Slow, slow, quick, quick

It was unexpected. Susannah’s Christmas gift was a card from the Arthur Murray Dance Studio for four couples lessons. ‘For your first dance,’ she said when I opened the envelope.

It was a thoughtful gift. Susannah was always doing thoughtful things like this. She could bludgeon you senseless with her thoughtfulness. I would have preferred the cashmere sweater from Bloomingdales that I suggested when she asked me what I wanted back in November. I held a smile in place, expecting that Scott and I would laugh about this later.

But Scott was all for it. ‘It’s a good idea. Everyone will be staring at us.’ Scott always thought people were looking at us. I couldn’t decide whether this was flattering or paranoid. I assumed most people were too focused on themselves to care about what we were saying or wearing.

Maria was our instructor, beautiful with dark curly hair pinned back with a clip, huge kohl-lined brown eyes and perfect posture. ‘For the first lesson, some basic steps.’ She showed us the box step. ‘For the waltz.’ It was awkward at first, having my arms moved around, my shoulders adjusted. But the box step was easy - if I could remember not to lead.

We moved onto the foxtrot. Maria glided backwards to show me my steps. ‘Slow, slow, quick, quick.’ Maria would demonstrate, then we would mimic the steps a few times, then do them together, arms in the correct places, the right amount of distance between us.

Four lessons in total. I became more despondent as the hour approached on Tuesdays, like the teenage walk to my orthodontist appointment. I don’t know why I dreaded it so much. I had no issue with dancing. I went to clubs, though more often when I was younger. I got up to dance at weddings even when sober. But those were freeform with my friends, silly shimmying to the centre of the circle, forming my arms in Ys, Ms, Cs and As. The lessons were structured and lonely, my clumsiness on constant display.

One hour. Not so long. Just pay attention to what Maria says. Just get through it.

At drinks after work with my friend Bridget, whose wedding was six months ago, I asked, ‘Did you and Mark have dance lessons before your wedding?’

‘Dance lessons?’

‘For your wedding dance.’ Bridget had been so helpful, giving me suggestions for caterers, florists and photographers. I was blatantly copying a lot of what she had done.

‘You’re only up there for about two minutes. Hardly worth it. Why?’

‘It was a present from Susannah, but Scott thinks it’s a genius idea.’

‘Where are these lessons?’

‘Arthur Murray. On 86th Street.’

‘Arthur Murray! Oh my God, I think my dad went there when he was a kid. Typical of Susannah.’ Bridget met my future sister-in-law once before, at a dinner I had for my bridesmaids. ‘32 going on 60,’ she said after Susannah showed up wearing a pink angora turtleneck worthy of Rose from The Golden Girls. ‘I’ll bet she irons her jeans.’ All the CDs in her bookcase were Bette Midler, Barbara Streisand or Broadway musical soundtracks. Inspirational posters featuring kittens featured in several locations in her flat. Soon the real cats would come. I could imagine a Cuddles, a Mr Mew.

‘What’s your song?’ Bridget asked.

‘I wanted Bruce Springsteen’s ‘If I Should Fall Behind’ or something else not too cliché but my ideas were rejected in favour of ‘Fly Me to the Moon'’’.

Bridget shrugs. ‘Sinatra’s okay. Oh, wait, not Wall Street.’

‘Yup.’ Previous boyfriends listed The Godfather, Top Gun, Star Wars as their favourite films. Fine. Rewatchable, endlessly quotable. Beware the man who tells you that Wall Street is ‘an okay movie,’ but can recite Gordon Gekko’s speeches verbatim including the pauses. Men who display Sun Zho’s The Art of War front and centre in the bookcase but have never read it. Run far. Run fast.

I was brimming with pure joy when the lessons were nearly up. On the Tuesday of the last one, I skipped along the street dreaming of thanking Maria, going home and watching the first series of The Sopranos on DVD. A block away from the studio, Scott lit the fuse. ‘I’ve been thinking...’

That phrase never ended well for me. ‘About what?’ I asked, figuratively crossing all my limbs.

‘Maybe we could have Maria sort out a routine for our first dance.’

‘A routine?’

‘Yeah, like a plan. With steps. For what we could do.’

Scott wasn’t a dancer. He never showed the least bit of interest in any form of dance ever, only doing a casual mosh when required at a wedding or a night out. He dismissed Dirty Dancing as lame and girly and said the singing and dancing element of musicals ruined the story. It was probably some investment banker friend or Yale classmate with choreography at his wedding that provided the motivation. If this were the case, talking him out of it would be impossible. Like those Teva sandals his college roommate Will wore that made Scott’s feet look like a hormonal Yeti. How we got HBO because his co-worker Josh recommended Band of Brothers. ‘You need to watch it so you guys have something to talk about,’ he told me before the firm’s Christmas party.

‘Can’t we talk about TV shows or movies that we both like?’

‘I know he likes this.’

‘Isn’t our gift card finished?’ I asked, as though I were considering his suggestion. ‘We’d have to pay extra. Why don’t we talk about it afterward? See how the lesson goes.’

‘Sure, that’s fine.’ he said.

