4. Julieta
Chapter four
Julieta
We wore the same size: nine. That was always a running joke, because Agostina is a size ten and Delfi is an eight, and so I was the shoe twin.
These shoes are a perfect nine: stretched, worn in, loved. A simple heel— maybe three inches at most—a curved front with some very small embellishments. Sturdy leather soles for gliding along the floor.
They’re beautiful. There’s no denying it. Maybe part of that is the sentiment talking, but I can’t stop looking at them.
I think about watching her dance now. How elegant and powerful she was. And I think about how she made all of those moves in these very shoes, the ones sitting on my lap at this moment.
I’m home, in my carefully curated downtown condo, the one only three miles from my office. Where I don’t have mismatched picture frames covering every corner of wall space. Or a leaf in my kitchen table to extend it for company. It’s not loud and booming, not filled with the sounds of conversation and music.
This home is quiet. It’s simple. It’s efficient. I liked that at first, how I could finally hear myself think after so many years growing up in a boisterous household, but right now it feels uncomfortably desolate. Too quiet, too simple. It might as well be a hotel room.
And these shoes deserve better.
Why the hell did I get her shoes?
I set the box down on the coffee table and bring my laptop over from my desk. I want to see her again, if only for a couple of minutes. If only through a screen. Nobody knows that I keep her old YouTube videos bookmarked for viewing whenever I get particularly sad. Or when I’ve had a long week. When I just need a little comfort in the form of her dancing. Nobody needs to know that I hold onto it like a child.
Delfi was the first to find these videos, one night when she took to looking up Argentinian travel guides and stumbled upon videos of Argentina’s most famous female tango dancer in between. There were only a handful then, but every now and then a new one will pop up—an old competition, a compilation of certain moves, a study on pivots.
I pull up the videos now, cueing up the first one. There she is: as graceful as ever, like seeing an old friend. And there are the shoes. Steps back, steps to the side, steps forward. A glide, a turn. I know these moves by heart now. I know the timing of them. At the one minute and fifteen second mark, there’s a perfect turn. At the two minute and twelve second mark there’s a dramatic pose.
I can feel my body slow down as it sinks into the couch. Like the equivalent of a warm cup of tea or the softest, plushiest blanket, I sink into this video, the dance, and the music.
The video ends, but a new one starts to play. One I haven’t seen before that was recently uploaded.
A compilation of celebrated dancer Celestina Rossi at the San Diego Tango Festival in honor of the upcoming festival this winter .
Suddenly, I’m eight again. I’m bright-eyed and captivated and so deeply sad. I miss her so much, a deep grief that has burrowed its way into my heart and made an uncomfortable home there.
My grandmother started dancing when she was around twelve during what was considered the golden age of tango. As she got older, she would sneak away to clubs at night and dance with whoever was willing to dance with her. And during those nights was how she met my grandfather, who had found himself in these clubs because his father played in the bands. He always tells the story of how he felt an immediate connection when he saw her, and by the third time they had run into each other, he was in love. And he told her as much. My grandmother laughed in his face, but she kept dancing with him. And she kept meeting up with him. And then they got married and competed all over the world. For my grandmother, tango might have seemed like the love of her life, but she always said it gave her the love of her life. And that held its own value.
My eyes then turn to the shoes on the table next to the laptop. As I look at them in the box, I can’t help but wonder what they would feel like on my feet.
“Well, they’re mine now,” I say to myself. “I guess I could just …”
I take them out of the box, hands shaking, delicately holding them. I’m almost waiting for them to turn to dust in my hands. A trick, an illusion. This whole thing has been a dream.
As I slide into the shoes, they feel perfect. Almost too perfect. Scarily perfect. The indents of her toes are embedded into the soles and mine fit into the space effortlessly. I stand and walk around, turning and twisting, striding from one end to the other. I could wear these shoes every moment of every day and feel entirely comfortable.
These shoes have seen the world. They’ve seen joy and wild abandon, power and grace. These shoes have had a life and now they have somehow managed to end up here, with me.
I put the lid back on and carry them with me to my bedroom. Once I set them down on the nightstand, I turn my lamp on. I can’t bear to put them away in the closet. Not now, not yet. So, I sneak glances at them while I brush my teeth, the start of my nighttime checklist. I think about the feel of them while I wash my face, step two. But I don’t grab my cases, and I don’t look through any folders, and I don’t think about work.
I think about the shoes. And I leave them there on the nightstand right next to me, the very last thing in my line of sight until I eventually fall asleep.
