Going from teaching young, bounce-back-from-anything kids to retirees and senior citizens had been… an experience.
Readjusting my expectations, I backtracked.
Class would be okay as long asMiss Trishdidn’t fall. Because when Patricia Beauregard fell, she blamed me.
Or rather, my face.
“I simply cannot focus on my taps, spanks, and flaps when you’re always scowling at me, Irene. It scares me half to death, and considering how close I already am to it, it is truly a hazard.”
My actual name—Ireland—was just unusual enough to offend the sensibilities of a lot of the wealthy Southern retirees around here.
But if I could just keep her feet on the floor and my incurable resting bitch face pointed away from her—a tall order considering one wall of the room was made of floor-to-ceiling mirrors—it might all be okay. Because ongooddays when I pushed out the back doors of the Locc and walked across the courtyard to Zinnia House—Live Oak’s state of the art, multi-story memory-care center—the first thing I’d be asked was if I found any happiness today.
It would be such a good feeling to not lie.
Unfortunately, I lied most days.
I walked to the sink in the locker room, where I filled my hands with cold water and dunked my face into my palms over and over until the shock of it overrode everything else.
I could do this. There was no choice.
With my well-worn tap shoes strapped to my feet, I headed into the studio. My gaze trailed along the mirrored wall as I quickly threw together a lesson plan and a playlist based on who was—and wasn’t—in attendance.
Today was a good mix of community members and older Live Oak retirees who lived at the Villas, which meant a mix of ’70s and ’80s songs would probably be best. I could almost hear the relieved sigh of the liability lawyers Live Oak kept on retainer as I did one more sweep to confirm Miss Trish wasn’t here.
I flipped through the booklet of burned CDs—no Bluetooth speakers here—for the one I needed and popped it into the ancient system.
“Come and Get Your Love” by Redbone crackled through the speakers, and without further ado, I strode to the front of the class, pointed my toe in front of me, and led the class in our usual warm-up sequence. It’d take only a few classes for the regulars to catch on to my brand of teaching—minimal speaking, maximum movement—but they did, and it was that kind of small win that helped my spirit from withering entirely.
But every time I was in front of this mirror, I remembered another studio a few hundred miles north of here,where Sasha, my old college roommate and former business partner, was likely teaching right now. In the studio I’d worked for years to open and had to give up my rights to less than two years after its opening.
“Shuffle-tap-heel eight times—front, side, back, side,” I instructed over the music, my voice rough as I choked down the unhelpful thoughts.
That life might as well be a million miles away for how disconnected I was from it.
I kept constant vigil over the dancers in the mirror as we cycled through our usual sets of warm-ups. “You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine” by Lou Rawls started, and I shifted the class into longer combinations. A few sets in, Mr. Hammond swayed precariously behind me, but I clenched my fists and kept on, resisting the urge to move closer to him.
I’d quickly learned which students liked to be fussed over and which clung to their independence like the sole life raft in a storm.
Mr. Hammond was the latter.
Catching his gaze in the mirror, I waved my hand toward the barre that lined the back wall in casual suggestion. The older man narrowed his eyes at me in response.
I narrowed mine right back.
“Come on, Melvin,” Mrs. Hammond called over the music, intervening for me. She did a series of little shuffle-heel combinations over to her husband in her old-school heeled Mary-Jane-style tap shoes, then took his hands as she kept dancing the combination I’d set.
Mrs. Hammond was a former competition ballroom dancer, and at seventy-five, she’d caught onto the moves fast even if she needed a lot of reminders. Mr. Hammond had already signed her up for the next six weeks of classes—ballroom, coincidentally—that would start this summer.
The music was too loud for me to hear what she told him, but whatever it was had Mr. Hammond’s eyes softening. He put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and escorted her to the front corner of the room, where everyone’s water bottles were.
I ached as I watched them for a few seconds longer. Having moved to Live Oak just a few weeks ago, Mrs. Hammond was Zinnia House’s newest resident. Focusing back on the rest of the class, I gestured for them to line up along the wall by the room’s corner so we could begin some across-the-floor exercises.
Something I wouldn’t have dared if Miss Trish were here.
By the time Mr. and Mrs. Hammond were back on the floor, “Lay All Your Love on Me” by ABBA came on, and a few tappers groaned out loud.
“No whining in tap class!” I scolded before launching into a refresher on last week’s most complicated combination, adding another eight beats to it.
