Maurice Williams, The Zodiacs
STAY
Sheila was wearing a red dress that made me feel – well, red.
The closer I got to her, the more conscious I became of the undeniable heat that was spreading through me and colouring my cheeks.
I could practically feel the shade change from a deliberate rouge through to gobsmacked magenta.
Her dress was cut just below the knee with an uneven trim that I imagined would kick out around her the minute she started dancing.
She’d even paired it with matching red shoes that had a small heel and a neat bow on the strap that ran over each foot.
Meanwhile, I was wearing comfortable flats, thin legged beige trousers and a what-passed-for-tight-by-my-standards white shirt.
When Sheila messaged me to ask how I felt about dancing, I replied that I loved it.
But what I didn’t say – or couldn’t say, rather – was that the majority of my dancing years had been spent with David, swinging around the kitchen to classics while dinner cooked.
That inevitably meant that many of my dancing years had also been spent in slippers and cosy outfit combinations that I wouldn’t dream of leaving the house in.
They were some of my fondest memories, but the thought of sharing them with Sheila caused ill feelings in me.
‘You look like you’re ready to go dancing,’ I said as I drew to a stop alongside her.
For once, I was the one to lean in for the kiss.
And Sheila turned her head a fraction at the last minute, which meant that rather than her cheek, I kissed the corner of her mouth.
I bit back on apologising as I righted myself. ‘Have you been here before?’
‘Never. But I saw a thing on Facebook. Do you use Facebook?’
I laughed. ‘I do, for the sake of the shop.’
‘But you don’t?’
‘I’m not sure I’ve ever updated my personal page, no.’
‘Ah well.’ She looped arms with me. ‘That saves me the bother of adding you.’
Which was a new relief that I hadn’t been expecting, given that I didn’t use Facebook but David most definitely did.
And there had been many a time when he’d told me he was tagging me in something, which didn’t mean much to me, admittedly, but it was another pocket of married life that I wasn’t quite ready to explain to my new– Dance partner?
I tried, not knowing how else to complete the thought.
It was too soon and I was too old to be anyone’s “girlfriend”.
Besides which, I wasn’t sure people even had the “So where is this going…” conversation anymore – unless it was a conversation about being exclusive, which was something else I’d definitely heard David mention.
‘Anyway, no, I’ve never been here before, but I saw this thing on Facebook about a dance evening. All the old classics, that was exactly how they’d phrased it,’ she said with a good measure of amusement. ‘And I found myself thinking, well, I’m an old classic.’
‘And I’m an old classic?’ I asked with a raised eyebrow.
‘Of course you are, Patti, don’t sell yourself short by thinking otherwise.’
I laughed. There was something refreshing about being around someone who embraced their age as much as Sheila seemed to. Even if I couldn’t see how “old classic” was the compliment she clearly thought it was.
The event was happening at a local music hall that had been rented for the occasion.
The space was wide open inside, with foldaway chairs and tables pushed against the walls for other events that I imagined took place there.
At the far end from where we entered there was a makeshift bar and I wondered how soon was too soon to suggest drinks.
‘Gin, or wine?’ I laughed and Sheila turned to face me. ‘Too soon?’
‘No, no,’ I started to explain. ‘It’s more that you–’
‘And who do we have here?’ A young man – somewhere in his late twenties, with hair slicked into a low ponytail and an all-black ensemble that make him look like an extra from Strictly Come Dancing – stepped out of nowhere holding a clipboard.
‘Sheila and Patti,’ Sheila answered for us. And I dipped my head to try and hide away the width of my smile, stirred from hearing our names paired together like that.
‘Marvellous,’ he said as he ticked us off. ‘Feel free to mingle and get yourselves a drink. We’ll be starting in a few minutes.’
‘Gin or wine?’ Sheila repeated.
‘Wine, but I’ll get the drinks. You do the mingling thing. Is white okay?’
Sheila smiled softly at my offer. ‘White is perfect.’
By the time I was taking drinks over to Sheila, she’d been cornered by a man who looked to be raising the average age of the room by around twenty years – and that’s saying something, for an event targeted at old classics.
Sheila was nodding along to whatever he was saying, but the sheer look of relief when she spotted me closing in was undeniable, too.