My alarm wakes me blaring at five am, and I stumble out of bed, still exhausted. I don’t want to move my body. It takes effort to do anything. When I look over and see the box on my nightstand, everything comes flooding back, as if I assumed the night before was some highly realistic dream.
I shower, get dressed, check my emails—three from Barbara—and brew coffee into my mug. The drive to work is mindless. I might as well be sleepwalking. I sip on my coffee as I listen to some news podcast, zoning out in the process. I go over my mental to-do list again: the notes from Barbara, the clients I need to contact, the standing meeting with Yuli’s Latina networking group tomorrow.
And once I get to the office, say my good mornings, and get another to-do item tacked on by Barbara, I fall into my chair and take one long deep breath in.
***
“Julie? Julie?”
I don’t know how long I’ve been staring into space, but Larissa’s concerned face that comes into view might be telling.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Yeah, sorry. I’m alright,” I respond.
“How’s the case coming along?”
“It’s coming. Yeah, it’s good. Working away at it.” I might be nodding my head too vigorously, so I stop, which just makes every move I make that much more jarring.
“Alright.” She sounds unconvinced. “Want to head to lunch in a bit?”
I check my watch, nodding again. “Sure. Give me ten minutes?”
She gives me a small smile, walking out of my office and next door to hers.
Ten minutes later, we're outside at the picnic tables. There's a welcome breeze today and dark clouds in the distance, signaling the incoming afternoon rain.
“So, he took me to a dance class! A ballroom dance class!” Larissa says as she unpacks her lunch.
“Oh?” I must sound more interested than I ever have in Larissa’s dating life, so she keeps going.
“Yeah. Some ballroom down on Tenth Street. It was fun! Well, what am I telling you for? You know all about that.” She waves it off.
Larissa was working here when my grandmother passed away two years ago and I had surprisingly told Larissa the brief details of her life—celebrated tango dancer, beloved grandmother. Maybe I was just looking for somebody to share something with, somebody besides my own family who had their own stories, were dealing with their own grief. I had to be there for them, and my grief was lost in the shuffle, so I talked to Larissa about it instead. Quick, short tidbits so I wasn’t taking up all the conversation, but enough to get it off my chest.
“I’ve never done ballroom classes,” I reply.
“Well, that makes sense. You wouldn’t need to!”
“I don’t know about that,” I add.
“I love those stories you told me about your grandmother,” she practically swoons. “Well, this date was not that. You ever date somebody who takes you to a competitive activity, but he doesn’t like to lose?”
I think about Jeremy—my last boyfriend who was certainly competitive, but hardly took me anywhere. I shake my head. “Can’t say that I have.”
“Not that a ballroom dance class is competitive, but he sure acted like it. Like he needed to be better than everybody there. He couldn’t look like the new guy, or a novice, Heaven forbid.” She rolls her eyes, dipping a carrot stick in ranch. “And when the instructor corrected him and complimented me, he almost lost his shit.” She laughs. The aggressive crunch of the carrot breaks through her words. “I shouldn’t be laughing at that, ‘cause honestly, what a fucking tool.”
Her dating stories are not unlike Agostina’s dating stories. The plight of trying to meet somebody in your thirties: the societal expectations, the metaphorical clock. Hell, our family loves to desperately throw the word husband around. “You remind me of my cousin,” I tell her.
“Is she also a hot mess? Is that what you’re saying?” She laughs again.
I chuckle at that, quick and low. “No, no.” She’s a vibrant force to be reckoned with, I want to tell her. “She is bold and brave to continually put herself out there. That’s what I mean. All these losers are missing out,” I tell her instead.
Larissa giggles in response, but it’s soft around the edges when she says, “Thanks, Julie. Same to you.”
“I guess I’d have to go out and actually meet people for that, though.” I give her a tight smile. An uncomfortable realization that perhaps good things come to those who actually go out and do . “So, what kind of dancing did you do?” I ask, bringing the conversation back.
“Oh! Well, there were all the classics … the waltz and the foxtrot and the tango .” She emphasizes the last word, and it hits something in me. It quickly reminds me of the shoes, the ones still on my nightstand, still in the box, still taunting me.
“Did you like it?” I find myself asking her.
“I did! I mean, the company sucked, but it was fun.” She shrugs.
“That’s good,” I nod, but I can’t shake the feeling I’m getting now. I look at the time. Lunch break is over. “Well, time to head back.”
“Yeah,” she sighs. “I’m almost done with the documents for the Lorenzo case, so I’ll bring them over to you by the end of the day.”
We gather our leftover lunches and slowly walk back into the building side by side.
