Dead Man Dancing (3 page)

Paul taking the lead. For income tax returns, car repairs and yard work, Paul at the helm was definitely A Good Thing. But ballroom dancing? Jeesh. I was in trouble.

E
ven a freak mid-November snowstorm couldn't keep us away from the family dinner we'd planned before turning ourselves over to the trained professionals at J & K Studios.

As surprised as I was by the unexpected turn in the weather, I was completely unprepared for who was presiding at the table when Paul and I walked into China Garden, one of those all-you-can-eat oriental buffets, a few minutes after five thirty that evening.

My father.

Paul crossed from the doorway to the table in four long strides, clapped his father-in-law on the back while simultaneously pumping his hand. ‘George! What brings you here all the way from the Eastern Shore?'

‘Connie and Dennis are snowed in, so Ruth put the strong arm on me. Some nonsense about a quota.' My father turned to smile at the woman seated on his right. ‘I actually drove over Saturday morning. Neelie and I had an
ass-ig-na-tion
.' He drew the word out into four long syllables, and wiggled both eyebrows, a sure sign that he was up to some sort of mischief.

‘George! Do grow up!' Neelie tugged affectionately on Daddy's ear lobe. ‘What your father is trying to say is that I invited him to spend the weekend. He's been helping me put up storage shelves in the basement.'

Neelie was Cornelia Gibbs, my widowed father's steady girlfriend both before and after his recent post-retirement assignment to a hush-hush project with a government contractor in Saudi Arabia. Daddy had leased a one-bedroom house in Snow Hill on Maryland's Eastern Shore to be close to his work at the satellite tracking station, but sometimes came back to our family home in the Providence community near the Naval Station in Annapolis. He'd rented the house out for a while, fully-furnished, but the last tenant had been transferred to San Diego and the next family wouldn't move in until June, so except for my father's pop-in-to-check-up-on-it visits, the place was now vacant.

I'd never seen Neelie dance, but she was a slim, energetic senior citizen, and my equally slim septuagenarian father had always been light on his toes. He and my mother had cut quite a rug in the early years of their marriage. It had been five years since Mom's death. Neelie was a tonic; it was good to see Dad having fun again.

‘Well, here we are!' My father raised a glass of iced water and beamed like an Old Testament patriarch as Paul, Ruth and I joined him and Neelie around the table. ‘A toast to the Amazing Dancing Alexanders.'

Paul helped me off with my coat, and we settled down to thaw our hands around cups of piping-hot green tea. ‘Sounds like a circus act, George,' Paul remarked.

‘You'll have to think of another name, Daddy,' I said, cautiously sipping, ‘since you're the only official Alexander in the bunch.'

Ruth Alexander as-was Gannon soon-to-be Hutchinson, selected a crispy wonton from a bowl in the center of the table and dredged it through a sweet, orange sauce. ‘It's going to be fun,' she said, gesturing with the wonton, deliciously but dangerously dripping. ‘I'm just sorry Connie and Dennis got snowed in.'

The Rutherfords lived on the Ives family farm near Pearson's Corner, well south of Annapolis. It sometimes took days for the snowplow to reach them, so during inclement weather volunteers in four-wheel-drive vehicles would pick Dennis up and drive him to police headquarters. Poor Connie, though, was often stuck. ‘Connie promised they'd come next week,' I said. ‘Not to worry. We've got our quorum.'

‘Quorum?' Neelie looked puzzled.

‘The studio has a three couple minimum,' Ruth explained.

Neelie's brow crinkled, taking in the sixth chair at our table. Still empty.

‘Hutch is on his way,' Ruth hastened to add. ‘He called me on my cell a few minutes ago. He was just leaving his office.'

We had completed our first circuit of the enormous buffet table when Hutch arrived, whacking his cap against his leg to dislodge the fat, wet snowflakes that were clinging to it. He bent to kiss Ruth's cheek. ‘Sorry I'm late, sweetheart.'

Ruth smiled up at her fiancé and used the tips of her fingers to flick water droplets out of the fringe of pale hair that flopped over his forehead. ‘You smell like wet dog.'

‘You want I should smell like damp polyester?' he teased, glancing around the restaurant, looking for a place to hang his overcoat – one hundred percent cashmere, unless I missed my guess.

A waiter materialized out of nowhere, relieving Hutch of his coat. ‘At least I don't smell like an ashtray anymore,' Hutch quipped as he made a beeline for the buffet table.

Ruth beamed with pride. ‘And he's off the patches now, too.'

