Andy Malone 
At my high school, junior year was mythic. In a bad way. Seniors warned that junior year might break us, with its avalanche of AP classes, including the notorious AP Physics, plus PSATs, plus SATs. On top of that, you had to keep up with all your extracurriculars and nab a leadership role, if you could. The margin for error was slim: to colleges, junior year was the most important. Freshman slip-ups, an admissions team could forgive. But by eleventh grade, you had to demonstrate a platinum capacity doing all the things.
The Seniors warned us because they had been through it. The Juniors, too busy to socialize, looked at us with tired, red eyes, and said without saying: “It’s true.”
My junior year was packed to the brim, as foretold. I took all the APs, including physics, which was rough. I took all the SATs. I kept up with drama and mock trial and even joined the academic decathlon team on a regrettable whim. But when I search back through that year, through all the courses and clubs in my crowded life, I find its lesson far away from where any college admissions officer might find it. I find it on the dance floor with my friend, Michelle.
Junior Prom emerged that spring. We were all looking forward to it. Junior Prom promised a night of reprieve from the too many other things going on. I had little confidence or interest in making a romantic show of the event. I was still working on myself, a lot, following the diet. Asking a girl on a date was out of the question. I did not desire, nor could I afford, such stress. I just wanted a fun night.
So I decided to ask Michelle: my super fun, very close, gorgeous-but-platonic friend. She was a year older. We had met during The Mikado, when I played the Pish-Tush to her Peep-Bo. We spent many hours backstage, sitting in glossy kimonos, cracking jokes, swapping secrets, bonding over the travails of teen life.
I asked Michelle to junior prom for three reasons: One, I trusted her. Two, she was fun. Three, she could dance. I mean, she could really dance. That was her thing. Outside of drama club, she spent hours at the local dance studio. She could tap and was on pointe, but jazz and hip-hop were her real fortes.
At junior prom, I wanted to dance. I mean, really dance. When I imagined that night, all I saw was dancing. I had no interest in standing by the wall or leaning on some cocktail tables, straining for conversation over loud music. I had my fill of all that as a fat twelve-year-old, thanks to a robust circuit of Long Island Bar/Bat Mitzvahs.
I had enough rhythm in me to crave dance, to anticipate the joy that it might be. And I had enough rhythm to suspect that I had a passable, if not good, dancer inside of me. My dancer was just underdeveloped, stymied by weight and then by insecurity, and without much practice, outside of musical rehearsals. Which really didn’t count, because I was not about to box step my way through Junior Prom.
So when I asked Michelle, knowing she would say yes, I was up front with my intentions.
“I want to dance. Like, the whole night,” I said.
“Duh,” she said. “We will only dance. And we’ll have the best time.”
“But you have to teach me,” I said.
“Of course,” she replied. “I’m so excited. I’m on it.”
I was excited, too. And I was grateful to have such a friend, a dancer who might unlock, for me, the joys of that world.
***
Our lessons began that Saturday night. My apartment was too small for dancing, and her parents were busy with guests, but no worries: Michelle had devised an ingenious solution. She picked me up after dinner and drove us to the senior parking lot at school, which was empty, this being the weekend. She parked somewhere in the center of the lot, cut the engine, and turned up the radio.
“Get out,” she said. “Let’s dance.”
I got out, left the doors open, and walked around to the driver’s side, where Michelle was already dancing to Sean Paul’s “Get Busy” (truly epic song, by the way; if you don’t know it, I’m devastated for you. Go ahead and put the book down; Sean Paul’s Spotify is your new priority).
The lesson was perfect. Just us, the music, and a vacant stretch of concrete under a blue-black night sky. In this secret world, I could stumble for as many measures as I needed.
We began.
“Okay,” Michelle said. “Move.”
“Move?”
“Yes, just move to the music. I want to see where you go with it, naturally.”
Sure. I moved, tentatively. I tried not to overthink it.
“Good, good!” Michelle encouraged. “You’re going to be so good. But, check this out. You do a lot of doubles.”
“Doubles?”
As soon as I asked, I realized what she meant. I had been bouncing my hip to the beat with a slight lean, twice to the right, then twice to the left. A double on each side.
“Oh, I get it,” I laughed. “Doubles!”
“Right. But sometimes, it’s good to throw in a single. Watch. Double…”
She bounced twice on the right.
“Double…”
Twice on the left.
“Siiiiiingle!”
Once on the right, on the down beat.
We laughed, then I tried double-double-single too, as well as single-single-double, and single-double-single, and many other permutations, all of which worked, as long as you kept time with Sean Paul.
Next, Michelle taught me about levels, the idea that not every move should happen at our natural heights; that there was intrigue to an occasional or even sustained crouch.
We were just getting to another important question – what should I do with my hands? – when the police crashed our party.
A single cop car barreled into the parking lot, its red and blue lights flickering. Michelle and I looked at each other, more confused than scared. She reached into the car and lowered the radio, dimming the reverberations of 50 Cent (for full effect – Spotify – “In Da Club”).