“Start on the notes for the Turner case when you can, please,” I call out, heading right to my office. And when I enter it, I get back to my own pile, my own to-do list, my head down.
Except the shoes pull me from my work. The conversation at lunch is still wedged in the back of my mind. It’s all a distraction I can’t afford, but I think about the women in my life that got up and made shit happen without any fear. My grandmother, who decided to take up dancing as a young woman and continue on to compete. Who traveled all over the world and created a life she wanted to live. My mother, who packed up her family and built a life in a new country.
And I look at myself in the mirror and wonder where the ball got dropped. My life is one comprised of guilt and fear. I live in calculated decisions and apologies. I don’t jet set around the world. I certainly didn’t start a new life in a new country, relying on my own strengths and the kindness of strangers to get by.
All I’ve got is a list I’ve been checking off intently every day of my life to make my parents proud, a job I work way too fucking hard at, and now some shoes.
But what if.
I look around the office, find everybody deep in their own work, then pull up Google to search for tango classes near me. A small list comes up. The number one hit is that ballroom where Larissa went on the date, but another one in particular catches my eye. Something like what I’m looking for. Dance classes specific to tango, a couple of miles from here in a dance studio in downtown New River. A new twelve-week session starts this Thursday with—according to the website—renowned tango dancers Logan Beck and Tara O’Byrne.
That’s too soon. I would have to coordinate with my clients, figure out my schedule and the timing of it.
Twelve weeks of the fundamentals of tango , it reads. Each week will focus on a different technique. We will work together to give you confidence, make you a strong tango dancer, and most of all, have fun while doing it.
That’s a tall order.
But what if I put aside some of the logical thinking for a minute? Clearly nothing is logical if I’m even entertaining doing this. Maybe I like the idea of being a strong tango dancer or gaining confidence or, shockingly, having fun. I don’t even know what that word means anymore.
I hover above the Sign up now! button, my heart racing as I consider doing it. What if my family found out? My fingers twitch just a little. Should I even be spending money on something so frivolous? My hand moves off the mouse. Maybe the shoes weren’t meant to be worn, just admired from a distance.
“I can’t do this right now,” I whisper, just in case anybody else can see what I’m trying to do on my computer. In my own office. Behind a locked door. I’m getting paranoid.
A quick knock breaks me out of my stupor. I rapidly minimize the screen.
“Come in,” I say, trying to sound as calm as I can.
Jim pokes his head in, paperwork in hand. “Hey Julie, could you stay late on Thursday?” he asks, not really waiting for an answer. “Barbara said you didn’t have anything else going on and you’d say yes.”
Of course, she did.
“I can’t,” I blurt out.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, I forgot I have … something important that came up.” I must look pale as a ghost.
“Oh.” He’s surprised. “Okay, not a problem. I’ll get Larissa on it.” He walks away, leaving the door ajar behind him.
I look back at my computer, pulling up the website I couldn’t let myself exit out of.
Maybe the shoes were meant to be worn. What if they are a sign to take command of my life? What if I want to do something for myself for once? Something I can love, something that can bring back some zest for life. Something that can help me reclaim my time. No emails, no messages, no phone calls from Barbara.
No assumptions that I have nothing else going on.
What if I took one step outside of my comfort zone? Just one step.
Would it change everything?
Fire at my fingertips, I click on the Sign up now! button and quickly fill out the form. Once I submit it, I step back and try not to think about the most impulsive thing I’ve done in about ten years. You’d think I just decided to rob a bank.
Maybe abuela wanted me to do this. Maybe she didn’t. But maybe the more important part is that I want to. I think.
Maybe I want to try.
Larissa peeks her head in. “Hot date?” she says with a smirk.
I jump, startled from her accusation. “No, no. Just … a family thing.”
“Oh.” Her face falls. “That’s no fun.”
I feel guilty for lying, giving her an answer that could easily dismiss her. But Larissa is kind and thoughtful, and she tries. And she indirectly put this idea in my head, so I can’t help but change my answer and tell her instead, “I’m trying something new.”
Her face lights up. “As you should,” she responds supportively.
“I’ll let you know how it goes.” I aim for friendly.
“Can’t wait!”
“Sorry Jim threw more work your way.”
“It’s fine.” She shrugs. “Better to be productive here than to be out on another disappointing date.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Now I feel guilty about doing this, about having somebody else pick up my slack. “Well, let me finish up what I can to keep your work to a minimum.”
“Thanks, Julie,” she says, a grateful smile on her face as she leaves my office and heads back to her own.
And then I make it a point to work until I’m the last one in this building to make up for the time I’ll be spending away from it.