Ballroom: A Novel

by Alice Simpson

  At the bathroom mirror, combing what little hair he has left neatly back, Joseph trims his mustache into shape and thinks how slowly Sundays pass. He can hardly wait for Jimmy J the DJ’s music, and all the familiar faces. Will she be there? Already dancing with someone? She rarely sits on the chairs that surround the dance floor. In the semidarkness of the Ballroom, without his glasses, it is difficult for him to distinguish individuals. That’s why he arrives at seven. To sit on the banquette, just outside the dance area. In the light. See her when she arrives.

  It just isn’t the same when Sarah isn’t there. Maybe tonight he will finally get the courage to ask her to the theater or dinner. While putting on his jacket, checking that he has his mints, he sniffs his underarm and wishes he’d worn another shirt.

  Chapter 5

  Gabriel Katz

  A neat boot gives a finish to a person, which it is impossible to obtain with an ill-made one. Those made of polished patent leather are much in vogue, and deservedly so, for evening parties.

  —W. P. Hazard, The Ball-Room Companion, 1849

  Opening the dressing room doors in his Forest Hills penthouse, Gabriel Katz heaves a deep sigh. How he loves the sanctity of the space, its cedar fragrance, its expanse of beveled mirrors, and the meticulous arrangement of its contents. Closing the closet doors, he slouches into his black leather Barcelona chair and stares into the mirrors that surround him. The singular act of deciding what to wear to the Ballroom clears his mind.

  While his summer wardrobe of casual slacks, linens, and light gabardines rest the season in clothing bags, his winter wools, shirts, and silks hang on cedar hangers. Each sweater in a zippered bag. Everything is organized by color. At the end of each season, he retires anything that looks the least bit worn.

  Running his hand across his silk shirts, he selects one to wear with a blue blazer, Armani wool slacks, crocodile belt, and matching Bally loafers with tassels. All his dancing shoes are shined and in their sleeves. He chooses the appropriate pair to add to his dance bag, which also holds an extra shirt, a tie, silk handkerchiefs, and a towel. All he needs are what he considers to be his signature. Blue-tinted glasses and his ring, an eighteen-karat yellow-and-rose-gold rattlesnake with two exquisite sapphire eyes and a tail set with rings of perfect pavé diamonds. Asprey of London appraised it at $80,000. It belonged to Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias. Gabriel’s grandfather, a jeweler in St. Petersburg, had supposedly done Nicholas some great favor, long since forgotten. Gabriel has had the ring resized for his pinkie and enjoys its touch of flamboyance. When asked about it, he mentions the emperor and the mysterious favor, believing it adds to his panache.

  In his mirrored refuge, closed off from the apartment and Myra, he is able to see himself from every angle. He checks the back of his head to make certain his roots don’t need a touch-up. The few strands of gray at the temples seem appropriate for a man of thirty-nine who, he is certain, looks twenty-nine. He smiles at the variations of himself.

  Myra stands in the doorway of their bedroom, her hair in disarray, wearing a faded robe.

  “Going dancing again?” The smoke from her cigarette curls up over one side of her upper lip, swirls around her flared nostrils, and blows across the space between them.

  “Don’t start.” He waves away the smoke.

  “King of the Starlight Ballroom! Do they beg? Dance with me, Gabe. Oh, please, Gabe. You’re so smooth, Gabe. Do they—do they all want to dance with you? Like Lila? Can you get it up for them?” Her laugh sounds as if there are stones in her chest. “Have a good time, baby?”

  “I told you, don’t call me baby.” His mother called him that, and now Myra does it to taunt him. She enjoys mocking him about dancing with his mother. He can no longer remember a time when he cared for her; now he can’t wait to get away from her. It’s a relief to get into his immaculate black Caddy, leave Forest Hills, and drive through the tunnel into Manhattan. He likes to arrive at the Ballroom around nine. After all the women have arrived.

  Chapter 6

  Angel Morez

  Pay constant attention during the evening that she may at no time feel alone.

  —W. P. Hazard, The Ball-Room Companion, 1849

  Angel has plans. To create his own dance center. Club Paradiso. While the rest of his life is loose and spontaneous, these plans are precise and structured.

