My Glasses, My Heart Part 4

Then I tore a contact. Then the fun began!

Who knew? Who knew that, in the hands of an imaginative and considerate lead, solving the problem of spectacles could be a form of creative expression?

Three gentlemen raise spec-tiquette to an art. One wows my heart.

* * *

Robert has decided that if I am not going to wear my specs, he won’t wear his, either. He drops them in his pocket along with mine. After the tanda he pulls them out. They emerge as a piece, tangled.

This could be a film, French, of course, with atmospheric lighting and smoky music from the ’30s. The girly glasses slip coyly into the pocket, the boy specs dive in after. The music commences. The dancers are unimportant; they are only a vehicle for the pocket. The shot is quite tight, but of course the camera cannot reveal what is happening inside that dark, roomy space. We see the outward signs, the movements within suggested by the stretch and sway of fabric. The music ends, a masculine hand (a fine Gallic hand, a few dark hairs on the fingers) reaches into the pocket, pulls out the glasses. They emerge as a piece, tangled.

Last week at the Turn, I was standing beside a box speaker when Robert asked me to dance. I slipped off my glasses, then hesitated. For all my talk, I am self-conscious about asking leads to take care of them for me.

“I’ll just leave them here,” I said, setting them down.

He took them up quickly. “This is better,” he said, slipping them into his pocket.

* * *

I thought that pocket protection raised the bar on spectiquette as high as it could go.

Silly me. David Hodgson does not raise bars. He toys with them. It would not be beyond him to turn the bar into a pond, for example. It would not be beyond him to turn the bar into a pond and himself into a fish and you into a fisherman in an old wooden boat, and the merry game is on.

Is that too woo-woo for you? David would calibrate his magic, turn the bar into something you would find familiar and comforting--an umbrella, say, or a toaster.

I do not dance with David Hodgson. Last winter I took two private lessons from him, and I could not even walk straight. Teachers make me nervous, and David has an inventiveness that I like very much, so of course my feet were all thumbs. It was painful. He doesn’t ask me to dance, and if he did I would demur.

So a few weeks ago, when he asked me to dance, I demurred.

David, I said, we can’t dance together. Don’t you remember? I torture you.

He grinned. Herpetologically.

(Several months ago I confided in David my secret ambition to produce a tango show based on an old folk tale. The problem, I explained, is that no one is going to want to play the Devil. David grinned. I swear I heard a hiss.)

Oh come on, he said temptingly.

Without hesitation I slipped off my glasses, proving I am indeed a daughter of Eve.

“You’ll have to bring me back here,” I said, dropping the specs on a table at random. “Otherwise I’ll never find them.

“I can’t see a thing,” I added, reaching out a hand so he could lead me to the dance floor like the blind woman I am.

He grinned. Yesssssss.

After one quaking moment, I gave myself over. When you’re dancing with the Devil, you’d best give as good as you get.

When you’re a beginner, tango is a standardized test. For every question the lead asks, there is only one right answer. This is when you’re learning basic steps and technique.

When you’ve moved along a bit, tango becomes fill-in-the-blank. The lead integrates pauses for you to fill in. This is when a follower learns adornments.

When you’ve moved along a little bit more, tango becomes an essay test. You get the idea …

Dancing with David Hodgson is defending your dissertation before a panel of advisors from the New Goth College, the Potter School of Fine, Dark and Martial Arts, and the American Academy of Hula Hoop Queens.

It’s important to know that when you are defending a dissertation, you are not answering an attack. You are conversing. There is no mistaking who is teacher or student, but for the purposes of the moment, all are on equal footing.

Not to belabor the point, we had fun. When the last song of the tanda ended, I opened my eyes.

Look, David said. We were standing right next to a table, where sat—my glasses!

Wow! I said. What are the odds we’d end up here?

David grinned.

Yessssssss.

* * *

Ssssssso, I say to the next lead who snags me.

Apparently I am feeling a bit devilish still. I tell him David’s trick, give him a flirtatious “top-that” sort of look.

Hmmm, he says, considering.

I like this lead. He’s been dancing a year and he is like me, which is to say he has some natural affinity for music and movement and he aspires to dance well and he enjoys learning new things and practicing and he’s inventive.

He is different from me in that he actually has natural ability to go with that affinity, and so he is learning quickly while I am enjoying a painfully leisurely pace.

For this reason I call him Alaric, which is an actual name, at least it was in the very first romance novel I ever read (Barbara Cartland, who else?). That Alaric spoke Gaelic, which I believe would make him Irish.

I do not call this lead Alaric because he is Gaelic or a romantic icon, though I imagine he has broad appeal. Rather, Alaric sounds like alacrity, which is a Latin word traced to the fifteenth century, meaning lively.

Here is one example of Alaric’s alacrity: Recently, I learned from Gustavo to do a quick-step in the giro during vals. Alaric was not in the class, so I showed it to him. I did it once or twice. That’s all he needed to make it his.

You could watch his line of thought as it developed: If a giro is a grapevine, then this quick-step could work in any grapevine-type step … in any direction … and if the man could lead it at will … and if he did it along with the follower … and we were circling the floor with our new, very cool move!

If he were a Viking you could call him Alaric the Fearless. But that would be precious. Vikings didn’t dance tango.

Sssssssso I said to Alaric, then ditched the glasses and we were off, lively and just a bit devilish.

You think you know where this is going, don’t you? Don’t set yourself up. Alaric is no David Hodgson. No. Alaric is just my speed.

I like dancing with Alaric when we are playing around, and when we’re working hard and when we’re dancing for pleasure. We dance in open and close embrace, and when we go into close embrace, I close my eyes.

When I open my eyes at the end of the tanda, every single step, including the missteps, has been a pleasure. Tonight we were dancing to dance, with fun and inventive moves from the very first step straight through to the very cool pose on the very last beat.

We are in an odd corner, a bit outside the line of dance. Alaric touches my arm, indicates the way I should go. Of course he is walking me back to my table. He wears contact lenses, he understands my plight.

I can tell he enjoyed the tanda. His smile is a touch diffident, as usual, but also a touch self-satisfied. He is in no hurry to go trolling.

When I turn in the direction he indicates—surprise! We are standing two steps from the table on which sit my glasses!

How did you do that!? I squeal.

Alaric looks sheepishly proud. The DJ was playing a three-song set. It took all of the first two songs and part of the third to complete one full turn of the floor. Knowing there wouldn’t be time enough left in the set to make another full circuit, “I just danced right here until the end,” he explains.

That explains the odd corner, out of the way of the other dancers. But what about all those cool moves? It didn’t feel like we were stuck in an eddy. Every step was a pleasure!

Add gratified to that diffident, self-satisfied smile.

Wow! This goes way beyond etiquette or courtesy. This is full-bore, pedal-to-the-metal, dazzling charm. Alaric, you are indeed just my speed.

I am gushing. Here’s why:

I asked for a gift, and Alaric, inventive soul that he is, presented it to me done up with ribbons. That’s connection.

* * *

These are the three gentlemen. Tomorrow: The one who wows my heart.