A Need to Dance

“I need to dance to this with you,” you demanded, your chartreuse eyes an inextinguishable flame that bored into my soul and burnt through my defences.

Need! That’s not a need. A need is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as something requisite or necessary. Dancing to “I’ll Be Around” by The Detroit Spinners is certainly not something that one requires to live…Zoe, I can’t dance.

My brain spun and sputtered out all its reasons as if they were drops falling down a plastic tube. However, even it knew that it was helpless in the face of your steel will, as if it were a body trying to fight ageing and losing. 

“Uhm, okay, so how do we…. ouch!”

You yanked my arm and dragged me towards the pulsating lime green and orange lights and the throngs of bumping and swaying bodies buzzing with more energy than a thousand volts. Being in that swirl of shimmies and rolls, I felt my muscles freeze up, atrophied by waves of nerves. However, with just a single flash of the fiery jades on your face, I found myself awkwardly bopping along to the music.

It has always been like that, hasn't it, Zoe. This has always been the dynamic between us for the four years we’ve been together. Whether it’s cooking classes using ingredients I couldn’t even pronounce, attending a rock concert on a random Tuesday night, or going to a 70s-themed party on the other side of the city, whatever you wanted to do, I must follow, as if they were doctor’s orders. Every time I tried to resist, you knew how to make those green orbs appear glassy with tears and contort your face into an expression of heartbreak --- cunning, choreographed. You always said you just wanted me to break out of my shell when all I longed for was to build on that exoskeleton until it completely calcified. I always ended up swept up in your lead, though, a hapless partner in a tango.

…especially, now that…

“That isn’t so bad now, is it, Will darling,” you cooed, a wry, mischievous grin on your face as your precise footwork took you across the illuminated floor. “Just try something new.”

“I guess. But you shouldn’t just jump…”

“Oh, I love this part of the song,” you exclaimed, the beginning of yet another statement of concern sidestepped. You flailed your arms along to the alternating string and brass lines serving as a call-and-response pattern in the track, whilst I sighed.

“As usual, Zoe…’

“What?”

My hazel eyes honed in on your chartreuse peepers twirling around the dance hall along with your golden-topped head shuffling around. You bit your plump bottom lip to an invisible, constant rhythm, most probably that of one of those 70s funk tracks from the stacks of LP records in a large plastic crate in your flat. Your lips curled in a smile like a graceful ballerina taking a bow as you smoothed the hem of your mid-length dress with large, pink hibiscuses printed on.

“You keep leaping into things. I thought that the visi …”

Let it go, Will. Soon, she…

“Nothing, it doesn’t matter anymore,” I responded, taking a gulp of air. “I’m just…oh no!”

As soon as the piano intro started, my heart slid down to the very bottom of my belly. Of all the songs by The Detroit Spinners to fill the room, it just had to be “I Don’t Want to Lose You”, the poignant ballad sung by Henry Fambrough from their "Pick of the Litter" album. Every note felt like a strong, powerful kick to the heart, especially considering…

“Excuse me, sweetheart. I just need to…”

“Are you okay, darling?

Just like that, all of the words brewing in my head dissipated like the sound from a phonograph whose needle just broke. I scrupulously dug through the formations of words inside me like a surgeon carefully excising a too-large tumour but struggling at it. The only thing that remained in the grey matter was just a single request.

“Yeah…listen, uhm, could we just…sway to this song,” I asked, my heart beating in six-eighth time signature.

Just as I sensed my veins freeze, almost like I were on an intravenous drip of liquid nitrogen, you beamed at me and jeté-ed into my arms.

“You, William Alexander Smith, are asking me to dance? My, my, what’s come over you,” you demanded to know, your lips shaping itself into an arc yet again. “Usually, it’s me begging you to come to the dance floor.”

“I just…well…”

“Well, what?”

“I just want to feel you close to me,” I admitted, the words finally coming out as flowing as Swan Lake. “You know very well I just want to make sure I spend this time…”

“Don’t go there, Will,” you responded tersely, your smile exiting stage left. “I don’t want to…”

“But aren’t you scared? If I were you, I would certainly feel like I stumbled after jumping around all…”

“No, no, I’m not,” you pressed. “You’re going to replay the same conversation again, aren’t you?”

“Zoe, come on now. I mean you…”

“Stop, Will. Please stop,” you commanded me, your green eyes now a bonfire. From up close, I could smell the smoke, watch the headdress-donning figures undulating in the light.

“Okay, okay, as you wish,” I muttered, now resigned.

