The Blind Date from Hell ... and a Little Piece of Grace

7 a.m. Labor Day, or, The Blind Date from Hell

It’s the very last tanda of the very last event of the Labor Day festival. We have been dancing since midnight. It is 7 a.m.

I have just finished dancing with Grisha. He leads me back to my seat. No sooner does he leave than a man who has been sitting quietly by turns and gives me a look.

I know better. Enough is enough. I don’t dance with strangers.

But.

I like this guy’s cabaceo. He is mugging it up. I like the way he has been sitting, very calm.

And he’s cool looking. African American in a crisp, white shirt. Salt and pepper beard. Glasses. I’ve watched him dance. He doesn’t do anything fancy. I think I can follow him.

“I’m a beginner,” I warn him. “You can back out if you like.”

First warning bell clangs. I have sworn off saying that kind of thing. Why do I feel the need to say it now?

He thinks I am being modest. He just watched me dance with Grisha.

He soon learns the truth. We struggle. He keeps jiggling my hand, bending it back.

At the end of the second dance, he strikes a pose. His whole body slumps, he turns his head toward his buddies on the sidelines, rolls his head toward the ceiling.

Thank you [go to hell], I say. I don’t want to torture you further. Good night.

No, no! he says, snapping to attention. We can finish the tanda.

He sounds surprised. I can’t read his expression. He is standing a foot away, and I am not wearing my glasses. Without them I can see only three inches. People think I am joking when I say this. I am dead serious.

Second warning bell. Bad idea to dance blind with a stranger.

We struggle through the third dance. He is still jiggling my hand, bending it back, a little more emphatically than before, a little more energetically than necessary. He orders me to relax. This is an interesting exercise. I try to push through all the crap, get to the connection.

Third warning bell: Anything that goes this badly must end badly too.

The DJ is playing four-song tandas tonight. Neither of us is happy about that. But we are surviving. And this guy insisted on finishing the tanda. I guess if he’s game, I can be, too.

The third dance ends and, without warning, he’s gone. With a stunning economy of movement, he simply walks away. At first I’m not sure what just happened. Then it dawns on me, and my face makes a shape I don’t want it to make—hurt and shame.

I’ve been cut off mid-tanda before, but the lead usually has the decency to walk me to the edge of the floor, to say thank you, to make some attempt to save my dignity. This guy means to draw blood.

Did I not offer him an out? Twice?

That question must wait. Right now I am stranded. I can’t see.

I need to get off the floor before the music begins. I can’t judge distances well with my glasses on. Without them, threading my way through moving couples would be a disaster.

This is just like leading, I tell myself, the first step is the hardest. I pick a direction, make my way to the edge of the dance floor. I can see the line where light wood gives way to dark carpet. I step carefully over.

I am lost.

I can see tables and chairs. They run perpendicular to the dance floor, just like where I was sitting. But they are not the same tables and chairs. When I get to the end seat at the end table (a seat I chose because it’s easy to find), nothing is there. My table was cluttered. Did someone clean the table—and take my glasses? Or is this the wrong place altogether?

I’m not panicking, but my emotions are not helping me think. I take a seat, fiddle with my shoes while I try to calm down and figure out how to find my way back to my glasses.

If there is any irregularity in the carpet--any loose thread or covered cord, any piece of trash that might turn an ankle—I will take a header. And that’s the least of my worries. Here’s the big one: I have no clue where I am in the room.

Even as I’m fiddling with my shoes, hot with embarrassment and awash in emotion, something good is coming on: I am mad mad mad. Three months ago, something like this would have slain me. I would have believed I deserved it.

Now I believe this: There are 100 ways to say anything. The way that you choose to say something reflects your quality.

The way this guy behaved is his bad, not mine.

So what if I’m blind and humiliated and lost in a cavernous room?

I was a Girl Scout. I have been dropped off in the woods with nothing but a map and a compass. I have visited every state in the country, and have been lost in most of them.

I am ready to take this room on.

There are huge black things nearby. I wasn’t sitting near anything like that. There are areas of brightness across the room. These must be the doors, open to the hallway. I was sitting near them.

