Change Partners

The instructor called the change, and Luc’s hand settled at my back before the music found its next phrase. Correct place, just under the shoulder blade. Warm enough that I felt it through the thin knit of my dress.

“Foxtrot,” he said, close to my ear, not quite a question. “Slow, slow, quick-quick.”

“I know the counts,” I said. “My feet don’t always agree with them.”

He laughed, a short sound, and took me out. The community hall smelled of floor wax and the coffee urn in the corner. Overhead lights made everyone a little older and a little kinder. Luc steered without hauling. When I stepped long on a quick, he adjusted, and we kept going.

Across the room Joe had landed with Sandra. She said something I couldn’t hear. He tipped his head back and laughed, the way he does when a joke lands clean, not the polite one he saves for neighbors. Sandra’s hand sat easy on his shoulder. He looked delighted. Pink at the ears, sure of his feet for once.

I waited for the pinch I thought I’d feel. It didn’t come. What came was stranger: I was glad to see him like that, loose in the shoulders, and I wanted to watch. Luc turned me, and I lost them for a bar, then found them again near the mirror. Joe caught my eye over Sandra’s hair and grinned, sheepish and bright. I grinned back before I meant to.

“He’s having a good time,” Luc said.

“So am I,” I said. It came out plainer than I planned.

His hand stayed where it belonged. The heat of it didn’t. We finished the pattern. The instructor clapped once and sent us to the side for water. Joe crossed the floor still smiling, and Sandra walked with him as if they’d been paired all evening.

The diner was half empty. We took the booth by the window, the one with the torn vinyl Joe always patched with his jacket. Pie came first, cherry for Sandra, apple for the rest of us, and four mugs of coffee. The waitress left a little metal creamer in the middle. Steam fogged the glass behind Joe’s head.

Sandra cut a bite, ate it, and set her fork down.

“Have you two ever thought about not changing back?” she said. Cheerful. Like she was asking if we wanted more coffee.

Nobody spoke. The jukebox in the corner clicked over to something slow. Joe’s hand stayed on his mug. Mine went still on the table.

Luc looked at her, then at us. “We don’t mean pressure,” he said. “If the answer is no, we still want Tuesdays. You’re the only pair in there who don’t treat a missed step like a crime.”

“That’s a low bar,” I said. My voice worked. That helped.

“It’s a real one,” Sandra said. She wasn’t smiling now, but she wasn’t solemn either. “We’ve done this twelve years. Not every week. Not with everyone. We pick people we like. We say it out loud. We go home to each other after.”

Luc nodded. “Same night, usually. Sometimes we stay and talk first. No one gets left out of the knowing. If one of us wants to stop, we stop. The other doesn’t argue it in the room.”

Joe reached for the creamer. His knuckle caught the handle. The little pitcher tipped, and a pale ribbon ran across the table toward Sandra’s plate. He swore under his breath and grabbed napkins.

“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry. I’m—”

“It’s coffee creamer, Joe, not the end of the mail route,” Sandra said, mopping with him. Her hand brushed his. He didn’t pull away. Neither did she, for a second. Then she did, easy, and stacked the wet napkins.

I watched his face. Scared. Interested. Both sitting right there, the way they sat when he first asked me to dance in our kitchen and nearly kicked the trash can.

“We don’t have to answer tonight,” Luc said.

“I know,” I said.

Joe looked at the creamer, righted it, and didn’t look at any of us. “Can we—the car. Rita. Just us, a minute.”

“Go,” Sandra said. “Pie keeps.”

The parking lot was dark except for the diner’s sign and one streetlamp. I started the car for the heater and left it in park. The fan blew warm air at our knees. My dance shoes were still on, the strap biting a little at the ankle. Joe sat with his hands on his thighs.

“I’ve never been with anyone but you,” he said.

“I know that.”

“If we did this. If I—with Sandra. I’d be frightened I’d disappoint her. Or you. Both.” He stared at the windshield. “I don’t have a bag of tricks, Rita. I have you. That’s the whole history.”

The heater ticked. I could still feel the print of Luc’s hand, six months of Tuesdays stacked in one spot on my back.

“His hand,” I said. “Luc’s. On the turns. It’s been doing something to me since March. I kept telling myself it was the dancing. It isn’t only the dancing.”

Joe was quiet. The sign outside blinked red across his cheek. Then he laughed, short and disbelieving, and rubbed his face.

“All right,” he said. “All right. Are you mad that I liked her perfume? I noticed it on the second turn. I kept noticing.”

“No,” I said. “I thought I’d be mad. I was waiting for it in there. It didn’t show up.”

“What showed up?”

“I liked seeing you laugh.” I turned in the seat. The gearshift sat between us, cold against my knee. “I’m scared too. I don’t want to wreck what we have because a man knows where to put his hand in a foxtrot.”

“We haven’t wrecked it in the car yet,” he said. He was grinning. Scared, the way I was, the grin not canceling it.

I reached across the gearshift. My hand found his wrist, then his jaw. He met me halfway. I kissed him the way I used to when we were twenty-five and the car was worse and we didn’t care who saw. His hand came up into my hair. Mine stayed at his face, then slid to his other hand on the console, fingers locking. He kissed me back, not shy about it, mouth warm, a small sound in his throat that I knew. Dance shoes and all, I leaned until the shift knob pressed my hip and neither of us moved to fix it.

We broke for air. His forehead rested on mine.

“Still scared,” he said.

“Same,” I said. “Come on.”

We got out. The lot gravel stuck in the soft sole of one shoe. At the diner window Sandra and Luc were still in the booth, plates nearly clear, mugs in their hands. Luc said something. Sandra shook her head, amused, and reached for the last of her crust.

I rapped on the glass.

Sandra looked up.