Even at the village milonga in a heatwave with all of 20 dancers, you have to be ready for anything.
Last time he had cried on my shoulder over his lost dance partner. I almost cried back because I like dancing with her too. He asked for my number and appeared to take an interest in me. I thought about it. If he’s a tangoman, which he is, sure as shit she left him for good reasons.
But it’s been a long time since I danced with anyone high-level other than Roberto, so it was in fact quite a pleasure.
The monthly milonga rolled around again and he was advertised as the teacher and DJ. I don’t want him but anyway this time he would be mine.
I was looking forward like ice cream to a sure thing. I wore my strolling summer Sunday black dress. Not really a tango dress. With a necklace. It was far too glamorous for the daytime, for a milonga in an agricultural shed, and for the heat. I saw this in the mirror, but it felt good, so I didn’t change.
I strolled in…to a warm welcome from the lost dance partner, apparently returned. She made excuses. I blathered.
I considered myself to have been caught red-handed, dressed for him. I kissed people and found a chair. Sat. Very still. Considered leaving. Considered going home to change my dress. Tick tick tick went my slow-screeching-in-humiliation brain. What will be the consequences if I leave? Wouldn’t it be nice back home in the pool? I’ll miss dancing with my students. They aren’t here yet. Maybe they won’t come. What if they do and I’m gone?
Drenched in the wrong dress, I had to look great in it. Long spine, bust high, head straight. The tango uniform protects like riotgear. There was nothing to see. I hotglued myself to the chair and waited for the milonga to reveal its purpose to me.
He danced past, cutting the corner. He cannot even pass my table.
Right. She’s great. He’s lucky. Tango’s not easy on a couple. I know. Now that he’s got her back, he has to prove himself by not dancing with me. Game over.
A dancer must surrender to the onda, or character, of the milonga.
It delivers, but usually not what you hoped for and not when you want it.
Your plans will be cast aside.
Be ready.
To lead in your dress.
To follow in your boots.
To be ignored by the one who chased you last time.
To ignore him preemptively.
It’s not their fault but I must punish them both.
My dancing-for-three-months student shows up and leaps gleefully on to the floor with someone. He returns a little too quickly. She didn’t know how to do his complex ganchos and had condescendingly offered that they should “just walk” for another tanda. He declined. (Walking is NOT how we keep 22-year old guys like this interested in tango!) He’s not too young to be hurt by such an insult. “I would have left if you weren’t here.” In fact, now I knew, I had stayed for him. “At your service. Let’s show her what you can do.”
My profession gives me an exit from shame, another way to wear the dress: in service to my student’s pride, rather than obliterating mine.
Thirty minutes later, knowing either nothing or everything about my dress from his aloof DJ perch far across the cow-judging arena from my chair, he suddenly appeared beside it, bragging to the inhabitants of the plastic folding table that I only put on my heels for him.
Never mind that he had his house in order and stood patiently at my side while I searched the worn straps for just the hole I needed to dance with him. I still needed to punish him: “Watch out. My students develop fast. They’ll soon merit my heels.”
He was perfect. Prepared, respectful, present. Not like the first time when he wore his ego armor and interrupted our tanda to awkwardly shout “you must dance!” at the people watching agape. We fell once and laughed together. It felt authentic, but we laughed in the way professionals do, a knowing guise of casualness to collaboratively cover mistakes. Otherwise it was a clean and masterful tanda. He held me very close, indulged the secret in front of everyone, knowing they were watching. It had the inevitability, the profoundness, and the emotional cliff. It was the kind of tanda that used to keep me alive.
But before we reached the cliff, in the last song, slowly like goo in a horror film, I felt knowing ooze across my wet skin. He was using me to fight back against her abandonment. For his pride or prowess or to try to make her jealous. Who knew. But that hot dance was not for me.
Then she had come three times to ask me to mark her, in the worst possible dress for it. Tick tick tick. I like her and I like to dance with her. I can’t punish her for putting up with him.
He watched me mark all his sacadas and more, in that dress.
