This is part of a larger piece about my mother and dancing. I've been working on it for some time now (ie avoiding submission and rejection), and since I just realized it's the middle of October and spent yesterday researching airline tickets for the Christmas break, I've been thinking a lot about home and my crazy relatives and especially my mom. Anyway, enjoy. Or don't.
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My sister selects “Baby Got Back.” Her favorite. Embarrassingly bad for anyone to dance to, but even more so for those with extra wide posteriors. Fortunate for them, no one in my family believes that they have extra wide posteriors, so they take over the dance floor and get the gala going. Besides the bartender and a couple of regulars, we are the only ones there, my sisters, our friend, my aunts and a few cousins. They are all out on the linoleum-tiled dance floor at the other end of the room.
I watch from the table, alone, ignoring multiple requests for me to join them. I call to the bartender for another beer and he sends it over with one of the regulars, a scrawny guy with two days’ worth of stubble and a John Deere ballcap, probably fixes cars for a living because his hands are stained with motor oil.
“Not much of a dancer, honey?” he asks, shoving the mug into my hand, leaving smudges on the handle.
“Oh, I’m a hell of a dancer,” I laugh, sip some beer. “But I prefer the Meringue.” I laugh again and he follows suit, completely out of politeness.
“Ain’t even gonna try it?” he picks up his baseball cap and slicks his greying hair back, then puts the cap on.
I shake my head from side to side, take another drink from the mug. “I don’t belong out there.”
“Hell,” he says, “that’s just dancin’. Ever’body belongs out there.”
“Not ever’body. Definitely not me.” I sigh and John Deere leaves after a quick wink at me and a smile. I watch for a while longer before getting up to play pool.
I don’t make it to the table. Two pairs of arms grab me from behind and a third pair helps them drag me onto the floor. I struggle to free myself from my sisters’ grasp and growl at my aunt. I make a complete fool of myself, even in front of John Deere and his friends. I stay on the floor rather than run away, but there still is no dancing. Maybe if I stand here for this one song, I can go finish my beer.
My mother, six weeks into her first of a long series of psychiatric treatments, will have none of that.
“Dance, girl,” she takes hold of both my hands, squeezing them tight as she swings her arms in and out in an overly wide motion. Her feet move in time with everyone else’s. “Come on. You never dance anymore.”
“And with good reason,” I look back over my shoulder, at the table, at my chair.
“Come on. It’s just us here.” She is still dancing. So are my arms. “Dance. No one’s even paying attention.”
I am certain everyone is looking at me now. I try to lead my mother back toward my chair.
“I don’t even know how.”
“It’s easy,” she tells me, letting go of one hand. “A line dance. Just step like I do.”
“I can’t,” I try to pull my arm free.
“Young lady, get your butt on this floor and dance to some music!”
In my mind, I hear the song stop as the record is ripped from under the needle and everyone stands staring at me. Back in reality, the music keeps playing.
“Okay. Show me.”
She lets go of my hands completely and I realize that I can make my escape, but I know I cannot leave. This foot forward, she says, then over, then over, then back. I watch her feet as she speaks, trying to make mine do the same thing. Or at least a similar thing. And back and over and turn. I go over and back and back. We try again. Forward and over, over.
I begin to figure it out and at some point, I move in the same direction as the rest of my family. And over, and over, and back, and clap. I do just that. And soon she stops speaking and I am getting the rhythm of it and I forget that I cannot dance. I look around the floor, at my mother and my aunts, at my two sisters and my cousins, all moving in the same direction, all whooping as they clap, contributing to the ruckus in this normally quiet pub. I want to whoop with them. I need to yell and laugh and be a fool. But I never do. I just keep moving my feet, hoping no one will notice me.
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