Dancing Barefoot (7 page)

“Kevin is more of a woman than you are, always gossiping.”

“And?”

“And nothing. She has her life and I have mine.” 

“Simple then.”
She shrugged and smiled at the ceiling.

“What are you smiling at?”

“Did you tell her that you agreed to show your photographs in Boston for a chance at seeing her again?” She crossed her ankles and looked overly pleased with herself. 

“I agreed to the gallery exhibit because it
is the natural next step in my career.” He walked to the window overlooking the street. “I'm not going to stay in the States much longer. I’ve been in one place too long.”

“Two months is now too long?”
Ava unwound her legs to stand at his side.  She studied him with the knowledge of a sibling. “When did you decide this?”

“I never should have come to New York.  All I have ever required was an address an
d I have you for that, right?” He had let Ava twist his arm about coming to the United States. She had set up permanent residence here to start her own clothing line and wanted him close.  So here he was. Close. Too close, in his opinion. 

“Tell me what happened with Jessica.”

“I accepted an assignment with National Geographic. I'll be going to South America with Carter. We leave at the beginning of next month. Carter and I are doing a documentary together, a first for me. I look forward to it, new challenges and all of that.” He lifted the cigarette to his lips. “The thing in Boston will be finished, I’ll sublet the apartment, and be on my way.  It’s a good challenge. Something new.”

“You’re acting careless, like you did after she returned to the States.  Unnecessary risks, rash decisions.  What
happened in Boston yesterday?” Ava grabbed his arm and pinched until he glared at her. “Answer me. Is she married?”

“I’m tired
...tired of promoting a book of photographs that will sit on a coffee table in a stranger’s living room...tired of talking to gallery owners who view my work as property, as an asset...tired of keeping a schedule.”

“You’re lying.
Is she married?”

“Jessica has changed. She’s…” He thought of her last night at her apartment, splattered in paint, dressed in ratty clothes and…familiar. 

“She’s what?”

“Irrelevant, that's what she is.” He shoved away from the window and paced the room. “All that talent and promise hidden away beneath short hair and fancy clothes.”

“F
ancy clothes? Short hair? Must be ugly.”

“She straightens
her hair, can you believe that? All those curls gone, why does she do that?"

“How awful.
Tragic.” 

He frowned at
her laugh. "The Jessica I knew is dead.”

“So dramatic.”
She folded her arms across her chest, her face alive with mischief.  “If I didn’t know better, I would think you still love her. But of course, I do know better.” 

“I am not in love with Jessica Moriarty.”
He winced at the memory of her body against his, the taste of her mouth, the smell of spilled wine, the feel of paint against his skin.

“Of course you’re not.
If you were, you would be doing something irrational like giving a damn about what she’s doing with her art, obsessing about her hair, and accepting dangerous assignments to South America of all places.” She wrinkled her nose. "What are you going to do there anyway? Where in South America? You're not having anything to do with the drug cartels, I hope."

“
I'm wet and in a bad mood. You should go.”  He walked back to the sofa and reached for the remote.  “I want to be alone.”

She studied him through
eyes the exact replica of his. “I have wondered about her for a long time, too. We were like sisters, she and I. We had a lot of fun in that apartment of yours. God, do you remember when she dared us all to skinny-dip in that fountain in Roma? She was the first in, always so daring. She had spirit. Fire. I loved her.”

He remembered.
Off with her clothes, she had danced in the fountain and dared them all to join her. She had been wild then. They had all followed...Carter, Ava, and him.  Drunk on cheap wine and laughing because they dared break the law with the audacity of youth, they had splashed and slipped and danced until the police had come around the corner. Screaming and stumbling, they had gathered their clothes and sprinted naked toward an alley. 

Daring? Yes, she had been, but he doubted she was now. Who was the real Jessica? The one he'd fallen in love with in Italy or the one who hid her painting behind closed doors in Boston? He hated that she'd invaded his mind.

“Did you invite her to your gallery opening? She would love that, I—”

“
Can we change the subject, please?” Frustrated with the remote and with everyone in his life, he switched off the television and turned on the stereo. "She claims she went back, a month later, but I had already left. I don't believe her."

"Of course you don't, that would change everything, wouldn't it?"

"It changes nothing. I'm tired of discussing it."

Ava kicked off her shoes and sat on the sofa n
ext to him. Together they listened to music and watched the rain splatter against the windows. He dropped his head against the cushions and enjoyed the last cigarette he had in the house. 

“She would enjoy seeing your work on display, I know she would,” Ava’s voi
ce whispered through the room. “What did she call it?  Your someday?  I think that is—”

“The woman who lives in Boston
does not believe in somedays. Let it be.” He closed his eyes and listened to the pit pattering of rain against glass.   

She
was silent before he felt her stand from the sofa. Through half-closed eyes, he watched her retrieve her umbrella and stand by the door.

“I think I might go to Boston a few days early, say hello. Sounds like she needs
a fashion intervention, with the fancy clothes and short hair crisis.” 

Always one to have the last word, Ava left him stewing in the emptiness of his apartment.

* * *

After a long ride on the T for yet another Julie emergency, she stood in front of her mom's house. The neighbor had called at dawn, saying that the police had been outside taking away some strange man. Drunk again, she assumed, as she walked up the stairs and unlocked the door at noon.