I stand. Andrey says that when he leads, he walks straight through the follower and she had better get out of the way. That’s the way to do it.

I gather myself, flip the ends of my hair in a pissed-off gesture I haven’t used since seventh grade, and lead myself to the doors.

I find the end seat at the end table. No glasses. A woman is sitting nearby. She wasn’t there before, but I’m pretty sure I’m in the right place.

Excuse me, I say, and ask for her help. She finds my glasses, hands them to me.

***

11 a.m. Labor Day: Aftermath

Breakfast at the Waffle House in Aurora, the perfect greasy spoon ending to the grand finale of festival week, the all-night marathon milonga.

After the last, worst dance of the festival, I am back where I was last fall, letting people get to me, feeling too much.

I am a whipped dog; all I want is to go into hiding, lick my wounds and never be heard from again.

But I’m mad, too.

Cruelty sets me off like nothing else can. I am completely dogmatic about it. A lifetime of religious dilettantism boils down to One Absolute, Universal Ironclad Moral Code:

Be kind every chance you get.

People who practice cruelty are unworthy of a place in the human community.

That’s very judgmental. Very Angel-Bouncer at the gates of the Garden of Eden, throwing Adam and Eve out on their ears. It’s not like me. I am all about moral relativism. Really. Up to this point: Don’t be cruel to others.

As I’m forking up eggs and grits, a corollary slaps me upside the head:

Don’t be cruel to me, either.

Ow! What’s that I feel? Could I be growing a backbone?

As I pay my check and walk out the door, the jukebox cranks up Aretha:

R-E-S-P-E-C-T!

You go, girl.

***

7 p.m. Labor Day … 12 Hours After the Blind Date from Hell

The Monday Night extravaganza at the Blue Ice is one of the corollary activities that spring up around the Labor Day festival. There will be lessons by the region’s most innovative dancers, an exhibition and brief concert.

The place is full of out-of-towners, lingering on a day or two after the festival ends. I recognize one of them:

He is standing at the counter that separates the bar from the dance floor. He is tall and thin, African American, in the crisp, bright-white shirt he was wearing about 12 hours ago, the last time we danced. Small beard, salt and pepper; small glasses, an intelligent look. Handsome. You can’t tell from looking he’s hiding a switchblade in his heart.

Fine. I was not planning to stay anyway.

Near the exit, I bump into Grisha. I saw what he did to you this morning,” he says.

I make a little joke about it. We laugh. Then I flee.

But approaching the car, my thoughts turn rebellious. Blue Ice is my tango home. Am I going to let this guy run me out? What will that do to me next time I walk in the door? How long will it be until I feel at home there again?

Two blocks away, I make up my mind. I am going back in. I’ll sit and watch. I don’t need to dance. I need to not let this guy run me out.

Stopped at a traffic light, I change my mind again. I will dance! I will walk in there fully charged. I will drag Grisha onto the floor. He would go for it; he would make me look great, and he would give it a special effort when we pass by this guy.

This will be fun!

But circling back, I have second thoughts again. If my mind is on the other guy, I will be connecting with him, not my partner. This is wrong on every level: I can’t dance competently if my mind is occupied elsewhere. Even if my partner is in on the game, it isn’t fair to give my attention to one man when I am dancing with another.

My intention is off; the motivation feels underhanded. It is disrespectful to Dance to use it in this way. It feels like I am hiding a switchblade in my own heart.

This is the danger of targeting someone: You focus on them, and then they are in you.

I keep driving. I need to think.

If I dance tonight, it needs to be a real dance, not some snide message tossed off to some stranger. I need to enter it very sincerely. I imagine that kind of connection for a moment, the purity of it. Closing my eyes, I can feel it.

Warm night air flows through the windows. It feels like music. With this sensation surrounding me, I can’t think, only listen.

My heart beats. My stomach growls, making me chuckle. It always has to express its opinion. My chest opens up and I can breathe.

Tangled thoughts, hurt feelings, righteous judgment, vengeful anger. Finally, they all come to rest. I ask myself:

What is it in this moment you want?

I want to make beauty in the world. I want to dance.