Tiny Dancer (27 page)

As much as he hated me now, I called Billy. He didn’t answer.

I continued thumbing through my
binder, thinking about all that had transpired when another thought struck me. I had not divulged to Alice the man they were looking for at the club was Claudia’s daddy, Dwight Johnson. If I arranged another meeting with her, I could ask her about him. She knew all of the men who were regulars.

A
shudder rolled through me. What if Alice’s rich suitor was Dwight? Horrified, I rummaged through my diary and found the note where I had stuffed Alice’s number. I started dialing. No, I decided, I had not thought it through long enough. I couldn’t act as if she were his mistress. I couldn’t let on. I should mention his name casually. 

Then I got angry all over again.
Dwight looked solidly grounded in their home on Pinehurst Number Two. If Alice thought he would leave her for his life with Irene, she’d better think twice.

Confronting
wasn’t going to work over the phone. I turned off the lamp and slid under my quilt.

The door opened and a bit of hall light illuminated Daddy. “Are you already asleep?” he asked.

I sat up, comforted by his presence finally.

“Too excited to sleep?” he asked.

“Where were you?”

“Lots to do, all t
hat,” he said. He came into my room and sat on the side of her bed. “I know we haven’t discussed what is going on with Vesta. She filled me in.”

I pulled on my eyeglasses. “Tell me to my face that you want to send me off.”

“I want you happy.”

“But you’re getti
ng your hours back at work,” I said, giving him every opportunity to turn the course of life around for the Currys and navigate us home.

“I could never be happy knowing I had held you back from something that’s so much bigger than what I could give y
ou,” he said so thoughtfully I felt nauseous.

Then
I blurted out the question I had wondered so much of late. “Why don’t you know what you want?” I asked, angry that he was placing the responsibility for the dancing troupe opportunity solely onto my shoulders.

He let out a sigh. “I have what I want. My daughter, my wife, and a roof over my head.”

It was my turn now. He had to know, I wasn’t going.

“
I wish your mother could see how you’ve turned out,” he said.

I bit my
lip.

“Vesta wants you rested for your early day tomorrow. Big things happening fr
om now on,” he said, kissing me good-night. He turned off my lamp and went to bed.

“I just wanted to tell you, Daddy, I’m not going,” I whispered
into my pillow. I slept soundly.

                                                                      * * * * *

Almost as if he had been summoned, Billy was at the front door Saturday morning. No sooner had I answered the door than he said,  “Let’s go for flapjacks.”

I had met Billy’s daddy only a handful of times. He had reared Billy on his mechanic’s pay
and a Spartan’s gift to an only son, a roll-up-your-sleeves work ethic. Their ranch house sat on a street overgrown with towering pines, pine needles ankle deep in some places. Each house of brick and frame had a smiling screened front porch shaded by a shingled overhang, a few shingles hanging by a nail. Vesta would call the Thornton’s neighborhood an eyesore, but the families seated out in the front yards waved gaily at every passing motorist or at neighbors out for a walk.

Inside the Thornton’s house, the faint smell of motor oil and Brylcreme substantiated evidence of
the two men living under the same roof who seldom connected.

Billy mixed pancake batter next to a
pin-up girls’ calendar hanging from the kitchen wall on a nail serving as their bill minder. Next to the calendar, a tattered list of dance classes hung thumb-tacked onto the page. The kitchen table collected the things not put away, an empty milk bottle, a handful of found keys, some dropped bolts and nuts. Littering the faux oak top were clean work shirts dumped from the dryer, a tool belt, and a box of opened caramel corn. Billy cleared it away expertly. Then he got out two white plates, chipped but useable, a couple of forks, a roll of paper towels, and two mismatched glasses for orange juice.

He warmed syrup in a tiny pot over the gas range.

“Blueberries or chocolate chips?” he asked me.

“Chocolate chips,” I said, happy to desecrate my diet.