  When he can’t sleep, he pores over his immaculately organized files, the contents of each colored folder considered and researched. Scouring magazines and newspapers at lunchtime, he finds articles on lofts, refinishing techniques, floor surfaces, lighting, and mirrors. He has collected information about sound equipment and brochures from dance schools all over the world. He has assembled a list of instructors to teach each dance.

  LOCATION, ARCHITECTURE, FLOORING, INSTRUCTORS. CLASSES, within which are files for individual dances: MAMBO, CHA-CHA, SALSA, TANGO, RUMBA, PASA DOBLE, QUICKSTEP, WALTZ, and FOX-TROT. Each includes a choreographic language of dance symbols, like shorthand. The space will be broken into several rooms. He plans to paint the room for ballroom dancing romantic clay and peach colors, like in the pictures he’s seen of Tuscany. Another room he’ll varnish in Real Red, as glossy as Maria’s lips, for tango and Latin or milonga. There will be cocktail tables around the edges of the dance floor, with tablecloths and candlelight, as well as a small stage for live music.

  On Saturday nights a musician will play tango music on a bandonion. Angel has plans for sprung dance floors, rubber ball bearings under plywood, covered with polished flooring. No one will dance in anything but leather shoes. There will be no black scuffmarks from rubber soles. He wants an area with comfortable seats, painted shades of cobalt, turquoise, and purple like a summer evening’s sky, where people can relax, talk, and watch dance videos. He will do the work himself, with the help of the guys from the blueprint shop. He has learned from his old high school buddy, Gino, who is really creative, that with sophisticated lighting and sliding walls the rooms can transform from classrooms to dance spaces. As a surprise, Gino even designed a logo and signage. Angel has planned a dance library to hold his collection of more than three hundred dance tapes, historical books, records, CDs, and magazines. He searches flea markets and eBay for them. He wants to offer lectures on the history of dance, with dancers from all over the world coming to teach and perform.

  When he has the financing together, he’ll ask Maria to be his partner. With her business smarts, they would make a go of it. He wishes his parents were more accepting of the life he’s chosen. They come to the championship competitions, cheer him and Maria on with enthusiasm, but the air has never completely cleared of their higher expectations. Especially Papa. Whether talking about sports, cars, or work, Papa’s disappointment hangs unspoken above every sentence. Not that he ever says anything, but Angel feels it. The way Papa looks away ever so slightly when he tells him what’s going on at the blueprint shop or about his dancing achievements. Then, once the conversation turns to Mama or Fischer’s Auto Parts, Papa’s eyes are alive again.

  Angel’s always liked working at the blueprint shop, and over the years he’s learned to read architectural plans. It began as a placement by his school counselor, just an after-school way to make money, and he’s stayed.

  Angel cares about the people he works with, and has even computerized the accounts. They are like his second family, and his boss, Mike, depends on him.

  Sometimes during the afternoons, when business is slow and the music plays, he dances right there, taking turns with Lana and Latiqua, the twins at the front desk. All the guys, even Mike, watch and applaud.

  Whenever he has any time off, he takes the subway uptown and spends hours at the Lincoln Center dance library, watching dance tapes, studying movement, taking in all the details of gesture and motion until they are part of him. It is all he wants.

  What he most likes about watching the tapes is that he can stop them, play them back and forth in slow motion. If he can learn eac
h dance, understand it in his bones, he can teach it better. He has to know not only his own steps but also the woman’s; how to lead and how to follow.

  While he’s waiting for the train, music is in his ears; rhythms are in his chest. His legs repeat Latin motion, and—one-two, one-two-three—and. His feet roll from side to side in time with his tongue, which is clicking cha-cha noises in his mouth. His posture and frame are like a matador’s. Jaws clenched, he feels the flare of his nostrils, the fierceness of his eyes—intense and concentrated, his entire being in harmony with the spirit of the sound. He hears rhythm in the roar of the train as it screeches through the tunnel.

