Prompt in writing class:

(“I am so tired of this frame”, said Mona Lisa. “Thanks goodness the museum will close and I can rhumba with Jacques”……)

as she stretched her hand out to Jaques D’Amboise, the principal dancer of the NY City ballet who gracefully lifted her out of the frame to step down on the marbled floor of the Louvre.

“Rhumba?” said Jacques.  “I’m into Fire Dance, Swan Lake, Pelleas and Melisande—a little Rodeo and Billy the Kid but Dudamel hasn’t been to NY yet and so we don’t do much Spanish—Of course there’s West Side Story which is a classic of its kind—so I’ll give it a whirl --well not exactly a whirl—but a hip roll with you!”

Mona Lisa swung her hooded cape around her shoulders, and snapping her fingers—which needed a workout being frozen under a layer of oil—the oil of her cape--as her mysterious smile broke out into a broad grin and her body relaxed in 2/4 time to the incessant beat of a rhumba.  Maracas clicked in her hands and it was clear she had escaped the confines of first Rome and then Paris to trip the lights fantastic in Nueva Yorke---Rhumba to Samba to Cha Cha—Jacques did them all with his new partner. Finding her smile so tender and endearing he danced her down to the Swan Lake and she circled wildly in his arms to a Tchaikovsky Waltz!   What could be more romantic?

Jacques waltzed her back over to her frame and helped her unwind her mantle from her shoulders and place it once more on her head to be wrapped once again like a demure nun.

The next day, visitors to the Louvre coming to behold the mysterious smile of the Mona Lisa, were shocked and surprised to see her grinning!!