I should have known by my third Cinzano a power failure was going to be my only hope of ducking out of dancing. I’m not proud of it, but I’d have been equally fine with an earthquake or an alien invasion.
Maria is a terrific dancer. She’s too classy to show me up on the dance floor, but I know I hold her back sometimes. I guess she’s just grateful to have me dancing with her at all, something neither one of us would have bet on after our first dance.
Maria has a big family, all eleven siblings on her mother’s side having moved to Montreal from Greece. When we started dating, she made it perfectly clear any weekend plans we might entertain were contingent on there being no prior commitments with them. Given my own Italian upbringing, I agreed to the terms ungrudgingly. Besides, I needed to curry the blessing of 30+ aunts, uncles, first cousins, not to mention her immediate family. Stealing Maria away from them too soon might have threaded a skewer through any hope of a relationship. And frankly, it mattered little what nights of the week I saw her, just as long as I did.
Maria’s favourite club was the Beaujolais, a tasteful, discerning establishment in the city’s downtown that abutted a strip club I would have gladly skulked out to once it became loud and clear I could no longer keep the deejay waiting.
We were several months into the relationship the first time we went dancing. Maria invited her cousin and her boyfriend to join us, a thoughtful touch. They were younger than us, oozed pure joy and that 80s invulnerability, and their energy and bright white teeth were the perfect foil for the hangdog face of someone intent on ruining everybody’s Saturday evening.
I wish I could pinpoint the onset of my dance aversion. I grew up around dancing. My parents were good dancers, they taught me how to waltz, tango, beguine, there was always dancing when we hosted parties, and unlike most adults at the time, they took their child to every wedding reception they attended — my own public dance school. I built up a repertoire of moves befitting Dancing with the Stars. Alas, I required something closer to American Bandstand.
As I grew older and entered those formative years when music virtually defines who you are, my preferences tended toward progressive rock. Anyone who’s ever tried to dance to a 7/8 time signature will tell you it can’t be done unless unhinged is the style you’re aiming for.
Maria and I settled on a slow dance. I trembled uncontrollably, as if the bass line of the song were coursing through my body. Perhaps, the earthquake I wished for. If the tremors risked throwing Maria off beat, she never let on. To this day, I regret letting pass what it feels like to hold solicitude in your arms.
My opportunity to atone for the Beaujolais fiasco arrived in the mail. An invitation to a wedding. Home-field advantage. We RSVPed “four.” My mom, dad, me, and Maria.
To prepare, I resolved to untangle my two left feet at a private underground club, my parent’s basement. It was a Saturday night, Maria had a family commitment, and my parents were out. Cue the band.
By the time I met Maria, my taste in music had grown profoundly eclectic. My vinyl collection spanned most every genre, except dance music. I walked my fingers along the spines of the albums and pulled out Steve Winwood’s Back in the High Life.
I lowered the record onto my Sony turntable, dropped the needle on “Higher Love,” cranked up the volume on my Kenwood receiver, and instantly discovered why dance studios eschew wall-to-wall carpeting.
The family room in my parents’ basement ran the full width of the house times half its length. Six hundred forty-eight square feet, enough space to stage a ballet, yet not one inch of smooth, frictionless surface.
A Footloose moment it was not, still, I stumbled through the lesson long enough to work up a respectable sweat and realize this exercise was less about learning a few steps than about stomping my inhibitions.
Maria and I danced so much at that wedding, I hardly remember anything else.
Months later, at our engagement party on a December Saturday, among the copious food and wine, hearty wishes and laughter, there was music aplenty, and yes, lots of family, including Maria’s cousin and her boyfriend. We made eye contact across the room. Yep, I was dancing.