danceislove

“I’ll give you the short version,” I preface, pulling away foil to uncover more tortilla wrapper.  “Oh shoot - I touched the burrito.”  I giggle.  We were too impatient to wait in the bathroom line for mere handwashing.  “Well, with Jennifer, I was the one who screwed things up.  We had been teaching lindy hop together in Cambridge for a couple of years, and all of a sudden there was this hotshot from California who wanted to move all the way out here not only to teach lindy hop with me but also compete and perform.  I’m not sure if she was interested in that, but I was.  Jennifer and I never communicated very well, even though everyone thought we were best friends because it looked that way while we were teaching.  Anyway, we never discussed what my having this new partner would mean for us. I figured I’d teach some classes with my new partner and some with her.  But she was not having any of that, and she wanted out of the whole situation.  I was mortified, because I wanted her to be my friend.  So I went to her, groveling and sobbing, saying, ‘Let’s do whatever you want to do.  I’m sorry.  I should have talked to you about it.’”

“And she was like, ‘Not so much.’”

“Yeah.  She hasn’t really talked to me in 6 years.”

“She was really hurt.”

“I know.”

“One thing that’s weird:  when you ask a lot of people around here who taught them to dance, they say that they learned from you.”

“Oh, no, most of those people are not around anymore.”

“Some of them are.  My point is that when you ask them, they don’t mention Jennifer.  They say, ‘I learned from Liz.’”

“Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know,” Kendall says.  “It could be because Jennifer’s not much of a self-promoter.  She stays in the background.”

I push my half-eaten burrito into its paper bag.  “Let’s go.  Oh wait.  I’m absolutely sure I have stuff in my teeth.”  I stand up and, because there is still a wait for the bathroom, approach the large mirror hanging on a nearby wall.

“I probably do, too.  Do you have any gum?”

“Yes,” I answer, “lots and lots of gum.”  I return to the table.  “There’s a mirror over there.  It’s very helpful.”

As we speed-walk our way back to Garden St., I continue, on the topic of Jennifer, “I was so psyched she agreed to teach at Blues Cafe last time.”

“She taught there?”

“Yeah.  With Christopher.  I always invite her to do things.  I never stopped.  That was the first time she responded.  I was nervous about seeing her.  What would I say?  It was pretty funny, though, what wound up happening.  You know the high school kids I’ve been working with?”

“Yeah.”  Surprise registers in Kendall’s voice.  “I’ve taught them too.”

“Oh, right.”

I flash back to the night when I social danced with one of the kids and said, “Wow, what did you do? Your partnering feels great.”  She told me she’d had a private lesson with Kendall that day.

Now I say to Kendall, “Well, a couple of the high school kids and their friends were at Blues Cafe early, to help me set up.  People who are helping generally put their stuff back in the conference room, so they can have some space to get themselves together and hang out.  I was going into the conference room to get something, and there was a girl standing there with her back to me, kind of in the way.  I put my hands on her back and said, ‘Excuse me, sweetie,’ and she turned around and it was Jennifer.  I said, ‘Oh! I thought you were a kid!’”

“She must have loved that,” Kendall says sarcastically.

“She didn’t seem to mind.  She was so cute and petite, with long hair, like a kid.  She said, ‘Oh, I get mistaken for one of my second-graders all the time at school because I sit on the floor.”

“Jennifer and I dated for 4 months, the first time,” Kendall begins, without my having asked.  “Then we took a month and a half off, and then we were back on for three months, but it wasn’t so bad when she dumped me again because by that time I realized I could live without her.  I was too crass for her.  She wanted me to be politically correct.  Anytime I said something about a fat girl, she’d get all upset.”

Somerville
Two mornings after Babette’s party I open the fridge to get my leftover coffee, which I always store in one of the old almond butter jars that Peter would prefer I just recycle.  I’m still anxious from a dream in which I’ve double- and triple-scheduled lessons in different locations, and couldn’t call Peter to help me because my contact lenses had fogged over and prevented me from seeing my cell phone keypad.