After a minute or two, Hutch rejoined us. He'd heaped his plate high with spicy chicken wings and egg fu yung, then – inexplicably – smothered it all with an indifferent brown gravy that was already congealing on the rim of his plate. Chef Martin Yan would have had a coronary just looking at it. Come to think of it, anybody would.

Hutch tucked into his grub like a starving man, while I used a spoon to scoop up the dregs of my hot and sour soup, in a very ladylike way, then returned to the buffet to help myself to some Singapore rice noodles, loaded with curried vegetables and plump shrimp, and a couple of dumplings.

When I returned to the table, Hutch was saying, ‘. . . why I was late. It's someone you know, Hannah.'

‘Oh? Who?'

‘I met with her today, and she asked me to say “hi”.' Hutch transferred his chopsticks to his left hand, reached into the breast pocket of his blazer, and pulled out a hot-pink Post-it note. It made its way around the table, hand to hand.

‘Eva Haberman?' Daddy squinted at the Post-it as he was handing it over to me. ‘Isn't she, I mean, wasn't she, your priest, the one whose husband . . .?'

His voice trailed off. Daddy had been in Saudi Arabia when his great-grandson Timmy was kidnapped, so he'd missed the whole ugly business with Roger Haberman, even though it was splashed across every television screen and made the front page of every newspaper in the greater Baltimore/Washington area. Then Timmy'd been found, and Roger'd drowned – hard to call it a happy ending, but it did wrap things up.

While I was still trying to make sense of the news that the Reverend Eva Haberman was in communication with Hutch, of all people, Ruth said, ‘But I thought Eva was in Idaho?'

Still staring at the note, I nodded. ‘After all the hoo-hah over Roger, she retreated to a family cabin in the Sawtooth Range. I had an email from her just last week,' I added, really puzzled now. ‘You
met
with her?'

His mouth full, Hutch grunted.

‘She didn't say a word to me about returning to Annapolis.'

Hutch swallowed a bite of egg roll. ‘Well, she's back now, at least temporarily, and staying with the assistant pastor at St Anne's. She wants you to call.'

I nodded, still feeling a bit stunned. ‘Will do. Did she say . . .?'

Hutch waved his egg roll. ‘Lawyer–client privilege, Hannah, yada yada yada.'

Paul leaned in my direction, his breath warm against my ear. ‘The plot, as they say, thickens.'

Resisting the urge to power up my cell phone and call Eva right away, I tucked the Post-it into my purse. ‘Very curious,' I muttered, as I picked up my chopsticks and attacked a dumpling, spearing it neatly on the first try. ‘Very curious, indeed.'

Across the table, Hutch shrugged unhelpfully.

I shook my chopsticks at him. ‘No fortune cookie for you, Mr Hutchinson.'

‘I'm sure Eva will share her concerns with you, Hannah. It's just not my place to do so.'

‘I know.' I smiled back. ‘It's just that I'm dying of curiosity!'

‘And I'm dying of hunger,' Neelie interjected. She picked up her empty dinner plate in both hands, and held it out to my father. ‘Will you fetch me some more of those spicy green beans, George? And steamed rice.' She smiled, revealing a row of even white teeth. ‘Please?'

What's the matter with you, Neelie, I thought. Legs broken?

Even though Dad still had mounds of fried rice and sweet and sour pork on his own plate, he got up from his chair, relieved Neelie of her plate and said gallantly, ‘My pleasure, Cornelia.'

When he was out of earshot, Neelie touched my arm, her face serious, and I realized why she wanted to send Daddy away from the table. ‘I don't want to worry you, dear, but your father is having terrible trouble with his eyes. He's seeing a specialist up at Wilmer next Monday.'

I stared slack-jawed at Neelie, thinking
damn
. I'd arisen that morning in a cheerful mood, fed my husband hot oatmeal with butter and maple syrup for breakfast, sent him off to work with a kiss, and was looking forward, really looking forward to dance lessons – and so, Paul claimed, was he. And now, well, the older I got, the less I liked surprises. First, my old friend Eva mysteriously returns to town, and now my dad was going blind. What next?

‘Trouble?' I asked. ‘What do you mean “trouble”?'

‘His vision is blurred, reading is an effort, and he's having difficulty driving, particularly at night. We're hoping it's just cataracts.'

‘Just cataracts?
Just
?'

‘Oh, for heaven's sake, Hannah,' Ruth chimed in. ‘Chill. Cataract surgery is no big deal these days. Besides, Wilmer Eye Institute is the best'

‘Why didn't Daddy share this with
us
?' I asked.

