Slow Dancing (7 page)

“I know what I need to know. For starters, you’re the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. You’re a good mother. I love you and your child. What else is there?”

“Well, do you have any old girlfriends lurking who might resent me?” He pulled back from her.

“You ask me that on our wedding night?” he gave a loud laugh and she grinned. “Nope. None. Well I did have a girlfriend in high school, but she’s married with two kids now, so she won’t bother you.”

“How serious was it?”

“I guess serious,” he said. “We slept with each other, if that’s what you mean. And what good did it do? No good. I’m sorry for it now.”

“I’m not,” she answered. “I didn’t want to be tainted while you’re pure as snow.” He looked into her eyes and started laughing.

“You are not tainted, not by a long shot.” He pulled her closely and they rocked together as the music played softly. She intertwined her fingers into his and stretched up to reach his mouth. He bent down to return the kiss, and they started their wedding night swaying in an embrace with Johnny Rivers singing in the background.

Frank would always remember the way Margaret looked that night. When she’d stopped caring about him and Ellen, almost forgetting they’d existed; he’d remember their wedding night. He’d used the hallway bathroom to give her some privacy, and when he came back into their bedroom, she was stretched out on his bed; on top of the bedspread the lady at Sears helped him pick out, naked. He’d never seen such a beautiful body. Later, he’d rationalize that he loved her, she could’ve had a beard and he’d think the same thing. Those early days of bliss would sustain him through the next years, of her diminishing lucidity and increasing craziness.

While Margaret was losing her mind, Frank and Ellen fell in love, the father she never had and the daughter he’d always worship. There was a mutual respect and understanding as in a true father/daughter relationship, they
chose
to be father and daughter. It wasn’t forced upon them, or a product of anything. He wanted to be her father and she wanted to be his daughter. It was simple logic.

They discovered similar qualities about each other that surprised them because there was no shared genetic material. A phrase Ellen often heard was, “You look so much like your father!” Maybe through living together with little other input, Ellen took on many of Frank’s inflections in speech, and mannerisms. And they shared the love of dancing, from the time she was a little girl, watching Margaret dance with Frank, Ellen was enchanted by ballroom dancing. On Halloween, she wasn’t a princess or a queen like other little girls; she was a dancer.

Dancing beautifully together at parties and community picnics, other fathers and daughters and mothers and sons tried to imitate the McPhersons. The principle asked Frank and Ellen to lead the first dance at the ninth grade graduation party because they made it look so easy. “It’ll get more people out on the floor if they think they can look as smooth as you two.”

Frank took Ellen shopping for the dress she would wear to the dance. Taking the armload of dresses on hangers they’d picked out together into the dressing room, she tried one after another until she walked out of the dressing room in a white cotton pique. “That’s the one, sister,” Frank said. She looked over her shoulder in the mirror and then stood this way and that, frowning.

“You think so Frank? Oh, I’m not sure.” Her uncertainty was coming from the neckline; but she didn’t feel comfortable calling attention to it in front of her genteel stepfather.

“What’s yer problem with it then?”

“I think it might be a little too grown up for me.” He turned beet red, seeing right away what she was eluding too.

“Okay, I gotcha. Yep, you may be right. Try another then, we got all day.” She giggled; he meant just the opposite.

“I’ll be right out.” She went back and took the white dress off, choosing a pale blue cotton shirtwaist dress with a full skirt. She came out of the dressing room and spun around, the skirt lifting in the air, showing off her blue jeans. “What about this?” He had his hand on his chin, looking at her, making twirling gestures with his hands to get her to move this way and that.

“That might be it, by golly,” he said. “You look like a princess in it, sister. What’d you think?” She stood still for a moment in the mirror.

“This is it. You know, I thought of Mother there for a moment. Wonder what she’d say if she could see me in this dress.” Frank smiled at her.

“She’d be so proud of you; I bet she’d just be grinnin’ ear to ear.”

“I think so, too,” Ellen said. “I feel like she’s tellin’ us this is the one.” He nodded, happy that she was getting some psychic direction. Or that her own intuition was kicking in.