I open the fridge, and unexpectedly a vision comes to me of Kristen’s big blue eyes: Kristen, looking up at me, discussing her immersion in follower technique.

Yes, she is smaller than I am.  And prettier, younger, a better dancer.  It’s over.

Two nights ago, at Babs’s party in the swing and blues room upstairs, I asked Kendall for a dance.  I kept reminding myself to breathe because it would make me follow better.  All of a sudden I noticed there was something on my head which turned my vision into cream-colored opacity.  The hat.  While in open position I self-consciously adjusted it.  Moments later I saw him lift it off my head and place it on his own, slowly, as he led me in a barrel roll turn past him.  I thought, this is the room where I first danced with Kendall, to “Blues In The Closet.”

Since the band had finished for the night, one of the musicians, the pianist, asked me to dance.  His lead was good, in the floor, inventive, impeccably timed to the fast song.  I focused hard on following, kicked big, jumped, and slapped the floor once.  I could match this guy okay.  I could hear Kendall whooping it up in time to the music.  Others clapped too but he was the loudest.  Maybe this piano player will be my new dance partner, I thought.  Oh, he lives in Albany.

Later I led Kristen in a dance, but badly.  I was not in the floor and the tempo was too fast for me.

“Next time we dance I’ll lead you better,” I promised, as she was leaving the party.

Cambridge
I drive Kendall, Teresa, and Jacques to Harvard Square after practice.  Christopher and Babs head home; she leaves tomorrow for Phoenix.

“I love this song!”  I turn up the radio, a bit, on AFI’s “Love Like Winter” after pulling a U-turn and heading out Seaport Boulevard toward 93.  A car honks mildly and passes me.  “What?” I react.

“You’re in between two lanes,” says Kendall neutrally.

Eyes darting all around, I choose left, singing along with the XM radio.  At the tunnel entrance, the light is yellow and I stop quickly, trying to finesse the brakes and avoid jarring my passengers.

“What a good doobie,” says Kendall.

“No.  I’m just a bad driver.”  Another song comes on, so I click over to WBCN, where Gavin Rossdale is emphatically telling us that there’s no sex in our violence.

Kendall’s turn to announce, “I love this song.”

“Really?”

“It’s on my gym mix.”

“I remember when this album came out and I played it all the time.  My boyfriend back then hated this music.  I couldn’t appreciate his more refined tastes.”

Kendall and I sing along with Bush’s “Everything Zen” for a while, and when the song is over the light is still red, so I glance at the XM display, mounted on the passenger side of the Corolla.  “Now this is my favorite song right now,” I exclaim, and hit the button.

Almost instantly, Kendall cranks the volume knob.

“Such a beautiful melody,” I gush.

“That part?” Kendall asks when it comes around again.

“Yeah.  It sounds like he’s saying ‘anomaly’ but the song is called ‘Anna Molly.’  Hear how the melody goes to the leading tone right at the end of the phrase?  It has a darkening effect.”

We get to Garden St. and I park in a spot just vacated by a guy who spent a few minutes outside his SUV tugging his waistband.  We waited for him.  “Get in the fucking car,” said Kendall; fix your pants later.”

“Where’s your megaphone?” I laughed.

Kendall began repeating his comment, pantomiming the megaphone, while from the backseat Teresa admonished, “Don’t give Kendall a megaphone.  First of all, he doesn’t need one, and second of all, we’ll never hear the end of it!”

“I’m gonna go eat,” I announce, as I emerge from the car on the street side and reach for my backpack, which Teresa is handing me.

“We’re gonna go dance,” she says, as she and Jacques start for the church.

Kendall looks across the roof of the car at me, face screwed up in indecision.  “Thing is, Chester’s email said they’re gonna have snacks and stuff there.”

“Yeah, but it’ll probably be sweets, and I can’t have sweets.”

“Where are you gonna eat?”

Think of something good, quick!  “I don’t know.”  Great.

“I’ll go with you.”

