Steppin' Out

I stood in line to pay fifteen bucks behind a man in a purple suit-- complete with shiny purple tie-- and his date; a bottle blonde in a shiny purple dress gathered in a seam down the middle. They both wore shiny white shoes. I was decidedly less shiny. This should have been my cue to ditch, but I pressed on, knowing in my heart of hearts that I’d made a mistake but had driven a half hour to get here and so, what the heck.

Since I’d heard about this weekly event (open to the public) back in the fall from a friend’s art teacher, I’d been curiously excited. I'd been looking for joy, any flavor really. Quizzing myself as to the times I find myself truly happy, dancing always came out on top. I’d mentioned it to a few folks, but no one bit. “Imagine,” I pitched, “an entire room of single people who really love to dance.” It sounded like heaven to me. What could be better.

Walking into the Woodbridge Hilton’s ballroom-- I know, I know, should have been my first clue-- the thought that occurred to me was: Yikes. Then: Okay, I can do this. I’ve danced with my parents’ friends before.

For years in my twenties and thirties, I'd danced with all of them at least once and some of them often at the myriad of weddings I’d attended as an unattached young lady. Unwilling to stop for food or even drink when there was a great band, I’d danced with every father of every friend and every friend’s husband who’d let me. “Go ahead, it’s fine with me,” the wives would say, “I’m tired of dancing.” And so I would, with every one and anyone, to every song, until the band quit for the night and I was forced to eat my fillet cold. This shouldn’t feel any different than a wedding reception I told myself as I scanned the crowded parquet floor full of strangers for the one familiar face I wasn’t even certain would be there.

Sitting down next to the art teacher and her date at the edge of the dance floor, I folded my arms, legs and nervous energy in against myself as I watched a room of swirling, twirling men and women in their sixties and seventies mouth the words to odd versions of ersatz disco tunes only vaguely familiar to me. “I’m just here to watch,” I smiled as I told the first man who asked me to dance-- an attractive, graying Asian man with a Clark Gable mustache and ill-fitting beige suit-- “thank you very much, maybe later.” He swept off with a disappointed smile and was replaced almost immediately with another, older man with a putty colored golf shirt tucked in to brown slacks, buttoned to the top; and a comb over. He was central casting’s dream of everyman’s Uncle Arthur. I was regretting that I’d promised my next-door neighbor that I would stay at least an hour.

But I couldn’t leave. I was riveted to the scene where my future literally danced before my eyes. Powdered ladies in high-heeled shoes and high-teased hair danced with casual dandies in cuff-links and blazers. A young, balding man of no more than 4’11” in his early fifties, wriggled and writhed with a woman ten inches and fifteen years his senior. And Uncle Arthur swung his arms to and fro-- swatting at the air around a brunette in a lemon yellow dress. He was unbent at the elbows, waist and hips, like someone who’d just freed his arms from a straight jacket or was learning beginner jai-alai. I marveled at his moves and wanted to hug him for leaving his apartment much less asking women he didn't know to dance.

“No thank you,” I repeated my schpiel-with-a-smile again and again, starting to feel rude for having come. When during, “Lady in Red,” it was pointed out to me not once but twice that I was wearing red by smoothies in open collared shirts and buckled shoes saying, “This must be our dance,” I thought it was time to pack it in. Then the art teacher introduced me to Marty.

Marty Martino, a handsome rogue with a thick head of white Don Johnson hair and the self-confident twinkle of a man who has never been turned down—except by his ex-wives—sat down next to me and explained that he was probably the best dancer in the room. And a dance host on cruise ships. “My job is to ask the ladies to dance,” he said slowly. He looked to be a spry seventy-three. I later learned he was eighty-one.
“No kidding,” I said, “Sounds great,” I added, because I thought it did.
“Is it a paying job?”
“No,” he said, “but I get to go on the cruise for free and they give me a nice room. It’s a double and I have to share with another dance host, but it’s a nice room.”
“Wow,” I said, archiving this in the lobe of my brain reserved for future career options, “Are there any female dance hostesses?” “No,” he said. Oh, right, I thought. Duh.

