Last Dance (12 page)

Mr. Edmundson flung the screen door to hurl a duffel bag, a suitcase, and a lamp out past the porch and onto the grass. Matt, following Emily, stood dumbfounded when a lamp landed at his feet. He picked it up and tried to straighten out the squashed shade.

“Mother,” Emily began, “this terrible thing happened. Or didn’t happen, actually. You see—”

Mrs. Edmundson never even looked at her. “And furthermore,” she yelled at her husband, “if you think I am putting up with the kind of servitude you expect—bring this, bring that, heat this, put ice cubes in that, wash this, mend that—well, you’re wrong! I’m leaving!”

Mr. Edmundson threw a cardboard box after his wife. It was taped shut and didn’t fall apart when it hit the grass slightly to the left of the lamp, but it made an ominous cracking sound.

“Get out of my sight, Emily,” her mother said. “I am through with this whole family. You didn’t want to come with me to start with, fine. I don’t want anybody anyway.” She began slinging the lamp, suitcase, and duffel into her car. Matt felt peculiar not helping, but he would have felt even more peculiar if he did help, so he just stood there, trying to blend in with the forsythia bushes.

Mr. Edmundson slammed the screen door shut, and now it hung sideways by its only remaining hinge. Then he slammed the solid wooden door and audibly locked it. Mrs. Edmundson flung herself into her car and switched on the motor.

She was much too angry to notice that Matt had parked behind her. Matt leaped back into his wagon and reversed out of Mrs. Edmundson’s way. She backed out violently and left a bigger patch of rubber in the road.

She had forgotten the cardboard box.

Emily on the porch and Matt on the grass stared at it, as if perhaps it contained some answers.

Mrs. Edmundson had evidently forgotten something else, too, because Mr. Edmundson opened the door and hurled a large black plastic garbage bag full of something soft and squashy out into the yard next to the box. Matt jumped out of the way, but he needn’t have. What landed on his foot was almost weightless, as if perhaps it were a down sleeping bag.

Well, if it was, Matt thought, they won’t be sharing it again in this lifetime!

“Daddy?” Emily said nervously, taking a step toward the door.

Her father said, “You made your choice, girl. Live with it.”

He slammed the door and inside the house, he threw the lock.

Emily walked up to the door as if to knock, but instead of knocking she lay her cheek against the wood and cried softly.

The broken screen door was caught in the wind and knocked rhythmically against her heels.

The door was not opened again.

“Now the real test question is, are you the only one feeling this way?” Kip asked. She was beginning to enjoy this weird conversation. “That’s a very common problem with love. And, of course, you get to throw in heartache, heartburn, heartsickness, and insomnia.”

Lee nodded several times. Kip found herself nodding with him, so that they formed a little duet, bobbing up and down. She forced herself to quit. Lee said, “This Mike is worth all that?”

“I don’t think he’s worth anything at this point,” Kip said. “But that’s the thing with true love. It doesn’t matter whether the guy is worth it. You’re stuck with it anyway.”

“That doesn’t sound very reasonable,” Lee objected. “I like to think of you as a very reasonable person.”

“Too reasonable,” Kip said glumly. She had no idea what this kid Lee’s purpose was and no idea why he had picked her to talk to, except that she was there. But Kip felt blue, and obviously Lee was frowning for the first time in his young life, so they might as well commiserate. She’d tell him her sad story, and he’d tell her his. They could shed a few tears together and maybe share that extra bag of potato chips.

Romance in a hotel kitchen.

Well, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Kip said, “So who is it you are obsessed with, and how long have you felt this way, and precisely what are her feelings about it?” How Mike would hate a sentence like that. I am not a list! he would storm at her. Don’t make lists when you’re talking to me!

Last year Kip had read at least ten books from the adult section of the library on how to improve yourself. She had read books which helped you develop a good attitude, or be tough, or be powerful, or wear the right colors, or find your own parachute.

She had found that the effect of each book was to make her feel wonderful the night she read it.

In the morning, of course, she would find out again, that she was still herself, Katharine “Kip” Elliott. What did those books really expect you to do? Turn yourself in for a new model?

