X:And man sweat
X:And the blood of my vanquished enemies
X:You there?
Me:Laughing
X:Take your time
CHAPTER 39
Argentine Tango Friday
ON FRIDAY, FIFIis dressed in full Argentine tango splendor: short, cherry-red asymmetrical dress complete with fringe. Thefringe is also asymmetrical. Her shoes are red, high and strappy.
X wolf-whistles at her when he walks in. “You’re hot fire today,” he says.
She strikes a dramatic pose with her right hip jutted out and her left leg extended. Her facial expression is somewhere betweenI want to kiss youandI want to murder you.She meets my eyes in the mirror. “You will wear very similar outfit for competition,” she says.
I protest. “It’s a little short, Fifi.”
“You have legs for it.” It’s a complimentandan order.
Beside me, X just kind of laughs into his fist.
“Now,” she says, clapping her hands together. “Argentine tango is my favorite dance in all the world. It is seductive. It is sorrowful. It is sensual.”Zeductive. Zorrowful. Zensual.
X looks at me, laughter dancing in his eyes. I slap my hand over my mouth so I don’t have a giggling fit.
“My first tango instructor say he would spend his last three minutes on earth dancing the tango. When you two feel like that, then you know you are ready.”
“Damn, Fi, that’s a lot of pressure,” X says.
“That is tango,” she says. She stomps her foot. “Now, we get started.”
She positions us in the center of the studio a few feet away from the front mirror. “First thing to know is that hold is closed,” she says, and adjusts our arms. Once she’s satisfied with that, she circles and corrects us until our spines are straight but tilted slightly toward each other. “Now you put chests together.”
My heart takes off at full speed. I’m not sure where it’s going.
Next she moves us on to the tango walk, which is more a dramatic glide than a walk. In a normal walk, your heel touches first, then the middle, then your toes. In the tango walk, it’s the opposite.
“Other thing to know is that tango is dance of improvisation. I will teach you steps and techniques, but you have to put them together when you dance. You have to feel.”
She faces the mirror and begins swaying to a song in her head. “X, when you dance you must lead her into her passion. You must seduce her mind with your body so that she is yours for the taking. And Evie, you must give yourself to him—”
“That’s totally sexist,” I say.
She waves me off. “Yes, of course. That is tango,” she says again.
We practice for two hours. Fifi alternates between praising my technical skills and lamenting my inability to “give in to passion of music.”
“Tango is dance of desire. For the three minutes of tango, there is nothing else but him. While you are dancing, you belong to him.”
“Once again, totally sexist,” I say.
“To be desired is also powerful, no?” she says.
I don’t know about that.
