AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She felt mentally exhausted. She’d gotten too obsessed with the case and needed a break. She looked at her DVD collection and the preponderance of dance videos. Her option for a break was obvious—Portland that weekend.
For most of the previous year, she’d tried to end work early on one Friday of the month, so she could be in Portland by six in the evening, check into a motel, and get dressed. She had not gone during the last two months.
In the eighth grade, the elementary school she’d attended in Missouri had arranged a two-week module on social dancing at gym time. The intent was to teach manners with the opposite sex at an early enough age to make a difference. Naturally, the intent was hopelessly behind the times for more than half the students and cruelly awkward for the others. She had been among the worst. Already six feet tall, she towered over most of the boys, and her long arms and legs made it worse. The boys did all they could to avoid being paired with her, which usually left her teamed with similarly out-of-place boys—anyone short, skinny, awkward, shy, overweight, or a combination of the above. She hated the experience and suffered jokes for months afterward.
Worse, her mother went through a phase where she thought Greta needed to appear more feminine and dressed her in various shades of pink. As usual, the girls at school were the cruelest. That’s when they gave her the “Flamingo” nickname that stuck with her the rest of that year and into high school. The nickname faded away only as she grew more graceful and became known for her talents in basketball.
She didn’t dance again for nine years. During high school, she never attended the dances put on at school or attended parties that had dancing. Things changed during her junior year in college. By then, she was a fixture in women’s basketball. A few of the other women players were around her height, and most were five foot nine or taller. Several had boyfriends—in some cases, a series of boyfriends. That year she made a determined effort to be more sociable. She dated; had two brief and unsatisfying affairs, both with tall men, one on the men’s basketball team; and signed herself up for dance classes at the college.
She learned three things. First, she loved to dance. Second, she had a talent for it—to her surprise. Three, the more modern or swing styles were not for her. The school scheduled the class in a gym room with one mirrored wall. Despite her efforts not to watch herself, she couldn’t help it. Her height and long limbs, along with the gyrations in the quicker tempo’d dances, made her look like she was flailing at something or trying to take off. It also reminded her too much of that old nickname.
The less frenetic Latin dances were another matter. Besides finding that the music touched her more, the dances allowed her to keep her arms closer to her body most of time or consisted of controlled and/or slower motions. Instead of flailing, she felt flowing. Rumb
a, samba, cha-cha, bolero, tango, and paso doble. She loved them all. They each evoked a different emotional sense and rhythm.
To her surprise, many men didn’t avoid her, unlike her previous experience with boys. The better dancers accepted her size because of her grace and obvious commitment to each dance. A few men even went out of their way to dance with her. The class also led to a few dates but no more affairs. In her senior year, she joined the college ballroom dance club. She would have danced more if sports and classes hadn’t consumed most of her time.
When she took the job in Tillamook, she looked around for ballroom dancing on the coast but found that the only local dance studio catered to children, ballet, and modern dance. Portland had the closest ballroom opportunities, with an active dance scene and several venues. Portland also offered anonymity. What happened in Portland stayed in Portland.
She would drive to Portland on a Friday, check into a motel, change into dance attire, and be at one of the several ballrooms starting open dance at eight o’clock. She danced her preferred Latin selections until closing.
The next day, Saturday, she would sleep late and then occupy herself. Portland often had ongoing festivals, and if not, she could visit the world-famous rose garden, museums, the Willamette River walkways, and a number of large bookstores to pass the time. She danced again Saturday night, usually at a different ballroom. Sunday morning, she would drive back to Pacific City.
Despite her size, she was good enough that she seldom sat out a Latin dance without a man asking her to dance. After a few months, she began to do the asking. She found many of the better men dancers more than willing to have her as an occasional partner. One night, after six months, a man asked her to dance more frequently than usual, especially toward the end of the evening. As she gathered her things, he approached her and asked whether she wanted to go get something to eat. He was tall, her own height, lean, a superb dancer, and charming. Too surprised to accept, she made a lame excuse about needing to get home right away. By the time she reached her car, she cursed herself and went back to find him. He was gone.
