Dancing Hours

A
ndy

1

T
he first thought that crossed my mind when I saw th
e
man on
the
motorcycle riding toward me
was
I need to know him.
M
y heart
pounded
and
I felt a lump in my diaphragm. 
He started moving in slow motion. 
I had never felt that moment before.  It was something about his silhouette, the shape of his body, the fit of his clothes.  There was a confidence about him – this almost oddly clean cut guy.  His hat was on backwards, underneath was a tidy trim of sandy hair, aviator sunglasses and a plain red shirt that graced the V frame of his broad shoulders and well-defined chest.  I could only imagine the contours of his torso; but I could clearly register his strong muscular thighs wrapped in faded denim jeans. 

He
must have noticed m
y attention because his head turned toward me as he rode past and for a moment I felt his eyes on mine even behind the glasses.
 
I felt suddenly warmer standing on the sidewalk in the sun with my books in hand.  I’d been struck by lightning. 

I continued watching him down the street, but I wasn’t the only one. 
Every person outside that day stopped to stare and a few people had come out the various shops, startled by the unfamiliar loud noise.  As he rode off, I realized I was holding my breath. 
My best friend
Kate
was there
, as usual
,
to
pull me back to reality.  “Who was
that
?” 
she
nearly screamed
in her thick southern drawl
. 

I stammered
,
embarrassed at being interrupted in what felt like such a private moment. “I don’t know.”  I
felt frozen in place.
 

“Well, I’m gonna find out.” 
Kate
had her cellphone out and whipped out a text with her long, smooth brown fingers before I could finish processing what was going on.  Within moments, teenage girls all over our town would become the ultimate spy network pooling information until we had an answer.  It took less than five minutes.
 
He was Mrs. Merchant’s grandson or great-grandson here for the summer while his parents were visiting too. 
Lily Swanson’s uncle had been out there fixing Mrs. Merchant’s oven last week and heard the news.

Mrs. Merchant had been around for ages.  My parents referred to her as ‘Old Lady Merchant’ but
that seemed
disrespectful
to me
. 
She was a roundish woman with reddish brown hair that she pulled back into a bun
every day
. 
She used to be the librarian, but retired before I was born.  She lived alone just outside of town
.  I’d taken a few meals to her with the local elderly meal program
which was as much about providing senior with
company as bringing them a hot meal
.  She seemed lonely and liked to reminisce about when things moved slower, had less lights and beeping noises.  I’d never met or even heard of any family, so hot motorcycle-riding grandson was news to me.  Good news.

My mind lingered on plausible excuses to visit her while
Kate
continued her fact-finding mission.  I couldn’t come up with anything.  It was just as well, I reasoned.  This was my last summer in
Palmetto, a town not much bigger than the tree it was named after
.  In the fall I’d be of
f to college. Remembering that
set my mind in a completely different direction.  I
was
lost in my daydream when I noticed my Nan come out of the drugstore across the street.  She looked like a human peacock with her proud, colorful shuffle… dressed in lavender pants, a cream polyester vest and a slightly darker purple b
louse.  She had on a white hat complete
with purple ribbon around it and walked with a bedazzled cane to match her outfit.  Nan may not be the richest woman in town, but she dressed to impress all the other little old ladies.

I said goodbye to
Kate
and jogged into the street
falling into step and folding my arm into
Nan’s
with a little extra support.  She never lost her half smile and didn’t bother to acknowledge me.  We were natural like this.  It was for the fact of my helping her alone that I noticed
the
plain gray sedan rolling through town also. 
The male driver
paused dutifully as we made it to the curb and N
an waved her cane
to say
thanks
.
H
e nodded back.
  I really noticed the cane for the first time and wondered when she adopted that particular fashion accessory.

I turned to watch
the car continue on
out of curiosity and reach
ed
for my phone again when Nan
poked me.
“No
w
don’t go
ruinin
’ a nice day with that pesky device” she snapped emphasizing the e in device as if it were two words.  Abashed, I put it back in my pocket.

“How
ya
doin
’ Ms. Nessa?”
asked
a woman at the corner
in a sing-
songy
voice
as we approached.   “You’re looking sharp today.”

“
Hey Betty.
 
Why thank you!  I’m better than I should be.  How’s your leg?” Nan responded.

