Dancing with the Dead

19

When she entered her office she was surprised to see Victor seated behind her desk, gazing up at her like a lonely puppy and smiling as she pushed through the door. His hair lay like a fallen gate over his bald spot, and his wire-rimmed round glasses snagged the sunlight and made his eyes look as human as flashlight lenses.

“Mary, how’s your mother?”

She placed her purse on a desk corner. “She’ll be all right, thanks. I thought you had floor time out at Suncrest subdivision today.”

He stood up out of her chair, tucking in his white shirt, then shrugged. There were yellow crescents beneath his armpits. “When I heard you couldn’t be in till noon, I thought you wouldn’t mind if I used your desk as a quiet place where I could catch up on my paperwork.”

“I mind, Victor.” He said nothing, acted as if she’d approved of his presence. She didn’t like the idea of Victor at her desk, able to search through the drawers. Not that she had anything to hide, but privacy meant something. It was like rape, having your personal belongings handled by a man you despised. She moved around to sit in her desk chair. It was still warm from Victor. She didn’t like that, either.

“You used my desk last month when I was away on vacation,” he pointed out.

He was right, but she said nothing. It had been Gordon Summers who’d instructed her to use Victor’s desk while her office was being painted.

“Buncha memos for you,” he said, pointing to the pink forms on her desk. “Not much important, really. Mr. Summers is still at the seminar in Chicago, and he asked for a copy of the Gratiot contract to be faxed to him. I took care of that.”

As he spoke he was staring at her intensely, making her uneasy. Why did she often attract men like Victor? She wished he’d leave her alone, that he wouldn’t bother trying to hide his bald spot, that he wouldn’t be so ordinary, that he had a chin. Mr. Nice. Mr. Stability. Mr. Monotony. Why wasn’t she ever attracted to men like Victor? Maybe because they were almost always like Victor.

“Where you going now?” she asked, trying to hurry him along, thinking, Go anywhere, please!

“Out to grab what’s left of that Suncrest floor time, I suppose.” The sales agents regarded floor time at the subdivisions as gold, where they had a virtual lock on any serious buyer who came along.

“Good luck out there,” Mary told him, with all her might willing him to leave.

“Thanks. I’ve got a couple of prospects from last time I was there. Gave them my card. Oh, by the way, I told Mr. Summers about your mother being sick.”

“What? Why’d you do that?”

“He asked why you didn’t answer the phone. Asked where you were. I mean, I’d of never brought up the subject at all if he hadn’t asked. Boss man asks, we gotta answer. You know that.”

“Yeah, I do know.” She also knew this was no time in her life to change jobs.

“You don’t mind if I said something about your mother, do you? I mean, worst can happen is Summers’ll send her flowers.”

“No, I don’t mind, Victor.” Leave! Leave!

“Was that your mother I saw you with at Uncle Bill’s Pancake House?”

My God, was he following her? “Probably,” Mary said.

“I go there sometimes after church. You a religious person, Mary?”

“No, but I’m a spiritual one.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I guess that I believe in something, but I’m not sure what it is.”

“Well, that’s better’n having no god at all.”

Mary bowed her head and pretended to study something on her desk. In the periphery of her vision she could see Victor’s stomach paunch and his gray suitpants. He hadn’t budged, and the front of his pants was twisted in a way that made her wonder if he had an erection.

He cleared his throat. “You need any kinda help with your mother, Mary, you know you can call on me.”

She stared harder at the papers on her desk, not even knowing or caring what they were. “Thanks, Victor, but everything’ll be fine, I’m sure.”

She said nothing more, letting the silence expand and fill the room with pressure that might force him out the door.

Victor deflated the silence. “Anytime.”

“Huh?”

“I said, you can call me anytime.”

“All right.” She still refused to look up at him.

Finally she heard him walk away.

A few minutes later his bland blue Chevrolet nosed from the parking lot onto Kingshighway. He glanced over and saw her watching him through the window. That seemed to please him. The Chevy’s tires eeped, and he waved to her as he drove away.

