Swing Time

The narrator runs into Tracey, whom she hasn’t seen in a long time. Tracey tells her about her upcoming end-of-school revue, where she’ll audition for agents instead of taking exams. Tracey boasts that her father is building her a house, but when the narrator sees Tracey’s father with another woman and their children in a nearby neighborhood, she realizes that when Tracey fantasized about her father dancing for Michael Jackson, he was likely nearby. The narrator and Tracey can “no longer speak of intimate things” (244). When she tells her mother about Louie, her mother bursts into an emotional tirade about the lost men of Jamaica.

Louie believes that the community center rightfully belongs to him, so he sends one of his cronies to burn it down. The narrator’s mother relocates the lectures and talks to the church, indicating her political resiliency. She is elected to office.

The narrative flashes forward. The narrator and Fernando have stayed in Africa to continue developing Aimee’s school. The narrator has learned to rely on his expertise and advice. They both agree that Aimee’s goals are unclear and unrealistic. There is an upcoming party to celebrate the opening of the school, and the villagers gossip that Gambia’s president will attend. The narrator notices Lamin and Hawa flirting with each other, which she enjoys because Aimee always flirts with Lamin. They run into Hawa’s cousin Musa, a young man whose strict Muslim faith annoys Lamin, as does Musa’s comfort in telling his elders what to do. As they prepare for Aimee’s arrival and party, Fernando explains that the villagers feel scared and fascinated to see the president.

When the narrator is 18, she and her father run into Tracey, who speaks to them in a detached voice that no longer has their neighborhood accent. Tracey has been taking elocution lessons, and she’s noticeably uncomfortable around the narrator and her father. Miss Isabel asks Tracey and the narrator to volunteer at her end-of-summer show; when the narrator picks Tracey up at her apartment, she finds her and Louie behaving oddly. At the show, the little girl dancers are captivated by Tracey’s moves. The narrator sings a song and Tracey smiles, but the narrator feels the smile as a challenge.

In Gambia, there is a parade for the opening of the school. Lamin and Hawa are sat far away from Aimee and her entourage. Children dress up as famous figures from around Africa. Aimee laughs, hugs the children, and opens the school.

At the party, the narrator admires the children dancing. Some dance like their mothers, others dance hip-hop. She gets into a conversation with a woman nursing a baby, who makes a speech about the lack of young men in the country because of their fear of the government and the fragility of the economy.

The narrator meets Hawa’s brother Babu, who spent many years studying and working in the United States. He shares that, while Gambia has a caste system, there is little hatred between groups. In New York, however, he saw “low-class people treated” with “total contempt. They are serving food and people are not making even eye contact with them. Believe it or not, I was sometimes treated that way myself” (279).

After the end-of-summer dance show, Miss Isabel is distraught because the cashbox has been stolen without a sign of a break-in. The narrator is not a suspect: “from the doorway, my innocence presumed from the start. The discussion was what to do about Tracey” (280). Tracey and the narrator were the last to leave because they were on clean-up duty; Tracey was the last to have the key. The narrator’s mother reveals that Tracey has been coming to the community center for free drug counseling. When Miss Isabel approaches Tracey’s mother with the accusation, Tracey’s mother accuses accompanist Mr. Booth of sexually assaulting the girls at the dance class.