Casa Blanca, Colonnade Gray, Favorite Jeans, Flattering Peach, Pure White, Rosy Outlook.

Each paint can had been cleaned, resealed and labeled, ready for the next job. Rookies wasted paint, using a screwdriver to pry open the lid and letting the paint dribble down the sides of the can. Not this guy, John thought. He used to be like that, but 25 years as a professional house painter – one of the best in White Plains – had taught him to take his time and save leftover paint. You never knew when you'd be trying to finish a job on a Sunday evening, maybe a big old house in New Haven, and the half-gallon of Dover Gray you had tucked away in the basement, carefully stored with a film of water over the surface, would save you from having to finish the job Monday morning.

The ring of the kitchen phone yanked his eyes away from the neat rows of paint cans in the basement. He jogged up the stairs, reached around the corner and grabbed the receiver before the answering machine could pick up.

"Castle."

"Johnny Castle?"

"John, but yeah."

"Thank God," the guy exhaled. "I'm so glad I reached you. Ben Smith at the Sherwin-Williams in White Plains said you were the only guy who could help me out."

"Ah, so you're looking for a paint color." The urgency in the guy's voice had made John think someone was dead.

"Ben said if anyone on the Eastern seaboard would have this paint, it would be you."

John cradled the phone between his shoulder and ear and gathered the cord so he could keep talking as he descended again into the basement. "What are you looking for?"

"It's by Little Greene, a British company. You probably don't have it. This Richie-rich lady in the city wants a cabinet painted this color. The same color of her grandparents' living room back in London."

"What's the color?" John repeated.

"Mambo."

John paused, his hand on the stepstool he used to look at the cans on the very top of the storage locker, and smiled. "Yeah, I got it." He didn't even have to look. He'd had to do a special order for the inky blue paint from England a year earlier and it was only a front door in Bridgeport, so there was almost a full can left. Plus, the name.

"You've got it?" the man was incredulous. "Goddamn. Ben was right. How much you want for it? I mean, you've got me over a barrel. This woman wants the cabinet done before Christmas. She's having a big party and… well you know how they are."

"I know," John said. "Listen. Give me twenty bucks and we're good. I doubt anyone else will want it before it spoils."

The painter on the phone thanked him in his thick Long Island accent. They arranged a time to meet and John went back upstairs to hang up the phone. But he couldn't stop the tune in his head. More than a tune, a rhythm. Slowly, as if in a trance, he pushed the kitchen chairs off to the side and started marking steps on the oak floor. Front, two, three. Back, two three. Front, two, three. Back, two, three. Hips pulsing, but controlled. Arms out where his partner would be. And who was his partner? Penny, his friend and long-time partner would be the logical choice. They'd danced Mambo Magic so many times at Kellermans and other resorts. When they moved together on the floor, she with her puff of blonde hair and sky-high kicks, and he with his pompadour and Elvis hips, audiences could not look away. But instead, who he imagined in his arms as he mamboed around his kitchen table was Frances. He'd stopped calling her Baby after that first summer. Well, she stopped calling herself that when she went to college. He couldn't blame her. I mean, Baby? John could see calling a child that, but at some point Dr. and Mrs. Houseman should have switched to her real name.

Anyway. Frances was a great partner too. Shorter than Penny, but smaller and more compact. Easier to lift without all those pointy knees and elbows. Plus, the way she'd looked at him, those three and a half months they were together, dancing and reading books and walking around the outer boroughs and making love, was something he'd never had from any other partner. She'd both admired and desired him and that was pretty fucking intoxicating. When summer ended, he'd taken his uncle up on the offer to join the House Painters and Plasterers Union, Local 351. Uncle Hank taught him how to hang drywall and repair plaster and to paint. It turned out, John was good at it. In time, he could cut corners better than Billy or Hank, forming crisp lines without tape and without leaving drips on the old bedsheets they used for drop cloths. Even though he enjoyed the job – even back then - he lived for evenings and weekends when he taught dance lessons at Arthur Miller in the city. He and Frances would meet up there on Saturday nights, after his lessons, and go to clubs where they could dance the steps he'd taught her. Mambo, cha cha, even the tango. She really loved that one. They did all the new dances too, the mashed potato, the shimmy, the swim. Even the chicken dance if the band played it.