“Me too. We’re celebrating.” He stirred chocolate chips into the batter and flipped a browned hotcake singed too dark on one side.

“That’s mine,” I
said, claiming the flawed one. I poured two glasses of milk and filled the juice glasses from the bottle. “Celebrating what?” I asked.

“To us,” he said, toasting with the milk glass. “And doing what we want.”

“Okay,” I said, clinking his glass with mine. “Us?”

“I’m leaving the country,” he said, his eyes wide and brimming with the hope he had held back for who knows how long.

I slumped into one of the old chrome chairs, stunned. “You can’t go.”

“Haven’t I been threatening to travel Europe all these years?”

“I thought you were kidding,” I said. “Besides, Europe is for the rich, isn’t it?”

Billy slid the spatula beneath two pancakes and placed t
hem on the plate in front of me. “Not if you know how to travel. I’ve been researching hostels and public transportation the whole past six months. I figure the money I’ve saved will keep me in soup and a warm bed a good two years. I’ll work odd jobs for whatever else I need.”

“All these we
eks you never said a word,” I said, composing myself to try and hide my grief over his crushing news. “You’re smart, Billy? Why not apply to the university?”

“Not saying I won’t
.”

“Am I the only one who l
oves the idea of going away to college?”

“I don’t hate school. I’m just done with it
for now,” he said.

Having Mr. Thornton for a dad had not exactly groomed Billy for higher education. “If you’re going to travel,
go with me.” I could hardly stop myself.

“To Los Angeles?”

“You know?” I asked.

“It’s all the buzz at the studio. But you aren’t going, are you?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“It’s
not the life for me either.” He seemed proud of himself for having it all figured out. “I could wake up one day and be someone I never intended to be. I’m not letting that happen,” he said. He had an odd way of connecting the loose threads of destiny to his lust for life as a vagabond.

A part of me wanted to beg him to take me along. I bit into my
pancake although the tears threatening made chewing difficult. I brought the napkin to my eyes.

“Don’t be upset,” he said gently. “I thought you’d be happy for me.”

I managed to swallow the bite of pancake and then said, “I’m happy for you.”

“You really are upset,” he said. He pu
lled his chair around facing me and placing his hands on both my arms. “You love me, don’t you?”

“You know I do,” I said, but I didn’t mean as his little sister.

“Allow me a selfish impulse then. If I don’t get out of here, I feel as if I’ll end up some place awful like working in my daddy’s auto repair shop. Not that he has a bad life. It’s good for him,” he said.

“I kno
w. Like my daddy, he likes his job fine. But it isn’t the life for me. I know why you’re doing it. But Europe’s a half-planet away.”

We
agreed to finish breakfast talking about more pleasant things. Then I helped clear away the breakfast clutter expecting he would take me home.

“I want to show you something,” he said
, leading me out of the kitchen.

I
followed, of course, but was surprised when he led me to his bedroom. Truth be told, I had never seen Billy’s bedroom. The walls were a fading blue, probably left from when his mother was alive. I imagined she had painted it that color when she was pregnant. The shade’s softness made it seem as if she had planned it for Billy’s nursery not ever believing that she would leave her baby boy when he was only two.

But the reality of the moment standing here next to him, hearing hi
m laugh and talk to me as he had always done, made it clear that I was nothing more than a surrogate little sister to Billy Thornton. I was safe in his bedroom, neither a lover nor a peer.

“This is the real reason I asked you here—to my
boudoir.
” He opened his dark closet and pulled down on a length of twine to light the cramped space from a naked overhead bulb. He rummaged around the top shelf by touch as neither of us could see beyond the high shelf. Finally, he lifted a brown paper bag and pulled it down. “Here it is,” he said, opening the sack.

I
was more than curious, assuming he was giving me a going-away gift.

Billy stuck his hand into the bag and then let out a sigh as if it troubled him to bring out the contents.
When he did, pulling out something made from cloth, he had to step out into the room for better light. “I found this the day of the festival. I guess you don’t know I followed you back to the parking lot.

