Month two looked like this:
Nirmala's salsa step improved to the point where Freddy put her in the front row for the Friday class, which she considered excessive but accepted because being in the front row meant she had to commit rather than hide. Commitment, she was learning, was most of the battle.
Vikram's hip movement remained what Freddy diplomatically described as "a work in progress," which was the instructor's version of "we're getting there." But his footwork was genuinely good — precise, rhythmic, the footwork of a man who had spent decades walking construction sites and trusted his feet even when he didn't trust his hips. Freddy had, in a moment of inspiration, told him to think of each sequence as a bridge — it had a structural logic, a load-bearing element, and a series of connecting spans — and something had clicked.
Mrs. Apte had mastered the shimmy and was now using it at inappropriate moments. She had deployed it in a conversation about water bill payments at the society meeting, which had derailed the meeting entirely but had produced the best story in the ZUMBA QUEENS group in two months.
