Chapter 7: Box Step

The dance instructor was seventy-one years old and carried a cane and a metronome.

She had taught three generations of Bellandis to waltz by shouting at them.

The studio was a long room in Elmwood Park with mirrors on three walls and a bench under the fourth.

Lucia and Pietro sat on the bench with a bag of popcorn between them, pretending to be strangers.

"Left hand on her shoulder blade," the instructor said. "Right hand holds hers. Mr. Bellandi, you are holding a lady, not a lamp."

"I am holding her correctly," Domenico said.

"You are holding her at arm's length."

His hand on my back was warm through my dress, and it stayed exactly where the instructor had put it.

The metronome began.

"Slow, slow, quick," the instructor said. "Lead!"

"I am leading," Domenico said.

"You are offering! A lead is not an offer! Again!"

We stepped through the box, forward, side, together, back, side, together.

He counted under his breath with his lips barely moving.

On the turn, he lifted his hand and sent me out in an open spin.

I went where I was sent.

I spun across the floor, kept walking, and stopped in front of the water cooler by the mirror.

"She's leaving!" Pietro hissed on the bench.

"She's drinking water," Lucia hissed back.

"Pay up."

"She hasn't left the room."

The instructor struck the floor with her cane.

"Mr. Bellandi! Bring her back!"

"She went where I sent her," Domenico said.

"A lady goes where she is sent," the instructor said. "A gentleman brings her back. Both halves are the dance."

I finished my water.

Domenico crossed the floor, took my hand, and walked me back to the line of tape.

The metronome began again.

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