by R. Cooper
Between this and the fact that towns in this area banded together to have their own Pride celebration, Chico figured there was some history around here no one had told him. He would have asked Alonzo and Ethel about it, but they talked about what they wanted to talk about and that was it.
Spending his afternoon with them instead of going to the studio wasn’t hiding. Chico firmly told himself that. Most of his work there was done anyway, and he was supposed to be interacting with more people than his cousin and Rafael.
And Rafael hadn’t slept with anyone, and Chico wanted to ask him why and touch him and kiss him again, and this was better than being that stupid. He was trying. He met people and spoke with them. He had a strange afternoon finding out Alonzo’s most serious boyfriend had died of AIDS, and Alonzo had been kicked out of their home by his boyfriend’s children and moved up here where the housing was cheaper, and that Ethel had lived up here her whole life and was related to the family who’d founded the town. The two of them liked to sit together and bitch about the activities the senior center “made” them do.
Chico assured them he wasn’t going to make anyone do anything. He couldn’t even if he wanted to.
“You’re not very bright, are you, sugarpuss?” Alonzo said as he petted the back of Chico’s hand. “You could make a man do anything.”
Ethel smacked Alonzo and scolded him for scaring away all the visitors, and Alonzo had promptly stopped being creepy, like his heart hadn’t been in it.
He scooted over to let Chico stare at the puzzle with them and tap the pieces into place for them when neither of them could quite manage to maneuver the smaller ones. Chico got them both some juice after a while and left before their bus came to take them home, and though he hadn’t really done anything, he smiled when they asked if he was coming back soon.
He went home, dropped off some foil-wrapped bread at Davi’s, and went to bed. He surprised himself by sleeping just fine.
It was only in the morning that he thought about how he might have been expected at the dance studio, and how John would have been pissy if Chico had gone off to do something without asking him first or telling him about it.
A SLOW day at work meant he got sent home early, but he couldn’t make himself mind. Playing hooky from the dance studio had made him feel guilty about the outfits he’d left unfinished, so he went home to change and then walked over.
He had no idea what Rafael must have thought when Chico hadn’t shown up yesterday but now it felt like something to worry about. He could be thinking Chico had rejected him and everything to do with him. He could not have noticed Chico was missing at all. He could be angry. Or maybe he would be happy to see him and interested in what Chico had done with his free time.
With all that rattling around in his head, it was easy for Chico to let himself get distracted by the sight of the senior center bus parked in front of the studio. It might have been parked there on other days when Chico had shown up, but he hadn’t had any reason to think about it.
Now, he walked up to the entrance as five or six seniors shuffled off the bus, and fell into step beside Ethel.
“What is this? No one told me you guys came here,” he greeted her, while some of the other seniors turned and shushed him as though they were in a library.
“What are you doing here, sugarpuss?” Alonzo’s flirting was the opposite of light, but it didn’t make Chico blush. Anyway, Alonzo had a hold of Ethel’s arm, and he wasn’t letting go. “You don’t get to take my dance partner. Find your own.”
“Dancing?” Chico echoed, though of course they were there for dancing. They weren’t in yoga clothes, and anyway he could not picture Ethel tolerating anything remotely devoted to finding inner peace. “But don’t you guys already know all these dances?”
“We like dancing, and the rates are discounted.” Ethel glared at Alonzo without pulling away from him. They were dance partners and grouchy best friends for life, apparently.
Chico flapped his hands anxiously as they walked inside. “Who… who teaches you? Or shows you what you already know, I guess? Mr. Winters?” He looked up at the board. Another Look at Familiar Steps, with the subtitle “introductory and intermediate level,” was listed as the class of the afternoon.
“You interested?” Alonzo evidently decided he didn’t need Ethel after all. “I can sneak you in as my partner.” He leered dramatically. “You can pay me back later.”
Ethel shook her head. “You’re disgusting. Men are disgusting. Don’t listen to him,” she said, in an aside to Chico, as though he wasn’t a man too. Then she frowned grumpily while Alonzo tried to take her hand again.
