Without Reservations_ The Travels of an Independent Woman - Alice Steinbach [71]
Sometimes, though, I wasn’t so lucky. There was that night when I bumped into a couple from Baltimore who were in Oxford for one night. I knew them vaguely—we’d met at a large party given by mutual friends—and when they suggested dinner at a pub, it sounded like a good idea. Three hours later, after listening to a minute-by-minute rundown of every detail of their week-long tour of the Cotswolds, I yearned to be put out of my misery.
On the night that Albert suggested we try ballroom dancing, I had nothing planned. Several people, mostly couples, were quite enthusiastic about the idea. They asked me to join them.
“It’ll be fun,” Ellen said. “And, besides, I could use the physical contact.”
My answer was immediate and not entirely honest. “Oh, I’m too tired for dancing,” I said, although I wasn’t. “I think I’ll just take a short walk and then read a bit.”
As I walked back to my rooms I wondered why I had dismissed the idea and why I’d felt the need to offer a phony excuse. Actually, I loved to dance. When I was sixteen, a girlfriend and I used to sneak out on weekends to a Latin American ballroom. Dressed and made-up to look like twenty-one—which was the age requirement at the ballroom—we’d sit at a table sipping 7Up, hoping that the silky-looking young men circling the room would ask us to dance.
Although I had no real idea of how to mambo, samba, or tango, I had learned, to my surprise, that I could follow anyone who did. I thought of it as a gift, this ability to follow such intricate steps without any instruction; a gift similar to playing the piano by ear.
I knew my mother would kill me if she found out about my dancing at the ballroom, but frankly I didn’t care. In these moments of dancing I saw myself as a sophisticated, independent woman destined for a life of adventure—probably as a writer living in some foreign land.
Secretly I prided myself on being a good dancer; it made me feel in control of my body. Sometimes, however, I suspected what I liked about dancing was the opposite: that when I was dancing I didn’t need to control my body. On the dance floor I simply closed my eyes and gave myself up to the exciting, pulsating music.
It was only at the Latin American Ballroom, among strangers, that I allowed myself such sensual freedom. At the school dances I stumbled over my partner’s feet, almost drowning out the music with a steady stream of apologies: Sorry. My fault. Excuse me. It was like leading a double life: in one, I was a bold, sensual woman, unafraid of my attraction to danger; in the other, an uncertain teenager, full of conflicts about the physical world of touch and feeling and intense longing.
Perhaps it was the memory of dancing at the Latin American Ballroom that made me suddenly decide I wanted to go dancing that night at Lincoln College.
I ran back to the porter’s lodge hoping that Albert would still be there. When I arrived, breathless, he and the group were just setting out. I fell into step next to Ellen, who, I noticed, had changed from pants into a dress and high heels.
She greeted me with an amused look. “I see that maybe I am not the only one in need of some physical contact,” she said, smiling.
When we reached Lincoln College, Albert led us into one of the buildings and through a maze of hallways and steps to a large, almost empty room where our dance instructor, Barry, awaited us.
There were folding chairs placed on the bare wood floors and in the corner an ancient record player was