Mambo in Chinatown

by Jean Kwok

  Julian paused the dance session he was teaching to the professionals. Everyone stared.

  I fiddled with my skirt as Adrienne came out of her office and leaned against the doorway. “Well, what do you know.” She walked to me and looked me over. “What size shoe are you?”

  “Seven and a half,” I said.

  “She can’t teach without dance shoes,” Adrienne said. “I think she’ll kill herself in her usual pumps. Who’s close in size?”

  Simone avoided our eyes. Katerina said, “I’m an eight. I’m only teaching smooth today. She can borrow my Latin shoes for the lesson.”

  “Go get them,” Mateo said. “I gotta see her in them.” I looked in his direction to see Dominic and Julian looking at me. Julian had a faint smile on his face. Katerina went into the other ballroom, returning with a glittering pair of sandals in her hands.

  I sat at one of the tables and Katerina put the shoes on my feet. The soles of the shoes were made of suede. One of the straps was so long, she wrapped it all the way underneath the bottom of the shoe before buckling it. She glanced up at me. “Don’t look so scared. They’re designed for speed and balance. That’s why the heel is set underneath the center of your foot’s heel instead of way back like some other shoes. You’ve got such high arches, they’ll fit you fine.”

  Adrienne said, “Stay here and get used to those shoes, Charlie. Watch the dance session. Julian will teach you right afterward. I’ll take over your job until then.”

  I stood up in the shoes, nervous, but when I walked a few steps, I realized I was much more stable than I’d ever been in regular heels. Instead of my ankles wobbling, my feet felt like they were solidly on the ground. From a distance the nude sandals appeared to be a part of my legs. I sneaked another glance at myself in the mirror. For the first time, I did not see a dishwasher.

  —

  Julian stood next to me so that we were both facing the mirror. Thank goodness we were in the smaller studio so we had a bit more privacy. I saw the other dancers pausing as they came close to our door, deliberately swinging their partners into dips so they could wink at me through the glass window.

  “I’m going to teach you just a few steps. That’s all you’ll have time for. First we’ll do men’s, then ladies’ parts.”

  “I have to learn men’s parts too? I’ll need to lead and follow?” This hadn’t occurred to me, although I had indeed seen the dancers teaching both genders. Somehow I’d had the idea that maybe the male teachers stepped in for that.

  “You’ll be leading better than most men by the time we’re done.” Julian went to the stereo and turned it on. Sinatra started singing.

  “This is a foxtrot,” Julian told me. “Listen to it. One, two, three, four . . . Can you find the beat?”

  “One, two, three . . .” I’d never been good with rhythm.

  “No, feel the music. Don’t worry about the numbers.” He came over and took my hand in his. His was large and warm. Dancers always found it so easy to touch people. Pa avoided touching either of us if he could help it since it wasn’t proper. I tried not to flush.

  Julian closed his hands around my forearms and had me do the same to his. “This is called double hand hold.” He closed his eyes and started swaying to the music with me. “Your music is not in your ears. It is in your partner. Listen to your partner.”

  He waited until we were swaying together, then he took off his cuff links, set them on the stereo and folded up the sleeves of his shirt. I looked down and saw tattoos of dragons swirling up both of his arms, underneath his formal shirt. He linked his arm through mine.

  “First get the class just to start walking. Remember, they’ve never done any ballroom before.”

  “Neither have I.”

  “Right. You’ll get along just fine then, won’t you?” He gave me a smile, then started strolling forward and backward, side by side with me, both of us starting with our right legs.

  “Dancing is just like walking. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. If you can walk, you can dance. And if you can learn to walk properly, you can do any dance.”

  “I’m not that good at walking either,” I muttered.

  He heard me. “I bet you’re good at sports.”

  I looked at him in surprise. I thought about my old gym classes at school. “I’m all right.”

  “You’re extremely smooth. You’re already rolling through your feet. But your steps are too wide.”

  I deflated.

  He continued, “Lots of athletes have that. Like they’re trying to get a ball to the other side of the ballroom. Usually, they’re hairy gentlemen, though.”

  I choked a bit as he looked at me sideways.

  “So you’re special. As a dancer, you don’t have to arrive at a destination, you only have to travel beautifully.”

  I pressed my lips together, dubious.

  One side of his mouth tugged upward. He took me by the shoulders so that I faced the mirror. “You are lovely. Once you realize that, everyone else will be able to see it too.”

  I felt my blush sweep up all the way to the roots of my hair.

  “I didn’t know Chinese people could turn that color,” Julian said conversationally. Then he took my arm and started walking with me around the small ballroom again.

  “Now take two steps forward and a little side step. Slow slow, quick quick. Slow slow, quick quick . . .” He had his hand on my back. Then he turned to the mirror and said, “Now watch me and imitate everything I do. Sidestep, then close your feet. Good.”

  He started to show me the basic box. Thanks to learning movement in the tai chi classes, I could copy him pretty well, but after a few steps, I couldn’t remember if I was the man or the woman.

  “Julian, which leg am I on now?”

  His smile was enigmatic. “The leg is irrelevant. Remember, it’s not the steps. It’s the feeling. That is dancing. Amateurs, they dance steps.”

