Dancing on top of the world

December in the southern hemisphere is summer, but she hadn’t got used to that yet. When Ana had pictured her destination months previously, she had thought of campfires and thermal underwear. As it was, she now wondered whether it would be tasteless to walk around a music festival wearing only a bikini. She’d seen enough men wearing speedos to think that it probably wouldn’t be a problem, but she slung on a beach wrap all the same. Thank god Ana had pitched her tent next to the beach house and she was able to make these decisions in private, in an air-conditioned bathroom, rather than squashed inside her sweaty canvas home, trying not to show her naked silhouette to her fellow hedonists.

She pulled her hair back from her face and was grateful for this moment without perspiration, then she went outside to meet her friends.

They were close enough to the equator that darkness had fallen already, and a moon shone above them, round and full. The lights from the beach house were the only sign of human existence, apart from the small group of human beings that stood before her now: Misha, the crazy one; Luke, the crazy one’s boyfriend; and Sami, the only one who understood her.

“You look great,” Sami declared, and she wolf-whistled.

“Thanks,” Ana replied. She kept her eyes on Sami’s feet until Misha invited them all to look at the moon and howl. Sami went first, then Luke, then Misha, but when it came to Ana’s turn, she stopped, embarrassed, and they laughed and hugged her close, a funny little throng of people who loved her and who weren’t afraid to show it.

As they walked towards the festival, these were all the things that Ana wasn’t thinking about: her parents and their impending divorce, the three essays that needed to be written when she got back to university, the fact that she needed to find a job for the following northern hemisphere summer, the fact that her boyfriend had left her for someone else and she had to keep seeing them together which made her feel sick. These were the things she was thinking about: the bass pumping through the speakers at the stage ahead, the reusable cup she had stashed in her bag ready to be refilled, her friends who winked and whooped at the prospect of dancing until dawn, and absolutely nothing else.

“Let’s get some food,” Luke shouted and they made their way to a burger truck where they peeled sweaty currency off a bundle of notes and gratefully bit into burgers with ketchup and salty, greasy, delicious chips, washed down with beer. Ana noted that she had drunk more beer than water over the past few days. Ah, the festival life. Sated, they went back to the giant soundstage and the music coursed through them and she was free.

She was no dancer, but she didn’t care much. She threw her arms in the air, roughly in time with the music, and she swung her hips from side to side. Sami, in contrast, moved like a back-up dancer for Beyonce and soon there was a semi-circle of eager young men around her, clapping along and gazing at her movements with undisguised lust. “Oh fuck OFF,” she shouted, as one of them came closer, and she reached for her friends instead, and Misha laughed as she pushed the boy away. He was high enough not to mind and soon it was just the four of them, until Luke moved away to find a little chemical help.

It was Misha who suggested that they climb the scaffolding on their left. The other festival-goers beckoned and cheered as the idea took hold.

“We’ll be able to see everything,” Misha said, a slightly manic glint in her eye. “And everyone will be able to see us.” She’d never been shy, Misha, and now she started to climb. Her long legs made each upward motion look like walking up stairs. Ana wondered how she could possibly ascend with such grace and then she realised that no one was watching anyway. Before long, there they were, three best friends. The top of the scaffolding might as well have been the top of the world. The whole festival lay at their feet and it seemed to Ana that there was only this moment. Nothing else existed except music and these women, and the easy love that passed between them.

When had she last felt this way? It was hard to remember. Certainly not with her family, whose expectations always pushed her in the wrong direction. And certainly not with the cheating ex who had always seemed nice enough as long as Ana reined it in, and didn’t dare to be too much, when actually she was just enough. Sami reached for her hand. Misha took the other one. And they danced.

Later, much later, the reusable cups needed filling and the girls climbed down from the scaffolding and headed towards the bar. Luke appeared, red-eyed and smiling, and he and Misha peeled off, and at the bar, Sami spotted the girls they’d met the day before and got chatting. So Ana stood alone for a moment, the moon high above her, surrounded by people.

The love of her life stood three feet away. He was sipping a beer and smoking a roll-up and every now and then, he shook the hair out of his eyes. He looked up and then he saw Ana.

This was the moment that their adventure began. They would build a new life, together, in a new country. She would learn his language and he would help her roll the r sound in just the right way. They would rent a small house in the countryside and she would realise that he was impervious to dust and that she was quite a messy housemate. Sami and Misha would come to visit. Soon enough, there would be a son, who would be perfect in every way, and parenthood would test the young couple but would not break them. And Ana would never doubt him for a moment.

But all that lay ahead. For now, Ana stood alone, feeling the tropical heat envelop her, and the music vibrate through the ground beneath her feet. And she thought that it would never get any better than this. Then he tapped her on the shoulder.