Community Center lights glowed with bugs and mist. Each step across the parking lot shook drops from the thick warm July fog.

“I like seeing you in a dress,” Ray said.

“Do-si-do, swing your partner – the lady wears a dress,” I replied.

They were starting a Virginia reel. Ray kidded with old friends, and I went to a ladies’ line.

More people came in. The square-dance caller asked if we could have a double reel; there wasn’t room for separate sets.

Coached by the caller, we formed two lines lengthwise down the hall. The windows were open on both sides of the building, but no breeze came through them. The hall felt like ninety degrees. You wondered if we’d ever start.

Fiddles, flute, and guitar exchanged fragments of country tunes while the caller adjusted the gents’ line, working two more men into it. A dark-haired one, in his thirties I guessed, towered over the blond, balding guy I knew from the flea market. Ray slid up the center to whisper in my ear.

“You recognize your partner, the guy opposite you?”

“No. ”

“Clean your glasses. Superman.”

“You’re kidding!”

Christopher Reeve had achieved fame as Superman in the 1978 movie. Vineyard fans thronged 1984 benefit showings of The Bostonians, at which Reeve appeared in person and spoke about the pleasure of working on Martha’s Vineyard, where some of the film was shot.

“What’s he doing here? Another movie?” I asked.

“They say he has family in West Tisbury.”

Traditionally on the Vineyard we notice famous people going about everyday life, but we don’t bother them.

“I better change places with the woman on my left. People will stare at us, and I’m not good at this.”

“Don’t be dumb,” said Ray, who has no respect for stage fright. “It’s only a square dance.”

The caller held his hands up for silence.

“Everybody here knows the Virginia reel, right?” There were ten couples, and they stamped and cheered. “But in case anyone’s forgotten, I’ll run it by you once, then I’ll call her as she goes.”

The turn, the reel, and the march: the call was chanted briskly but clearly enough to remind those who’d done it before; and what you didn’t get, you picked up watching others. Community Center square dances were never competition-level.

Head and foot couples performed the opening figures of the dance, after which the head couple “reeled the set” as the caller sang out “right to the center, left to the side.” The double set meant nineteen vigorous, nonstop turns for the head couple to reach the bottom.

I observed my partner and wondered how it felt to be that good looking. I’d known vain, handsome men who couldn’t stand still without stroking their hair, or pass a shop window without checking their appearance. But Reeve stood in the gents’ line politely nonchalant, focusing on the dancers. Like most good actors he knew how to be anonymous in a crowd.

The musicians struck up a march. Partners held hands, passed through the arch made by the head couple’s upraised arms, and sashayed up the middle.
God, it was hot! I was ashamed to take anybody’s hands, let alone Mr. Reeve’s. Forcing a smile, I brushed back my wet, droopy hair and wiped my palms on my skirt. We joined hands; the head couple stood on tiptoe to accommodate Reeve, who grinned, stooped, nodded thanks, and matched his slip-sliding steps to mine. He should have had a longer-legged partner. To say nothing of younger. Thinner wouldn’t hurt. Nor would dry, curly hair.    

But you do your best with what you have. I was relieved not to be out of breath when the time came for Reeve and me to “reel the set.” The music elevated my mood; suddenly I felt confident and light of foot as we hooked right elbows to begin the nineteen rapid turns, “right to the center, left to the side.”

After turning with the third gent, a wall of heat surrounded my face. Back to Superman, his hands dry, smile and manner polite, always on the beat, young, handsome, graceful, forever cool. My glasses fogged, wet strands of hair trailed down my cheek. I felt as miserable as I looked.

Five gents done, four to go. One flourished a yellow bandanna over his face and then dabbed at my neck. I was deeply grateful.

Two more gents, one of them Ray, who asked, “How’s it going?”

“I’m a wreck, I can’t do this.”

I had to quit; I’d collapse and cause a scene. Pretty soon I wouldn’t be able to breathe. You’re a fifty-five-year-old woman who should know better, I thought.

“Sure you can,” said Ray. I hated him. That carried me through until the march, at whose end Superman and I made the arch through which the other couples passed. Standing still never felt so good. My knees wanted to buckle. You don’t have to do the rest, you could quit, I thought.    

But how could I tell the children that I’d wimped out dancing with Superman? Leaden-legged, I danced to the end. My fine, athletic partner shook my slimy hand in his dry one. I looked up and he tilted his head. “Thanks, it was fun,” he said.

When I told the children of my adventure, the youngest said it was great Christopher Reeve could go to the square-dance and nobody would get bent out of shape.

“Except me.”

“Not that kind of out of shape, Mum. I mean nobody was dumb enough to ask for his autograph.”

Right on.