Cary watched her for a second over his Pepsi can. Then he turned his whole body toward the dance floor. Shiloh turned, too, kicking her feet up onto the chair next to her.
“Did you want to dance?” he asked.
Shiloh didn’t even bother answering him, just threw him a face that he didn’t bother acknowledging.
What a joke. Shiloh wasn’t going todance. First of all, she didn’t know how—she couldn’t even do choreographed dances, like the kind you learn at slumber parties. And second, she didn’twantto know how. Dancing was stupid. The proof of that was right in front of them.
Cary sat with his hands in his pockets. He was antsy.
“Youcan dance,” she said. Was that what he wanted?
Cary shrugged.
He probably wanted to dance with his girlfriend. Why hadn’t he brought her?
A school dance is interminable when you aren’t dancing.
Shiloh sat at the table with Cary. Some friends stopped by and asked her to watch their purses.
A boy from drama club sat with them for a while. He was on crutches—his date was dancing without him. After a few songs, he hobbled onto the dance floor anyway. Bouncing on one foot. Clinging to his crutches.
It was too loud for Shiloh and Cary to talk much. Every time the song changed, Shiloh would announce whether or not she liked it.
She wished that Cary was sitting closer. She wished she could amuse herself by pulling on his jacket or kicking the backs of his heels.
There weren’t many slow dances. When “Open Arms” came on, Shiloh said, “I know Journey is a hessian band, but I love this song.”
Hessians were kids with long hair who wore black T-shirts and smoked in bathrooms. Most of the other white kids at their school were hessians. Or hessian-adjacent.
“Journey isn’t a hessian band,” Cary said.
Shiloh leaned toward him to argue, but Becky, from journalism class, had just run up to their table. She was out of breath from dancing. “Cary, come dance—I need a partner!”
You couldn’t slow-dance by yourself; even Shiloh knew that.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“Cary, come on—please.” Becky looked cute. She had on a slick purple dress with a ruffle over one shoulder. She’d taken off her shoes and was wearing little socks with pom-poms over her pantyhose.
“Go ahead,” Shiloh said. “I’ll be fine.”
Cary frowned at Shiloh. “I don’t need to dance.”
“Yeah, but you don’t mind.” She’d seen pictures of him dancing. “Just go.”
Cary sighed.
He got up and took Becky’s hand, then walked with her onto the dance floor.
It was so weird the way people acted at dances...
Cary would never justtouchBecky under normal circumstances. But now he had his arm around her waist, and he was looking in her eyes... It wasunbearablyintimate, all of this—how could they evendoit? How could theyplayactlove and intimacy? They were only holding each other because that’s what youdoat a dance. It didn’t mean anything, they were just going along with the ritual. Shiloh hated it—shehatedit. She couldn’t even watch.
Sometimes Shiloh thought that she and Cary were the same, that they agreed on all the important things—but that was obviously nottrue. Because there was Cary with his arms around a girl he didn’t evenlikein that way. Holding her close, even though he had a girlfriend. (Didn’t he still have a girlfriend?)
The song ended, but Becky kept Cary out on the floor. She and another girl, another friend of theirs, were dancing around him.
Shiloh couldn’t watch Cary slow-dance—and shereallycouldn’t watch him fast-dance. She looked away. She was embarrassed.
