There is one extra woman at the Blue Ice tonight. It is me. I am glad.
I am indulging a mood. My game face is slipping, and I don’t feel like dragging it back into place.
I am not staying home, though. I am here. I like to learn to dance. I like to work on the moves.
It’s just that tonight, I’d rather do it alone.
Roberta shouts hello every week as I walk into Blue Ice. She loves to see me. She loves to see everyone. She tosses out warm fuzzies as if she had an endless supply. I believe that she does. Love is like that.
Roberta loves it all. She loves the costumes. She is wearing an adorable outfit from BA. Cheerleader skirt, short and pleated, with a wide-striped sweater. Soon the sweater will come off and underneath will be some tiny top. Her shoes are tinier still, She is a little tiny doll in little tiny clothes.
A tiny dolly dynamo.
“Hey kids, let’s get started!” she says. She wriggles, stamps her feet in her tiny tiny shoes. They ring like jackhammers.
Roberta dances over to the CD player. Blip. Blip. Blip. Looking for something that strikes her just right.
The CD player is eager to please her. When it does, she says, "Thank you!" Flicks her feet, strikes a pose.
We stretch. We do Evil Hooks Behind. These are familiar warm-ups. They are like barre work in ballet: Warming up the body, shedding the day, bringing us into the moment.
But it’s not working for me. Not tonight.
I don’t want anything to do with anyone I don’t know. I don’t want anyone in my personal space. This would be a good night to do my own kind of bar work: ochos at the stand-up bar, turns around the stools. Sometimes an inanimate partner is the best kind.
Roberta tells us to take partners. If you’re in a class with extra women, she who hesitates is lost. I hesitate good and long.
Roberta sets the partners in motion. She comes over to me.
"What’s up?" she chirps.
"I don’t want to dance with a stranger tonight," I mumble.
She must think I am nuts. I’ve danced with these guys for six months. And … This is tango.
Roberta goes quiet. She nods like the mom that she is, hearing a child’s complaint.
“You’ll dance with me tonight,” she says matter-of-factly, taking me into her embrace.
She’s a good mom. She doesn’t tell me to snap out of it. She doesn’t laugh at the incongruity of a woman in tango who’d rather be alone.
Neither does she let me off the hook. She makes me work hard. She knows I like that.
Intermittently she leaves to coach the other dancers, to demonstrate a new step, change out the music. Every time we change partners, she comes back to me.
Shut up and dance, indeed.
Roberta
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