  Julian let go of me and pretended to dance, jerking his arms and legs independently of his torso. “Left, right, left, right, like a robot.”

  Then he integrated his body and became a great flowing animal again. He rippled from his stomach out to his chest and then through his arms and legs. “A true dancer dances center to center.” He drew a line in the air from his torso to mine. “We dance heart to heart. I am still amazed by the number of students who believe steps are dancing. The steps are nothing. A true dancer moves with her body, her center, her heart, and the legs are only there to catch her so she does not fall. If the movement of the center is correct, the feet will be where they need to be.”

  This I understood. Godmother had trained me for years to feel my center. I breathed in and found mine.

  He put his hands on either side of my waist and swayed me so that I naturally took a step forward. It was my left leg I needed to stand on. That was clear now.

  “There are two main types of ballroom dance: standard and Latin. In the U.S., those styles are called ‘smooth’ and ‘rhythm’ but people tend to use the terms interchangeably. Of course, there are technical differences between international and American style, which you don’t need to worry about yet. For now, there are two sorts of walk you’ll need to learn. A standard or smooth walk.” He released me and glided forward and backward on his feet, taking long, smooth steps that led with his heels.

  “And a Latin or rhythm walk.” Now he pushed his weight onto his feet, rolling his hips, grinding his feet into the floor. “Do you see the damage on Katerina’s shoes?”

  I looked down and nodded. The inside surfaces of both shoes had holes in them, although the sandals in general looked fairly new.

  “They are the result of Latin technique.” He stood behind me, both of us facing the mirror. I didn’t want to think what Pa would say if he could see us now. I could feel the heat of Julian’s body behind me. He put his hands on my pe
lvic bones, at the corner of my hips. He had to bend down so his cheek was nearly next to mine, then shifted his legs together with mine. “One leg straight and one leg bent. Switch. Roll through your feet. Now, other leg. One straight, one bent.” He gently pushed my hips back and forth, rolling them. “Weight transfer and release. Hold your top still. Very good.”

  He straightened and released me. My face, neck and ears must have been glowing. “That is what Latin feels like. Like the heat of the sun on your body, while you’re drawing in the sand with your toes. Now, waltz.”

  He took a few steps away from me. He stood proud and held his hand out to me as if he were a prince. My head swam. I went over to him.

  “No,” he said. “Let’s change places for a moment.” He pretended to be me. “We begin a waltz like this.” He threw his head back, shoulders down, stomach in, extended his arm and glided over to me, then gently laid his hand in mine. He fluttered his eyelashes at me.

  I laughed.

  “Okay, once more.” We changed places so that he was once again doing the man’s part. I employed all of my muscles to glide over to him like he’d done. “Much better. Now, for the first time, we shall waltz.”

  As we started to dance together, he looked at me with some surprise. “You move very well.”

  It felt wonderful in Julian’s arms. I knew it was only because he was a world-class dancer, but it felt like being in love. When he held me, it was as if my body knew what to do without any thinking at all.

  “You make me seem graceful,” I said.

  “Do you think of yourself as not?”

  “I’m clumsy. I drop everything. I can’t sew or cook.”

  “Never confuse small and large motor coordination,” he said, spinning us through the room. “Many dancers are awkward with their hands. That has nothing to do with their bodies.”

  “Really?” I thought about this for a moment. “Are you clumsy too?”

  He broke dance position with his head to look directly at me. “I assure you I am highly skilled with my hands. Would you care for a private demonstration?”

  Right. I shook my head quickly and kept silent for the rest of our dance. By the end of that lesson, I’d learned how to do the basic box and how to make it into rumba, foxtrot and waltz by changing the way my body moved. We’d covered the basic steps in swing, plus an underarm turn. I’d also done a simple turn in rumba and waltz. I looked up to see Adrienne watching us through the window in the door just before she stepped through it.

  “You’re wonderful, Julian,” she said. “How is she?”

  I stood there while they continued to talk about me as if I weren’t there.

  “She’s a quick learner. Light on her feet,” he said. “Absolutely no ballroom technique at all, which is to be expected.”

  Adrienne looked me up and down. “That doesn’t matter. Nina’s right, the beginners won’t be able to tell. We just need to get through this one class.”

  Adrienne walked over to me and allowed me to take her in dance position, so that I was doing the man’s part. Her stomach bumped against mine. “Show me what you’ve learned.”

  I took a deep breath, then did the steps Julian had shown me. I started doing a slow rumba box with her, then into an underarm turn. Despite needing to keep some distance between us because of her protruding belly, I could give her the lightest of impulses and she would execute the step, beautifully. I’d never seen a heavily pregnant woman move like this. Now that I’d tried to do the steps myself, I realized how good she was. She made it easy.

  Someone clapped from the main doorway. It was Dominic. “Well, well, well. Maybe this won’t be a total disaster after all.”

  I stepped away from Adrienne. “It was all Julian’s work,” I said, turning to him. “Thank you.”

  Julian gave me a formal little nod, reverting back to his role as renowned judge and coach. “It was my pleasure.” Then he strode over to Dominic, put his arm around him, and the two of them walked off, discussing the upcoming showcase.

