Truth is, I’m not a pretty woman. Not really. People say I’m pretty when I smile, so I keep smiling, even grin to give my teeth some air. So I didn’t expect Jesse to call. I never had long, even hair. The kind you pet or sing verses to while combing it out. I’m not that tall either. Medium. Well, short to medium. It took me five years of tap dance and modern to get my leg muscles strong enough for ballet. Then I thought I’d die before getting my first pair of toe shoes, those pink satin ones with the roll of rabbit fur to wrap around the toes and those long shiny ribbons reaching halfway up the calf. Then I was on my way. Going somewhere, if only to another dance class. Jesse and I, being very colored and almost late, wound up as partners.

That’s how we met. We danced. Triplets one-two-three across the floor, and a long, improvised movement to Nina Simone’s heavy voice. I hadn’t seen Jesse before, so how was I to know we were more alike than either of us wanted to admit. Besides, where would it lead? I’ve known men like him before, who were interested only in their bed or mine. So we just danced, Jesse and I. Nothing more. I had the feeling we’d see each other again, maybe become friends. And when he needed a place to stay, how was I to know he’d remind me of my older brother Phillip, who used to hold my hand while Mama raked the comb through my knotty hair and made me holler. And when I had to see the skin doctor for the burning rash on my behind, he’d hold me close and say with the tenderness of God, “Hold on, Lil’ Sis. Everything’s gonna be all right.” The only person I could believe in through all those salves and creams and itch was my brother Phillip. And here comes Jesse pulling me across the studio floor on a leap-two-three, turn-two-three, relevé, and down.

Jesse must have thought about himself in that improvisation. Perhaps about Metro, too, who was alive then. Alive in Jesse like Jesse made Phillip alive in me. Maybe that’s why Jesse needed to stay with me. And when it turned out to be longer than either of us expected, I didn’t mind. I mean, I wasn’t going to put him out after all he’d been through. He made my knees weak, he was so handsome and alone. But what can a dancer do with weak knees except to keep on dancing?