As always, Graham is recognized before he recognizes her. My best friend treats acquaintances like loved ones. People remember that. Years after their last meeting, they light up at the sight of him, and treat him like a long lost loved one, even when time has made them something closer to strangers in his mind. 

          This time, she is a middle aged woman wearing clumped mascara, chatting by the doorway of the coffee shop we’re entering. Bright toothed and blonde, she is reaching for him before he even sees her. There is the standard confused smile, then the very convincing “Oh my god, hi!” and a heartfelt hug. I can tell he’s at a loss here. She introduces herself to me, saving him from asking,  and I forget her name in the same instant. She is the director of some musical Graham was in early in highschool. 

          “Have you been dancing?” she says, leaning forward, eager for the answer, and I have a reason to like her. She loves him for something I love him for.

          “Oh, I’ve been dancing.” he says and I nod for emphasis. Oh, yes he has.

          “I know you’re clubbing, honey.” she says and giggles knowingly. “But you really should dance, you have talent.”

          They chat on.

          The smile drops right off my face. I can’t even pin a fake one on. No one ever notices my anger. Even Graham, one of the people who knows me best in the world, doesn’t sense it as we say goodbye and saunter off to our sugary coffees. Rage is my most quiet emotion.  Sometimes, like now, even I can’t hear what it is saying. 

          You really should dance.

          Once, walking home from a bar at three in the morning in warm rain, Graham and I improvised without music. I had new shoes, ones I had dug out of the trash in perfect condition that same day. But they must have been costume shoes, because they started to fall to pieces after the first puddle. The fabric peeled off like a bandage on wet skin and the soles crumbled in uneven chunks. One chunk flew off into an alley when I imitated a graceful twirl and kick of Graham’s and we both laughed, but we did not stop dancing. I tried to mirror his every move, down to the wave of his fingers. Our movements became languid, dreamlike, until our bodies, in the same moment, crashed into a standstill, like twin rivers meeting at a dam. I waited until I realized he was waiting too. “Were you mirroring me?” I asked. But I already knew the answer.

          You really should dance. 

          She meant perform, I know. But Graham dances when he cooks, when he walks, when he drives, when he sings. He dances in every body of water he touches. I’ve seen him dance on ancient lichen dusted boulders, in the branches of a maple tree, in a prairie full of a thousand shades of yellow wildflowers. He dances on long bus rides, on his way to class, on the phone, and yes, in badly lit bar hallways and beneath the pulsating lights of night clubs. But not once has his movement been less than real. You should dance, she says. As if he isn’t dance itself.