Oh, sure, the books could tell you your life was very satisfying, your life was what you made of it, and your life and happiness did not depend on a boy, and it was true. Totally true.

But a boy was wonderful.

And those short weeks when Mike had loved her so much—oh, those weeks were perfect.

And gone.

Kip flirted with Lee because it was better than going back to the dance and admitting that this really, truly was her last dance with Mike.

But this guy Lee, he immediately put up three fingers to tick off as he answered each of her points.

He said, “One. You.”

Kip nearly fell off the table.

“Two. Half an hour.”

Kip’s jaw sagged.

“Three. I don’t know her feelings.”

Anne Stephens had forgotten that she had even brought the paisley shawl. It was a typical clothing purchase in her family: her mother had seen it in an expensive shop, bought it for Anne, put it over her shoulders and said, “You’ll wear this, you look perfect.” Anne’s mother was happy. And since Anne didn’t much care, Anne took it along to the dance.

The only clothing Anne had picked out for herself was maternity clothing. Her mother and grandmother had not gone along on those little trips.

You thought I could come to this dance, and sort of dance off everything that had happened. I guess I thought so myself. I thought I would hop back into this life, the way Alice hopped through The Looking Glass into Wonderland.

I’ve hopped in. But I’m not there. I’m still partly with my baby.

Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think, Anne cried silently. After all, when you were running around with Con making love in empty rooms, you got pretty darn good at not thinking. Not thinking was what you did best, Anne Stephens. So don’t think now, either.

Con held out his hand to her. “Please,” he said. “Please come.”

Oh, his voice! Soft and deep and little boy. She had always submitted to that voice. Now suddenly Anne thought, Why do I want a
little
boy? Why don’t I yearn for a grownup? What flaw is in me that I want a
little
boy like Con?

She said, “All right, Con. I’m coming. Just let me run to the girls’ room first.”

Con was used to that anyhow. “Okay,” he said, sighing, resigned.

Anne slipped past the crush of girls; ignored anybody asking her if she was the answer to any of the quiz questions; pretended not to see Molly, with Molly’s hot eyes and Molly’s bright jealous stare; and burst out of the crowded ballroom into a wide quiet hall with maroon carpeting and prints of Audubon birds on the walls. The women’s room was lovely, with a sitting room in the front, complete with lounge in case you felt faint, a wash room, a lavatory room, and a place to change babies’ diapers. The wallpaper was flocked, maroon against silver, patterns of weeping willows and dancing tropical birds, whose long tails drifted against the leaves of the weeping willows making a tapestry of curves.

Anne felt peaceful.

She looked at herself in the mirror.

She looked perfect.

It was amazing, she thought, how she who was so imperfect had come into the world equipped with a perfect face, figure, and complexion. Even the gold hair that had been soaked and blown dry by some strange boy who laughed like a nut while drying it, now lay glossy and lovely, with its special swing, as if Anne moved only in slow motion.

The mirrors covered one wall. Behind her, the door opened and into the ladies’ room came the back of a woman. How odd that she’s coming in backward, Anne thought, starting to smile, and then she saw that the woman was pushing open the door with her back because with both arms, she was cradling a tiny child.

The mother never saw Anne.

She was completely fascinated by her own baby. “Tricia,” crooned the mother.

Anne turned cold all over. It’s my baby, she thought, it’s my daughter! If I ask this woman about her Tricia, the woman will say, We just adopted her, she’s thirty-two-days-old today, isn’t she perfect?

Anne began to sob.

Her body did not sob with her: she kept the sobs in her chest, the technique she had learned when she first had to tell her parents about her pregnancy, and she was so afraid they would hear her crying herself to sleep every night. Her face stayed motionless. The tears came through. She followed the mother around the corner and into the cubbyhole with its high counter and tiny sink where the mother could change Tricia.

Anne had to ask.

Had to know.

Through stiff lips she muttered, “Your baby is lovely. How old is she?”

The mother kept a tight grip on the baby so she wouldn’t roll off the counter and turned to smile at Anne. The mother said, “She’s eleven weeks old. Isn’t she wonderful? Isn’t she perfect?”