“Let’s git goin’ if we’re havin’ dinner out tonight. We got the drive home and all.” She took the dress off, unconsciously smiling. They’d shop for shoes on the weekend; that was something she could get in Seymour. And underthings were never a problem because Frank saved all of Margaret’s for her and she was slowly growing up to fit into them. The shoes and clothes were still too big, but it wouldn’t be long before she’d have the entire wardrobe to wear.

When the weekend for the dance arrived, Ellen dressed quickly so she could help Frank. “Let me iron your shirt,” she said, fidgeting. “It’ll give me something to do.” He laughed, pulling the iron away from her grasp.

“I won’t have my daughter ironing my clothes,” he said firmly. “Sit a bit and keep me company.” He put the shirtsleeve on the board first while Ellen sat carefully on the kitchen chair so as to not wrinkle her dress.

“I’ve got Mother’s slip on,” she said. “We better go through her things; I thought I saw a moth on the floor of your closet.”

“You can have whatever you want of her stuff and then we can get rid of what you don’t want,” he said. “You know how styles go around in circles. Maybe someday it will be worth somethin’ to someone.”

“You mean like take it to the thrift store? Never, Frank. Can’t you see Mary sneaking over there as soon as word got out that Margaret MacPherson’s clothes have just arrived?” Frank let out a chuckle.

“Never thought of that, sorry. You’re right, again.” There was something obscene, almost worshipful about the way Mary Cook spoke of Margaret.

“But maybe we can find a way to preserve them, you know. For my own girls,” she said, looking at him shyly. So, she was thinking of her future already.

The ninth grade graduation dance was a turning point for Frank and Ellen. After having stayed under the radar, watching them float so smoothly over the dance floor gave the people of the village something more to talk about than just the words of Mary. The simple-minded people whispering ugly lies about the father/daughter team now had real ammunition, while normal people were in awe of their talent. It put them on the map.

Chapter 6

Alan Johnson forgot about Margaret Fisher six months after arriving in Galveston, after catching the eye of exotic dancer, Janelle at the Bensalem Gentleman’s Club. He’d been going there nightly for weeks, trying to get the attention of any dancer who would look his way. Finally, on a Friday night in November, Janelle Fisher noticed Alan when he sat the front row table every night, drinking something tan in a glass and never sticking more than a wrinkled dollar bill in her G-string.

“Who’s the loser in the front row?” Melanie asked Janelle. “Looks like he’s getting ready to shove his bar tab in my bra.”

Janelle laughed. “I got a buck. It’s all he ever gives out. But I think he’s kinda cute.”

“Yuck,” Melanie said. “You can have him.”

Janelle was tired. She was thirty-eight to Melanie’s twenty. The Bensalem was her last gig; no other legitimate club in town would let a girl older than twenty-five get up on the stage. The clubs on the other side of town hired tips-only dancers, girls whose faces and figures destroyed by drugs or booze looked just fine at closing time. The Bensalem was a step up from those places for the working man. When Janelle started dancing twenty years ago, she was looking for a meal ticket, but he never showed up. Alan was eager, almost pathetic in the yearning written all over his face. She was ready to call it quits and she needed supplemental income. He was the only one interested.

“Wait for me at closing,” she said softly, squatting in front of him. “I’m off at two.” He nodded at her, mouth hanging open. She stood back up maintaining eye contact with him as she moved on to the next guy. Alan watched her slowly walk along the edge of the stage, running her hands down her body and turning first one way and then the next, glancing over at Alan when she could and smiling sweetly at him.

Even Galveston could be cold in November after the sun went down, but Alan waited outside for Janelle as she asked him to, freezing in his shirtsleeves. He took a last drag and threw his cigarette on the ground, grinding it with his heel when she opened the door, putting her coat on. “God it’s freezing out here,” she said, looking at his bare arms. “Are you okay?”

“I’m good,” he said. “My car’s right over there.” He pointed down the block. “Do you want to meet somewhere or are you okay about leaving with me?” She thought he was being very considerate.

“I can leave with you,” she said, gesturing over her shoulder to the building. “They know who I’m with.” They walked in silence to his car. She was ready to sleep with him if she had to.

“Where’s your place?” He asked.