“Good, because I’ve now bought the tickets.”

With your declaration, I could perceive my liver secreting bile overtime to flood every single tissue in my mouth. My entire respiratory system seemed to completely drop to my stomach.

Oh, but of course, you, Zoe Evelyn Duncan would just go ahead and buy your passage on a flight without consulting the man who you constantly pull to cha-cha-cha in the kitchen with you; why did I expect anything less from you. You have, after all, had thoughts of packing your suitcases and exploring Paris, Rome, Berlin, and Geneva for a year pirouetting in your mind for as long as I’ve known you. Still, I had hoped that, well, the announcement would inject a bit of caution in your system, let it circulate in you like thrombocytes journeying throughout the body.

Why did I ever expect something so out-of-step with who you are?

“Zoe, darling, why? I told you…”

“And what good will it do, aye,” you retorted. “Remember, I’m the one who…”

“The least you could have done is told me,” I replied. Tears threatened to spill from my eyes like performers backstage waiting for their cue. “I just want you to include me in these decisions.”

“Well, what’s done is done, Honey. I already talked to Camille in Paris. She says I could stay with her. I’m absolutely buzzing. Walking around Montmartre, exploring ancient Roman ruins, clubbing in Berlin...”

“Zoe,” I whimpered. My head spun around, the dancefloor melting into a blur.

“What now?”

“You…planned…again…without me,” sputtered out my brain, as if a shunt were blocked up by my debris-like sadness.

“Well, how else is this going to end up, Will? After finding that out, what else do you think I’d want if not finally seeing the places on my bucket list?”

My laryngeal muscles slithered around my throat as they took a quick gulp of air before letting me continue.

“Well, Zoe, I thought…oops.”

In my unwieldy movements, the small robin’s egg blue velvet box in my pocket --- the same one I purchased the day after I accompanied you to that all-important rendez-vous, the same one I have carried with me for about a month --- tumbled out and onto the pulsating lime and orange lights.

“Wait, I’ll pick it up, darling.”

“Wait, I…”

I couldn’t stop you prancing into the crowd and searching for the lost container. As you dove amongst the jigging bodies, your blonde wig flew off and the skirt of your pink frock hiked up revealing the constellation of mauve bruises covering your slender leg. Instantly, the past month --- the nerves as I sat with you in the hospital waiting room, the doctor’s voice jittering as he spoke, the pristine white piece of paper containing two words I never wanted to be locked in promenade position: Stage 3 --- high kicked its way into my mind.

“William, darling, what’s this,” you asked, your chartreuse eyes glued onto the tiny receptacle.

“Open it, love.”

You lifted the lid to reveal a two-carat cushion-cut diamond halo ring resting inside. You shook your head vigorously before facing me.

“Will, darling, you know that…”

“I know, I know,” I replied, the phonograph in my head grinding to a halt again. “I just wanted to let you know that if ever you changed your mind, well…”

“Well, what?”

“Well, I want to take care of you. Always,” I admitted. “If you changed your mind, I’m more than happy to be the man who does that for you. I know the thought of Cytoxan in your veins sounds really daunting to go through, but there's still a chance you'll pull through. I'll be there."

“Will, look, I get that,” you responded, your eyes glistening with tears rivalling a mirror ball. “But I don’t want to suffer. What’s the point? I just want to have a bit of fun before I leave.”

“But, Zoe, love, I…”

“I…what?”

“I don’t want to lose you,” I blurted out, everything I wanted to say leaping across the invisible stage between us.

You sighed and let your eyes dance away for a couple of minutes before returning your gaze to me.

“I know that, Will. But I need this. Besides, don’t you always say that needs are more important than wants?”

Need! This is her need. It may not be something you desire, but it’s requisite and necessary to the woman you love. Enjoying what little time she has left is what she requires to say she’s lived….Zoe, I don’t know if I can dance to your rhythm, but for you, I’ll try.

“I suppose,” I replied. I tried my best to pose my face into an expression of assurance. “Just let me know when you need me to take you to Heathrow. You sure you don't want me to go with you?”

"Will, I told you. I don't want you to see me..."

"But... Zoe, love, I..."

"Will, please..."

I looked at your glassy green eyes yet again and saw the tears cavort their way across your face.

"Okay, as you wish. I'm following what you want, like it were choreography."

You beamed back at me, your smile even brighter than the lime and orange strobes illuminating the nightclub.

“Thank you, my love. Oh, and please don’t forget…”

“Don’t forget what?”

“Don’t forget that when we meet again, I will always choose you to dance with.”