Dead Man Dancing

Fourteen

‘Thanks for taking charge of Chloe, Mom.’ Emily had turned my granddaughter over to me at J & K for her ballet lesson with every intention of turning around and heading right back out the door. ‘I’m simply frazzled. Except for Christmas itself, I haven’t had a single day without a whole raft of rug rats in the nursery. I swear to God, their mothers were checking in for massages, dropping off their kids, and nipping out the back door to go do their Christmas shopping.’

‘When did you get to be such a cynic, my dear? They probably need the massages after fighting tooth-and-nail for parking spaces, then lugging all those packages around the mall.’

‘Ahh! Don’t I know it. It’s gotten so I avoid the mall altogether between Thanksgiving and New Years. I did all my shopping on Maryland Avenue and Main Street this year, which, being the great detective that you are, you probably deduced since I picked up those earrings you had Jean set aside for you at Aurora Gallery.’ She grinned. ‘Next year, I think I’ll shop over in Chestertown or Easton,’ she said, naming two delightful small towns on Maryland’s still largely unspoiled eastern shore.

‘The only thing I wanted that I didn’t get this year you can’t exactly ask Santa to pop into his sack and haul down the chimney,’ she continued.

‘Oh? What’s that?’

‘A full-time nanny.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Or maybe an au pair. The spa’s doing really well, Mother. So well, in fact, that we may be able to pay off our investors next year.’ She rolled her eyes theatrically. ‘Honestly, it will be a huge relief to get that obnoxiously tweedy Mrs Strother off our backs.’

‘Ooooh,’ I said. ‘Does that mean your father and I will be rich beyond our wildest dreams?’ Paul and I had invested in Spa Paradiso, too. Five percent. Enough to finance a space the size of your average bathroom.

Emily grinned. ‘Of course.’ She wrapped her scarf around her neck, and took another step toward the door. ‘I love managing Puddle Ducks, but Dante wants me to be involved in the day-to-day operations of the business, too. He’s got me interviewing candidates for office manager, and we need a secretary.’

‘I know what that’s like,’ I chuckled, recalling all the misspellings and unintentional howlers in the résumés I’d reviewed for my son-in-law before the spa opened last year: ‘I was the manger of $2,000,000 in pubic funds.’

I’d been wrapped up in résumés the day Timmy was kidnapped.

Don’t go there, Hannah, I was warning myself, when Chloe bounced out of the dressing room, reminding me that all my grandchildren were home, happy and healthy.

I bent down and kissed the top of Chloe’s golden head. ‘So, how’s my little sugarplum fairy?’

Chloe pulled away, more important things on her mind. She tugged on her mother’s coat sleeve. ‘Can I have a pair of toe shoes, Mommy?’

‘Toe shoes?’ Emily knelt down so she could converse with her daughter eye to eye. ‘You have to be at least ten years old for toe shoes, Chloe.’

Chloe’s lower lip curled out. ‘Tessa got toe shoes for Christmas.’

‘If Tessa jumped off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff, too?’ Emily smiled and patted her daughter’s cheek. ‘We’ll talk about it later. Now, run along to the barre, sweetie, and after your lesson, maybe grandmother will take you to KFC.’ Emily sent a please-don’t-make-a-liar-out-of-me glance in my direction.

‘Absolutely,’ I said, thinking I could pick up a family bucket and save myself from having to cook dinner. Never mind about the cholesterol.

‘Yay! Chicken wings!’ Chloe cheered, toe shoes apparently forgotten, as she skipped over to join her classmates at the barre.

‘I swear, Mom, I could just kill Shirley!’ Emily said when Chloe was out of earshot.

‘Shirley? Who’s Shirley?’

‘Shirley Douglas. Tessa’s mother. She’s a b-i-t-c-h on wheels. Tessa is only a year older than Chloe, but to hear her mother talk, you’d think Tessa’s been dancing en pointe since she emerged, red-faced and squalling, from the womb. Shirley’s always complaining and asking special favors for her little darlin’.’ Emily gestured toward the wall of neatly labeled plastic bins that held the studio’s extensive collection of show costumes and dance accessories such as feathers, fans and boas. ‘Nothing’s ever good enough for that woman. You think Tessa could wear one of the studio’s cowgirl costumes? No way. Shirley had one specially made. When they put on the Annie Get Your Gun review last year, it looked like -’ Emily put both hands to her mouth, like a megaphone – ‘J & K Studios present Annie Oakley and her little dancing hayseeds.’

‘It wasn’t that bad,’ I said, having actually seen the show.

Emily huffed. ‘I know for a fact that Kay can’t stand Shirley, so I don’t know why they put up with her. It’s not like there aren’t other dance studios in Annapolis.’

‘What about Tessa’s dad?’

