The Yes I Didn't Think About

February eighteenth. Here is the exact sequence of events: Simone mentioned it during a lull, somewhere between the dinner rush thinning out and the point where we start consolidating stations. She said there was a beginner salsa class at the community center that evening, Tuesday, which is not a night either of us has anything, and she said it in the same tone she uses for everything, informational, not a pitch, just a fact deposited in the air between us. And I said yes. Not 'let me think about it' or 'send me the details' or any of the other phrases I have developed specifically to delay a decision until I have talked myself out of it. I said yes before I checked the time or the cost or whether I owned shoes appropriate for a sprung wood floor.

The class was exactly what a beginner salsa class at a community center on a Tuesday in February should be. There were maybe twelve people. The instructor was patient in the way of someone who has seen every possible combination of left feet. I was bad at it. Not charming-bad, not endearingly-off-beat, just sincerely unable to locate the one on the count. Simone was marginally better, which she did not fail to mention. At some point a woman across the room took a picture of us mid-laugh and showed it to us afterward, and that is the only documentation that exists.

Between attempts. Simone had notes. I was still recovering.

We sat in the folding chairs at the edge of the room after everyone else had mostly cleared out. I don't know how long. Not long. Simone said something like 'see,' which covered everything, and I didn't argue with it. Walking back to the car the air was sharp and cold the way February air is at eight-thirty at night, and it occurred to me that I had not thought once, during the entire two hours, about whether I was going to be good at it. That almost never happens. I should probably say yes more.

After. Neither of us said anything for a minute. That felt right.