I PRACTICED TO THE Boswell Sisters album, usually when Elizabeth was at the library. I even purchased a used herringbone sports coat at Harold’s Haberdashery (whose sign read, A Touch of the Old Country) on Sackville Street. “All first-time customers get a tie thrown in gratis,” Harold himself said. I was wearing the sports coat when Elizabeth came back from some errand or other. We moved the chaise longue aside and practiced the lindy. “I’d say we’re somewhere between intermediate and advanced,” she said when we sat down for a late dinner. “Though I’ve never seen advanced.”
Then came the fifth lesson. It had been two weeks since the last one. Arnie Moran had, according to the note he left in our hotel mail slot, “suffered the grippe” and had had to postpone the previous week’s lesson. This night, Elizabeth and I got all gussied up and had a glass of wine before going down to the ballroom.
On the bandstand Arnie Moran was facing away from the students. When he turned, we saw that his nose was heavily bandaged, and under the bandage was a metal clamp of some sort. Elizabeth said, “That doesn’t look like the grippe to me.” He stepped up to the microphone and said, “Yowza! Yowza! Yowza! I’m risen up from my sickbed and raring to go! Let’s cut a rug!”
Once the music started, it struck me that Arnie had become more aggressively exacting in his hands-on instructions. Twice he cut in on couples, exiling the man rather crudely and being very critical of the woman’s steps. When he said to Elizabeth, “You look like you have a stomachache—happy thoughts now, happy heart,” Elizabeth said, “Back off!”
Arnie did back off, but he didn’t like it one bit. When he got to the microphone he offered a comment: “A few lessons under their belt and some people think they’re ready for a dance competition! Tsk tsk tsk.” Though it sounded only mildly petulant, his reprimand set a negative tone for the remainder of the lesson.
He lightened up a little at the end, saying into the microphone, “You’re the best group I’ve had this year. Yes, sir!” (Of course we were the only group he’d had.) Then he winced and touched his nose and, as he had done for the first four lessons, punched in a slow love ballad by Patti Page on the jukebox. Elizabeth and I clung tightly to each other. “I’d do it with you standing up right here, right now,” she whispered in my ear, “but it’d lack a sense of privacy, don’t you think?”
“Maybe just a little.”
When the song ended, everyone applauded and left the room. Arnie Moran unplugged the microphone, packed up all his accoutrements, and pushed the bandstand to the corner. He was now concentrating on his financial ledger. Elizabeth and I walked to the door. “I feel like asking Arnie Moran—but I won’t,” Elizabeth said. “I feel like asking him if he’s going to press charges against the creep Alfonse Padgett. The grippe my sweet ass!”
“You don’t know that Padgett did that to his nose,” I said.
“Who else?”
“I guess you’re right.”
“Want to go to Cyrano’s?”
“In your black dress and in my herringbone?”
“I’m sure Marie Ligget will recognize us. So nice, isn’t it, how she gives us a second espresso for free when she’s on the night shift, like she is tonight. We’re lucky to have a friend like her.”