“Thank you, she said. Her hands began to work quickly. Worried that perhaps she had offended him by asking for the work back, she tried to think of something to say, so that he would stay. He fascinated her and she wasn't quite done talking to him. But all the questions she did want to ask were difficult to ask without complicated words, and probably even harder to answer.

She noticed how the music in the distance captured his attention and how his feet began to move to the rhythm. “You like music?” she asked.

Chéri had not understood that Anne wished to continue the interaction, that she wished to learn more, to say more. They would have not being against that, but they also wouldn’t have known how to achieve that.

And then the music made everything simpler. The word for it was the same in both languages, granted, the pronunciation wasn’t the same. Chéri turned, raised a brow, smiled a little and nodded. They opened their arms, held them stiff parallel to the ground and started to count a little, putting together an improvised dance. When they did that, it seemed natural like breathing. “You?” They asked, about music.

Anne's hands stopped their work. She watched the way Chéri moved. He truly was unlike any boy she knew. No one would start dancing if it was not a wedding or other kind of celebration, least of all a boy. And this dance seemed so unlike any she was familiar with. "Aye, but I can't dance like you," she replied.

Anne said she could’t dance like that. Chéri understood only the word “dance” and made a gesture towards her, inviting the girl to join them. Whether or not she would consider that suitable didn’t interest them particularly. When music was in the air, any excuse was good to dance. Having the chance of hearing music at all was enough.

Anne understood the gesture, but she hesitated. Her father wouldn't like her dancing with boys at her age, least of all some foreign rich boy who had no decent reason to talk to a poor fisherlass like her. But the boy's... queerness... was still casting it's spell. She took a good look around, before laying down her work on the bench beside her. She blushed as she walked over. "Wha-what do I do?" she asked.

Chéri made an inviting gesture, showing her that she was supposed to put one hand in his and the other one on his shoulder. He stopped for the moment: beginners needn’t be scared and Chéri knew that starting something new with both arms and legs at the same time was a scary prospect.

Anne hesitated once again. She was curious and she wanted this young man to like her. But if her father ever heard of her dancing with a stranger... She didn't even want to think about what he'd do. She looked around again to make sure there was no one she knew around. Then she carefully put one hand in his and the other on his shoulder. Her hand was warm in his and her face was redder than her hair. "Now what?" she asked in a small voice.

Chéri kept smiling. While they knew it wasn’t the most decent thing in the world to do for Anne, to dance with a stranger in a cemetery, alone, they also felt they both wanted, maybe needed to dance. Chéri had been a country kid themselves and they knew in smaller places there were few purely entertaining actives and for some reason they thought Anne really needed some of that. They certainly did. Chéri put a foot back, looking at it, then made a nodding gesture “now you” ready to correct her in case Anne put her own forward.

Did he notice her hand was sweaty? Was he disgusted? If so, he did not show it. For a moment, Anne was too distracted by her own nerves to realize that he was waiting for her to do something. Then she registered what he had done and put her own foot back, moving one side of her body away from him a little.

Chéri had absolutely noticed that Anne’s hand was sweaty, but they weren’t going to say anything about it. They had also noticed the girl stepping back without even seeing it and had reacted by laughing and shaking their head. They had stepped forward, imitating her pose in reverse, shifting their weight with great elegance. They then took back one of their hands, to signal her to come forward with her foot, by holding their palm perpendicular to the ground and moving the stiff hand towards themselves. They returned their hand to the original position and readied themselves to take a step back.