Page 91 - The Woven Tale Press Vol. IV #2

her evening at the Maureen Lovage Academy
of Ballroom Dancing. She, Linda and the rest spent the first half-hour in a line behind the aquamarine bulk of Maureen Lovage’s backside as she repeated the waltz steps. “Forward, side, together,” Maureen shouted. “Back, side, to- gether.” Susan felt a fool for being duped about jiving and rock ’n’ roll. She shot Linda filthy looks and tried not to glance at Gordon Dale.
ballroom Susan felt less like a stumbling ado- lescent — she could imagine herself an adult, a young woman. She held Gordon’s hand, now dry and warm, less awkwardly. Susan rested her other hand confidently on his shoulder.
But then, when they’d been paired up, boy with girl, Susan found herself miraculously grasp- ing Gordon Dale’s clammy left hand, his other hand hovered around the small of her back. They moved awkwardly at first, Maureen yell- ing, “Forward, side, together.” Sometimes, one of them stumbled and they had to start over. “Don’t look at your feet whatever you do,” shouted Maureen. She played a record, “True Love,” by Johnny Mathis. Soon they were mov- ing in unison. “Hold her tight so you can’t even see your feet,” bawled Maureen over the music. Susan was both thrilled and terrified by their closeness — she could smell Brylcreem in Gor- don’s hair. But they weren’t close enough for Maureen Savage.
Before long Susan and Gordon Dale were danc- ing stomach to stomach without the aid of a record. During the tenth and final playing of “True Love” they veered from their straight, backward and forward movement and, led by Gordon, they circled, like real dancers. They were tentative at first, but soon, when they managed to stay in step, they moved together with more assertion. Susan felt increasingly more confident, emboldened by the warmth that emanated from her groin until every
“She’s a girl, not a hedgehog,” Maureen yelled. She strode over to the alcove and took down a record in its brown paper sleeve. She thrust it between Susan and Gordon at stomach level.
As Linda yanked herself out of the shrubbery she yelled, “Yeah, well, you didn’t seem to mind, did yer!”
“Now hold her so close that you don’t let that record drop, or else,” Maureen threatened. Then she returned to the alcove and snapped off the harsh overhead lights and restarted “True Love.” The ice rink atmosphere disap- peared. Lit only by the warm glow of the wall lights, the room was magically transformed. In the grown-up ambience of the shadowy
In the bedroom next to Susan’s, her mother stares at a criss-cross pattern of shadows on the wall, cast by a street lamp shining through the iron framework of the windows. She thinks about pastel-coloured lights glancing off bodies in a ballroom that doesn’t exist anymore. Bert, lying in bed next to her, moans in his sleep.
part of her body was suffused. She could have danced in constant, gut-crushing contact with Gordon Dale until dawn.
On the way home Susan pushed Linda into a hedge. “That’s for telling me there’d be jivin’ and rock ‘n’ roll,” she said.
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