The Unexpected Waltz (38 page)

THE
UNEXPECTED
WALTZ

KIM WRIGHT

INTRODUCTION

At the age of fifty-two, Kelly Wilder Madison finds herself with a beautiful house in a gated community, a pretty face, and more money in her trust-fund allowance than she can spend each month. From the outside looking in, she has it made. But when her late husband’s attorney assures her that “nothing has to change,” something inside of her awakens and sets in motion a quest for a way of life that can’t be bought or acquired through social connections.
The Unexpected Waltz
is the story of her journey of transformation that begins with a single step—onto the dance floor.

TOPICS AND QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. In the first chapter of the book, Kelly Madison says,
“I want things to change.”
Precisely what is it about her life that she wants to change? What words would you use to describe her at the beginning of the story?

2. What are the similarities and differences between Kelly and her best friend, Elyse? Kelly calls Elyse a “witness” to her life. What do you think she means by this statement? Do you have someone in your life who you would describe as your witness?

3. Kelly seems to stumble into the dance studio by accident but later comes to embrace this apparent mistake as fate. Have you ever had a similar experience where a chance meeting or event had a great impact on your life? She also makes the spontaneous decision to take back her maiden name while signing up for lessons. Discuss her decision to suddenly become “Wilder” once again.

4. Kelly comments,
“I think people look to dance to give them whatever’s lacking in their day-to-day lives.”
What do you think was lacking in her life that she was looking for through dance lessons? Does she ultimately find it?

5. Kelly says of Elyse,
“She has always expected too much out of life . . . and it was her destiny to be constantly disappointed.”
How does Kelly differ from Elyse in the scope of her demands? Which one do you most identify with?

6. What role does volunteer work play in Kelly’s life? She claims that she chose hospice because when Mark was diagnosed with heart disease she didn’t want death to sneak up on her. Do you believe this claim? Or is Kelly using the fact she’s “good at death” to hide from life?

7. Kelly clearly thinks she’s there to help Carolina, but throughout the book their friendship becomes far more mutual than she anticipated. What does Carolina teach Kelly?

8. Do you think Kelly loved Mark? Why or why not? Did her feelings about her marriage change throughout the course of the book? Why is it sometimes easier to understand and appreciate people once they’re dead?

9. What do you think enticed Pamela to risk so much for a romantic relationship with Nik? What was she looking for? Is she the villainess of the book or a somewhat sympathetic character?

10. Kelly describes the contrast between her experience of sex and Elyse’s with their high school dates:
“Being real was going to make her life more dangerous. Pretending was going to keep me safe.”
Did this prediction become reality for Kelly? How did the decision to “fake it” impact her future life—including her choices of Daniel and Mark?

11. At one point when Nik is teaching Kelly to waltz, he blindfolds her to help her relax into the rhythm of the dance. Why do you think she struggled to relax into following his lead? What impact did the blindfold have? How is her dancing (both before and after the blindfold) a metaphor for the way she lives her life?

12. One of the major factors in Kelly’s life is the fact she doesn’t have children. She clearly sees Tory as a surrogate daughter, and Elyse also accuses her of trying to turn Nik into the son she never had. Do you think this is a fair assessment? Did her long-ago abortion affect the woman Kelly ultimately became, or play a part in her obsession with Daniel?

13. When thinking about Daniel, Kelly says that sometimes the man who got away becomes the man you can’t get away from. Do you agree with her that all women have someone like this in their past? What do you think prompted Kelly to contact Daniel after the years of no communication? Discuss her reaction when she meets him again and finds him so ordinary. Would you have expected her to have been more crushed by this realization?

14. Anatoly asks Kelly to demonstrate the waltz with him for a group of potential clients. What made Kelly “soar” during that dance? Why do you think she described it as “better than sex”? How is dancing with Anatoly different than her lessons with Nik?

15. Nik tells Kelly she is best suited for the waltz, tango, and foxtrot rather than the Latin dances. She replies, “Because I have to get okay with people seeing all of me, not just my ass.” In what way is this response a prophecy for her life?

16. Kelly says as she reflects on her marriage to Mark, “I haven’t wanted anything in a long, long time.” What do you think she means by this? What obstacles have kept her from connecting to her deepest desires?

17. What does Kelly learn about herself through her interactions with Dr. Boob (Steve)? Did you expect their relationship to take a different turn? Or do you see the door as still being open for a possible romance at the end of the book?

18. Kelly says,
“What truly aligns me with all other human females past and present, is my stubborn belief that by saving a man I could also save myself.”
Do you agree that all women on some level believe this?

19. During Elyse’s visit with Carolina at hospice, Elyse asks her if she thinks learning to throw pottery would fulfill her. Carolina responds,
“I’ve never thought about what would fulfill me.”
Describe how this is also true of Kelly. How do you think this similarity impacted Kelly’s care for Carolina? Does it have something to do with Kelly’s decision to show Carolina the old movies she loves?

20. Apart from dance steps, what did Nik teach Kelly about herself? About romance and relating to men?

21. How are the last words of the book a reflection of the transformation that has occurred within Kelly? What words would you use to describe her at the end of the story?

ENHANCE YOUR BOOK CLUB

1. Enroll in a ballroom dancing class! Many dance studios will provide a group lesson; if the cost is split between several participants, it’s an affordable outing and you can choose the dance you want to try. (Cha cha, from Kelly’s first lesson with Nik, is both simple to learn and an easy dance for women to do together.) Afterward, find a spot similar to Esmerelda’s in
The Unexpected Waltz
where you can go for sangria and a discussion of your dancing adventures.

2. Watch the movie
Shall We Dance?
starring Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon. Like Kelly, Richard Gere’s character is transformed through ballroom dancing and his relationship with his instructor, played by Jennifer Lopez.

