Taking a seat at her bag’s table, I watch Yumi run off with Bo and Petter in tow. Right before she disappears backstage, I call out, “Good luck…babe?”
She looks over her shoulder, the corners of her mouth turned down in amused distaste. “Thanks, babe.”
Perfect. Totally convincing. I’d drop my head into my hands and groan, but there’s an extra pair of crew members filming the sit-outs, which is just me for now. Time passes excruciatingly slowly. The waiting really is the worst part.
Just as I start to reason that Matt and Morgan have either already blown through this challenge or picked COOK, I hear a voice pant, “Here! It’s here.”
Seconds later, Morgan bursts into my view. She dashes across the shiny wood and drops her bag beside me, grinning. “Love a dance challenge first thing in the morning. Which way?”
It’s a cardinalAdventureverserule that you don’t help the other teams, no matter how friendly they seem to be, but Matt and Morgan are going to body this challenge. They’ll finish before us, whether or not it takes them five extra minutes to find the dance instructor. We might as well build some goodwill with them here. Plus, I like Morgan.
I point behind the curtain. “Yumi’s back there.”
“Awesome, thanks!” she shouts, taking off just as Matt arrives.He looks at Morgan’s pack beside me and drags it away, sitting at a completely separate table. I get it.
“I’m surprised we got here before you,” I say by way of greeting. “Did you guys get lost or something?”
He arches an eyebrow. “Yup.”
Okay. I try again, meet him at his interests. “This seems like a fun challenge for dancers. Are you bummed you don’t get to do it?”
“No, Morgan’s got it.”
“Has she done the Argentinian tango before?”
“No.”
Have I made some sort of monkey’s paw wish that I’m not aware of? I get to be onThe Adventureverse, but every single conversation I have will be like pulling teeth?
The camera swallows every moment. I’m desperate to give it something besides all my awkward, non-couple-y interactions with Yumi, but maybe this is a good thing. The audience might just think it’s me, that I’m the problem. Noelle Breland: incapable of human relationships. Honestly, as a narrative, I like it much better thanNoelle Breland: wanted for breach of contract.
“What about you? Have you done the Argentinian tango?”
Matt heaves an annoyed sigh. “Argentine.”
“What?”
“The Argentine tango. You keep calling it the Argentinian tango. It’s the Argentine tango.”
It feels culturally insensitive to ask what the difference is, so I just assume Matt is right.
Noelle Breland: incapable of human relationships, also culturally illiterate American swine.
I’m almost tempted to press him on whether or not he’s done theArgentinetango, but I decide to drop it. Thankfully, what has to be less than two minutes later, Morgan emerges from behind the curtain, trailed by a man in all black.
She strikes a dramatic pose in her shiny heels and a gold sequined gown, slit all the way up the thigh. And Matt, as I’ve come to expect, transforms into a completely different person. He wolf whistles as sultry violin strains begin playing from speakers out of sight.
Despite the literal seconds she took to learn this tango, Morgan performs it like she’s known it her whole life. She moves like a whip spun overhead, the tension of a smooth glide building to an inevitable sharp crack. Then a change of direction before the pattern starts again. It’s hypnotic.
I glance over at Matt as his girlfriend slides her bare leg up another man’s body. I guess I expected to see some degree of jealousy, but instead I find him…clucking? His head bobs up and down, narrowed eyes flicking around like he’s participating in a conversation I can’t hear. As his lips pop open and closed wordlessly, he produces a guttural sound. I think he’s counting? But it could also just be a really good chicken impression.
The second the music ends, Matt doesn’t even wait for the instructor’s approval; he knows they’re good to go. He stands, taking both of their packs with him and grinning ear to ear.
Morgan fluidly steps out of her ending pose, a deep dip withher head thrown back, and shakes the instructor’s hand. He seems surprised at how well she did, and he must say as much because I hear her respond, “Yes, I do, but not tango. Have you always—”
“Morg,” Matt interrupts sternly. “Pitter-patter.”
“Sorry, let’s get at ’er,” Morgan returns with a sheepish smile, no trace of the annoyance that I would’ve felt had Yumi spoken to me the same way. I know, purely from the look on her face, that they’re on the same page—that they both knew Morgan would need to be rescued from her friendly conversationalist self.