Kendall walks at a rip-roaring tempo toward Harvard Square and I match him.  We each suggest different food possibilities, considering or rejecting them based on what’s likely to be open at 9pm and on the path we happen to choose.  Although we narrow the field, indecision continues to reign until Kendall finally stops dead at the corner of JFK and Mt. Auburn, looks down at me and says, “Do you want pizza or a burrito?”

“A burrito,” I admit, even though pizza would taste better; I’m trying not to have dairy.  I should have made an exception.

We get in line at Felipe’s and Kendall sings under his breath while we both stare at the menu over the counter.  Then he says, “What’s chorizo?”

“Portuguese sausage.  It’s really good,” I answer.

Sometime after we sit down, the topic of his recent break-up emerges.  She’s a yoga instructor and sometime lindy hopper from New York City.  He told me about it after Peter and I returned from the Philadelphia Marathon.

“You seem to have bounced back from that pretty easily,” I note.

“I always do.  Well, except in the case of Jennifer.”

I swallow a bite of veggie burrito.  “She’s a heartbreaker, boy.  I’ve seen the men in her wake over the years.  Trail of broken hearts.”

Kendall starts asking questions, and soon I am summarizing the history of my relationship with Jennifer.

“The two of you pretty much started lindy hop in Boston,” he says.

“Well, we helped.  When I got here in 1997, none of the guys could dance with me the way I wanted them to.  So I decided to teach, but the only guys good enough to teach class were part of a different dance studio, to which they were fiercely loyal, so they would never teach with me.  One day I was on my way to a Frankie Manning workshop in Ithaca, with the guy I was dating at the time, Jeff.  He said, ‘Do you have to teach with a guy?’ and I said, “Well, no, I guess not,’ and he said, ‘Jennifer’s moving to Boston.  Why don’t you teach with her?’”

I look over.  Kendall’s plate is clean:  empty but for a few crumbs.  I’m barely a third of the way through my burrito of crunchy beans and burnt zucchini wrapped in a tortilla substance that mashes against the insides of my teeth.  “I could be done,” I say,” sipping hurriedly from my Diet Coke.”

“You don’t have to be done unless you want to.  I came here to eat with you.  It’s fine.”

“Shall I continue, then?”

“I know Jennifer’s side of the story,” he said.  “But I don’t know yours.”

This is just one of my latest journal entries. I wanted to share it with all of you.

Anti-confusion note: On a different blog I have written about someone named Alex (many of you in the dance scene know to whom I’m referring).  This is NOT the same Alex as the person about whom I write in this post.

May 14/ 15  2009
When I hugged Will Dailey after the show, he collapsed lightly into me so that his forehead briefly met my shoulder.  His black shirt and vest were soaked with sweat.

“Are you ok?” I smiled, when he’d stood up again.  “I know that takes a lot of energy.”

Will and the band had encored with “Laugh It Off” and “Down The Drain,” probably my two favorites, though it is so hard to say.  They really rocked those two out.

“Hey,” I continued, “would it be super-Velveeta if I asked you to autograph the set list?”

“No,” answered Will.

I gave him my light blue mini-pen and the set list I had nabbed from the stage.

Will returned the paper and said, “Listen, before you leave I want to give you a bunch of my little CDs to take to Spain, so you can hand them out and say, ‘Hey, listen to this American guy.’”

“Definitely,” I said.

“And tell Daisy I’m really sorry she couldn’t make it.” He hugged me again.

“Okay,” I said.

It would be a while before any of us departed, though. I reached the bar as Cormack was getting started on another round.  “What would you like?” Cormack nodded in my direction.

“Umm…. diet Coke and Johnny Walker Black.”

“Good choice.”  He bought my drink.  We clicked.  Ricardo came over and the three of us clicked.

“Cormack, how’s your music been going?” I asked.

“I’ve been playing a lot lately.  One, two gigs a week.  I’m really enjoying it.  Great stuff happening right now,” he said.  Cormack works for MatLab in Natick during the day so two gigs per week playing bass sounds like a lot indeed.

Somehow we got to talking about my blog and realized that he and Ricardo would make it into the first book.  I asked them what names they wanted.

