Barn Dance Crush at Portagee Hall

The annual community barn dance was the highlight of summer in Ferndale. For one night, the Portuguese Hall was transformed into a dance hall with strings of colored lights, a makeshift stage for the local band, and a wooden floor cleared for dancing.

At fourteen, I’d been attending for years, but this summer felt different. It was the first year I was going as a potential participant rather than an observer.

The year before was my coming out, where all the older women danced me into climbing out a kitchen window and hiding in the parking lot to rest my sore feet. This year, it was going to be different, as I was going to dance with Sarah.

“You clean up nice,” my cousin Kath teased as I headed out the door in my best jeans, a freshly pressed shirt, and boots that had seen more polish in the past week than in their entire existence.

I ignored her, my heart already thudding against my ribs like a trapped bird.

Sarah Jenkins lived on the ranch three miles east of ours. We’d ridden and played together for years, but suddenly, something had changed.

Where before she’d just been Sarah, the girl with the freckles and the ponytail, she was now Sarah, the girl who made my hands sweat and my brain turn to mush. I’d seen her at the feed store last week, and we’d talked for all of thirty seconds about the price of alfalfa.

In those thirty seconds, I’d managed to stumble over my own feet, knock over a display of chicken feed, and turn the color of a ripe tomato. Sarah laughed, not unkindly, but with a genuine amusement that made me want to crawl under the floorboards and never come out.

“You going to the barn dance?” she’d asked as I helped restack the feed bags.

“Yeah,” I’d managed, though it came out more like a croak.

“Me too,” she’d said, smiling. “Maybe I’ll see you there.”

Now, as I walked toward the hall, those words echoed in my head. Maybe I’ll see you there. It wasn’t exactly an invitation, but it wasn’t ‘not’ an invitation either.

The barn was already buzzing when I arrived. The band, a local group called The Haystackers, was warming up, and the air was thick with the smell of popcorn, sawdust, and something sweet I couldn’t identify.

Familiar faces nodded as I made my way through the crowd. I grabbed a soda from the refreshment table and positioned myself near the wall, trying to look casual and not like someone who was desperately scanning the room for a girl with freckles and a ponytail.

Then I saw her. She was standing by the stage, talking to her older brother, and she was wearing a simple blue dress that made her eyes look like the summer sky. She laughed at something her brother said, and my stomach did a flip-flop that had nothing to do with the soda I was drinking.

The band kicked into their first song, a classic two-step that had everyone scrambling for partners. I watched as couples filled the floor, moving with an ease that came from years of practice. Sarah was already dancing with some boy I didn’t recognize, and something that felt suspiciously like jealousy twisted in my gut.

The next song was a line dance, which I could handle without making a complete fool of myself. I joined in, trying to focus on the steps, not on the fact that Sarah was now dancing with someone else.

The third song was another two-step, and this time, I was determined. I’d been riding bulls since I was fourteen. I’d faced down angry steers and navigated treacherous mountain trails.

How hard could asking a girl to dance be? Apparently, very hard.

I made three attempts that night. The first time, I got within five feet of Sarah before my courage failed me and I suddenly found myself intensely interested in a loose nail on the wall.

The second time, I actually started toward her, only to be intercepted by Mrs. Henderson, who wanted to know if my dad was still in Vietnam. By the time I escaped, Sarah was back on the dance floor with yet another partner.

The third time was the most humiliating. I’d finally worked up my nerve, taken a deep breath, and started across the floor.

I was halfway there when someone called my name, and I turned to see my buddy Jake waving enthusiastically. In my distraction, I failed to notice the puddle of spilled soda on the floor, and I went down with a splash that drew laughter from half the room.

I scrambled to my feet, my face burning, and retreated to the relative safety of the refreshment table, where I remained for the next two songs.

I was about to give up and go home when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to find Sarah standing there, her expression unreadable.

“Having a good night?” she asked.

“Great,” I lied. “Just taking a break.”

She nodded toward the dance floor, where the band had launched into a slow song. “My feet are tired. Want to sit this one out with me?”

We found a couple of hay bales near the open barn doors, where the evening breeze provided some relief from the stuffiness inside.

“I saw you fall,” she said, and my face heated up again. “That was impressive.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled. “I try.”

She laughed, and it was even more up close than it had been at the feed store. “You know, for someone who can ride a bull like you can, you’re surprisingly awkward on your feet.”

I looked at her, surprised. “You’ve seen me ride?”

“Of course,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I was at the ranch gathering last month. You were amazing on that second bull.”

The bull she was referring to had nearly unseated me twice, and I’d barely held on for the required eight seconds. “Amazing” wasn’t the word I would have used.

We talked for the rest of that song and the next, about everything and nothing. About rodeos and ranch work, about school and plans for the future, about the annoying younger siblings we both had.

The more we talked, the more my nervousness faded, replaced by something else, a comfortable ease I hadn’t expected. Sarah wasn’t the unapproachable goddess I’d built her up to be in my mind. She was just a girl, a funny, smart, interesting girl who happened to have eyes the color of the summer sky.

“You know,” she said as the band started up again, “I was hoping you’d ask me to dance tonight.”

My mouth went dry. “You were?”

She nodded. “But you seemed kind of busy. Falling down and talking to walls.”

I managed a weak laugh. “Yeah, well. Turns out courage on a horse doesn’t always translate to courage asking someone to dance.”

Then the final song of the night was announced, another slow one. Sarah stood up and held out her hand.

“Well?” she said, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Feel like translating some of that horse courage?”

I took her hand, my palm sweating despite my best efforts, and followed her to the dance floor. My movements were clumsy at first, but Sarah was patient, guiding me through the steps with a confidence I envied.

As we danced, the colored lights casting patterns on the floor, I realized something. This closeness, the conversation, the simple act of moving together to the music, was scarier and more exhilarating than anything I’d ever faced.

It required a different kind of courage, a vulnerability that didn’t come naturally to me. But as Sarah rested her head on my shoulder, her hair smelling of something sweet I couldn’t identify, I thought that maybe, just maybe, it was a courage worth developing.

Sarah’s brother gave us a ride home, dropping Sarah off first. She paused before getting out of the truck.

“Same time next year?” she asked, her eyes meeting mine in the dim light of the dashboard.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” I said, and meant it.

As I watched her walk toward her house, I thought about the night, about the failed attempts, the embarrassing fall, the unexpected conversation. I’d come to the barn dance expecting to prove something, to show Sarah that I was brave and capable and worthy of her attention.

Instead, I’d learned that sometimes courage isn’t about grand gestures or fearless acts. Sometimes it’s about admitting you’re nervous, about falling and getting back up, about being vulnerable enough to let someone see the awkward, uncertain parts of you.

And sometimes, if you’re lucky, that’s exactly what makes someone notice you in the first place.