"Mother says it isn't right for a girl to ask."

"Your mother's old fashioned."

They giggle.

She giggles. "I guess you're right." She seizes the courage to take the first step, but at the last moment, she hesitates and tries again only to stall again. Her friends nudge her, urging her ahead, but she balks. Red-faced and giggling, she retreats to the circle, and puts her hands to her face mumbling her muffled excuse, "I can't."

Face in hands, embarrassed to speak, embarrassed to look, she feels someone lightly touch her shoulder. She looks up and sees him. He is someone new--a stranger--someone's cousin down for the weekend, perhaps. Her eyes dart around, searching for her coterie, but they stand motionless in the edge of the dark. They look, but they don't speak. Her eyes examine this stranger. He is handsome; she is overcome.

He takes her hand, leading her onto the dance floor. She has no will to refuse. He seems gentle and compassionate. She knows nothing about him, but she's safe in the school gym with all the chaperones; the fussy mothers found to supervise the middle school dances, and the grumpy coaches left over from basketball games lost.

As if by cue, the music slows. He lifts her hand and places his arm lightly around her waist, like the old movies her mother watches, and he dances her around the floor. When the light plays on his face, she looks for his eyes, but they are hidden behind eyelid veils. She catches a glimmer of them from time to time, deep-water blue, she guesses. They dance and she feels she is floating. He glides her across the floor. She has to remind herself she's on the gym's canvas-covered floor and not on ice.

His smile is captivating. His manner is royal. She is giddy with this new-found love. The slow song does not end, but merges into the next song, this one a little faster, a little lighter. He holds her tighter. She does not refuse. He glides her around the floor. Her head spins and her laughter is buoyant. She relaxes in his arms. She trusts him.

The music quickens. She is at ease in his presence. Never a word is spoken, but she trusts him completely. She trusts him more than the fussy mother chaperones or the gruff fatherly coaches, even more than her friends, still huddled in the edge of the dark--pointing and whispering, mouth to cupped hand to eager ear. He swirls her back and forth across the floor. She tilts her head back and laughter splashes around them. He smiles deeply into her soul. She is bewitched.

The song merges into another, faster song, and he grips her more firmly. She feels safe in his arms. The music propels them forward. He swirls her. She is intoxicated. The other dancers melt away; the gym melts away; the fussy mothers and gruff coach fathers melt away; her friends melt away. It is now only the two of them dancing through space and time. She does not care that the others are gone. She is with him, and he is all she needs.

The tempo quickens. Faster and faster he whirls her in a mad dervish-like dance. She is compelled to dance--compelled to be with him. She can think of being with no one else, nor can she imagine life without him. As they swirl and twirl in their bliss, she sees her friends. They look concerned--almost frightened. They reach for her, trying to pull her away--back to their safe circle, but she has no desire to return. She is tired of their foolish games: the whispering and giggling and elbow nudging. They reach for her, but she dodges them and one by one they turn and retreat to safety on the edge of the dark.

The dance continues and her ecstasy intensifies. The fussy mothers and coaching gruff fathers encircle them as they dance. They, too, beckon her away from her love, but she will not listen. They, too, reach for her, but she dodges them, and the dance goes on. The dance's fervor intensifies. Her euphoria intensifies.

She looks down at her hands. A scream chokes her, but the dance has her captivated; he has her captivated. The hands are not her hands. They belong to someone older--someone bent and gray. She feels bent and gray. Her partner seems not to notice. He continues looking at her the same way he has since the dance began. She sees a window and the reflection of the dancing couple is more dreadful than she could ever imagine. In the dirty window glass she is no longer dancing. She is sitting on a floor covered with debris instead of canvas. Her dancing shoes are lumpy and splitting where her gnarled feet needed room. Her dress is tattered and dirty. Her hair, once perfectly groomed, is uncombed and unwashed.

She slides her partner into an overused vein in her wrinkled arm. She closes her eyes. The filthy room melts into elation, and once more, she is dancing.