Who remembers that awful come back song by Blondie? What was it? Difficult title.... yes. A bit long...? Oh that's it! - "Maria". It's a song that in 1999 I'd sooner have forgotten.
I was 2 weeks away from returning to the UK for good, I'd recently split from my Spanish boyfriend and had gained a lot of tapas weight. I was still hopeful to have a brief relationship or two before departing the country, um, let's word that differently, I wanted to get my leg over or under.
One night I was at this club, it was a boat, moored to the quay. Marjorie (Felchman) and I queued and got in and we immediately went about pretending our names were Olga and Masha, two post Cold War spies. I wanted to appear exotic and impress, it didn't matter that I only knew two words of the language - "spaseba" (sp?) and "taxi" pronounced taahksi. Marjorie played along, but her Russian was even more limited than mine, the accent more Rome than Moscow. We spied two bespectacled middle-aged gentlemen, got up close and continued our tower of babel dialogue. "Sois de Rusia?" they asked. Eventhough I knew Spanish, I thought best to pretend I didn't for more authenticity (not really, I just didn't know how to speak Spanish with a Russian accent). They asked again, but this time in English, which I replied in very broken English "Yes, Ruski".
We grew tired of this academic duo, who seemed ridiculously excited to meet a blonde and raven-haired Russian couple. But we were tired of the pretense and wanted to dance. That's when Mr Gorgeous walked through the door. I didn't know his name, but I'd salivated over him a couple of times before in other locals - he had Richard Gere's face with Michael Bolton's hair - I was crazy about him! He wasn't alone, he was with a middle-aged woman, I was hoping probably his mother. I began hopping up and down in a frenzy and Marjorie said "I'm going to dance - it's Maria". I turned and followed her to the dance floor...
...So, we started dancing, fine so far. Then the Richard Gere/Michael Bolton hair-look-alike joins us, I'm still dancing, smiling, laughing, hands through hair like an idiot. Then the beat changes and I suddenly find it impossible to dance to and I start stomping, just that, stomping. Like I'm trying to wipe dog poo off both shoes. I look up and he has gone, moved to a far away corner and is chatting to his middle-aged chaperone never acknowledging me again. I guess it was my bad dancing but I will always blame the song "Maria".
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