Instructions for Dancing

by Nicola Yoon

  My chase scene starts just outside the hotel, where there is a line of cabs waiting. It’s only after I get into one that I realize I don’t know X’s address. I text Fifi. Miraculously, she’s not teaching a class. She texts me Archibald and Maggie’s address right away. She can’t resist adding:

  don’t know what took you so long

  boy is too sexy to let go of

  good luck

  Traffic getting back to LA is awful because…because traffic in LA is always awful. It takes us forty-five minutes to get to midcity. The cabdriver turns onto Wilshire. Unbelievably, traffic is even worse. It’d be faster for me to ride my bike. I tell the driver to turn onto Curson and take me to my apartment instead. I run inside and grab my bike lock key. I don’t stop to change my clothes. I can bike in a dress. By the time I realize I’m still wearing my heels, I don’t have the patience to go back. All I can think of is getting to X as soon as possible. There are so many things to say to him and not enough time to say them. I don’t want to miss another second of being with him.

  I hear the old woman’s voice in my head, telling me that the power would leave me when I was ready. And I feel the moment when it does go away. Weirdly, it’s like adjusting the focus on a set of binoculars. The power leaves me, and the world is somehow clearer than it was before.

  Maggie answers the door when I get to her house. She looks like she was expecting me and gives me a hug. “You look very nice, dear,” she says, before telling me that X is playing guitar in the living room.

  The very short walk from her door to the living room is the longest I’ve ever taken.

  I don’t know exactly when or how X is going to die. I don’t know how I’m going to survive the crater he’ll leave inside me.

  The only thing I know for sure is that I can’t live with knowing I could’ve had more time with him and I didn’t take it. It doesn’t matter that love ends. It just matters that there’s love.

  X stops playing as soon as I’m in the doorway, as if he can sense me there.

  “It’s my dad’s wedding today,” I say.

  He stares down at his feet. “When?”

  “Right now. I mean, it happened already.”

  “Did you go?”

  “I did. It was nice. The reception is happening right now.”

  He looks over at me. His eyes are sad and wary, but at least they’re on me. “Why are you here, Evie?”

  “I need a dance partner.”

  “You came all the way over here in the middle of your dad’s wedding to ask me to dance with you?”

  “Yes.” I leave the doorway and sit next to him on the sofa.

  He hugs his guitar tighter and shifts slightly away from me. “I don’t know, Evie. You messed me up pretty bad.”

  God, I’ve wasted so much time already.

  “I know,” I say. I reach out and rest my hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t flinch, so I keep going. “I’m sorry. I was scared.”

  “Of what?” he asks.

  “Of losing you.”

  He hangs his head down, not looking at me. “You don’t make sense. You’re scared of losing me, so you dump me?”

  “It seemed safer.”

  “You were never going to lose me,” he says, frustrated. “I tried to tell you.”

  I stand up and pace a little, trying to find the right words. “I’m screwing this up. What I’m saying is I finally figured out that endings don’t matter nearly as much as I thought they did.”

  “What matters, then?”

  I sit back down. “Beginnings are nice, but the best part is right now, in the wide-open middle. I made fun of you, but you were right this whole time. I should live in the moment and all that other stuff.”

  He lifts his head and turns to face me.

  Now I know the right words to say. “You’re the love of my life, Xavier Darius Woods. I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you.”

  His smile starts off small just at the corners of his mouth before spreading to take over his entire face. “I’m the love of your life?” he asks.

  “You are. It’s terrifying, frankly.”

  He laughs at that and then bumps his shoulder into mine. “You’re the love of mine too, you know.”

  “I know,” I say.

  He stands and tugs me up with him. “So you want to go dancing at your dad’s wedding?”

  “I do. Will you go with me?”

  He grins. “I ever tell you about my philosophy of saying yes to everything?”

  CHAPTER 60

  The Future

  WHEN WE GET to the reception, the lights are dim except for a giant disco ball spinning silver light. The band is playing, and most everyone is dancing. Dad and Shirley are in the center of the floor. I think they’re doing the (slow, boring, English) waltz, but it’s hard to tell because they’re pretty terrible dancers. What they lack in skill, though, they make up for in happiness.

  I look around for Danica and find her eating cake and talking to someone on the phone. I wonder if it’s Martin. I hope it is.

  The song winds down, and I pull X along with me so I can ask the band to play an Argentine tango. Lucky for me, they know how.

  At first, I’m self-conscious. I notice the way everyone notices us. I notice them studying our dance moves. After a while, I don’t notice anything but X.

