“I’m not,” I say. I run one hand along his shoulder, and he takes it in his own, gently, and then places it at my side.
Ollie cuts me off. “Tell me when your ex is gone.”
He stands up straight and turns and opens the door for me.
I give him a last look and then go.
Jody madea good point about Nick being around to watch Hannah, so I decide to make the most of it: to go to an open West Coast Swing night at a different dance school on Wednesday night, my Friday night practice at Manhattan Swing, and my lesson on Sunday. If I get nothing else out of Nick’s stay, I’m going to learn to dance better.
I’m not going to quit because Ollie is dancing again with Eliana.
I finally have a babysitter, though it bothers me that I’m mentally calling this babysitting. Nick is watching his own child. He is putting in his time as a father, like he is supposed to do all the time, not when he’s too injured to do something more important to him.
I put on a flowy sundress and leave Nick and Hannah on my sofa watchingMoana.
“She practices dancingso much,” I hear Hannah say as the door closes behind me.
The event I’m attending is called Hot and West, and it is held at a smaller dance studio in Williamsburg, a little north of my place in Brooklyn. When I arrive, I discover that the studio is located over a Greek restaurant and has more of a dance club vibe than Manhattan Swing Workshop. Their dance space is a function room dimly lit with colored lights, the kind of place you might hire for a small wedding. The thirty people on the floor all seem like they know more styles of dance than I do: I see elements of the hustle, of blues dancing and salsa. I feel like the Jennifer Grey character in the movieDirty Dancing—stumbling upon people engaged in something intimate and a little illicit. Officially, this is a West Coast Swing event, but people are clearly making their own rules.
Part of me is wondering if I’ll see Ollie’s ex-wife again, but I don’t: running into her really was a fluke. That whole night when we went back to his place feels like a fluke now, an almost-was, the start of something that may never happen. Ollie hasn’t broken things off, but it feels like we are in a holding pattern, waiting to see which of us gets our heart broken first.
Standing against a wall, I briefly worry that no one will ask me to dance, but then a man approaches me after a few moments. He is a blond-haired man in the kind of tight red shirt that Warren Beatty would have worn to a 1970s movie premiere. I explain how new I am to the whole dance scene, but that doesn’t stop him from leading me through steps forcefully. He’s very skilled and confident, but a little intimidating. He doesn’t say much, just whips me around and occasionally gives a little frown when I entirely miss a step. He dips me low enough that I get nervous he’ll drop me. After our dance, he nods, smiles briefly, and then crosses the room to approach another partner.
I watch them dance. She is much better than I am, and he guides her through an elaborate series of dips and spins that would definitely have cracked my head open.
“That’s not safe,” mutters a woman beside me, watching my most recent partner.
“Are there unsafe dancers?” The thought hadn’t occurred to me.
“Oh, definitely. There are moves you should not try unless you have a very experienced partner and you’ve practiced a lot. No one is getting hurt right now, but I don’t trust that guy.”
This is new information to me, and it is reassuring to know that my intuition was correct. Some leaders can be dangerous, which makes dancing not that far away from dating. I watch for another few moments, wishing I’d brought Jody with me, and then decide to ask a different man to dance rather than waiting for the red-shirted guy to circle back. The man I approach is much older, much more relaxed, and much more fun to dance with. He explains that he’s recently retired from driving asubway train and does this to stay in shape. I tell him about my widowed friend who is doing a different dance every month.
“Very impressive,” he says. “This is my only dance right now, although I guess I know the Electric Slide. You should bring her here,” he says.
“Maybe I will.” I grin, and he gently guides me through a brand-new step that I’ve never tried before, but that I somehow manage to keep up with.
At the end of our song, my partner sees a friend of his and I let him excuse himself to chat with her. I scan the room and conclude that the only other single person I could dance with is Mister Dangerous, and I decide to head home.
When I get back to my apartment, Hannah is in bed and Nick has muted the tv and is doing wrist exercises.
“How was the movie?” I ask.
He looks me over. “Fine. Can you uh…help with the shirt?”
I walk over and help him get his shirt off, then turn to go.
“I should shower,” I say. “I’m sticky.”
“I’ll bet.”
I spin around. “The guy I’m seeing wasn’t there, Nick. I do have the decency not to ask my ex-husband to watch my kid while I go to bed with someone.”
Nick leans back on my sofa. He looks good shirtless, and he certainly knows that. “Sorry, I was being an asshole.”
“I don’t want to fight with you.”
“You’re learning dance for him, though, aren’t you?”
