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The Stroll was the first step Christy and I learned when we started going to Thursday-night dance
classes. It’s a two-by-two dance, a kind of icebreaker where each couple jives down an aisle of clapping
guys and girls. What I saw when I came back into the gym was different. Here the boys and the girls
came together, turned in each other’s arms as if waltzing, then separated again, ending up across from
where they had begun. When they were apart, their feet went back on their heels and their hips
swayed forward, a move that was both charming and sexy.
As I watched from beside the snack table, Mike, Jim, and Vince joined the guys’ side. Vince didn’t
have much—to say he danced like a white boy would be an insult to white boys everywhere—but Jim
and Mike moved like the athletes they were, which is to say with unconscious grace. Pretty soon most
of the girls on the other side were watching them.
“I was starting to worry about you!” Sadie shouted over the music. “Is everything all right out
there?”
“Fine!” I shouted back. “What’s that dance?”
“The Madison! They’ve been doing it on Bandstand all month! Want me to teach you?”
“Lady,” I said, taking her by the arm, “I’m going to teach you.”
The kids saw us coming and made room, clapping and shouting “Way to go, Mr. A!” and “Show him
how you work, Miz Dunhill!” Sadie laughed and tightened the elastic holding her ponytail. Color
mounted high in her cheeks, making her more than pretty. She got back on her heels, clapping her
hands and shaking her shoulders with the other girls, then came forward into my arms, her eyes
turned up to mine. I was glad I was tall enough for her to do that. We turned like a wind-up bride and
groom on a wedding cake, then came apart. I dipped low and spun on my toes with my hands held out
like Al Jolson singing “Mammy.” This brought more applause and some pre-Beatles shrieks from the
girls. I wasn’t showing off (okay, maybe a little); mostly I was just happy to be dancing. It had been
too long.
The song ended, the growling sax fading off into that rock n roll eternity our young DJ was pleased
to call the grooveyard, and we started to walk off the floor.
“God, that was fun,” she said. She took my arm and squeezed it. “You’re fun.”
Before I could answer, Donald blared out through the PA. “In honor of two chaperones who can
actually dance—a first in the history of our school—here’s a blast from the past, gone from the charts
but not from our hearts, a platter that matters, straight from my own daddy-o’s record collection,
which he doesn’t know I brought and if any of you cool cats tell him, I’m in trouble. Dig it, all you
steady rockers, this is how they did it when Mr. A. and Miz D. were in high school!”
They all turned to look at us, and . . . well . . .
You know how, when you’re out at night and you see the edge of a cloud light up a bright gold, you
know the moon is going to come out in a second or two? That was the feeling I had right then,
standing among the gently swaying crepe streamers in the Denholm gymnasium. I knew what he was
going to play, I knew we were going to dance to it, and I knew how we were going to dance. Then it
came, that smooth brass intro:
Bah-dah-dah . . . bah-dah-da-dee-dum . . .
Glenn Miller. “In the Mood.”
Sadie reached behind her and pulled the elastic, releasing the ponytail. She was still laughing and
beginning to hip-sway just a little bit. Her hair slipped smoothly from one shoulder to the other.
“Can you swing?” Raising my voice to be heard over the music. Knowing she could. Knowing she
would.
“Do you mean like the Lindy Hop?” she asked.
“That’s what I mean.”
“Well . . .”