The Last Milonga

I am standing in the narrow hallway of the hotel room, staring at the empty space where Esteban should be, holding a pair of black patent shoes that do not fit me. The Buenos Aires summer air is thick enough to chew, pressing against the open window with the smell of diesel and frying onions from the street below. The festival starts in four hours. I have no partner.

I am thirty-eight years old, a tango teacher who flew twelve thousand miles to compete in a category I trained for six months to enter, and I am about to walk onto the floor alone because my partner tore his calf muscle drinking beer on the subway.

The door clicks open.