Both men answered in short order.  First Ricardo, with: “Ricardo.”

Then Cormack: “Cormack.”

“You got it,” I said.

“Ricardo Montaban,” Ricardo amended, smiling over his beer at Cormack.

“I think that one’s already taken.  How about Inigo Montoye?” I suggested.

Ricardo began quoting quite impressively from The Princess Bride.  “I saw it in 1989!” he crowed.

“I saw it in 1988.  In the theater,” I bragged.

Cormack started typing into his phone, its bright blue light illuminating his chin.

“Cormack, stop texting your girlfriend!” I cried.  I looked at Ricardo.  “OK, ready? Unison eye-roll!”

“What are you telling her?” Ricardo asked.

“Just wishing her well on her exam tomorrow.”

“But she’s brilliant,” Ricardo pointed out.

“Yes, she’s brilliant.  She’ll do well,” Cormack murmured, his deep voice cutting through the bar’s medium-volume canned salsa.

“How old is she?” Ricardo asked.

Cormack cast his eyes downward.

Ricardo looked at me. “She looks about fourteen.”

“Yes, she looks very young,” Cormack said.

“It’s not nice to ask about ladies’ ages,” I chided Ricardo.

“She’s in her thirties,” Cormack capitulated.

“In her thirties?! Does that mean, like, thirty?” Ricardo exclaimed.  “Is she thirty-one or thirty-nine?”

Cormack just smiled quietly.

“She also weighs as much as a fourteen-year-old person,” Ricardo continued.

“That would be good for air steps, if she ever wanted to do that,” I said right away, hoping to change the subject. Then I noticed the guy with the raven beard and wide innocent blue eyes standing a few feet to my right, hollered hello and gave him a hug.  “Hey guys, this is Leo.  Leo, this is Cormack, and this is Ricardo, otherwise known as Inigo.”

We all discussed Will’s show for a while before Leo, in his soft-spoken way, said he was out.

“Getting on your motorcycle?” I asked.

“Yup.” He grinned and took his leave of us.

“He’s one of my students,” I explained to the other guys.  “One of my newer ones.  He’s also a new fan of Will’s.  He came to the latest house concert.”

“Yeah, I was sad I couldn’t make that one,” Cormack said.  I was in New York with Ling.  We went for her birthday.”

“Oh, that sounds so nice,” I crooned.

“When’s her birthday?” Ricardo asked.

“May 1st,” said Cormack.

Ricardo had crossed his ankle over his knee while sitting on the bar stool and I reached over and tapped his shin with my fingers.  “Hey, I heard you have a girlfriend!”

“Yeah, yeah, I do.”  Ricardo nodded vigorously.

“You met her in Mexico or something like that?”

“Mexico City.  It was crazy.” He laughed brightly.  “We were on a gig.  She was involved with someone else.”

“And you stole her heart!”

“Well, it wasn’t really working out.  See, she had been with this one guy.  He was on this gig too; he was in the band. They had broken up because he didn’t want to have kids and she did.  But then he changed his mind.” Ricardo held up his hands to make quotes in the air.  “You don’t change your mind about that!”

I shrugged.

“Anyway, so they were maybe getting back together.  But in the meantime, she was dating the bandleader of this band!”

“Oh my goodness.  She sounds like a hot ticket.”

“She is.  Well, she was married, and then she got divorced, so she was dating a lot of different guys, that’s what you do when you get out of a marriage, right?”

I smiled inwardly and shrugged.  That was what I had tried to do, Ricardo himself having been the first.

“So this one day while we were on the gig, we went for a 10-mile run.  She’s also a runner.  And she just told me everything.  She’s a talker, you know.  And then two weeks after that we got together.”

“So are you guys inseparable, like Cormack and his gal?”

“Yeah,” Ricardo admitted.  “We’re together pretty much every day.  She would be here tonight except she’s been sick.  I mean, she’s better - she went to work today and everything, but she still needs to rest.  She edits children’s books.”

My eyes widened in fascination and I expressed my approval.  Then I added, “Relationships are so interesting.”