Clearly a professional, his plan worked and I acquiesced. The music was easily spoken over and the lights were up almost full; a rotating portable disco light cast additional mood splotches of red, green and blue across the receding hairlines and bare shoulders of my fellow dancers. “Step, step, slide. Step, step, slide,” Marty instructed as we glided around the dance floor to “And I Love Her,” by the Beatles. I didn’t have the nerve to tell Marty that I could probably dance his cruise-ship-hosting ass off, so I let him tell me what to do, complimenting me as he did from time to time on my ability to pick things up quickly. I felt like a ringer in a pool hall. Just you wait, buddy, I thought, and we danced to two more songs. I was loosening up, finally, enough to laugh as I danced and be reminded why I had come. This is the feeling I love, I thought, this joy right here, right now while dancing. Afterwards I said thank you and he insisted on walking me back to my seat.

No sooner had I sat down than Uncle Arthur appeared before me. “I’d love to,” I said, and geared up for the challenge. He took my hand and didn’t let go, so I danced as best I could, side-stepping his other arm rotor as it sliced the air around me. Thankfully he talked the entire time; he had a lot to get in before the end of the song. He told me about the B side of the song we were listening to and who sang it first (Jackie Wilson) and how many covers had been done and which were the best. He told me about his cousin (Norman) who said he would help him transfer all his mix tapes to CDs, otherwise he wasn’t sure how he was going to ever find some of these songs again. “The internet is a pretty good bet,” I said, bobbing and weaving, still holding his hand. “Yeah,” was all he said before the song ended and he briskly moved away like a man who knows when to leave a party.

I was just sitting down again when out of nowhere, the very short, bald, wriggly man appeared in front of my face. I was sitting and he was standing, but there he was, glistening with sweat, eyebrows arched in anticipation of my answer. “Let’s go,” I said standing and for the first time in my life I felt tall. He led me out onto the middle of the dance floor and had the good manners to start off slow. A bit of rocking led quickly to stepping, which prompted a change in direction, some tricky hand swapping, leading up to the big kahuna; a turn.
“You weally gooood,” he said and spun me back the other way.
“Thank you,” I said smiling because I was having fun in a bizarre, David Lynch sort of way.
“My name is Hector,” he said, “I will teach you the salsa dance.” And with the very next song, he got his wish. He spun me out and twirled me back in, taking my arms and placing them at the back of his sweaty neck as he wriggled in front of me like I’d seen him do before; like Charo. This must be his signature move was all I could think. It was preferable to thinking about my hands on his sweaty neck.

“Let me hold you like a wife, not a nun,” he said and I knew what he was aiming at. Salsa is meant to be danced with your lower pelvic cradles practically fastened together with snaps, but I demurred and he got the picture without my having to say, “Why don’t you hold me somewhere in the middle, say, like a dental hygienist.” We continued to dance for two more songs; spinning and twirling, stepping and gliding. I was proud of my clairvoyant ability to follow unknown dancers so well and accepted this moment to preen. Bring it on, I thought, hit me with your best shot; wheelchairs and canes? I’m all over it. Oxygen tank on rollers? No prob. I can make you all look like gods on the dance floor and in that same shared moment will feel like a true goddess. Everybody wins and no one goes home hurt. Except maybe the next dame to dance with Uncle Arther.

As Hector and I parted ways, I decided to slip out. The perimeter was thickening with glaring men holding scotch glasses and I recalled the cartoon of the wolf in the zoot suit, heart beating out of his chest, lips stretching out to pucker and whistle as Pepe Le Pew’s lady friend-- or was it Bugs in drag-- strolled by. I grabbed my purse, said goodnight to the art teacher, and stopped off in the ladies room before heading out to my car.

“I hate it when Harold tells me what to do,” a woman in an orange dress and pink heels was saying as she leaned into the mirror to wipe a manicured fingernail under her lower lashes, “It’s not his dance floor for cryin’ out loud.”
“I know, he always thinks he’s in charge,” said her friend as she burst through the stall door-- a vision in sequins and aqua.
“I don’t want to be told what to do; why do you think I got divorced?”
They laughed as faucets squeaked off and pocketbooks snapped shut. The woman in orange held the door open for her friend saying, “I think Harold just forgets that we’re all here to have fun.”

We all forget, I wanted to add. I’ll be back in 24 years, ladies. And I’ll deal with Harold then.