Author's Note: Naturally, I don't own, nor did I create any of the characters in the movie "Dirty Dancing." I was in elementary school when it was released, though I've since seen it many times and love it. Hence, the piece of writing before you. Please read, review (gently!) and enjoy.
Disclaimer: This is my fairy tale version of Baby and Johnny's future. I'm not entirely positive that they stayed together after that last dance and am working on a piece of fiction where they're not together, but this story came to me and sounded good so I wrote it.
Life's a Dance
It took me until I was thirty and married with two kids before I realized that I'd learned nearly everything that I needed to know about love when I was eight years old. It seems a bit cocky to say this, I realize, but it's true. What I learned from my parents on that muggy summer night in 1976 has stayed with me through many boyfriends and through a great deal of change in the life I share with my husband, the love of my life. On that night I learned that life is a dance…
My best friend Christina was the one who put the big "D" word – "divorce" - in my vocabulary and thoughts as we rode home on the bus on the last day of school in June. Until then, I hadn't thought much about it, but the sound of the word when she said it was enough to send a chill through my eight-year-old body. We were sitting side by side on the sticky brown seats, our Mary Jane encased feet not yet able to touch the rumbling floor, and I was preoccupied with thoughts of the summer ahead and thrilled with freedom. An endless expanse of days seemed to stretch before us and there would be lots to do. Summers held a particular joy for my family, as it meant leaving the muggy grittiness of New York City behind and heading upstate to the Poconos where the pine needles would sharpen the air and cool breezes curled gentle fingers around everything like gentle hugs. Home for that three month span of time was Camp Kellerman, a rustic facility that was once a family getaway and now served as a dance camp for underprivileged but talented youths. There, on the hardwood floors with the trees and deer for an audience, my father, Johnny Castle, would hold court. For a few short months he would mold young tendons and minds together into beings that seemed not to touch the earth as they spun and leapt with delicate grace. And while he made dancers out of them, he also made them into good people. This was a trick my father had a certain knack for – which he possessed because he had once been just like them with no chances and no one to listen to him. He was successful and never doubted that they could be too – at dancing and in life. The end result was always a professional, polished dance routine at the end of summer and kids who left with the idea that they could make something of themselves. Most of them did and the ability to help kids in that way always gave my father a great deal of pride and a sense of accomplishment.
Like most young girls, I saw my father as a giant and a hero and thought he was the most handsome, charming man on earth. To me, he was perfect and had always been that way. His eyes were bright and usually belied a touch of mischief unless he was working with his pupils. In those moments he was never anything but serious and the burnished copper color of his irises seemed to glow with an inner fire. His brown hair was wavy and always looked in need of a trim and he gestured with his hands when making a point, which was often. Yet what always stood out to me about my father was his grace. His arms and hands always kept a steady rhythm and made sweeping, delicate arcs as he moved them about. This internal rhythm followed him wherever he went – it was engrained in him because my father was, before everything else, a dancer. Everything about him moved in that rhythm, one that seemed to mimic a heartbeat. Even while talking about baseball with my brother he seemed to dance. And when he walked he danced, each step making a statement about who he was and where he was going.
So, when my mother had told me the story of how my father had come to be a dancer I couldn't believe it. I could not grasp the idea that one day a man had just gone into a luncheonette and told the young men sitting at the counter that he was looking for dance instructors and my father had signed up. It was too simple and random. The dance seemed so instilled in every part of him that I couldn't see him as anything else – especially not a house painter like his father. And yet had it not been for a twist of fate, he would not be one of the Julliard's top choreographers. In fact, had he not been in the luncheonette that day, he would never have gotten to meet my mother years later! This was unfathomable to me and I began to realize what role fate and chance play in our lives and how our choices govern who we are and what we will become.
I also learned from the stories my mother told me about my father that sometimes making choices isn't enough. She told me that my father had to fight very hard to get onto the pedestal that I'd always seen him on. Respect as a dancer, a choreographer and even as a person had not come easily - my mother told me this one time when I had asked why Dad seemed to care more about the underprivileged summer camp kids than the students he worked with during the school year at the Julliard. She told me that I was probably too young to understand, but that my father was not always admired as a dancer, that he'd had to break rules in order to make people hear him and not everyone liked people that did that. She smiled secretively when she said that she'd helped him break a few on his rise to the top, but that he had done most of it with his own hard work. Then she'd tucked me into bed and dropped the subject – but not before I had absorbed enough information to no longer view the world as a place where fairness and justice reigned. (All this by the time I was eight – no wonder people have always told me that I'm too serious!)
