The edge of the dance floor is a dangerous place to sit. A stiletto might land on your freshly-painted toenails or a twirling dervish in your lap. Or … you could be asked to dance. With a 56-year history as a non-dancer, I certainly hadn’t planned to put myself in harm’s way the night I joined my friend, Sherrie, and her friends for dinner in the bar of The Cliff House. But to my dismay, when I turned around to “face the music” after dinner, I found myself in the “ask-me-to-dance” zone.

At any other time in my life, I would have excused myself from the scene of the impending crime, or at the very least, found another chair. But as fate would have it, I’d been courting a yen to date again after 15 years and was in a rare mood of abandon. One man from our dinner party asked me to dance and seemed undaunted by the news that I didn’t know how. The song? Too long. My rubber-soled shoes? All wrong. At the end? “Don’t take such big steps,” said he. Surprisingly, a second man asked me to dance—and while he more fun to dance with, he moved too fast with both feet and hands.

To amuse myself and hopefully appear occupied, I began to gaze with deep interest at the dance floor—as if looking for someone I’d lost there and hadn’t been able to replace.

And that’s when I spotted The Dancin’ Man.

Atop his dark, curly hair sat a black fedora, and though it was dim in the bar, he wore sun glasses. When he took them off, his warm, open face was like the sun emerging from behind an eclipse. Whether dancing alone, dancing freestyle with a woman, or partner-dancing, he exuded joy. The more I tried to look away, the more my eye, like a magnet with no will of its own, turned back in his direction. When he asked my friend, Sherrie, to dance, I watched as the two of them moved together—though apart—in tune with something more than the music. Perhaps they put me in a trance. I only know that taking my cue from other dancing trios I’d observed, I got up and joined them.

A couple of songs later, The Dancin Man made his way over to me. “Want to dance?” he asked, putting out his hand in a display of confidence.

“Okay, but I have to warn you that I don’t know how to partner dance.”

“I’ll show you,” he said, taking my hand and leading me out onto the dance floor.

Unlike my previous partners, who felt it necessary to grip my hand and move me about to the beat of their will, Dancin’ Man was relaxed. He didn’t seem to have any other agenda than to show me a good time and have fun doing it.

“Follow your arm,” he said gently the first time he raised it for a turn—and I’d gone the opposite direction.

“Don’t worry about your feet. Just let them move to the music,” he offered, freeing me of clumsy attempts to make my feet match his.

“Relax. You’re doing fine.” A smile flashed below his sunglasses.

Within minutes, I was dancing—or more importantly, I felt like I was dancing. With a tip of his hat and a bow at the end of the too-short song, he walked me back to my seat and moved on. Not wanting to slip into eye-stalking mode, I forced myself to search for Sherrie on the dance floor, go to the restroom and page the waitress for more water.  But every time my attention returned to the moving sea of bodies, I was staring at The Dancin Man again without my own permission.

Gallantly, he rescued me from my internal warfare by asking me to dance again. “I’m Johnnie,” he said as we stepped into each other’s arms. “I’m Maridel.” He nodded and off we went. This time he ventured out, twirling, rather than just turning me. “Always take your time on the twirls,” he said. “The lady determines the speed.” And then, instead of walking me back to my seat, he asked me to dance again.