Alex Hines - Chance

Uptight, judgmental Emma, who had made Mel’s life such a misery at times, crossed her mind. She remembered Mel’s exasperated reports after discussing Strictly with Emma at the school gates – always she had some arch comment about how she could do better than the celebrities, they just weren’t training hard enough. ‘Why can’t she just enjoy it like the rest of us?’ shrieked Mel one evening.

Always keen to impress some imagined external adjudicator, Emma had apparently bitten the bullet and was now by all accounts a model of relaxed womanly confidence, whether or not she was up to no good with her dance instructor! Ava remembered the fun she’d had with Mel over the years, so much of it on a dance floor. She thought of the times she had tried to dance with Rob at various weddings or Christmas dinners but he wasn’t at all interested, thought it faintly ridiculous. Ava realised that for as long as she’d been with him she had barely danced. This was it, this was what had to change: her ladder out of the rut.

She glanced at the website address running across the top of the flyer, above an image of a tanned man swirling a blonde, smiling woman round on his waist. Eagerly leaning in towards the screen, she typed it into her laptop. The website was very bright. Couples dipped and twirled across the page, while boxes with times and prices opened and flashed. More information than it was possible to absorb but she quickly realised that she would have to start as a beginner; the embarrassment of trying to keep up with lithe young dancers might be too much. Ava chewed her lip in a moment of hesitation – did she really want to do this? Of course she did! She imagined herself floating across the dance floor, supported on shoulders as wide and capable as those belong to the sweet pea man. Or dancing a Samba, out of her dreary jeans and T-shirt, wearing something short and bright, her skin glistening with tan and sweat, thighs like Beyoncé. She thought of the jaunty Strictly theme tune and how it brought a smile to her face even when she was entirely alone in the house.

These images alone were enough to cheer her up. She brought up the music selection on her laptop and changed the track in the shop to a CD of something Brazilian sounding – as close to Samba music as her personal collection could provide. Then she whacked up the volume, grabbed her wallet from her bag and started to fill in the details for the course. Grinning and jiggling her legs in time to the music, she bent over her desk, tapping away at the laptop. The door to a world of possibilities had just been thrown open, it seemed. I will force a large spoke of dance into my Wheel of Tedium , she chuckled to herself. She flicked the music another notch louder, fingers almost tapping the keyboard in time to the beat now.

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