Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home Page 3

  The song filled the studio, and the couples echoed the emotion. Marcel, my acquaintance who had insisted I dance with him at the South Street Seaport, showed up at the practica with his girlfriend, a pretty, slender brunette. At one point he stepped back and let her full weight fall against him. Her free leg extended and swept the empty space; it looked as though she was searching for him with her foot, then trying to find something to grasp onto. The move was so sad, so filled with longing, that I decided I just had to learn it. I watched another couple: The man looked Irish, with ruddy skin, pale blue eyes, a strong jaw and thick neck and was leading an elderly woman around the floor in a tight embrace. They danced quickly, athletically; she swung a leg up, returned it, keeping up with his pace. He wore a bandana around his head, and his casual T-shirt and jeans made him look like a construction worker before a shift.

  Marcel interrupted my staring by asking me to dance. He held me in open embrace, as I needed to watch our feet. Close embrace was still too terrifying, like being instantly blinded.

  “Use gravity,” Marcel said. “Push into the ground with your legs so I know what foot your weight is on.” I tried this and we danced a little, but it must have felt like pushing lead around. “But be light with your upper body,” he said.

  I sighed and he laughed. “You’ll get it.”

  We practiced the basic, pausing in front of the mirror so I could see my steps.

  “Don’t anticipate,” he said as he walked in a smooth, steady gait. Then Marcel introduced me to the Irish man and pretty much forced him to dance with me.

  “I’m a beginner,” I explained.

  “It’s okay,” he said.

  I tucked my arm around his shoulder and felt his chest press against mine. He smelled vaguely like he was sweating out last night’s booze. He pulled me into close embrace and hit a fast pace, stepping on half notes. I let my legs follow his on the pauses. I didn’t have time to count, but I was doing it, flaring a leg forward, swinging it backward the way I had seen the other dancers do it. I didn’t have time to be scared. My mind cleared and my body just responded. It was exhilarating.

  It’s said that randomness creates addiction; that if something is reliable, you don’t feel as attached to it. That’s why gambling is addictive. And why dancing is, too. The social nature of having multiple partners means that sometimes the dance feels stiff and awkward, but the ones that are good feel so good they fuse into your memory, and the possibility of repeating the experience keeps you coming back for more.

  When the music stopped, I recognized a young hipster from my neighborhood. Wearing flame-retardant plaid retro slacks and a vintage mustard-yellow shirt, he brought a bit of trendy Brooklyn into the room. He was also a terrific dancer, with original steps and enough confidence to switch up the rhythms. Claire and I stood at the wall and noticed his facial expressions: lips pursed, eyebrows lifted, not smiling, not frowning, just focused.

  “It’s almost like he’s playing a musical instrument,” Claire said.

  “Only with his feet,” I answered.

  The Hipster stopped dancing, and he and I chatted about people we knew from our neighborhood. The last time I had seen him, he had just sold his business as a headhunter for tech companies and was going to spend time reading and writing.

  “No, never wrote much,” he said. “Instead I started dancing tango seven nights a week.”

  “Every night?” I asked him.

  “Yep,” he answered. “You’ll see.”

  Then, out of charity, he invited me to dance. But rather than walk the basic, he moved me around the floor quickly and forced me to practice shifting my weight. He’d switch his weight to one side, and I’d have to follow and change my weight to the other foot. It was tough, but I appreciated what he was teaching me. The steps are the easy part in tango; the technique, the embrace, finding the weight shift, keeping balanced on one leg — these are the hard things.

  Afterward he suggested I take private lessons. “One private class with Robert T. is worth ten group classes. And if you go to his place in Queens, it’s half price.”

  “How do I find him?” I asked.

  “Google ‘close embrace,’” he said.

  I jotted this down on a piece of paper: Robert T. close embrace.

  MY FRIEND KIM had invited me to dinner for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, at her mother’s house, despite the fact I was Catholic. She knew that I needed the New Year to come much sooner than the first of January. When I rang the bell, I remembered the story Kim had told me about her parents’ divorce. Her father had left her mother for another woman.

