Lauren Walter

January 4, 2004

DANCING

I swirled the crusty piece of bread clockwise around my white ceramic plate, in order to sponge up the cheese, oil, and stubborn lettuce leaves stuck to its surface. Popping the flavorful morsel into my mouth, I reached into the wicker basket for a new roll. A curl of steam rose as I opened it and coated the inside with butter. I put it aside and took a sip of water.

"So," I began timidly, breaking a prolonged silence. "I had a test in French today. I think I did pretty well, but the listening section was kind of hard."

"Well, good." Dad replied politely.

My attention returned to my roll. I tore off a piece and swallowed it. Devouring the rest of it within a minute, I searched for something new to say.

"How was work today?"

"Oh, fine," he said kindly while sopping up the last dregs of salad from his own plate.

I took another sip of water a stared blankly at the dessert and specialty drink menu propped up in a tall triangle on the inner edge of our booth. This time Dad tried to renew our conversation.

"I‚m going to be in Chicago for three days next week."

"Cool. You‚ve been there a couple of times, right?"

"Yep." Dad‚s voice trailed off.

The arrival of dinner saved us from silence. I was glad to concentrate on my turkey melt.

My dad‚s footsteps echoed as he climbed the stairs from the basement. I raised my head off the futon where I had been lying, flipping between various television channels. Leaving the door to the basement open, Dad walked into the living room to address me.

"I need to drop some stuff off at the dump. Do you want to come?"

"Sure," I answered reluctantly. I felt slightly guilty spending most of the day by myself, napping in front of the TV. Slowly I sat up to turn it off and shed the blanket under which I had been hibernating. Dad loaded several cardboard boxes full of recyclables into the trunk of his car while I searched for my coat and sneakers. I slipped them on and hurried down to the car. The passenger side door was locked, so I waited for Dad to find his keys. When I heard a mechanical click, I pulled open the door and slid into the slick leather seat. I fumbled with the icy metal of my seatbelt until it too clicked into place. The sun shone brightly through the windshield and I quickly lowered my visor. Dad turned the key and without a word, we rolled off toward the dump, each engrossed in our own thoughts.

When we pulled back into the driveway, I turned to look back at the sun. It seemed to be in almost the same place as when we left. I stepped out of the car and returned to my groove in the living room futon.

Over the next few hours, the sun snuck behind the trees and burst into a rainbow hidden from my line of vision. Flipping through the channels, I once again heard the rhythm of Dad‚s footsteps on the stairs. He descended from his bedroom to offer me another break from television.

"I was thinking of going dancing tonight at this new place. Do you want to come along?"

My "sure" was identical to the one earlier in the day.

"So, have you gone to this place before?"

"Yes, I‚ve been there a couple of times. It‚s a ballroom dancing class."

I nodded my head in the darkness of the car and then added a "hm" in acknowledgement of his statement. Our journey continued in a familiar quietness.

The studio looked small from the plaza parking lot. It was squeezed in between a pizza parlor and a former bowling alley. Inside, it expanded back gracefully with a lightly stained wood panel floor, ending with a small refreshment table. The air was cool, seeming barely warmer than outside. I reluctantly removed my coat and stepped onto the dance floor. I looked up to survey the other people. There was no one within ten years of my age. Taking a deep breath, I felt glad that the lesson was only an hour long.

The men formed a line on one side of the women and the women formed a line opposite them. Slowly, the instructor demonstrated the basic repetitive steps of the swing.

"One, two, three. One, two, three. Rock, step."

I muttered the rhythm under my own breath, galloping first to the left, then to the right, then changing my weight to my back foot and promptly returning it to the front. I smiled at my accomplishment and looked up to see the rest of the class skipping in time. There was Dad, dancing amongst everyone else. My smile grew.

Having mastered the footwork, the two lines came together and paired up. I put one hand on Dad‚s shoulder, the other in his hand. My smile remained as our first steps succeeded, and when our next few failed it grew into laughter while we tried to find our place again. I practiced with various strangers, sometimes successfully, sometimes flawed, but my grin was unchanged when I returned to Dad.

It seemed only a few moments later when the class ended and we walked out into the soothing coldness of the night. We found the car and prepared for the return journey. The silence of this ride home was new, softened by the lingering echo of my laughter.

Symbols in my Short Story

The main symbol I used throughout my story was sound and silence. There were moments of silence at the restaurant, on the way to the dump, and traveling to and from the dance studio. Throughout most of this time the silence was oppressive and broken up by stilted conversation. At the end, the silence was still there, but it was comfortable and there was no need to disturb it. The main character and her dad had found a connection in dancing, where they had fun and didn‚t hold back, as shown by the laughter. This made it unnecessary to fill the air with conversation because they knew there was a connection and no longer tried to force one.

The cold was another symbol. When getting up from the futon and into the car and when entering the dance studio the main character is cold. There is discomfort in doing something new and different. However, after dancing the cold is refreshing and welcome, in making an effort and going out into the cold she found something positive. This contrasts to how after returning from the dump, she went back into her same warm groove.

Both of these symbols were used to show a change in the attitude of the main character and her connection to her father, though their environment has not really changed. It is still cold and quiet.