A Tango in Buenos Aires
By: Barbara Ray
Tags: Travel Writing, Travel, Buenos Aires, Memoir, Tango

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.