"Will you dance with me?" Anna raised her head and looked at the bald man, much older than her. He was dressed terribly. She was not ambiguously sure what is the proper way of saying no. Her eyes suddenly fixed on his eyes. He had the kindest eyes she had seen for a long time. They were entreating and impatient for her answer. "Sure." She said.
On the dance floor, they impressed everyone. Anna's practicing by herself paying off. Joseph, a natural dancer, was not inexperienced at all. In fact, he had mastered ballroom dancing with the help of an old girlfriend, who had been a dance instructor. His natural way of leading Anna to the fast disco music, nevertheless, relieved her shyness and very soon she forgot that Melisa had not shown up. When the music stopped, she wished for another fast dance. Strangely, dancing, something she had never done in public, released her tension and anger of her cursed life by awakening something so foreign in her. she felt drops of sweat running down her face and into her silk fuchsia blouse. The next dance was a slow one. Being that close to a man she just met was wonderful and scary.
When they were leaving the dance floor, Joseph ashed her: "Where are you from? I detect an accent." Anna sighed and said in her speaking mind: "I can never get rid of my accent." "Italian!" Suddenly Joseph began talking Italian to her. She, embarrassed, shocked, and bewildered, had no choice but to interrupt him: "I am not Italian. I was born in Iran." He laughed. She was not sure why she lied. Perhaps because many people had told her that she looked Italian, or may be because of the two countries bad relation since Iranian Revolution.
The embarrassment stayed with her and she felt like running away of this assumingly Italian man. By this time they were at the exit door. The band was playing again. Joseph was determined to dance more with this strange woman; but another man walked to Anna and asked her for dance. Anna did not see the disappointment in Joseph's eyes. She wanted to get away from him.
*
Joseph, that evening was working on the footnote of his latest book when Bob, the director of a single group he belonged to called him. "Listen, there is this dinner dance at the church. I have five women going and no men. Please come."
"Oh, no, Bob. I am working on my book. I have a deadline. I can't." When Bob called back after ten minutes, Joseph was very upset. "I told you I cant." "Please, I promise you'll have fun." Joseph thought for a moment. He had been working all day. He had to eat anyway. "All right. But I can't stay long."
At the church, he asked all those five women for dance, and they all refused him as though he had a plague. Then he noticed Anna, the strange woman, who seemed not knowing what she wanted. He thought to himself: " I ask her for a dance and if she says no, I just go back home."
That was how Anna and Joseph met.
*
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