Free How We Met by Katy Regan

again?’ says Fraser, cheerfully.
    They’re walking side by side up Oxford Street now, towards the class, which is somewhere tucked behind Little Portland Street.
    ‘Ohmigod, have I been shopping.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘
Really
.’
    ‘You’ve really been and done the shopping thing this time?’
    She squeezes his arm. ‘Just you wait and see.’
    They are prone to little exchanges of inane conversation like this, where Fraser feels as if he’s in that programme,
Whose Line Is It Anyway?
, but just can’t think of any good lines.
    He lights a cigarette for want of something better to do.
    ‘So … do you wanna see then?’ says Karen, after Fraser clearly hasn’t taken the hint.
    ‘Yeah, why not, go on then.’
    She moves to the side of the street and opens up one of the plastic bags, which is pink and has the word FREED written on it. Fraser’s hands go clammy, his throat goes suddenly dry. It’s a shoebox and inside the box is a pair of leather dance shoes with a strap across and a square heel. The leather looks soft – he can smell it – and, even with his untrained eye, he can tell they cost a fortune.
    Karen holds them up proudly, like a cat making an offering: ‘I just thought, do you know what? Bugger it. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it properly. I’m telling you, this dance thing is like a whole new world of retail opportunity!’
    Thank you, Lord, they’re not for me.
    ‘Do you like them? The lady in the shop said they were the same as professionals wear.’
    Fraser isn’t really au fait with dance shoes or what there is to like about them, so says the first thing that comes into his head: ‘They’ve got a very nice heel.’
    Her face lights up.
    ‘Really? Do you think so?’
    ‘God, yeah, totally, a really, really good heel. Really good heel.’ Jesus. I hope you can see me, Olivia Jenkins, he thinks, and I hope you’re happy.
    Fraser has seen adverts on Sky TV for salsa classes – in fact, he’s done a broadcast for one before; something about multicultural London – and they are always held in a dimly lit, buzzy bar, throbbing with Latino beats and unfeasibly attractive people: taut-bottomed men wearing cumberbunds and raven-haired beauties, that sort of thing. Not this one. This one is held in a mirrored studio, four flights of stairs above a shop selling bridal wear, and is complete with sprung floor and ballet
barres
around the edges – so bright, it makes you squint when you come in from the outside. Fraser may as well be naked, he feels so exposed, and wishes he’d done a bit more research than googling Salsa Classes in London and booking the first that came up.
    To make matters worse, they’re early, so have to hang around whilst everyone arrives.
    ‘Gosh, this is very proper, isn’t it?’ whispers Karen excitedly as she takes off her trainers and gets changed into her new, professional shoes. ‘Takes me right back to dancing classes when I was little.’
    Fraser feels a bit sick.
    ‘You didn’t tell me you’d done dance classes.’
    ‘Didn’t I? Oh, yeah. Distinction in Advanced Modern, me. Intermediate Ballet, gold medal three years running at the Hull Festival, I’ll have you know. I was going to audition for ballet school at one point before these buggers grew …’ She turns around and pushes her boobs together and Fraser has a flash of hope, once more, that maybe he is already a little bit in love with Karen after all.
    It seems to take forever for everyone to arrive. Karen goes straight to the front where she starts chatting to a tall man in small, round glasses, whilst Fraser loiters at the back, feeling like a twelve-year-old at an adults’ party. He dares to look at himself in the mirror and regrets it. He looks ridiculous, like a youth offender brought in for ‘dance therapy’. He had no clue what to wear, so went for general fitness attire and is wearing shiny tracksuit bottoms, his running trainers and a FILA T-shirt bought in about