The door to Dana's apartment opened for Walter. At the other side, a girl with one half of her hair puffed up in curls and the other half with braids closely knitted to her scalp, received him with a wide smile despite another on of his unannounced visits.
"Happy birthday, Pheebs."
The smile grew exponentially with the use of her nickname.
"Well, come on in," she told him after he just stood there for a while, staring ahead like he'd lost something on her face.
The heating problem had been fixed, and a brand new black couch replaced the old one. The apartment was still nothing spectacular, and the location was still less than ideal, but those two details added a much stronger feel of homeliness. While he ran his hand through the thick and soft fibers on the armrest, an evaluating glance at the couch brought his attention to a video tape titled Buns of Steel lying on the middle of it.
"Dana's." Phoebe was quick to repudiate the object. "Thank God you caught me in the middle of this, and not that." She pointed at her head and then at the tape, joking. The mere image of the second scenario, with aerobics and lycra involved, caused an instant laughter in them both. "I suck at braiding, though," she continued in a rant. "My arms get tired so quickly! I don't know how Jen does it!"
"I'd offer to help, but I have butter fingers." He wriggled his fingers up high.
"It's aight. I'll get them done in time, I just gotta concentrate."
Walter took notice of her second statement and tilted his head while he watched her stand before the full-length mirror in her bedroom and fiddle amongst volume quantities of ringlets.
"You are going somewhere, then?"
A week ago she'd told him she had nothing planned for her birthday. That was why he'd shown up. He'd remembered her eighteenth birthday and was afraid loneliness may have been in play again like last time. However, her answer proved the opposite.
"Mm-hmm. Meeting the gang at the club later." Much later, in fact, but she'd wanted to get an early start on her hairdo. "You can come too, if you want."
It wasn't just not wanting to leave him hanging since he'd gone all the way to her place and make him turn back. The thought of Walter in a hip-hop club seemed too entertaining to pass up.
"Ha. Don't think so."
She pouted. "Oh, please, I'd like that."
"And meet the same friends who got you into trouble in that same club?"
"All right, man, don't get all righteous. I would just like you to be part of it."
Walter stood behind her to pick up the right strap of her denim dungarees and tightened it around her shoulder so it wouldn't fall again.
"In case I need to 'bail you out' again."
Phoebe made her hands into a W shape as if to say 'whatever'.
They got to Brooklyn ahead of time, still before the hour they were supposed to meet at, and Walter was not yet sure about going into Hips at all. Phoebe dragged him inside, made him leave his jacket at the club entrance and performed a few adjustments on his image.
"They are all looking at me."
"Of course they are, Cinderella." Coincidentally, the song Sexy Cinderella was playing as they went down the industrial staircase to the underground floor. His eardrums were thankful that it wasn't a hard-beat song at an obnoxious volume. "Just because you took off your jacket and rolled up your sleeves doesn't mean you blend in. You're a forty-year-old man in a hip-hop joint."
"I thought I looked groovy," he whined, trying to sound up to date.
Phoebe came to a halt as she decided something was still off. She ruffled his hair to save it from its own strict self-importance.
"Okay, first of all: nobody says 'groovy' since the 70s." She took a step back to see if his appearance was a little less up-tight. "And second: you actually don't look half bad." He looked 'hella' fine, showing his forearms thanks to the rolled sleeves, and showing the upper part of his chest through his open collar... but she wasn't about to fully admit that to him.
No diggity welcomed them into the dance floor, and Phoebe, who listened to it on a weekly basis, immediately joined in.
"Ooh, yes!"
Walter, on the other hand, looked like a lost golden puppy, so Phoebe helped him to blend in, conveying her leading moves to him by the link of their joined hands.
"Hey yo, hey yo, hey yo, hey yo!"
A woman's voice appeared in the song to a rap, which Phoebe accompanied in no time, spitting the words with the flow of a professional.
"You can't sing but you can rap?"
Phoebe shrugged and kept on multitasking between rapping, dancing, and teaching Walter how to move.
That was put to a stop when a silence, followed by a soft ballad-like melody- unusual for a place like Hips-pulled through, forcing the energetic dancers to adjust their mood and pace. The melody broke into Prince's The Most Beautiful Girl in the World.
Phoebe's head turned up toward the DJ stand, wondering what had made him incorporate such a drastic change in the mood. The culprit hadn't been the DJ, but Jen, who was staring straight at her wearing a devilish smirk. Phoebe shot her a 'seriously?' look, but the wink coming from her friend indicated she was proud to be the perpetrator of that ploy.