It was pretty amazing while it lasted. But the longer Frances was at Mount Holyoke, getting used to her classes and meeting new people – rich people, smart people – she didn't seem quite as enthralled with her house painter boyfriend. Who could blame her? She didn't take the train down to the city as often and their phone calls became strained. Just before Christmas, John broke up with her. It was inevitable, wasn't it? And why prolong something that was going to end anyway. He hadn't seen Frances since.

Whoa, we're halfway there.

Whoa-oh, livin' on a prayer.

At 48, John still listened to the top 40 radio station, mostly with his younger painting crew. This Bon Jovi song had been on repeat for weeks. He liked it – Tommy and Gina reminded him of people he grew up with – but the damn chorus got stuck in his head for days. Today he was singing it in the shower. But he had to hop to; the train to the city left in 30 minutes. Aunt Wanda had chemo today and Billy, who had a job in Jersey, asked if he could go sit with her during the treatment at New York-Presbyterian. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer in September and the treatments would go every other week through the winter. The prognosis was good, but the infusions were a bitch. Messed with her digestion and made her dog tired for days.

Stepping out of the shower, John looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. His midsection was thicker than he'd like, but his job and a few runs a week kept him in pretty good shape. He still had a full head of wavy brown hair, which he toweled off before drying the rest of his body. On the rare occasions when he went out to the bar with friends or Billy, women would approach him and they'd talk or sometimes dance. But it rarely amounted to anything. He and Sandy had split three years ago, when Dylan was 12, and he hadn't had a major relationship since. Work, family and going to ballgames with his kid were enough for now.

The train took 50 minutes from White Plains to Grand Central, the white and gray landscape blowing by as John read the newspaper. Then he hoofed it to the hospital. It had probably been a year since John had been to the city and it was fun to see the small changes. A whole city block had been turned into a Macy's, which already had Christmas shoppers at 9 a.m. The horse-drawn carriages ferried tourists for exorbitant fares and FAO Schwarz was all decked out for the holidays. John got to the hospital about 15 minutes before Wanda's appointment, slipping into a seat beside her in the posh waiting room on the fifth floor.

"Hey hon," Wanda said, squeezing his arm.

"Hey yourself. How you doing this morning?"

"I always feel good before chemo. Not so much after," she laughed, tucking what was left of her hair into a soft hat someone had bought her when the chemo started.

"How long does the treatment last? I brought two crosswords – one for each of us – and a Reader's Digest," John said.

"That sounds good. It usually lasts a couple of hours. Don't feel like you have to sit with me the whole time. Sometimes they turn on 'Days of Our Lives'. You know I like to see what Bo and Hope are up to."

"Oh, I know," John teased.

The nurses got Wanda hooked up for the infusion and they started working on the crosswords – John was good at the cultural references, but Wanda, who had gone to college, knew all the Latin words. They worked for a while, passing the folded newspapers back and forth when one didn't know a clue, until John noticed his aunt had drifted off. He eased the crossword and pen from her hands and put them on his seat, standing to get a blanket from one of the nurses. After tucking the fleecy thing around his aunt, John walked down the hall to find the cafeteria. He could use a cup of coffee.

The hospital was a labyrinth, with endless corridors interrupted by elevator bays. Doctors and nurses, some pushing patients in wheelchairs, strode with purpose, while visitors like him stopped frequently to look at directional signs to see where the hell they were going. John couldn't figure out if he'd missed the cafeteria and stopped to look at a sign.

"Johnny?"

She was wearing slim khaki pants and a teal blouse under a white jacket. Behind her blush-colored glasses were the same warm brown eyes, her wavy light brown hair held back in a loose braid. Her height, just to his shoulder, and size were the same and John felt an absurd instinct to lift his arms to embrace her. Instead he just said her name.

"Frances? Is that you?"

She laughed, a laugh he also remembered. "It is."

"You're a doctor?"

She laughed again, a little self-consciously. "Yeah, I'm a doctor."

"Just like your dad."

"Just like my dad. Is it too predictable?"

"No! Not at all. It's, it's great. I'm sure he's so proud of you."

Frances's face clouded. "We lost him last summer. He had a heart attack while he was golfing."