“They’re crazy,” Ricardo laughed.

“Mine’s crazy,” I said.

“You know, my father said something really wise once.”

“He did?” said Cormack.

“Yeah.  My father’s a nut job!  But he had this one wise moment where he said something like, ‘You can be in love and that’s great, but the relationship is only going to work if you are in the same place and want the same things.’”

“What are place and things?” I wondered.

“You know, whether you want kids, what kind of place you want to live in, whether you’re ready for commitment, things like that,” Ricardo explained patiently.

All at once I recalled several different conversations with Alexander: both of us describing the perfect loft while walking Sharma to Union Square one morning; me telling him I might consider having a child with him someday; listening to him describe the beauty of his sister’s place in New Hampshire and then saying, “But I could never live there; it’s in the suburbs.”

To Ricardo and Cormack, I cried, “But love makes you change, doesn’t it?

They were quick to agree with me, but they missed my point, which was, might falling in love with someone inspire a person to alter place and things being referred to?  And if so, would that person still be the same person, still be authentic?

“My guy and I, we have a different kind of connection from what you guys have with your gals,” I said to Cormack and Ricardo.  “I don’t know if it’s going to work out or not, but if it does we might wind up having the kind of relationship where we’re in the same place for a while, then we go off and do our own thing for a while, but consistently come back together.”

“That seems like it would work for you,” Ricardo approved.  “You’re a very independent person.”

“Maybe that’s true.  I don’t often think of myself that way.  But Alexander needs his space.  Sometimes have trouble with that.  At first I really miss him, but then I realize that space is good for me too.”

Cormack looked at me.  “He seems like a great guy.”

I remembered that Cormack must have met Alexander at one of the house concerts.  “He is really great,” I sighed.  “Both of us are big flirts.  So, for example, this past weekend was a dance-event weekend. It was fun for me to flirt with a lot of guys, because -”

“Because now you know you still got it!” cried Ricardo.

I smiled in gratitude.  “Well, yes, that’s true,” I giggled.  “So that I know if Alexander ignores me too much he might lose me.  But also - I always realize that I don’t like any of these guys anywhere nearly as much as Alexander.”

In fact, in these very moments I remembered why I’d liked Ricardo, why I’d stood in almost this very spot at Great Scott ten months ago almost to the day and let him flirt with me, why I was unnerved when six weeks later he stopped calling.  Ricardo is much more engaged in the moment than the average numb person I talk to; he is considerably like Alexander in level of expression, in ability to pay attention and bring something to the conversational table.  His expressive face is just darling.  However, I do not have much chemistry with him.  When I say hello to him he shoots his left arm up for a hug in a way that is a little jarring.  For me, he doesn’t smolder; there is no intrigue.  Sometimes his high level of energy registers as a white wall under a too-bright light, showing everything, and at the same time nothing interesting.  In this moment, though, I liked him considerably and remembered why I’d considered him. I reflected upon the differences among dynamics between people.  How can it be so easy to flirt with someone with whom I have no sexual chemistry?  Or is there just a little of that chemistry?  Are flirtation and sex different stops along the same continuum, or are they different kinds of energy?

Cambridge
The next evening Peter and I have a date.  Arlington is fast asleep when we get out of the rock show, so we catch the 77 most of the way to Harvard, disembarking at the Temple Bar for hamburgers with gender-typical accompaniments:  fries, vodka martini for Peter; side salad, petite syrah for me.  The exposed brick, green lampshades and huge framed art deco poster provide a relaxing distraction while Peter is in the bathroom.  He always takes longer than any guy I know, except for a dance partner from California I once had.  He’s a bald black guy, and my best gal friend at the time used to laugh at him: “It’s not as if he’s fixing his hair!”

Peter is still in the bathroom.  I fantasize about running packed lindy hop classes and social dance parties with Kendall.  I consider running them in Cambridge and calling our events “Kendall Squared,” a play on one of the stops on the Red Line.

Peter returns to his spot across from me.  “What do you think those people are talking about?” he asks as I take a slow sip of wine.