I suppose, though, a part of me could reconcile itself to that truth if only because they seemed to explain a lot. My mother's father was a doctor, my aunt Lisa had married a lawyer, and my mother was a respected professor of political science – all professional, educated positions. Get-togethers with my mother's family, then, were usually highly charged with talk of politics and world issues, all of which were topics my father never really followed except when my mother brought them up in passing. And though he was never left out of these discussions and was much loved and respected by my grandparents, I could never shake the feeling that my father somehow felt set apart from them. Sure he was worldly-wise and never failed to bring them all back down to reality when things got heated, but it wasn't the same as lifting off from their level to see where ideas could take you. The only real lifting off he ever did was from the dance floor. I began to clearly see a difference in my father after that, and yet in that loyal way that all daughters have, I loved him all the more for it.
Their differences aside, however, my parents were deeply in love. It didn't always show very clearly because they argued a lot, generally about their schedules and their opposing views of what was important at any given time. Yet there was always an invisible thread that tied them together and their mutual respect for each other always triumphed in their heated conversations. For this I had to give my mother a lot of the credit. She was a complex woman beneath the surface – a total contrast to my father's open book personality. She was a good match for him, though. He could be very volatile, especially when he was angry about something, and sometimes it seemed like she was the only thing that anchored him in one place to keep him from soaring away. Her big brown eyes would drink him in during quiet moments and, though I couldn't see it as clearly, I always got the feeling that she gained a great deal of strength from him in return. That was a funny sort of a thought for me, considering I always saw my mother as strong on her own, whether lecturing in front of her political science classes at NYU about class struggles in the United Sates or reminding my brother to wipe his feet for the hundredth time. She was a source of wonder for me – especially at the age of eight – yet she was also a source of admiration. And in the summers we spent at Camp Kellerman, she was also a lot of fun – swimming with us in the lake and roasting marshmallows around a campfire when she wasn't helping my father instruct the dancers, for she could dance too. I'd heard many a time from my aunt Penny how they met that summer in 1963 when he – Johnny Castle - picked her, shy "Baby" Houserman out of a crowd and began to dance with her. Thus, when they danced the marenge or the mambo before their students to illustrate a point, it was easy to see that both loved what they were doing.
And so these were the thoughts that swirled and jostled about in my naïve mind that day as the gray New York City buildings slid by in a blur and I sat beside Christina on the bus. The "D" word came out when I told her that we'd have to make plans for what we could do when she came to visit me at the camp in June – a tradition we'd followed since we'd met in the first grade. I told her this year we'd be able to dance with the big kids a little more than last summer – my father had promised. I loved to move my feet and express myself through dance and so did Christina, and usually such excited words from me were enough to elicit equal enthusiasm from her. On this afternoon, however, her green eyes were sad and she said nothing. When I asked what was wrong, she told me that she probably wouldn't be seeing me much over the summer because she'd be spending the entire vacation in Connecticut with her father. He had a new job there teaching at a small liberal arts college and he wanted to spend the summer with she and her older sister before classes began, Christina explained. They were leaving next week and wouldn't be back until school started up again for us in the fall.
"But where will your mom be?" I inquired, confused about the whole situation.
Christina's frown deepened. "Home. They don't love each other anymore, I guess. They're getting a divorce."
"A divorce?" I repeated. Until that day, divorce was a word only heard on television for me. I certainly didn't know anyone whose parents were divorced. "Why?"
She shrugged. "They fought all the time – especially about my dad's new job. Mom didn't want to move and all they did was yell about it."
Her freckled face scrunched with sadness and hurt and I put my arm around her comfortingly. Not knowing what else to say and not really thinking the words before they came out of my mouth, I said, "But they always seemed happy."
"Things aren't always what they seem," Christina mumbled. "At least, that's what my mom told me when I asked."
The bus ground to a halt at her stop then and she stood, straightening her spine with some sort of inner resolve. Before she followed her already moving sister to the door, she thought to add, "I'll write, Jennifer. Write back, okay?"
"See you in the fall," I nodded, dazed.