Are you a religious person?

What an asshole question. How many people stopped to think their religion gave them convenient parent substitutes? Our Father which art in heaven, and the Virgin Mother, provided the unconditional love and infinite capacity for forgiveness we all yearned for from infancy. It was all such an obvious sham that Mary couldn’t sustain faith. It was beyond her how anyone could.

After running up the closing figures on her adding machine to double-check them, she left for the title company. She didn’t return to her office until four o’clock, still seething from dealing with the purchaser’s unreasonable attorney, and worked until six. Before driving home to change clothes and pick up her dance shoes, she stopped at a Denny’s restaurant and had a club sandwich and glass of iced tea for supper. She’d had a cup of soup from the vending machine at work and wasn’t all that hungry, but she wanted time for her food to settle before she stepped onto the dance floor at the studio.

Helen and Nick were practicing tango, working on a routine. Ray Huggins spotted Mary from his office and smiled and waved to her, but she didn’t see Mel anywhere.

She sat down on the vinyl bench and started changing shoes, hoping he’d appear; he’d stood her up for lessons a few times, been sick or had car trouble, and she’d taken her instruction from Nick or Stan. Sometimes it was good to switch instructors briefly, to get accustomed to different styles at high levels of skill, but Mary preferred Mel. He was the one she’d be dancing with in Ohio, and right now that was what was important.

As soon as she’d fastened the strap on her right shoe, she looked up and there he was, padding across the floor toward her from the storage room in back where the instructors kept their competition costumes. He had on a totally black dance outfit with shoulder pads and a sash around his narrow waist; he looked like a cat burglar out to steal love.

“I was practicing a bolero routine with Maureen,” he explained, holding out his hand for Mary. “We’re gonna do it in Miami.”

“Bet it’s great,” Mary said. Maureen, who was the tallest female instructor, looked good dancing with Mel.

“So how do you like my Latin outfit?” Mel asked. He did a quick spin. “I bought it from a shop in Kansas City. There’s a kerchief and a red vest that goes with it.”

Mary told him he looked dashing, and wondered if the costume was what he’d wear when they danced tango in Ohio. She also wondered how it would look with the dress she was having made. A seamstress named Denise Jones, who specialized in dance competition dresses, had already taken her measurements and down payment on a dress to be worn during the rhythm dances. More than a few women danced competitively for little reason other than to wear the sometimes spectacular dresses, and the flashy and stylish all-important shoes.

Mel walked over and made sure the tango tape had a while to run, then returned and said, “Let’s work on head motion tonight. When I lead you into promenade position, you need to put a little more snap into it when you turn your head.”

“I’ll try.”

“I know you will, Mary. That’s why you’re one of the best students here.” He was grinning as he stepped into dance position, moving tight against her and flexing his knees.

“Did you teach Danielle Verlane to tango in New Orleans?” she asked.

He kept position. “How come you wanna know?”

“I’m just curious because she was your student, I guess.”

“I taught her some tango.”

“Ever teach a woman named Martha Roundner?”

“I dunno. Maybe. You ready?”

“Sure.”

“Don’t smile during tango,” Mel said. “Look sexy. Think candlelight and condoms. It’s a dance of male domination.”

The one beat arrived and they were dancing.

“Good, Mary! Great! You really are improving.”

She couldn’t answer, and she realized she was dancing holding her breath. Bad habit. She forced herself to breathe as she remembered to whip her head around in the direction of the promenade step.

Then she quit thinking altogether and simply danced, fell into a kind of trance where everything seemed to happen automatically. Even the music seemed to lose melody and only the sensual tango rhythm remained, beating through her heart and veins.

Time rushed like dark water, and Mel was stepping away from her.

The music had stopped.

“Wow! What happened, Mary? That was terrific!” She knew he often tried to lift her confidence with exaggerated praise, but this time there was something in his eyes, an enthusiasm and a genuine surprise.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “Just catching on, I guess.”