Chico glanced down the hall toward the main dance space and followed the two of them through the office door. The office was once again unoccupied, but the door to the smaller practice room was open this time.
No music greeted them as they walked in, Chico trailing behind his seniors. “I’ll just watch for a while,” he said, justifying his presence to them, although they had no way of knowing why he’d be avoiding the rest of the studio.
“No one just watches. That isn’t how you learn to dance,” Rafael answered in his teacher voice, then stopped to stare up at Chico in wonder. “Chico,” he said, sounding surprised but not unhappy. Chico let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. Rafael straightened from tying a shoelace on one of the old women’s sneakers. “What are you doing here?”
Rafael looked good, on the verge of needing a nap, maybe, but the performance was in a few days and here he was teaching a class he wasn’t supposed to be teaching. He had on a blue shirt that made his eyes look amazing, and he was smiling at Chico as if he couldn’t be happier. Maybe he had thought Chico wouldn’t come back.
One kiss—a few kisses—weren’t going to scare Chico off.
Chico ignored how they almost had. It had only been a few days. He’d come back. This simply wasn’t where and how he’d expected to see Rafael.
“What are you doing here?” Chico returned, when he could unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Where’s your dad?”
“Curled up with a blanket, despite the heat.” Rafael’s smile was heat. Who cared about the early summer sun? Chico hoped he appeared concerned about Mr. Winters and not mesmerized by the welcome in Rafael’s expression, but he didn’t think he pulled it off. Alonzo nudged him, hard, and he finally blinked.
“His cold came back,” Rafael went on, glancing from Chico to Ethel and her annoying BFF. “Are you not taking the class?” His attention returned to Chico. “Is this where you’ve been volunteering?”
“What of it?” Chico demanded, but in a tiny, breathless voice that wasn’t close to cranky.
Rafael studied him for another moment and slowly nodded. “And you thought my dad would be in here, so you’d be safe. You were avoiding me. I see.” His smile faded.
Chico widened his eyes. “I thought you might be mad because I didn’t tell you I’d be gone. But you weren’t, were you? You just… missed me.”
“I have a class to teach. Stop looking at me like that,” Rafael said gently. He still didn’t seem angry, but he also didn’t seem sad anymore. “How was your family?”
“Good.” Chico could talk about them later, when he could catch his breath. “How am I looking at you?”
“For the love of Pete.” Ethel was not amused. “Can we get our exercise already?”
“Woman, you don’t have to ask for me to take you in my arms!” Alonzo teased her, before wrapping his arm around her waist and spinning her around. She swatted his arm, but Chico noticed she moved smoothly with him, like they did this a lot.
“Do you have a partner?” Rafael leaned down to ask. The lady whose shoe he’d been tying glanced between them and then made a noise like a startled pigeon.
Chico dropped his chin almost to his chest and shook his head. “I still haven’t paid for a class.”
“Like that matters. I own the place. Come here.” Rafael offered his hand in a
gesture Chico had only seen in movies.
“You don’t actually own the place,” Chico argued quietly, but he slid his hand over Rafael’s palm and let Rafael cup his wrist as he guided Chico forward until they were in the center of the room. “Oh no, Raf.” He barely noticed he’d used the nickname Davi always used as he glanced furtively around them. Alonzo’s expression alone was enough to make him flush and lower his voice. “Are you going to touch me again?” Even a whisper felt like too much, like he was begging Rafael to touch him again.
Maybe he was. Rafael stroked his wrist without releasing his hand, then lifted his head to address the class. “Since most of you have been here often enough for me to recognize you, I’m not going to bother going through the usual spiel. I’m Rafael. Welcome to this refresher course to help you remember steps you may have forgotten, or give you a chance to practice the half-turns in your waltzes, or to learn to spin a partner without them getting so dizzy they fall down.” He smiled, like this was funny but also something that actually happened often enough for it to be an issue. He moved a little to the side. “And this is Chico. He’s going to be my partner, if he doesn’t mind? Do you mind, Chico?”
