my socio-economic status to that of her husband and I came in second. Make that a 'distant Second'. She compared the social standing of my job to that of her husband's. I came in second. She examined our educational background. I came in second. She compared our "stability". He was clearly more set in his career. I came in second. In other words, once she pulled out the checklist, I was coming up second in practically every department. "Well, Cindy," I said to her, "you can't have it both ways. You married him because he was a rock, a pillar of society, Mr. Dependable, the kind of man people admired. Then you were attracted to me because I was fun, exciting, interesting, talkative, and risky. He is steak and potatoes - nourishing, filling. I am whipped cream - fun, tasty, delicious, but not quite as life-sustaining. If money is your goal, you can see I work hard, but there are no guarantees I can parlay this Disco Dancing into a life's work." She retorted, "If you ever intend to have kids and support a family, maybe you should think long and hard if this career path you are on can be more than whipped cream." "That's not fair. Now you're starting to sound like Susie. You want me to go get my law degree or my MBA?  Or go sell insurance?  Or get a job as a Radio Shack trainee?  Look, Cindy, I am barely a year and a half into this job. Your husband has been at his career for ten years. I don't know where this job is going, but you know I am going to follow this roller-coaster ride as far as it will take me. So if financial security is high on your list, go ahead and jump off the train now." And so the dialogue went. We went back and forth, back and forth.  She wanted guarantees, but I wasn't promising anything other than my willingness to work hard.  I mean, I really didn't blame her for feeling the way she did. Cindy and her husband had carved out a Sunshine Life. They were the Golden Couple.  It didn't make any sense to me why she would even dream of leaving it.  But Cindy told me I was the man for her, so I stood before her and announced my availability only to be met by indecision and dilly-dallying.  Her bad case of cold feet had rubbed off on me.  This whole business of leaving her husband seemed like a really bad idea. After all was said and done, a lot more had been said than done. Cindy wasn't budging from her home, but she sure enjoyed talking about leaving it. We were stuck and going nowhere. Cindy and I had reached an impasse.  It seemed to me we weren't going anywhere. And you know what?  I was getting tired of it. I was a free agent. I could do anything I wanted. I was about to take a very dangerous Gamble.

Chapter Four: We Meet Madame X.  All Hell Breaks Loose.