hey've been offering salsa classes at the school, but I'm too chicken to go. As much as I like dancing, I'm terrified of dancing with a partner. It's too intimate for my comfort level -- being subject to some stranger's rhythm, feeling his breath on my neck or his hands on my hips. So at the Spanish school fiesta, I am afraid to dance. All these Latinos, all their Latin rhythm. When the music kicks on, my friends grab partners and leave me leaning against the wall.
I am bored. I want a beer.
Only I haven't drank in over a year. I don't want a beer. What I actually want is to dance or relax, but I can't quite make it there. I am standing on the edge of the dancefloor. I am bobbing a bit, swaying my hips. I am doing a dance that says, "I have rhythm, just so you know. But don't accuse me of dancing, buddy, cause this ain't dancing." I am doing a dance that says, "I'll dance eventually, sure, but right now I'm kind of occupied with the whole leaning-against-the-wall thing."
I am standing alone. I want to go home.
Everyone is dancing now. The students who can't dance, the teachers, all these locals who just came for the party. Even the janitor. The salsa has broken down, and everyone is just moving together, dancing in groups and screwing around. Beautiful, sexy twentysomething girls are grinding on the male Spanish teachers, these little Ecuadorian men who laugh and play along with wide eyes. I make a quick dip into the middle, but I'm feeling awkward and clunky, all the wrong moves.
I go inside for water. The glasses are dirty and scattered in the sink, so I get a little dainty tea cup and fill it.
"It's gettin' crazy out there," says Chris, the other student who lives with Magdalena.
"Yeah, I think I'm gonna head home and get some work done," I say.
"That's kind of nerdy," he says. And it is, of course. It's terrifically nerdy.
So I head back outside, find a few awkwardly dancing Europeans and join them. Only I still have the tea cup in my hand.
"Everyone's going to be dancing with tea cups in the future," I tell them. "It's totally hot in America right now."
Eventually I put the teacup down, and before long, I stop worrying. The beer runs out early, and we keep dancing. All the 20-year-olds leave to find another bar, and we keep dancing. It starts to rain, and we keep dancing. It's freezing, but our sweaters are thrown on the ground, all of us sweaty from moving so close together. We dance for hours like this.
When the salsa comes back on, everyone finds a partner. I dance with the janitor.