"Oh shit. I'm sorry," John replied, stepping closer to allow a gurney to pass behind him. "So you work in this hospital?"

"Not usually. I'm an oncologist, a cancer doctor, and one of my patients is over here for an experimental surgery we don't do at North Shore. So I came over for moral support."

"That's nice," John said. "Are you going to see him now?"

"No, he's still in surgery. For at least another hour. I was trying to find the cafeteria."

"Me too!" John said. "I'm glad it's not just patients and visitors who get lost in these damn places." They turned to look at the sign, their bodies pivoting to parallel at just the same time. They were still in synchronicity. Or maybe John was just imagining it.

"I think… we go that way," Frances said, pointing down a hall. They started to walk that way when she asked, "What are you doing here? Is someone… in your family ill?"

He nodded. "Aunt Wanda – Billy's mom – has breast cancer. She's getting chemo this morning."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I remember meeting her at Thanksgiving that year. She seemed nice."

"She's a doll. Always doing so much for other people. You're an oncologist. What's the success rate for chemo?"

"Well, for breast cancer is pretty good – depending what type you have and how soon they catch it," Frances said. "For my patients, it's usually not as successful, mostly because pancreatic cancer often isn't diagnosed until it's pretty far advanced. A lot tougher to spot."

They'd arrived at the cafeteria, which was just as bustling, if not more so, than the hospital corridors. John pointed Frances to a couple of seats at the end of a counter. They both ordered coffee, Frances adding on a salad with French dressing.

"I've learned in this job that when you have time to eat, you eat," she said. "What are you doing these days, Johnny?"

"I go by John now. John Castle, vice president of House Painters and Plasterers, Local 351, at your service."

"That's great!" she said. "You look fit. Climbing up all those ladders must be treating you well."

He blushed. Not because he was embarrassed she commented on his body, but because he'd been admiring hers. "I do all right. I don't suppose you have any time for dancing these days. Maybe you and your husband –"

"I'm not married," Frances said, refolding her paper napkin. She shrugged and looked up at him. "Once I decided to go to medical school, it just seemed like the most important thing in the world. I had to work really hard. I mean really hard to get into the pancreatic cancer specialty, which is mostly men. And then there was my residency in Philly. I've been back in New York for 15 years now."

The server brought their coffee and Frances's salad. Clinking forks, nearby conversations and a distant call over the hospital PA system filled a brief silence.

"Oh my God, Johnny. I mean John. Guess who I ran into in Philly last year?"

"Who?"

"Neil Kellerman. I was checking into the Four Seasons for a medical conference and he shouts across the lobby, 'Baby!'," Frances laughs, her dimples showing. "He is soooo fat!"

"Fatter than Max?"

"He makes Max look like Tito," she snorted again. "Anyway, he owns the hotel – of course – and had seen my name on the bookings. Isn't that weird for a hotel manager to look at the names of all his guests? He was as slimy as ever."

"Hey," John said, lightly elbowing Frances's arm.

"What?" She turned and looked at him.

"I'm proud of you. You're a doctor. Just like your dad." John knew how close Frances had always been with her father, Dr. Jake Houseman. That summer at Kellermans was the first time her father saw she wasn't a little girl anymore and that she was going to make mistakes and eventually go off and leave him. "How are your mom and sister?"

"Well, Lisa is Lisa. Married and living in Connecticut. She and Greg have four children, so that keeps Mom off my back. My mom is doing all right, all things considered. A little adrift since my dad died – we all are – but she has some good friends. They meet at the club and have a book group. But I want to hear about what you've been up to!"

John told her about his business, Castle Painting, a little proud that he had something of his own, and his divorce. She'd known he'd been married, which kind of surprised him. Before long, a beeping noise sounded from a pager clipped to Frances's belt. She picked it up and looked at the tiny green screen.

"My patient is out of surgery."

"Do you need to go?"

"Yeah," she said, wiping her hands on her napkin. "I'm bummed though because I have so many more questions for you!"

"Well, I could stay in town tonight," John said, immediately wondering if he'd overstepped. "What time do you get off work?"

Frances paused, pulling out her wallet to pay for her meal. She looked at him. "8. The Roseland has a late-night session on Mondays. Wanna go?"