‘He doesn't want to worry you.'

‘What are families for, if it's not to worry about one another?'

‘He said he was going to tell you girls all about it, but he wanted to wait until after the appointment, when he knew more about the situation.'

‘So why are you telling us now?'

‘I thought . . . well, I'm not as young as I used to be, girls. So if your father needs someone to drive him to his appointment . . .' Neelie put a finger to her lips. Daddy was making his way back to the table with Neelie's green beans.

I was thinking that Daddy didn't have a bit of difficulty reading Eva's Post-it note over my shoulder when the waiter returned with a fresh pot of tea. I decided to pour another cup and concentrate on clearing up the last strands of noodles from my plate.

Ten minutes later, the waiter was back with the check on a black plastic tray covered with fortune cookies. Neelie slipped the bill out from under the pile of cookies and handed it to Dad, then took charge of the tray. ‘Fortune cookies, anyone?'

I love fortune cookies, especially with Chinese tea, so I grabbed first. I tore off the cellophane wrapping and, as was our family custom, prepared to read it aloud, when Ruth beat me to the punch. ‘Listen to this: “A closed mouth gathers no feet”.'

Paul snorted. ‘Closed mouth? You, Ruth? That'll be the day.'

‘Speak for yourself, Professor,' Ruth said. ‘So, what does yours say?'

‘Let's see here.' Paul tore open the packet with his teeth, and read, ‘“A member of your family will soon do something that will make you proud”.' He considered each of us seated around the table in turn, grinning. ‘OK, which one of you is going to make me proud. Ruth? Surely this must refer to your dancing.'

Ruth blushed. ‘Aren't you forgetting something?'

It was also a family custom, appropriated from our daughter Emily, who picked it up from her classmates at Bryn Mawr College, to add the phrase ‘in between the sheets' to the end of any cookie fortune.

Paul smacked his forehead with the flat of his hand. ‘Duh.'

Hutch had been part of the family long enough to be familiar with the game. He reached across the table for the fortune. ‘Hey, Paul, can I see that?'

Paul surrendered the slip of paper to Hutch who made an elaborate show of putting on his glasses, clearing his throat, and reading, ‘“A member of your family will soon do something that will make you proud – in between the sheets.”' He laughed out loud, gave Ruth an affectionate peck on the cheek. ‘Now
that's
more like it.'

Neelie opened her fortune, then dissolved into giggles. ‘Mine says, “Flattery will go far tonight – in between the sheets”.'

Daddy slipped an arm around Neelie's shoulders, and gave her a hug, an intimate gesture, which made me wonder just how ‘platonic' their relationship was. Daddy's fortune, when he held it up close to read it next, did nothing to dissuade me of the notion that when he got Neelie home, he was going to jump her bones: ‘“A thrilling time is in your immediate future – in between the sheets”,' he read.

At least Neelie had the manners to blush attractively as she said, ‘Your turn, Hutch.'

Hutch read: ‘“He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at . . .”' He paused, then balled up his fortune and tossed it into his empty tea cup.

‘. . . in between the sheets?' Ruth added.

‘I hope that's not a commentary on my, um, equipment.' Hutch raised an eyebrow.

Ruth punched him in the arm. ‘As if!' Then she turned to me. ‘Well?'

I'd been holding the slip of paper between my thumb and index finger thinking about its significance, hoping it wasn't an omen. ‘“If you want the rainbow, you must put up with the rain – in between the sheets”,' I read.

Everyone laughed.

As fortunes go, though, mine turned out to be depressingly accurate, if you discounted the part about the sheets.

T
o the casual observer, waiting for his car to be finished at JiffyLube across West Street, our mass exodus from China Garden must have resembled a bomb scare. The six of us, irresponsibly responsible (ecologically speaking) for four automobiles, pulled out of the restaurant parking lot almost simultaneously; Ruth's aged green Taurus in the lead, and Hutch's burgundy BMW just behind. The cortège turned right on to West Street, and right again at the traffic light at the intersection of West Street and Chinquapin Round Road, the busy corner where a condominium complex called 1901 West had replaced the venerable Johnson Lumber yard which had served Annapolis's home construction needs for more than seventy-five years. The developers had reserved space on the ground floor of the high-rise for retail shops, but with the exception of a lone, optimistic Starbucks, no retailers had stepped up to the plate, and the storefronts had remained vacant for more than a year.