Four
The Day Before
“Grab your pole up high with your inside arm, keeping your elbow straight. Now walk around the pole. You can point your toes
and be sexy! You can stomp angrily. You can prance!” Salma Hayek cried.
I’d migrated to the pole studio with the others, staked out my bit of chrome, and participated in a series of warm-up exercises
that’d reaffirmed my concerns about my basic lack of fitness. Now class had begun in earnest, and we were learning pole dancing’s
most fundamental move—the pole walk.
Salma Hayek hadn’t gotten the memo that for most people, teaching a class half-naked would be a literal nightmare. Then again,
if my buns looked like hers, I wouldn’t ever wear pants. While I didn’t have it in me to try to be sexy, I could definitely
stomp angrily around my pole—which spun! Who knew poles spin?
I made eye contact with Layna, who pranced like a giggly reindeer. My usual friend type was “hipster artist from Westside
LA who ferments her own pickles and has gallery shows.” Layna definitely didn’t fit that description. But we clearly had friend
chemistry, which was more than I’d expected to find at pole dancing class.
“And remember,” Salma Hayek said, “there’s no need to compare yourself to anyone else in this room. Everyone is on their own
pole journey.”
Give me a break, I wanted to say. The journey was spinning around and around in a tiny circle, going nowhere. But at least pole walk time
gave me a chance to survey the four other students.
Layna, of course, looking ripped in yoga shorts. She was somehow both stocky and lean, her ponytail bouncing jauntily with each exaggerated step.
A curvy girl in green velour pole undies and a cropped Wet Leg shirt, short hair dyed a silvery blue and shaved on one side,
her face studded with colorful pimple stickers shaped like stars.
A slender woman in her fifties with thick black hair wearing a cherry-red two-piece with extra straps under her buns.
And a lone guy—tall, muscular, handsome as a young Idris Elba—with hair in long twists and a fade who clearly took his pole
walk very seriously. His face was a mask of intense concentration, like a woman on a high-dose of SSRIs trying to orgasm.
When Salma Hayek had us pause for a water break, I stripped down to my T-shirt and a pair of running shorts. I caught a glimpse
of myself in the side wall of mirrors and my brain did its usual critical rundown. My shoulder-length dirty-blond hair was
three months past needing highlights and two days past needing a wash. Grief had drawn dark circles under my eyes and parentheses
framed my mouth. But, I noted with satisfaction, my arms were strong from hauling groceries and I still had my mom’s great
legs.
When I turned back around, the slender woman with jet-black hair had shimmied up her pole, like a shapeshifter that transforms
from nondescript middle-aged lady to weightless, comic-book assassin.
I want to be able to do that!
The hopeful thought surprised me. It was not the thought of a woman so depressed her main source of pleasure was staying up
late to binge Chunky Monkey while watching a reality show about lone survivalists eating rancid seal fat in order to outlast
each other in the Yukon.
“Get out of here! This is a Pole Virgins class,” Salma Hayek called up. “Just kidding, y’all! Zhang Xiu is coming back from
an injury, so she’s retaking the intro series.”
Zhang Xiu had a giant tattoo of a dragon covering her entire calf. As she slid back down to the floor, the sound of her inner thighs against chrome echoed with a squeeeeeak.
“It’s time for body rolls!” Salma Hayek cried. “Duck your head under an imaginary wire. Bring your face to the pole. Next
your chest. Stomach! Hips! Knees! Now pop your booty back down.”
Her body roll looked like a ribbon of silk.
My attempt was as jerky and spastic as a short-circuiting C-3PO.
“I’m giving more Chris Farley than Shakira,” I said, louder than intended. Everyone in the class laughed. Hard. For the first
time in a year, I’d made somebody (other than the twins) chortle.
After Salma taught us the L-sit, the class ended with a free dance to “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes. As I practiced my new
moves, I let myself feel the fantasy. The pole sit required me to grab the chrome with both hands and squeeze it between my thighs while my legs stuck straight out in front of me, ankles crossed, hips tilted hard to one side. This
was agony on my inner thighs, but I was doing it. I was flying around a chrome pole, hair streaming behind me as I belted
out, “Be my baby now-ow-ow! A whoa oh oh oh oh!” And damn, it was fun. Life could be so cruel. So mean. But there could also
be these unexpected glimmers of exhilaration, of joy.
