Smoke (23 page)

“What are you waiting for?”

She shrugs, accepts the cup. “Where's your brother?”

“Dunno. Maybe not coming. How about a dance with me?”

Jelly Bean casts a glance towards the entrance. Still nobody. Then, out of the corner of one eye she finds her mother holding up a bright pink Miss Tobacco Queen chest banner with black lettering. Hazel waves it with both hands, shooing her daughter onto the dance floor. Jelly Bean clenches her jaw. She feels indecent, tainted. She wants to refuse to dance with Hank but turns back to face the older boy whom she catches staring at her chest, and the next thing she knows she's agreed, and is tripping over his feet.

“I'm not a very good dancer,” she explains.

“You aren't kidding. Don't worry though, I'm a great teacher.” Hank leads her over to where Susan is with Donny, and Jelly Bean steps on his foot again. A crimson veil floods across her face and down her neck.

“See? I can't dance any better than I can skate!” She breaks off and bustles across the floor—“excuse me, pardon me”—bumping into people as she goes. She runs to the ladies room and locks herself in. It's there, moments later, that Isabel knocks to the sound of muffled tears.

“Judy is that you in there? What in heaven's name is the matter?”

Jelly Bean sniffles and wipes her nose. “I'm fine. Really. I'm not much of a dancer that's all.”

“I see.” A smirk spreads across Isabel's round face. “Come out here a minute so I can have a better look at you.”

Jelly Bean wipes her wet face on a hand towel and reluctantly unlatches the door. Music fills her eardrums. She stares at Mrs. McFiddie's red high-heeled shoes. “I don't want to be Miss Tobacco Queen. I don't want to be Barbara Ann either.” Her voice is so tiny that she isn't sure she's made it work. “I want to be—” Jelly Bean stops mid-sentence.

“Go on,” Isabel coaxes.

“I want to be someone more like me.” Jelly Bean hangs her head. There, it's out. “But mother prefers Barbara Ann.”

Isabel lifts the girl's chin and examines her size two dress and the pain in her cobalt eyes. It's the pain of waiting for a better life to materialize—she recognizes it all too well. “You know?” Isabel continues, closing the door. “If you lost this sweater, say accidentally left it somewhere. And if your hair was straighter …” Isabel moves to run water at the sink and dabs it onto Jelly Bean's peroxide curls until they loosen. “Yes, more like that. If you stood up taller, well under the dim lights in the hall you'll look quite charming, and a bit like Natalie in
Rebel Without a Cause
.”

“You think so?” Jelly Bean turns to face the mirror with the same enthusiasm she feels each time she marks a blank canvas with colour. Even if it isn't true, it helps to pretend.

“Absolutely. In fact, I bet no one except your mother will even know the difference.” Jelly Bean giggles at the thought. Moments later, she crosses the dance hall without her fuzzy angora sweater, without her hair in tight ringlets, her head held high. She grins confidently and in a loud exuberant voice Isabel says to Tom and to anyone else within earshot, “Why, look how lovely Jelly Bean Johnson is tonight!”

Doc John's trim and tidy figure appears in the entrance. He catches Alice's eye and they regard one another for a split second as only people who've lived together many years can do, when all at once the pain attacks him sharper than ever before, and he catches the stab as it shoots across his stomach. He fights the urge to double over, waves to his wife and stuffs his handkerchief back into his breast pocket. He straightens and hurries over to where the music beckons. “Busy place,” he says, holding one arm snug to his ribs for pressure.

“It's the younger folks,” Alice beams. “They're turning out in droves.”

“No Buster, though?”

“Not yet.” Alice takes John's free hand. It's cold and clammy. She notices his colouring is off. “All squared up at home?”

“Mmm. I was on the phone to that hospital in Toronto again.”

