Dancing Hours (6 page)

Feigning mysteriousness as well as I could manage
, I
told him
that I had stared death in the eye and spit for good measure.
He looked like he didn’t believe me, but
he
also looked
truly curious.  I told him the
most dramatic childhood story I had – the
story of how I missed 3 weeks of kindergarten thanks to meningitis. 
The way my mom tells it I woke up fine one morning
then I threw up
out of nowhere
. 
I went from a regular temperature to 105 degrees in an hour a
nd I kept throwing up.  By the afternoon, I
was complaining
that my back and head hurt and the light was burning my eyes.  Three hours later I was screaming bloody murder when they placed the
IV
at
the hospital
and then slumped over like a ragdo
ll.  I saw a bright white light…
but it was in the exam room when they did a spinal tap. 

Noah was listening, but he was also far away somewhere. 
I reflected on how grateful I was for my mom’s “overreaction” as my dad called it.  In a competition between science and mother’s intuition, I’d go with intuition any day.
  Unfortunately, it meant repeating Kindergarten, but it rarely bothered me that I was the oldest kid in my class.

I had stopped talking, but Noah didn’t seem to notice. 
I waited a respectable time before asking if he was still the
re.  He said it was a good stor
y, but he could do one better.  He
explained that he’d
started being a troublemaker
in early high school
.  He blamed his brother a little for always getting good grades and volunteering for projects.  They were only 17 months apart in age and teachers remembered David and expected Noah to be responsible like him.

“He’s a little like you; born at the age of 35.  Never a kid, you know?”

I didn’t and I was a little offended.
 
How could he presume to know me so well already?

So Noah rebelled and did things he shouldn’t have.  He got into trouble when he was only fifteen.  “You know what I’m talking about right?”

“Yes.” I agreed, but I had no idea what he was talking about.  I didn’t want to seem naïve about whatever it was he was talking about, but the most trouble I ever got into was when I
forgot to call my parents to tell them I was sleeping at
Kate
’s house.  They grounded me for a week and then got me a
cellphone
so they could always call me if they wanted to.  Overall, it was a pretty weak punishment.  So I could only speculate about Noah’s trouble.  I made it a point not to judge people on past behavior
and only on what I knew of them.   Nan and I had that in common.

He told me a story
about
when he first lea
rned to drive.
H
e and a buddy stole some motorcycles and drove up the
coast of California.  It was going great, but on the way back down the mountains on the winding 101 they became convinced an officer was following them.  They raced down, but his
friend
lost control and crashed into the rocks.  At first Noah didn’t stop.  He figured his friend would have a nasty case of road rash and spend a few nights in
juvie
, but something made him go back.  There was no cop, just Jimmy on the road in bad shape.  Noah managed to keep him from getting hit.  Some drivers stopped and called
for an ambulance
, got a blanket
for Jimmy
and waited until the EMTs arrived.

Noah disappeared when the grown-ups seemed to have it under control.  He ditched the bike, but got picked up later, he said.  “And they threw me in with the murderers and stuff.”

I knew my eyes were giving me away, but I had never heard such a story. 

“Jimmy had lost too much blood and his skull was fractured.  He didn’t make it.”

Noah did time for the theft and got branded.  His mom started drinking
again;
his father stopped caring and took off and David started taking care of everything.  He stopped talking after a long while.

He said.  “I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone that story.”

I felt a swirl of tipsy emotion –
elated
that he’d let me into a private world, sad that he’d gone through that, respect and admiration
f
or David and an overwhelming contentment with my own small town life.  When he was done talking, but before I could talk about much of anything else, frizzy haired girl plopped next to him.  We had been talking for close to an hour.  Noah sat up and I realized we had been leaning toward one another.  Frizzy hair turned his face to kiss her and placed a hand aggressively
on his thigh
and demanded to go now.  They both looked at me – one with clear disdain, the other with an unreadable expression.  As they got up to go, I asked hi
m
if
he was okay to drive.  Noah’s model-smile spread as he beamed “Absolutely!  This
ain’t
my first rodeo.”  He slapped frizzy hair’s butt hard enough to hurt and they were off.

“Nice to meet you
.
”
I called politely after him.

He
turned,
his arm
still
around frizzy hair.  “I’ll see you soon, hot stuff.”