He’d said he wasn’t going to show Chico off again. The liar.
Chico glanced down at his outfit, a white T-shirt and teal-colored jeans, chosen for comfort while sewing. He didn’t see anything worth showing off, but he slowly shook his head to indicate he didn’t mind. They both knew he didn’t. He wanted those hands on him again.
“All right, everyone. Let’s take a brief moment to talk about the ever-evolving history of dance.” Rafael began explaining something about partner dancing and changing levels of physical contact. Chico listened without any real ability to focus on any of it. He remembered the different dance starting positions, for the waltz anyway. But that wasn’t what Rafael was talking about. “Hang on,” Rafael told Chico. He darted away to adjust the way another senior citizen was standing, then swooped in somewhere else to change the way two people were holding hands. He shook his finger warningly at Alonzo as he passed him, as if he knew him well, and then walked over to the speakers to turn on the music.
By now Chico recognized the kind of music that meant a waltz, and yet he was still surprised when Rafael came back and took hold of his wrist again. He placed Chico’s hand at his shoulder and smiled when Chico raised his other hand automatically from what he remembered.
But he hesitated before spreading his hand over Chico’s waist instead of at his shoulder too. Chico’s breath caught.
“A proper waltz, by some definitions, might not include this much contact,” Rafael informed Chico and the class. “Always keep your hands where your partner is comfortable with them. You good with this?” he asked Chico, as if a roomful of people weren’t watching.
Chico opened his mouth but then only gave a short nod. He swallowed, and Rafael gently took hold of his other hand.
“There are a lot of misconceptions about what it means to lead, where the man leads and the lady—or whoever—must follow.” Rafael stepped forward, flashing another smile when Chico immediately responded by stepping back and then to the side. “But that forgets that no one has to follow. It’s always the partner’s choice to keep dancing. If the person leading steps on your toes, steers you into the wall, turns you when you don’t want to be turned, then you can stop.”
Chico was waltzing, a slow, little box of repeated steps. He gave a start and began to look down, but he was stopped by a cluck of Rafael’s tongue.
“Don’t look at your feet. It’s the surest way to get confused and self-conscious. Get used to how you’re moving, how your partner is moving, until you don’t have to think about your basic steps.” Rafael could have been speaking to everyone or to Chico alone; Chico couldn’t tell anymore.
“But we aren’t going anywhere,” Chico protested quietly as they waltzed in a square.
“Impatient.” Rafael teased, but lifted his head again. “Chico has rightly pointed out there is supposed to be turning in this waltz.” He stopped dancing when they closed their foot positions again. He wasn’t out of breath. Chico was, which didn’t seem fair.
Chico noted some of the other dancers had already incorporated turning motions into their dancing, which looked a lot more like the waltzes in every period movie he’d seen. The rest of the dancers were watching Rafael.
“What we’re going to do is incorporate a quarter turn to the left every time we sidestep, which is one of those things that sounds really complicated but isn’t, especially if the lead dancer knows what he’s doing. Basically, you’re going to turn a bit to the left each time, so that you’ve made a complete circle by the end.” He raised an eyebrow at Chico. “Ready?”
Chico shook his head but moved back when Rafael stepped forward. He stumbled at the first quarter turn, hot with embarrassment, and dropped his hands. But when he reached out again Rafael was there, and they stepped and turned, and Chico got it a little better.
Ethel, of all people, clapped.
“Oh my God.” Chico would have ducked his head, but his posture and his raised arms made it difficult to look away from Rafael. He glided back and stepped and turned, and then unexpectedly let out a laugh when he realized he’d done it right this time.
“Come on, everyone, you won’t be as good as Chico if you don’t try.” Rafael scolded his class and swept Chico around again until Chico actually was dizzy. He instantly stopped the second Chico blinked in dazed wonder, and let him catch his breath while he went off to help someone else for a few minutes.
