Ballroom Dancing

Gym with Brendan and Zach had always been fun. It was great having two of your best friends in class with you. Zach amused us every day with his imitations of different skits he had heard from Blue Collar TV. My favorite was the one with Jeff Foxworthy when he goes deer hunting. I swear, Zach listened to these obsessively. Then I had Brendan when I felt like flirting.

                   My favorite day in gym, however, was the day with Zach and the bench. Though it was still chilly out in January, our teacher, Mrs. Duggan, took us outside every so often. We ran the track to warm up and then we would head inside and do different physical training. Zach and I ran at a pretty even pace most of the time. There was always a random bench in the middle of the track. Why it was there, no one ever found out, but it was there. A few girls sat on it to talk every few minutes, but they got yelled at to start jogging. Brendan wasn't there that day, so Zach and I were talking. Suddenly, I sprinted forward, just for the hell of it, giggling when I realized Zach was shouting at me to slow down. "Hey Cassi, you run like a boy!" That stopped me in my tracks, as I turned and looked at him with a confused look.

                   He ran forward, passing me. This got me running again. "Hey Zach! You should screw me!" It was his turn to stop and turn. We continued on like that for a good five minutes, our shouts not only getting more obscene every time, but also catching the attention of other students. Most of them started laughing. I was shouting the nastiest things I could think of, but Zach wasn't stopping. Finally, I screamed at him, "Hey Zach! Nice a*s!"

                   He kept running, but turned around and shouted "What?" in a shocked tone. And that's when I heard the clang. When Zach turned around to shout to me, he collided with the bench, his hand slamming into it. He fell to the ground in pain, cursing. The sight caused me to fall to the ground, laughing so hard, tears streamed down my face. I could hardly breathe. People approached me asking what was wrong, and all I could do was point at Zach. His hand was already swelling.

                   The teacher ran over to us and saw his hand. "What happened here?" she shouted, sounding angry.

                   I sat up, wiped my eyes and said, "He ran into the bench!" Then I collapsed in giggles again. Other people started laughing now, too. Even Mrs. Duggan was hiding a smile.

                   "Would you people stop laughing and get me some ice or something?" Zach shouted.

                   I stood up and dragged him, by his good hand, to his feet. We walked to the nurse. With any two normal friends, the non-injured one would be saying comforting things, such as, "It's not that bad. You'll be okay." With Zach and I, however, the walk to the nurse consisted of me laughing at him and him threatening to smack me.

                   "Try it," I said. "You can't even­ reach me with your non-broken hand."

                   "Broken?! You broke my hand?! I'll kill you!"

                   "You will do no such thing. Besides, I'm sure it's not broken. Just bruised badly. You didn't hit yourself that hard, did you?"

                   Zach showed up the next day with a cast, protecting a very broken hand. This sent me into another fit of giggles. He glared at me. Whenever anyone asked what had happened, he simply replied, "Cassi Bussiere broke my hand." He refused to elaborate on the topic to anyone except our group.

                   Finally, Mrs. Duggan announced that the physical training unit was done. We cheered until she said, "However we will now be starting our dancing unit."

                   Part of me was excited and rejoicing, while the other part wasn't quite as thrilled. I did love to dance, but at the same time, I realized that this wouldn't be the type of dancing I typically did.

                   I was right. The first one she taught us was square dancing. For the most part, she partnered us up and I got stuck dancing with some pretty odd people. Next we did the Virginia Rail. I didn't know any of these dances, and that frustrated me. I caught onto things easily, but everyone else seemed to catch on easier than I was. Therefore, I constantly left class frustrated. Brendan and Zach both laughed at my anger. At last, she named two dances that we would be working on that I knew. The Cotton-Eyed Joe and The Electric Slide. However, the day we learned them, we had a substitute teacher. The sub got angry with me every time we did the Electric Slide. The way she taught us was similar to the one every kid knew, but very stiff. This annoyed me, and I did it my way. She turned on me and told me that I was no better than any other student and I was to do it the way she was teaching. I told her no and continued doing it my way. After that, all the other students did it the way we learned from school dances.

