Last Dance (3 page)

Inside the house, the phone rang again.

It was Matt.

Mrs. Edmundson said harshly, “She’s coming with me, Matt, and not going to the dance. Do not drive down here.” And she hung up hard enough to damage the phone.

“Y
OU CAME,” ANNE SAID
.

Con just looked at her. She would never get used to the silence of that look: not by one quiver of his heavy eyebrows did Con give away what he was thinking. “Yes,” he said, and nothing more. She stood in the hot dark living room and he in the hall, lit by the lowering sun and cooled by the breeze from the screen door. Anne thought they might stand that way for hours: heat and emotion turning them to statues.

But Con said, “Let’s go, kid. I not only paid for the tickets but also for the chance to win a VCR. We have to get our questionnaires and start filling them out.”

He had started calling her “kid” when she got back from the hospital. She liked to believe she was still a kid, but inside she felt old, old, old. Brighten up, Anne told herself, you’re a high school junior off to a dance, not an old crone beaten down by decades of misery!

She did not take a single step toward Con. He would have to walk to her. And he did, grinning his old careless grin. He caught at her waist without getting panicky, half danced her to the porch, and even kissed her.

He opened the door of his car for her. For a moment she thought she saw a baby seat in the back, but the weird vision vanished instantly, and she shivered. How long would her life be haunted by the baby she had given up?

Con had given nothing up. But they could not talk—once again they could not talk—of what Anne had endured that he was not part of.

Con said, “I filled yours out for you. Everybody else did them in school.”

Anne had no idea what he was talking about.

“For each ticket,” Con explained, “they gave you a questionnaire—boring stuff like what’s your middle name, where were you born, what do you collect, where have you traveled, and what have you done lately. They’re going to make up a quiz for us to do at the dance, using the interesting answers we came up with. We have to run around the ballroom, asking the other kids questions until we have it filled out, and the first person to get it all filled out wins the VCR.”

Anne tightened up. What have you done lately? Would people be asking her that? Would they come up and say, “Anne, are you the one on this list who just had a baby?”

Con touched her knee very lightly. “Don’t worry,” he said, “all your answers came out fine.”

“And did you know everything about me?”

Con grinned. “What I didn’t know, I made up,” he said.

“I won’t know my own life when it’s time to fill in the blanks,” Anne protested. But she was beginning to laugh. Perhaps she would have fun after all. Perhaps Con’s relaxed air would infect her, and the mountain winds would blow away her nerves.

“If you don’t know, I’ll tell you,” Con said. “I have all the answers.”

Gary sat in the car waiting for Beth Rose. He liked the occasional dance because he rather enjoyed dressing up and going somewhere special. Tonight he was wearing possibly the reddest pants in the entire world. They were cotton, and slightly baggy, and so red that people were going to complain all during the dance. Even in the dark, his pants were going to blind the eyes. He had already thought of wisemouth retorts for a variety of possible remarks about his red pants. His shirt was ivory, with a few narrow horizontal stripes—also red—and he was carrying a jacket, in case Beth Rose gave him a hard time, but that was not usually her style.

Beth Rose was undemanding. His own family did a good deal of yelling, but if Beth Rose ever raised her voice, Gary had not heard her. Whatever he felt like doing, Beth Rose generally felt like doing, too. She always seemed to be in a good humor, and most of all, she was always glad to see him. It was kind of nice, to drive up to a house and know, for absolute sure, that the person living there would fling herself on you with delight.

But when he was not with her, Gary rarely thought about Beth Rose. Gary’s mind landed on one thing and stayed there, so that if he was fixing his car, he was not also dreaming of a date that night. He was simply fixing the car.

When Beth Rose did not dance out of the house and leap into his car, he was mildly surprised, but figured she was still brushing her hair or something, so he waited longer. The sunset was beautiful, and he stared into it, watching the distant clouds change colors.

Beth Rose still didn’t come.

With a vague sense that he might have the wrong night, Gary got out of the car and wandered up to the house.

“Beth Rose?” he called, poking his head inside the screen. “You coming or do I have the wrong night?”

