“Welcome to the premiere of season 18 of Dancing With the Stars!” announced the discombobulated voice over the speakers.
“Hello, I’m Tom Bergeron and this is Erin Andrews,” Tom said.
I took a couple deep breaths, trying to dispel my nervousness, tuning out Tom and Erin as they introduced the cast.
“You’ll do great, Mer,” Sharna reassured me as she rushed over to Charlie.
“Thanks,” I replied, trying to channel some confidence into my voice. Where was Maks?
He still hadn’t made an appearance as the rest of the cast made their way up to the skybox.
“You coming, Mer?” Charlie noticed me lagging behind. I nodded and followed him, glancing over my shoulder every two seconds as I did so.
“He’ll be here soon, I saw him in the dressing rooms. Now stop looking over your shoulder like a lovesick puppy! What happened to Fedor?” Frick. I shrugged my shoulders, trying to ignore the terrible realization that had settled over me: I had completely forgotten about Fedor for the last two weeks.
“I’ll be up in a second,” I assured Charlie, grabbing my phone and making a beeline for the changing rooms.
I found Fedor’s contact and pressed the phone icon. He picked up on the first ring, making me feel even more guilty.
“Hi, babe, I’ve been really busy in the past two weeks and Maks has been pushing me really hard so I’ve been to tired to call-” not really the truth but it was the best excuse I could come up with “-but I promise I’ll call you once I get home after the show. Sorry, I have to go, bye,” I forced the words out of my mouth as quickly as possible, not giving him a chance to speak.
I looked out of the dressing room, realized that we were in the middle of a commercial break, and sprinted up to the skybox.
“Nene and Tony just danced,” Charlie whispered helpfully as I took my place in between him and Maks. I nodded in acknowledgement as Tom announced that we would be live again in “three...two...one.”
I watched attentively as they received their scores - sevens across the board - and James and Peta performed their foxtrot - earning themselves the same score as the aforementioned couple. Danica and Val’s foxtrot - scoring straight eights and putting them in the lead - was followed by Sean and Karina who scored a 20 on their contemporary dance. Billy Dee and Emma were given a 15 - the lowest score of the competition so far - and then Maks and I were up.
“Last month, our next star and her partner brought back the gold for ice dancing in the winter olympics,” announced Tom. “Tonight, they square off against each other for the first time. It’s Olympic champion Meryl Davis and her partner, the notoriously camera-shy Maksim Chmerkovskiy.”
We smiled and waved at the camera as the introduction/rehearsal package began to play. I blocked it out, instead running through our dance in my head as Maks and I took our starting positions.
By the time the cameras settled back on me, I was standing next to Charlie.
“Dancing the cha cha cha, Meryl Davis and her partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy,” the disembodied voice declared.
I took a deep breath as Maks grabbed my hand and our music started and we ran onto the dance floor...
We always dreamed about this better life, this better life
We always felt it coming all along, yeah, all along
We got the keys to open paradise, yeah, paradise
Now let’s go walking hand and hand
