It's a wedding. This wedding is exactly like every other wedding ever held in this American Legion hall, with the ceremony, the details, the specifics of vows an afterthought of a shared life already begun years ago. After all, the couple's children were the ring bearer and flower girl. It's the party that we're here for. If you don't look too closely you won't notice the sad, gray aura circling the plastic tablecloth covered tables and dollar store plastic vases filled with one sad white silk rose and fake leaves of an unnatural color.
Bodies, hot, filled with too much food and too much liquor, are everywhere. It's loud and dark. Children are running around pulling decorations, from the altar, from the tables, streamers flowing behind them. Some of the boys are running into the dance floor and sliding to their knees, ruining their good pants, bought just this morning for this special occasion. The people are loud, and with great effort, the music is even louder. The disc jockey is smashed in a corner with flashing lights and occasional puffs of fake fog that smell like vanilla making a three foot moon in front of him. The mass of people dancing, moving, sweating, the bride in the middle of it all prevents the fog from going any further before it's absorbed and completely dissipated.
A couple is moving from table to table. The woman, with a bright smile, says her hellos to everyone. She's holding the man's hand and he's being dragged around, unsure, tentative. She is not the radiant bride. He is not the uncomfortable groom, but he looks it. She belongs to this crowd, her skin, the same soft caramel as everyone else, her dark hair, her dark eyes confirm this is her family. Everybody smiles and greets her, sincerely, with appreciation and with excitement, but no one moves aside jackets, or half-eaten plates to make space for them. This is her family, but she is different from them. It's obvious from the way she moves. And he's different too. But they've seen that before, they expect him to be different because he's with her.
Finally, they come upon a table with four or five empty seats, and an older man that Emma has never met before is seated alone, though there are jackets and purses on the seats to his right and left. The old man won't get up the entire night. He's content with his grandchildren bringing him beer from the keg, and with the occasional son or daughter coming to see how he's doing. He is content in being casually disregarded. Emma smiles and introduces herself and Clay and he speaks to her in Spanish, and she learns that he's the bride's grandfather. Emma, deposits her jacket, and moves to be in front of the grandfather, she shakes and holds his hand and smiles warmly into his eyes, he's already drunk, but he looks deeply into her eyes and he smiles.
"Mucho gusto, senor." And, then the hip-hop old school song changes into a salsa cumbia mix and a roar goes through the crowd. With a smile and quick step, Emma excuses herself from the grandfather, "Con permiso."
She turns to Clay and then walks past the chair he is holding out for her and joins the rush of people heading to the dance floor. The crowd swells and some of the men are moving even more of the tables against the walls to make room for the ballooning dance floor.
"Where are you going?"
"To dance," she yells with a smile.
"Do you want me to go with you?" Clay pushes her chair in.
Looking over her shoulder, "Only if you can keep up!"
On the dance floor Emma moves to the fast-paced salsa music. She knows every beat of the song playing, she’s singing and dancing with a smile of pure enjoyment on her face. Not once does she look at Clay. She’s in her own world. Clay tries to keep up, his moves are self-conscious as he tries to imitate the salsa moves of the others on the floor. His effort is made especially harder since Emma is moving around the dance floor, not cooperating as any kind of partner.
Much later at Clay's house, impeccably decorated, formally casual and understated, Emma is sitting on the couch, cross-legged, leaning against the arm of the sofa drinking water from a glass goblet. Clay is seated in an armchair facing her. There's contentment in her demeanor, and he's appreciating her, drinking in her peace.
"I’ve never seen you that way – it’s like you’re a different person."
"Really?" A half smile, half questioning lift of the eyebrow.
"No, not really different – just.. I don’t know, more more..." unable to explain any more.
"Yea, I know what you're saying. I think there’s a part of me that only exists when the music is loud and fast."
"You looked great. Everybody was watching you."
Emma laughs out loud. "Nobody watches anybody on the dance floor! You know, that’s why some people never dance, they think everybody’s watching. Nobody’s watching."
"I was."
With a smile, and slight nod to acknowledge his words, his meaning, his tone, she says, "Anyway, I dance for me – I don’t care who’s watching."
Clay stands and begins to walk towards her, with an athlete's grace, he drops to the floor directly in front of her, rather than on the couch next to her. Leaning forward, his arms crossed into her lap, he asks, "What would it look like if you were dancing for me?"
"Pretty much the same."
Now it's his turn to laugh out loud, S
o much for my ego, he thinks. A question occurs to him, and with no second thought at all, he asks, "Did you ever dance for Jeremy?"
Surprised and then quickly smiling, her face softening with thoughts of the past, "Actually, I did. He said I didn’t need a dance partner so he would watch me." For the first time, Emma is uncertain of how much to tell him, of how much she wants to tell him. "Most of the time, he could walk as long as he moved slowly, but he always needed a cane. So we never danced."
Even in her uncertainty, her voice soft, not once did she look away from him, from his eyes. He's moved by her trust, and immediately sorry for asking the question. "I’m sorry, I didn’t think … when I asked. I forgot." With a small shake of her head, her nonverbal message,
it's fine, don't worry about it.
"Do you know what the name of that first song was at the party? The one that everyone rushed to the floor to?"
"No idea."
"It’s called Chango – as in monkey. The song is about this guy, who looks like a monkey, he’s so ugly. And, every time everyone sees him, they can’t help but look at him, he’s like a car wreck, and they make monkey noises at him. But then they see him on the dance floor. They’re like, oh my god, take a look at this guy. He’s an amazing dancer. That’s very big to us – to dance well. Jeremy said he was the bizarro-chango - you know the Seinfeld thing where everything’s the opposite - he looked amazing, but his dancing was ugly. He was right about that. Even sitting, you could tell that if he could get out on that dance floor, it wouldn’t be pretty."
"So how was my dancing?" with a smile, already knowing the answer.
"Dude, nobody was watching."
