Pretending to Dance (23 page)

We exchanged addresses, but then I remembered I'd be out of town for a few days. “I won't get your picture till next week, though,” I said. “I'm going on my dad's book tour with him. We leave tomorrow and won't be back until Tuesday.”

The line was quiet for a moment. “Your dad's a scary dude,” he said finally.

I laughed. “He's the least scary person on earth,” I said. “I'm sorry he gave you a hard time.”

“Stacy told me about that disease he has,” he said. “That sucks.”

“He does okay.”

“Can you call me while you're on that book trip thing?” he asked.

“Maybe,” I said, wondering if I could call him from a pay phone. “I don't know if I'll be near a phone, though.”

“I saw your crazy cousin at the mall,” he said.

“Dani?” I asked innocently, like I had another cousin who hung out at the mall.

“Is she your pit bull or what?”

“What do you mean?”

“She went off on me when I told her I met you. Said if I hurt you she'd cut my dick off.”

“She said
that
?”

“She's so warped,” he said. “I don't plan to hurt you, by the way,” he added.

I stared at my ceiling. I had to be misunderstanding him. “She was actually
defending
me?” I asked.

“She acted like your personal bodyguard,” he said.

Oh my God.
I wished I could take back that moment when my fist connected with Dani's cheek. I thought about what Daddy'd said:
There's a fine line between love and hate.

“She's not my personal bodyguard,” I said. “Actually, we're not very close at all.”

“I don't think she's gotten that memo,” he said.

We talked a while longer, mostly about people we knew in common, and I tried to only mention the older kids so I didn't remind him how young I was. It was nearly eleven when we finally got off the phone, and while I fully planned to think about him when I got under the covers and closed my eyes, it was Dani, sitting up on our porch floor, her cheek red and bruising, who filled my head.

 

31

 

I could tell my mother was worried as she helped Russell and me load our suitcases into the back of the van the following morning. Her face was paler than usual, and the skin below her eyes had a purplish cast to it. “I wish I were going with you,” she said, for what had to be the fifth time.

“Somebody has to bring home the bacon,” Daddy said to her. If any of us should have been worried, it should have been him. He would be away from home for four days. Away from the house where everything was so carefully set up for his needs. He'd be speaking to groups of strangers and talking on the radio. But he wore his usual calm demeanor. As a matter of fact, he seemed happy, and I thought all my recent worries about him being depressed were ridiculous. Still, I was going to do everything I could think of to make the next few days good for him.

Once his chair was locked into position behind the driver's seat and Russell was getting into the van, my mother took me by the hand and led me back into the house, all the way to the kitchen.

“Please make sure he always has water in his water bottle,” she said. “Don't let him get dehydrated. And you have a copy of his medication schedule, right?”

“Right.” I'd printed out two copies, one for Russell and a second for me at my mother's insistence. Mine was in my backpack.

“Keep an eye on him, Molly,” she said. In the light from the kitchen window, the purplish skin beneath her eyes took on a translucent glow. She looked like a woman who could be blown away by the slightest breeze. “I'm not ready to lose him yet,” she said.

She was being so overly dramatic. “It's only a little book tour,” I said, wondering if I should be more worried than I was. I'd tossed my palm stone into my backpack almost as an afterthought. Maybe I didn't have a good understanding of what a book tour entailed. How could it lead to losing him? “And he's got Russell with him,” I said, then added, “I'm going to make it fun for him.”

She smiled at me, but there was something I couldn't read in the smile, as though she didn't believe that “fun” was a real possibility on this trip. She drew me into a hug. “I love you,” she said. They were rare words from her, and all at once, I pictured her opening the door to a social worker and a beautiful young woman with honeysuckle-scented hair holding a little girl covered with a rash. Her husband's child. Her husband's former lover. Somehow, my mother'd found the strength not to slam the door in their faces.

I hugged her hard. “I love you, too,” I said.