Divorce was then the principle thought on my mind for the rest of the afternoon and during dinner while my parents talked with my brother about his latest baseball game and with each other about the upcoming camp season. If they noticed that I was unusually quite and thoughtful, no one said anything. I was glad that they were so wrapped up in each other, though, because it gave me a perfect opportunity to observe them for what my eight-year-old brain thought could be signs of impending trouble. My parents fought a lot too and if that was the only thing that led to divorce, my naïve self thought that maybe my parents were in danger of divorcing too. Yet nothing I saw was out of the ordinary. So, with the careless abandon of youth, I tucked my fears into a convenient corner in my mind and forgot about them.
Two nights later, on the eve of our departure for Camp Kellerman, my father got a phone call from one of his colleagues at the Julliard. I didn't hear any of the conversation, as I was too busy looking for the doll my brother had hidden from me in the midst of packing and trying to hide his favorite t-shirt in order to get even. Yet when my father got off the phone and the yelling began, it was hard to miss.
Their conversation started out simply enough. Dad said, "That was Pete – they just lost their choreographer for the Julliard summer program and they want me to fill in."
"Really? What happened to Raul diAngelo?" my mother wanted to know. She was in the kitchen finishing dishes and he had gone in to speak with her.
"He got a better offer from the Joffrey Ballet," Dad replied in a cynical tone.
"Tough life," Mom remarked dryly.
"Yeah," Dad agreed disbelievingly, his tone implying that he wasn't completely listening but was wrapped up in thought.
"So what did you tell him?" she asked. I could hear her rattling plates together as she put them away.
"I told him I'd call him in the morning and let him know," he said. "I needed to talk to you first."
She made a sound of disbelief. "Why do you need to talk to me about it, Johnny? It's your decision to make – you're the one who's going to be doing the work. If you want to stay in the city for the summer, that's fine with me. The kids can go to Kellermans and visit Penny a few times and I can work on that dissertation just as well here as I can there."
"Yeah, but I can't make Penny do the whole camp on her own," he told her.
"Why not? She's got connections and can probably get someone to fly in," she was trying to sound supportive. "I can go up there and help too if she needs it."
"Some family summer," he snorted. "Me here and you and the kids there and both of us working so we never get to see each other. A real fun time."
"The Julliard is offering you a big opportunity," she kept her voice neutral. "You just need to decide which camp you want to do more."
"Opportunity," the word came out as though he spat it. "Those kids at Kellermans are getting an opportunity too – how can I let them down?"
"I guess you have to make a choice, Johnny," Mom sounded worn as though they'd had this conversation before – or at least a similar one.
"It's not that simple, Frances!" he raised his voice.
From the living room, I knew that things were getting serious at this point. Dad always called her Baby – an old family nickname - unless he was formally introducing her to someone or unless he was getting very mad. Hearing him call her Frances, I stole down the hall and perched myself in the gathering shadows, listening to their voices and the pounding of my own heart in my ears.
"Oh?" she raised her own voice in response. "Explain to me how it's not simple then, because I don't see it. Either you do the Julliard camp or you go to Kellerman's. Doesn't seem to complicated to me!"
"That's because you don't get it!" he cried. "This is a test, Frances – a test to see if Johnny Castle really belongs at Julliard. If I take this camp offer, I pass and I'm one of them, an accepted member of the establishment. But if I go to Kellerman's like I do every year, I'm stuck on the outside for good – I'm still the guy who had to break into the middle of Max Kellerman's big finale to get anyone to listen to me!"
"What's wrong with that guy?" Mom shouted back. "I loved that guy – I still love that guy! He had a whole lot of courage and he didn't think the establishment knew anything about what was real. He stepped in and changed things for the better."
"Yeah, he did," Dad's voice dropped a notch. "But he wasn't trying to support a wife and two kids back then. He could afford to do what was best for him and not worry about the consequences."
"He doesn't have to worry about the consequences now, either," she quieted too. "He has our support no matter what he decides."
"I wish it were that easy," I could hear him moving and hear her follow him towards the door. He opened it, then told her, "You always taught me it was possible to change the world, Baby, but what neither of us wanted to realize was that you have to live in that same world. I'm going out."
The door closed with a click that sounded very final and I heard my mother cry, "Johnny!" to no avail. At her anguished sound, I peeked out of my hiding place in the hopes that I'd see my father peeking back at her. For my entire life, whenever he'd gone out after a fight and she'd called his name that way he had always – always – looked back at her. She would receive a small smile, one that reassured her that things would be fine and he was just going to cool off. Only this time, when I looked all I could see was the back of her head and the closed door. Confused and scared, I fled to the safety of my room, blowing past my brother as he stepped out of his room.
