He looked at his watch again, and then at the clock on the wall adjacent to the one he is leaning against, and they both told him that he had been there for only thirty minutes. Still, his heart sank because he felt he had been there for an eternity.
He turned to his left and walked as carelessly as he could so as not to betray the boiling caldera in his heart. He reached the table of fruits and cheeses. There were just a few more bunches of grapes left, and instead of cheese, there was a nearly empty container of hummus for the little bread that was left. People had already devoured the snack bar, or was it him, who had been too nervous to dance and instead of cruising around the dance floor he had been eating? He tore off a piece of bread and wiped a bit of the hummus with it before stuffing it between his lips. Where was the water? But he had been drinking water the whole time, and in between he was either standing or going to the bathroom. Anything except what he had come for: dancing.
He coughed out $15 at the entrance before entering the dimly lit ballroom. There were red curtains waiting for him, draping loosely over the arches between the dance floor full of people in an even darker space and the socializing area where people were eating and pretending to pay attention to the stranger talking to them about their lives or opinions about something that just couldn't reach the sanctums of the listener's consciousness. There were many old women sitting at the tables they have reserved for themselves, even though customarily these tables weren't reserved for anyone. Then there were the old men trolling around looking for any desperate new and very young dancers to put their paws on. And he was the only young man standing there not knowing what to do.
Whenever the set of songs ended and most people from the dance floor thanked their partner before scurrying off the dance floor, he would feel his heart throbbing to what he thought must have been a physiologically dangerous point. Suddenly all these women were now looking for someone to dance with, and he couldn't make himself look available. He would either still have a piece of cheese in his finger tips or felt a deep need to go to the bathroom. No woman coming off the dance floor made eye contact with him. And how could they? Most knew other people, other men, and they would just as quickly go back on the dance floor with the new guy. That made his heart sink. He felt even more incompetent than when he came in. Not only as a dancer, but as a man.
Where was anyone? He thought people from his classes would show up, at least one! But none! He felt alone in his most formidable challenge in his life: dancing with someone for the first milonga, or dance party, in his life. He didn't dare to look at the direction of the old women who would be lucky to dance once tonight and when he walked by them to busy himself with something, he would make a point not to look at any. He would be chewing something, anyway.
During the 30 minutes he was there there had been three changes of dance partners, the last having just happened now. And through each break he experienced the same ordeal: heart throbbing and then heart sinking. He had his eyes on a few young women he thought weren't great but probably wouldn't reject his offer to dance, but they always seemed busy, either intercepted by someone, seemed busy with food, or disappeared into the bathroom.
He decided that if he didn't succeed the next break, he would just leave.
The next ten minutes, which was how long a set of songs usually take, felt even more agonizing than the thirty minutes that have just passed. He tried to look cool, because he knew that from time to time the women on the dance floor looked and he wanted to maintain an air of self-confidence. After the third and final song was about to finish, he made sure he had nothing in his mouth, fixed his face so it was smiling, and put on the makeup called smile on his lips.
Finally, the music was finished, and the brief music that signals the break and change of partner came on. Again, his heart started to throb like a wild stallion. He set his eyes on this girl just a little shorter than him. She was rather pretty, but since she kept dancing with incompetent looking men he thought he deserved a shot with her. With a smile that was somehow frozen on his face, he started to approach the woman. She looked annoyed coming off the dance floor. He froze. Maybe she had a bad dance and now she was just in a foul mood. But it didn't matter; he paid the entrance fee and so he had to dance at least one dance! He dragged his feet slowly towards her, who had gone to the snacks table and tried to figure out what she could eat.
He walked up to her and managed to utter a hello between the lips that were his smile. She looked at him for a split second and said hi back, not smiling, fake or real. He felt his shoulders, his chest, his pelvis, all draw inwards, so that his whole torso seemed to be concaving as all his courage was muffled by the collapse of his body. She was clearly not smiling at him, not enjoying seeing him.
He quickly picked up a cup and pretended to look for the marker fervently so he could put his initials on the cup. All this time he couldn't look at her; too busy with the concavity of his body. And when he sensed that a man was approaching her his heart sank. He knew that he could just quickly ask her, but he couldn't imagine her accepting his request. He heard the man asking her to dance, and she refused him. On the one hand he felt relieved that he didn't ask her and got thrown into the well the way that man must have felt. But on the other hand, he just lost his chance. She walked away without a word and that left him feeling a bit cold. Of course, he didin't say much either.
And so he drank down the water in the cup now marked with his initials, and then he went to the chair where he had sat down to change his shoes. He felt a little upset that he had paid $15 to just get zero dance. But then he felt relieved that at least it was over and that his ego could rest in peace knowing that tonight it won't be getting a beating.