After halting his car on a diagonal, the officer emerged.
“Good evening, officer,” said Michelle, cool as ice.
“Good evening,” the officer replied, louder than necessary. He strolled toward us with an affected swag.
“Can we help you?” Michelle said.
“What are you kids doing here on this fine evening?” He gestured toward the car, with its open doors and active radio.
Oh. This was kind of suspicious, I realized. If you didn’t have the backstory. I tried to explain.
“We’re dancing.”
He looked at me and raised his left eyebrow, warning me not to be a smart-ass. “Dancing?”
“Yes. She’s teaching me.”
“Right,” he scoffed. “A dance lesson in this parking lot at 9:00pm on a Saturday. Of course.”
“I know how it sounds, but -“
He interrupted, gruffly: “Are you aware that this parking lot is closed?”
Wait a minute. Were we going to get in trouble? With the law?
Michelle answered. “No, officer, we were not aware.”
“There’s a sign.” He pointed over his shoulder, somewhere far off by the lot entrance. “Also, we’ve gotten complaints about your music.”
Michelle and I looked around. Concrete and trees. No human in sight.
“Cut the music and scram,” he said. “Go… dance… somewhere else.”
Scram? This guy was definitely making his own fun. But we were not about to tango with a cop. We got back into Michelle’s car. Once our guest pulled away, we laughed at how ludicrous it was; that our parking-lot dance lesson had garnered police attention.
“So… what now?” I asked.
“Oh. We are NOT stopping,” Michelle replied, and I was glad. What we were doing was too important and too fun.
Michelle drove to a different parking lot, on another side of town, and we picked up where we left off, with levels.
***
Dance lessons continued for the next few weeks, in empty classrooms and in parking lots, unbeknownst to the authorities. By the Saturday of Junior Prom, I felt ready. My mother took me to Macy’s to buy an outfit. I was hell bent on a monochromatic look: maroon tie against maroon shirt. Mom tried to warn me, but I insisted. (I honestly can’t explain or justify that decision, even now. Just take it as evidence for how clueless I was when it came to men’s fashion. I’m a bit better, now).
I met Michelle at our friend Jessie’s house for pictures. She was stunning in a classic black dress. Jessie’s date, Bryant, another mutual friend, arrived soon after. We had a blast constructing all the cheesy prom tableaus as we posed for our parents’ cameras (Yes, cameras! Taking pictures on your phone wasn’t a thing yet, if you can believe that).
We arrived at the dance venue, our town’s Polish-American hall, at a strategic time: late enough to be fashionable, yet early enough to not waste the evening. We got mocktails at the bar and walked around to greet people. Michelle eyed the dance floor and offered live commentary. We wanted others to warm it up a little bit, she said, but also to be among the first ones out there, so that we could establish ourselves as dance captains. A right we had earned.
Some aspiring suburban b-boys took advantage of the still-open floor to show off their moves, demonstrations at which Michelle mostly rolled her eyes. Then, some groups of friends began to circle up, bouncing this way and that. Our mocktails dwindled.
Then, a sign: Sean Paul boomed from the speaker.
Shake / that / thing / Miss…
“Now?” I asked.
“Now!” nodded Michelle, and we rushed the floor.
I was fearless, throwing down double-single combinations and working levels, leading Michelle, who was delighted. We danced that way, with abandon, for the rest of the night, sometimes with Jessie and Bryant, sometimes with ourselves, sometimes with other friends and acquaintances who drifted in and out, chasing the beat.
It was as I had imagined dancing would be: a pure and unrivaled joy. It felt other-worldly, to lose myself in dance, to let my body move me, even in front of so many eyes, whose judgment was hard to ignore, most hours of most days. But that night, dancing, I was above it all, confident and free.
***
My dance lessons with Michelle had remarkable staying power. I remain unafraid of dance floors. Michelle was away at college for my senior prom, but I danced as freely then, with a new date, in Michelle’s honor. During college, I looked forward to formals, because I found myself most confident at them, dressed up (not in monochrome, mercifully) and always prepared to dance. I found dance parties to be way easier, and far more enjoyable, than talking parties.
I’ve left my mark at many a wedding – even my sister’s, a small, mostly family affair held one December. Though there was no real occasion to throw down, I worked the dance floor hard anyway. At one point, my father pulled me aside, and asked, awkwardly and endearingly: “Where did you learn to dance like that?”
I understood his question. It was not a recognition of technique, because that’s not what my dancing is. You would never mistake me for a trained dancer. Dad was wondering at my confidence, my freeness. In our family, there was little precedent for such inhibition. I think, really, there is not much precedent for inhibition with most people, in most places, in this world. It is rare to see a person and their dancer in full flight.
I consider it a real gift to have built that kind of relationship with my dancer. I’m lucky that he can come out, every now and again, and move exactly as he pleases. Of all the things I learned that mythic junior year – from those AP classes, and those exams, and those extracurriculars – I count the singles/doubles and the levels as my most precious lessons.
To answer my father: I learned them in a parking lot, from a great dancer, and an exceptional friend.