During our cool-down stretches, we all did exuberant, sweaty downward dogs.
“Pretend your buttholes are flashlights and point them up to the sky!” Salma Hayek chirped.
There was something festive about the juxtaposition of the sexy moves with the intentionally unsexy metaphors of the body.
And while I regularly carted my kids to art and gymnastics and violin lessons, it had been years since I learned something
entirely new for no practical reason whatsoever.
“This week I want you all to decide on a pole name. Out there, I’m Lupe, stressed-out CPA. But in here? I’m Salma Hayek, inspiring
pole instructor. I want each of you to have a pole persona that provides that escape. You get me?”
Out there, I was Tilly Turner. Forty-four years old. Motherless mother of twins. Failed comic who couldn’t find it in herself to crack a joke. But here at Pole Kisses, I could be anyone.
“I’m heading to Huckleberry’s for a drink after class,” Salma Hayek continued. “Anyone want to come see how the pros do it?”
The Pole Virgins responded with a volley of “Hell yeah”s.
“I’ve got room if anyone needs a ride,” Zhang Xiu said.
“Where’s your motorcycle?” Salma Hayek asked.
“In the shop. My daughter loaned me her new Rivian.”
“Baller!” Salma said.
“Girl knows how to spend that Allergan money,” Zhang Xiu agreed. “She makes a fortune working at that place. Everyone wants
a minimally invasive glow-up these days.”
No way was I going to a strip club. So while the other students slowly wiped down their poles with a cloth and a spritz of
alcohol, I gave mine a quick clean and scuttled to the waiting room where I prepared to slip out into the early evening. But
a little sign over the shoe cubbies distracted me.
Dearest Pole Hobbyists!
Don’t forget: The art of pole dancing was developed by strippers. Here at Pole Kisses Studio, many of us largely practice
“pole sport.” But we do not consider pole sport to be superior to—or necessarily separate from—stripper pole dancing! We count
among our beloved instructors sex workers who bring their professionalism and knowledge to their classes. We respect and are
grateful to them for creating this art form and for paving our way in pole!
Love,
Your Friends at Pole Kisses
This put the group trip to the strip club in context. It was like a bunch of Christians walking the Camino de Santiago to pay their respects to the apostle James.
“Come out with us,” Layna cried, as she burst into the chill room. “Please!”
“I have needy kids to tend.” Lately that’d involved letting the twins play endless games of “Dinosaurs versus Baby Dolls”
while I hid in my office (aka the pantry) to cry in secret while eating Nutter Butters.
“Can’t your husband watch them? Or better yet, do you have an Xbox? If you’ve got an Xbox, you’ve got a babysitter.” Layna
leaned in toward a little vanity mirror to apply lipstick so red Rihanna’s pout now seemed understated.
“I don’t have a husband. Or an Xbox.” I pulled on my coat, a depressing L.L.Bean puffer I’d bought used at the Idaho Youth
Ranch thrift store. Something about Layna’s inappropriate disclosures made me feel comfortable being open with her. “My babies
are from the sperm of an eighteen-year-old donor I’ve never met.”
“Attagirl!” she said.
“I figured I needed to go young to counteract my dusty eggs.”
“See? You’re so funny! Just come have a drink with us.”
The warm golden flutter in my stomach that said This woman could be your actual friend wouldn’t let me say no.
My neighbor Emmylou answered on the first ring. When my mother was alive, Emmylou had been her bestie. I’d loved Emmylou’s stories about her long-ago divorce in Mormon country, back when she’d bought a crossbow in the
hopes she could turn her “no-good cheating husband” into a “man-sized Hollywood voodoo doll.” But now my mom was gone. I’d
never again sit next to her watching old George Carlin videos and eating popcorn dusted with nutritional yeast and Tapatío.
Meanwhile, Emmylou was trying with all her bossy might to shove me out of my grief rut.
“I knew you’d love it!” Emmylou crowed when I asked if it was okay if I went out for a drink with people from my class. “The twins and I are baking lemon crinkle cookies. Go have fun with your new friends.”
Phoebe shouted in the background, “Mommy, Emmylou said she’s paying for classes so you can learn to grind up on a pool boy.”
“We’re getting a pooooool!” Alice shrieked.
“We’re not getting a—” I started.
But Emmylou interrupted. “Stay out as late as you want—hopefully late enough to realize that even during hard times you can
have some fun.”