A Tango in Buenos Aires

What were we thinking? We can’t dance.

Sometimes I sign us up for things that I later regret. This was fast becoming one of those times. After circling the block, our driver pulls up in front of a nondescript three-story building on a busy neighborhood street in Buenos Aires. He points hopefully to number 1078, as Rex and I look on dubiously. A huddle of men in front of the dollar store next door pause their chatter as we climb out of the taxi and stand on the street in front of the door.

“Is this the tango place?” I ask one of the men, hoping he understands my broken Spanish.

“Si, si,” he says as he waves at the door. Just as I am about to push the buzzer — an old-school bell instead of an intercom — a man opens the door on his way out. One look at us and he waves at the spiraling staircase behind him as he steps past us with a whiff of cigarette smoke.

The click of my heels on the worn marble stairs echo as we wind our way up, following the intricate iron banister. Somewhere below a tiny iron cage of an elevator springs to life, clambering up to an apartment somewhere above us. It is 6:00 p.m. in December and Portenos are gathering for a “mid-afternoon” tea — or beer and wine since it’s summer.

As we reach the second-floor landing, the grand wooden doors part and Madame Elsa Maria sweeps us in like those glamorous mothers on 1950s sitcoms welcoming dinner guests. The room is spectacular in its decay. Long and narrow, with high ceilings, parquet floors, elaborate molding, gilded mirrors, and stunning chandeliers.

“You are here for tango, no?”

Yes, we nod foolishly.

“Come, then, let’s begin with champagne.”

I think back to the cocktail napkin saying — “Trust me, you can dance –yours, Vodka.”

Elsa Maria escorts us back to the tiny bar where she pops open a bottle of champagne (and then recorks it). From behind a curtain, an exquisite young man half her age appears eating from a forlorn box of half-devoured chocolates, leftovers from the recent Christmas festivities no doubt. As we sip (or slurp as the case may be), Elsa Maria regales us with tales of her past students, Bill Clinton, Whoopie Goldberg, and the master of tango, Robert Duvall.

Travel has a way of doing that — making you think you’re someone different than you are.

I am definitely regretting this choice now. It had seemed like such a good idea when I was planning this 25th wedding anniversary trip as a surprise for my husband, Rex. Tango. Argentina. Of course. Travel has a way of doing that — making you think you’re someone different than you are. By shedding the routines that tether us to our daily lives, by turning all the signposts upside down, travel encourages us to reinvent ourselves, if only for a week. So why not take a tango lesson? Who cares if I’m of the generation that learned to dance to Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith, when dancing meant just step, slide, step slide.

The young man refills my glass with a smile. The room, the faded glamour, the young man, I began to take it all in. Especially the young man — lithe, dark-haired, in a red and black form-fitting dance outfit. Who on earth is he — Elsa Maria’s son, her lover? He looks over at her, with just a hint of a smile.

“Where are you from?” she asks.

“Chicago,” we say in unison, the awkwardness of the situation making us both jump in at once.

“What brings you here?”

“Our anniversary,” we say. “25 years,” Rex adds for no reason.

The young man raises an eyebrow. “Congratulations,” he says, raising his glass. I feel as if there’s some pity in those words.

“Then you will move well together,” Elsa Maria declares.

I seriously doubt that.

We regularly capsize canoes. We hit each other with balls in doubles tennis.

Rex and I are extremely compatible, but anything requiring duo-coordination is not a strength. We regularly capsize canoes. We hit each other with balls in doubles tennis. And suave we are not. Dress us up and we both react like cats in a harness — stiff with restraint and sitting forcibly upright. And tango requires, nay demands, suave. The delusional thinking of vacation has struck again, I realize, as Elsa Maria sets her champagne glass down and leads us into the ballroom.Like fellow grunts in a foxhole, Rex and I move instinctively closer to each other in a protective bond.

In the intervening 25 years, we’ve been to every continent except Antarctica. We’ve swam with thousands of stinger-free jellyfish in Palau, uncovered stone money in Yap, driven the coast from Sydney to Daintree in Australia, spent the night in the Sahara desert, climbed a glacier in Iceland, and watched the sun rise over the Moai on Rapanui. We’ve nursed sunburns from a convertible ride along the Natchez Trace, puked for two days from bad fish in Yap, endured 18 hours on a “VIP” bus in Thailand, sprinted in Birkenstocks across the unexpected snow on Mount Palomar, and careened downhill on mountain bikes in the Andes. So Tango should be nothing.

Your center of everything is right here,” he says, pointing to my belly button. “Hold it in!”

I am handed over to the young man and Rex goes with Elsa Maria. We begin with the basic steps in the capable hands of the pros.

“Not like this,” my beautiful boy keeps saying, pantomiming my bad posture. “Tango is about presence. Your center of everything is right here,” he says, pointing to my belly button. “Hold it in!”

Meanwhile, Elsa Maria is gently leading Rex through his role as the leader in this tango. “The men are in charge,” she’d reminds him. “The women embellish.”

“Not in my world,” he smiles.

“Not in any world,” she winks, “But for tonight the men lead.”

Rex and I lucked into each other. We met, randomly, which the world loves to do, on the last Wednesday in February in cold Minneapolis over two-for-one Old Styles (in a can). My roommate had a crush on the bartender so I had tagged along as wing-woman. And in walked Rex. He sat down near me. He was cute. My roommate was occupied. I moved over.

“Hi,” I said, “I think I’ll talk to you for a while.” He laughed, and turned to a guy to his left. “Unbelievable,” said the guy, shaking his head and getting up. I looked at Rex. “He was just saying how stuck up girls were in this bar.”

And so it all began. I slyly worked my new set of quiz questions into the conversation and he passed with flying colors. Do you own a car? Live with your mother? Have a job? Yes, the bar was quite high. We talked until the bar closed and then went for breakfast. He called me a few days later for a date, and we’ve been talking ever since. And protecting each other, and filling in the gaps, and playing to each other’s strengths. Leading and embellishing.

After a few turns with the pros, Rex and I are paired up to try it on our own. By now, Rex is sweating through his shirt, and my feet have swelled like sponges in the humidity and duress. Step, step, ochos ochos, and close. Or something like that. It is a lot to think about.

We are both trying hard to enjoy ourselves, here in the bosom of Buenos Aires dancing the tango. A once-in-a-lifetime treat.

We lurch forward, me wanting to lead, Rex wresting control. He grips my waist until I fear I’ll bruise. I overthink the steps. I forget to circle. I fiercely will Rex to avoid all dips. His back is tense and his shirt is sticking to him. A trickle of sweat slides down between my breasts. Don’t lean too far forward, avoid his toes, remember the next step, hold in my stomach.

As we collide after a move, we both start laughing. Even Elsa Maria must admit we are pathetic. The music blessedly comes to an end, and our torture is over. Elsa Maria rewards us with false praise and two tickets to see how it’s really done at a dinner show.

We are released to the hallway like kids to summer on the last day of school. Laughing, we walk arm in arm down the streets of Buenos Aires, alive with people on this summer evening. Life together is indeed a tango: One leads and the other embellishes.