Dances and Mission Calls.

Well... Friday afternoon was a tad stressful if I recall correctly. See, for Easter weekend, I had plans to go to my Auntie Aella's house. And I absolutely abhor having to do homework while I could be having some happy bonding time with relatives I don't see that often. So... mad rush to do homework. Mad, mad rush. Then Clifton called... "So... you can come over to my place at seven and we can have dinner... Or, I can just come get you around seven-thirty and we can walk over with Zach and Dallin and their dates." Well, of course, I'm sure you know which option I picked. Gimme the free food any day. Clifton made a nice pasta vegetable dish with a cheese sauce (yes, I'm sure my cheese-hating daddy cringed at that... but I thought it tasted good...). Zach and his date Karissa also shared in the pasta-y goodness. Dallin and Emma had already eaten, so they left before we were done and got to the dance before us. We finally set off to the distant Richards Building after the sun went down.

We were walking over, talking and teasing each other merrily when my cell phone goes off. "Oops," I say. "That's mine..." But the truth be told... it wasn't exactly oops. I left the ringer on purposely. I mean... when you know one of your bestest best friends is opening his mission call at his grandparents' house and you've made him promise to call you immediately thereafter, you kinda end up making sure you don't miss that call...

Clifton kinda looks at me. I tell him, "Ooh! Ryan just opened his mission call!" And of course, since Clifton is also a friend of Ryan's, I am definitely obliged to answer. The four of us were deathly curious. I answer and start what was about to be one of the silliest phone conversations I've had in a while, excluding ones I've had with family members. "Hello?"

"Uh... hello! Jenna?"

"Hey, Ryan." My, this is progressing slowly.

"Are you at your aunt's house?"

"No."

"Are you... on the freeway going to your aunt's house?"

"No."

"Are you... at home?"

Oh, the guessing game is it? Fine, I can take the Burger King route. Have it your way. "No."

"Are you on BYU campus?"

"Yes." You silly goose. I know you opened your mission call.

"Oh. Okay. Well..." And finally it came bursting out. "I opened my mission call! I'm going to the Australia Adelaide Mission! English speaking!"

We express our mutual glee. Meanwhile, Clifton, Zach, and Karissa are watching me intently. "Oh... Ryan? Can I tell Clifton?"

"...Are you with Clifton?"

... "Yes... And Zach and Karissa..."

"Karissa Wainwright?"

"Yes."

"And Zach Smith? And Clifton Dudley?"

"Yes, Ryan."

"... Are you at 116?"

"No."

"Yeah. You can tell them." I tell them. There are cheers of glee.

"...Where are you?"

"At the crosswalk."

"Oh... the one you'd cross to get to the HFAC or the Wilk?"

"Yes."

"... Where are you going?" My, you're inquisitive today.

"To a dance."

"A dance?" Very inquisitive.

"Yes."

"...Is it the same one Dallin and Emma are going to?"

"Why, yes. It is. He's already over there, and we're meeting him there..."

"Oh. Yeah. I should call him."

At this I raised my eyebrows... I wanted to say, What? You haven't told your roommate yet? "Yes. You definitely should. Right now."

And he did. And when the four of us finally met up with Dallin and Emma, Dallin and Emma were beaming. (The other four of us were too, but Dallin didn't notice, he was beaming too much.)

"I have news! I have news! Ryan's going to Australia!"

At this, Clifton took on his smuggest posture, and replied, "We know. He called Jenna." Thankfully, he did not add "before you" because that probably would have resulted in endless teasing for poor Ryan. Haha.

And then... the dancing began. Clifton is a whole level higher than me in dancing skill. But... he had promised to teach me some spiffy moves. The first song was a foxtrot. And that first time mostly he just scoped out what I knew. And then the next two songs... were also foxtrots. Since I was in a beginner's dance class, I hadn't ever really danced with a guy who really knew what he was doing. I learned a little about dance position... I knew that my left hand was supposed to fit nicely underneath the guy's right bicep. But apparently I was supposed to kind of push on him, because that would make it easier to lead. And apparently, my right hand tends to grip rather tightly on the guy's left hand ("Yeah, you're holding my hand a little tightly, but no matter! I like holding girls' hands!" "Clifton!"). And then a cha cha came on.

All right, I think I can pretty much do the cha cha. We did some basic moves, going through random moves like the parallel breaks, the sweetheart... and then we came to the cross body leads. This involves Clifton moving to the side, essentially opening the door for to whip around him. At least I'm moving quickly enough that I feel like whip. The stupid thing is, it's my favorite move and guys generally aren't good at leading it, so I don't get to do it often. So I was excited. Whip! Whoot.

As I execute the cross body lead, Clifton says, "Ooooooh..." And he does it again. And again. And again. All right I think I'm getting pretty good at this. Now Clifton starts giving me some more pointers. "All right. On the cross body lead, take really tiny steps on the cha-cha-cha, and then shoot forward on the second beat. In fact, don't move at all."

I do it. And... it feels even more whiplike. Yesssss. Clifton decides I'm good at the cross body lead, and so starts teaching me higher level steps similar to that. I'm not sure what they were called, but they invovled a lot of twirling as well as what I like to think of as whip action. Niiiice.

Then there were some waltzes. Clifton figured out what I knew, and then he endeavored to teach me some more moves. He taught me some pivots, and then... there was this one. It was actually quite scary for me, because basically... it involved spinning around and around and since I obviously am not the one leading that step, it is kind of like a mini-rollercoaster ride. It was rather disorienting, but Clifton was determined to get that one right. (I suspect he likes that move because spinning kind of means that the lady is closer to the man than usual... and holding on tighter than usual...) I'm not sure we ever did get it down. Whatever.

Clifton also taught me the basic steps for the nightclub two-step, the mambo, and the samba. We did a bit of swing too.

The last dance was a cha cha, in which Clifton did a lot of the cross body lead and the really twirly moves he'd taught me. When it was over, Clifton turned to me and said, "Jenna. You have the best cross body lead I've ever seen in a first-level student. Ever." Oh, yay! I'm actually good at something!

We all walked home, grabbing cupcakes from party-goers trying to get rid of some extra food. The cupcakes were mega-chocolatey so we stopped by Clifton's place for milk, and then he escorted me home. How kind of him, I don't think I would have made it home otherwise. I mean, you never know when those velocibears and badger-raptors will come out and eat you.