“I was a builder, actually. I lost my job about a month ago.”
“Didn’t ask, don’t care,” she said, crouching in front of a large stereo system in the corner of the room. “Let’s get started, I haven’t got all day.”
The mirror began to vibrate as ABBA’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” started pounding from the speakers.
Krystal hung her coat up and stood in the middle of the room. Danny lingered nervously by the door.
“Come on, then, numb nuts,” she shouted, pointing to the spot beside her.
Danny took a deep breath and joined her in front of the mirror.
“Okay,” said Krystal. “Stand like this. Feet apart, head down, wait for the beat to kick in. Three, two, one, nowwwww start with the shoulder. Nice and easy, keep it loose.”
She gently rocked her shoulder as she moved in time to the music. Danny jerked his arm back and forth like a faulty factory robot.
“Now the other shoulder,” she said. “Like this. Left, right, left, right. Just follow the rhythm and go for it.”
Danny followed the rhythm and went for it, but the rhythm saw him coming and ran off before he got there.
“Then slowly bring the hips in, and then the arms, like this. Small movements, nothing fancy. Click your fingers if it helps. Like this. Click. Move. Click. Move.”
He started to snap his fingers, but the gesture only confused him further. He looked like he’d danced into the Twilight Zone and didn’t know how to dance his way out again.
“Now the feet. Blokes never use their feet, they’re too scared to spill their pint, but you can’t dance without your feet. Again, keep it simple, like this. Step one, step two, step one, step two.”
Danny wiped his brow with his forearm. He felt like he’d just started a marathon and only now realized how far away the finish line was.
“Come on,” said Krystal, “keep it up. You’re doing well. Now bring it all together. Head, arms, shoulders, hips, legs. Feel it. Come on. Dance. Dance like you want a man after midnight.”
“Head, shoulders, arms, head, shoulders,” wheezed Danny as he moved the opposite part of his body to every part he muttered aloud. His face glistened like the disco ball above him, whether with sweat or with tears, he wasn’t quite sure.
“Last stretch. Don’t lose it now. Dance. Twenty seconds. Give it all you’ve got. Ten seconds. Come on. Five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One. And. Rest.”
Danny slouched forward, steadying himself with his hands on his knees to keep from keeling over. Sweat dripped from the end of his nose and his breathing was loud and labored. He felt like he was about to throw up, or die, or throw up and then die.
Krystal smiled at him in the same way a murderous spouse smiles at her partner just before skydiving together.
“Ready for round two?” she said.
* * *
Danny was no stranger to suffering. He was, if anything, a very close acquaintance of it. But over the course of the next two hours, all of the problems that had plagued his life up until that moment miraculously disappeared, not because he was lost in the music or the art of the dance but because keeping up with Krystal was so traumatic that all other traumas took a backseat while he focused on simply trying to survive.
It wasn’t easy for him to pinpoint precisely which part of the process he struggled with the most because he struggled with everything equally. Fitness proved to be a major obstacle. Danny had always considered himself to be a fairly healthy guy. He couldn’t run a marathon, or even any kind of extended distance unless being chased by something ravenous, but he could sprint for a bus without risking an aneurysm and he could take the stairs if the elevator was broken without first letting the police know where to find his body. He didn’t eat organic kale with tofu for breakfast every day (nor any day, for that matter), but he didn’t smoke, he rarely drank, and while years in the construction trade had turned many of his workmates into redder, heavier versions of their former selves due to the self-deceptive belief that routinely eating pastries was fine as long as you kept yourself moving, the daily grind of the building site had transformed the scrawny kid that Danny had started out as into the strong, lean man he now was.
But early into the session it became painfully clear that it wasn’t strength he was lacking, nor was it strength that he needed (except for strength of mind, perhaps, his having absconded almost as soon as the session had started); it was stamina. He could barely make it through a single song without pausing in the middle to catch his breath, check his pulse, and google how many beats per minute it took for a human heart to explode, and even without the panda suit he perspired so profusely that at one point Krystal had to call the cleaning lady to squeegee the floor lest it turn into a safety hazard. Equally problematic was Danny’s coordination skills, or lack thereof. He shook when he should have been shimmying, he shimmied when he should have been spinning, he spun when he should have been strutting, and instead of strutting he did something that even Krystal didn’t have a word for. Not that she made it particularly easy for him. Following her lead was like following a fugitive who knew the roads when he didn’t. She gunned the straights, sped into corners, and only slowed down when Danny took a wrong turn or ended up in a ditch. Even when she took her foot off the pedal he struggled to keep up with her, and so it went for two exhausting hours until Krystal finally stopped the music and threw him an unwashed beer towel to wipe his face with, which he did, gladly. She looked impossibly composed, like someone who had just awoken from a long and invigorating sleep, and the only time she broke a sweat was when she had to assist Danny out of the studio and back down the corridor to the bar.
“Two waters, please, Suvi,” said Krystal, “and a kiss of life for this one.” She nodded at Danny, who was trying to hoist himself onto the barstool beside her.
“I won’t charge for the kiss,” said Vesuvius, winking at Danny as he placed two bottles of water on the counter.
“Don’t worry,” said Krystal as Vesuvius went back to cleaning glasses. “He only likes the married ones.”
“I am married,” said Danny in between deep gulps of water. “Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“It’s a long story,” he said, looking at his empty ring finger. He’d never worried about his wedding ring when Liz was alive, but after her death he suddenly became terrified that he was going to lose it, so he’d wrapped the ring in cotton, put it in a matchbox, and hidden it in the drawer of his bedside table, which was where it had lived ever since.
“Every man who comes in here has a long story,” said Krystal. “Don’t tell me, let me guess. Your wife ran off with another bloke? We get a lot of those.”
Danny shook his head and took another sip of water. Krystal thought for a moment.
“She ran off with another woman?”
“Nope.”
“Another panda?”
“Funny.”
“Was it a dwarf? Because we had this one guy whose wife—”
“She’s dead,” said Danny.
Krystal watched him for a moment, her lips twitching with a wavering smile. “You’re joking, right?” she said.
“I wish I was,” said Danny, screwing the cap back onto the bottle.