She had been watching him steadily through the slats of the blinds. Now she sat up on the couch and heaved a sigh. It’s very simple, Beth Rose told herself. You just stop being in love with the guy. The only thing you can say for Gary is, he’s
here.
He’s not in love; he’s hardly even awake.

Six months of dating according to Gary’s standards.

Which were low.

Which said a date came when Gary felt like it and consisted of what Gary wanted to do. When he remembered.

Maybe this really should be the last dance, Beth Rose thought. Maybe it’s time for me to say goodbye and find a boy who puts me first.

She tried to imagine such a boy, but she could think only of Gary, whom she still adored as much as she had the first night.

Gary walked on into the living room, saw her on the couch, and grinned at her. Beth Rose’s heart flipflopped, in spite of the strict orders she gave it not to. With two steps Gary crossed the room and dropped like a very tall stone onto the couch next to her. The sofa didn’t break, but it definitely bent. Gary tipped backward, resting his feet on the wall and his head on her lap. “So? We’re dancing here?”

“No, we’re dancing at Rushing River.” Normally she would have bent her head to kiss him, but tonight she sat there as if nobody lay in her lap at all.

Gary said, “Why didn’t you come out to the car?”

“Because I wanted you to come in here.”

Gary touched her freckled nose with his fingertip. “Got your wish, then, lady.” He grinned at her again, drawing a smile over her lips, until she smiled back. “I see I have to play caveman if we’re going to get to the dance in time to win that VCR.” He sat up fast, turned, slid a hand beneath her, and scooped Beth Rose into his arms as if she were the pillow on the couch.

“I don’t know that I would call this caveman behavior,” Beth Rose said. “As I recall, cavemen drag their girls by the hair.”

Gary laughed. “Next year,” he promised, and carried her to the door. She arched her back and tried to kiss him, but he tilted his chin back teasingly and wouldn’t let her.

And I call him unromantic, Beth Rose thought, leaning back in his arms and starting to laugh.

When she leaned back, her thick red mane of hair caught in the middle hinges of the front door. Gary stepped back slightly to free her hair and her dance slippers whacked the doorknob. Gary turned to the side to fit her through that way and got the hem of her skirt under his shoe.

Beth Rose was laughing hard enough to shake them both.

Gary’s face turned red.

“Keep blushing,” Beth Rose teased. “We need a match with your trousers if we’re really going to be color-coordinated.”

Gary attempted a frontal attack on the door.

“Aaah,” yelled Beth Rose, “you can’t go that way—my hair isn’t going with you!”

Gary swore under his breath.

“What did you say, Gary darling?” Beth Rose was giggling insanely. She said, “I guess we’ll dance here after all. At least my feet won’t get tired.”

“The trouble with romance,” Gary said very irritably, “is it’s so easy to look like a jerk.”

“But Gary,” Beth Rose told him, “you’re the handsomest jerk in town.”

“Oh, good,” Gary said. “I feel better now.”

Kip and Mike Robinson were the fourth couple to arrive at Rushing River Inn. “You’re always so efficient,” Mike said, smiling. But she could tell that it annoyed him, to be early instead of with the crowd.

Kip could never figure out what other people were doing with their time that they could drift in an hour or two hours later than an event began. If a dance started at eight, Kip was there at eight, and not two minutes later.

It was perfectly clear that the Last Dance wasn’t even going to think about beginning before ten. How—
how
—were she and Mike going to manage all that time without a bunch of friends to help spread the burden?

Pretending to circle around and check out the ballroom of Rushing River Inn, Kip swirled until her bare back faced Mike, and she tossed her head slightly so the pink and violet and yellow ribbons would tangle in her thick brown hair and he would untangle them.

Mike said, “Well, we can start filling in these questionnaires. Course there’s nobody here yet to ask.” He began studying the questions to see if he already knew any of the answers.

Kip finished her circle and faced him. She knew she was graceful and pretty tonight, and now, in the dim light of the ballroom, she knew that the wild colors of her skirt were the right choice: the darkness softened them, and yet the vividness remained. Mike either hadn’t noticed or didn’t intend to. It
is
the last dance, she thought. We have just come as friends, and Mike is afraid if he says one nice thing, he’ll tip the balance, and I’ll fling myself on him, and he’ll have to cope with it.

