Amrit's Studio

A woman with her hair pulled back in a no-nonsense bun spotted Sam the second she stepped through the door and crossed the room to say hello, moving like someone who'd greeted a hundred nervous new people before and knew exactly how to make it feel like less of a big deal.

"You must be the one who called ahead," she said, smiling. "I'm Amrit. First rule of Saturdays — everybody here was new once. Nobody's going to laugh at you for being new today."

An older woman in a bright yellow outfit waved Sam over like they were already old friends. "Sit by me," she said, patting the mat beside her. "I'm Harpreet. I bring snacks. Good ones."

"What kind of snacks?"

"The kind you'll have to wait and find out about," Harpreet said, grinning, and Sam decided immediately that she liked her enormously.

The studio itself was smaller than Sam had imagined from the website — one open room with mirrors down one wall, a low wooden stage at the front, and speakers in each corner that looked far too big for the space they were sitting in. String lights were strung along the ceiling, even though it was the middle of the day, giving the whole place a warm, golden glow that made Sam feel instantly less nervous than she had in the parking lot.

Class started, and Sam tried to keep up, and mostly failed, and didn't mind failing nearly as much as she thought she would. Amrit called out the moves a half-second before you needed them, so even though Sam was always a little behind everyone else, she never once felt completely lost — just pleasantly, busily behind, the way you feel running to catch up with a friend who's only a few steps ahead. "Shoulders first, then the step," Amrit called out, again and again, until the words themselves started to feel like part of the rhythm. "Don't chase the beat. Let it come to you."

Her shoulders still didn't do the springy thing quite right. But twenty other shoulders in the room were popping up and down all around her, all slightly different, all slightly imperfect — an older man near the mirror who threw his whole body into every single move like he had something to prove, a woman by the window who barely moved her feet but somehow got every shoulder pop exactly right — and for the first time it occurred to Sam that maybe nobody's shoulders looked exactly like the video, not even Amrit's, and that this might be completely fine.

By the end, Sam's shirt was stuck to her back and her legs felt like jelly, and she was smiling so hard her face actually hurt a little, which was a new and interesting kind of hurt. Her mum, waiting by the door, took one look at her red face and said, "I take it that's a yes to next Saturday," before Sam had even said a word.

"Same time next week?" Harpreet asked, already knowing the answer before Sam said it.

"Same time next week," Sam said.