‘Link?’ Emily snorted. ‘He’s a wuss. Yes, Shirley, no Shirley, now may I kiss your butt, Shirley. Did you know she hired a specialist to design a dance studio right in their garage?’

‘So I heard.’

Emily’s face softened. ‘I suppose Link’s an OK guy. Just can’t imagine what he sees in Shirley. Then again, he’s a lobbyist in DC, so he probably doesn’t spend enough time at home to get tired of her.’

‘I’m trying to remember if I’ve met him.’

‘Probably. Five foot nine or ten, impeccably tailored suits, beer gut, receding hairline? He shows up for all Tessa’s recitals, grinning and clapping like all the other proud papas.’

I had to smile. Emily’s description fit just about every lobbyist I’d ever met on Capitol Hill. But I sympathized with the guy. The commute – one hour each way during the lightest of traffic – could be a killer. The night I got stuck in a snowstorm and ended up sleeping on a sofa at a Holiday Inn in Bowie, stranded there with a bunch of truckers, had been a turning point for me. I had just about decided to quit, when my RIF notice came, taking the decision out of my hands.

Emily brushed her lips against my cheek. ‘Bye, Mom. And thanks!’

‘Not a problem. Chloe’ll have dinner with us? I promise to have her home by bedtime.’

Emily waggled a finger. ‘No videos, now!’

I held up three fingers. ‘Girl Scout’s honor.’

But my other hand stayed behind my back, fingers crossed. I still hadn’t found time to see Ratatouille, after all.

Waiting for Chloe’s ballet lesson to finish was an exercise in How Many Ways Can Hannah Avoid Talking to Shirley. I went to the restroom, spent a long time washing my hands, combed my hair, checked my teeth for signs that the Crest Whitestrips I’d been using were working – brighter teeth in five days! – but it’d only been three, so there wasn’t much to see.

I’d run out of things one normally does in a restroom, and was considering fashioning carnations out of Kleenex tissues like I did in junior high, when Laurie drifted in, wearing her usual white and black practice outfit, but carrying a garment on a hanger in a long plastic bag. Suddenly, all I wanted to do was talk to Laurie about her clothes.

‘That looks beautiful,’ I said following Laurie into the dressing room side of the dual purpose area.

Laurie hung the gown on a hook on the wall, carefully spreading out the bottom of the bag where it trailed along the floor. ‘Wait ‘til you see,’ she gushed.

I watched while Laurie stripped to her underwear – pink, lace-waist hipsters and a matching push-up bra. Under my sweater and jeans I wore Lollipop cotton briefs and a sports bra from Sears. I was glad I didn’t have to change in front of Laurie. Fashion-wise, it’d be embarrassing.

Laurie unzipped the bag and withdrew a ball gown, a frothy long-sleeved, high-necked peaches and cream confection slathered with Swarovski crystal beads. She stepped into it and raised an arm, ‘Zip please.’ After I obliged, she smoothed out the fabric, swaying from side to side while checking her reflection in the mirror.

‘That’s gorgeous,’ I said, admiring her reflection in the mirror, too, twinkling like ten thousand tiny stars. ‘Absolutely stunning.’

She turned around. ‘And check out the back.’

‘What back?’ I asked, laughing. Except for four narrow bands that formed a tentative connection between the neckband and each side of the dress, there was no back. The gown plunged nearly to her, um, tan line.

‘May I?’ I reached out to touch the fabric. First I lifted a sleeve, then a bit of the voluminous skirt. ‘How do you dance in this?’ I asked, goggle-eyed. ‘It weighs a ton!’

‘You get used to it,’ she said. ‘You should have seen the gown I wore last year for the Yuletide Ball Championships in Washington, DC Fire-engine red, but it weighed ten pounds. I felt like I was dragging a small child around the dance floor with me.’ She beamed. ‘Tom and I got firsts in tango and rumba, though, so who’s complaining?’

I watched while Laurie carefully stepped out of the gown, returned it to its protective covering and lovingly zipped the bag shut. When she finished, she waggled her fingers at me. ‘I’m trying out a new color. What do you think? She fanned her fingers and held them a little closer to my face. ‘This is called My Chihuahua Bites!’

‘Get out!’

‘No, seriously. OPI has the craziest names for their nail colors. I thought about Los Cabos Coral, but that was too match-y, if you know what I mean.’

I was familiar with OPI colors. I’d been painting my toes with Twenty Candles on My Cake for a couple of years, although the last time I got a pedicure, I considered a red called I’m Not Really a Waitress simply because the name intrigued me. ‘Well, whatever it’s called, I think it’s perfect with the gown.’

‘Thanks.’ Laurie’s cheeks turned the same peachy shade as her gown. ‘Tom thinks so, too.’

Laurie pulled a tube of lipstick out of her handbag. ‘Revlon Moondrops, Peach Silk,’ she announced, then leaned close to the mirror and began repairing her lips. She mashed her lips together, checked the results, and said, ‘The dress I had specially made. Cost the earth! This -’ she waved the tube and grinned – ‘I buy at the grocery store!’

