Save the Last Dance for Me

You look beautiful in that dress, floating under the disco lights like silver smoke. You dance in his arms, but I imagine you spooling apart, drifting out of his hold, back to me. No one else can see the ten slight pressure marks where his fingers meet the softness of your flesh, but I feel them like his hands are on me, not you. And you are smiling against his cheek, wearing a lipstick I have never seen you in, never kissed you in, before. 

Your first dance of the night is over and others stream onto the dancefloor as the music cranks up and the party gets going. The bounce of the floor, vibrating with the moving bodies, is like an echo through me: a wave traveling from a place far away. I wish I could sway, or rock, or even just make a few embarrassing moves; feel the pulse of the floor, the beat of the song, and the bodies crushing together, getting slicker and slicker, bumping and grinding with the night. All is in motion and I’m the eye of that storm: still, centered, watching- you.

Before you make them, I anticipate your moves, each familiar like a wave hello, or a kiss on the cheek goodbye. You raise your arms above your head and I see how your left one is a tiny bit crooked, bent in over your head like it’s sheltering you from something, while the right shoots up, registering your presence: yes, it’s me, take note, having the second-best time of my life. 

I remember the first best time of your life; it was with me. 

And yes, it was my first and second and every other best time of my life; rolled up together, into a tight ball, then thrown clean into the euphoria of every blazing tomorrow. 

It had been on a dancefloor much like this one, on a night just as stamp-it-in-the-stars amazing: our prom. I’d had a different date, so had you. We’d never had a single class together, chance had never bumped us up against each other in the corridor or canteen in our massive 1700 student school. Not till that night, when I saw you pose against the white sheet for a photo; lights flashing as you raised your arms above your head, the left one crooked, like it was sheltering you from something; the right pointing straight up, registering your presence to me; take note, boy watching from the shadows, come over and ask me to dance. 

And I did.  

Love at first sight: I don’t think I believed in it till that moment, probably thought it was the stuff of cheesy movies and corny pop songs. But all it takes is a moment to change your mind forever. You handed me your bouquet of flowers and when I admitted I couldn’t dance a step you said not to worry, you’d guide me. On the dance floor, you never put a foot wrong and following you, I quickly realized I had to be going in the right direction. 

If our dates came and flipped out at us for ditching them, I don’t remember it. As the night let its hair down, so did we. At some point I do recall telling you I’d need to take a breather, my feet were killing me and you’d smiled your light-up-the-ballroom smile, and bent down and unbuckled your shoes. Stepping neatly out, you lined them up, a pair waiting for other feet, then looked up at me with a cheeky grin and told me it was time for me to take mine off too. We danced on. When the lights came up after the last dance, our shoes had long been kicked under the jumble of chairs and you were in my arms. 

I need some arms to hold me now, as the DJ mutes the music and everyone stills to hear the groom’s speech. The words are punctuated with whoops of joy, wolf whistles and much clapping. His voice vibrates with tenderness then buzzes to the thrill of yes- she’s mine! It is all just noise, fading to a repetitive swish and crackle: the LP of my pain, endlessly spinning. I wish I could lift the needle, remove the record, but you can’t just silence the soundtrack of your life, it hums perpetually.  

What sort of a record is mine? Well it’s a corny love song, sure, but one that never did play out quite how I planned. I thought my life’s tune would be boy meets girl; I walk you home, and you hold my hand; it could never be just a one night stand and so… we marry. Yes, I thought the lyrics to my life would be chirpy and upbeat: blushing bride, forever at my side. 

It’s easy to make plans; not so easy to keep them when disease, the worst sort, steps up wholly unannounced and decides to be your dance partner, elbowing the love of your life out of the way. Dance classes were dropped, marriage plans put on ice. When the inevitable approached, you got down on one knee beside my sick bed and asked if I was sure: you were ready and willing to marry me. I’d dug deep for the last scrap of strength and told you I’d always love you, but I didn’t need to bind you to me from beyond the grave. Time stands still for no living thing, and I wanted you to move on too; and if that meant, when the time was right, you found love with another, I thought that would be fine with me. As long as they made you happy, then by their side was where you should be; not weeping in widow’s weeds, searching for my face in the grave’s dust. 

I thought I’d set you free, but you still looked for me: in the dent in my pillow; in the lingering smell of my shirt; months later, my toothbrush still nestled yours in the bathroom cup. It took years to bring us to this point: me watching while your husband whirls you in his arms and your laughing eyes catch the light like sparkling glitter balls.

Cry me a river, sings Julie; cry me a river sings Ella. And I sing my version to you, darling Annie. I wish you all the best for your marriage my love, but that doesn’t stop the fact I’ve cried a meteor over you. Here, on the edge of this dancefloor, as the DJ packs up, the crowd spills out and the disco lights dim and die, I am crying as only a star can, fit to burst, with just empty space to hear me. 

Everyone has gone and as your husband bounds down the stairs, eager for the honeymoon to begin, you turn and call out to him that you’ve forgotten something; you’ll be down in just a minute. Stepping back into the dark hall, lit only by streaks of light cast through the windows from the street lamps outside, I feel you look about, your sixth sense reaching for me even as your others let me slip. Your eyes flit to the dancefloor and I wonder if you see phantoms of us like I do; our prom night; the dance classes of so many years ago.

You’re casting about, lost again, unsure; paranoid even, like you half think an intruder might step from the shadows. But you have always been brave, and you chance speaking your thoughts into the shuddering silence:

“Chris?” 

Why the question? You know I’m here Annie, trust your feelings; they’ve served you well up to now. But you don’t. Maybe it’s the drink, maybe all the giddy dancing in the arms of your husband; I force myself to say his name: Tim. The man I did and didn’t want you to find. 

You fear delusion; my own fear is greater: that you’ll turn away, distrusting your instincts, ignoring the truth. I wish I could switch on the disco lights, spin the glitter ball and yank the DJ back by his breeches- make him play the tune we first danced to on that prom night, so long ago. But I can’t, I just can’t. I’m about to give up, disperse, when everything changes as you abandon thought and finally feel my presence. I know you do, it’s like the thinnest, strongest line of gossamer, hanging invisibly from me to you. 

You’ve stopped scanning the room for a stranger and step decisively to the center of the floor. Smiling, you reach down and unbuckle your dancing shoes, rubbing the arch of each foot before flexing your ten perfect toes. 

“I hope you’ve taken your shoes off too Chris,” you whisper softly into the dark.

And you are silver smoke, spooling and drifting; my longing is the force which draws you in, till we’re dancing one last time together. I have no mass, but it truly doesn’t matter: the energy of all ages and a love eternal spins us like stardust.

My darling Annie, you saved the last dance for me.