When Will I See You Again?

@haleywriterwithacause

Haley

Mrs. Monohue decided she had enough stuff. She had stuff in the walls; stuff piled in towers in the halls. It’s not that Mrs. Monohue didn’t like all the stuff she had, she just didn’t want any more stuff. All the stuff she could ever want she had. She had a toaster and a roaster. She had an oven and a chef grade skillet. She had three pairs of shoes lined up in twos. She had sneakers, a small heel and her dancing shoes.

Mrs. Monohue lived alone ever since her husband passed; their friends had called him Money Monohue. Before Mr. and Mrs. Monohue were Mr. and Mrs. Monohue, they went downtown to the disco every Friday night. The one on court street. They’d each been going there since 1973, but they’d only gone together since ’75.

Mr. Money Monohue was a dancing fiend. He loved jiving and striving and zigging and zagging. He’d do the disco finger then the double arm swing. He hip bumped and snapped and when he was feeling funny he gave the crowd a funky chicken. But the real show stopper—what Money Monohue was especially talented at, was the slow dance.

He had begged his mother to allow him to take dance classes as a child simply because he loved the art of movement. He loved swaying and pliéing[1], lifting and shifting his body into tangential movements that transcended the human form into some other stratosphere—an untouchable world. He danced his way through childhood and into high school where no one gave him any slack for moving the way he did. He was too stunning a performer for anyone to taunt or tease. He was beauty in motion.

At 23 he didn’t love the slow dance for any sexual reason. Money Monohue would dance with any woman or man who could keep time with his rhythm, and that was hard to find. Although he had many wonderful partners, partners whose hair smelled like peaches and outfits were sublime. He’d had partners who were tall and partners who were small. Confident partners, and timid partners. Sometimes he had no partner at all. That was when he felt the freest. At least it was until in walked Donna Supreme.

Mrs. Monohue, then known fondly as Donna, glided through the disco in her bell bottom jeans. She was ready to rumble with anyone who was keen. She was gliding and striding down her own dancing stream when Money Monohue first caught a glimpse of Donna’s scene. She was twisting and glistening under the disco lights. The music was thrumming and his heart reached new heights. He couldn’t believe what his eyes said was true. Could this dancer Donna out dance Money Monohue? Monohue’s friend, a sly guy with a keen eye, clicked in on his friend’s hesitation and told the guy, “C’mon Money do that thing you do. Show her you’re the guy who can make her spirits fly.” With a quick look of inspiration, and much perspiration, Money Monohue made his way across the disco. There were jivers and bumpers and twisters and drifters, but all that he wanted was Donna Supreme. He just needed one dance to prove he was true. A true disco fiend and a friend through and through.

Donna Monohue remembered all this as she looked at her shoes. She hadn’t been to the disco in years. 5 years 4 months without her Money Monohue. There was nothing she could do, but put on her dancing shoes. She opened her closet door and wondered if they were still there… her bell bottom blues. They still fit like a glove at 82. Donna Monohue put on her bell bottom blues and slipped into her dancing shoes. She found the funkiest top she could, looked in the mirror and found Donna Supreme.

Donna opened her chest, straightened her arms and shaped her hands into two fierce swans. She moved like this into the living room where the record player sat. Her two swans filed through their music collection until she landed on “The Three Degrees.” She lifted the clear cover, pulled the record out of its sheath and placed it on the table to turn. The needle touched down and Donna Supreme came to life once again. She was twirling and flurling across the living room. She was À la quatrième[2], the kitchen her imagined audience. She was an aplomb[3] vision. The music seeped into her body and soothed something in her soul she had forgotten needed soothing. She was transported to the very night she was brought to life for the second time.

Money Monohue asked her to dance. They did no jiving or striving across the floor. Their feet never moved outside of one four-by-four disco square. They simply swayed in motion alert of the emotion erupting between them, and they sang. They sang to each other as the music swelled,