  The music playing was “Nostalgias,” an Argentine tango, the first time Angel danced with Maria. It was a Saturday-night dance at Our Lady of Sorrows in January 1993, and Maria had just turned fourteen. Angel and his girlfriend Alexis shared a table with Manuel and Maria. Maria was tall for her age, with dark, shy eyes. He was twenty; too old to dance with her, really, but to be polite he’d asked permission from her papi.

  “This song makes me feel so sad,” she’d whispered, her gaze upon the floor.

  “Pay attention to the movement in my chest,” he explained. “Think of each step as the last. You’re doing just fine. If it helps, close your eyes. Pretend you can’t see. It will help you to follow.”

  “The steps are complicated.” She closed her eyes.

  “You’re doing fine.”

  The next song had been a mambo, and with Mr. Rodriguez’s okay they danced again. He began with basic steps, then more complicated steps, which she mimicked. Soon she began to relax, to hold her head up and her shoulders back, to smile, even laugh. She came alive to the music.

  “You got a thing for her?” Alexis asked.

  “Girlfriend is one thing, and dancing’s another,” he responded.

  That had been a lie. In the weeks, months, and years that followed, as he danced with her at church dances under Manuel’s watchful eye, he wished she were older so he could dance with her all the time. When his fingers brushed her skin, when her body was pressed against his, something awoke in him that none of his girlfriends, not even Alexis, could kindle. As they danced, he could barely tell where he ended and Maria began.

  At sixteen Maria blossomed into a young woman, her hair a mass of undulating mahogany curls, her ardent eyes shaped like almonds, her mouth a ripe plum. In his embrace, he was certain he could feel the beating of her heart. Her father gave them permission to compete that year.

  Four years have passed, and theirs is a partnership of mutual respect, hard work—and passion for the dance. They agree to dance only with one another. Secretly, there is no one with whom he’d rather be.

  Chapter 7

  Maria

  In asking a lady to go with you to a ball, it is customary to present her with a bouquet of flowers.

  —Rudolph Radestock, The Royal Ball-Room Guide, 1877

  The cell phone’s ring startles her.

  “Hi, sugar.”

  “Angel!”

  “Can you believe I’m still at Lincoln Center Library? Looks like it might rain. Meet you at Union Square. Eight thirty. We’ll just have time for a coffee. Where are you?”

  “At Dance. I got here at ten.”

  “I’m envious. What a way to spend a Sunday.”

  “I worked on spins. Think I’ve got them down.”

  “How’s Times Square? Still there? You’re not too tired to go to the Ballroom?”

  “Me? Never.”

  “What are you wearing?”

  “Is this an obscene call?” She laughs.

  “Tonight!”

  “Mambo Mama. Just for you.”

  “Mm, my favorite dress. I love a women in red.”

  “See ya,” she teases. “Partner.”

  The balls of her feet are on fire. She is exhausted. Letting her hair down, she takes off her practice shoes and sits on a folding chair to gaze out the windows overlooking Broadway. She has been practicing the rumba since ten in the morning. Eight hours working on her part of the routine, the tease-and-run, with its flirtations, the soft hip motions and spins. She needs to be sure on her feet. As she lifts one of her legs into the air, her calf muscles ache from the straight-legged international style.

  Evening approaches, and Times Square’s signage, a vivid flicker of ruby, citrine, and sapphire, lights up the darkening city sky and reflects in the practice room mirrors as she dances in the room to the Brazilian sound of João Gilberto.

  At the windows, she pauses to look down upon the quickening thrust of the street. Lines like colored ribbon stretch at TKTS for cheap theater seats, guides hawk bus tours, and the sidewalks are a to-and-fro crush. Yellow cabs, trucks and buses, at crisscross standstill, blast the air with their horns, and the throb rises to compete with Maria’s boom box. It’s almost time for curtains to rise, for stage lights to come on, for theater to begin. She feels elated by Broadway’s pulse, which reminds her of the Ballroom. It also reminds her that it is time to get home, make dinner for Papi, and get ready. Dance in the spotlight. It has been exhilarating to dance day and night, to have holiday time off from studying before school begins again.

  Maria wonders whether, if her mother were still alive, she would appreciate her dancing as much as her accomplishments at school. Papi always turns his face away when Maria asks him questions about her, so she no longer asks.