“I rent a room in the East End, “she answered, looking at him concerned. “I know it sounds strange, but my landlady doesn’t allow men in the rooms.”

“Oh, well, I can see the wisdom of that. For safety sake,” he said. “My place isn’t in the best neighborhood.” He looked concerned. “I don’t keep the neatest place, either.”

“I don’t care about that,” she said. “Do you have any food?” He did, having just shopped. And Alan liked to cook, too. So their first date involved cleaning his kitchen so he could fix her breakfast, a shower for her and sleep on his couch.

At noon the next morning, she woke up to the sound of a key turning in a lock as Alan came home for lunch. “I figured you might need to go home to get ready for work.”

“Yeah, I guess I better,” she said, sitting up.

“I’ll make you some coffee now,” he said. “But I thought, if you’d like, you can pack a bag and come back here tonight.” She looked around his living room, at the piles of papers and dusty furniture. It needed cleaning, but it wasn’t bad for the crappy neighborhood it was in.

“Okay, I guess I’d like that, if you’re sure.”

“We can be roommates unless something else develops,” he replied with a smile. So that’s how he forgot about Margaret.

Moving in together, they played house for almost a month until she discovered photographs of beautiful Margaret Fisher. It took them a few days to work their way back to the bedroom, and a few weeks for Janelle to grow tired of the squalor of his messy apartment. It was during a cleaning spree she came across an envelope filled with colored photos of a naked woman. Alan forgot he had the photographs; his version of artistic poses using a Polaroid. The images could have been random, taken by anyone, but Alan the ego-maniac had to make sure he was in several of them, laying on the bed next to the woman, holding the camera arms length to get both faces in the frame, as well as one perky breast. Nagging Alan about Margaret, she was jealous and suspicious.

“She’s someone from the past,” Alan said. “Haven’t seen her since I moved to Galveston.”

“How long were you together?” Janelle asked. She was standing at the stove, debating whether or not to distract him with egg frying, or throw the pan in his face.

“Not long,” Alan said, trying to remember exact dates. “Less than a year.”

“Why’d you split up?”

“I moved here and she wanted to stay in Saint Augustine.” He was lying, but he didn’t want to admit he’d borrowed money from Margaret to run away. He’d lied to Margaret, too. There had never been a better job, or corporate begging him to head up the sales team. The bill collectors and loan sharks were closing in on him, and he was in so deep he had to leave.

When Janelle grew tired of Alan’s lies, Becky the secretary moved in, and when she moved out, Cynthia the dental hygienist moved in and so on for ten more years. Alan didn’t think about Margaret again until he lost his job.

Car sales plummeted and the dealership folded during an economic downturn and hard working, generous Margaret popped into his thoughts. The only number he had for her was one that she’d had disconnected when she was supposed to be coming to join him. Then she’d called one night, leaving a message at the boarding house, that she was going to be delayed.

“You got a person to person call from Seymour last night,” the landlord said. “Margaret has car trouble and won’t be here till next week.”

“Seymour? Where the heck is Seymour?”

“Some place in Alabama, I reckon.” She never arrived, and he figured she went back to Saint Augustine after all.

Now, years later, with no other options, he had nothing to lose by heading back to Florida, the town of Seymour forgotten. But when he arrived in Saint Augustine, there wasn’t anyone left who knew Margaret. He went to her aunt’s house, but the woman had died. Tracking down her friends was impossible because he’d never met any.

Remembering where Margaret worked, Alan walked around the building, finding a directory posted on the wall next to the elevators. A maintenance man walked by and Alan caught his attention.

“Can you tell me what happened to Hartland?” Alan asked. “An old girlfriend worked there and I’m trying to look her up. I don’t see it listed here.”

“Hartland sold out to Reynolds a while back. I worked in Hartford offices.”

“Do you remember Margaret Fisher? She was in the pool. About five six, a hundred ten pounds, auburn hair and blue eyes.” He told the man about waiting for Margaret to show up in Galveston.

“She’ be hard to forget,” he said when Alan questioned him.

“She
was
a looker,” Alan said, feeding his memory. “Do you remember when she left?”

“She got throw’d out like all of ‘em. How late you say she was?”