  “My mother didn’t get out of bed for weeks,” Kim had told me. “And my father refused to give me his new phone number. His girlfriend didn’t want him to; she was afraid I would tell my mother how to reach them. I was seventeen, with an incapacitated mother, and I couldn’t call my father.”

  When Kim’s mother, Sarah, smiled at me that night, I hoped she wouldn’t hug me or mention my divorce. I thought that if she touched even my arm or shoulder I would burst into tears. My new awareness of how people suffered from betrayal made me almost unbearably sensitive, and I didn’t want my pain mingling with any they might have. It would be too much, or so I thought. We gathered around the table with family members and friends of all different religious denominations. Sarah led the prayers over the food in Hebrew, glancing up when she stated that as this year ends, we approach the new one with hope for a better one. We all dipped apples into honey so that anything in the New Year that was sour would be sweetened.

  CHAPTER 3

  La Caminita, The Walk

  AT FIRST I didn’t cry. Then one morning, when I was calculating when my husband’s affair had started, I realized it was around the time I had gone back to the Midwest for my grandmother’s funeral. She’d had Parkinson’s disease for a long time, and as she withered away, my grandfather cared for her. He cooked her soft-boiled eggs and wiped her chin when she ate. He carried her to the toilet, bathed her, placed her back in bed. I had asked him how he was holding up, and he said, “She took good care of me for sixty-five years. I’m going to take care of her now.”

  When I thought about my grandfather’s devotion to my grandmother, when I thought about having to tell him about the breakup of my marriage, that’s when I started to cry. And once I started, I couldn’t stop. On the subway or at the gym, I’d pretend I was having an allergy attack when tears streamed down my face and I searched my purse for tissues. My eyes were red and puffy all the time, and anything — a couple holding hands, a woman playing with her baby, a rat running by with a hamburger bun — would trigger the waterworks.

  Things had not even gotten difficult between my husband and me and he was already cheating. Over and over I had asked him why. His answer: “I don’t know. For fun, I guess.” I wanted better than that in a partner. For weeks now I’d had a note posted on my computer screen: CALL LAWYER, but somehow I just kept forgetting to go by her office to sign the papers that would start the divorce proceedings. Of course, it wasn’t just forgetfulness. I hadn’t let him go.

  Instead of making an appointment at the lawyer’s office, I decided to schedule a private tango lesson. On the way to the session at Robert’s, I was crossing the street when my foot hit a crack and I fell. A block away, the light changed, and cars sped toward me. I hesitated, feeling the rough surface under my fingers. I briefly fantasized about being hit by a car. I imagined the impact of the metal grilles and the smell of tires burning on asphalt. I welcomed the oblivion that would follow — that this horrible pain would finally be over, or that at least the physical pain would eclipse it. But what if I lived? It was the surviving and recuperating that would hurt too much. The wired jaw and broken legs. The hours of physical therapy it would take to learn to walk all over again. I pulled myself up and hurried to the sidewalk and stood there for a moment, feeling the back draft of the cars as they passed by me. Embarrassed by the fall, my ankle slightly sore, I thought about just going home, but I instead I went to my lesson.

  Robert’s apartment was on the small side for a dance studio, but the sparse furnishings gave it a roomy feel. A crimson curtain was the only splash of color, where everything — the radiator, walls, and trim — had been coated with a thick layer of muddy beige paint. The mirrors set around the perimeter were different sizes and shapes; each reflected a particular angle of the room. It was a little like a somber funhouse. I thought it would feel strange to be in an unfamiliar man’s home for my private tango lesson, but Robert was all business.

  Speaking with a trace of an Irish accent, he first instructed me to go to the wall and stand about two inches from it. He asked me to lean into it, pressing my ribs against it while keeping my spine straight and connected to my torso. He demonstrated how to press my temple against the wall as if it were resting against my partner’s forehead. While trying to find the right tango stance with the cool, simple wall, I thought about how I had awakened that morning filled with dread.