Wanda finished her chemo around 3, her face pale and her eyes somewhat unfocused. John tucked her arm into his and they walked to the entrance of the hospital, where he hailed a cab to take them to the train station.

"You're not coming back with me?" Wanda said curiously.

"Nah. I saw an old friend today and we made plans to meet up later."

"A lady friend?" Wanda said, stressing the word "lady" and smiling.

"Yeah," he nodded, but didn't offer more. The cab rolled up in front of Grand Central and John got Wanda on the train back to White Plains. Uncle Hank would meet her at the station and get her home.

It was cold, but not unbearable, so John pulled up the collar on his coat and started walking from the station to the Hotel St. James, where he'd booked a room. It was pricey, but John did pretty well as a painter and except for alimony, books and the occasional bottle of Jameson's, he lived small. The city was always changing, but the theater district was moving at warp speed. When John and Frances had been dating and spending a lot of time in town, covertly staying at a tiny studio apartment her dad kept there for hospital work, the district had been going downhill with failed restaurants turning into peep shows and X-rated movie houses. It got even worse in the '70s. But the place looked pretty good now, John thought, as he admired the rehabbed buildings and new sidewalks. In a way, he was surprised the St. James was still there. The prewar hotel was cramped and nondescript, but it was close to all the Broadway theaters and to the Roseland.

John checked into the hotel and immediately left again, this time looking for a drug store to get a toothbrush and toothpaste, and some kind of clothing store. He'd left on the train that morning in jeans, a button-down chamois shirt and a Carhartt coat. He couldn't wear that for ballroom dancing. Passing several clothing stores with neon and spandex in the windows, John turned into LS Men's Clothing. A bell tinkled on the door and the smell of expensive fabrics greeted him.

"Good afternoon," said a tall thin man wearing large glasses.

"Hi," John said, feeling out of place. "I need a jacket and some pants."

"What kind of jacket and pants?"

"Something I can move in," John said, looking at all the starchy shoulders of the jackets on hangers.

"Are you… in the theater?" the salesman said skeptically, moving his bespectacled eyes up and down John's workman's body.

"No… I do ballroom, or I used to."

"Ballroom!" The man clasped his hands and smiled, for the first time since John had walked in. "Then you don't belong in this part of the store."

He beckoned for John to follow him past the stiff Wall Street suits into another room where the clothes were more colorful, but looked softer, more supple. After an hour, Frederick – that was the salesman's name – had found John a pair of black pants that were the perfect length and hugged his hips without being tight, a red silk shirt and a trim charcoal gray jacket. John could wear these clothes at home for the couple of times a year he went to church with Billy's family, but he splurged on a pair of black Capezio's because he couldn't dance in work boots. Frederick, who was apparently was a dancer himself – Flamenco – gave John the Broadway discount and wished him well.

Later, as John was shaving off four days of salt-and-pepper stubble in the hotel bathroom, he looked at his face and wondered how much older he must look to Frances. He still had a strong jaw, but his face was thinner and his skin had kind of a weathered look from too many days standing on scaffolds rolling latex onto houses. His hair had grey threads, but still just mostly at his temples. As he dressed in the new clothes, he sipped from a bottle of whiskey from the hotel's mini-fridge; going dancing in New York City with his former girlfriend who was now a doctor required some liquid courage.

It was a perfect December night in the city. Snow that had fallen over the weekend had been plowed off the streets and sidewalks and the Christmas lights strung up on light poles and stores made everything look like a movie set. Shop windows were dressed with folds of emerald green felt or gold lame to display jewelry or clocks or shoes or toys and the scent of sweet roasting nuts from a street vendor made John think of his childhood. John's breath fogged as he walked quickly down the city blocks. The gray jacket was better than nothing against the winter cold, but now he wished he hadn't left the Carhartt back in the hotel.

The Roseland Ballroom, built in 1922, used to be an ice-skating rink, John had heard. You could almost imagine it looking at the quarter-acre dancefloor on the main level. The place had gone downhill since the last time John was there in the mid-1960s. He was surprised they still had ballroom dancing - the posters up on the outside advertised disco night and rock concerts – and he remembered some sort of shooting happening here a few years ago. But with the lights dimmed and a few couples moving around the dancefloor, it took John back in time. He was remembering other late nights dancing cheek to cheek with Frances, doing an Argentine tango or laughing as they quick stepped across the floor, when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

"Hey there," she said.

