When my friend Tom suggested that I go to the dance, I shook my head no. That’s when he went to work on me. Wasn’t I tired of being alone? “It’s just a little dance thing at Saint Gregory’s Church,” he said. “I have a date Saturday night, or I’d come with you.” 

When my wife Bernice divorced me, I was hurt, but I didn’t feel betrayed. She said, “I don’t hate you, Ted. Sorry, I just lost interest.” She felt we could both do better. Eighteen months later she married a proctologist and moved into his upscale townhouse. Half-way through my fifties, I’m living in a small two-bedroom condo. Facing another ten years of work before I settled into full time loneliness, a simple thing like going to a dance gave me hope.

The dance was on a Saturday night from 7:00 to midnight. I asked Tom what to wear. He said, “Business casual is fine.” Saturday afternoon I called him. “How does a button down shirt, chinos and a pair of cordovan loafers sound?” He told me I was overthinking things.  

I got there at seven-thirty. When I arrived, there were already twenty women and only six men, most of them tapping their feet to the music and clutching their beer bottles. The women were dressed in skirts or dresses; a few, were wearing pantsuits. The men stood quietly nursing beers next to a table, guarding two bowls of potato chips. The DJ was trying his best, but aside from four women dancing with each other, there wasn’t much happening.

I wasn’t the best dressed guy at the dance, but I was presentable. The winner was a guy wearing a tuxedo with a bright red bowtie. I suppose he was out to impress, but I thought he looked like the maître de at Ponzio’s, a local diner. I found myself thinking about high school. This situation reminded me of our dances back then, except we were now Aunt Bee and Fred Sanford instead of John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. 

After about a ten song standoff, the guy in the tux walked over to the woman we all had our eye on, a middle aged blonde who still had the body of an aerobics instructor. He asked her to dance. She smiled at him and in no time he made me feel even more inadequate than I already felt. The DJ was playing an old Tom Jones song, It’s Not Unusual. The blonde and the tux guy obviously knew what they were doing. Everyone stopped to watch.  

I was standing next to the bar. I had just asked for a Miller Lite. “What dance are they doing?” I asked the bartender.

“That’s a samba. Max is a real showoff,” she said.   

“They are good at it,” I said.

She smiled. “That’s not really why these women are here,” she said. “They are looking for companionship. Unfortunately, I think the men are looking for something else.”

“How do you know that?”

“Been there, done that, I guess.”

“I don’t know how to samba,” I said.    

She gave me an appraising look. “Haven’t seen you here before.”

“It’s my first time. If I have to dance the samba to get lucky, I’m in trouble.”  She laughed, a good sign.

The song ended and the couple stood there waiting for the DJ’s next number. He played the Beatles, Something and the couple went on dancing.

“Your prospects might be improving,” she said. “Do you know how to waltz?”

“Yeah, even I can do that one.”  I took another swallow of my beer. “Are you allowed to dance with customers?”

“Not while I’m working. But it’s allowed when I’m on break.”

I looked at my watch. “I’m Ted. Aren’t you due for a break?”

“You asking me to dance Ted?”

I put me beer on the bar, the fear of rejection making it hard to let go of the damn bottle. “Yeah…yes, I am.”

She smiled and nodded toward the couple on the dance floor. “This is your lucky night.  I was saying a Hail Mary, praying that Max would ask, but it looks like he’s taken. I suppose you’ll do, Ted. I’m Eileen.”

I did my best to waltz around without stepping on her feet. Eileen looked to be in her late forties, pretty in a librarian rather than a bartender way; in spite of her de rigueur outfit, the white top and black slacks. She wore fashionable glasses and had short brown hair. When the song was over we walked back to the bar. I asked for another Miller Lite. She pulled a bottle from the ice but didn’t open it.  

“Thanks for the dance, Ted. Now don’t hang around the bar with me. Go out there and ask someone else to dance.”

I was being rejected after all. It felt like high school again, maybe worse. I turned to leave, hand in my pocket feeling for my car keys.

Just then, Michael Jackson’s The Man in the Mirror came on. Eileen called me. “Hey, Ted, want to learn the rumba?” 

I smiled at her. “Lead the way.”