Hope is wearing a short, red polka-dot sundress that looks right out of a 1950s pinup calendar, with her curly hair piled on top of her head. It’s all I can do not to stare.
“You’re just in time,” Sergio says to the girls. “Please, come join us.”
They make us practice the steps, all of us calling out “cha cha cha” as we move on the balls of our feet.
Most everyone picks it up quickly. Hope, I notice, takes to it naturally.
I, however, am baffled.
“Beautiful! Well done!” Svetlana exclaims, like we’re toddlers she’s very proud of. “Now everyone pair off, and we will practice.”
I skulk off behind the piano, alone. We’re an odd number, so I’m hoping this is my excuse not to embarrass myself. But Svetlana comes over and offers to partner up with me.
Maybe this will be less disastrous under the direct tutelage of the instructor.
Sergio calls out time as we all practice the moves to music.
“Forward one, two, three,cha cha cha, forward six, seven, eight,cha cha cha. Left side, one, two, three,cha cha cha. Repeat right, two, three,cha cha cha.”
Combining these movements makes absolutely no sense to me. Sergio may as well be demonstrating how to perform knee replacement surgery for all I am able to replicate the process.
Svetlana’s Slavic stoicism is impressive, but she’s beginning to look as miserable as I feel.
I decide to leave, if only to spare her.
But I feel a tap on my shoulder.
“May I cut in?” Hope asks Svetlana.
No woman has ever dropped my hand so fast.
Hope
“Thanks,” Felix says to me. “But you don’t want to do this.”
“On the contrary,” I say.
I love dancing, I’m good at it, and after embarrassing myself in front of him at the pool, I want to prove I am not a fumbling klutz at everything I attempt.
“I can’t dance,” he says.
“I can see that. May I?” I offer him my hand.
He reluctantly takes it. “If you must.”
I weave his fingers between mine and guide him to rest his other hand on my hip.
I’m momentarily distracted by how good it feels to be touched by him.
He glances up into my eyes. I wonder if he feels the spark too.
“My hand is sweating,” he says apologetically. “From stress.”
“First of all,” I say, “stop caring about this. It’s a dance lesson on a cruise ship. The stakes are low.”
“Not if I stomp on your foot and break it.”
“Surely the infirmary has wheelchairs. Now then. I’ll lead.”