John's devotion to Buster during the preceding months has put doubts in Alice's mind as to whether he will honour his word and scale back on his practice. He needs to. She has only to search his face and light on the years of caring for others circling his sunken eyes, eroding his memory even. And his mouth, often having been the bearer of bad news, has begun to stumble on words in general conversation. Worse, he still insists on driving to faraway appointments to treat patients, ten miles an hour, creeping along when neither his eyes nor his twisted, arthritic fingers work as they are supposed to any more. She worries herself sick. “I'm determined to have you all to myself while there's still time left,” she says, jostling him. “Remember we agreed on fall.”

John turns his attention to the dance floor, to Hank and Donny and the other young men. He watches them keenly, with clinical detachment. It's as if he is engaged in research, taking notes on human behaviour. A man moves with a different centre of gravity than a woman, he thinks. A man lopes like bison, swaggers like an orangutan, his arms held out from his sides, his shoulders low and if he's a working man, loose. He leads with his shoulders and his legs, never with his hips, and those hips must not swish from side to side but remain tucked up neatly under his torso like the folds of an unused envelope. He checks his own posture.

All of a sudden the tinkering madness of a classical piano fills the hall—
Funny Face
—and there comes a collective moan from the younger folks, most of whom move off the dance floor. Alice folds her arms across her chest and taps the toe of her new shoes, impatiently, in an exaggerated manner. She wants to dance to this one but will not break with convention by asking. John releases her hand and extends his arm. “Would you do me the honour?” He slips her arm through his and immediately her shoulders drop and her breath, like hair pinned too long into place, falls out freely. She's always been, it seems to her now, keys on a piano when dancing with John. Her feet know exactly what pattern to form on the floor by his slightest suggestion. Her hands drape across his shoulders with natural grace. He presses his palm lightly into the small of her back and brings her forward or moves her back without hesitation, their outstretched arms forming a wide bow of space between them. He asks and she answers. A perfect match.

Alice twirls and laughs, looking more girlish than she feels, until Hazel's fixed gaze surprises and she realizes others are watching.

“John, no one is dancing.” She slows to a stop.

“They will.” He pulls her closer, twirls her once more with uncharacteristic bravado.

Before long Gladys and Herb Peacock have joined them and George Walker with Isabel. The crowd is a comfort to Alice who never enjoys drawing unnecessary attention to herself. Their two ordinary figures mingling with the others return her and John, she believes, to a safe and proper anonymity. The song slows and when Walter replaces the record with something faster, George Walker sidles up and Doc John suggests that the couples switch partners. “Here we go,” he says, whirling Isabel across the floor. She steps closer, presses her belly into his belt buckle and smiles like a lioness. He is careful not to flinch. “I'm glad we've got this opportunity. I want to talk to you about Buster.”

“What is it? Is there a problem?”

“No. Nothing to worry about.”

“He's been acting peculiar,” says Isabel. “He hardly acknowledges me or his father. Even poor Hank's on his bad side now. Sometimes I think he'd like to believe he's some kind of, oh, some kind of …”

“Gangster?”

“So you have noticed?”

“The hat,” nods the doctor. “I gave it to him.”

“I didn't know that. Well you've been good to him. To all of us.”

“To an old man like me the future is nearer to hand than I would like to believe but for a boy Buster's age, well, in his condition, it must seem like a mirage. He's trying out new things is all; his appearance. Even his attitude. In a roundabout way I think he's trying to find his way back to us.” The doctor clears his throat. “I've given it a good deal of thought, Isabel, and I have a proposition for you. As you know, Alice and I haven't any children of our own. Buster has become like one of the family. Now, you're all adjusting as best as can be expected and that takes some time, but if you'd consider … Turns out there's a way to remove some of his scars. It's a costly surgery, and that's no small concern, but if you and Tom agreed, I'd like to help out.”

Isabel lifts her eyes. “You know how we feel about charity.”

“Think of it as a gift. It'd do me a world of good too; I'd like to know I've made a difference.”

“You already have, John.” Isabel's breathy voice causes the fine hair on the back of his neck to stand. She is moved by his level of concern for Buster and presses her cheek up close to his, noticing how soft his skin is. “Surgery sounds dangerous.”