  —

  At home the next morning, after Pa and Lisa had left, I pushed all of the furniture aside to make a small clearing in the middle of our living room. I ran over the steps I’d learned again and again. Man’s part, lady’s part. It was hard to do without a partner. I felt confused. One moment, I thought I knew it, and the next, I was sure I’d mess everything up again. I went over to Ma’s altar and lit a stick of incense. “Please, Ma, lend me your strength today.”

  We had agreed I would borrow Nina’s dress and Katerina’s shoes for the lesson that day. Before the class, Nina had me practice teaching her. We did a run-through in the small ballroom. It was much easier to practice with her because it was clearer where my arms and feet needed to be in relation to another person. I only needed to show the students a few steps and most of the class would consist of them practicing what they’d learned.

  “You’ll be fine,” Nina said.

  I couldn’t seem to stop trembling. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

  “You used to teach some, right? Just think of this as tai chi to music.”

  I tried to smile. “And after this, I’m never coming out from behind my receptionist desk again.”

  When the students arrived for the beginners’ group lesson, many of them seemed even more nervous than I was. I waited for them inside the small ballroom, wiping my sweaty hands against my borrowed blue dress. I thought of Nina’s words: tai chi to music, that was all. I could do this. There were about twenty people, ages ranging from midtwenties to almost sixty. About half of them were couples, the rest were mostly women who had come alone. I noticed one man in the back. In his workman’s pants and boots, he looked as out of place among the sophisticated clientele as I felt.

  Adrienne was chatting in a friendly way with the red-haired woman standing next to the man. They seemed to know each other. After a few minutes, Adrienne came up to the front. She introduced me, then left to teach her coaching session, with a little wink to me at the door. She’d given me the tags with their names on them, which I’d made earlier in the day because Adrienne believed it made the students feel more comfortable if you used their names. I checked my list and tried to match names to the people.

  When I went up to the single man to give him his tag, I hesitated, noticing his work boots. He had the biggest, widest feet I’d ever seen. Despite his plain clothing, he stood proud and straight. “Umm, we allow normal shoes but I’m afraid yours might damage the floor.” It was a part of my receptionist’s duties to screen clients for acceptable shoes, although I’d never had to say anything before.

  He smiled, his green eyes crinkling. His face was clean-shaven, with a nose slightly flattened at the top, as if it’d been broken before. “They might damage someone’s toes too. I’m sorry, we were doing a garden paving job, and I didn’t have time to change before coming here. I’ll take them off.”

  Then the woman next to him took his arm and said to me, “This is Ryan. He’s a landscaper.” She didn’t look like the sort of woman I would have imagined with this guy. She had straight, shoulder-length dark red hair, a light sprinkling of freckles, completely composed in her navy suit and heels. She extended her hand. “I’m Evelyn, his sister.”

  I shook it, still self-conscious about my hands, although I knew the skin had healed by now.

  Untying his boots, Ryan said, “I’m just a gardener, Evelyn.”

  “No, you’re not. Stop it.”

  I almost laughed. They sounded just like me and Lisa. “Glad you could make it, Ryan, Evelyn.”

  “And this is my fiancé, Trevor,” Evelyn said, turning to the man on her other side, in a pin-striped shirt and a blue tie, which he’d loosened.

  “Nice to meet you, Charlie,” Trevor said.

  I quickly shook his hand, gave them their tags and then moved to the center of the room.
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br />   “Welcome, everyone,” I said, trying to speak loudly and clearly. I clasped my hands tightly together to stop their trembling. “Today I’ll be teaching you just a few basic steps. I need a male volunteer.” I’d dreaded this part, but when I scanned the room, I focused on a kind face. “Ryan, since you’re in your socks and I know you won’t be able to hurt my toes, will you come up?” That got a laugh, which made me feel better.

  Ryan rolled his shoulders. Could he be nervous too? Then he came to stand next to me. I positioned him across from me and took his forearms in a double hand hold. “We’ll start with a side step. I’ll need the rest of you to grab a partner like this and line up with us.”

  We waited while the room shuffled around.

  “Now, we’re just going to take little side steps together, toward the door.” I thought about how I remembered the movement myself. “It’s like you’re at the movies and you need to get up to buy some popcorn. You have to squeeze past everyone, so you say, ‘Excuse me,’ then do a little step to the side.”

  Evelyn laughed. “It’s an excuse-me step.”

  “Yes. Okay, everyone, come along with me and we’ll go ‘Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me.’” I felt more comfortable now that the class had started. It wasn’t so different from what I’d done before after all.

  I held on to Ryan’s arms and moved him with me to the side. His strides were so large, he wound up far away from me with every step we took. I ticked him on the wrist. “Stay with me. That’s what a gentleman does.”

  There was a teasing light in his eyes. “Sorry, ma’am.”

  Ryan stayed up front with me for the rest of the lesson. I’d intended to change partners for every dance, but I was so flustered by being in front of the class that I forgot.

  When I had everyone get into dance position and we held hands for the first time, he stared at the floor. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “What?”

  He mumbled so that I just managed to hear him say, “My hands are very rough.”