  Getting out of bed had been a monumental effort. When I finally did, motivated by my private lesson, I shuffled to the kitchen, made coffee, and shook out a cigarette, castigating myself for smoking as I lit it. Still not wanting to eat, this was my preferred divorce-time breakfast. I mentally reviewed what I had to do that day in order to find where the dread was coming from. Then I realized that it was Friday. I had found the love letter between them on a Friday. I had packed up all his things that same Friday.

  A week later, also a Friday, at 2:30 in the morning, someone started calling me. “Private” flashed on my cell phone. I answered, and in my drowsy state assumed it was my husband; in fact, I almost said his name. But no one was at the other end of the line.

  When someone dies and no body is recovered, or when a person has gone missing, it’s known as ambiguous loss. The effects, including lingering grief and disorientation, can go on longer than with a death you witness, a body you bury. This felt like ambiguous loss. Where is the man I married? The one who wrapped both arms around me, then nestled his head into my hair and whispered “Te quiero” before he fell asleep. Who pulled me to him first thing every morning, before he even opened his eyes, as if it were a natural response to waking. The man I was divorcing was my enemy, someone I hated. My body remembered the blunt trauma of going from love to hate so quickly. Even when the pain slipped from my mind, my body remembered to feel bad.

  I brought my attention back to my tango stance. There was something soothing about the wall: the steadiness of it, the certainty that it could take my full weight.

  Robert didn’t dance me around the room, holding me close and showing me steps and flourishes as I had hoped. Rather, as we danced he corrected my every move.

  “Your legs need to be straighter. Stop. You put weight on both feet. That can never happen in tango. Your weight is on one foot or the other.” He started the music, then after a few moments of dancing, he said, “Stop. Now your weight is on the outside of your foot; it needs to be on the ball.” Then I wasn’t putting enough pressure on him; next I put too much weight on him. The music went off again because I didn’t read the shift of his weight correctly. Music back on, we walked around the room, my mind spinning with all the instructions. The tango walk is simply two people moving together while in the embrace to a basic eight count in the music. The leader can shorten or lengthen his stride, walk slowly or quickly, step on either the melody or the harmony. The follower matches his cadence, tempo, and weight change so that their feet and legs mirror one another. The embrace is how the dancers initially connect, but the walk is how they travel together on the dance floor. It’s the basis for all other steps to come, and the walk can be one of the first things a tango dancer learns yet one of the hardest things to perfect. Experienced dancers glide over the floor, while beginners just try to hear the music and stay connected to each other.

  Next Robert abruptly turned the music off and showed me how to lift my torso by improving my vertical energy. He instructed me to go back against the wall, rest my temple against it, and lean into it. This time it felt a little like a punishment: a tango “time out.”

  The outside bell rang and Robert buzzed someone in. It was his dance partner, Vanessa, a dark-haired beauty from Berlin. I thought maybe the lesson would be over; instead, when Robert danced with me, Vanessa now corrected my steps.

  “Keep time as well, don’t just rely on your leader,” she said. “Don’t lose your axis. You’re stepping with it.”

  Robert chimed in, “Relax your joints but keep your muscles engaged.”

  Vanessa added, “Feel your back connect to your fingertips. You should feel the floor through your foot that’s planted and through his shoulder. That’s how connected you are in close embrace.”

  Robert tried to keep me leaning away and embracing him as if in an avuncular hug.

  He grabbed a sheet of white paper from his desk.

  “Think of this as a check for a million dollars,” he said. “If we can keep this between our bellies, without letting it drop, then you get to keep that million dollars.”

  We walked belly to belly, but soon my million floated to the floor.

