Page 12 of The Way We Dance

“Back into the same pose we ended with the other night.”

I had no idea what she meant because the other night was nothing but insults and confusion. My face must have spoken for me.

"Stand straight and pull your feet together, both facing the mirror," she added, not sounding as put off as I thought she would when she had to remind me.

I did what I was told and looked at myself through the mirror. I had a cut off shirt on again, so my arms were on full display. Instead of shorts, I wore sweatpants, and I made sure to have a decent pair of socks on. I also had my hat on backward and I honestly thought she would ask me to take it off, but she never did.

“Now, the idea of a physical athlete, such as yourself, taking ballet is to…”

“Hold up,” I interrupted her, bringing a hand up to cut into her words. “Coach told me we were exercising, not taking ballet lessons.”

“You are exercising, but I teach ballet exercises and that is what he asked me to help you with. I am afraid I do not teach Zumba or pilates.”

I cringed because both of those sounded just as bad. I was a man, a dude’s dude. It was bad enough I was even here, but actually learning ballet? Fuck no.

“Listen, lady. Coach hasn’t been right, kinda losing it a little. Can you go over for me how the hell he made you think I needed ballet lessons?”

Her lips pinched together in frustration but she nodded. “He and I live in the same building and when we ran into one another in the lobby, he kindly asked me to give one of his players ballet lessons. I agreed, thinking that he was sending me someone that was less of a neanderthal than he did, but the more you are here, the more I understand why this is what he chose.”

“Are you insulting me again?”

“Are you insulted again?”

“You just called me a neanderthal.”

“Honestly, Mr. Black, I couldn’t help it. You seem to get your ‘panties’ in quite a twist rather easily.” She air quoted panties and I was surprised she could keep a straight face while she did it. Air quotes didn’t suit her and I wondered if they were for my benefit or deeply seeded into her uptight demeanor and accidentally slipped.

Despite her bitchy attitude, I liked her bite. She seemed to be torn between uptight and savage. Some part of me wanted her to stay uptight and the other part of me wanted to push the savage side out of her. I loved pushing people’s buttons and seeing how far over I could get them to fall.

Probably wasn’t my finest attribute.

But if I was going to play that game, I had to play hers for a minute. If I mouthed off before I could get ingrained, then I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

“You know what?” I clapped and rubbed my hands together. “You win. Let’s just do this.”

I pointed my feet forward and lifted my chin. I could see her unbelieving eyes in the mirror but I kept steadfast waiting for her to give me more instructions.

After a minute, she shook her head and decided that she would take the peace I gave her. She stood a few feet away and positioned herself the same as I was.

“There are six basic benefits of ballet that we can use to improve your football game.”

Doubtful but ok.

“Focus, flexibility, speed, strength, endurance, and balance. We will go over each in the coming weeks as we practice different poses and positions.”

“Weeks?”

“Or however long it takes,” she added. “But Mr. Peyton asked me to meet with you for a couple of weeks, if not longer.”

"Mr. Peyton," I air-quoted, "Is out of his goddamn mind."

She sighed and I knew she wanted to come back at me with something, but she took a minute to recompose herself and kept going.

"When we are looking toward the mirror, we are looking at our audience. We are our audience. So we will call this our en face position. There are four corners to our box….."

Not going to lie, I zoned out. I cared very little about my personal dancing box, what facing the audience was called, and only when she mentioned the word derrière did I tune back in. Of course, that was followed with a wave of disappointment when I realized she wasn't talking about her ass, but the back position of my feet.

I let her talk it out though. I did an Emmy award winning performance that made her think I was listening and before I knew it, time was up.

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