I didn’t say anything.

I saw it all. Siobhan mad as all hell. She didn’t want to be there and I felt partly responsible,” he said. “I knew Siobhan had more than a growing hatred of dance.”

“I know. But don’t take it out on yourself.
I’ve carried the blame this whole year. What’s the point?”

“I’m glad to hear you
say that,” he said, clasping me by one wrist. “I found it when I went back for my drum.” He laid the red cloth in my hand. “I found her sash. I’ve had it this whole time but when to give it to Vesta, I didn’t know.”

I
let the sash unfurl dangling nearly to the floor. I brought it to my nose and smelled it. Any trace of Siobhan’s smell had evaporated from it just as it had from our bedroom. I pressed the sash next to my nose until I felt my eyes moisten. Then I lifted my eyes, saying, “I feel her here, Billy.”

I
hugged him and he let me cry for I did not know how long. He held me and said nothing at all. There was nothing left to say.

I
finally sat on his rumpled bed to compose myself. I spread the sash across my lap and could not take my eyes off it, as if a sacred artifact lay here within my keeping.

“I
thought it would mean more if you were the one to give it back to Vesta.”

I tried to imagine it. Then I
smiled. “You’ve done the right thing,” I said. “I’ll figure out something.” Truly, not a thought came to me as to how I might present it back to her. I was the last person who should hand the sash to her.

Claudia called me around the noon hour, first telling me, “I have to see you this morning,” and, “no, it can’t wait. Can you meet me in the village, you know our coffee spot?”

“Claudia’s goin
g through some things,” I told Daddy. “She needs someone to talk to.”

Vesta overheard me
and said, “If the two of you are not into a fight, you’re conspiring. Have you told her you’re leaving?” she asked. “She has a right to know.”

Daddy drove me there.

I picked a booth in the farthest corner next to the window. I was staring out the window and had not yet ordered my coffee when Claudia bustled into the café, breathless. I ordered for us and brought her a plated donut. My hair was combed into a headband. “Don’t look at me, I haven’t showered.”

“My parents got into a fight last night. Not in front of me, but I could hear them in their bedroom. I felt so guilty. It wasn’t like I imagined, not Daddy making up to her and telling her it was all a mistake.”

“What did he do?”

“He left. Not a word to me. I think he’s blaming me,”
she said, dabbing her eyes.

“He wouldn’t do that,”
I said, but every passing day since our first visit to the Gentleman’s Pleasure only underscored I knew so little about the real Dwight Johnson.

“
Listen to this. He packed a small overnight case. He left, was gone without saying a word to me. I think he went to her,” she said contemptuously, “His stripper girlfriend.”

I had yet to set up my next meeting with Alice
. “Did he tell your mother the woman’s name?” I asked, my voice thin. I may have held my breath until Claudia answered, “No. But she is a dancer at the club for certain where we saw him.” She dropped her eyes. “He acts as if he’s in love with her. She wants to move away and he’s all for it. He says he’s had it with the pressure of his businesses. Mother says he is too materialistic to give up his life here on the golf course.” She had not touched her coffee. “Flannery, I’m scared.”

I
felt sickened. “Where’s Irene?”

“She dropped me off here early. She’s gone to her sister’s
across town. She was sobbing and told me to meet you here since you’re the only other person who knows. She’s mortified it will be all over town. She wanted time alone with her sister. She’s got to tell someone.”

“I’m sorry you had to hear them fight,”
I said.

Claudia blew on her coffee
and then she rolled her shoulders seemingly to try and shake off her current reality.

“Vesta’s si
gned me on with a traveling dance troupe.” My timing could not have been worse.

She
sat up, exasperated, as if I had slapped her. “But what about us? Our plans”

“She didn’t ask me
. She just organized it and then told me.”

“But you hate dance now,” she said.

“I don’t hate it,” I said, trying to remember if I had ever said “hate.”

