17. Wade
— ? —
Wade
The Grovel Plan lived on my phone where no one would ever see it, and it had four phases.
Phase One, Proximity: buy a house in town (done), establish a presence (done), don’t fuck it up (ongoing, outcome uncertain).
Phase Two: become a man worth forgiving.
Phase Three: earn her trust an inch at a time, follow every rule, no pushing, let her set the pace.
Phase Four, Win Her Back, was just a column of question marks and three notes to myself: ask her what she needs, do whatever she says, repeat forever.
The list was pathetic.
I was pathetic.
But I was also determined, which had to be worth a point or two.
The studio door was propped open, letting out the sound of music and laughter. I could see people moving inside, mostly older women, a few middle-aged, all of them looking far more comfortable than I felt.
I walked in.
Luisa was at the front of the room, adjusting the speaker system. She wore leggings and a loose tank top, her hair pulled back in a ponytail that swung when she moved. She looked exactly like she had on that first day in Nantucket, radiant and untouchable and completely out of my league.
“You’re early,” she said without turning around.
“I’m enrolled.”
Now she turned. Her eyebrows rose.
“You enrolled in my dance class.”
“Adult Beginner, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. I signed up online.”
“I saw the registration.” She crossed her arms. “I assumed it was a joke.”
“I don’t joke about dance.”
“You’ve never danced a day in your life.”
“That’s why it says ‘beginner’ on the form.”
She stared at me. I stared back. The silence stretched between us like a rubber band about to snap.
“Fine,” she said finally. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The class filled up over the next ten minutes. I counted twelve students, eleven women ranging from their sixties to their eighties, and one man who had to be at least seventy and walked with the careful precision of someone whose joints had opinions about movement.
I was the youngest person in the room by a couple of generations.
“Alright, everyone.” Luisa clapped her hands, commanding attention effortlessly. “We have a new student today. Wade is joining our Tuesday group, so let’s make him feel welcome.”
Twelve pairs of eyes turned to examine me.
“Is he the one?” asked a woman with bright purple hair and dangly earrings. Agnes, I remembered from the diner. The one with the weaponized walker.
“The one what?” I asked.
“The one who made Luisa cry.”
“Agnes!” Luisa’s voice was sharp.
“I’m just asking.”
“Don’t.” Luisa’s jaw was tight. “He’s a student. That’s all that matters in this room.”
“Hmph.” Agnes didn’t look convinced.
“He’s also very tall,” observed another woman, round and cheerful, with a cardigan covered in embroidered cats. “Good for partnering.”
“Thank you, Doris,” Luisa said. “Now, let’s begin with our warm-up stretches.”
The warm-up was not difficult. I’d been working out obsessively for four years, and my flexibility was fine. I could touch my toes, roll my shoulders, bend and stretch with the best of them.
Then the actual dancing started.
“Today we’re working on a simple box step,” Luisa announced. “It’s the foundation for a lot of partner dances. Step forward with your left foot, bring your right to meet it, step to the side with your left, then close. Like this.”
She demonstrated. It looked easy, like a move a reasonably coordinated human being could accomplish without difficulty.
I was not a reasonably coordinated human being.
“Forward, together, side, close,” Luisa called out over the music. “Forward, together, side, close. Wade, you’re going the wrong direction.”
I was indeed going the wrong direction, and also somehow stepping on my own feet, which shouldn’t have been physically possible.
“Other left,” Agnes called out helpfully.
“I know which left is which.”
“Do you, though?”
I did not, apparently.
The grandmothers, and they were grandmothers, I could tell by the way they talked about their grandchildren during water breaks, moved through the steps with easy grace.
Agnes’s walker was parked against the wall, unnecessary during class.
Doris somehow made every movement look like a waltz, even when she was just walking across the room.
A woman named Fern executed perfect box steps while simultaneously critiquing the form of everyone around her. “Your posture, Maude. Straighten up.”
Maude, tiny, white-haired, with the determined expression of someone who had survived many things and intended to survive many more, straightened up and executed a box step so precise it could have been in a textbook.
I tripped over nothing and nearly fell into the mirror.
“Perhaps,” Luisa said, her voice carefully neutral, “we should work on partnering.”
Oh no.
“Everyone find a partner. We’ll practice leading and following.”
The grandmothers paired off with practiced efficiency. Agnes and Doris. Fern and a woman I didn’t know. Two others whose names I hadn’t caught.
That left Maude, the seventy-year-old man (Harold, I learned later), and me.
“Harold,” Luisa said, “why don’t you demonstrate with me?”
She walked over to Harold and took his hands. He positioned himself with the casual confidence of someone who had done this many times before, and they began to move.
They were good.
They were really good.
Harold led Luisa through the box step with effortless control, his weathered hands steady on her waist, his feet moving like he’d been born dancing. Luisa followed, her body responsive to every subtle signal, her face lit up with the joy of movement.
I was not jealous of a seventy-year-old man.
I was absolutely jealous of a seventy-year-old man.