She hadn't grown up here, wished she'd had the sort of childhood where she could talk about old friends and pets, the kind of home where she could find marks on the wall that highlighted her growth over the years. In a way, she did have that with the apartment she'd inherited from her grandmother, but it wasn't the same. Not really. That had always been her escape, but had never truly filled the void.

As far as she was concerned, her official history began in college where she'd reinvented herself for the most part. How many times had Julie showed up at campus, though, with one of her new men wanting to show off her daughter? That's what she'd always been...a trophy of sorts for her mother to use as proof that she hadn't sucked as a parent, but only brought out when necessary to impress otherwise forgotten about to collect dust.

Julie stretched along the sofa wearing only a t-shirt, panties and one sock. Empty beer bottles lined the coffee table.
Fresh bruises lined her mom's face. According to the neighbor, the police had been here for hours.

"Oh, mom," she whispered before sitting on the chair opposite the sofa.

"I don't want you here," her mother answered without opening her eyes. "I didn't call you."

"Sylvia—"

"—Is a busy body who should mind her own goddamn business." Julie pushed herself to sitting, arranged her shirt to her thighs, and avoided making eye contact. "It's Saturday, shouldn't you be doing something fun?"

"Are you okay? Should you be going to the hospital to get checked out or...who did this to you?" How many times had she asked these same questions?

"Travis. I met him in Atlantic City last week, he's been—"

"You brought him home with you?"

"You do not get to ask me questions." Julie pointed a newly manicured finger at her. "Let's not forget who the mother is, got it? You've always been such a downer. One day you'll see it's not so easy being a parent. I gave up everything for you, don't you see? Now look at me. I'm all alone while you're off in the city leading your fancy life."

Deciding not to argue, she grabbed an armful of bottles and c
arried them into the kitchen. After seeing that the garbage can was full, she dumped them all onto the counter.

"Travis didn't mean to do this. It was that Sylvia who called the police, had to get involved." Julie leaned against the kitchen table. "Do not come in here and clean my house like you own the place."

She closed her eyes and silently counted to twenty. Why she bothered anymore was anyone's guess. She'd rode on the train for the past hour trying to get to her mom, could have taken her motorcycle, but the sky threatened rain.

"I told Travis you were an architect. He's in construction. I told him you could probably set him up real nice on one of your projects. I gave him your phone—"

"Please say you're lying."

"Don't get all snooty. You've always thought you were better than me, but you're not."

"For God's sake, mom, you're fifty-nine years old and you're sitting here with bruises on your face surrounded by filth and—"

Her words were silenced with a slap. She took a step back until her hip collided with the counter, her hands automatically covering the sting on her cheek.

"You're not better than me." Julie shook her head and looked away. "Who are you to judge? I deserve a good man."

"A good man doesn't hit you or expect your daughter to get him a job." She walked away from the kitchen and into the living room.

Her entire body quaked with anger and frustration. Nothing felt familiar anymore, not since Jacques had walked down those stairs at the bookstore yesterday. Being here with her mom, having the same conversation she'd had at least one thousand times in her lifetime, and picking up beer bottles felt wrong.

"Where are you going?" Julie followed her onto the porch. "It took you an hour to get here, right?"

"You know what, mom? You don't deserve to get hit and neither do I." She spun on her heel and looked her mother in the face. "Yes, it took me an hour to get here, but so what? Why did I even come? Oh yeah, that's right, I thought you were hurt and needed your one and only daughter so here I am. Look at you—" she motioned to the t-shirt and sock—"didn't you ever want more than this?"

"You know I did—"

"No, I don't. I'm not talking about all the men, I mean you as Julie, as a woman, didn't you want more than this? Is this what you wanted when you were my age? To be an alcoholic—"

She grabbed Julie's arm as it raised for another slap.

"—a woman dependent on a man or her own daughter for money, for consolation?"

"I put you through college. My sacrifices gave you this fancy life of yours."

"No, you didn't. Grandma helped, I worked three jobs, and have loans I'll be paying for the next twenty years. I can't keep doing this."

"Doing what? You're my daughter. You owe me."

Conscious of Sylvia looking out the window, she released her hold on her mother's arm and walked back inside the house. She'd come this far so she may as well clean the house, get it in order, do something productive.

"I'll
get dressed," Julie said. "We can go to lunch if you want."

"Fine," she answered through clenched teeth. Despite everything—all the stepdads and
melodrama—they'd always been a duo. Maybe a dysfunctional duo that no longer worked for one of the participants, but a team nonetheless.  She moved through the house, slamming trash into a bag, and thinking of all the reasons she should have walked away and all the reasons she couldn't.

After bundling up the trash bags, she walked into the backyard to the dumpster and looked at the row of similar houses with chipped shutters and small porches. Not that many years ago, she'd been a child growing up in a similar house in an adjacent neighborhood. When Julie brought home people from the bar or that special guy of the night, little Jessica would grab her bunny and crawl onto the porch roof from her window. She'd stare at stars and dream of far away places that she'd seen on television or learned about in school. While the fray went on inside, she traveled in her mind and drew pictures on anything she could find
once her notebooks would fill—napkins or backs of magazines. But she'd always known that art needed to be channeled into something useful so she could earn her own way in the world.

Dreams don't pay bills
, her mother used to say.

She leaned heavily on the lid of the trashcan and closed her eyes. What did Julie know about dreams? She'd worked at so many odd jobs her entire life that Jessica had lost count. When kids in school asked her what her parents did for a living, she'd lie.