“This hospital in Toronto specializes. They have a physician there known for his success with treatment of burns. He would lift skin from one part of Buster's body, his backside say, and then graft it over the scars. It would take time, and involve more pain. I know this is a lot to take in at once. I hope you'll think about it. On my recommendation I'm sure we could have Buster accepted within the year. I'd be willing to accompany him.”

“He'd be gone for long?”

“A couple of months I would guess.”

“Oh, that long … Would he look normal again?”

“He'd likely require more than one operation.” Doc John raises his voice above the percussive rattle of the music. “He will always be different, Isabel, but he might fit in better, yes.” George slips in beside them with Alice in his arms.

“I can barely keep up with your wife. She's plain wore me out already.”

“Must be my new shoes,” Alice teases, kicking up one leg. She and George wait for Isabel and Doc John to finish their conversation as the song comes to an end.

“You'll talk to Tom then?”

Losing Buster once to the accident was a cavernous loss Isabel still hasn't learned to accept, but losing him a second time to distance or the surgeon's knife seems unfathomable. She wants to cling more tightly to all of her children, not let them out of her sight for a minute. “Yes,” she says, knowing that despite herself she must. Then she winks, turns on her heels and is gone.

George parts from Alice and she and Doc John move off towards the food table where Hazel is standing. “Dang that Isabel McFiddie!” she whispers. “Sometimes that woman makes my blood boil. Fawning over these men like they're found puppies. Honestly! It's embarrassing.”

“Don't let it get your goat,” says Alice. “I'm sure they were only speaking about Buster.”

“Is that all. I doubt it. Isabel may have been rescued to Canada but that street orphan will never get the gutter washed out.” Hazel tilts her head in the doctor's direction and raises her voice. “What is it? The look on your face, you've got something scandalous to say.”

“Me?” He knows from both sides and the middle how Hazel's world pivots on the axis of this or that, how in her mind they're all fighting the weight of social expectation and losing. He hates to admit it but her gate-keeping rankles. Every conversation he has with her feels bloated with pressure to mould and march the world of either/or into battle in straight, narrow rows. Lately it has caused him distress, even aggravated his condition. He is tired of it. Of monitoring himself and feeling as if in the flicker of an instant he could change for the worse in the eyes of those who know him best. It's all fine, this easy, clean line running along the edge of morality, if you can keep up. If you fit. But what if you don't? Or worse, what if you don't want to? No, what defines people most, he is sure, beyond personality, biology or belief in God, is the great wide world looking on with a punishing gaze—people like Hazel Johnson wagging her spindly finger, warning them all against stepping too far across any line. “All I know,” he says, “is one way or another I hope the boy finds a way to settle down again. Be a real shame otherwise.”

Alice takes hold of her husband's hand, this time for her own comfort. She's seen this frustrated expression upon his face before. It reminds her of the short end of a wishbone, candles not blown out on a birthday cake, a wish, a wish, as silly and desperate as any of her superstitions. He wants something more urgent, she can see. More certain. He would call it good science though all she can think is, miracle. “Yes,” she says, entwining their fingers. “And the rest of us could help with that.”

D
OC JOHN FINDS BUSTER
inside the hall's entrance.

“There you are.”

Buster undoes his jean jacket. “I saw you dancing with Mom.”

“Not bad for an old man, eh?”

“Not bad.” Buster exaggerates his distorted smile. “I decided to come in costume. What do you think?”

“What do you think of
mine
?” Doc John pretends to fasten his tie. “I came as a real gentleman.” He smiles and pulls at the collar of his shirt. “It's mighty warm though. I was just going out for some air.”

They stand on the front steps of the community hall where the doctor does something Buster can't remember having ever seen him do: he pulls a package of cigarettes from his breast pocket, reaches into his pants for a lighter and lights one. He inhales deeply.

“You smoke?”

“Rarely.” The doctor exhales, coughs. “A patient left these in my office the other day.” He fidgets with the slim white stick. “Everybody's got a weakness.” He turns, meets Buster's eyes. “What do you suppose yours is, son?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, when you catch yourself fretting. What do you do about it?”