Dancing Hours (9 page)

He took a deep breath and stretched his arms out wide and then clapped his hands together in front of him. 
“Okay, what should we do?”
He asked completely unaware that he was half-naked or that it made me feel oddly buzzed.

“Shower.”
I said. 
He looked at me for a moment,
then
it seemed to click. 

“Oh yeah, right!
  I’ll be right back.”
He
looked
happy
.  I smiled as he bounded for the bathroom and then dug into my breakfast. 

He emerged fifteen minutes later.  He was clean, shaven and dressed in a pair of jeans and a graphic print T
-shirt
looking every bit like any one of
my friends.  I successfully resisted the urge to snoop in the room he shared with Noah.  I’d hardly have had time anyway.

He stood a little taller now looking a little like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.  How long had it been since he had a day off from being a father?  Three years? 
Four?
  It crossed my mind that he could probably stand to loosen up.

I announced that I was driving and he didn’t complain.  He seemed game for anything.  As we buckled into my virtually ancient CJ7, I confessed that I’d never been asked to sit for a grown-up before. 

“A grown up?  Gee
z
, you make me feel old.  I’m
just a few
years older than you are – not exactly a generation.
”

“Unless you’re Jessica.
  That’s her whole life.”  I was joking.  He didn’t think it was funny.

After an awkward pause, I suggested starting with some coffee.  He wasn’t going to hold my attempt at hu
mor against me and
said coffee sounded good.  I was glad he intend
ed
to have a good day, because I knew exactly where to take him.

A few minutes later we arrived at Under Ground, the coffee shop where Nan sometimes worked.  I knew she’d be there today and she didn’t disappoint – looking flashy in a bright
pink dress
.  It hugged her thin frame and gave hints of the beautiful young woman she had once been.  She was still the highlight of many an old-timer’s day here at the coffee shop.  By day it brewed coffee, by night it served liquor.  All day it smelled sort of funny.

We grabbed a café table in between the door and the counter. Nan descended on us like a kite touching down.  “Andy and David, to what do I owe the
pleasure?” she purred in classic Southern Belle.

“I’m babysitting David.  He needs a non-grown
-
up kind of day.”
I explained.

Nan seemed to consider this for a moment and David filled the empty silence with an unnecessary explanation about the shopping trip and his free day.  Nan didn’t need the explanation because she knew everything there was to know about not
-
grown
-
up kind of days.

“You driving, sweet pea?” she asked me.

“Yep.”
I said, knowing she was thinking what I was thinking.

“How old are you boy
?
” she questioned David

“2
1
”
he said with a quizzical look.

“You telling me the truth?”
she
squinted
her eyes at him as though she could see the truth that way.

“Uh, yes.”
He said.

I gathered he though
t
she was trying to decide if he was too old for me, but I knew why Nan was asking and it’s the reason I brought him here.

“Okay then, I’ll make
you my Special. 
And for you, sweet pea, the unleaded version.”
  She was off in a cloud of perfume and
swirling
fabric.

“She’s making you a decaf?”
he asked.

“Something
like
that.”
I responded.

Nan’s Special was reserved for friends and family who were in need of a little extra something in the morning.  I don’t know what’s in it, but I fi
gured Rum was a pretty good bet for starters.

She returned and informed David “Just one for you, sugar.  And y’all have a nice
mornin
’”

She spent the rest of our time there visiting with the regulars and occasionally peeking over.  David
’s coffee mug was filled with a murky brown liquid.  He
made a cartoonish face on the first sip, but it went down like butter after that.  My coffee was spiked with hazelnut creamer. 
Yay
Nan.  When the alcohol started to warm David’s insides, it loosened his tongue as well.
I asked him the same question I had asked Noah, why he was here.  It seemed to me that most people
who didn’t start in Palmetto
ended up here for some reason or another, but most didn’t come here unless they had to.
He told me how much he
had
liked college, getting away from home and just being with other people.  But after a while, there always seemed to be something with Jessica.  Her mom took off, Noah was useless and their mother didn’t care. 

“My grandmother was pretty strict and judgmental when my mother was young.  Mom rebelled and met my dad, who got her pregnant.  They were married for
a long time
, but it was never really happy.  He felt trapped and she felt trapped.  He cheated all the time, but she ignored it because she had nowhere else to go.  Eventually he
found
someone else and left us.

We
visited
with my grandmother that summer
when they were still trying to save things
, but it was so tense.  Noah and I got caught in the middle – grandma criticized how she was raising us. 
Mom
blew up and we
went
back to California
before
the end of the summer.
” 
He
said.

Now that he mentioned it, I had some vague recollection of a couple of boys at Mrs. Merchant’s house that summer.
  They never played with me or
Kate
, just kind of kept to
themselves
and then they were gone.

“She was an absentee mom from that day on.
” He said.
“
Noah
thought it was pretty great, but somebody had to make sure the lunches were made, the laundry got washed and the light bill got paid.  You know, I should thank her, I guess.  I was the most mature college freshman I knew, but mostly I’ve resented her for making me grow up before I should have.”

“Dad w
as worse.
” He continued.
“
He’s a narcissist.
How’s that for what I learned in psych class?”
He let out an
unhumorous
chuckle. 
I smiled
weakly
.  He was on a roll and I wasn’t going to interrupt.  “For my dad, it’s all about him.  He’s not happy unless he’s doing great and someone else is getting screwed.  He doesn’t have good excuses.  He just does whatever feels good to him at any given time.  He could have remembered to send child support.  He just didn’t.”

“Finding out she was going to be a grandmother didn’t increase my mom’s maternal feelings at all.  She talked pretty big about how she was going to be an awesome grandma and help guide
Holly
and Jessica and she’d be so much better than her mother was to her.  It was just talk. 
When
Holly
bailed our mom hardly even tried to stay in touch with her.  She barely looks at Jessica and when she does, it’s mostly like she’s a nuisance.  It pisses me off.  Jessica didn’t ask for any of this. ”

After graduation and the passing out incident,
David
knew something needed to be done.  Mrs. Merchant r
eally was the only family they
had although they visited her very rarely growing up. 
Trixie
and Mrs. Merchant had a falling out when
Trixie
was a teenager
, which I’d already heard about from Nan
.  The relationship never quite healed and that meant her sons had a duty to be loyal to their mother.

“Family has to stick together, you know?  But the older I got, the more I realized what a flake mom was, how she never really raised us.  We raised ourselves.  I raised Noah.  It wasn’t fair, but life isn’t fair.”

After a moment, he raised his empty mug and looked inside.  “What is
in
this?”

“Truth serum
.
”
I deadpanned.

He laughed loudly and nearly fell out of his café chair.  Nan swooped in quickly.

“I guess you’re
feelin
’ pretty good by now.”
She bemused.

“Yes, ma’am” he snickered.

“Andy, you take good care of him. 
He’s
gonna
need a meal pretty soon and maybe a little something sweet.”  She chirped the word sweet and winked at me.  I blushed.  David didn’t notice.

I knew just the place to go.  Somewhere that would make Jessica happy.  We started with mini-golf, which was going swimmingly for me because David could not golf in his present condition. 
Kate
texted
wanting to know where I was
and I texted back.  Within 15 minutes ten of my friend
s
were there.  Then the fun really began.  David was quite good at the video games, even tipsy. 
Kate
pulled me aside when we stopped to eat.

“Are you on a date?  What happened to Noah?  It’s like some
Shakespearean
play
,
you’ve f
allen
in love with two brothers.”  She squealed with delight.

“Relax
Kate
.  I’m not involved in a sordid love triangle.  Noah and I are just friends.  David and I are friends
too
.”
I explained