I am studying two forms of dance. My parents have chosen ballroom dancing because my mother feels that the foxtrot, waltz, and cha-cha constitute useful elements of a young man’s preparation for life. (What if, someday, you must admit that you don’t know how to dance?) I study ballroom alone, so Miss Stephanie is my partner, though of course she is a great deal taller; my head comes just to her breasts. I am best at the cha-cha; I master the steps to the degree that Miss Stephanie (who is probably in her twenties and wears black leotards, her hair loosely piled on her head à la Lautrec) and I can actually become absorbed in the Latin flavor of the music. We cut an extravagant figure, once I get the hang of it, cha-chaing our way across the rectangular practice room, noticing ourselves in the mirrored wall.

On tap days Jimmy arrives to pick me up in his family car. We have already moved to another house, in a newer development atop what passes for a hill in Florida, a better address (Hillcrest Drive, a street with a decidedly un-Floridian name), and the house comes with the strange accoutrement of a built-in bar. I get in the back seat with Jimmy while the silent driver, a black man in a dark jacket and cap, drives us to Miss Stephanie’s; Jimmy makes no fuss about being chauffeured, so I don’t either. The car’s air-conditioned, the windows rolled up; we always drive with our windows open, trying, as my father says, “to beat the heat.” To get to dancing school, the car must pass through what is called “the bad part of town,” there is no way around it. As we do so the driver pushes a button that controls louvered blinds behind and beside us: we don’t need to see.