Suggesting to my husband that we sign up for ten weekly ballroom dance classes at the local rec center seemed like a great idea. Bill is a homebody, so it falls to me to initiate adventures. Occasionally, I nail it—a weekend cabin rental, or a scenic hike. He doesn’t admit his enjoyment to me, but he will enthuse about it to others and I chalk up the win.
Overcoming his initial reluctance was surprisingly easy: “It’s good exercise!” I told him, quoting the promotional brochure. “We’ll meet interesting people and make new friends!”
I held back other promises for use later: You’re never too old to dance! … Ballroom dancing is an excellent way to maintain that spark of romance! After three decades together, it wouldn’t hurt to shake up our routine a bit.
I think he was so relieved that I wasn’t proposing we zipline through Belize or ride a tandem bicycle across Portugal, that he agreed.
But as the date of the first class loomed, Bill’s reluctance emerged. He reminded me of the unused pasta-maker and golf clubs I’d purchased years ago, both now thick with dust in our garage. And the Spanish language tapes I had invested in to become bilingual.
But this would be different. There was no comparison, I assured him. This would be fun.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” he said with a tight smile.
As we entered the rec center that first Friday evening, Bill asked, “What’s that smell?”
By day, the “ballroom” was a daycare center. By night, it retained the lingering fragrance of paste and sour milk. Bill pointed to a puddle shining ominously in one corner. In the dim fluorescent light, it appeared to be a substance we might not want to rumba too close to.
He nodded toward two walls covered with finger paintings and macaroni art. “Is this what you had in mind for the next ten weeks?”
I ignored his snark and watched our fellow students file in, certain the interesting people we were destined to meet would appear at any moment. The women were smiling, eyes bright with anticipation. The men all looked like Bill—incredulous and resigned, border collies on their way to be neutered.
Our instructor clapped his hands for attention.
Oh dear God.
Richard was an unnaturally tanned fellow wearing an open shirt, gold chains adorning his gleaming, hairless chest. During winter months, he taught ballroom dancing on cruise ships in the Caribbean. In the off-season, he instructed through local rec centers. He asked each of us to say why we had signed up for the class.
Suddenly shy, I mumbled that I’d taken dance classes when I was twelve and wanted a new activity to share with my husband.
Bill pointed to me and said, “She made me.”
Many of the men nodded.
About half the couples were taking the class so they could do a credible job of dancing at their upcoming wedding receptions. The average age of these lovebirds appeared to be about seventeen-and-a-half. The intense young women were adamant that their first dance as husband and wife be picture-perfect. Their fiancés bore stupefied looks of trepidation for the futures unfolding before them.
Richard explained that we would need to know how to dance not only with our own partner, but with others, so he would be mixing us up. That little tidbit had not been in the brochure, and, from the glares exchanged all around, it came as unwelcome news to all of us. I wondered if a mutiny might be hatched. Count me in.
To the young grooms-to-be he added, “Remember that you will be expected to dance with your new wife’s mother, and maybe even her grandmother, on the big day.” To my amazement, none of them scarpered for the door.
Bill and I are both just under six feet tall, easily the tallest people in the room. We fit together pretty well, as befits our decades of bliss. Richard was a tiny fellow, even with lifts on his shiny black shoes. For some reason, though, whenever he wanted to demonstrate a dance step, he chose me over any of the more waiflike females. He stretched out his hand, nodding to me, and I reluctantly stepped forward to assume the correct position, Bill’s muffled snicker following me. As Richard waltzed me around the room, I looked down at the bald spot on the top of his head and he looked straight ahead at my chest, occasionally hollering into it that we should all “feel the beat.”
Every few minutes, he announced that it was time to change partners, and I found myself in the arms of a gangly teenager whose disappointment showed only too clearly. Occasionally, I ventured a comment beyond “hello”, perhaps a “well done,” or a sunny “here we are.” What I really wanted to say was a sincere, “Sucks, doesn’t it?”
