“I hope you have a good evening.” She appraised the other woman. “And I like your boots.”
Pride swelled in me. I had thought Suzie might take a swing, or use one of the patented insults we’d been working on, but better than that, she took the high road. She wouldn’t allow that trash to bring her down. I never wanted to show her off more than at that moment. I took Suzie to the dance floor and held her close and inhaled her. The smell of her soothed my frayed nerves and the beast inside. For once she was my savior instead of my tormentor. Her body shook and I squeezed her tighter to me.
“I can’t…nobody has ever…there is literally…” She gave up trying to speak and shook her head.
She couldn’t find the right words when I had. It was an unparalleled moment on all accounts. I wanted to savor it.
“I didn’t say anything but fact. I’ve learned to pity people like that. They’re obviously dealing with low self-esteem that has driven them to make life choices that result in them being deeply unhappy.”
Her mouth twisted to the side. “I’ve never had anybody defend me like that. Without fists.”
“You’re a good person, Suzie. Don’t let small minds make yours up.”
Her face held something back. I couldn’t tell if she was happy or sad. After a few minutes, she slid something into my hand. “Here,” Suzie handed me a flask.
It was small and metal, and from the warmth still clinging to it, I could tell it had been tucked somewhere discreet. I took a swig and didn’t react to the burn that watered my eyes. The metallic zing of the flask smelled of Suzie's curves and I thought of what it might be like to inhale her there. Suzie held my look longer and blinked slower.
I shook the flask hearing a faint splash at the bottom, “How much of this have you had?”
“Not too much.” She winked from behind her mask.
Couples and groups of girls danced freely to the fast boot-stompin’, hand-clapping beat coming from the band on stage. It was a group of hairy, flannel-clad men; one playing guitar, another playing upright bass, and one on the banjo and singing. They could be related, or they could all be part of that lumbersexual craze I saw on campus with the hipsters. Didn’t matter. The music was damn catchy and soon Suzie and I were rocking around the floor.
I loved the surprised smile she couldn’t contain after I twirled her smoothly and led her around the room a few times.
“You really can dance,” she said through laughter.
“I told you.”
“You keep surprising me, Ford.”
Suzie surprised me every day. I spun her out again and she handled it expertly. Despite our formalwear, we were two-stepping with the rest of them. It helped to hide the feelings that kept trying to bubble up out of my chest. If Suzie was beautiful before, seeing her truly free and happy was like staring at the sun.
The tempo changed into a fast, almost swing jailhouse rock and so we stopped twirling around the floor and leaned toward each other to join the spontaneous clapping that broke out as the bearded singer wrenched out guttural tones.
“Cletus is a heck of a singer.” Her shoulders rocked as she moved effortlessly to the music. She couldn’t help herself. All music spoke through her and was made for her. She was a beautiful conduit.
I brought her close to me again, sliding the empty flask into my pocket. I had grown exhausted of not touching her. This amount of touching was safe. This was okay. The song came to an end and shifted gears to something slow. Her laughter dissolved into somber, uninterrupted eye contact. A banjo slowly strummed an even beat and the singer sang until the bass came in to strengthen the tempo. The simple melody and instrumentation were deceptively soulful and sent shivers down my neck.
“Lend me your eyes, I can change what you see, but your soul you must keep totally free,” he sang. The singer’s appearance was unkempt but his gaze was intensely focused as it swept the audience.
Suzie and I came together and rocked slowly to the words that spoke to something deeper than my analytical brain. Her scent enveloped me. I held her tighter to mask the feeling growing and duplicating inside me. I was present in this moment. In the way she felt pressed against me. In the heat of shared exertion. In the animalistic response to holding a beautiful woman. In the harmonizing voices.
It was all real. This was living.
She looked up at me and I swore she was about to tell me something I wouldn’t be able to wrap my mind around. At that moment the bass, guitar, and banjo picked up the beat and a drum joined in. We were forced to change to keep up with the quickening pace.
“Awake my soul,” he sang.
My soul was awake around Suzie. More than around anybody else. She drove me crazy. She shook me up. I had no idea who I was around her anymore.
“Come on, sour britches,” she said.
I must have been frowning again. I couldn’t help my default mode.
“Let’s keep up.”
We danced and danced. It was a miracle the song ended because my self-control was threadbare. The general tone switched to some up-tempo country folk dance songs. Eventually, she lost some energy and we stopped to get water.
