Read Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn Online
Authors: Kris Radish
Tags: #Chicago (Ill.), #Married women, #Psychological fiction, #General, #Psychological, #Adultery, #Separation (Psychology), #Middle aged women, #Self-actualization (Psychology), #Fiction
Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn
Contents
Preview for
THE ELEGANT GATHERING OF WHITE SNOWS
Occasionally, like a fine breeze, there are women—Amelia Earharts, Eleanor Roosevelts, Gloria Steinems, Mother Teresas, Audre Lordes, Margaret Sangers, Susan B. Anthonys, Wilma Rudolphs, Sojourner Truths, Emma Goldmans—hundreds of wonderfully brave, fine, glorious women who followed their hearts on a journey of great courage.
This book is for every woman who dared—even if the daring was something as seemingly simple as starting over.
They would tell us all to do it.
Dance naked—go ahead.
Acknowledgments
Every book project is a journey that includes cargo as precious as the fingers that helped me write this story.
On this journey my editor, Kate Miciak, gave me tickets to everywhere. She saw where I needed to go and set me free. Kate, you are a fabulous co-pilot.
Susan Wasson delivered the maps, felt my spirit, breathed in my words—you are a gift from every goddess, Susan, and I will always be grateful.
Sally Miller Gearhart and Jane Gurko stood out in the pouring rain, in the dead of winter and when it was a hundred degrees in the shade, to give me comfort, shelter and a kiss on the face. You are as important to me as the fuel that keeps me in the air.
Linda Fausel listened as I recited the route. Never told me to turn back. Believed. Your name I whisper as true friend.
Mary Catanese documented every turn and was always there, sometimes with little warning, when I needed her help. Mary, I worship you.
Susan Corcoran and the Bantam Dell wizards put all their magic into one bag and continue to create miracles that would astound even the most road-savvy women warriors. I appreciate every single step.
My sister, Maureen Zindars, always listened, never judged and keeps the door unlocked. If I loved you any more, Pooter, you would not be able to breathe.
Lynn Vannucci took a parallel route, met me in midair and the wind from her lovely laugh and beautiful heart kept me going when I wanted to tumble to earth.
Andrew and Rachel, son and daughter to the gypsy, handed me off to the elements, waited patiently for my return, sent me gifts wrapped in their very souls and when we hit tremendous turbulence—held on. Your flying lessons are almost finished and you know I would crash-land in a heartbeat to save your lives. You are both everything.
And at the very end of the journey Madonna Metcalf appeared riding high on the horizon and waved me into the terminal so I could refuel for the next journey. How lucky am I.
Lastly, there is only one man I would ever invite to a Reverse Bridal Shower—my father, Richard Radish. He always told me I could do and be whatever I wanted. I chose “writer,” and for him, and that gift, my heart will always be dancing. I love you, Dad.
And for every woman who has yet to dance naked—throw yourself a Reverse Bridal Shower and race for the edge of dawn.
I wanted to watch.
This was by far the most bizarre feeling that I have ever experienced in my entire life—all forty-eight years of it. I wanted to watch. What I should have wanted was to kill, to mutilate, to hack with a sharp butcher knife, to maim and claw and slice over and over again until I saw blood and the screaming ended and there were sirens outside the bedroom window. I should have wanted to pull a hidden revolver, one of those slick babies that fits into the palm of your hand and startles unsuspecting victims, from inside of my white Bali bra. I should have wanted to move quietly around the room with a powerful look of raw hatred flashing from my gray eyes and with a multitude of weapons spilling out onto the floor. But no. There would be no flashy pistols or loud cries. This would not be a simple scenario that involved a sad moment of passion-induced violence, because what I wanted was . . . to watch.
My heart was pounding so rapidly, I could see my blue shirt jumping up and down. Jesus. I could feel it in my throat. It touched the edges of my skin and moved like a snake into my veins until it was in charge of everything I did, who I was, where I was going. It was a red mass of vessels and tissue as soft as a baby's arm, it was a tiger prowling just under the edge of my skin everywhere, creating music—a beating drum, rising smoke, naked dancing women, sweat at midnight, and I wondered for a moment as brief as a winter sunset if they could hear it. It didn't matter if they heard it or if the entire population of the free world heard it, because I could not stop. I edged closer to the door until I could see—them. Them. I know it was a them and not simply a he. It was a couple. A them. A her and a him.
It was the sound that had propelled me up from the basement, where I had been struggling to understand why in God's name or the Goddess's name, or whomever it was controlling my divine destiny, I had never thrown away all those yellowed papers that stuck out in the lines of boxes that had been propped against the side of the wall for the past twelve years. The sound was a kind of tapping, a foreign echo that seduced me like a brilliant lover. It was not loose change dropping onto the bathroom floor or books falling off a shelf or an alarm clock being pushed off the edge of the dresser on purpose. It was a thump against the wall. Constant. Regular. What the hell? I put down the papers and quietly moved up the basement stairs and stopped just before I could see the edge of the kitchen counter.
I was not supposed to be home. This is why I stood frozen with one hand on the basement wall and the other hanging at my side. Someone was probably trying to break into the house. Why not? Suburban neighborhood. Everyone working. Regular patterns of coming and going. There had to be some good stuff sitting on top of dressers, that's what a savvy intruder might think about this lovely neighborhood where some rich slobs drove Saabs and there were hot tubs in many backyards and the kids did not ride a bus to school. If it were a robber he would be sorely disappointed when he found sweat socks, two jogging bras and a wad of Kleenex on top of my dresser. No diamonds or gold bands. No tennis bracelets. One antique chest that came from my great-grandmother and represented my entire inherited fortune, a fortune they would never be able to lift without the help of a small crane. Pretty much what he would find would be twenty-three years of accumulated junk, one new car with a bumper sticker that said
Thelma & Louise Live,
some silver spoons under the sink that I would never finish cleaning, a row of tattered books probably worth thousands of dollars, but it's been my experience that most robbers are not that literate, my daughter's Barbie Doll collection stuck away in plastic boxes from the local drugstore, a pitiful selection of moderately prized booze and a doorknob from my old college that I considered one of the finest objects that I owned. “Shit,” I told myself as I took a step into the kitchen, “it can't be a robber. They'd have better luck stealing from the Goodwill store.”
In the kitchen, I could tell the noise was coming from upstairs. This is the moment when I also remembered that my car was parked one block from my house because I had been working with a co-worker on a special project and that because I almost never work on special projects out of the office, no one in the entire world would expect me to be at home on a Thursday morning in June at 10:38
A.M.
rummaging through boxes in the basement and listening at the edge of the steps for the sounds of ax murderers sharpening their blades.
When I got to the top part of the house, I expected one of the alarm clocks to be going off or a television set to be turned on or a leaky faucet dripping stones the size of golf balls instead of water onto the tiled bathroom floor. Maybe the flag had fallen off the roof or a hunk of siding was banging against the side of the house, begging to be released. I certainly did not expect to see a woman's naked foot moving up and down on top of my bed.
It was a slender, beautiful foot. I imagined it was as soft as my own and warm and that the man—undoubtedly my husband—whose fingers I had seen slide down to touch the top of the toes, was thinking how sexy the foot was and how he wanted to inhale it and place her beautiful feet against the sides of his thighs.