“Which people?” I say indifferently, not bothering to look around.

“In the booth, behind you.”

“Oh.”  I turn, and almost instantly turn back.  “I don’t know.  Something boring.”

“Where do you think they’ve been tonight?”

“Come on.  They’re under 30.  How interesting can they be?”

Our burgers arrive, their steam inciting a delicious green smell from the half-sour pickle spears laid beside them.  I take off the top bun, and with my butter knife carve some ketchup out of the small, deep metal dish on my plate to smear on the patty.  I hesitate.  I pick up my fork and eat a bite of salad.

“This is a nice place,” Peter approves.  “Thanks for thinking of it.”

“I love Temple Bar.  So classy.  Look at these dark hardwood floors.  Perfect for dancing.  I want to run a party here.  I actually left a message here the other day for the manager.  Maybe he’s here and I could talk to him.”

Our waiter brings the manager to our table, who communicates a dubious response to my question.

“What about something like a Tuesday night?” I ask.  “If it’s a little bit of a slow night, you could get more business that way.”

“No, sorry.  We wouldn’t be interested in that.”

He goes away and I shrug, looking at Peter.  “That’s a bummer.  You know what I have to do?  Figure out if I know someone who owns a bar or restaurant.  That might be the only way I can get lindy hop into a place where I can have a glass of wine and eat something yummy, like I am doing right now.”

We chat for a few more moments, about the food and the events of the evening.  I consider telling him about my Kendall Squared idea and am suddenly embarrassed by it.  Instead I say, “Do you know who I find sort of sexy?  You won’t guess.  Carl Samson.”

“How so?”

“The psychotherapist thing.  The gloomy rock-and-roll thing.  He’s fun, you know?  And the laser eyes.”

“Laser eyes?”

I point the index and middle fingers of my left hand directly at my eyes, then at Peter’s.  “Attentiveness.  And he’s in good shape. He runs marathons, like you.”

“I think his wife Janna’s sexy.”

“Really! I could see that, but I she’s so self-conscious.  If she’d open up she’d be sexy, I think.”

“She’s attractive.”

“They’re two of the only swing dancers left who aren’t, like, twelve years old but are still a lot of fun.  Carl makes the best Cosmopolitans.  I love their dinner parties, don’t you?”  I took another sip of wine, then looked at my burger, still open-faced.  Who needed all the calories in that top bun?  Not me.

Philadelphia
I should talk to Peter about air steps, the intense experience they give me.  Flying through the air makes me feel excited and alive.  So does being lifted.  Held.  Thrown.  Contained.  Directed.  Forgiven.  The effects reverberate, persist. I thought about telling him the week before, but decided to wait, and instead we discussed Carl Samson and his sexy wife Janna.

This morning Peter and I walked toward the starting line of the Philadelphia Marathon. He said, “You took care of me last night.”  Runners stood all around us on the dry crisp leaves of Eakins Oval.

I couldn’t deny his remark.  I had done well.  A good wife.

As I rubbed his legs on the creaky bed of our spacious, antique-filled B & B, I had plenty of time to appraise myself:  travel-day yellow camisole, tight dark jeans, slightly oily hair falling across my face.  At just shy of 34, I am in the best shape of my life.  Wrinkles have arrived; my face is doomed.  But you can’t pinch much on my midriff anymore.  When I’m at Wave Health and Fitness Club, Seaport Hotel, Boston, where I teach clients and sometimes hold practices, and I go to the locker room and stand naked on the scale, it tips out at 110.

Jamaica Plain
Peter left Babette’s birthday party hours ago. It’s her 30th, titled “My Roaring Twenties: The End of an Era.”  I’m still here, at Christopher’s double-story Jamaica Plain apartment; I haven’t eaten dinner and it’s two in the morning, so I halfheartedly pluck a cracker from a three-tiered platter.  Crumbs and sticky cups litter the table, beyond which Kendall sings from a rocking chair, Teresa draped elegantly across his lap: “Kendall sees you when you’re sleeping/ He knows when you’re awake/ He knows when you’ve been bad or good, so be bad for goodness’ sake!”

