It was a town that could sink your heart. In winter the rain fell constantly and cold winds cut through. There were many old people. The main industry had shifted from logging to the three retirement homes. Unemployment was high.
Most of the houses had buried in their structure the tiny millworkers' homes put up in the twenties. A few still stood untouched and forlorn, sinking into the ground. Only the New Deal high school building had any distinction.
It was in the basement cafeteria of the high school that five women met on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Cassie was old and fat, Janet thin and debilitated. Andrea sold espresso from a little stand in the gas station. She had an almost perfect body and rejoiced in it. The girl Jessica was considered a nerd and longed to be seen as graceful. Janice was their teacher. Janice ran a forklift on the night shift at a grocery warehouse in town. Janice was a dancer and she had the kind of body that all dancers dread. Big muscles everywhere. She had few illusions. She ran her forklift and taught ballet and aerobics wherever she could. Low impact aerobics in the old folks' homes and adult ballet here in the dark and rainy little town.
The one good thing was that she could design her own dance routines and practice them with her untalented group and there was much laughter as well as frustration as the dark rain slammed against the high small windows.
Cassie was the one who held herself like a dancer and remembered the routines. Andrea and Janet looked good with their slender bodies, and Jessica hadn't a clue.
When the fall term started there was a new member of the class. Herschel. Starting quarter back on the last year's High School team and now at community college with a football scholarship. He wanted to improve his co-ordination and flexibility and his coach recommended ballet so here he was. Strong and young and beautiful and as black as the night. It was unavoidable that the class revolved around him. They were all permanent beginners, but he did not even know the positions. He learned fast though.
It was in the last week of the class that the miracle happened. They had done their stretching and their barre work. They had practiced the more difficult pieces of the routine they were working on. Janice hadn't said anything, but she thought that possibly for the first time they could perform in public - maybe at a Grange Christmas dinner or something. Twice before they had performed for the old folk, but both times had ended in embarrassment. This time they were almost good. The janitor was standing in the doorway waiting to close the building.
``Flying sequence,'' she called, ``Herschel and Jessica first.''
Herschel and Jessica leapt into the air exactly on the beat and they danced their way with perfect grace and glorious freedom across the room until they ran into the steam table and the world stopped for a moment until Janet's voice rang out in awe - ``Herschel and Jessica were dancing!''
Their tired hands pattered out applause. The rain drops on the windows echoed the sound.