For a moment, I was ensnared in a feeling of pure panic and the worry I had felt two days ago enshrouded me again. I wondered if Christina's parents had ended things that way, if her parents had fought and then her father just left with no goodbye, just the sound of a door closing. It seemed so final and I prayed with every fiber of my being that my father would come back and make things right again. He and my mother seemed to need each other so much, as their relationship was built on the history they shared. They fought to stay together many times before. This I had been told by not only my parents but their friends too – first to be allowed even to see each other and then while my mother was in the Peace Corps and my father was a struggling choreographer on Broadway. Surely they could fight to stay together now, couldn't they?
My brother's knock on the door interrupted my thoughts and I mumbled, "Come in."
He stepped through and shut it behind him. I was crumpled up on the bed and he pulled my desk chair over, then turned it around and sat on it backwards, head and elbows resting on the latticed back.
"They'll be okay, you know," he said casually in that superior way that twelve-year-old boys have. "It's just an argument. He needed to cool off."
"I know," I lied.
"Look, I heard about Christina's parents," he went on. "Mom and Dad aren't like that, okay? They work through stuff and they'll work through this. It's no big deal."
"How can you be sure, Ryan?" I sat up, still doubtful.
"I just am, okay?" he looked offended and stood, replacing the chair where he'd found it. "Look, it's late – go to bed."
He left and I decided that there was nothing else I could do. I crawled into my pink pajamas and slid between my covers, listening to the soothing sounds of the city all around me and trying not to think about my parents' argument.
Somehow, I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, Ryan was standing over me, shaking my shoulder.
"Wha…?" I climbed shakily into wakefulness.
"Shh!" he hissed. The room was cloaked in darkness and everything seemed to be still, until I heard voices downstairs.
"Is Dad back?" I asked.
"Come here," was his reply as he grabbed my elbow and dragged me to where I could see clearly into the living room, mindful to keep us both in the shadows.
We peered around the corner and I saw my mother coming out of the kitchen with a cup of coffee for my father, who stood in the corner by our record player, hands defiantly crumpled into his pockets the way he held them whenever he was uptight. He had not taken off his leather jacket and his head was down as though he wished to play a record using only the force of his mind. She walked over to him and set the mug on a nearby table, reaching across him to place a record on the turntable and start it playing. He turned away and went to the window, posture still defiant, hands closed into fists inside his pockets. I caught a glimpse of his face as he did so and couldn't help but notice how vulnerable his expression was. I'd never seen him look that way before. Johnny Castle was a very torn man on this night, there was no doubt.
The opening strains of "Unchained Melody" filled our living room, very softly. Mom went over to Dad and put both hands on his shoulders, turning him to face her. I had to strain, but I heard her say very softly and very simply, "Dance with me, Johnny."
He shook his head no. "It won't fix anything, Baby."
"It doesn't have to," she was insistent, her hands never leaving his shoulders and her eyes never leaving his face. "Dance with me, Johnny. Now."
Slowly, she began to move, walking around him, her hand never leaving his body and I watched the expression on his face go from vulnerable to decisive and then back and forth a few more times. When my mother was in front of him again, his expression locked with determination and he took her hands. They began to dance very slowly and very close. Had I been older, such intimacy between my parents would have been quite embarrassing, but after the events of the afternoon, all I could feel was relief as I watched them move together, similar to the way I felt when I watched them dance at camp. Behind me, I heard Ryan move away, returning to his room and sleep having done his good deed as a big brother for the night. Part of me felt reassured enough to go back to bed myself, but curiosity held me in place a few seconds longer. When I saw them mouth the words "I love you" to each other and move even closer, I smiled and returned to my room feeling at peace once more.
We went to Kellerman's that summer and did my father's camp like always. He never regretted the decision and his colleagues at the Julliard respected his choice. In fact, that fall, they began accepting a few of his pupils from the camp into their program, allowing them in with special dispensation. I suppose you could say that in that way, my father did change his corner of the world and live in it too. He and my mother continued their dance together through life and when I met my husband (during a dance lesson I was giving no less!) I finally began to understand what I had seen in them that night. Life is a dance and even though sometimes the rhythm is hard to find, you have to keep moving your feet. It also helps if you have a great partner to help you along the way.