On Friday night, I arrive at the social right at ten, just as a drop-in class is finishing. I take a seat on one of the couches, already feeling a little more at home in the studio. I change out of street shoes and into my dance shoes. All around me, I watch people doing the same. Observing this little ritual of people stretching and getting ready to take the floor is oddly comforting. The setting and accoutrements couldn’t be more different from the start shack at the top of a mountain, but there’s a feeling that’s familiar, a coiled readiness. We’re preparing to drop in.

The first two hours are all tango, for beginners like me who’ve come to practice what they’ve been paying Gianluca to teach them. Feet nervously find purchase, uncertain hands seek tenuous connection, occasionally a daring leg slides up the side of a partner’s. Gianluca asks me to dance three times, and each time it feels like dismounting an old bicycle and stepping into a top-of-the-line sports car—all smoothness and control and plush, delicious-smelling leather. I feel drugged when he steps away.

As the hour creeps toward midnight, more of the advanced dancers—all of whom seem to know each other—arrive, and I become increasingly intimidated. The team members are all lean and fit, athletes, my people, even if they don’t realize it. They glide and swivel and turn effortlessly, and the music appears to move straight through them. Their upper bodies remain fixed and still while their legs swoop beneath them, frictionless. Eventually I move to the sidelines, realizing I don’t really belong on this run. I shake my head a bit at the clueless beginners who still clumsily pick their way across the floor, occasionally colliding with the better dancers.

Cali, the beautiful assistant from the first class, arrives around eleven thirty.

“Hi. Liz, right?” I’m flattered she recognizes me, even though I have been here a lot.

I nod. “How are you?”

“Good.” She smiles. “Glad you came. Are you having fun?” The way she asks is almost proprietary, and I wonder how she came to feel so at home here.

“I am. It’s a little scary to actually dance in the real world.”

She laughs. “This studio is very far from the real world. But I know what you mean. Are you staying nearby?”

“I’m renting an apartment in San Telmo.”

“I work over there, a few nights a week. A bar called Red Door,” she says. “You should come by.”

I smile and am about to say something when I’m interrupted.

“Ca-leeeeeee!” Gemma, the British woman from the New Year’s party, tumbles in behind her, along with Edward. I’ve been hoping to see them again.

“Oh hello!” Gemma says when she sees me. “From New Year’s Eve, Edward! Our American friend.”