Dead Man Dancing (2 page)

‘Right,' I said, remembering. ‘Kay Giannotti of J & K Studios was one of our sponsors.' The fund-raiser at Loews Hotel on West Street had been a huge success, but I'd sulked on the sidelines, a proper little wallflower. Paul had declined to go, citing finals that needed grading, assuaging his guilt by forking out a healthy check for the cure instead.

‘Chloe takes lessons at J & K, too,' I added. ‘I've picked her up a couple of times. The studio's off Chinquapin Round Road.'

While I bragged about my granddaughter's last dance recital, Ruth padded barefoot to the bookshelf and hauled down the Yellow Pages. She plopped the book on the table and thumbed through the pages until she got to Dance Instruction.

Yipes! The girl was serious.

Ruth snapped her fingers in my direction. ‘Paper and pen?'

I yanked open the junk drawer and found a pencil stub and an old carry-out menu, then watched as she wrote down the address and phone number on a blank space above ‘All You Can Eat Special - $9.99'. She handed the pencil back. ‘I'll check to see what classes they offer.'

‘I'm holding my breath.'

‘Be serious, Hannah! Wouldn't it be great to see
everyone
waltzing around the . . .' She closed the book with a thump. ‘Shit. The dance floor at the George Calvert will never handle everyone. We'll have to check out Loews. I'll lose my deposit, of course, but . . .'

She turned to me and grinned, confident that I'd be agreeable. ‘You and Paul will take lessons, too, won't you?'

I thought about the grand ballroom at the Loews Hotel, particularly the spacious atrium just off the lobby. I remembered it as it had looked for Dance for the Cure – glamorous ball gowns, sophisticated tuxedos, elegant couples tracing graceful circles around the dance floor. I imagined myself in flowing yellow chiffon, trailing feathers like Big Bird, my hair a-glitter with sequins, swirling around in Paul's arms, light as air, characters straight out of
Die Fledermaus
.

A girl can dream.

‘I'll put it to Prince Charming,' I said, ‘but I'm not making any promises.'

‘It's easy, Hannah. Lay down the law: no dancing, no sex.'

‘
Har de har har
. I better get myself to the grocery store then, and fix him something mouth-watering for dinner.'

Ruth hugged me, hard. ‘He will be putty in your hands.'

‘I'm not so sure about that.'

‘Bull. Your meat loaf is ambrosia. Nectar of the gods.'

‘Right,' I said as I returned the phone book to its proper shelf. ‘Dab a little gravy behind my ears, and I'm irresistible.'

Maybe my plan would have worked better if I'd dabbed a little Chanel No.5 behind my ears rather than Eau de Boeuf.

‘You're kidding me, right?' Paul mumbled around his toothbrush and a foaming mouthful of Crest as we prepared for bed that evening.

I was perched on the lid of the toilet, my knees pulled all the way up under my nightgown, watching him brush.

‘You know I have two left feet,' he said after he'd rinsed and spat.

‘I know that, but maybe if we took
lessons
. . .' I jabbed a finger into my husband's lean-mean stomach, emphasizing each word.

Paul laughed out loud, then grabbed my hand and pulled me off the chenille-covered seat toward him.

Standing on tiptoes, I gazed up into his face, admiring the laughter lines that creased his lightly stubbled cheeks. ‘Aren't mathematicians supposed to be musical?'

‘There's a high correlation between math and music, true, but there are exceptions to every rule. And sad to say, I am one.' He kissed the top of my head.

‘Come on, Paul. It's only one night a week. Surely you can manage that.'

He held me at arm's length and squinted at me suspiciously. ‘Which night?'

‘I don't know yet,' I said, hedging my bets. ‘Ruth and I are going to check out the studio tomorrow.'

‘Can't we just rent a video?'

I glanced at my husband. Sneaky Paul, looking for a loophole.

‘Where's the fun in that?' I explained about the orchestra, and about Ruth's plan to make hers the Annapolis wedding of the year, if not the decade, with society page coverage in the
Baltimore Sun
and
Washington Post,
even if she had to pay for it. ‘Suppose I get Connie and Dennis to take lessons, too?'

Paul grunted.

‘We can make it a family affair,' I added, hopefully.

‘Dennis?' Paul snorted. ‘Surely cops are far too busy putting away criminals to take time out for dance lessons.'