7

I felt flushed the
next morning, thinking about my talk with Noah.  I knew that I was infatuated from the moment I saw him drive into town.  I was caught in the place where you like a guy and he’s clearly interested in someone else, but you convince yourself that you shared an intimate moment and
that
he must feel a deep emotional connecti
on to you that he can’t possibly
feel with her.  This is very likely what all mistresses feel when they are told how the wife never understood him and he’s a very deep complex soul, but she berates him and tears him down and he’s going to leave her, he just can’t do it right now because of some lame excuse.

The problem with this emotion is that it is so lacking in rationality that there’s no way to disprove
it’s
truth.  I thought he might be my
soulmate
.  I’d never had one before.

Days went by and
Noah didn’t call. 
Of course not, he d
idn
’t have my number.
 
I threw myself into work and volunteering for the next week.  I covered three extra classes for Miss Celia and spent extra hours after class practicing the routines, trying new things.  It was a welcome distraction.  I’d forgotten how much I loved to dance.  It was those hours dancing that helped me lose
myself
, forget where I was and who I was.  Music could be a friend or
a lover, could help me wallow or
forget.  There was a song for any mood.

I visited
Mrs. Merchant
for cooking lessons in July; Noah wasn’t there.  Maybe he was embarrassed about what he told me.  David was alway
s there on my visits.  He was
grateful about the tip on the indoor playground because he got a job as an assistant manager at one of the stores
in the mall
.  Jessica was always happy to see me too.  We learned together and we played together and we talked about how excited we both were to go to school next year. 
Sometimes David would let me take her to the studio after our cooking lesson.  There were no classes that time of day, but I had a key and I gave Jessica her own lessons while David worked out across the street.  She loved to dance too, but girls her age get bored with too much strict teaching so we did a lot of “pretend ballet.”

Sometimes I looked at Jessica and wondered what her mother looked like.  Was Jessica a miniature version of her?  Jessica didn’t seem overly tall for her age, so I wondered if he
r
mother was short.  Did
her mother
have
that smile, that laugh
?  I felt sad for her not to have that friendship with her mother.  I tried to imagine Mrs. Merchant explaining the birds and bees or talking to her about boys and the image wouldn’t fully form.  Then I remembered my talk with my own mother – embarrassing and awkward, sure, but better than nothing.  Would I know her long enough to be like a big sister?  No, I was sure that David would find someone – someone who loved him and Jessica – and maybe I wouldn’t be so much fun anymore.  Or maybe her mother would come back.  It was hard to imagine a mother leaving her child, but she must have had her reasons.  Maybe this was one of those things I was too young to understand.

At the playgr
ound, she was just like every
other kid in town – whooping and hollering and acting like her hair was on fire half the time.  I called her over when her cheeks got too pink and gave her some water.

“You’re sweating up a storm.”  I observed.

“Why am I sweating up a storm?”

“Because you’re playing in the heat.”

“No I’m not!” she laughed as though I said something silly.  “I’m playing in the playground!” she jutted out her
chin
and made a funny face.

“Fair enough” I conceded.  “Play away.”
 

Every minute I spent with Jessica, I admired David a little more.  It was a tough task raising a child alone… far tougher when that child is as busy and willful as Jessica was.
 

Jessica was registered for Kindergarten at the elementary school and I told her Mrs. T
homas
had been my Kindergarten teacher too.  She seemed astonished that her teacher would be as old as a dinosaur. 
I wondered how old she thought I was. 
I
received
my dorm assignment and roommate information.  My scholarship, grants and loans were all set.  Now all I had to do was
wait
. 

After David started working he relaxed a little bit.  He joked and laughed and played with us sometimes.

“I like you Andy.  You’re my favorite person.”  Jessica said one day.

“Aw, thank you.”

“David’s my favorite person too.”

I never asked why Jessica called all the adults by their name instead of dad, grandma or whatever.  They had a complicated family life, I knew that.  Noah and David’s mother left soon after I first met her.  She moved back to California.

I invited David, J
essica
and Mrs. Merchant over for a 4
^th
of July Barbecue at our house
one day while I was there
. 
The day of the party got even more exciting when I got a text from Noah inviting
himself
to the festivities. 
I was
planning to
show off my new cooking skills with potato salad, deviled eggs an
d homemade cutting board salsa -
which I tried on my o
wn without Mrs. Merchant’s help
.