The next month she saw him again on a Friday night. She steeled herself, went up to him before the first dance, a cha-cha, and asked him to dance. As it ended, she thanked him for the invitation the previous month and said that she had time that evening. They danced half of the Latin selections together and left early for a seafood restaurant that he favored. She had brought an additional overnight pack with her, and they ended up at his apartment that night and the next day. Saturday night they went together to dance and again to his place later. It was the most intense fling she had ever had with a man.
The following months were a rollercoaster. She never learned Greg’s last name. Neither of them spoke about any further relationship. She obsessed over any meaning she could attribute to that first weekend and then, as the month progressed, became anxious over the next visit to Portland. When it came, it was a repeat of the previous month, and her fantasies took firmer root. Again, nothing was said about the future or the meaning of their connection. She didn’t even have his phone number.
When she returned home, she decided she couldn’t wait for another month to see him, so she drove back to Portland in two weeks. After wondering whether she should bother checking into her usual motel, she reserved a single night, with the anticipation of not needing the room Saturday night. She dressed and went to the ballroom where they had met the previous two times. She felt excited and anticipatory. He usually arrived to warm up before the first dance music started.
Then . . . there he was. With a woman. They walked in together. At first, it seemed as if their joint entrance had just been a coincidence, and Greta started walking across the floor to greet him. Then he put an arm around the woman’s shoulder and stroked her back slowly, leaving no doubt as to their relationship. Greta froze. Her happy mood and fantasies evaporated, as if they had never existed. She turned, walked stiffly back to the other side of the floor, and sat on a chair against the wall. Greg and the other woman went onto the floor and ran through dance moves. Their smooth movements and facial expressions left no question that they were not strangers. She was slender with light blonde hair, a good ten inches shorter than Greta, and very attractive. The type of woman to elicit all of Greta’s feelings of inadequacy.
Greta sat agonized through the first few dances, watching the one couple. When asked to dance by other men, she declined stonily. An hour into the two-hour session, she went up to Greg while he was standing alone, the woman likely off to the restroom. She asked him to dance. It was a tango. He accepted, and they danced unspeaking for the next two minutes. He said nothing about anything between them or about the other woman. It was as if the two weekends had never happened or were no more significant than the next dance. She later reflected that she had hoped it was the former.
At the end of the tango, he politely thanked her for the dance, the normal etiquette, and walked away, leaving her in the middle of the floor. Greta stood watching, as he went to the woman now standing at the side. They put their arms around each other and said something that must have been amusing because they both laughed.
Greta didn’t dance again and just sat against the wall, unseeing. She directed her gaze to random dancers, except for an occasional deliberate or accidental glimpse of Greg and the woman. She saw the two of them leave together, and she went back to the motel.
What an idiot! What in the world did I think this was all about? He never made any promises. It was just a casual thing for him. She scolded herself, It’s not like you had any claims, so get over it. You had two good weekends, maybe your best, so remember those and move on.
Her self-talk was all to the good and all useless. She lay on the motel room bed for most of an hour, still dressed for dancing, as far in the dumps as she could ever remember being—agitated, her mind whirling, and in no mood to sleep.
I need a drink, she thought.
The thought rose of its own volition. A seedy-looking bar was next to the motel. She put her dress jacket back on and left the motel, planning to have a drink or two, then try to get some sleep.
A Friday night crowd filled the bar, the clientele a mixture of working class and suits, mainly men. Greta sat at a booth that suddenly opened up, and when the waitress came over, she ordered a white wine. She didn’t specify a varietal and, when it came, downed it without noticing it. The waitress returned, and she ordered another one. Then a third. She was mellow and forgetting, for the moment, her emotions of the last few hours—at least, the depth of the emotions, if not the direction. Several couples danced something to the music. She felt like dancing. She ordered another glass.
When she awoke, her head hurt. Not bad, but as if a weight were pressing down on her skull, discouraging quick movements. Her mouth was dry. She needed a drink. Water.
Where am I? she wondered.
Her disorientation faded, as she recognized the motel dresser and mirror, her dress thrown across the chair, her dance shoes on the floor, and . . . a man’s shoes? She sat up with a jerk, the sheet falling away. She was naked. The bed shifted. She hadn’t moved. She turned her head slowly until she saw the man asleep next to her. He also was naked.
What happened last night? she wondered.
For a moment her memory was a blank. Then it slowly came back. The bar . . . many glasses of wine . . . a man asking her to dance . . . back to the motel . . . with the man.