I saw my opening, and played my ace. ‘If Dennis agrees, will you agree, too?'

Paul turned me around and nudged me gently in the direction of the bedroom.

‘Well?' I shot a hopeful glance over my shoulder.

‘I'm thinking, I'm thinking.'

In the semi-darkness of our bedroom, I slithered under the covers. ‘You know what Ruth suggested, darling?'

Paul slipped between the sheets and stretched out his arm to turn off the bedside lamp. ‘What?'

‘No sex ‘til you dance,' I said as I pulled the duvet under my chin.

‘Always helpful, your sister.'

A few minutes later, Paul's kiss told me all I needed to know.

I nibbled on his ear. ‘I'll take that as a yes, then, Professor Ives.'

R
uth burst into my kitchen the following morning, armed with a list of dance studios, if you call three a list, and printouts with information about each. She spread them out on the table in front of her.

‘I thought we'd decided on J & K Studios,' I complained, setting a mug of steaming black coffee on the table beside her. ‘Yesterday afternoon. Remember?' The studio had been so supportive of Dance for the Cure that I wanted to steer a little business their way.

Ruth picked up her mug and sipped carefully. ‘Well, yes, but when I got home, I thought I'd better do a bit of research. Just to make sure.'

‘Make sure of what?' I asked, feeling a bit miffed that my advice about J & K Studios was being ignored.

‘To make sure that Hutch won't be disappointed,' she said. ‘He competed in college, so I figure he's going to be a little bit picky about instructors.'

‘A
serious
competitor?'

‘Won all kinds of trophies.' Ruth beamed at me over the rim of her mug. ‘His mother keeps calling from Nebraska to ask if he wants them.' She laughed. ‘She's turning his bedroom into an office.'

‘What's her hurry? Hutch hasn't lived at home for – what? – fifteen years.'

‘She's threatening to give them all to Goodwill. Anyway . . .' She hurried on before I could wedge a word in. ‘When I got home, I sat down and Googled all the Annapolis area dance studios. This one in Glen Burnie, for example.' She read off an address that I knew must be located in one of the clusters of car dealerships and strip malls that lined Route 2 the entire twenty-some blighted miles from Annapolis to the Baltimore beltway.

‘They've got several wedding packages,' Ruth continued. ‘Everything from reasonably-priced group lessons down to a one-lesson crash course for eighty-five dollars.' She looked up at me over the frames of her reading glasses. ‘Even if it were worth the drive, I don't think the crash course will do.'

‘And this gal –' Ruth tapped the second name on her list – ‘she teaches out of her home in Annapolis, but I checked on her website, no Latin.'

‘
Amo, amas, amat
.'

‘Not
that
kind of Latin!' I could see Ruth wasn't in the mood for jokes.

‘Well, if I can't paso doble, forget it.'

Ruth's eyes narrowed. ‘Do you know more about dancing than you're letting on, Hannah Ives?'

‘Just what I see on
Dancing with the Stars
,' I insisted. ‘Jonathan Whatshisname dragging Marie Osmond around the dance floor by her hair.' I tried to imagine Paul in skintight pants, high heels tapping like a Flamenco dancer, his fingers entwined in the roots of my short, coffee-colored curls. I had to giggle.

‘Paso doble is supposed to represent bullfighting,' Ruth explained. ‘La Passe, Banderillas, Coup de Pique and all that.' She waved a hand. ‘If it weren't for Hutch, I wouldn't know the cha-cha from a rumba.'

‘What
is
the difference between a cha-cha and a rumba?' I asked.

Ruth ignored me. ‘Hutch comes home, grabs a cold one, and watches all those dance shows, yelling beery criticism from the sofa, especially at the judges. Hutch hates the judges.' Ruth pantomimed a dramatic hair flip, batted her eyelashes furiously and gushed, ‘You two are, like, just so awesome!'

‘Hutch is a lawyer. He's supposed to hate judges,' I teased. When Ruth stopped laughing, I asked, ‘Why don't you get Hutch to give you lessons?'

‘He's offered, but I said, no. I can't take the chance that it would wreck our relationship the same way it wrecked the relationship I had with Rusty when I took him up on his offer to teach me how to drive.'

Remembering that notorious high school incident, it was my turn to laugh. ‘Well, if you hadn't gotten a whopping ticket for driving Rusty's car without a license . . .'