Teresa responds, singing the first stanza of the tired Christmas song and ending with, “Kendall is staying out of town!”

“Ow!” Kendall protests as Teresa heaves herself up.

She walks off, whining, “Ja-acques!  Let’s go-o!  Kristen!”

Tonight the moment arrived for which I had been steeling myself.  Kristen, who came with Jacques and Teresa, from Providence, danced with Kendall song after song as the band played blaring brass in front of a tight rhythm section.  Every so often I looked away from my conversation in the kitchen to track Kendall and Kristen’s progress.  During Babette’s birthday jam Kendall stood behind Kristen, hands on her elbows, swaying her back and forth.

Kristen looks like me, a little.  Dark hair, petite, not a gorgeous face but not unattractive.  Then the fear hit me.  Kristen is not just sort of cute and a good dancer.  She is an exquisite dancer.  She may be smaller than I am.

She’d been in Japan for 4 years, she told me.  There had been nothing to do in the evenings but study lindy hop four, five, ten hours per week.  The classes consisted almost exclusively of followers, so they worked on connection.  I am in trouble.

I should have gotten a ride home with Lloyd, who lives near Peter’s and my Somerville condo, but I went upstairs to the room where people were dancing blues.  Kendall and Kristen were the only couple on the floor.  Her clean lines, tight turns and white ruffles gleamed in the low light.  Kendall did not show her off the way he should have; a dancer like Kristen deserves to shine. Kendall only made sure he himself shone, turning away from her, still connected, leading her forward, her only choice to copy his weight changes as he undulated his hips and affected that expression halfway between concentration and boredom.  Like many of Babette’s guests he had calculated his 20’s-era presentation, but his wifebeater, wide belt, and tilted gangster hat added up to an intimidating presence that made the rest of us - men included - seem fluffy and demurring.  I had to look away from The Kendall Show.  But this is the show Boston will be hosting as long as he is here.

Down in the gallery, where a wall of windows holds back the streetlit suburban night, Jacques flings Teresa through long fast partnered moves. His wiry body crouches and springs into the next trajectory.  Jacques can lift Teresa, and even throw her, although she is plump and curvy.  On the thin-carpeted floor, the two of them practice a trick that looks fun but not very difficult.  He bends low with his chest lifted as she comes toward him, her thumbs and index fingers forming opposing check marks jammed into his thighs, her head in his crotch.  At that point, he lowers his chest to scoop her around the waist with his right arm as his left hand catches her shoulder; then he stands up and throws her over his right shoulder.  The whole motion amounts to a forward flip for Teresa, who lands with her left arm linked to his right, her back facing his.

“Hey, Evelyn. Wanna throw?  We have spotters.”  My new dance partner, Kendall, stops halfway up the open metal staircase.  I have been standing at the top, leaning on the admissions table, watching Teresa and Jacques.  My husband sits at the table, counting the tally of attendees to our dance event.

“Everything is under control, right, Peter?” I say to my husband.

“Sure.” He half-smiles.

On black Cuban heels, I clatter down into the gallery.

“Jacques.  Show us that new throw,” Kendall interrupts Jacques and Teresa.  They do as he asks.

Kendall and I try a couple of preps and then he begins lifting me just a little bit.  Neurotransmitters zing through my systems as he inverts my body and rights it again.  On the third prep he pauses with my my back on his shoulder, the soles of my feet pointed at huge dark canvases on the gallery’s far wall.

“Don’t put me over yet!” I holler.

He doesn’t throw me, but just guides me over, setting me down behind him.  I giggle. He turns to give me a look that says, You don’t realize who you’re dealing with yet, do you?  Kendall is so strong that he doesn’t need momentum to carry out the whole trajectory of the move.

Now that he has oriented my vestibular system, I want to try the whole air step.  Jacques’s mostly bald head and little wire-framed glasses bob up and down alongside as he prepares to spot me.

Kendall and I begin in open position - his left hand holding my right.  He leans in slightly and gives me a little stretch away.  I take a big step toward him with my right foot, bending my body, aiming my hands toward his thighs.  When they make contact he picks me up and throws me.

