"You're quite welcome," he told her.
"Anyway, we're sending Tris to the Nationals," Roger went on.
Linda turned, looked up at the boy and said "Congratulations!" Dancers who did well in the Nationals went places.
Both men gazed at Linda expectantly. "What?" she asked, sensing they were up to something.
Roger smirked conspiratorially and said "I want you to be his partner."
She couldn't believe what she heard and was unable to speak for a few moments.
When she caught her breath she said "Rog! I'm old enough to be his mother!"
He seemed to have rehearsed his responses. "You're one of the best dancers here."
She looked back and forth between them. "I think you're both crazy. Wouldn't you be better off pairing up with one of those gorgeous lady instructors?"
"The Nationals discourages instructor/instructor pairs. You know that."
"And besides, I think you're gorgeous, too."
Linda felt like tipping a cigar, Groucho Marx style and saying something like And I think you're nearsighted.Instead, she announced "Next month, I'm going to be fifty-eight years old!"
Roger and Tris looked at each other. "Cassandra Peterson was doing Elvira, Mistress of the Dark well into her sixties, and wasn't Cher sixty-five when she played Catwoman?"
"Good examples," Linda said, laughing. "A Halloween Scream queen and a Hollywood ho. Besides, Roger, I couldn't afford all those lessons it would take!"
He raised a hand, as if to quell her fears. "We've got that covered. I'd make you a staff member. It wouldn't cost you a red cent."
Both men smiled at her. Linda shook her head. "I still think you're both crazy."
Roger murmured "You can do this."
Linda looked up at Tristan, realizing at that moment that he looked like the mysterious gentleman in the marble hall, if a bit younger. "Okay," she said "I hope you know what you're getting yourselves in for."
The two men high-fived each other and then hugged her.
Linda waited until Sunday to break the news to Stephen. He snickered and said "Is it a geriatric dance contest or what?" When Linda loudly protested, he claimed he was kidding and tell her to go for it, to knock herself out, because none of it would cost him a dime.
She knew that for the nationals, she would have to wear a skimpy, revealing costume.
All the women wore clinging spandex and high leg slits. She would, too, and she wanted to look good. Using her decades of health knowledge, she put herself on a one-thousand calorie diet and otherwise lived off of icewater. Along with working the same nursing shifts she always did, and logging hours on the health lines the same way she had for more than a decade, she drove to the studio three times a week for grueling choreography and conditioning workouts.