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I check my watch, nodding again. “Sure. Give me ten minutes?”
She gives me a small smile, walking out of my office and next door to hers.
Ten minutes later, we're outside at the picnic tables. There's a welcome breeze today and dark clouds in the distance, signaling the incoming afternoon rain.
“So, he took me to a dance class! A ballroom dance class!” Larissa says as she unpacks her lunch.
“Oh?” I must sound more interested than I ever have in Larissa’s dating life, so she keeps going.
“Yeah. Some ballroom down on Tenth Street. It was fun! Well, what am I telling you for? You know all about that.” She waves it off.
Larissa was working here when my grandmother passed away two years ago and I had surprisingly told Larissa the brief details of her life—celebrated tango dancer, beloved grandmother. Maybe I was just looking for somebody to share something with, somebody besides my own family who had their own stories, were dealing with their own grief. I had to be there for them, and my grief was lost in the shuffle, so I talked to Larissa aboutit instead. Quick, short tidbits so I wasn’t taking up all the conversation, but enough to get it off my chest.
“I’ve never done ballroom classes,” I reply.
“Well, that makes sense. You wouldn’t need to!”
“I don’t know about that,” I add.
“I love those stories you told me about your grandmother,” she practically swoons. “Well, this date was not that. You ever date somebody who takes you to a competitive activity, but he doesn’t like to lose?”
I think about Jeremy—my last boyfriend who was certainly competitive, but hardly took me anywhere. I shake my head. “Can’t say that I have.”
“Not that a ballroom dance class is competitive, but he sure acted like it. Like he needed to be better than everybody there. He couldn’t look like the new guy, or a novice, Heaven forbid.” She rolls her eyes, dipping a carrot stick in ranch. “And when the instructor corrected him and complimented me, he almost lost his shit.” She laughs. The aggressive crunch of the carrot breaks through her words. “I shouldn’t be laughing at that, ‘cause honestly, what a fucking tool.”
Her dating stories are not unlike Agostina’s dating stories. The plight of trying to meet somebody in your thirties: the societal expectations, the metaphorical clock. Hell, our family loves to desperately throw the wordhusbandaround. “You remind me of my cousin,” I tell her.
“Is she also a hot mess? Is that what you’re saying?” She laughs again.
I chuckle at that, quick and low. “No, no.” She’s a vibrant force to be reckoned with, I want to tell her. “She is bold and brave to continually put herself out there. That’s what I mean. All these losers are missing out,” I tell her instead.
Larissa giggles in response, but it’s soft around the edges when she says, “Thanks, Julie. Same to you.”
“I guess I’d have to go out and actually meet people for that, though.” I give her a tight smile. An uncomfortable realization that perhaps good things come to those who actually go out anddo. “So, what kind of dancing did you do?” I ask, bringing the conversation back.
“Oh! Well, there were all the classics … the waltz and the foxtrot and thetango.” She emphasizes the last word, and it hits something in me. It quickly reminds me of the shoes, the ones still on my nightstand, still in the box, still taunting me.
“Did you like it?” I find myself asking her.
“I did! I mean, the company sucked, but it was fun.” She shrugs.
“That’s good,” I nod, but I can’t shake the feeling I’m getting now. I look at the time. Lunch break is over. “Well, time to head back.”
“Yeah,” she sighs. “I’m almost done with the documents for the Lorenzo case, so I’ll bring them over to you by the end of the day.”
We gather our leftover lunches and slowly walk back into the building side by side.
“Start on the notes for the Turner case when you can, please,” I call out, heading right to my office. And when I enter it, I get back to my own pile, my own to-do list, my head down.
Except the shoes pull me from my work. The conversation at lunch is still wedged in the back of my mind. It’s all a distraction I can’t afford, but I think about the women in my life that got up and made shit happen without any fear. My grandmother, who decided to take up dancing as a young woman and continue on to compete. Who traveled all over the world and created a life she wanted to live. My mother, who packed up her family and built a life in a new country.
And I look at myself in the mirror and wonder where the ball got dropped. My life is one comprised of guilt and fear. I livein calculated decisions and apologies. I don’t jet set around the world. I certainly didn’t start a new life in a new country, relying on my own strengths and the kindness of strangers to get by.
All I’ve got is a list I’ve been checking off intently every day of my life to make my parents proud, a job I work way too fucking hard at, and now some shoes.
But what if.
I look around the office, find everybody deep in their own work, then pull up Google to search for tango classes near me. A small list comes up. The number one hit is that ballroom where Larissa went on the date, but another one in particular catches my eye. Something like what I’m looking for. Dance classes specific to tango, a couple of miles from here in a dance studio in downtown New River. A new twelve-week session starts this Thursday with—according to the website—renowned tango dancers Logan Beck and Tara O’Byrne.