  I danced with Vanessa next. Robert ran a belt through the loops of Vanessa’s jeans and then mine, attaching us at the hips so that I wouldn’t stick my butt out and would keep my body aligned. We stepped around the room, forehead to forehead, and Robert heckled, “Wow, if I had a video camera, I could make some money with this on the Internet.”

  Women usually feel too light and too unsteady as a lead — even if they are good, there’s something missing. There’s also the breast problem; with two women you have to wedge your breasts around each other’s like fitting together Lego building blocks. With men, there’s a solidness, and if a connection happens, you feel the mingling that comes from the animus-anima energy. But Vanessa felt good to dance with; she walked with certainty and had a lovely energy, sort of sweet and calming. We walked around the apartment.

  “When there’s a hesitation in the music, think of it as driving through a yellow light when you notice a cop,” Robert said. “You pause but keep going.”

  And then it occurred to me: the transition. The step is actually a transition. It’s not just about pressing into the floor or matching the leader’s step. It’s about the axis — each person’s center of gravity is always maintained, and the transition as you switch weight is only a matter of staying on your axis. This centrifugal force is the crucial constant.

  That afternoon felt like a breakthrough. I offered to pay them more, since I’d had two private teachers, but Robert refused, splitting the cash with Vanessa. I had a moment of appreciation for their lifestyle. I knew Robert’s life hadn’t always been like this. The previous week, after a group class, I had mentioned to a student that I started dancing tango because of my divorce.

  “That’s why lots of people start,” she said. “That’s how Robert started dancing tango.”

  The next morning I made a decision. I would finish the paperwork and take it to my lawyer. I fished a pair of brown shoes out of my closet. Although old, they looked okay, or at least inconspicuous: shiny brown leather shoes, almost loafer style but with rounded toes and thick heels. They had served me well for walking in the city. I’m a minimalist when it comes to shoes; I rarely had more than two pairs I liked to wear in any season, but my black pair needed the heels repaired and my oxblood boots didn’t work with my outfit. I had planned on buying new shoes when I took my trip to Argentina; the country had a reputation for producing nice leather shoes, and the dollar was strong there. I took the subway into Manhattan, trying to keep my sniffling inconspicuous, trying not to think about the task at hand so I wouldn’t weep in public. Instead I read the subway advertisements: the benefits of fruit facial peels; sexually transmitted disease public-service announcements; budget divorce lawyers advertised in bold black-and-white ads.

  As I arrived outside my lawyer’s building in mid-Manhattan, I noticed white Styrofoam-type particles coming out of my shoes. The right heel had cracked, as had the left sole. I entered the building, stepping as lightly as possible, but from the corner of my eye I saw the little white particles scattering around me with each step. My poor old shoes were bleeding to death! Fortunately, nobody looked down or seemed to notice, so I signed in, thanked the security guard, slapped on my nametag, and went upstairs to talk with my lawyer.

  While I was signing the papers, my thoughts were mostly on my disintegrating shoes.

  “Do you know of any good shoe stores nearby?” I asked.

  My lawyer shook her head and said, “I don’t shop around here.”

  I hit the street and headed south. I figured I’d drop into any shoe stores on the way, but my primary destination was Macy’s, as they had an entire floor of shoes. En route, pieces of my shoes started falling off in clumps. Soon I was down to just half a heel on the right shoe, and the crack in the left sole had expanded into a crevasse. I tried to walk steadily and not attract attention to them.

  By the time I reached the department store, the right heel had flaked off entirely, and the left heel now began a rapid disintegration. I limped around the sale racks, looking for practical shoes. The only person who noticed the state of my feet was a little old lady who wrinkled her face in disgust. It was the sort of expression generally aimed at people in New York City who are urinating in public. I sat down to try on some sale shoes, finally slipping off my dying ones, and the soles and leather separated. They looked like flayed animals. The salesman averted his eyes when he brought me shoes to try on. Since nobody else seemed to think this was funny, I called a girlfriend.

  “The timing is amazing,” she said. “You have to buy something fabulous to replace them.”