A new awakening

Returning once more to the Iris theme, (and why not?) I recall how February 1973 was so very different from those January days of doubts and dashed hopes.
After I had written the poem for her and told her how I felt, the next few days saw a change in her manner towards me. I was greeted with an enthusiastic hug whenever I saw her and our meetings showed definite promise of a lasting relationship. We were beginning to spend more and more evenings together and she would accompany me on most of my bookings. We were still not yet lovers but before the month was out, we would be.
One evening in the first week of February, she asked me if I would take her to their staff dinner-dance. Although she’d been working for this company for the past fifteen years, she had only ever been to the annual event about three times. Not having had a regular boy-friend, she wasn’t keen on going on her own. Naturally I agreed and I took great delight in persuading her to wear the same outfit as she had done at the engagement party a couple of weeks previously. She demurred at first as she thought it would be a little too much; her work colleagues had never seen her in anything other than skirts and tops! I told her that she’d knock ‘em dead.
After a little more persuasion, she said she’d wear the dress and she would have her hair done specially for the occasion. This was a new Iris emerging; she was coming out of her shell at last! I was so looking forward to this event.