I heard her mutter a quiet apology as she stepped around the man and came to meet me.
‘We need a code word for events like this.’
‘How about…’ I tried to think.
‘How about just shouting “lesbian”?’
I laughed so curtly that people nearby turned to stare.
‘I do love that laugh, Patti.’
‘Ladies and gents.’ The same young man who’d checked us in called for our attentions – and I was glad of it, too, given that a witty response to Sheila’s comment wasn’t exactly forthcoming.
‘If we can gather you all into the centre here, and we’d like to mix and match the couples to make sure everyone has the type of dancer they need. ’
It soon became uncomfortably clear that “the type of dancer they need” was code for pairing men and women together. Sheila and I were among the last to volunteer ourselves for the change around.
‘Come on, ladies, there aren’t many partners left.’
It happened so fast that it took a handful of seconds for my body to catch up with it. But I soon realised that what I was feeling was Sheila’s palm pressed against mine. ‘I actually came with a partner,’ she answered.
The man clasped his hands together. ‘Righto.’ His mouth bobbed open, closed, open.
‘Righto,’ he repeated, before pulling in a considerable breath.
I couldn’t make sense of it; he was young enough to have seen lesbians before, surely?
On the Discovery Channel if nowhere else, I thought.
‘Let’s all get started,’ he finally said, much to the relief of us all…
* * *
We were fifty minutes into an hour-long session when a song came on that I recognised from Dirty Dancing, and there was a collective sound of enthusiasm around the room. Sheila’s smile widened that bit further, too.
‘Now we’re talking,’ she said in a low voice.
We were the only same sex couple in the place – two of the instructors having paired up with lone dancers, after Sheila’s refusal to switch partners – and to say we’d attracted some interest from the other couples would be an understatement.
But now, as she pulled me that little bit closer to her again, I thought at least three heads might have exploded around us. And a girlish giggle tumbled out of me.
‘Right, everyone, take your partners…’
‘Like I need telling,’ Sheila said with a raised eyebrow, while the dance instructor rolled out his advice on how to move to this particular track.
‘Just follow my lead.’ Our hips were pressed together, the only distance being the small gaps that appeared as Sheila rolled her hips and I tried with all the might left in my body to match her movements.
By the time we were a minute in, though, I found that the movements were coming much easier.
Our bodies were all curves and twists, and my heartbeat was a thrum in my ears that added an extra percussion to the music.
I didn’t know whether it was the exercise or the thrill of it all that had caused the pulse spike, but given that it had been such a long time since I’d had either things in my life I wagered it might be a medley of the two.
Sheila leaned in to speak in a whisper to me. ‘You look like you’re into it.’
‘I feel like I’m into it,’ I said, all the while conscious that I’d pressed my hips that little bit harder against hers while speaking.
The gesture was matched by Sheila slipping her hands down to my lower back and pressing me closer again, while my back softly arched away from her, and for a second I could imagine that we were twenty-something-year-old sweethearts in a sweaty dance hall on a Friday night.
Though if we had have been that age, this is definitely not what my twenty-something self would have been doing.
She doesn’t know what she missed, I thought with a finger-pluck of sadness that I tried to quickly push away.
At least we’re here now, Patti, at least we’re here–
‘Is everyone ready for a big finish?’ the instructor asked the room.
‘Ready?’ Sheila asked, already smirking.
‘I think so,’ I answered, my voice breaking with another laugh.
‘Trust me, okay?’
‘Oh, Sheila, what on earth are you–’
Sheila’s hands moved up my back and she applied pressure to my torso with hers, leaning into me until I began to lean back and my body, as though acting intuitively, took the cue of what she was asking me to do.
I leaned further back still and let her spread palms take the weight of me, and there I was, suspended in the arms of a woman who I’d known for five minutes and had been waiting for for forty years.
From my skewed vantage point, I took a look around the room and saw we were the only couple who had been brave enough to try a dip – and one or two couples looked sincerely put out that we’d managed it.
I strained to get my head into a more upright position, thinking Sheila would take the cue to lift me back to standing, but of course, there was one more part of the big finish to come.
Because that’s when she kissed me – square on the mouth, like we were twenty-something-year-old sweethearts…