“Eee-yow! Catching on is right! Hey, you’re breathing hard. You wanna take a break?”

“No, no, I’m okay. Let’s work on the cortes, tracing a smooth line.”

“You got it, Mary! Practice, practice, practice. That’s dancing-do it a hundred times and you know it.” He rewound the tape and moved back into dance position.

They waited for the one beat and began again.

Mary had wanted to talk to Helen, to ask her if she’d heard about the Seattle murder, but a mambo group lesson had begun during the lesson with Mel, so Mary changed shoes, caught Helen’s eye and waved to her, then left the studio.

She’d driven straight home and snacked on microwave popcorn and diet soda, but now she couldn’t relax. For about an hour she lay on the sofa with her eyes closed, going over in her mind the tango lesson with Mel. In this version he was wearing the kerchief around his neck, and the red vest. She was enthused over the way it had felt tonight, the oneness with the rhythm and the ease with which she’d followed his lead.

She was so much more comfortable on the dance floor. For the first time, she was not only sure she’d compete in the Ohio Star Ball, she thought she had a chance to win.

Mary stood up out of the couch and picked up her dance shoes. The pair of shoes she’d mailed away for had been in a package by her door. They hadn’t fit, and the style was horrendous and nothing like the illustration in the brochure. She’d sent away to Chicago for a new pair of Latin shoes from one of the catalogues at the studio. Good ballroom dance shoes had to be bought by mail and often had to be returned or exchanged several times until a comfortable fit arrived. These shoes were marked in British sizes and ran narrow, so guesswork was involved.

She brushed the suede soles of her old dance shoes with her wire brush. She started to slip her feet into them but then she stopped. She decided to change into something looser and less inhibiting than the Levi’s she’d put on when she’d come home. Her robe would be okay.

But when she’d stripped to her underwear and picked up the robe, for some reason she dropped it back on the bed. No one could see her in the spare bedroom where she practiced, so why wear it? In fact, why wear anything at all?

She peeled off her panties and removed her bra, leaving on only her well-worn Latin shoes with their two-and-a-half-inch high heels. Then she shoved aside what furniture there was in the spare bedroom, switched on her portable tape player, and fed it a tango cassette.

She assumed dance position and began a tango with an imaginary partner. He led her beautifully through one flawless step after another, her nakedness taut and elegant.

A soft scraping sound at the window made her freeze in mid-step, made her heart pause in mid-beat. She stared at the curtains and was sure there was no gap; no one could see in. No one could be outside the window anyway, here on the second floor.

She put on her robe and forced herself to walk to the window, stood for a moment, then flung open the curtains.

Nothing.

No one and nothing.

Only the dark night. The noise must have been in her mind.

It was almost ten-thirty. Jake would be getting off work soon.

After showering, then slipping again into her robe, she went back into the living room and slumped on the sofa. Her legs were beginning to stiffen, but she felt spent and relaxed. She used the remote to switch on the TV and tune in CNN news.

Within a short while the footage on the Seattle murder was repeated, as she thought it might be. Cable news ran their tapes over and over. First came the second interview with Rene Verlane. Throughout it, Mary stared fixedly at his handsome, brutal features, feeling his odd appeal and wondering why. The man wasn’t merely the pitiable widower of a murder victim; he was a prime suspect.

More tape was shown in this extended coverage of the story. This time a high-ranking police officer named Morrisy, a rough-looking man wearing a frown, a white shirt, and a fancy badge, after complaining about leaks to the press, reluctantly admitted to the voracious news media what the secret thread was that possibly connected the Seattle and New Orleans murders. In both cases there was evidence of sexual intercourse with the victims after death. “Necro-file-ya,” he said, mispronouncing the word with obvious distaste. And this time there was a photograph of Martha Roundner, the Seattle victim. A bullet of ice shot through Mary and she heard herself gasp. Martha Roundner was virtually her double.