head, looking down. “Your steps are still too big.”
Ramon is right. Her steps are too big. “Think of it as a shuffle-step,” I try to explain. “Your feet barely need to leave the ground.”
We start over, and Iris’s steps are smaller. A lot smaller.
“Too small,” Ramon drones.
“You said go smaller. I went smaller,” she fires at him.
“Too small,” he repeats. “Look. Just do what I’m doing.” He carries on in time with the music. Iris stares at their feet.
“I am doing what you’re doing.”
“No, you’re not.”
He’s right. She’s not, but I don’t think saying so will help.
“You’re concentrating too hard, Iris,” Ramon tries. “Just go with the music.”
“Grrrr. I can’t,” she nearly shouts. “I don’t go with music.”
“Okay. Okay.” I raise my hands. “Ramon, you go practice with Sally while I work with Iris.”
Ramon speeds away faster than a fish cut from a line. He grabs Sally, and the two waste no time sashaying around the room. Iris watches. I stop in front of her, blocking them from view, and offer her my hand. She looks at it with a combination of frustration and despair.
“This is impossible,” she mutters, her words are pitched so low they almost tuck themselves under the music.
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, hoping she’ll take the hint and do the same. She doesn’t. Her chest rises and falls like a hunted rabbit’s.
“It’s not impossible,” I say, matching her volume so the others don’t hear.
She looks up at me, and I’ll be damned if those aren’t tears in her eyes. She ducks her chin to hide them.
Ah, fuck.
I teach high school. I see someone cry almost every day. Students—sometimes boys but mostly girls. Teachers—it’s a rough school and burnout is real. And Mom cries at least once a week. I should be used to it.
I’m not.
I hate to see someone—anyone—cry.
It’s not the show of emotion I’m afraid of. It’s the helplessness. I’m ready to crawl out of my skin if there’s nothing I can do to help.
“You can do this,” I whisper. I’m looking down at the top of her head, so I don’t miss when she shakes it in an emphatic no.
“You can.” I reach down and catch her under the chin with one knuckle. She lets me lead her gaze to mine. Her lashes are damp, but no tears have fallen. They still swim there, unshed, making the green, gold, and rust of her eyes flicker like flames. “I’ll help you. I promise.”
The look she gives me is stark and humorless. “If that’s my only hope, I’m doomed,” she says flatly, stepping back from my hand. I let it fall. “You don’t even like me.”
I wince. Was it that obvious? I think back over our first meeting last night, Nonc on the floor in this very room. The argument at my truck. The hospital. Even this afternoon.
I’m supposed to be helping her, and I’ve been a total asshole.
“I might have been unfriendly last night,” I admit.
She dips her chin and looks at me from beneath her eyebrows. “Unfriendly?” she echoes with heavy skepticism.
I crack a smile. “Okay, I’ve been a nozzle—”
Her laughter bubbles between us. After her threatening tears and her near collapse, it feels like fresh air.
“That’s the last thing I expected you to say.” She laughs, dabbing her eyes.
I shrug. “Student slang rubs off on you if you’re not careful. They’d call me a nozzle.”
“Yeah, I won’t argue with that,” she adds, smirking but with a friendly sparkle in her eyes.
It’s the sparkle that tells me maybe this can be salvaged. Not just the dance lessons, but how we see each other. How we treat each other. I take a deep breath and own my shit.
“In Cajun French, when we want to apologize, we say mo chagren. My chagrin. In Parisian French it’s Je suis désolé. I am desolate, sad. Either way, it means that offending you hurts me,” I tell her, feeling the truth of it. The shame of it. “Please accept my apology.”
She blink-blink-blinks, and her lips part. “Oh… Uh… Y-yes,” she stammers. Then she smiles. “Of course.”
“Good,” I say, meaning it. “Now that I’ve watched you, can we try the dance together?”
Her smile falters. “I guess so.”
“We’ll get there,” I assure her. Then I take my phone out of my pocket and stop the music. Ramon and Sally abruptly halt their dancing, looking at us with matching expressions of disappointment.
“You sure you two don’t need a break?” Iris asks, her brows knit.