*   *   *

We drove out of Swannanoa and I felt a yearning as we passed the turn to Stacy's house, which had become all tangled up with Chris in my mind, as though if I showed up there, he'd be sitting on the sofa, smoking a joint, waiting for me. I'd found that picture of Genevieve and me and cut it in half so Chris would only have me to look at. I'd addressed it to him and left it in our mailbox. I wondered how long it would take to get to him, and if I'd have one of him when I got back from the trip.

“How about some music, Moll?” Daddy asked from his chair behind the driver's seat.

“Okay,” I said. I picked up the black case containing Daddy's cassette tapes from the floor between Russell's seat and my own. I turned to look at my father. “What do you want to hear?” I asked.

“You pick,” he said.

“I'll pick one we can sing along to,” I said, knowing how much he loved it when we sang. I looked at Russell as I unzipped the case. “You have to sing, too.”

A faint smile came over Russell's lips. “Bossy,” he said.

I looked through the tapes. Daddy's collection was bigger than mine and very different. He had a bunch of jazz, which was useless for singing along with. I knew I wouldn't find any New Kids on the Block, but I thought he might have some Bon Jovi, which would let me think about the next time I'd be with Chris. No luck, though. I put on one of his mix tapes and we sang along to the Temptations and the Beach Boys and the Beatles, who I'd just discovered and who I thought were very cool, and Eric Clapton and, of course, the Eagles. Russell actually knew a lot of the lyrics. He got into it, rocking in the driver's seat, turning even the Beach Boys into soul music with the way he moved his upper body. He was usually so serious. Seeing his playful side made me laugh, and when I turned to look at my father, his eyes were crinkly with humor. I had the best feeling about this trip. It was going to be better for my father than any of those drugs on that list in my backpack.

“How about a little classical now?” Daddy said after about an hour. “I'd like to rest for a while.” We were approaching Hickory, and Russell was watching for the turn that would take us to Charlotte, which was the first stop on the tour.

“Okay,” I said. He had Rachmaninoff's second concerto in the case, but I remembered what he'd said about “wrist-slitting music” and decided to stick with Beethoven. I put on his third symphony and leaned my head against the window, shutting my eyes. For some reason, I remembered Chris on the phone saying he'd never hurt me. They weren't his exact words. I wished I could
remember
what he'd said exactly. But that was what he'd meant: he'd never hurt me. Those words played tenderly through my mind as we drove.

“Graham?” Russell said after a while. I opened my eyes to see him looking in his rearview mirror.

“Mm?” Daddy sounded only half awake.

“We're a few miles from the hotel,” Russell said, “and you wanted to stop at a mall, right? I think there's one at the next turn.”

I heard my father yawn. “Yeah,” he said. “Let's stop. We can get something to eat.”

“Why do we need a mall?” I turned to look at him.

He gave me a tired-looking wink. “You'll see,” he said. “Just be patient.”

*   *   *

We found a handicapped parking space and Russell got Daddy out of the van, then pushed the wheelchair into the mall while I walked alongside them. This mall was a lot bigger than the one I knew in Asheville, and even though it was a completely different place, all I could think about was where I would meet Chris if he asked to meet me at
this
mall. That bench? Or maybe in front of the music store? I knew I was being ridiculous, imagining something that could never happen, but I couldn't seem to help myself. I was obsessed.

We stopped to look at the map of the mall. “Are we looking for a restaurant?” I asked.

“I see it,” Russell said to my father. Clearly, they knew where they wanted to go and saw no need to let me in on it, so as Russell turned the chair down one long branch of the mall, I tagged along, thinking,
Maybe we could meet over there, by the chocolate shop. Maybe he'd buy me one of those little boxes of chocolates.

Russell stopped pushing the chair and I saw we were in front of a shoe store.

“What are we doing here?” I asked.

“Somebody I know wants purple Doc Martens,” Daddy said. “Let's go get them.”

I let out a scream. “You're kidding!” I said. “But I haven't saved enough yet.”

“This is an ‘accompanying me on the book tour' gift,” Daddy said.

