Old Lady Dances to “Thriller”

“Mommy, did you know Taylor Swift recorded ‘Fearless’ two days after I was born?” This is Harper, reading facts to me from the book, Taylor Swift: When I Grow Up. “She wrote ‘Mean’ because a music critic was being mean to her,” Harper explains. “He was giving her, like, bad grades or something.”

Harper picked this book out at the Scholastic Book Fair.  Hadley’s choice is a book on practical jokes. The title is something like, 250 Practical Joke How-To’s. The last few days, anytime anyone’s reached for toilet paper, hundreds of paper holes from the paper puncher come streaming out of the roll.  It’s hilarious. I know way more than I care to about Taylor Swift, and I’m afraid to use the bathroom in my own house thanks to the Scholastic Book Fair.

Would it be so difficult to line the shelves with Newberrys and Caldecotts instead of Frozen, Justin Bieber, and Mine Craft paraphernalia? This is what I’m thinking as I drive to the gym. I take a step class on Monday evenings. It’s a fun, kind of complicated class that reminds me of my Drill Team days, so I like to catch it when I can.

I punch buttons on the radio hoping to find a good song to listen to. My choices are: “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae) (why are “Whip” and “Nae Nae” in parentheses?), “Sugar” and, you guessed it, “Bad Blood”, “Blank Space”, or “Wildest Dreams” by Taylor Swift. I slam the radio off and hit the CD option. A mix my brother made me years ago comes on and I turn the volume up as “Rosa Parks” comes on. “I don’t trust that chick,” I think as I bop my head to OutKast’s beat. I think she gives Creative Nonfiction a bad name. If I spoke to Miss Swift, I’d tell her to read and study Mary Karr, and then write a song.

I wonder if I should try wearing red lipstick every once in a while as I turn over a pretend conversation I’m having with Taylor Swift in my head. “Off the Wall” comes on next. I love this song. Geoff always made the best mixes.  What do kids do now when they want to make mixes for their friends? Put it on a cloud? You can’t decorate the cassette or write out the songs in your own handwriting if you just keep it on the computer.  There’s nothing to hold. That’s so sad.

I had a friend who once wrote a letter to me incorporating a song title or some of the lyrics from the entire mix he made. OK fine, he was a boyfriend, and it was incredibly romantic. Like John Cusack in “Say Anything,” or “High Fidelity.” You can’t do that kind of stuff anymore and I swear it’s because of Taylor Swift and the Scholastic Book Fair.

The class before mine, Zumba, is still going on so I wait outside with the other people who’ll take the step class with me. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” is blaring over the sound system in the cardio room. The Zumba teacher does this one every October in her class.  The choreography is a blast.

A woman whose name I don’t know but who I’ve been working out with for almost seven years now says, “Now this is a good song!” She’s tapping her foot and shifting her shoulders, and I can tell she knows the part in the dance when the mummies or zombies shoot their hands up like claws and pivot from side to side.

“I love this song,” I say. “I love Michael Jackson.”

“Me, too,” she says.

“I had the book, and the pleather purse with his face on it,” I tell her. “I think the purse was blue.” I could fit a Lip Smackers, a jelly bracelet, and a 10 cent box of Ferrara Pan Candies in it. I usually stored Jaw Breakers in there.

“Girl, I had the jacket,” she tells me. “The red jacket with the zippers? I had that.”

I can’t compete with the jacket, but I want to, so I say, “I once wrote out, ‘Mama say, mama sa, mamakusa about thirty times so I could memorize it.”

There’s a pause, and I think maybe I’ve admitted too much so I say, “That glove, though. I really wanted that glittery glove.”

“Hmmm, mmmm,” she says. “Nobody could do it like Michael Jackson.”

“Yeah,” I say, and we stare at the dancers in Zumba.

The instructor sees us, and skips over to the door on beat. “Get in here, and dance with us!” She waves us in.

She doesn’t have to tell us twice. We prance in to the beat like we are MJ’s back-up dancers late to rehearsal.  I toss my bag to the side of the gym and take a spot on the floor. We’re at the part where the zombies sort of plie and twitch for three counts, then stand, legs together, and clap. I do my best to imitate Michael Jackson’s sharp moves and fancy footwork.

When I was in high school, the Drill Team did a Halloween routine to “Thriller.” We practiced that five minute dance for hours every day after school for weeks. We wore orange shirts, black biker shorts, and masks over our faces. I know it was the end of the quarter because grades had just come out and I knew I could still dance because as long as I had a C average I could stay on the team. I think I was making my way through The Grapes of Wrath and trying to understand Algebra at the time, though I can’t say for sure. What I do know is every move to that routine that I learned back in 1992.

And the Michael Jackson book and purse? I got those at the Scholastic Book Fair.