Chico was left standing in the middle of the room. He looked over to find Rafael in the mirror, and then Alonzo and Ethel—waltzing perfectly—and then froze when he saw himself. With his arms bare, his bone structure seemed even more delicate. He was darker than most everyone in the room and smaller than some of the women. But he was still standing straight, one hand in the air as though he was waiting for Rafael’s return.
He dropped his hand to his side immediately, but that didn’t help with his huge, round eyes, and how they continued to find Rafael wherever he was.
When Rafael’s gaze met his in the mirror, Chico lowered his head.
“The reason dancers use mirrors is to allow themselves to see their bodies and their movements from a different perspective.” Chico didn’t notice Rafael coming up behind him. He looked up again, finding Rafael in the mirrors. Rafael studied him in the glass while dancers passed in front of them. “A dancer’s view can be limited to the few steps they aren’t getting right. A mirror lets them see more than just their feet or their arms. They can see the whole movement from start to finish. They can see the effect it has on others and view themselves as others do.”
“Notice your position?” Rafael went on, almost conversationally, except for how quiet he was, and how steady his gaze was in the mirror. Chico was tense, but not poised for flight. His back was straight. His head was slightly bowed but he raised it when Rafael put his hand on his hip where it belonged. Rafael’s breath was on the nape of his neck now. Chico shivered and let his lips part.
“Notice what you’re telling me?” Rafael spoke hoarsely and waited until Chico nodded to speak again. Chico’s open mouth and little gasps at the sight of Rafael at his back were very clear. Rafael held him tighter for one moment, as though he was picturing exactly what Chico was. Then he whispered against the shell of Chico’s ear. “So what am I telling you?”
He was watching Chico but not in the glass anymore. He let his hand drag at Chico’s hip as he pulled him around, then he lifted Chico’s hand into the air and held it, clasped over his.
Chico froze for another moment, startled, and then he took the step forward that meant he was leading. He stumbled doing that too, at least at first, because the moves were unfamiliar from this position, and Rafael continued to look at him. He didn’t even glance at the mirror.
Chico breathed hard, almost relieved when the music ended. Someone, maybe Ethel, clapped again,
but the music switched to something faster and sort of swing, and everyone got so confused that Rafael released Chico and started moving across the room.
He changed the music and went from pair to pair to watch them turn. He made a few comments and touched them too, glancing his fingers across their lower back to remind them to stand up straight, or wedging their feet farther apart with one of his to widen their stance. Friendly touches, the kind he’d mentioned before.
Not how he was with Chico.
Chico stared at him the way he always did and met his own gaze once or twice when Rafael would suddenly look over to him. Alonzo was leering. Ethel was disapproving. But they were watching because they could see it too.
Rafael raised his eyes again, pausing in the middle of an explanation of waltz-time signature. He had one eyebrow up, asking silently what Chico needed, and without thinking Chico lifted a hand.
In moments, Rafael was across the room. He didn’t say anything because he didn’t have to. He took Chico’s hand, pulled him in toward his body, closer than any kind of proper waltz probably required, and splayed his fingers over Chico’s hip.
“I think you’re great too,” Chico blurted and hid his hot cheeks when Rafael’s gaze ate him up.
HE ESCAPED afterward. When the last song had played and Rafael left him to give people pointers and talk about future classes, Chico bolted. He slipped away from old people smirking at him and the way everyone seemed to know what his stunned silence meant when even he wasn’t sure. He hurried past impatient teenage dancers and a surprised Mrs. Winters and went into the costuming room and closed the door behind him.
Then he put his hands to his face and tried to breathe.
But the door opened again, and when he turned, Rafael was in front of it, his hand on the doorknob as he pushed it closed. The click of the door being firmly shut seemed unnaturally loud, but Chico couldn’t hear the dance class in the other room anymore, and the only other sound was his heavy breathing.
