Dance como la gente
The first song Liddy Joe played at the dance was a marcha, a little upbeat and jazzy, nonetheless a call to all at the dance to get on the dance floor for an old fashioned marcha. The chairs and tables emptied, young and old, singles and couples. The dance floor swelled. Boy and his grade school sweetheart, Meche, had just claimed a table of their own but were washed away by the crowd before they could sit down.
“Sounds like a marcha,” Boy said, as he reached over to grab Meche’s hand as they both went with the crowd.
“Then ponle,” Meche said.
The crowd was shuffling to a marcha even before they got on the dance floor. Boy and Meche went with the flow. Meche shuffled along in perfect step with the dancers in front of them. Boy tried to keep up with the jazzy beat of the band. Because the dance floor was crowded, he didn’t stand out, but Meche noticed he was adding an extra step with each foot and a slight twist every few beats. He was also marching slightly in front of her.
Her first reaction was to call him out for it.
“Hey, why don’t you dance como la gente,” she said.
Boy couldn’t hear or see her. The hall was loud. But, even had the noise been only half as loud, he wouldn’t have heard her. He was in his own world. A wide smile and eyes nearly closed as if he was trying to catch a dream, Meche saw he was marching by himself and slowed down a little to get a full view of him.
There he was, her closest friend since the first grade who’d gone away for most of their lives, dancing with her. Until he came back from that other world he’d gone to, she thought she’d lost him forever because she’d let their relationship turn into a friendship and never touch romance, a regret she carried for years.
“Would he have stayed if he’d become more than just a friend?” she’d often asked herself.
Now on the dance floor, those regrets had vanished. He’d returned. And she was deeply thankful for it, relieved and delighted that he’d returned the same boy he’d always been in her eyes. Still a little ahead of the beat. Still too quick to fall into rhapsody. And still not dancing como la gente. And she loved him for it.
“What?” Boy asked Meche as he was dancing.
“Nothing. Just keep dancing,” Meche said.
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