“See how Harold uses his frame to communicate?” Luisa was saying. “The lead isn’t about force. It’s about clarity. Harold, show them the turn.”
Harold showed them the turn. It was beautiful. Luisa spun under his arm like she’d been born mid-turn, and they ended up back in hold without missing a beat.
“Now you all try. Wade, you’re with Maude.”
Maude approached me with the air of someone accepting a challenging mission.
“Don’t worry,” she said, patting my arm. “I’ll go easy on you.”
“That’s… thank you?”
We assumed the position. My hands felt enormous and clumsy compared to hers. She was barely five feet tall, and I was looming over her like a confused tree.
“Music, please,” Luisa called out.
The music started.
“Now lead,” Maude instructed.
I tried to lead. I stepped forward. Maude didn’t move.
“You have to tell me you’re going,” she said.
“How do I tell you?”
“With your body, dear. Not your words.”
I tried again. This time I pressed slightly with my right hand, and Maude stepped back obligingly.
“Better,” she said. “Now the side step.”
We made it through one box step. Then another. Then Maude smiled up at me.
“You’re not bad,” she said. “Just thinking too much.”
“I always think too much.”
“Stop it.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Then I’ll distract you.” She squeezed my hands. “Spin me.”
“What?”
“Spin me. Like Harold did with Luisa.”
I looked at Maude, tiny, fragile Maude, who had to be at least eighty, and my whole estimation of her rearranged itself. She wasn’t fragile at all. She was made of steel and determination and a lifetime of dancing with people who underestimated her.
“Okay,” I said. “Hold on.”
I raised my arm and guided her into a turn. She spun under it like she weighed nothing at all, her white hair flying, her face breaking into a delighted grin. I caught her on the other side, pulled her back into hold, and we kept moving.
“Again!” she demanded.
I spun her again. Then again. Then I added a dip, because somewhere in my muscle memory was a recollection of my mother teaching me basic ballroom when I was twelve, and Maude went with it like she’d been expecting it all along.
When the music stopped, the whole room was staring at us.
“Well,” Agnes said. “That was unexpected.”
Luisa’s face was carefully blank. But I saw her eyes lingering on my arms, on the tattoos now visible below my short sleeves. I’d gotten them during the worst years, dark lines and intricate designs that told a story I wasn’t sure I wanted her to read.
She looked away quickly.
“Good work, everyone,” she called out. “Same time Thursday.”
The class dispersed, grandmothers gathering their things and chattering among themselves. I heard fragments of conversation, “Did you see that dip?” “Maude, you show-off”, as they headed for the door.
I lingered.
Luisa was turning off the speaker system, her back to me. I watched the line of her shoulders, the way her ponytail swung when she moved.
“You’re still here,” she said without turning around.
“I have a question.”
“Of course you do.”
“Do you know anyone who repairs houses?”
She turned. Her expression was suspicious.
“Why?”
“The Henley place needs work. A lot of work. I was hoping to find someone local.”
“And you thought I’d help you?”
“I thought you might know someone.”
She stared at me for a long moment. Then she shook her head.
“No. You’re on your own.”
“Fair enough.”
I’d expected that. Hoped for different, but expected exactly this.
“Then could you point me to the nearest hardware store?”
Her mouth twitched. Almost a smile, but she caught it before it could fully form.
“Main Street. Turn left at the intersection. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you.”
I headed for the door.
“Wade.”
I stopped.
“Those tattoos,” she said quietly. “They’re new.”
I looked down at my arms. The black lines. The intricate patterns. The dates hidden in the designs, our wedding anniversary, the day she left, the day I learned about Poppy.
“Yeah,” I said. “They’re new.”
She didn’t ask what they meant.
I didn’t tell her.
“See you Thursday,” I said, and walked out into the Maine morning.
***
Gus’s Hardware was exactly where Luisa said it would be, a squat building with a hand-painted sign and windows so cluttered with merchandise that you could barely see inside.
I grabbed a cart and started walking the aisles, my phone open to YouTube, a tutorial on “Basic Home Repair for Absolute Idiots” playing in my earbuds.
Three hours later, my cart was full of things I didn’t entirely understand, spackle, caulk, wood filler, sandpaper in various grits, a hammer that the video said was “essential,” and a small mountain of other items that all seemed important.
Gus rang me up without comment, though his eyebrows rose higher with each item.
“Fixing up the Henley place?” he asked finally.
“Trying to.”
“Good luck.” It didn’t sound sincere.
***
The Henley place was waiting for me at the end of a winding driveway, three stories of Victorian architecture held together by mold and spite. The porch sagged. The paint was peeling. An animal was living in the attic, based on the scratching sounds I’d heard last night.
I stood in front of it, cart full of supplies, YouTube still playing in my ear.
“Step one,” the cheerful voice said. “Assess the damage.”
The damage was extensive.
“Step two: Make a plan.”
My plan was simple: Fix the shit out of this house. Stay close to Luisa. Prove I could be different.
I grabbed the hammer and walked toward my future.