By the time she returned her focus on Walter, his hand was already out in offering toward her. Like a gentleman from another time, requesting the pleasure of slow-dancing as a means to impress, as if they were about to waltz in a classy, glossy ballroom, instead of the dark underground Brooklyn club they were in. If impressing was his goal as well, he'd succeeded, because Phoebe accepted in a matter or seconds, melding her grip with his. Walter brought her closer, so close she could smell the intoxicating cologne on his collar. Their hands remained in a clasp, lightly resting against his chest. At the same time that she reached for his shoulder, his other hand found the small of her back.
The roles had been reversed, because now he fit in better than anyone. And everyone else just seemed like a smear, a backdrop beyond the music.
"This is a little more within my comfort zone."
"Oh, I don't know, you did bust out some good moves earlier," she teased. His lips curled up.
Feeling the music and the synchrony of her dance partner, Phoebe leaned back, arching in a half-moon shale while he held her. With this hold he wasn't just literally keeping her from falling-he was emphasizing that she could lean on him for whatever she required, and whenever. He would be there, unconditionally. His dedication was not to be underestimated. It was one of the mightiest tools a devout man like him could offer.
On her way back up, instinct led her to rest her head on his chest. That emphasis had reached her and it was as comfy as a pillow.
If not for Jen jumping Phoebe from behind and spooking the redhead, the pair wouldn't have noticed the conclusion of the song. They would've kept on dancing, even through the tunes that the DJ resumed.
"What's the von Trapp dude doin' in the hood? Did he get lost?" Jen whispered.
Phoebe chuckled and pushed Jenny forward.
"Quit playing and say hi to him."
Jen threw a 'hey' in his way, which he corresponded in a similar way.
"Mr Cooperman." Sylvia felt tremendously odd calling him that while in such circumstances. The feeling was mutual.
"Just Walter here, Sylvia."
Phoebe could tell that the boys were also weirded out in their own way. They had to behave around a grown-up like Walter, who they knew was a man of the Law, in a sense. They weren't used to having to act under surveillance of that kind. Phoebe reassured them by stating that he was not there to chaperone and would be turning a blind eye to light misbehaviour.
Even so, when they headed to the bar, none of them dared to order anything more than a soda. Phoebe got one too-she'd learned the lesson-and a beer for the only one who was actually allowed to drink it.
"Those braids are weak, girl," Jenny mentioned, carrying out a raised voice in the midst of the music.
Phoebe ran her fingers through them. "Nah, they're just the way I wanted them."
"Aha. Did those wrinkly pale hands have anything to do with them?" Her head nudged forward to point at Walter.
They did. Walter's hands-which were weathered, but not wrinkled-had taken over when Phoebe's struggle with her own hair had made her arms go numb. For a man who'd never even tied a ponytail in his life, he did remarkably well.
Phoebe had never been so relaxed as when he was running his fingers through her messy hair, tugging lightly at it like he was afraid it would snatch right off. When in reality, it had been the best massage of her life.
"Jen, he's not ancient."
"He's not a fresh flower either," she responded with the high pitch of a master cynic.
"Look, if he was a man of low morals it would have already shown through by now." One arm was crossed over her chest while the other one gesticulated. "Not a day goes by that I'm not thankful to have met him. I would've never thought that a year and a half ago. Look how far I've come."
Jenny lowered her voice progressively On their way back to Walter.
"And I'm rooting for you, just remember to take care of yo'self."
Phoebe made a 'you got it' hand gesture.
He could be blind at times, but he was no fool, and was well aware his name had been mentioned at least once. He pretended to be impervious as Phoebe offered the beer to him.
"You know, Mr Cooperman, I've heard so, so much about you."
Walter briefly eyed Phoebe.
"Really?"
"Mhm: 'he's so tall'; 'his hair is like a summer field'; 'he's more fly than any movie star'..." Bringing all their confidential conversations out while imitating Phoebe's voice made an incredulous, stone cold stare appear on the redhead's face, which rapidly turned into a murderous one.
"You're going down!" Phoebe threw herself at her friend playfully.
Jen yelped and ran away, almost like she was actually panicking. "I'm just helping a sister out!"
Walter observed the craziness at a loss, deliberating on what he'd gotten himself into.
Ty tightened the durag on his head. "I guess I should go and save my girl from Pheebs."
The group chuckled as Ty went off into the distance. They settled down to enjoy their drinks, and watched Jen be dragged into the dance floor by her boyfriend. Phoebe had to desist and huddle up to Mike, Jake, and Trevor. Ben had preferred to stay back and be with Sylvia, Dana, and the 'old man'.
"Why do you all keep using me to tease her?" Walter asked, staring ahead.
Dana's definition of a sigh included a lot of grunting. How oblivious can this man be?
She tapped her chin, making clear her intention of irony. "I wonder why."
Potent reggae beats filled the place next. Phoebe kept in rhythm to them with the fluid movements of her chest and hips.
"Not a bad dancer our Phoebe, is she?" Dana asked.
A distant wave and a cute smile from the dancer in question found their way to Walter.
"She's fantastic."