Frances was wearing a shimmery dress somewhere between pink and red. If John was using Sherwin-Williams paint chips, he'd probably call it Tuberose or Eros Pink. It was cinched at the waist with a tight bodice and low V neckline. One a fuller-breasted woman it might have looked trashy, but with Frances's compact, dancer's body she looked fantastic. Her hair was swept up in a twist and her glasses were gone. Her narrow-heeled dancing shoes brought her closer to his height.

"You look amazing," John breathed.

"Thank you," she said, glancing down at her dress. "You do too! I wasn't sure you'd want to dance since you hadn't planned on it when you came into the city. But you look great; just like the Johnny I used to know." She stepped forward and placed her hand on his smooth cheek.

The band had started to play a foxtrot and John raised his eyebrow at Frances. "Shall we?"

She smiled and they embraced. Following foxtrot style, their lower bodies were close, upper bodies arched away as their arms formed a taut, but shifting diamond. It was an easy dance to start with because it was slow, similar to a waltz, and with the frequent head turns, they didn't have to look each other in the eyes. John was glad for that.

"I'm a little clumsier than I used to be," he said as he missed a step.

"Well, you were so much better than me back then, it's a relief. Remember how I flubbed that lift at the Sheldrake? Sometimes I think of that and just burst out laughing." Frances broke the hold and imitated her improvisation from '63. She rejoined his hands and they started moving again.

"I still can't believe we pulled that off," John said. "You were such a fast learner."

"I was motivated," she said, pausing in a head turn to glance at him.

"Well, you've kept learning, I see. Do you come here a lot?"

"Here and other places. I didn't dance much in school, but after I moved back to the city I started taking lessons again. After a long day of seeing patients, it's really nice to come and just move. Do you dance often?"

"A couple time a year, maybe. Weddings. That's my place to shine."

"I bet. All those women are probably dying to dance with this hunky house painter who has all the moves," she jabbed him in the ribs.

"If the DJ can stop playing Whitesnake long enough."

They cycled through another foxtrot, changing their hold slightly and finding the rhythm of each other's bodies. Frances was thinner and more muscular than she used to be, and although John was glad to lead – he could dance no other way – he could tell she knew both his steps and hers. The ballroom was about halfway full, with the newbies sticking to the periphery as the more experienced dancers swept around the middle. He and Frances looked to be on the younger side of the crowd, although there were a handful of teenagers dressed in flounces and fringe, looking serious as they practiced their steps. Ballroom dance would never be popular with the masses, but it continued to thrive in dancehalls like this. One of many passions that was invisible until you stepped into its sphere. As one song ended, John pulled Frances across his body and dipped her low. He stopped his hand from tracing the side of her face, which had caught the light from the stage. If possible, she was even more beautiful than she'd been at 18.

The song ended and the bandleader said they were taking a break, so John and Frances moved to one of the small booths near the bar. A cocktail waitress appeared, so they ordered drinks; John a whiskey and Frances a glass of white wine.

"So you have a son. Dylan, right?" Frances asked.

John nodded, picking up his drink. "He's 15. A sophomore at White Plains."

"What's he like?"

"He's a good kid. Plays baseball and runs track. Does his homework, mostly, when he's not reading Stephen King books. I have him every other weekend and on Wednesday nights."

"Do you and… Sandy get along?"

"Well enough. Things were shitty for a while before the divorce, but now we tolerate each other. She's getting remarried."

"Oh. Is that weird?"

"Kind of, but good for her, I guess. So, besides work and becoming a killer dancer, what else do you do?"

Frances laughed. "Not much. Not much time for anything else. Pancreatic cancer is one of the worst kind of cancers to get. The death rate hasn't changed significantly since the 1960s. So lately I've been trying to get as many patients as I can into clinical studies and we're even launching one ourselves. If we can get approval from the hospital's review board."

