Baila Bien

While I was an ELL (English Language Learners) teacher, I signed up for a summer Spanish immersion program in Mexico sponsored by my school district. Not all my students spoke Spanish, but the point of my two-week field trip, which entailed living with a host family and going to formal language classes during the day, was to show me and my fellow educators what it felt like to be one of our students—navigating a foreign land and learning a foreign language at the same time. Yes, I was up for the academic challenge, but at forty-something with teenagers and a long-time hubby at home, I was also up for an adventure!

We landed in Cuernavaca on a Saturday, and our first Friday night, Nancy, one of my twenty-something roommates, said, “Hey, wanna go to Zumbales? It’s a dance club where I’m meeting some other teachers from our program.”

“Sure.” I put on a tiered skirt, some lipstick, and we hailed a green and white Volkswagen taxi at the end of our street.

When we got to the club, I handed the dark, barrel-chested taxi driver a veinte peso bill, so I wouldn’t have to figure out change with all those pesky centavos in the dark.

“Gracias,” I tried out my beginner Spanish.

He reached behind. “Por nada.” 

Even without my limited Spanish, I stuck out like a potato in a pot full of chili peppers with my fair complexion and red hair, and I wondered if I was considered attractive in Mexico or pale, and undercooked. On the downside of the proverbial hill, coasting towards menopause, I questioned my sex appeal more and more, even in my own country, even though I was happily married to a great guy.

As I got out of the cramped back seat, I pulled up my long skirt to avoid the rush of water flooding the street after a sudden cloudburst drenched our ride to the club, and noticed men clustered around the door like crumbs around a mouth. I could feel their eyes on my leg, and wondered what am I doing here?     

Nancy and I entered the cavernous club, and went down, down, down the stairs feeling the pulse of the congas as if we were getting closer to the throbbing heat at the center of the earth. The clang of cowbells, the shout of trumpets, the scratch of maracas, syncopated the beat as we walked beside the dimly lit dance floor, and I frantically looked for our friends from the university. Finally, there they were, three of them, perched like condors on a balcony with hanging ferns and glowing candles. I ascended the stairs past more men, more eyes, as the Latin rhythm seeped into my skin.

 “Que quieres,” a waiter asked as we joined our friends at the table. Nancy ordered a Dos XX.

“Yo también,” I said hoping I’d said what I meant, me too.

I tried to have a conversation with my friends in English, but it was impossible. The music was everywhere, having its way with everyone below us. I watched to see how their bodies responded to salsas, cumbias, merengues, dances so alien to someone who grew up with the jerk, the twist, the just groov’in to The Grateful Dead while stoned. How had I become this prim and proper old lady too shy to respond to the music?

I took a swig of my cerveza for courage as Gerald, from our group, asked me to dance. I could already feel the sweat dripping under my arms as I descended the stairs past more men, more eyes, and onto the dance floor. The spotlight seemed directly over us, and I wanted to try this out in a darker corner.

I told Gerald, “I don’t know how to dance like this.”

He took my hand. “Don’t worry. I’m originally from Texas,” as if that was key.

This was a man I’d only recently conjugated verbs with. Nervously, I let him spin and twirl me. It wasn’t so hard. I heard the rhythm. I closed my eyes and let go. There was no doubt what my feet wanted to do. My hips came out from hiding and swayed beneath my airy cotton skirt. I didn’t want the music to stop, but when it did, a winded Gerald led me back up the stairs to our aerie.

Back at the table, I took another sip from my cerveza, and a handsome man in a black shirt, and black pants, extended his hand over Nancy towards me. Was Zorro asking me to dance?

I pointed at myself, and he said “Si.”

I took his hand as we descended to the dance floor.

“Como se llama,” I asked, trying out more Spanish.

“Augustino,” he replied, “Y tu?” 

“Ana,” I used my Spanish name as if I was changing my identity. His arm slipped around my waist, and I felt under his power. He led me to a dark corner in front of the band. I was one with the beat. I mirrored his footwork. He spun me, twirled me, dipped me, wrapped his arms around me.

“Baila bien!” he said, and I relaxed at his compliment.

He raised my right hand. “Pero, Mas suave.”

I relaxed my death grip. He was a good instructor, and I understood everything he said.

He drew me closer. His hands caressed me in rhythm to the music, around my waist, behind my back, across my shoulders, down my arms, holding my hands.

He motioned with a finger to spin, and whispered in my ear, “Lentamente.”  Slowly we promenaded another circle to the beat. He put me in front of him.

“Abajo,” I went down.

“Arriba,” I came back up to the intoxicating rhythm. The music was the master. I was his puppet.

And then, the song was over.

 I stood still uncertain. Spanish verb tenses sloshed in my head like socks in a washing machine until the only word that matched was another, “Gracias.”

I started to walk away, but he pulled me back. Un otro?” I knew he meant another dance.

Why not? It was fun! “Si, muy divertito.”

The beat recommenced, and we were once again strangers dancing in the darkness even though his touch was as intimate as a lover’s. The music saved me from having to explain myself in Spanish—I was just a middle-aged schoolteacher with bills piled on my desk, dishes piled in my sink, worries crowding my brain as I ground through my routine day after day. I didn’t want to know he was probably a work-a-day dad, perhaps on his night off, hoping to prove himself a stud as much as I needed to be a beauty.

 Then, I felt his breath on my neck. “Very sexy,” he whispered in English.

At first, I thought it was another dance cue, but he pinned me against the bandstand with his pelvis obviously at attention. Should I have been flattered? Annoyed? I really didn’t want to deal with this. I wanted to stay in a world where nothing mattered but the music. Where he was Antonio Banderas and I was Selma Hayek.

Suddenly I saw Gerald, standing on the edge of the dance floor, motioning that the group was leaving. I snapped back to reality like a brittle rubber band, conceding the clock had struck midnight, my dance partner was not Prince Charming, and I definitely didn’t want to lose my slipper. 

I gently pushed Augustino away, and said a quick, “Gracias.”

I grabbed my purse, and ascended from the grotto to the street. The mini flash flood had ebbed. There was Nancy waiting for me.

I tucked my skirt back into the taxicab, and she said, “No one asked me to dance all night. Tomorrow let’s try a techno club.” Yikes!

Back at our Mexican host’s house I lied down on my bed and listened to the barking dogs, the laughter and the music, the Latin music, wafting from the barrio through my open window, and I thought, in Mexico I am not old after all. I am, “Very sexy.”

That was years ago, and looking back, my trip to Cuernavaca wasn’t only about learning a foreign language or understanding how to better teach my students English. It was about understanding myself. I wasn’t really looking for adventure. I was looking for an identity that could stand the test of time. Wondering, if as I aged, I was still worth loving.

Now that my youth has fled, I can assure you, I’ve found what I was looking for, a pursuing God who proves his love lentamente through all life’s dips and twirls. A love that holds on muy suave till the end of the dance. And when the music finally stops, I pray he’ll whisper in my ear, “Baila bien, good and faithful servant.”  

His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.

Matthew 25:23 (ESV)

Copyright Ann C. Averill 2022

Cover photo by sydney Rae on Unsplash