Dancing Hours (32 page)

When the conversation woun
d back around to his family and how they
ended up in Palmetto
, David had a healthy buzz going.  He was careful to use the right words.  He didn’t want to lie, but he couldn’t tell the truth.  And she listened like she really cared.  She wasn’t digging for information on Noah.  She was here, with him.

At the arcade, David began to feel like they were on a date until a dozen of her friends showed up.  The mood definitely shifted, but David didn’t mind.  They were some pretty cool kids.  Kate was an absolute riot – the kind of girl that lived out loud.  She loved to laugh and when she was around even Andy seemed to lo
osen up, which was fun to watch -
until she got sick.

It could not have happened on a worse day.  David felt
like he did the first time he was alone
with Jessica and she got a bad fever.  He had no idea what to do and was pretty sure he was unqualified to do anything. 
All he could do was watch Andy and hope she got better. 
He was grateful for Kate, who helped him get Andy home, but she wasn’t very useful for this kind of situation either.  Luckily, Ms. Nessa came over and helped out.

She sent David home wit
h some excuse that he shouldn’t
see a young lady like that and he couldn’t agree more.  Not because it made Andy any less attractive, but because he felt helpless.  Nessa encouraged him to take Andy’s Jeep
to get home
, but he had forgotten about the vomit until the smell hit him hard.  He took it to a full service car wash three towns over and paid a disgusted kid handsomely to clean out the inside.  If he couldn’t do anything to make her feel better, at least he could do that. 

He got back to his grandmother’s house before dinner and found Noah packing.  A fight ensued that went pretty much like all their fights.  David accused Noah of running away. 
Noah yelled about not being wanted or needed.  David wanted to know ho
w he could just leave like that.
  Where was he going?  Was he coming back?

Thankfully, Grandma had taken Jessica outside and tried to keep her busy.  She was clearly agitated by this turn of events as well.

“You be the father now, give Jess the kind of life I could never give her in a million years.”  Noah spat.

“She doesn’t
need any special kind of life.  She need
s
you, here, loving her and just being there for her.”

“I don’t know how.  It hurts too much being here.  It feels like I’m suffocating.  You’re better at this than I am, you’ve always been better at this.
”

“What the hell happened today?  Where is this coming from?”

“Nowhere!
  Nothing happened!  I just need to get out of here, go back home.”

“This is your home now… wherever that little girl is
,
is your home.  You can’t do this to her.  You can’t do this to us.  Are you being serious right now?  Were you even going to say goodbye to me?”

“Yes, of course.  I wanted you to have a fun day on your own.  I just… it’s time for me to go.”

“
Dammit
Noah!
  If you walk out that door you had better not come back.  This is about the most messed up thing you’ve ever done.”

“Whatever.  Take care of Jessica for me.  I’m going to miss you guys.”

Noah seemed to know better than to approach David for a hug.  He threw whatever else he could fit into a backpack and went outside to say goodbye to Jessica who was upset and confused.  David spent the rest of the night calming her down and
lay
next to her until she fell asleep.  When he was sure she was out, he asked
his grandmother
what had caused this.
  She took him outside to the porch and spoke barely over a whisper.

“
Y
ou know, Jessica gets cranky in the afternoons sometimes if she hasn’t had a nap.  We’d been out all morning shopping, she was tired.  We didn’t eat a proper lunch.  She just got fussy is
all.
  And Noah was trying so hard to cheer her up, but she just started screaming and Noah snapped at her
something awful.  Told her to shut up and stop crying.  As you can imagine, that didn’t go over too well.” 

David sighed.  He knew those tantrums all too well.  There were days he wished he could yell at her to shut up, too.  But he hadn’t snapped at her like that yet.  Noah still had a lot of growing up to do.  He loved Jessica, but maybe he really couldn’t be a father yet.  Maybe this was for the best.

3

Keeping a routine is what kept David sane.  He tried to keep the same schedule at work, but it was always up to the whims and faulty memory of his manager.  When it was slow there, he restocked shelves, straightened the counter around the register and repositioned shoes. 

He often wondered about Jessica in those quiet moments.  Was she adjusting okay? 
It was hard to tell.  He had no
reference point for how other 5 year old girls
who were abandoned by their parents and moved to a small town on the other side of the world behaved
.

