The gala ball at the Adam's Mark Hotel for the cancer society was a huge black-tie affair. I hadn't wanted to go in the first place, the idea of spending the evening with a bunch of folks who where there to be seen just grated on me. I didn't mind the tuxedo, I had always enjoyed the dressing up part, I just couldn't stand the type of people generally forced upon me at these affairs. The news that I was going alone due to a sick elder Aunt was the frosting on the cake. I was then reminded how important this was and that we already had the tickets and that with her out of town I had no plans for dinner anyways, and they always did have the lobster bisque. Blah, blah, blah. So there I was, going stag to the Ball. Ho hum. Boring!
Dinner was, I admit, a great deal better than I had hoped for. The seating placed me with a lithe and lovely young lady who also ended up there alone. I was old enough to be her father, almost, and we settled into easy conversation and I actually found myself enjoying the company and the conversation. She was ravishing in her shimmering black, sleek and slinky cocktail dress. A black diaphanous affair with one strap over the shoulder, leaving the other bare and a slit up one leg that showed a wonderful line of leg and a damn ed fine thigh. A simple strand of pearls and gold dangling earrings. Her glasses gave her a coquettish librarian look. The fantasy teacher every twelve year old boy prays for throughout puberty.
Through cheesecake and coffee we listened to the orchestra start up; Big Band and Swing Jazz. We laughed that we had both dreaded the thought of being here alone and that we were happy that providence had somehow fated us to sit at the same table at the hotel.
I asked her to dance, as a number with a moaning saxophone and brushes on the drums was just getting going. A slow dance in a darkened room, the glittering ball casting a thousand shimmering lights as it twirled ever so slowly overhead. It was as if time had regressed and we were dancing in the 1940's. My right hand holding her left, at shoulder height, my left upon her waist, her upon my arm, our feet shuffling on the floor as we continued to chat while we danced.