  Every September their families and friends, Angel’s buddies from work, come to watch her and Angel compete at the United States Dance Championships, International Latin division. Angel creates their organic choreography, uses movement to advance a story rather than as a decoration or distraction. Creating sexual tension is part of the drama whether it is a paso doble—a dance based on a bullfight in which the man is the matador, his partner the bull—a mambo, or a tango, in which they must each have distinct personalities. He wants the audience and the judges to observe that their dances are about to connect emotionally with what is happening between them.

  Maria has developed ways to dramatically play off Angel’s onstage machismo, to project vulnerability or a wistful fire beneath an icy exterior, depending on the tale they are telling. What she really feels is how connected they are, loving the hours they spend practicing almost as much as performing, perfecting their timing until they resemble the synchronous motions of a clock. In her prayers, she never forgets to be thankful she has Angel for a partner.

  In their four years as partners, she and Angel have risen to second place in DanceSport International’s Latin division, with rumba and samba their winning dances. They’ve earned it. With classes and practice in ballroom and ballet on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, driven by a shared work ethic and discipline, they are determined to win gold this year. When Angel doesn’t have students, they dance at the Latin Quarter, the Copacabana, or Sigh Street on Saturday nights. Sunday nights they dance at the Ballroom.

  It is always in the back of her mind that she and Harry might cross paths at the Ballroom. She prays that he will keep his promise and leave before nine; that she will never pass him on the stairs and be forced to pretend she doesn’t know him. She is afraid that she might catch his glance. Harry’s eyes, once azure, now fading to pale gray with maps of broken blood vessels, see her as though he is blind.

  At Barnard she takes on her studies with the same purpose she brings to the dance floor. She wants to dance and graduate with honors; prove to Papi and herself that she can succeed at both. Soon she will be twenty-one, ready to move out of Alphabet City and uptown. Away from Harry.

  Chapter 8

  Joseph

  One thing for sure is pizza is an extremely informal meal and can be approached as such.

  No hard fast rules other than be polite and neat.

  —Society for Culinary Arts & Letters forums, www.egullet.org

  Crossing Tenth, Joseph heads toward Fourteenth Street. Voluminous gray clouds, large and looming, splash across a threatening sky. The winter air has th
e stillness and grassy scent unique to those moments before a city downpour. He’s forgotten his umbrella. In an instant, amid the crash of thunder and lightning, he is caught in a deluge, everyone running for cover as he leaps across puddles to make it into the pizza place.

  “Hey, Joe! Just in time,” calls the pizza man. “Same old?”

  “A slice with pepperoni and a small Coke, please.”

  “Ya got it!” He slides a slice into the oven.

  “So, ya goin’ dancin’ tonight?”

  Joseph nods. Hates his business being announced to the world. Luckily, there are just a few teenage girls in the corner who don’t look up. When the place is crowded, he can eat his pizza without talking to the pizza guy. The rain blasts the windows and the backward “Free Delivery” sign glows orange against fogged glass.

  “Bet you’re a good dancer. You been goin’ there about ten years. Right?”

  The teens leave, just as four men who look as if they’ve been driving trucks a very long distance come in and stand next to him.

  “That son of a bitch sure stiffed us,” says one. “The four a us supposed to split twenty bucks. After we haul that shit across country. Man, that’s bullshit.”

  “Whadda you guys have?”

  “One large, extra cheese, half mushroom, half pepperoni, and four large Cokes.”

  “Tell me, Joe, there lotsa women where you dance?” The counter man puts the cup of Coke on his tray. “Good lookin’, I’ll bet.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Do ya meet a lot of ’em?” He gives Joseph a sly look.

  “A fair amount.” Joseph shrugs. The truckers look him over, catch each other’s eyes.

  “I got a great memory. Always pepperoni and Coke. Remember you comin’ in here about nineteen eighty-nine. That’s when my kid was born. You had more hair then. Right?” Joseph resents that the guy thinks they’re buddies. That he calls him Joe. Reminds him that he’s losing his hair. He figures that he and the pizza guy are about the same age. Although with the guy’s height, his full head of thick gray hair, chiseled features, and a build that could only be acquired by pumping iron, women would certainly want to dance with him.