Taking Andy and
Tony’s
advice, he enrolled Jessica in dance class twice a week so she could make friends and get out.  And he always worked out across the street, glad to be able to watch from a distance and see her smile, dance and play.  Andy taught one class and Miss Celia
taught the other.  He couldn’t
help thinking Jessica seemed happier in Andy’s class.

Two other nights a week, he worked out after work.  Some nights he closed the store so he didn’t feel guilty taking a little extra time
alone
knowing that Jessica was already in bed.  It surprised him when Tony gave him a key to the gym instead of staying there with him one night.  “Small towns have big eyes and ears” Tony said “Plus, I know where you live.”

Trust was something unfamiliar to David, but definitely not in short supply
in Palmetto
.  People left their cars and homes unlocked.  Children were watched by everyone.  It was the kind of town where if you needed to borrow a cup of sugar from your neighbor and they weren’t home, you could go in to get it and leave a note behind.
  David guessed that partly had to do with the fact that everyone pretty much knew everyone else and they all were pretty much in the same place at the same time every week.

Andy was a creature of habit too and their habits often intersected.  Doing laundry, drinking coffee, going to church – Andy was everywhere and she usually had Kate in tow.

She even came to the mall on occa
sion to have lunch with him.  He
wished he had a cooler job for her to come visit him at.  He felt like he was wasting his degree, but a steady paycheck was more important than finding a writing job.

In spite of the many time
s
they saw each other, there was never really time
when
the two of them
were
alone.  Andy was always surrounded by friends, family or an entire class of 5 year olds.  In a way, he envied the life she had
-
surrounded by stable adults and loyal friends.

There were evenings that he sat on the porch breathing in the thick scent of pine and watching lightning bugs meander through the yard and he felt very alone.  Noah checked in every once in a while.  His bike had broken down just a few hundred miles away and he needed money.  David sent it and made sure Noah talked to Jessica.

A couple weeks later, Noah made it to California and was crashing with his friends.  Then
came
news of a job and school.  David was cautiously optimistic that
Noah
might pull it together one day soon.

He tried to Google Holly several times.  She wasn’t online anywhere that he could find her.  He wasn’t sure what he’d say if he did find her, but it probably wouldn’t be very nice. 

Toward the end of July, he knew Andy and Kate were fighting
about something
unimportant, but it meant Andy spending time alone with David for a little while.  He had promised to proofread Andy’s papers in exchange for babysitting just because he wanted to keep in touch after she left and she didn’t seem like she cared much for people helping her out
gratuitously
.  It was ironic considering
how
she volunteered pretty much everywhere there was to volunteer
in Palmetto
.

Kate planned a going away party at Andy’s house before she left for school.  She called David and made him promise to come, which flattered him.  The idea had his stomach in knots, though.  He was about to lose his best friend and he didn’t want to say goodbye.

That night was the first time he touched her in any meaningful way.  He didn’t care that he didn’t really know how to dance.  The music, the people,
everything
melted away and he could have stood there holding her all
night
long. 

As much as he wanted to kiss her, that night wasn’t about him or them, it was about her.  His gut told him there was something going on between them, but long distance relationships never work and he wanted her to go be happy.  She didn’t look happy, though.  Her eyes were sad and every time a friend left, she pulled in a corner of her li
p
and bit it as though she was trying to fight off tears.  All he could do was
be
there and try to make her laugh.
  That night was over too fast.

4

When he woke up the next morning,
David
felt a little hollow.  He hoped that her leaving had been a bad dream, but she just wasn’t there anymore.  Not at the coffee shop or the Laundromat or the dance studio.  He had a hole in his life where an Andy should be.  Jessica felt it too.  Miss Celia was teaching both dance lessons to her after school.  The cooking lessons
with Grandma
continued, but just weren’t the same
without Andy
.

For weeks, they both seemed to be looking for her everywhere they went.  Signs of her were still
all over the place
.  Her Jeep still sat in her parents’ dr
iveway.  The Laundromat signs w
ere still there.  And every time David helped Jessica with one of Andy’s barrettes, he felt a little longing.

The
y talked on the phone sometimes
.  With the
comfortable
distance a phone can offer, their conversations were more intimate and meaningful.  She was excited about her new school.  She checked into the semester abroad programs on his recommend
ation right away, but she sounded
a little afraid
to go through with them
.  David knew that she’d never been very far from home.  The idea of major cities can be far more
thrilling
than the reality.  He wanted to hug her and say that everything would be okay.