I bent over to hug him. “Thank you!” I said, and I ran ahead of them into the store.

*   *   *

I wore the purple Doc Martens out of the store, my sandals tucked inside the shoebox. I felt like everyone in the mall was looking at me, the cool girl, in her pink T-shirt, white shorts, and purple Doc Martens.

We found a restaurant and Russell rearranged the chairs at our table so Daddy's chair would fit. They both ordered burgers, but I had a chicken salad sandwich on a croissant that was delicious but a mess to eat, the salad falling out of the bread and onto my plate.

“Bet you five bucks you can't eat that sandwich without licking your lips at least once,” Daddy said. He could be such a dork, but I would humor him.

“You might as well hand the money over to me now.” I grinned.

“You gotta earn it,” Daddy said.

Russell rolled his eyes. “You two,” he said.

He fed Daddy, who was keeping an eagle eye on me while I carefully worked my way through my messy sandwich.

Daddy swallowed a bite of his burger. “You nervous about tonight?” he asked me.

I shook my head. “Nope,” I said around a mouthful of chicken salad. I was concentrating hard on not licking my lips, so after every bite of the sloppy sandwich I had to wipe my mouth with my napkin. “Are you?”

“Well,” he said, “I'm not nervous about speaking, but I
am
a little nervous no one will show up.”

“They'll show up,” Russell said, like he had some insider knowledge.

“You almost blew it,” Daddy said to me.

“What?”

“Your tongue. It was getting ready to lick.”

“Was not,” I said, though he was right. I was too old for his lame bets, but I would play along if that's what he wanted. Anything to make him happy. I finished the sandwich and Russell handed me a five-dollar bill from his wallet.

*   *   *

We were headed back to the mall exit when my father suddenly asked Russell to stop pushing the chair. “Buy that for Molly,” he said, looking in the window of a cosmetics shop.

“Buy what?” Russell and I asked at the same time. Daddy once told me he missed being able to point to things more than anything else.

“That glittery blue nail polish.”

I saw the bottle he was talking about. The polish was the color of a night sky filled with stars. “Yes!” I said.

Russell pulled another five-dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to me. I ran inside the store, bought the polish, and came out again.

“Tonight,” Daddy said, as we started toward the exit again, “you are going to sparkle.”

*   *   *

Russell found the radio station where Daddy was supposed to be interviewed and we parked in a handicapped spot outside. We were early, but only by fifteen minutes. Inside, I sat in a small waiting area while Russell wheeled Daddy down the hall to the room where they'd do the interview. I felt nervous for my father. I pulled my palm stone from my backpack and held it in my hand. It soothed me, that old stone. I rubbed my thumb over the smooth indentation in its surface.

The waiting area consisted of six green upholstered chairs with wooden arms, a small table with a coffeemaker and a pitcher of water, and a large speaker hanging near the ceiling in one corner of the room. Classical music played from the speaker, but after a moment a woman announced that “Dr. Graham Arnette, the pretend therapist, will be joining us after this newsbreak.” I rubbed my stone harder but I was smiling. How could anyone turn off their radio after an introduction like that? Wouldn't they want to know what on earth a pretend therapist was?

Russell returned to the waiting area and poured himself a cup of coffee.

“Too cramped in there for me,” he said, sitting down next to the table.

“He can manage alone?” I asked, worried.

“I put the headphones on him and the microphone is in the right place, so he's all set.”

“Is he nervous?” I asked. “I'd be nervous.”

“He's pretending not to be.” Russell smiled, and I had the strongest desire to give him a hug and thank him for everything he did for us—and especially for never again mentioning anything about what happened at Stacy's house—but I stayed in my seat and let the gratitude quietly fill me up.

We didn't speak as the woman interviewed my father. He talked about his Pretend Therapy book for kids and how parents could help their children use it to cope with their fears or their various misbehaviors. Daddy's voice was strong, and I heard his smile even though I couldn't see it. You would never guess he was sitting immobilized in a wheelchair.