Two to Tango (Tango #1)

Prologue

Julieta

When I was eight years old, I got to watch my grandmother compete for the first time. She had traveled to the States for a tango competition —one that was local to us—and I sat there completely captivated.

Everybody will tell you that Celestina Rossi was captivating when she danced. That was the word. When she walked out onto that stage everybody knew they were in the presence of somebody great.

My mother insisted that we were all going to go see her. We got dressed up, and it felt like a rare special event. I got to wear my new outfit and lace-up canvas shoes. My brother was bored, of course, but he was only five.

I couldn’t help but fall completely in love with what I was watching. It was like she glided on air. Her moves were swift but purposeful. She was strong but delicate.

Strong legs, graceful arms. Powerful, mesmerizing and so glamorous.

Her lips were painted a deep wine red —her signature—and she wore a dress that swayed every time she moved, almost as if it was dancing with her, trying to keep up. Facundo, my grandfather and her longtime dance partner, danced with her, too, leading her gracefully.

I watched them take perfect steps across the floor. I sat silently watching their bodies entwined as they moved forward and back, from one end of the dance floor to the other. She danced like she loved: with abandon, with passion, with feeling.

From the corner of my eye, I caught my mother looking at me curiously, but I was too hypnotized to look away. I felt frozen, trapped in the beauty of what I was witnessing, completely succumbed to the music.

And in that moment, at that table, in a tango championship watching my grandmother dance a beautiful dance, I thought, I want to be her when I grow up.

But I was eight. What did I know anyway?

I grew up to be a lawyer instead.