“This one’s called, ‘Whiskey before Breakfast,’ ” the caller sang out. “If you’ve tried it, you know it ain’t as good for you as dancing.” She stomped her foot on the platform, one, two, three, and the music began.

The dance was fast and exuberant. Maggie was caught up in the moves before she’d fully registered them. Right, then left; join left hands with your corner and turn around twice. Pass through. Balance and swing.

The first time Cliff whirled her around, she felt the rush of air on her face and laughed.

“Watch my eyes,” he warned. “Or you’ll be too dizzy to stand up.”

“I like it!” she tossed back, then “Whoops!” as she botched the next step and hurried to keep up with the rest of the line.

She didn’t mind the sense of confusion or the crowd. Shoulders bumped, feet tangled, her waist was gripped, and she was whirled around by people she’d never met. Teenagers danced with grandmothers. Ladies in frilly dresses swirled with men in jeans with bandannas in their back pockets. Obviously anyone was welcome to line up and dance, and Maggie had already noticed that women picked men for partners just as often as men picked women. It was a free-for-all, and the rules were loose.

As the steps became more repetitive and more instinctive, she began to enjoy it even more. Her steps became more animated, her concentration less focused on the moves and more on the music. She could see why it drove people to dance. Feet couldn’t be still with that rhythm jangling out. She knew, as Cliff grabbed her and swung her in fast circles, that she could’ve danced for hours.

“That’s it,” he said, laughing as she clung to him.

“Already?” She was breathless but not nearly finished. “It was wonderful, but too short. When do we do another?”

“Any time you like.”

“Now,” she told him, sliding in as new lines formed.

She was fitting in as if she’d been to country dances in rural parks all her life. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised; she’d proved him wrong time and time again in his preconception of her. Yet in other ways, Cliff mused, he’d been right. She had an elegance that was too ingrained to be missed, whether she was scraping linoleum or lying in his arms. There was a polish that came from affluence and classy schools that set her apart from the other women around her. For days he’d been telling himself that it was that difference that attracted him as much as it put his back up. He couldn’t explain the reason for either. He couldn’t explain now, as he watched her begin the next dance as if she’d been moving to the call all her life, why she made him uneasy.