Vera’s hips revolve in circles, her eyes half closed. Now Vera used to be a stripper back in the day, back when she was strung out on cocaine and trying to get her head straight over a miserable childhood and continued abuse by one man after another. But beyond that, regardless of the association of dancing with stripping, she loves to dance. Now, she lifts her arms high, moves to the beat, and a smile spreads across her face. No one else knows about Vera’s past, not in this group anyway. I know because she used to wait tables as a bridge to a more square life and I trained her. Once, I suggested she tell the group and give us lessons. “I don’t want to even think about those days. I simply enjoy the movement, the music, the transportation it promises, and I’m doing it for me. Not men.”

“Now that’s a lie,” she says about the lyrics that imply that love, regardless, is always right. Her torso snakes with the words. “It can be the greatest wrong you do.” She closes her lids and slides into a slow, very slow, jerk, her arms and hips twitching into each other and then flexing straight. “Well, not the love. The choice of who you put it on.” Disney bounces in front of her.

I grab her hand and start dancing with her.

“Now that’s love,” she says when the lyrics suggest that love is about being good to each other. “It’s not about regardless. And nothing wrong with being in love with someone unless it’s the wrong someone.”

“That’s the truth,” Sissy says. “And half the time they’re wrong.” Her head is high; the scarf doesn’t diminish the elegance of her long neck. She brings out a syncopated beat with her hips, subtle as her small foot movements and the slide of her shoulders.

“And the other half they’re the best thing in the world,” Laurie says.

“Hear, hear,” echo Rosie and Jeanette.

Gradually washing over me like a tide, I realize I’m scared that I told Jim I love him.

How do I know? How do I ever know?

Juliet’s eyes are closed, and Allie’s arms pump the air, her hips swaying as though T.J. is right before her and she’s moving with him. It’s amazing, all of us dancing together. We’re freer with one another than we are when we’re dancing in public. And then Allie is back in Taylor’s arms and Taylor places her hand on the back of Allie’s head and presses it into her shoulder. Allie meets my eyes and her expression is one of peace and belonging.