They talked more about Frances's work, her patients and family. John told her about the restoration project he'd started on a historic house in New Haven. It had been a teardown, but then a couple of guys – John thought they were dating – bought it and planned to bring it back to what it had looked like in the 1890s. John's crew was repairing the home's original plaster, fixing moldings and then painting in period-appropriate colors.

"How do you know how to do all that?" Frances asked. "I hired a decorator for my apartment."

"I learned a ton from Uncle Hank, got an associate's degree in masonry back in my 20s. A couple of years ago, I started taking art history classes at the community college and that, more than anything, has helped with some of these historic houses."

The band had come back to the stage and were starting a quiet instrumental with a Latin beat. Perfect for samba, John thought as his feet began to move under the table. Ball, flat. Ball, ball, flat. Frances was watching him and laughed, tilting her head back. Her neck was gorgeous.

"Come on," she said, grabbing his hands and pulling him up.

They danced the whole series: samba, rhumba, cha-cha-cha and even an intense paso doble, where John had to fight to not kiss her. When a mambo started, they slipped into the routine they had performed together on the final night at Kellermans in 1963. They skipped the big lift, Frances pulling her goofy swivel and laughing, but he did lift her and spin her around, her shimmery pink skirt picking up light from the disco ball overhead. Even at the Roseland, where pros and wannabes practiced their steps, that move caught some eyeballs. Then the opening licks of "La Bamba" started up and John pulled Frances into a loose hold for a modern dance.

"Boogie-woogie?" Frances said, grinning.

"Good call," John replied. They picked up their feet, knees raising, in double-time to fit the cadence of the Latin-rock song. Step, step, triple-step. Step, step, triple-step. They started with the basics, getting the feel of the song and watching other dancers adapt nearby, but soon, John grabbed Frances's hands and pulled her in for a quick turn, which she worked into her footwork. Not bad, he thought. She surprised him by pulling him in for a turn. John ducked under her raised arm and added a quick rotation around her back. Frances laughed, her cheeks flushed from the dancing and framed by wavy tendrils of hair that had fallen from her twist. They kept at it, layering on spins and stomps and once John flipped Frances over his forearm, causing her to shriek. Their moves got bigger and sillier, with John at one point crawling on the floor and ramping off Frances's clutched fingers into a mini-backflip. That would hurt in the morning – hell, maybe even after the song was over - but he was jacked he could still do it. The song ended with a shout and John wrapped Frances in a hug. Both their chests were heaving and their bodies were warm as he looked down at her face, which was lighted with a smile.

"Been too long," he said.

"It has." The moment extended, eyes locked as John decided whether to kiss her. Frances decided for him, reaching her hands up behind his neck and pulling his head down to hers. They kissed until the bandleader shouted something into the mic and the dancers nearby laughed.

"Yeah, get a room!" an old guy in a white jacket said, slapping John on the back.

It was getting late, even for the Roseland, and John saw Frances try to hide a yawn. Of course she was tired. A busy doctor working all day, helping patients and then coming here and dancing for hours with a played-out house painter. He felt his spirits sag, thinking of the night ending and him going back to the cold sheets of the St. James before returning to White Plains in the morning. He'd hang the new dancing clothes in the closet and his shoes would gather dust as he drank whiskey and watched reruns. They drifted to the coat room, where Frances had checked a fur-lined leather coat and her purse. John shoved his hands in his pockets as saw his breath condense in the ballroom's drafty lobby. Other dancers were leaving, some in pairs and others kissing each other's cheeks before parting. Cabs waited out front, drivers hoping for fares from Broadway shows. John and Frances were holding hands lightly, but it felt absent minded. Frances seemed like she'd already moved on, probably thinking about getting up in just a handful of hours to go back to the hospital.

"Thanks for coming tonight, John," she said. "I haven't had this much fun in a long, long time."

"Me either."

"You know, my schedule is hectic – lots of early mornings and weekend shifts…"

This is it, John thought: the brush off. He nodded, feeling the hope that had been expanding in his chest since this morning start to shrink. Frances was his first love and although she was smarter and came from a different world from him, he knew they could have had something special. But it was too late. This night was just that – one night. He raised his chin and smiled, preparing for a brief goodbye. Before he could respond, Frances raised her hand and ran lightly over to a cab. She grinned back at him and crooked her finger.

"Oh, Loverboy…"