Christmas had passed, so I wondered if the Yuletide Ball had, too. ‘Yuletide Ball, you said? Did you and Tom compete again this year?’

‘Yuletide’s not until December 28th, but we’re not doing it this year. Decided to wait until the Sweetheart International Ballroom Competition in February when we’ll really be prepared. We’re competing international standard advanced.’ When I looked puzzled, she went on to explain, ‘That’s the gold syllabus.’

I knew from hanging around J & K for more than a month that ballroom dancing competitions had a series of experience levels – bronze, silver, and gold – each with its own syllabus. When a couple got to the pre-championship level, there was no syllabus; presumably they just danced to their own razzle-dazzle choreography until their feet dropped off. If they did well at the Sweetheart Ball, taking away firsts in gold, Tom and Laurie would be advancing to the pre-championship level the next time they competed.

‘Which dances?’ I asked, knowing that there would be a separate charge to compete in each heat, so some couples decided to pick and choose.

‘All of them – waltz, foxtrot, tango, quickstep and Viennese. Tom and I are going for broke.’ Laurie chortled in a very unladylike way. ‘Shit, Hannah, by the time it’s all said and done, I’ll bet we’ll have dropped five grand.’

‘Five thousand dollars for a single dance competition?’ I couldn’t believe it. Paul and I’d spent less than that on a ten-day cruise to the western Caribbean. In a stateroom. With a balcony.

Laurie ticked them off on her fingers. ‘Costumes, shoes…’ She stuck out a foot on which she wore a bright red, vampy T-strap. ‘These babies cost $175! Jewelry, photographs, video taping. It never ends. And you have to pay for it all upfront.’

‘Golly.’

Laurie raised both hands, palm out. ‘Oh, let me show you something!’ She scrabbled around in her purse, and after a few seconds came up with a small plastic box. Inside the box, each nestled in its own semicircular slot, were false eyelashes. But not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill false eyelashes. Where these lush, fringy lashes attached to your eyelids there marched a single row of peach-colored rhinestones.

‘Just what I need for the office,’ I said, examining the lashes up closely.

‘Exactly!’ Laurie hooted. She tucked the box back into her purse. ‘Eight dollars, and they’re yours, in a color to coordinate with every outfit.’

‘Cheap at twice the price,’ I laughed.

Suddenly, Laurie cocked her head to one side. ‘Do you hear that?’

‘What?’ I stood quietly for a moment, but all I heard was the sound of the furnace kicking in. ‘I don’t hear anything.’

‘Exactly. That means ballet class is over and we’re soon to be overrun by munchkins in leotards. Eek! Gotta change.’

More quickly than I thought possible, Laurie slipped into her usual black and white practice outfit. She tucked her handbag into a locker, twirled the dial on the combination lock, stroked the plastic bag containing her gown and said, ‘I’m outa’ here.’

I followed Laurie into the studio where we found Alicia issuing final instructions to her students, lined up in a row before her like good little Radio City Music Hall Rockettes. ‘Next time we work on your ronds de jambe á terre!’ She clapped her hands together quickly three times. ‘Class dismissed!’

Chloe and her classmates broke formation as quickly as if a grenade had been thrown in their midst, streaming past me, giggling and screaming, on their way to the dressing room.

At the same instant, Jay emerged from the men’s dressing room and padded across the floor to his office in stocking feet, leaving a trail of white footprints behind. I was puzzling over this – talcum powder? – when I heard an exasperated sigh from behind me.

‘He always does that,’ Alicia moaned. ‘The man sweats like a stevedore.’

‘Other than sweaty feet, Jay strikes me as pretty fastidious,’ I said when Alicia returned with a janitor’s broom and began erasing the telltale powder marks from the floor.

‘Oh, he is,’ she said, furiously scrubbing. She stopped work for a moment and leaned on the broom handle. ‘Those eyebrows, for instance.’

I remembered the dark, lush, perfectly shaped brows he’d artfully arched and charmed me with.

‘He’s got a personal uni-brow prevention program,’ Alicia continued. ‘A Vietnamese gal down on Riva twirls a bit of string around her fingers – whish, whish, whish – goodbye hair. It’s called threading.’

‘Expensive?’ I wondered.

Alicia shrugged and continued sweeping. ‘Don’t know. Never tried it. Tweezers have always been good enough for me.’

Eventually Alicia disappeared with the broom, and while I waited for Chloe, I watched Tom and Laurie practice a Viennese waltz. As ‘Que Sera Sera’ played softly in the background, the pair whirled gaily around the floor, rising a little on the first beat, holding the second beat a little longer than the first so that they appeared to be floating, and then taking a quick step three, almost as if they were falling. And again, and again, and again, a whirl in black and white, with Laurie’s trademark red scarf floating behind her like a banner. I was entranced.