“You told her no, didn’t you?
”

“I’m telling her that I won’t go.”

She then launched into a new tirade. “I heard about her lawsuit against your neighbor.”

“She filed charges. Not the same as a lawsuit, but criminal.”

“Vesta sure hates the man.”

“
She’s gotten it into her head we’re all moving to Los Angeles,” I said.

Claudia sat up, not smiling, and looking incredulous. “When?”

“September. Don’t look at me like that.”

“Two weeks! When were you going to tell me?”

“I told you, I’m just finding out.”

She
looked more pitiful than she had walking into the cafe. “If you’re at all happy about this, I’ll hate you.”

I
halved her iced chocolate donut, knowing what Vesta would say about the calories, dunking my half into my cup. “Apparently the troupe’s director has been trying to run us down all summer.”

“It’s good news then, for you,” she said, but it was obvious she was trying to put on a supportive front. “I won’t be jealous. I know you think I am, but your family’s gone through so much this summer. Maybe fate did this figuring it was your turn for something good to happen.”

I could barely stand to listen to her. “That’s not what I wanted to hear from you.”

She
finally bit into her half of the donut and sipped her coffee. “Oh, what’s the use, I’m jealous.”

“I’m not
going. I like it here. I like our friends. Even you, sometimes,” I said laughing.

“I hate to say this, but I was depending on you to get me through this first semester,”
she said.

“I have to study twice as hard to make grades even close to what you make.”

“Not my grades,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I mean the stuff about my family. I don’t know what to expect, what will happen to us, or me. You’ve always risen above your family’s problems. I figure you’re the expert.” She smiled, although it was one of the weakest smiles she had ever pasted on.

“Thanks. I’m glad I’m good at something,”
I said, accepting her sideways compliment.

She held up her donut and said, “Cheers. To whatever.”

My emotions were fragile. But that had been the way of things the whole summer. I pulled out a tissue. “Don’t get me started.” I could not bring myself to say that college no longer figured into the equation at all. Perhaps it never had.

                                                                      * * * * *

Daddy was home by supper and he
was more jubilant than he had been in months. He poured himself a beer and offered a toast to his soon-to-be-famous daughter. I sat at the dinner table, incredulous at the interest he was taking in a dance opportunity. He had never cared much about it before. “I’ve got some news of my own,” he said, slapping the table in triumph.

Vesta was smiling as if she already knew.

“I’ve filled out the paperwork for a transfer,” he said, hesitating. “To Los Angeles. Can you believe it? And my boss thinks I’ll get it. He has already written my letter of recommendation.”

Vesta was laughing while
I could hardly speak.

This was
why Daddy had been gone all day yesterday. I felt as if I were looking through a window, watching a scene from a movie, like the happily-ever-after’s Vesta had watched all summer to mask her depression.

A half hour passed.
A horn honked from the front drive. The doorbell sounded. It was Billy. He came inside, politely acknowledging Vesta and Daddy, but then headed directly for the kitchen where he found me dully sulking. “I came looking for you. It’s all over town. I called here and Vesta told me.” He helped himself to coffee and then sat down next to me at the kitchen table. “You’re going?”

“It’s a runaway train,” I said
, void of any emotion.

“You look awful,”
he said.

“Does it matter?
”

“I’m sorry, it’s just
that I expected something else from you. You’re not exactly bouncing off the walls about this gig.”

“That’s my n
ext trick, I’m working up to it.”

“Then
you’re not excited, not at all?”

Vesta eavesdro
pped outside the kitchen, so I shrugged indifferently.

“Then don’t go,” he said
, whispering.

I knew all he was going to say.
“It’s complicated. I’ve not seen them this happy, not since the accident. We came apart last April, but now this dance thing, this thing we’ve worked toward our whole lives has fused us back together again like a family,” I said.

“That’s
plain silly.”

“No, listen
. If I don’t get on that plane in September, I’ll bring down what little goodness remains of us.”

