Lessons

The woman who did not know how to dance moved in with the dance instructor on a lazy Tuesday. It was one of those decisions that did not require a long and obtuse deliberation. She was always a practical girl and was never given to romantic expeditions. It just so happened that during the time that she met him, she was in need of an apartment. The third time that they saw each other he proposed (over coffee) that she move in because he had lots of room to spare, so she did.

He admits that he was initially drawn to her because she claimed that she did not know how to dance. When she said it the first time (that Tuesday, when they first met), he thought she was merely being coy and was just trying to get his attention. Surely at this day and age, everyone knew how to dance. To him, it was no longer an art form but a different kind of breathing, of making love. Someone like her made him suddenly unsure. He asked her to stay with him to see if he could make her learn how.

He puts on an old record. She watches the disk whirl until she becomes slightly dizzy. "There's nothing to it really," he says. He demonstrates by swaying his hips. She tries to do it but she looks like she's just pointing at something.

"Listen to the beat,” he says. He moves with the music and closes his eyes. For a moment, he loses himself and forgets that she is there. When he opens his eyes, he sees her staring at him. She looks frozen over, like the rubber duck he has mistakenly left in the freezer the night that he shivered from drunkenness. He shakes his head slightly and puts off lessons for the day.

He does not intend to give up on her. He has been a dance instructor for 5 years now and cannot afford to live with mysteries.

The next day, he lays down yellow foot cut-outs on the floor and arranges them in friendly patterns. He puts on some music and instructs her to listen to the beat and follow the footprints. She awkwardly steps into the cut-outs. She does this anxiously and he sees her shoulders shaking. She misses the beat by a mile. He gives out a whimper which reminded her of the dog that she had when she was five and alone. He looks at the time and tells her he has to go the studio.

The studio where he works is in a two-story building in the shabbier part of the city. The building is orange because it used to be a mental clinic of some sort. He works with Manuel, a worried 26 year old who came up with the idea of putting up the dance studio. Their clientele is composed of 5 middle-aged women who have nothing better to do but gripe about their rich husbands and step on their feet. During summer, they hold classes for young women whom their mothers enroll because they are too fat and unattractive to do anything else.

While she waits for him, she walks around the apartment. She stays in because she has no money to go the city and she got tired of sightseeing alone. She unfolds and refolds her clothes as if they were made of linen. She tries to clean up the place but is careful not to rearrange the sparse furniture because she has no plans of putting her mark anywhere. She’d rather remember these times- these tragic loveseats and tablecloths, these quiet metaphors- than live them. She does not see herself dying here.

She stares curiously at the cut-outs he left on the floor. It is almost nighttime and it's so dark in the living room that the pseudo- feet almost glow. She steps in one and tries to do a little jig. She loses her balance and stumbles a little. She hears her laughter in the emptiness and reaches out to touch it.

He is at it again before dinnertime. He asks her, "Don't you remember the sensation of you floating inside your mother's belly before you were born? It doesn't really require grace, in special cases like yours. You would just have to feel the swiftness of the glow, the tantric flow of emotions."

"My mother was a chain smoker and had a difficult time having me,” she replies. " I was almost never born."

"Feel it." he says.

"My favorite color is red," she whispers.

"What are you talking about?" He looks confused. Distorted, somehow.

The next day, while he is gone, she sits and does nothing. Already, she is tired of picking up and dusting after him. When he is away, she does not think of him. She is neither jealous nor crazy with despondence or any of those things. Love without the trimmings.

There have been others before him, sure. But everything always seemed miscued somehow. Conversations. Surprises. Kisses under bridges. Flowers that wilted too soon.

It is in his face- the disbelief and frustration. She knows that time is running out.

She stares at the cut-outs and gets a pair of scissors that she found on the dinning table. She traces hearts on the paper and cuts them out. They come out irregular and beet-shaped, as displaced as peacocks in winter.