“Fun,” I say.  Kendall holds up his hand for a high-five and I slap it.

“It was slow,” Teresa observes.

“You gotta come straight in,” Kendall adds.

“Yeah, yeah, Evelyn, you were to the side,” Jacques says.

“Really?” I open my eyes wide.  “OK.  Straight in.”

Kendall and I get back in open position.  I breathe as he stretches me. I try to relax and go at the same time.  He throws me again.

“Better,” approves Jacques.

“Yeah, that was faster,” I agree, looking to Kendall for confirmation.  He nods.

“Now we’ll dance out of it, yeah?” he suggests.

We do the move again, after which I attempt to just naturally bounce up.  In the process I move too quickly, not waiting for Kendall’s momentum, and I incompletely follow the simple free spin Kendall he has led from the linked-arm position.  I laugh at myself.  We throw a couple of more times, and I follow better.

“Hey, Kendall, is it OK if I go get Peter?  Maybe you can help us with one of our steps.”

“Sure,” he says.  “Jacques, Teresa, you guys wanna try this one again? I’ll spot.”

I flee up the stairs.  It’s already 11:45, late enough to clear the front table.  Who is going to show up and pay for 45 minutes of dancing?  Peter is where I left him, packing up the cash, pens, stamps, my mailing list.  He agrees to come down and work.

“Let’s warm you up first,” I say to him.  “We can do the monkey drill.”

In this exercise, the couple starts by getting into what some call “honeymoon position:” the way the groom carries his bride over the threshold.  With my left arm around Peter’s neck and my right hand on his left shoulder, I jump and he catches me under my knees while supporting my back with his other arm.  Next I have to push down on his shoulders with my forearms to swivel my legs into a straddle of his waist.  At Kendall’s instruction, Peter lifts his right arm so I can clamber under it and straddle his back.  Peter has to pop me up a bit to get my legs over his hips, but really the guy is not supposed to help the gal.  She’s the monkey and he’s the tree.  Apparently Kendall had girls climbing over him this way for cheerleading warmups at Boston College.

We work for 10 more minutes or so and improve one of my and Peter’s air steps.  Then I ask him if he wants to see me and Kendall do the new trick.  We even swing out beforehand, and I follow OK after landing.

“Alright, I’m done,” I declare gaily.  “My feet are toast!”  Jazz-ballroom shoes are cute but have no cushion.

Jacques, Teresa, Kendall, Peter and I tromp up the metal stairs.  It’s 12:10 and I want to social dance a little more before the end of the party.  Blues Cafe is the dream event Peter has helped me realize: a chance for social lindy hop dancers to experience a variety of music and dance in a studio with ambience rather than a YMCA gym with a sticky floor.  Peter and I run it together on the third Friday of every month.  Now he goes to work cleaning up the bar area, dumping the coffee and snacks, clearing the tables of dirty mugs and spilled M&M’s.

As I enter the hall again, I spy Fernando, the fellow dancer I hired to DJ.  “Evelyn, want to dance?”

A soulful guitar jangle sounds the introduction to a Stevie Wonder song.  I smile and go over to him.  Fernando is not the dreamiest lead in the world, but I enjoy his enthusiasm.  He’s chosen a good song:

For once in my life, I won’t let sorrow hurt me
Not like it’s hurt me before
For once in my life, I know love won’t desert me
I’m not alone anymore
For once I can say, “This is mine - you can’t take it”
As long as I know I have love I can make it
For once in my life, I have someone who needs me.

My feet swivel and shuffle and skip against the smooth, springy wood floor as Fernando puts me through simple on-the-spot turns, a few side passes and sugar pushes. The icicle lights glow along the mirrored wall and suffuse my vision.  I breathe in love and exhale gratitude: I am finally working on lindy hop again, dancing with Kendall Beckett, transformational force in the Boston swing scene, because he asked me.  I’m going to be out there.  A star.  Watch me, world:  I am doing my own thing.