THE ZUMBA ZONE

“You didn’t make it to the pool,” P comments when Admiration Woman approaches.

“No, I did not,” AW shakes her head, makes a dramatic pool deprivation sad face. “I go to the Zumba class with my friend.”

P had actually seen AW zumbaing. She had what it took. The sways. The rhythms. The Hot Pink and Orange Skin tights Zumba pants.

“That musta been fun,” P nods now, glancing over at DL who’s surveying the exchange from behind dark glasses. P likes the dark glasses, esp. in the Y locker room. It’s cool and Italian Mobstress.

Now AW shakes her head, the pretty dangly earrings sparkling in her delicate earlobe. “It was okay,” she shrugs. “I mean, I went because my friend or…..” She pauses for a moment, thinking, “Yes, she’s my friend, she wanted me to go, but I think the pool is better.”
“The pool is always better!” P jokes and they all laugh, the giggles echoing in the now empty locker-room.

“ATTENTION MEMBERS AND GUESTS!” The intercom blares, “THE YMCA WILL BE CLOSING IN 10 MINUTES. I REPEAT. THE YMCA WILL BE CLOSING IN 10 MINUTES!”
AW ignores the Intercom Edict, keeps talking a mile a minute now that she has an audience? Or it’s a subject she’s just getting warmed up to?
“You are right, of course,” she huffs.

“The Zumba would be so hard for me,” P grins. “I can’t tell my right foot from my left. Everyone would be moving to the left and I’d be moving to the right. Everyone would be moving to the right and I’d be moving to the left.”

DL laughs softly. AW nods. “I have my whole day like that!” she proclaims. “Every time I move to right, everyone else, they move to the left. Every time I move to the left, everyone, they move to the right. There was something going on today.”

“You were in the Zumba Zone,” DL dubs it.

“Exactly! You are right!” AW jumps on this. “I was in the Zumba Zone!” Her eyes sparkle as she leans in to exclaim. P glances over at DL who is sitting on one of the benches, her eyes doing hell knows what behind the dark glasses.

Well, P can guess.

“ATTENTION MEMBERS AND GUESTS. THE YMCA WILL BE CLOSING IN 5 MINUTES! THE Y….”

“Sounds like they wanna get outta here,” P hates to be rushed, esp. when she’s in the middle of collecting a story from AW, but what can she do? The Intercom Edict makes her too nervous to buck its mandate.

DL gathers up her stuff as AW ambles calmly over to her locker, her hips gently swaying to a Zumba Zone Tune?

P thinks she’s imagining this, but it’s a nice image as she follows DL out of the locker-room and up the stairs.

“So you see what I mean?” P asks DL. “’Bout how AW is sexy but well…..she’s got That Look in her eye, you know the one I mean?”

DL finally removes her shades, “You mean the one where she’s too close to you and her eyes bulge out, the pupils dilate to the color of big black olives and sparks fly out from her irises?”

DL moves close to P, makes her eyes pop at her, using her index finger to dramatize the Crazy Eye.

“That’s it!” P cracks up, marveling once more at the Poet’s Ability to get right to the heart of the matter in these few choice words and actions.

DL grins, and then starts to giggle. P’s laughter grows, suddenly, expansively. They’re in the Zumba Zone as they tumble out of the YMCA, their right feet merging with their left, their left into their right, the giggles shaking them into the Zone, out of the Zone, out onto the parking lot, under the glowing Zumba Zone Moon.