‘We were on back roads. Who knew there'd be a roadblock?'

‘Or even a learner's permit,' I added.

‘I was only fourteen.'

‘Not to mention driving over that patrolman's foot.'

Ruth leaned back in her chair, a grin splitting her face. ‘Now
that
was worth every penny!'

Ruth, the radical, then as now. Back then, our dad, a navy commander, had been stationed at the Pentagon, a fact we tried to keep secret from our friends. We were living in a rented farmhouse in rural Virginia, on the outskirts of a tiny town where every infraction, no matter how minor, was eventually published in the police blotter of the local paper. Rusty, two years ahead of Ruth and flush with cash from his after-school job at Denny's, had gallantly paid Ruth's fine, but his ardor cooled after several months of missing Thursday afternoon band practice to drive Ruth home, where she hoped to retrieve the
Woodbridge Gazette
before Mom got to it. Eventually Ruth succeeded in snatching the incriminating issue off the stoop and burning it, but she hadn't counted on the twenty-seven neighbors who telephoned Mom to clue her in. Small towns. Ya gotta love 'em.

Annapolis was like that, in some ways. Population 36,000, and the capital of Maryland, but everyone seemed to know everyone else. That's how I knew Kay Giannotti, the ‘K' of J & K Studios. Even before the Dance for the Cure I kept running into Kay – Annapolis Symphony concerts, Newcomers Club, Graul's Market, the downtown post office. She didn't actually teach Chloe – one of her associates handled the under twelves – but I'd passed Kay in the studio parking lot from time to time, a friendly nod-and-wave sort of thing.

‘You were right, Hannah,' Ruth said, as if eavesdropping on my brain. ‘J & K seems to have the best deal. Group lessons from seven to eight p.m. on Mondays, with an hour of free practice following.' She looked up from her notes. ‘The “K” I can figure out, but what's the “J” stand for?'

‘Kay's husband, Jay.'

‘You're making that up.'

‘No, his name is really Jay. Jay Giannotti.'

‘Too cute.' She lay down her pen, picked up her mug, and began to concentrate on her coffee. ‘What's Jay like?'

‘I've never met the guy. If he's anything like Kay, which is to say late forties, slender, well-coifed and well-dressed, they'll make a striking couple on the dance floor. They're some sort of champions.'

Ruth zoned out for a moment, staring into the depths of her cup. ‘Hutch is a really, really good dancer,' she said at last. ‘But, he gave it all up when he went to law school.'

‘Do you think he misses dancing, Ruth?'

My sister shrugged. ‘I don't know. He doesn't talk about it much. It's all divorce, child custody, prenups, trusts and estates . . .' She rested her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands, and regarded me seriously. ‘I just want to make him proud.'

‘I'm sure you will, Ruth.' I gestured with my empty mug. ‘More coffee?' Ruth shook her head, so I collected our empty mugs and set them in the sink.

‘Paul and I might be an embarrassment, though,' I said, rinsing a mug clean under the tap. ‘When we take to the dance floor, you and Hutch might want to chassé in the opposite direction. Pretend you don't know us.'

‘I'm just happy you're willing to give it a shot. Paul loves you, Hannah. He won't let you down.'

‘It's not me I'm worried about.' Dish towel in hand, I turned to face her. ‘It's
you
I don't want to disappoint.'

‘It's just Mondays for six weeks. Can't Paul manage that?' Ruth gathered the papers, folded them in half and tucked them into the pocket of her sweater.

‘If he doesn't have to trim his nose hair or neuter the house plants.'

Ruth's eyes narrowed dangerously, so I raised both hands, palms out. ‘Joke!'

‘Seriously,' she said. ‘I've already checked with Connie. She thinks she and Dennis can actually make it. Barring a jail break or hostage situation, of course.' She chewed for a moment on her bottom lip, thinking. ‘We need at least three couples to get the reduced rate.'

‘If Dennis bags it, I could always dance with Connie, I suppose.'

Ruth's eyes widened, as if I had suggested something radical, like showing up for her wedding wearing flip-flops, a tube top and a pair of cut-offs. ‘Gosh, no. You don't want to do that. You need to practice the ladies' part while Paul learns the gentlemen's part. It makes a huge difference.'

‘And the gentleman leads, I assume.'

‘Always.'