Moonshot - Marco Pena & Elle Evans

5: Unexpected moments

Marco - Where are you? It's almost time!

"Oh come on, hurry up!" I honked again, several times, to absolutely no effect to the cars in front of me. So I did what any reasonable person would: I managed my way to park my car on the pavement and left it there. It was more Napoli-style car park than Los Angeles car park, and I would probably get a ticket for it. Or several. Or my car getting towed. I got out of the car and ran as fast as I could. I checked the address on my phone and opened the door very vividly.

I instantly had more than 80 eyes all set on me. My face was red from running, sweat driping down my forehead. It was a huge room with mirrors everywhere.

"Hi, welcome. We were just about to start, you're right on time."

"Hi..."

I looked across the room, circumspect. I was probably at the wrong place, wasn't I? I was going to reach for my phone when I noticed Marco walking towards me.

"Sorry I was stuck in traffic and..."

"No worries. Glad you're here."

"Where are we exactly?"

"Salsa class!"

"What?!"

"Yeah, I figured we don't have the dance contest anymore but we still got to practice, no? Practice these moves." He executed a couple of dance moves that made me chuckle before we heard a few class from the man who was clearly the teacher, from his outfit to his perfect dancer body. He was probably around 50 years old, although his body shape was near perfect.

"Welcome everyone to this Introduction to Salsa class! Who is joining us for the first time, please show of hands?"

I lifted my arm. Marco didn't. He smiled at me and raised his eyebrows.

"The best way to learn... is to dance!" The teacher clapped his hands and the music started filling the whole dance studio.

"1 2 3, 5 6 7, let's go people ! In pairs. So, we start with the basics, it's important to always go back to the basics. So in Salsa rythmh, we use a count of 8, but we omiss 4 and 8 which are no steps. So you can pretend there're here in your head, but just know that's how we do. Look at me he goes like this on the music 1 2 3, 5 6 7, now you go, don't think just get your feet moving with the music okay? This is practice so that your feet will begin to move like robots to the music and you won't even think about these basic steps. 1 2 3, 5 6 7, again, and again people! Feel the music... If you miss a step, especially the newcomers, don't be mad at yourself, you will get there, you need to be patient, to be dedicated..."

"...and to have fun"

Something about this surprise Salsa class made me nervous. Even though I loved dancing, I had never taken any lessons or really practiced outside of the arcade. It had become my safe space and the more I became good at it, the less I wanted to explore other aspects of dancing. And now, I felt beginner's stress. I would hate to look ridiculous, especially in front of Marco. If Lee had been there, we would have laughed at each other's misteps and just enjoyed it. But I felt a sort of pressure with Marco next to me, a mixed feeling of wanting to impress him and to show him how ready I was to try new things without being embarrassed. But, yeah, I was embarrassed. To me, trying new things always came with the high frustration Iof how long you had to practise something just start being somewhat good at it. I liked to be good at something, and that was not compatible with being a beginner.

For the next 20 minutes, we practised basic steps together. It looked easy when everyone else was doing it, but truth be told, they were not easy at all. Marco was a natural. His feet managed the movements so easily, and his whole body was responding to music with a sort of grace. I felt like an elephant next to him. And I was really trying!