Dancing with the Dead

12

After her lesson with Mel, Mary had gone window shopping, then had lunch at one of the mall’s food courts. She’d wandered around and killed time until three o’clock before returning home.

There was no sound in the apartment; the air was thick and still. She placed her dance shoes on the coffee table, then removed her street shoes, leaving them lying on their sides like casualties on the carpet. In her stockinged feet, she crept down the hall and peered into her bedroom.

The bed was empty. Jake was gone.

Mary puffed out her cheeks and exhaled in relief. Or at least she told herself she was relieved. She walked to the bed and smoothed the sheet, fluffed the pillow, and brushed a dark hair away.

Standing back with her fists on her hips, she looked around. There were Jake’s socks wadded on the floor near her dresser, as if he needed to leave something of himself behind to mark his territory. Mary went to the socks and picked them up gingerly with her thumb and forefinger. She carried them into the kitchen, where she deposited them in the wastebasket. After washing her hands at the sink, she dried them on a paper towel, then stuffed the towel down through the lid of the wastebasket, on top of the socks. She wouldn’t have to think about Jake now.

Sunday morning Angie was drunk.

As soon as Mary walked in the door, she could smell gin on her mother’s breath. “Oh, damn, Angie!”

Angie appeared mystified. “Something wrong?” Her enunciation was precise. Too precise. Her hair was combed neatly on the right side of her head but stuck out in wild red tufts on the left. She looked like a child’s worn-out doll, left too long at the bottom of the toy chest.

“It’s only ten o’clock,” Mary said.

“That’s true, Mary. You’re late.” Mary and her mother had a standing date to have Sunday morning breakfasts at Uncle Bill’s Pancake House.

“And you’ve been drinking.”

Angie was wearing her good navy blue dress, but it was buttoned crookedly so it bunched around her waist. “Oh, that. It was just a nip of an eye-opener. Nothing to cause concern, daughter.”

“Bullshit, Angie. I know you and alcohol. It’s all or nothing with you two.”

“Like a couple of lovers, huh?” Angie said. She turned away from Mary, bowing her head. Was she crying? She didn’t sound like it when she said, “Just who the fuck in this world can you depend on? Will somebody tell me that? Will they?”

Mary touched her shoulder. “Me. You can depend on me, Angie.”

Angie shivered as if cold and walked out from under her touch. “Yeah, I s’pose I can.”

Mary strode the rest of the way into the living room and sat down on the sofa. Angie hadn’t switched on the air-conditioner. The apartment was hot. The smell of gin was strong, like sweet medicine.

“You spill some liquor?” Mary asked.

Still looking away, Angie said, “I got a little upset and a bottle broke.”

“You dropped it?”

“Threw it against the wall over there.” A vague wave in the direction of the front wall.

Mary saw a stain on the wall, just beneath the windowsill. Broken glass in the carpet glinted in the morning sun. Angie had been pissed off, all right. Desperate. Mary said, “This about Fred?”

“Yeah, fickle Fred.”

“Who told you about him?”

Angie snorted, wiped her nose, and turned to face Mary. There was a bead of mucus on her upper lip, and her eyes were rimmed in pink. She looked very tired and very old, and, for a frightening instant, not like anyone Mary knew. “Fred told me about Fred.”

“What’d he say exactly?”

“Said you was bound to tell me about him dancing with a woman at Casa Loma Friday night, so he mize well tell me first.”

“Well,” Mary said, “he was only dancing with her.” Wasn’t that all Danielle Verlane was doing the night of her death? Wasn’t that how Mary had defended her against Jake’s accusations yesterday? Now she was defending Fred, but not meaning it.

“Fred’s sure as hell no dancer,” Angie said. “The knees he’s got, he’s lucky he can walk across a room without falling on his ass.”

Mary had to smile. “Yeah, the truth is he didn’t look all that smooth.”

Angie pulled a wadded Kleenex out of her pocket and wiped her nose as if trying to tear it from her face. Maybe she’d hurt herself, because she dabbed delicately at her eyes. “Fred said not to make anything outa that Casa Loma thing. Said the woman you saw him with was just somebody he knows from his part-time job, and they’re friends is all. You believe that shit?”

“I dunno. So what’d you tell him?”

“Didn’t tell him anything-I hung up.”

“When was all this?”

“ ’Bout an hour ago. Phone’s rung several times since then.”

“It’s possible Fred was telling the truth,” Mary said.

“We had a date Friday night. He called and broke it. Said something about an emergency on the job. Bastard threw in a lotta details to make me believe him. I know that game. You do, too.”

“What’s that mean, Angie?”

“You and Jake.” Her nose was dripping again, mucus catching the light like the broken glass in the carpet. “I know about men like Jake, Mary. You and him back together?”

“No.”

“Good. The sick bastards don’t change. Your father-”

“Angie!”

“Okay. Duke had his good points; I get dru-Sometimes I forget that, but you shouldn’t. I don’t wanna say anything I’m sorry for. But Jake, I mean, I see Duke in Jake. Maybe that was to be expected, that you’d go for a guy reminded you of Duke.”

“Jesus, Angie, Jake’s nothing like Duke was!”

“ ’Cept in a dangerous way.”

Mary remembered the marred doorjamb, the message of the dead bird. Jake wasn’t the only one who was dangerous; in fact, having him back in her apartment would provide a certain degree of protection. But this wasn’t the time to tell Angie that.

“If Fred called an hour ago,” Mary said, wanting off this subject, “you can’t have been at the gin very long.”

“Sometimes it don’t take long.”

“What about this morning?”

Angie breathed in deeply and stood very still, her arms extended straight out to the sides at shoulder height. “I’m okay this fine morning. Really, I am. I only had a couple of hits off the bottle, then the phone rang and I knew it was Fred calling back, so I lost my temper just listening to the goddamn phone, and that’s when I made that mess over there on the wall.” She grinned. “Felt great, even if it was a waste of good booze.”

“There’s no such thing as good booze for you.”

“Oh, you’re right, Mary. I know you’re right.” She dropped her arms suddenly so her hands slapped against her thighs, as if abruptly giving up on a momentary notion of flying.

“You think you’re okay to go get some breakfast?” Mary asked. “You need food in you, and I think we need to get outa here.”

“I can make it,” Angie assured her. “Least I’ll be fine by the time we reach Uncle Bill’s. You better drive, though.”

“I’d intended on it. Button your dress straight, all right?”

“Ain’t that the style?”

“Like feather boas,” Mary said, and waited patiently while Angie fumbled with the buttons.

She watched Angie take the stairs to the street door. She seemed to be moving okay, had her balance, even though she had a death grip on the banister.

In the car, Mary gave her a cinnamon Life Saver from the roll she kept in the glove compartment to freshen her breath before dance lessons. “You gonna forgive Fred?” she asked.

“To forgive’s divine,” Angie said, chomping on her Life Saver so hard Mary feared she might break a tooth. “It’s in the Bible.”

“I don’t remember the nuns at Saint Elizabeth’s telling me that.”

“You done really well in school, Mary, right through college. I mean, truly applied yourself.”

“Is Fred gonna be the recipient of divine forgiveness?”

Angie stared out the window at the sparse Sunday morning traffic. “Fred’s all I got, such as he is.”

“Could be worse, I guess,” Mary said.

“We tell ourselves that, don’t we?”

“Yeah, we do.”

“You’re a good daughter.”

“I know, I know.”

“Gimme another one of them mints, will you? Women like us, we gotta stick together.”