Chapter 12

Grace is quite the dancer ... mom ... and dad ... taught her ... and me. Starting when I was five and Grace was three we had the basics hammered into us.

With the ball change, basic figure, basic movement, basic step, and the box step, there wasn’t much we couldn’t do. Everything builds off the basics.

Chaines, Chainé turns, Chaines turns, Chasse, Closed change, Cross-body lead, Dos-a-dos, Dosado, EnchuflaFeather step, Free spin, Gancho, Grapevine, Heel turn, Heel pull, Inside partner step, Inside turn, Lock Step, Moonwalk, Natural turn, Open turn, Outside partner step, Outside turn, Reverse turn, Rond, Telemark, Thunder clap, Time Step, and Walk ... almost all dance steps are modified basics ... except Grace had to learn it all backwards and in high heels.

By the time the surprise, Maryanne, came along we were accomplished dancers and doing our very best to hide “sissy” stuff from our friends.

Wait ... wait ... wait. Let me rephrase that. Charles and I were the hiding ones ... Grace taught her friends. Charlie and I always managed to be elsewhere when the girls wanted to dance.

So ... when I led Grace out on the floor ... the misogynists laughed ... and trapped flies. It helped that she bounced out of her bodice a couple three times.

“Grace,” I whispered in her shell like ear, “When did you get boobs?”

“Two weeks ago, when you asked me,” she grinned. “Lansing has a great plastic surgeon.”

“Never tell me your ass is plastic, too.” I said ... that would be a travesty.

Grace kept dancing.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Is it or not?”

“What?”

“Plastic.”

She kept dancing.

Back at our assigned table, we were inundated by the male wallflowers ... leaches ... every one.

“Pardon me, Miss. Would you care to dance?”

And a dozen variations on the theme.

She danced with the first ... about 30 seconds into the treat ... the slap could be heard downtown. Grace came storming back ... one boob bare. She was corralled by a teacher ... chaperon. Off they went. Grace was gone twenty minutes.

She was steaming. The first “not a date” was the last.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said when I asked. She danced with me ... just me ... only me. And when we weren’t dancing she gossiped with the young ladies.

I was sent after barrels of punch and trays of cookies.

“Girl talk,” she said.

When she needed the facilities, she and her cronies went in a group. With the gallons of punch I fetched ... she was “Resting” often.

Mom picked us up and delivered us to the downtown hotel. We had a room?

Mom said, “She wants the whole prom experience. Make it a good one.”

“MOM!”

“Do it, David. Do it often and do it right. Bowlegged in the morning.”