The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing: A Novel by Mira Jacob

Author:Mira Jacob [Jacob, Mira]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780812994797
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

Half the village of Corrales and most of the OR staff of Presbyterian Hospital turned out for the Bukowsky wedding the following Saturday night. Just-shined cowboy boots escorted broom-skirted ankles first across the horse-patty-strewn parking field, then to the dance floor, a patch of dirt stamped level in the middle of some cottonwoods. Up on a nearby trailer bed, the Lazy Susannahs played bluegrass at top volume under a ring of Christmas lights, while dogs and small children hurtled through folding chairs and Johan Bukowsky clutched his shirt.

“I’m all right!” he proclaimed loudly at several intervals, drawing hoots of appreciation from the crowd. “It had to happen sometime, right? I just didn’t think so soon.”

This got a good laugh from everyone as his daughter’s seven-year engagement had been made much of during the ceremony, and Jenny herself ducked a shaking head into the groom’s neck. Amina stepped lightly onto the dance floor, snapping a photo and then receding as the hired photographer popped into her frame.

“Did you get it?” Kamala asked anxiously from behind her. “Do you need to get another?”

“Nope.” Amina turned the lens on her parents, who were looking particularly dashing and out of place in their best silks, like Bollywood actors who had wandered mistakenly onto the set of a western.

“Not us!” Kamala dabbed her upper lip with the tip of her sari. “You need to get the bride and groom standing and kissing! And then one of all those people that stand at the altar in fancy clothes and do nothing. And the cake! Don’t forget the cake!”

“The real photographer will do all that,” Amina reminded her. “I’m just here as a favor, remember?”

“It won’t be a good favor if you don’t get any nice pictures.”

“Isn’t this wonderful?” Thomas crowed. “Can you believe it?”

At least his inability to stay tear-free during a wedding was still firmly intact. Amina took a few quick shots of the Christmas lights reflecting in her father’s eyes, his hands rising as he danced at the side of the floor. It hadn’t been hard to convince him that a few weeks of her events had canceled, suddenly opening up her schedule. Harder was convincing Jane she needed to stay, and to get freelancers to cover the gaps for three weeks of work. Or, as Jane called them, “people who really want your job.” The laugh that she had inserted to take the sting out of the threat only made Amina more nervous.

Amina pushed through the ring of people watching the dance to the backyard.

Tubs of beer glistened like buoys across the evening. A smattering of chatty groups had settled in for the night, and she tried to take a few candid shots of each before they grew aware of her. A dark-haired girl, one good year away from being self-conscious, was trying to make a black Labrador dance with her, paws to shoulders, and Amina backed up to get the right angle, not realizing until after the picture was taken that her ass was pressed into someone’s very still hands.

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