“Yes,” said Anne, and she went into a toilet cubicle and shut the door on herself. Get a grip on yourself, she thought. If you go around thinking every little baby in the world is yours, you’re going to have a complete nervous breakdown, and they’ll lock you up for six generations.

She thought, If only Con and I could have been that happy over our baby!

She thought, We would have to be ten years older to be happy. Finished with school, off to a good start, married.

She thought, It was impossible.

Oh Con, oh Con, I have to talk to you! I have to let all this pour out! I have to say a thousand things, whether they hurt you or not, whether they hurt me or not—I have to talk!

Perhaps a mountain trail in the dark was a good idea. Con would hold her arm and she would lean on him because of her silly shoes and they would talk softly in the privacy of the blackness of night.

She felt better already.

She could even smile.

She even managed a half a dance step when she left the women’s room to rejoin Con.

Kip said, “So tell me your fantasies, Lee.”

Lee had turned off the light in the kitchen. He mumbled, “I think they have to be demonstrated, not talked about.”

Kip sad, “I don’t think we know each other that well.”

Lee said, “I don’t think we know
anybody
that well!”

Kip said, “But why me? I mean, I had you all picked out for Anne if she and Con break up. Which they ought to do, if Con isn’t going to grow up. Or Anne grow down.”

“A person can’t grow down,” Lee said.

“Sure they can. I see it all the time. Half the boys in my school are incredibly immature. And Mike, he was very mature when we went together and very immature now that we’re not.”

“Oh, that kind of growing down,” Lee said, and she could almost feel his grin. She thought, I’ve never seen his grin! I want lights on! I want to check this guy out. She thought, He has a crush on
me
? He’s obsessed with
me
? It’s
me
he thinks is terrific? You’re kidding.

“Anyway,” Lee said, “why would anybody want a girl like Anne? She’s all weak-kneed and nervous. I don’t want somebody to lean all over me. I’m not a tent pole, you know.”

Kip’s first reaction was to defend Anne to the last red blood cell, but this would have involved betraying Anne, so Kip decided to let it alone. Besides, it was pretty neat, to be considered superior to Anne. Kip would have said that such a girl didn’t exist—and here was Lee Hamilton saying
she
was that girl!

“I like this conversation,” Kip said. “I love to talk about me.”

“Good,” Lee said. “You talk about you, I’ll talk about me, it’ll be perfect.”

In a crunch—a real, horrible, sickening crunch—you needed your girlfriends. Emily wanted Beth Rose and Anne.

Here was Matt—dear, goofy, crazy Matt, her Knight in Shining Armor—babbling along about the Last Dance and how they were late as usual. And of course they were—hours late. And she loved him, and how his tie was completely askew and how one corner of the button-down shirt buttoned down and the other corner bent upward, and she loved how he had run his fingers through his hair, leaving the left half smooth and attractive and the right half standing straight up.

But she didn’t want Matt.

And she didn’t want to go to a dance either.

She was so rattled by that strange scary ride with Christopher.

How could she trust her judgment, she who hopped out of cars, and panicked over nothing, and got nauseated over the prospect of a dance?

Emily felt as if her skin had been peeled off, and nothing was holding her together any more: she was just a lot of nerve endings and bones lying loosely in the seat next to Matt, and if somebody touched her, all her pieces would scatter and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Emily together again.

Lee decided to kiss Kip.

He hadn’t kissed anyone before, but he figured he had seen people kiss on TV probably twice a night since he was…oh, let’s say he stopped watching Mr. Rogers when he was 5, so that made 12 years times 365 nights, well…probably there were 10 or 15 nights a year when he didn’t see any TV, so call it 350 times 12 times 2 kisses meant he had witnessed 8,400 kisses.

Ought to be enough, Lee Hamilton thought, grinning in the darkness.

And it was.

C
ON, MIKE, AND GARY
made their plans.

They were a very attractive trio.

Con, like Anne, was perfect: body, profile, expression, clothes, all coming together in a relaxed fashion, rather like a model for designer jeans.

Mike was simply an all-around, decent looking kid: not too tall, not too thin, nice enough smile, easy laugh.