3. Create a “bucket list” of things you want to do that you believe will be fulfilling and meaningful. Are there elements on the list you can try right now? Try to cross off one item before the next meeting and discuss your experiences at book club.

4. Call an old friend who lives in another state and eat dinner together via telephone or Skype. (If there is a lull in the conversation, you can always start saying the ABCs to one another!)

5. Create a playlist for your book club featuring some of the songs Kelly danced to in Canterbury Ballroom: “Wicked Game” by Chris Isaak for rumba, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” by Queen for jive, “It’s My Life” by Bon Jovi for tango, “Kiss from a Rose” by Seal for waltz, “Fly Me to the Moon” by Frank Sinatra for foxtrot, “PYT” by Michael Jackson for cha cha. Does any of the music speak to you? If you could only dance to one song, which would you choose?

A CONVERSATION WITH KIM WRIGHT

What was your inspiration for writing
The Unexpected Waltz
?

As a woman in her fifties, I am always struck with the many unique and fascinating ways women choose to reinvent themselves at midlife. My friends and I are much like Kelly and Elyse in that we are finding ourselves nearing the end of one stage of life, specifically motherhood and in some cases careers, and yet we have twenty or thirty great years of life left before we anticipate age slowing us down. So the question becomes, How do you fill this gift of time? What becomes our new source of motivation and meaning?

In many cases, women who have been preoccupied with jobs and kids have put their own needs on the back burner for a long time. Maybe even decades. So when they first start thinking, “What do I want to do for myself?” they’re stumped. They often have to circle back all the way to the beginning, to their lives before marriage, family, and career, to remember those early passions and reclaim them. But when they do . . . hold on. Midlife women tend to chase their dreams with a fervor that younger women can’t even imagine.

I understand you have taken dance lessons. What are your favorite dances and why?

“Taken dance lessons” is such a nice term for an obsession! It’s so funny, because after this interview, I will be packing to leave for a dance competition in another state. My favorite dance is tango. Partly I just love that moody, throbbing music and partly because the dance is so fierce and passionate.

In the book, Kelly’s friendship and close connection with Elyse is a significant part of the story line. Can you talk about the impact of female friendships in your life?

I have a friend who has been married three times, always moving around to accommodate the man, but she goes to great effort to sustain and nourish her female friendships. She says, “Men may have been the plot of my life, but women are the theme.” I feel much the same way—that when I look back over my times of greatest joy and meaning, they have more to do with my friendships than my romances. My female friends have been the bedrock of my life.

What was the most challenging part of writing this story?

Explaining to the people at my dance studio that it’s fiction! I tend to base my novels on the situations I find in my own life and the lives of my friends and I set my stories in my hometown of Charlotte. This is my way of being able to layer in lots of authentic detail; but the unfortunate side effect is that people sometimes think I’ve based characters on them. It’s hard to explain that reality may be the jumping off point or inspiration, but that the characters are totally fabricated. My world seems to be evenly split between people who are mad because they think I wrote about them and people who are mad because I haven’t.

How was writing this novel different from writing your first novel,
Love in Mid Air
?

A first novel is a leap of faith. You write it not really believing anyone will ever read it, so you are open and unguarded, and even naïve in a way that you quite never get back to again. With my second novel I was much more aware of the presence of the reader. A first novel is almost like talking to yourself, but this book was an imagined dialogue between myself and the reader from the start.

In the book, one of the things Kelly says is, “What truly aligns me with all other human females past and present, is my stubborn belief that by saving a man I could also save myself.” Why do you think women so often succumb to this belief?

I wish I knew. If I did, I would demand the Nobel Prize. As a gender, we women are just way too accommodating and self-sacrificial. But I must say I don’t think it’s something the guys are doing to us. I think it’s something that we do to each other and ourselves. I know I have spent years trying to rehabilitate what my grandmother used to call “those trifling boys.” But I did have a lot of fun along the way!

The Unexpected Waltz
is a story about transformation and growth. When you started writing the novel, did you know where you wanted Kelly to land in her journey or did it evolve as you wrote the story?

I let it evolve along the way. My original plan was that one of the guys in the ballroom would emerge as a new love interest but that just never happened. And now I like it much better that she ends up on her own. I also didn’t know that Nik was going to have to flee, and when it occurred to me that this was the way the plot had to resolve itself, I felt a little sick. I love Nik.

Other than ballroom dancing, what do you enjoy when you’re not writing novels?

I write and dance every day so those are huge parts of my life. But I am also a confirmed foodie and wine aficionado and I love to travel. I adore dogs and have recently become a grandmother for the first time, so much of my attention has been captured by the wondrous Martha!

Do you watch
Dancing with the Stars
?

Yes, I’m a huge fan. I love seeing beginners develop into surprisingly accomplished dancers in just a few weeks and I always pull for the underdogs. My fantasy is that they will develop a spin-off called
Dancing with the Authors.

Which character in the book was the most fun to develop?

Nik was a great challenge—he is young, male, and foreign born and thus nothing like me—but I also had fun populating the dance studio with students. Steve is the result of a time when I really was caught in a red light and looked up at a billboard and thought, “I wonder what your social life would be like if you were a plastic surgeon who specialized in breasts.” And boom, Dr. Boob was born.

Do you have a “bucket list”? If so, what are some of your favorite hopes on your list?

Beginning to dance, and specifically doing competitions and showcases where everyone is watching you, was the top item on my bucket list. Like most writers, I’m introverted and I don’t exactly wear things like false eyelashes, high heels, and nail extentions on a regular basis so this was all a big step for me. I’m so glad I did it, because dance changed my life. I also have a dream about visiting several spiritual places around the world as a pilgrim. I’m leaving to walk the Canterbury Trail next week.