Daddy
stuck his head through the kitchen entry. “I’m going to the store for Vesta. She needs needles and threads and what-not. You need anything?” he asked me.

I shook my head. Billy sat quietly until Daddy left.
“What do you want?” he asked me. “Tell me.”

I dropped the ruse, whispering,
“To see Reverend Theo.”

“Now?”

“Yes, before I chicken out. If I leave with you, you can drive me over there. Will you?” I had to keep my voice low.

“Can’t you
just. . . go?”

I shook my head. I hoped beyond any hope that if Billy stood with me on the Miller’s porch, I wouldn’t have the door shut in my face.

Billy slipped into our entry and, finding that Vesta had gone upstairs, told me, “Hurry, the coast is clear.” He drove us wordlessly past Hui Lin’s house and Effie Sanderson’s house, turning off Cotton Street, circling around to Battalion. He walked me to the porch. Then he backed away, standing on their front walk. “I’ll wait for you,” he promised me.

I
took a deep breath and mounted the stone stairs with its happy border of azaleas.

I rehearsed a speech in case Ratonda answered
. She had served Theo well of late as head gatekeeper. I thought of what to say if Dorothea answered, her fragile eyes looking at me and weighing my trust in light of my family’s judgment on them. The door opened. Theo looked out as if he were expecting the paperboy.

“Reverend Theo, I’m here
to see you,” I said, clasping my hands in front of me.

He looked first
at me and then Billy out on the walk. “He coming?”

“No,” I said. “Just me.”

He let me in.

He led me into the kitchen. No one was making bread. Ratonda wasn’t scolding
the girls to keep away from the hot stove.

When he saw me looking around, he said, “It’s just us. Women folk have gone to market. Coffee?”

“I’ve already had about six gallons,” I said.

He smiled. “Always liked your sense of humor. Comes in handy when life stops being funny.”
We sat down at the same tabletop where Dorothea and the aunts had started all their bowls of dough.

I was blank as slate.
“I knew what I was going to say but now, with you sitting here, it all seems unhelpful,” I said.

“Let’s just get it out on the table then,” he said, for he was like that. “You first thought you had to apologize for your family.”

I nodded.

“No need. I already knew your family before I met you.”

“Vesta,” I assumed he meant.

“Siobhan.”

“Listen, that was something I should have told you from the beginning,” I said.

“
Did you think we invited you over here so that you could atone for your family’s transgressions?” When I didn’t answer, he said, “We invited you over for the same reason we invited Siobhan into our lives. We love you. We loved her.”

“
I know. I found Siobhan’s picture, her bread making picture.”

“That little girl could cook like nobody’s business,” he said. “But, you need to know something, Miss Curry. You can’t keep carrying the weight of the past. The older you get, the heavier the past gets. It will crush you and that would be a shame. You have a lot to offer.”

“When I’m here under your roof, everything is so clear. Then I leave and it’s like mud’s been splashed all over my willpower.”

“You got too much debt.”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

“You heard the aunts singing about heavy loads, didn’t you?”

“I know and it all lifts when they sing. But it doesn’t stay lifted.”

“Music soothes the savage soul. But it can’t save you either.”

“Save me?”

“You keep
trying to save yourself and everyone around you.”

“But you do that, don’t you? Rescue people.”

“I just point to the Rescuer. I can’t save anyone.”

I
was perplexed. He was saying I had gotten it all wrong.

“
Only one qualified as Savior.”

“
I thought he might say more, but when he didn’t, I said, “And I can’t be him.”

“Good.”

“I don’t have to walk no aisle. Say no special words?” He had said that before.

“Change
comes from within. But people can’t change themselves from within.”

“
He’s taking his time fixing me, that’s for sure.”

“He made you.
He’s still making you,” he said. “Human clay takes a while to take shape.”

“
My life is more mud.” I said.

He knew I was joking, but then, not really.

“I came here to make you feel better,” I said.

“You have.”
He emptied his cup. “What makes you feel better?”