Her nose is small, a little pointy, and if it were just for her nose she would already look like a model. It's the envy of many women who seek out or wish they had the funds to seek out plastic surgery. But it's also her subtle cheek bones, her lips, and the piercing eyes that are parsimonious in sparing a moments gaze at you. Her complexion is mysterious. Not very white, though she is undoubtedly a white woman. It's olive color, almost. Is she Middle-eastern? Is she Spanish?
She's tall, but not a giant. She is, of course, very slim without looking anorexic. If she were in any other setting, she would be turning all heads. But the only heads that are turning towards her as she stands there nearly motionless belong to men who haven't seen her dance yet. Purely her physical beauty gives her enough points to elicit an invitation from a man she hasn't danced with yet, an invitation that by now she would probably reject. She stands there with her black, thick shawl wrapped around her as the the grand ballroom is a little chilly and unless you're dancing you become part of that temperature. She doesn't respond to any gaze, but she is aware of all of them, and if she feels any too predatory that's one of the reasons for her to move to a different location.
She, too, is stalking. She is watching the dance floor, watching the people on the dance floor. She knows who she would want to invite her. She is too much of a neophyte to be part of a community in which she would ask or entice a man of her choice to dance with her. She is, for now, and perhaps to adhere to tradition, forever, be waiting for men of her choice to ask her. But for now she is not on the top of the list of desired dancers for those men. And so while she plows through, struggling at times, the road of ameliorating her dances, she has little more to offer than patience. And it's not always with difficulty. Her hopes are reinforced quite often with the reality that she is asked to dance by many of those men. And by dancing with them, she gets better much faster than many much less beautiful and so less lucky women in her community, here or at her home base.
But tonight, at least during these hours, she has to compete with women with far greater experience, which outweighs a lot more her beauty, which never directly translates into a good dance.
She is a decent dancer. She tries to look better than she knows she is. She is trying. But she isn't here, in this social dance night, to have fun only. Or rather, her idea of a fun night is not dancing with just anyone. She has high targets to shoot for. She is watching the dancers. She is evaluating new faces and sees if she should add them to her mental list of people to accept. By now there is no hope of adding faces to the list of people she is dying to dance with, for there aren't many and so she has captured all their faces. While she gingerly passes judgments on the face of this or that man, she is hoping to get a dance with someone amazing.
She doesn't sit down; she doesn't want to be seen and therefore categorized with the other women who are sitting, and these women are often hopelessly sitting for a long time. Standing means you are eager, even if too eager, for a dance, and you can smooth out that rough edge of desperation by rejecting advances from people not on her special guest lists, preferably by preemptively moving away from the suitor before the awkward moment of direct rejection.
It's getting chillier. They have opened the back doors to the frosty outside of this Texas city in the winter. All the women who are helplessly sitting down are wrapped in something warm, also looking at the dancers though sleeping in their own thoughts. She isn't distracted. She is looking at the dancers for the dancers' sake. She feels the chill, but she won't risk sending out any signal that she is not available. She is a stranger, still, in this town where many don't know her, and in tonight's dance, most people aren't even from the Lone Star Republic. And the best dancers are indeed from out of town. So it would be a huge shame if she gets past for a dance because she sits down or does anything that may suggest she's taking a break.
It's hard work on the road of being the best dancer, even if that's not your profession. It's important if you need to feel wanted by those most sought after and whose attention is gold, and that their dances feel more precious than any metal and gem. Standing on high heels is not at all comfortable, and only more bearable than dancing. But she stands there on her beautiful shoes, in a dress slightly sexy so as not to flaunt desperation, but enough to remind people that she is a beautiful woman to be with in a dance.
But her gaze, or the absence thereof, or the mere shortness thereof, makes her look unreachable. She walks up and down the isle flanked by sitting forlorn-looking women and predatory men. She can feel the gazes falling on her from both genders, but she doesn't care. She is trying to make herself visible. She is tired of standing there and have to be showered by the attention of men she isn't sure would be good, and she is afraid that she would sooner or later break and allow herself, once again, to be in the arms of someone who wouldn't give her that sweet dance to remember by. Unlike other women, she doesn't make a lot friends here, not any chitchat. She didn't come here for making friends. She wants to be the best dancer she can. However, if she had connected a little with the women here, she would have been told that not even the best dancers could give her the best dances. It doesn't only depend on how good the man is. And besides, and they would find a more diplomatic way of telling her this, she isn't the best dancers here and to expect these men to be thinking about her, and even to expect her dances with them to be amazing, is a bit of a stretch.
Still, she stands there, feeling some growing frustration but still patiently waiting, watching the crowd, ignoring the gazes from around her, and as the last song of the set comes to an end to signal to the dancers to disperse from the floor, her hopes once again rise.