It wasn’t until the music stopped that I realized, except for Tom, Laurie, and me – and Shirley Douglas who I could see talking to Jay on the other side of the glass doors of his office – everyone had gone home. Where the heck was Chloe?

Before I had time to panic, Chloe shot out of the dressing-room door, ran over to me, grabbed my hand and tugged. ‘Grandma, I need you to come.’ Her normally smooth forehead was creased with worry, and she seemed on the verge of tears.

‘What is it, Chloe? What’s wrong?’

She tugged harder, throwing her whole body weight into it. ‘Just come!’

Chloe led me through the women’s dressing room and into the bathroom. She stopped in front of a stall at the end of a row of five. ‘In there.’

From behind the door came the sound of quiet sobbing. ‘Who’s in there?’ I whispered to my granddaughter.

‘It’s Tessa.’

I pushed on the door to the stall, but Tessa had it locked. ‘Tessa,’ I said in as soothing a voice as I could manage. ‘It’s Chloe’s grandmother. Will you open the door for me, sweetie?’

‘Nooooh!’

‘Please?’

‘I don’t want to!’ Tessa wailed.

‘If you don’t open the door, I’m going to ask Chloe to crawl under and unlock it for me. Do you hear me, Tessa?’

The sobbing continued for a long moment, and then I heard the latch slide open. Inside the stall, I found Tessa hunched over the toilet where she’d clearly been throwing up. I wrapped my arms around the little girl, supporting her until the worst of the retching had passed.

‘Chloe, go get a paper towel and put cold water on it, please.’

When Chloe returned with the dampened towel I used it to wipe Tessa’s cheeks and chin. ‘Run get Tessa’s mother, Chloe. She’s in the office talking to Jay.’

Tessa stiffened. ‘Nooooh! Don’t get my mom!’

‘What on earth is wrong, Tessa?’

‘She’ll be mad at me.’

‘No, she won’t.’

‘My mommy and daddy are fighting all the time,’ Tessa sobbed. ‘I’m afraid they’re going to get a divorce.’

‘Sometimes parents don’t agree on things,’ I reassured her. ‘It doesn’t mean that they don’t love one another any more.’ I smoothed some unruly strands of long, dark hair out of her eyes. ‘Chloe’s daddy and mommy sometimes yell at each other, don’t they Chloe?’

From the doorway of the stall, Chloe nodded solemnly. ‘And then they hug and kiss.’

Tessa snuffled noisily. ‘My mommy and daddy don’t hug and kiss.’

‘Maybe they hug and kiss after you go to bed,’ I suggested a little desperately, offering her a wad of toilet tissue with which to blow her nose.

Tessa took the tissue and blew, a honking A-flat that echoed from stall to stall. She smiled wanly. ‘If I’m very, very good, maybe they won’t fight any more.’

Poor Tessa. Suddenly all I wanted to do was pick her up and take her to my house. When I got her there I’d dress her in jeans and a T-shirt, let her get sticky making Rice Krispie Treats and allow her to eat them all in a single sitting while watching Shreck on DVD.

‘Tessa,’ I said. ‘Your mommy and daddy will love you no matter what.’

‘They will?’

‘Yes, they will.’

I sent Chloe and Tessa out to wash their hands, and had just flushed away the evidence, when I heard Shirley call from the dressing room. ‘Tessa! Are you in there? Don’t keep me waiting, little miss!’

When I got out into the dressing room, Tessa and her mother were gone, no surprise, and Chloe was waiting for me, a strap of her Angelina Ballerina backpack looped over one shoulder. ‘Can we go to KFC now, Grandma?’

‘Of course we can.’ I took Chloe’s hand, and we walked out the door together with Chloe chanting, ‘Chicken wings and fries, chicken wings and fries.’

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a bucket of chicken from KFC could solve all the world’s problems that easily?

A few minutes later, as we waited for our order at the drive-thru, Chloe said, ‘Tessa can’t eat French fries, Grandma.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because dancers can’t be fat.’

‘That’s true, I suppose, but your friend Tessa isn’t fat, is she?’

Chloe shook her head.

‘Well, I wouldn’t recommend eating French fries every day, Chloe, but there’s nothing wrong having a French fry every once in a while.’

I pulled up to the window, paid for our order, and set the hot, aromatic bag on the front seat between us.

I put the car in drive, but before I could pull away, Chloe said, ‘What’s wrong with Tessa’s nose?’

‘Her nose?’ I closed my eyes, trying to recall any imperfections in the little girl’s face as I was wiping it. ‘Why, nothing’s wrong with Tessa’s nose, Sweet Pea. Why do you ask?’

‘Because back there in the bathroom, Tessa told me she has to get her nose fixed.’