Ma grins at me. There’s absolutely no way I can meet her eye.
“—and I wanted to prepare you a proper reply.”
And there’s no way you could have done that from the comfort of our bed?I wonder.
“I was going to just tell you, but as a wise friend-with-benefits once told me…” Yep, I’m definitely not looking at Ma, right now. “…actions speak louder than words. So.”
She looks over at my mom, who has taken a similar stance beside her. Feet braced and hands on their hips.
“I asked for a little help. Ready, Ellie?”
A moment later and a drumbeat kicks in through the speakers. Cymbals start to play and both my mother and Lizzie are strutting to the beat.
I can do nothing but stare in complete, joyous horror as the vocals of Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’ fill the room and the two women in my life break out into a choreographed duet.
Spinning, clapping, and shaking to the beat, the moves are simple, easy on Lizzie’s foot, and above all, full of joy. Lizzie and Ma dance as if they were made to do nothing else. Their smiles are wide, their excitement obvious.
And funnier still, Lizzie takes every opportunity to make the song a personal message.
As Swift sings her first line Lizzie catches my eye and holds it.
I stay out too late… got nothing in my brain… that’s what people say…
Tapping the side of her head to the beat, shaking her ass, and batting her lashes, I can’t help but smile, biting into my lower lip. Because she’s right. When she’d first come to the Forge, that was exactly how I’d seen her.
All sassy beauty and inappropriate footwear.
I go on too many dates… but I can’t make ‘em stay…
This time, it was my mother who takes the lead role, making me wonder just what the heck she’s been up to at Yellow Fields! Lizzie pinches her tongue between her teeth at me and I have to cover my mouth to smother a grin.
But I keep cruising… can’t stop, won’t stop moving…
It’s like I got this music in my mind… saying it’s gonna be alright…
I swallow, looking for the truth in Lizzie’s eyes as she and Ma fall back into sync, dancing and twirling.
Wasit going to be alright? Were we alright? Is that what all this is about?
I’m starting to think it might be when Lizzie suddenly squats.
I never miss a beat…Swift sings, I’m lightning on my feet…
When Lizzie dances from foot to foot, I’m immediately reminded of that day at the house, of her skipping across unstable floorboards. She’d made me laugh then. And she makes me laugh now.
My hand comes to my forehead like I’m going to cover my eyes at the absurdity of it all but I can’t bring myself to stop watching as each woman takes on her own way of ‘making the moves up as she goes’. Lizzie’s look a whole lot like the ones she’d performed that night in her workout clothes to a very different song. The look she casts at me over her shoulder, tells me it’s deliberate. I can’t help but share a secret grin with her, remembering the way heat had begun to spark that night.
Lizzie gets particularly into it as Swift starts to rap about her ‘ex-man’. She even darts forward to ruffle at my hair in time with:
…to the fella over there with the hella good hair…
I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Two of the most confident, exuberant women I’ve ever known, throwing caution to the wind, to get their message across.
Still smiling, I watch now with sincerity, as Lizzie places a hand over her own heart.
“Heartbreaker’s gonna break…”she mouths to the lyrics, gaze soft and painful. I swallow, remembering how I hurt her. How I screwed up so completely.
But then she smiles and dusts off her collarbone…