The two ladies continued talking
while I let my mind drift off to college again.  Nan was a talker.  She was my grandmother, but she a
cted like everyone else in
town’s
too.  She talked to everyone about everything and could turn a discussion about the weather into a 45 minute affair.  Everybody in town knew and loved my Nan.  By extension, that meant everyone knew who I was too. 
So naturally
I craved the anonymity of a big city.  My parents weren’t happy when I
first
told them I was going to Los Angeles
for college
.  It was
on the other side of the county, after all.
 

When she finished her chat,
I walked Nan to her car and we talked about when she’d be over for dinner.  She always came over for dinn
er.  My mom was her only child and a
fter grandpa passed away, we were all Nan had for family.
  But she made family out of everyone she knew.  We had more than a few Thanksgiving dinners with a dozen people that Nan invited without bothering to ask my mom.  It didn’t matter much anyway since my mom never did the cooking.  We always ordered a package from some local restaurant in advance and lucky for us they always had extra food on hand when we needed it. 

When Nan drove off, I considered whether I wanted to go hiking or over to the coffee shop to sit and read one of the books I’d just bought.  It wasn’t an easy decision.  Getting lost in a book was easy, but getting lost in nature was more relaxing.  I’d have to walk home to get my
Jeep
and drive to a good hiking spot, so my inertia decided for me. 

I turned to walk down the sidewalk
toward the coffee shop
when I saw another unfamiliar car heade
d down the street.  There was a woman driving with gigantic sunglasses on her face.  Her windows were tinted, so it was hard to see inside the car very well, but her car had California license plates and she didn’t stop at
the
sign a block past me. 

When I got there, t
he coffee shop was buzzing about the newcomers. 
It was a lot of excitement for my little town. 
I tried to tune them out and read my book, but found myself reading and re-reading the sentences without fully comprehending them.  After an hour of trying, I decided to walk home and start
picking out stuff to take to school with me.

2

The next day was my day to work at the Laundromat.
  I’d been doing it ever since I was in middle school.  One afternoon, I went there with my mother when our dryer was broken and I’d seen the owner hovering inside the bottom of a dryer pulling out enormous balls of lint.  Never one to let curiosity go
unsatisfied,
I asked him what he was doing.  He explained that the commercial dryers needed a regular cleaning under there or the dryer wouldn’t work very well or m
aybe would start a fire.  One “C
an I try?” later and I had a job – a dollar a dryer and I could keep whatever change I found. My mother gave me a talk about taking on responsibility and what a commitment I was making.  The way she talked, you’d have thought I was asking for a new puppy.

At
first
the money didn’t seem like much, but people lost an unbelievable amount of money in the Laundromat.  After a few months, I made a sign to put up.  It said “Don’t Lose Your Money Honey.  Check your pockets before washing!”  I also started a lost and
found for all the other random things I found… nice pens, some jewelry, hair
barrettes
, that sort of thing.  This prompted another sign and some regular work hours “Lost Something?  Come see Andy.  Saturdays 9 – 10:30
”  These
signs had been up for years.  No one had started checking their pockets it se
emed, but a few people came loo
king for other things.  The rest sat in a box under the low counter in the corner. 
As far as I know, n
o one ever took anything out of there while I wasn’t around.
 

That Saturday was like most others.  People seem to have a laundry day, so I’d see the same 10 or 15 people in there while I worked.
I knew most of them, but today I saw a cute little girl with her young father
that I hadn’t seen before
.  She was 4 or 5
with the kind of blonde hair most women pay for and clear blue eyes.  The dad was pretty tall with broad shoulders and darker hair.  He had a much trendier haircut than the local male species a
nd he
didn’t look much older than me
.
The little girl
babbled and bubbled her way around the shop, hardly able to sit still while her dad loaded clothes into the washers. 
I thought it was sweet
that he was letting his wife sleep in. 
He looked a little disheveled, like he’d forgotten to shave in a couple of days. 
I kept an eye on him to make
s
ure he didn’t throw any red shirts in with the whites.  After a while they sat together and he watched the little TV while she stared at the claw-drop stuff
ed animal machine in the corner.  She was
an incessant chatterbox, like most
girls her age
,
a
nd asking her
father
a lot of questions.  She asked him to read off the signs and one by one I heard him tell her about the hours of the store, the rules about not sitting on the washers and all that, and then my two signs. 
After he said “
Lost Something?
  Come see Andy.  Saturdays 9 to 10 thirty” She asked “Is today Saturday?”