Sometimes, I’d be in the moist grip of a man about my own age who looked longingly at his wife across the room, dancing with a festively tattooed young man the age her son might be. What could we do but sigh and shake our heads? Like subjects trapped in a science experiment, we gamely forged ahead. Are we having fun yet?
Bill, meanwhile, always seemed to put the adult women at ease with a quip or comment. He can be so damn charming. But the ingénues stared at him like he was the crazy old guy outside the mall offering to help them with their math homework.
When Bill and I finally did get to dance together, it was no Fred-and-Ginger moment. Sometimes I get my left and my right mixed up. Bill has trouble following the beat—he likes to get a jump on it. I generally don’t take direction well, thus Bill constantly reminded me that it’s the man who leads. I would remember for twenty or thirty seconds and then grapple for control again.
The cha-cha, Richard told us, is a lively, flirtatious dance with lots of synchronized hip movement. By week four, now accustomed to the rec center’s eau de preschool fragrance, I felt confident that Bill and I had conquered this subtly suggestive dance. One glance at the mirrored wall, however, showed two aging, bespectacled hippies, faces grim with concentration, extending their hips in opposing directions and silently mouthing “cha-cha-cha” every few seconds.
We moved to the foxtrot, which Richard described as both simple and elegant, its broad, fluid steps following a slow-quick-quick or slow-slow-quick-quick pattern. That was more than I could handle. I can do slow or I can do quick, but mixing them up—nope. Bill fared only slightly better. We didn’t trot so much as ramble the floor with a flair that resembled nothing so much as Greco-Roman wrestling.
The waltz is another flowing dance, noted for elegant turns and graceful rises and falls. Masters of the waltz glide effortlessly across the floor, circling the room with a sophisticated élan. Those lacking mastery, we soon learned, become trapped in bovine clusters, hoping one couple will find egress and lead the herd back to the center of the dance-floor.
Richard encouraged us to practise our new steps between classes. “Find an oldies station and let the music move you. Maybe,” he added with a wink, “you could pair up with another couple here and have a night on the town together.” Judging by the scowls and snorts his proposal elicited, fraternization was as likely as extraterrestrial visitation.
At home, we ignored his advice. We neither danced nor discussed dance class again until the next Friday evening, when, on our drive to the rec center, I asked Bill to remind me how the various steps went. If I had suggested we cut our losses or skip a night, he would have been only too happy to agree, and would have done so without a smirk or “I told you so”. But we stuck it out.
For our final week of class, Richard instructed us to come garbed in our finest for a faux fancy-dress ball. I wore a long, black dress with a bold poppy print, and my red Nordstrom high heels. Bill wore his best jeans. Our classmates were similarly decked out. Richard had dimmed the lights and placed a few votive candles around the room. In this ambience, the walls of macaroni art took on a museum quality, and we could almost imagine ourselves in a stately ballroom.
Thus inspired, we cavorted to the best of our ability. As the final note of the last waltz faded and we bent in solemn curtsy or bow to our partners, Richard’s fervent little voice proclaimed that he hoped we had enjoyed the class as much as he had.
With a hand raised to his heart, he said, “I hope you’ll consider signing up for our next ten-week session.” Looking directly at me, he added, “I’ll be teaching you the Lindy Hop, jive, and mambo.”
Truth be told, I could not picture us ever going out dancing again, or even putting on one of our parents’ old Glenn Miller albums and cutting a rug in our living room. There are simply things we do for reasons beyond reason. This class was one of them. It would soon become a shared memory over which we roll our eyes and laugh, or maybe a story we tell to friends, shaking our heads. Next Friday night would find us together on the couch, content simply to sit holding hands.
I glanced at Bill. He arched an eyebrow and smiled tenderly at me. In that moment, I saw my high heels moldering next to unworn golf shoes. When Bill held out his arm, I nodded and reached for it. This time I had no trouble following him, right out the door.
Donna Cameron is author of the Nautilus award-winning book A Year of Living Kindly. She considers herself an activist for kindness, though admits to occasional lapses into crankiness. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, Writer’s Digest, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, Eclectica, and many other publications. She lives in Seattle, Washington.