Dancing is a wonderful thing -- I don’t care what everyone else tells me. Not ballroom dancing, just dancing. To modern music. I don’t need a partner, I can do very well on my own. Although dancing with someone else can be nice -- or funny, depending on how your partner is.

People tell me I can find a beat to move to in every type of music. No matter what. They say it’s in my nature. That’s what it’s like now. Loud music playing, swirling together with the sound of people talking, laughing. Enjoying themselves.

The music’s in my blood, it’s pulsing like it replaced my own heartbeat. I’m all energy, no thoughts left. It’s just moving like the rhythm tells me to. I can’t make a fool of myself by doing this; not with the music as my partner. It’s better than any person could be.

A party. My party. All for me.

Laughing, I spin a final time and step up to my friend Mary. She’s standing at the edge of the make-shift dance floor, which is actually our living room. We cleared it out beforehand. Pushed all the furniture to the edge of the room so there would be space to dance.

“Hey, you!” I say, making a grab for her drink. She steps back, holding it up over my head where I can’t get it. She’s much taller than I am. “Did you just come here to stand around all evening, ogling the hot guys? Get your lazy behind moving!”

Mary snorts. “Get away from me, you crazy cow. You know I can’t dance for the life of me.” The scowl that’s formed on her face turns into a sly expression as she adds, “Why the Hell else would I have come, huh? Gimme a break. Even I need some eye candy now and then.”

“Eye candy my ass. You don’t call that boy of yours eye candy?” I give her the best pout I can muster.

“Joe? Are you kidding?”

“You’re awful.”

Her sly smile turns into a full-fledged smirk. “Go ahead, cry about it,” she says silkily.

She looks kind of strange in the ever-shifting colorful lights coming off the disco-ball a friend of mine let me borrow. Her hair reflects it, just like her eyes. Those are the creepiest thing about it. She wears contacts -- she ditched her glasses a long time ago --, and they make her eyes turn completely green, blue, purple, yellow or red.

It also does a grand job at hiding what she’s thinking. Mary’s one of those people who show every emotion through their eyes; not their whole face, just her eyes. They’ll lighten or darken, depending on her mood. She almost makes me look dull in comparison to that.

“It’s my party, I’ll cry if I want to,” I say with an air of faked haughtiness, and then I stick my tongue out at her when she groans at the title of the old Lesley Gore song I flung at her. She hates it when I do that.

“Get a life, Sherry.”

I hold both my hands out towards her, giving her a puppy dog look. “Not until you dance with me.”

The big eyes trick doesn’t work on her, at least not this time. She shakes her head and it doesn’t look like she’s going to keep this conversation going. She’s strange like that. She tells me I have ADD, because I could dance all night while everyone else drops with exhaustion.

“Please?” I say, practically begging already. “Joe isn’t here tonight, he can’t see you make yourself a laughing stock. Besides, you didn’t give me a birthday present yet!”

I hate using those kind of lines; they make me sound like some kind of spoiled brat. But guilt trips always work on Mary. I swear I would die if I had that conscious of hers. It makes her feel responsible for everything, and she feels guilty very easily. It makes her a wonderful person, it must be a real pain to have.

She sighs with frustration, shaking her head again. The song switches -- this time loud and blaring, so we can’t continue our conversation at the volume we had before. “I should really hate you for this!” she shouts, leaning closer to me to make sure I can hear.

I grin. “But you don’t!”

“I guess so.”

A giggle escapes me as I grab her hand and start dragging her onto the dance floor. There’s hardly enough space to move here, everyone else is moving. Except for the boring people, who stand around in the corners and look at us dancers with amusement. But, like I said. They’re boring.

Gingerly Mary starts moving, more slowly and carefully. She reminds me of a cat trying to figure out how to get around a large puddle of dirty water. And I don’t understand why. Next to singing and music, I think dancing is the most natural thing for people to do.

Everyone can dance, sing, play an instrument. They just have to believe they can. It’s natural. It’s in everyone. People just deny it.

Mary’s shoulders slump. “I can’t do this!” she says loudly.

I snort. “Sure you can!”

“I can’t find a beat for the life of me!” She sounds desperate, and I can see that she wants to escape. She’s afraid of making a fool of herself.

Suddenly I’m laughing because she’s so silly. I take firm hold of her hand, and spin her around. She squeaks, dropping her can of Sprite to the floor. I don’t care, so I don’t let her bend down to pick it up again.

“I’ll find the beat for you, then!” I say cheerfully.

And she smiles.