Dancing with the Dead

14

“So what’s it gonna be, Mary?” Mel asked. Grinning, he absently did a complete and perfect spin, casually as another man might unconsciously tug at his earlobe, while waiting for her answer. The blur of action made his sparkling grin seem to linger in the air. Like the Cheshire cat’s, Mary thought.

She didn’t need much time to decide what dance to concentrate on for the Ohio competition. “Tango,” she said.

“It’s a good choice,” Mel said thoughtfully. “You’re strong in tango. We can do that in the Bronze category. And I think you oughta enter Novice class and do some of the other dances. Swing, rumba, fox-trot. Really, you’re strong enough in those dances.”

They’d stopped dancing beneath one of the many clusters of red and white balloons strung from the ceiling from the last studio party. The one wall that wasn’t mirrored was decorated with a series of colorful cut-out dancers, life-size and in perfect dramatic or joyous postures. The festive atmosphere never entirely left Romance Studio. The momentum of each day’s dancing seemed to carry to the next.

Ray Huggins, who owned and managed the Romance Studio franchise, ambled out of his office and saw that Mel and Mary had stopped dancing in the middle of the floor and were talking instead. He smiled at Mary and walked toward them. Huggins deftly sidestepped Willie and his instructor Marlene as they wheeled into fifth-position rumba breaks.

Huggins was forty-six and at least twenty pounds overweight. He wore youthful clothes and a tight perm to disguise those facts, and he still moved with the ease and grace of a much lighter and younger man. Ten years ago he was winning trophies in international competition with his rhythm dances, and he could still compete in the smooth dances if he had time to train. But the studio, and the students, demanded most of his time.

“You two cooking up a conspiracy?” he asked with a bright grin. He had perfect teeth.

“Talking about the Ohio Star Ball,” Mel said.

Huggins’s grin generated even more candle power. “Hey, you’re gonna enter. That’s great, Mary! You’ll knock ’em dead.”

“Maybe I’m going to enter,” Mary said, feeling herself blush.

Huggins gave a loose backhand wave. “What dances you gonna compete in?”

“We thought the tango,” Mel said. “I been telling her she’s super-strong in tango.”

Huggins pressed the tip of his forefinger to his chin, as if trying to form a dimple there, thinking. “Yep, I’ve noticed Mary’s tango. Good choice.” He clapped his hands, touched Mary’s arm, and said, “Well, I better leave you two alone to practice.”

But after he took a few strides he turned around, making it look like a dance maneuver. “Listen, Mary, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but the cost of the trip to Ohio for the competition is gonna go up ten percent next month. If you could pay now, it’d save you some money.”

Mary had just sent in for new dance shoes, anticipating going to Ohio, telling herself she needed the expensive shoes anyway, even though it wasn’t true. “Let me think about it, okay?”

Huggins touched his chin again, rotating his finger this time; there was a lot going on beneath those curls. “Listen, just for you, if you can put a few dollars down, make a commitment, I think I can hold the price for you.”

“Like how much down?”

“Oh, just a small percentage.”

“Why not ten percent?” Mel said.

Huggins glared at him as if he’d just screwed up nuclear arms negotiations, then he shrugged and grinned. “Your instructor’s taking good care of you,” he said. “Since Mel made the offer, okay, I’ll live with it. Ten percent down, and you’re locked into the present price for the Ohio Star Ball. My promise to you.”

Mel was smiling, pleased he’d helped work this out in her favor.

“Tell you what,” Huggins said. “You decide you can’t compete, you get half the down payment back. That’s about the best I can do. But for God’s sake don’t tell anybody I’m sticking my neck out this way for you.”

“I won’t,” Mary said.

“You better keep a lid on it, too, okay, Mel.”

“You betcha, Boss.” Mel casually did another spin.

“See me in the office when your lesson’s over, okay, Mary? You can write a check, and I’ll type you out a receipt.”

“Fine,” Mary said. She and Mel watched Huggins walk back across the dance floor, cross the short stretch of carpet, and enter his office. He left the door open.

“Tango!” Mel said, smiling and stamping his foot. He didn’t shout “Ole!” but it was in the air. The quick-quick-slow rumba beat Willie and Marlene had been dancing to was ended. Mel made a good-natured show of beating Marlene to the tape deck, and tango music began. He returned and moved close to Mary into dance position, his young body lean and hard against her. For some reason she thought about him dancing with Danielle Verlane in New Orleans. She hadn’t known Mel had taught at a New Orleans studio before coming to Romance. “Nobody really knows anyone,” Angie had said, but she’d been talking about Jake.

During the rest of the lesson she forgot about her problems with Jake, about her day at work that went by in a disorienting blur, about Victor hanging around her desk and trying to make small talk. Victor was such a schmuck. And there was more to it than that, really. Sometimes, for reasons she couldn’t quite understand, he gave her the absolute creeps.

Mel led her through some cortes, then some fans. Mary felt the beat coursing like fever in her blood. She knew she was dancing beautifully.

“Wonderful move, hon,” Mel told her, drawing her close again after a series of fans. She smiled, determined to concentrate on her posture, to trace a line even more elegant. Being on the gaunt side could be an advantage in dancing; with the right dress she could seem exquisitely graceful if only she made no glaring mistakes.

After going into Ray Huggins’s office and writing a money-market check for five hundred dollars, Mary felt even better. In fact, as she left the studio and walked toward her car, she felt absolutely exhilarated. Only a tango step away from Columbus in November.

She approached the car with some trepidation, almost expecting another grisly symbolic message.

But she’d deliberately parked directly beneath one of the bright lights, and the little yellow Honda was exactly as she’d left it. She climbed in and drove away fast, not looking at her rearview mirror.

Her phone was jangling when she let herself into her apartment.

She expected to hear Jake’s voice when she said hello, but instead a woman asked if she was the daughter of Angela Arlington. Something about the voice; the impersonal tone of officialdom. News of tax audits and deaths came in voices like that.

Mary stood still for a moment, a chill on the back of her neck.

“Miss Arlington, is it?”

“Yes.”

Silence except for muffled voices, as if a hand had been cupped over the receiver for temporary privacy.

“Has something happened?” Mary finally asked through the lump of apprehension in her throat. She was having difficulty breathing; something heavy seemed to be resting on her chest.

“Your mother Angela was checked into the detoxification center earlier this evening here at Saint Sebastian Hospital. We found your name and phone number among the possessions she left at the desk.”

“My God! Is she all right?”

“We think so,” the woman said, “but her alcohol level was dangerously high when she was brought here. It’s still at an unacceptable level, and there’s some possibility of alcohol poisoning.”

“Who brought her there?”

A pause. “He didn’t leave a name.”

“I see.”

“I think it’d be a good idea if you came down here, Miss Arlington. So you can see your mother and then speak to the doctor yourself.”

“I’ll come right now,” Mary said.

She hung up the phone, dropped her dance shoes on the sofa, and hurried to the door.

During the drive to Saint Sebastian, her fear for Angie’s life clashed with anger at her mother for doing this to herself again. And yes, doing it to her, Mary. She felt a stab of guilt for seeing herself as a victim. Angie, Angie, don’t you know the pain you cause?

But she was sure Angie did know, only she lost sight of the fact from time to time. It wasn’t something you could put in a bottle and look at, like gin.