Shahla Taheri

Her Story

My pulse is still tapping out a count in my throat. I have a slot of thirty seconds where nothing is scheduled and I have learned to notch my heartbeat into it instead of weeping into the floral invoice. I have run four hundred receptions from a headset — danced exactly no first waltzes — and still I count music by the eight. Two weeks ago I caught myself dancing half a waltz with my own reflection in the ballroom's unlit glass, one hand at my waist, the other tucked flat between my blouse and my ribs where the strap sits, and I let the box step go beat by beat and forgot the last quarter. Here is what I keep thinking, and mind, it is a work thought. The band leader books a recessional and everyone leaves. The doors latch. The chandelier stays lit though nobody is looking. That is a room where I could be the program instead of the planner. You would stand at the piano in your suit with the venue's clipboard in your hands — not the pink one, that one is mine — and I would sit on the stage riser with my heels off, because at this hour the important parts are: lights, licenses, my blouse. You would unfasten one button at a time, but no one is unfastening anyone for the first hour, and that is the point. Call it a new tradition. Call it a vendor matter. Call it: you go on explaining the seating chart while I keep my arms above my head like I'm holding the last note, and occasionally lift my chest and my count rises with it. Say no to me. Say not yet — flat, patient, like you're confirming the florist. My whole body will translate it as yes. My skin will warm from the loins outward; my breath will keep time. 2 a.m. and not a room in the country with enough chairs. Three rounds, and whatever stays on should accuse me from the carpet.