                   We thought the d­ancing term was over. We were wrong. One day, walking into class, Mrs. Duggan told us to pick a partner of the opposite sex. Brendan and Zach both moved to my side. "Oh, you guys, come one. Please don't make me pick."

                   "Cassi, you have to," Zach replied. "Whichever of us you don't pick has to be stuck partnering with Alyssa." Alyssa Inglese was another girl in class, who had a crush on both of them. She was quite annoying and no one really liked her. "So pick me, and make Brendan suffer."

                   I looked back and forth. "Sorry, Zach." I grabbed Brendan's hand. "I'm partnering with Brendan."

                   "Okay, first you break my hand, and now you're making me partner with her. You must really hate me." His words were serious, but his tone was playful. I grinned and shrugged. "You suck."

                   He looked around and saw that besides Alyssa, there was one other girl who was without a partner. He ran over to her, and I saw him smile with relief when she shook her head, and then nodded when he, I assumed, asked her to partner up with him. They stood next to each other.

                   "Okay students, listen up." My teacher clapped her hands to get our attention. "The next dance you will be learning is ballroom dancing. So I hope you're comfortable with your partner." Brendan and I smiled at each other. I noticed he hadn't released my hand. "Now, I want you to face your partner. Girls, place your left hand on their shoulder. Boys, place your right hand on either her waist or lower back. No lower than their back. Pat, I see your hand and if it doesn't come up, I'm slapping it."

                   Looking around, I saw that the couples stood closer to each other when the boys' hands were on the lower back. Brendan stood awkwardly, unsure of what to do, unsure of what I was comfortable with. I rolled my eyes. "You heard her, your right hand, my lower back." He did as I instructed him, and I put my hand on his shoulder. The rest went without saying as we grabbed each other's free hands and held them up a bit. Mrs. Duggan saw us and smiled, glad we had figured it out.

                   "Okay, boys step forward, and girls, follow his steps. Remember, let him lead. When he steps back on one foot, you step forward and when he steps forward on a foot, you step backward."

                   The class went on like that for the next hour. I found myself zoning in and out, thinking about how natural it felt. As I had found out last year, Brendan was a good dancer when he wanted to be. He never once stepped on my foot, though I heard girls saying, "Ouch" all through the gymnasium.

                   At the end of the dance term, Mrs. Duggan told us that we were going to be having a small voting session. She was always a very interactive person; she knew what we would enjoy doing. The votes would be, basically, superlatives. The categories were as follows: Most/Least Athletic, Best/Worst Dancer, Best/Worst at Dodge ball and Cutest Couple. I assumed that last one had come from our ballroom dancing part of the unit. The teacher passed out our "ballots" and had us write down names. The process took all of ten minutes. It was collecting the papers and counting them out that took a lot of time. And as to not ruin the surprise for us, she was the only one doing it. We all watched on anxiously as she wrote down names, and tallied marks that we couldn't quite make out. Finally she stood, smiled and walked to the front of the gym. "I would like the following students to come and join me up here please." She then named off several students, mainly popular kids. She called my name, to my surprise. A few more names were called, and then the final one. "And Brendan Allen." As he stood beside me, practically pushing someone out of the way, Mrs. Duggan spoke again. "These are among the students who were voted. Some up here won, some did not." I figured that was why Brendan and I had been called up. The winners had their names read off and received small ribbons, and with dramatic bows walked back into the on-looking crowd. "The winners for Cutest Couple are Brendan Allen and Cassi Bussiere."

                   My eyes widened with shock. There wasn't any surprised gasps, no shouts were heard from the class, excluding Zach's scream of, "Now there's a surprise!" Brendan took my hand gently, took our ribbons and walked back out to the class. Five students remained in front; they shrugged and walked off. For the rest of the class, we all talked and wandered around. Zach told us he wasn't at all surprised that Brendan and I had won. I was confused. "We aren't dating," I said to them. "How could we have won Cutest Couple if we aren't a couple?"

                   In a tone so low that I barely heard it and I was sure Brendan didn't, Zach muttered, "But you both want to be." I glared at him and he smirked. "It's true," he said out loud.

                   I shook my head. I knew it was true for me, but I wasn't too sure about Brendan. The look on his face, though, made me really wish it was.