Ada's Dance
Ada hated to dance. Dancing was second on the list of things she hated most in the world. When her friends asked her why she wouldn’t dance, she said it was the music. It was, she said, the hard bass line that thudded in 4/4 time and that the only music they played at the school’s dances were all bass, no rhythm. She’d tell them that it didn’t offer enough variation, she couldn’t do the steps she wanted to such a simple rhythm, she wanted something more complicated so she could really move. Her friends believed her because she was the best musician at school. She composed pieces for the woodwind quartet she was part of. She could play all the instruments in the school band, but was an expert at the clarinet. All this convinced her friends that she knew what she was talking about and, therefore, needed better music to dance.
The truth was that her body didn’t have the rhythm that her mind and fingers had. Her foot never tapped out the proper time while she was playing. Instead, it tapped with a beat all its own. She couldn’t even march properly with the school’s band. Always half a step off , having to do a little hop to match the girl next to her, only to be half a step off twenty feet down the road.
Ada had tried to dance. Oh, how she had tried. She took lessons. Tap. Jazz. Ballet. Hip-hop. Square. Folk. She even went out to the local Indian reservation to learn some of the tribal dances. She tripped on the foot of the girl next to her, which caused the whole row of girl to fall face first into the hard-packed dirt. Her body didn’t move to the beat. It was always too fast or too slow, swaying to the left when it should be dipping to the right, never where it should actually be. All of her teacher encouraged her to quit after the third or fourth class, telling her they thought anyone could learn to dance, until they met her.
What really pissed her off was that she could play her clarinet like Benny Goodman, but couldn’t tap her feet as well as the kids in the up to eight years class at the other end of the studio.
Yes, Ada hated to dance, but she had come to the spring formal with her friend Derrick anyway. Actually, she had tricked him into asking her to the dance. She knew he hated any school functions, so she had to trick him into asking her. What she did was constantly complain about the way an acquaintance of theirs, Ken, had been following her around since their return from Christmas vacation. She told Derrick that she didn’t like the way Ken made moon-eyes at her whenever he saw her. She said she didn’t like they was he stood a little closer to her than she was comfortable with. She constantly mentioned Ken’s bad breath and how she was afraid she’d faint when he opened his mouth. Every day for a month before tickets for the dance went on sale, she complained about Ken to Derrick.
“It’s not that I don’t like Ken,” she told Derrick at lunch the day tickets went on sail. “It’s just that I’m afraid he’s gonna ask me to the dance and I don’t think I could say no. I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”
“Well,” Derrick said, his voice catching in his throat, “maybe I could take you to the dance. You know, protect you from Ken and the other Kens out there. That way you could tell him the truth. You’re already going to the dance with someone else.”
“Really?” Ada’s eyes brightened and she grinned. “You’d do that for me?”
“S-sure. I-I’d do just about anything for you, Ada.”
“Thanks, Derrick,” she said, taking his hand, impressed that the first part of her plan had worked. “You’re the best friend a girl could ever want.”
The second part of her plan was to make Chip, the boy of her dreams, to really notice her and, if all goes well, become so enraptured with her that he’d whisk her away from the dance with a kiss, take her to the highest peak in the mountains, and proclaim his everlasting love for her and only her as the sun pushed its way into the sky. Of course, just the noticing and kissing thing would be good too. Sure, it might ruin Derrick’s night if the girl he came in with ended up in another boy’s arms, but Derrick was a good friend and would understand. He had too, right?
The music in the gym was thumping when Derrick, wearing a dark green button-down shirt and Garfield tie, and Ada, in a strapless purple dress that she thought hugged her curves in a way to emphasize the good and hide the bad, stepped into the room. The music was so loud that Ada felt her heart adjust to beat along with the bass.
Most people were split into small groups which formed circles. All the people circles swayed with the music, spastically flailing their arms around, and occasionally lifting a foot. In short, they were dancing. At least they thought they were dancing. Ada thought it was more like they were all having seizures in time with the music.
She tried to sway and flail and lift her feet there in the door way. Immediately, she noticed she was off the beat. Her swaying, flailing, and lifting not following to beat of the music at all. She was disgusted that she couldn’t even have a seizure correctly. She stalked away, scanning the crowd for Chip. She spotted him. He was dressed in all black, no tie. He didn’t need one. A tie would have made him less cool. He was having a seizure next to Debbie--a blonde from Ada’s English class with huge, probably fake, tits, narrow hips, little personality, and no brains--right in front of the DJ’s booth. Ada’s knees felt weak watching Chip move with the music. She wanted to run her fingers through his black, spiked hair, lay her head on his broad shoulders, and run her fingers across his perfect stomach. First, she’d have to get him to notice her more than he noticed Debbie.
Ada ran her hands up and down her dress, hoping it looked like she was smoothing it. Really, she was trying to push her boobs up even higher. If Chip liked cleavage, she’d show him cleavage, even if she had to push her boobs all the way up to her eyes.
She reached her hand out to grab Derrick. He was the first step in helping her to get really noticed. She groped to her right, then her left, then behind her, not wanting to take her eyes off of Chip. No Derrick. She looked to her left and right. No Derrick. She turned around. Derrick was standing by the door. Ada could barely make him out in the darkness. She turned back to Chip, watching him gyrate toward Debbie. Her face flushed. She ripped her eyes away and looked at Derrick. She needed him for her plan to work. Without him, there was no plan.
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