“One more?” he asks.
I should say no. I should. I should retreat to my stool, maintain professional distance, and remember that he works for me. Any romantic entanglement would be complicated at best.
“One more,” I hear myself say.
We dance three more songs before the band finally takes a break.
By the end, I’ve learned that Wyatt’s grandmother taught him how to dance when he was twelve years old. She said every gentleman should know how to lead a lady around a dance floor. I now know that his favorite song is something by George Strait that I’ve never heard of because I’ve never listened to George Strait. I also know that he has a small scar on his left hand from a bar fight he broke up a couple of years ago. The guy had a broken bottle.
“I have quick reflexes,” he told me, “but not that quick.”
I’ve also learned that dancing with Wyatt Rivers makes me feel things I haven’t felt in a very long time, maybe ever.
When the music stops, we stand on the edge of the dance floor, still holding hands. Neither of us is quite ready to take a break from the connection.
“I guess I should get back to work,” he says.
He doesn’t move.
“And I should sit down, rest my feet,” I say, pointing downward. “Betty gave me a workout earlier.”
“Betty is a force of nature,” he laughs, a warm, unguarded, real laugh, and finally releases my hands. “She taught gym for many years. She’s broken stronger people than you.”
“Well, that’s not comforting.”
“Wasn’t meant to be.”
He turns toward the bar and then pauses.
“Eleanor?”
“Yes?”
“You looked good out there on the dance floor.” He grins. “I mean, not the steps, because those were pretty rough. But the laughing, the letting go, that looked good on you.”
He’s gone before I can respond, disappearing behind the bar to help Presley with a rush of customers looking for drinks during the break.
I make my way back to my stool on legs that feel slightly unsteady, though I’m not sure if that’s from all the dancing or something else entirely.
Later, the bar has closed, and the staff has gone home, and I sit in Mavis’s apartment and think about motivations.
My whole life, I’ve been driven by these external measures of success. Good grades because I wanted to please my teachers. Perfect posture because I wanted to please my mother. The right clothes, the right address, the right fiancé to please who? Society? It just feels like there have been imaginary judges that I’ve always felt were watching me and evaluating my every move, and I never even questioned it. Didn’t even ask myself what I actually wanted, separate from what I was supposed to want.
Wyatt stays in Copper Creek because he loves it here. Because the people matter to him more than the opportunities he could find somewhere else. Because he’s built a life based on connections rather than achievement. Because he’s content not chasing the next thing or worrying about what other people think of his choices. I don’t think I’ve ever felt content in my life.
I came straight out of my mother’s womb with a book on my head, trying not to knock it off while I walked across the delivery room.
And Mavis, well, she left Atlanta. Walked away from everything she was supposed to want and found something real. Something that filled a wall with photographs and a community with love. Something that is still alive after she’s gone, so much so that people still talk about her like she’s here.
I think Mavis is still living more than I am.
What would it be like to make choices based on love instead of advancement? What would it be like to stay somewhere just because it made you happy and not because it looked good on paper?
I pull out the list I started after the potluck disaster and add to it.
Number six: Wyatt stays for love, not money. I don’t know how to do that.
Number seven: Dancing badly and laughing is better than sitting on a stool and being miserable.