I concentrated on the foxtrot while working out convincing arguments against this idea. The wedding demanded so much planning, working out seating arrangements, the wording of invitations, bridesmaids dresses to flatter all body types and colourings. I thought I was managing really well. But on Tuesdays, on the second floor of 161 East 86th Street, I was an uncoordinated hippo that couldn’t absorb the most basic instructions. My family was footing most of the bill, so I would have the pleasure of paying for something I hated.

An hour later, nearly to the part where I thanked Maria and wished her well, Scott said, ‘Could you, like, put together a routine for our first dance?’

‘Yes, yes, I can do that. We start next week?’

‘How many more sessions?’ I asked. Three more sessions, which is like being told at the 26th mile of a marathon that you need to run ten more. She booked the extra lessons into a giant ledger, told us it was $60 for each one and wished us a good week.

When we reached the street, I reminded Scott we were meant to discuss the routine idea. ‘Oh yeah,’ he said, like it slipped his mind. ’But what if she was booked up? The wedding is in two months.’

‘Booked up? There’s never anyone else in there.’

‘I thought we agreed to the lessons.’

Did we? There was a gift certificate from Susannah, so no decision made together. This isn't what I signed up for. But it was too late to say anything now. Trying to articulate why I didn’t want to do it would lead to lectures about trying new things and admitting weaknesses.

The next Tuesday, I suggested a line dance routine which puzzled Maria and annoyed Scott. ‘Take this seriously,’ he hissed.

‘Dancing’s supposed to be fun.’ Kicking off your shoes, digging those rhythm and blues.

‘Fly Me to the Moon’ runs for about two minutes and 30 seconds. Maria designed a modified foxtrot, slow, slow, quick, quick, with a few dips and spins. Every time a misstep occurred, Scott would stop and say, ‘That was her, wasn’t it? She missed the step’ or ‘She should have put her weight on the left foot, right?’ or ‘She was supposed to turn a few seconds after that, wasn’t she?’

Maria lowered her hands and said, ‘No, no. It is like this,’ refusing to place blame on either one of us. She was diplomatic because most of the time, it was my error, but when it was Scott’s, he still pointed out mistakes I was making.

That first lesson, after weeks with little sleep and small portions to fit into my A Line Vera Wang dress, I grumbled, ‘Why do you keep doing that?’

‘Doing what?’

‘You keep blaming me for missing the steps.’

‘So stop messing up the steps. You should practice in your spare time.’

‘It’s not always me messing up. And what spare time?’

‘Like at work. You’re a book editor, so some commas don’t get fixed. This is our wedding.’

For our last lesson, I had to bring the shoes I would be wearing. It went smoothly enough and Maria kissed our cheeks, wished us luck and told us to have fun. ‘The dance, it’s good,’ she smiled. Scott strode out the door and I stayed behind to change my shoes. ‘It should be fun,’ Maria said, ‘but you don’t do if you don’t want to. Don’t do it if it’s not fun.’

A week before the wedding, I had lunch with Jen, another editor. ‘Do you know anyone who walked out on a wedding? Like not in a movie?’ I asked.

‘My cousin did. She found out two weeks before at her hen night that one of her bridesmaids had slept with the groom.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘It happened a long time ago, before they got engaged, but she panicked because neither one of them said anything to her about it and she thought she couldn’t trust him because he kept that from her. But they did end up getting married a year later.’

‘Oh, so happy ending I guess.’

‘No, they’re divorced now.’

‘What happened?’

Jen stirred her coffee. ‘I don’t know. He moved to Colorado,’ she said in a tone that suggested he had joined the foreign legion and might never return from battle.

The night before the wedding, I couldn’t sleep and turned on the hotel TV. The Thomas Crowne Affair was on. The split screen gave me a headache but I watched until the end. ‘Windmills of Your Mind’ played in my head all morning as I got ready. The dress fit, my hair fell just right and my makeup made me look tawny and lovely. I wish this for every woman, the knowledge that on a day when lots of people are watching you, you look amazing.

The band announced us, ‘Mr and Mrs Scott Anderson!’ like contestants on a game show. The drum thumped as we walked to the dance floor, hands held at shoulder level. We started our modified foxtrot. Some impressed oohs came from the side of the floor. I made it to the first ‘in other words, please be true’. Which is about 56 seconds into the song, the part in the movie showing the FDR Drive South toward the Brooklyn Bridge. Charlie Sheen hadn’t even made an appearance yet.

The steps flew away. Gone. I reverted back to the box step, in place. ‘What are you doing?’ Scott whispered through a clenched smile. ‘You’re not doing the steps.’

‘I know.’ The band must have motioned to the crowd because more people came to join us. Bridget and Mark twirled by. ‘Awesome, you guys.’ he said.

‘See?’ I said.

‘You’re fucking the whole thing up,’ my brand-new husband whispered in my ear.

I needed someone who would have laughed at the line dance idea.

A year later, sharing a flat with a girl from work during the fighting and dividing possessions phase, I walked down 86th Street, holding a cream coloured envelope from Smythson’s, one from a pile of thank you cards I had to order, but now had no use for. I took the steps to the second floor and slid the envelope with Maria’s name on it into the mail slot.

I think you tried to warn me. Thank you.