  Eight months from now, X will be playing guitar at home in Lake Elizabeth. He’ll feel a pain in his chest. Afterward, doctors will determine that he had a bad valve in his heart and that he’d had it since birth.

  By then, we’ll have written an entire album together.

  We’ll have danced for hours and hours.

  We’ll have made love.

  He’ll have taught me how to play guitar and to love music as much as he does.

  He’ll have told me that he loves me every single day.

  Some days I’ll know that I’ll be okay. Some days I won’t know that at all.

  One thing I’ll know for sure: love can last forever.

  Now, he spins me around. My arm travels down the length of his. Our fingertips brush and it feels like I’m going to slip away from him.

  But I don’t.

  At the last second I curl my fingers and our hands catch.

  And then I do the thing you’re supposed to do when you find love.

  I hold on.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A few disclaimers before I begin: I’m sorry to say there’s no such thing as Taco Night in Los Angeles. There very definitely should be, but, alas. As is my right as a writer of fiction, I also took some liberties with the structure of ballroom dance competitions. Also, Barrington, New York, is not a real place. Neither is La Brea Dance. Surf City Waffle does not exist, but it’s based (loosely) on my favorite waffle place in all of Los Angeles, called Met Her at a Bar. It’s delicious and you should go there. If you do, say hi to Vinny and Mindy and tell them that Nicola sent you.

  I wrote this book during one of the hardest times in my life. My mom was very sick. For more than a year and a half, we weren’t sure if she would make it. My father-in-law was told he had a terminal illness. He died a year later. If you’ve ever cared for a seriously ill or grieving loved one, you know what this is. You know how illness and death remakes the world. At the very least, it introduces you to a shadow world, one made of endless doctor’s visits and of 3:00 a.m. phone calls followed by lonely 3:05 a.m. drives to the hospital. You know what it is to hold someone in your arms and make promises you don’t know if you can keep. And promises you absolutely know you cannot.

  Throughout this process—this remaking of my world—I wrote. Writing has always saved me, and I thought it would again. Most of what I wrote during this time was not good. In particular, I wrote a book (the never-to-be-published precursor to this one) that was just o
kay. I rewrote it for a while, but it was not meant to be. I wrote a lot of other things that were also not meant to be. It turns out I couldn’t write my way through this period—I could only live my way through it. Finally, two and half years after the publication of my previous book, I started on the one you’re holding in your hands. I’ve never fought harder for a book, and I’m very proud of it.

  And now for the part that always makes me cry as I write it:

  Thanks to every nurse, doctor, security guard, janitor, parking lot attendant, receptionist, every everybody who helps take care of the sick and dying. Thanks for being kind to a lost and grieving daughter and daughter-in-law.

  Thanks to my teams at Alloy Entertainment and Random House Children’s books: John Adamo, Shameiza Ally, Josh Bank, Matt Bloomgarden, Emily Bruce, Ken Crossland, Elysa Dutton, Colleen Fellingham, Felicia Frazier, Gina Girolamo, Becky Green, Romy Golan, Judith Haut, Beverly Horowitz, Alison Impey, Christina Jeffries, Kimberly Langus, Wendy Loggia, Barbara Marcus, Les Morgenstern, Amy Myer, Alison Romig, Mark Santella, Tamar Schwartz, Tim Terhune, Adrienne Waintraub and publicist extraordinaire Jillian Vandall. Thanks also to Judy Bass and my indefatigable agent, Jodi Reamer. You guys are rock stars, and nothing happens without you.

  An extra-special shout-out to my editor, Wendy Loggia, for being patient and kind on top of everything else she is. Another special shout-out to Martha Rago and Neil Swaab for the gorgeous cover design, Jyotirmayee Patra for the lovely hand lettering and Renike for the stunning illustration. And still more extra-special shout-outs to Joelle Hobeika and Sara Shandler, who believed in me and believed in me and believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.

  During times of stress, I tend to retreat from the world. The hugest of thank-yous to David Jung and Sabaa Tahir, who made me talk when all I wanted to do was hide. I love you guys a lot.

  Thanks to my mom and dad and sister and niece just for being.

  Thanks to my little girl, Penny, for noticing the way rain changes the colors of the world. You are pure magic and I love being your mama.

  And, finally, thanks to my husband, David Yoon. I’m the luckiest because I get to adventure through this life with you. I love you forever.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Nicola Yoon is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers The Sun Is Also a Star and Everything, Everything, both of which have been turned into major motion pictures. She grew up in Jamaica and Brooklyn and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, novelist David Yoon, and their daughter. She’s also a hopeless romantic who firmly believes that you can fall in love in an instant and that it can last forever.

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