Kip wanted to cry.

She thought, if I cry, Mike will freak out.

Girls didn’t mind their emotions all over the place; boys couldn’t stand it. Kip often thought that a girl’s tears were like a broken egg in the palm of the boy’s hand: all he wanted to do was shout “Yucky!” and wipe it away.

She could not cry; she could not be a slippery, slimy, broken mess that Mike would despise.

If I’m not going to think about Mike, what am I going to think about? Kip asked herself. She stared around the room for help and noticed the questionnaire for the VCR prize which she gripped in her left hand. The hand that wanted to be holding Mike’s.

Kip was immediately aware that the distribution of these questionnaires was not well organized. They were going to run into snags. Frowning slightly, she said, “Now if they would just—”

Mike stopped her instantly. “Kip, it’s
their
problem,” he said. “Give it a rest, okay?”

Kip quivered inside. Mike’s voice was sharp, irritated. And it was also embarrassed, as if he had known Kip would do something like this and wished she would behave better.

There’s really only one thing I’m terrific at, Kip thought. Organizing. I can juggle twenty balls and never drop one. I’m not glamorous, or a great singer, or a brilliant student, or even anybody’s very best friend. I’m just good at being in charge.

For the first time, Kip understood that what Mike did
not
want in a girlfriend was the one thing she was good at.

The air-conditioning in the ballroom was very strong. She was chilled, and being chilled depressed her.

“Some of these questions are really fascinating,” Mike said in surprise. “I have absolutely no idea who any of them could be. Listen, Kip. Who was born in Beverly Hills? Who is sixteen and has moved twenty-eight times? Who at this dance has shaken hands with the President of the United States?”

Kip stared blindly at the questions. She could not even read them. Five minutes into the Last Dance, and she was teary and tense. Oh, Mike, Mike, why don’t you love me like you did? Even as she thought this, she knew it was just an old song. How diminishing to have the very same problem as people in songs. Kip wanted to be so special they would need a new song just for her unusual situation.

“Who is the only person at the dance who doesn’t like chocolate?” Mike read on. “Who at this dance has a pet peacock?”

A pet peacock? Kip thought. How bizarre. Who
does
? She said, “Mike, I’m freezing. Let’s go out on the verandah. We’ll be able to watch everybody driving up, and I’ll stay warm.”

“Oh, you just want to supervise the arrivals,” Mike said rudely. He went back to the quiz and didn’t take a step toward the doors. “Who was born on an ocean liner?” Mike read. He had a smile stuck on his face, as if he’d left the smile there by accident and would come back for it.

But it was Kip herself who had been born on the ocean liner. It made quite a story, and it was one her mother loved to tell, and her father hated remembering. In all the dozens of stories she and Mike had shared, that one somehow had never come up. She and Mike talked so much about the present, about their own lives and their own thoughts, that they had never considered going back sixteen years to their births.

He’ll question every person at the dance to find out, Kip realized, but he won’t think of asking me: he’s bored by me. He figures he knows all there is to know about Kip Elliott.

Kip watched the band set up. She didn’t want a band; she wanted a DJ. Half the time the band couldn’t play the pieces you wanted, or they played some dumb arrangement of their own that just made you tense, because you wanted it to be like the recording.

“Oh, what’s the point, Mike?” she said tiredly. “We already have a VCR. I don’t even want to win.”

“I do,” Mike said. “Get organized and win and give me the VCR, okay?” He grinned at her and walked away.

Walked away!

Kip stared at her departing boyfriend. He had had another growth spurt. His pants were slightly too short and his shirt stretched too taut over his shoulders. Another time she would have loved thinking about how tall and muscular he was these days, but tonight she was just furious because his clothes didn’t fit, and he was turning his back on her.

I’d rather get organized and give you a long walk off a short dock, Kip thought.

He was her first boyfriend, and what Kip could not get over was the idea that he
had
gotten over it.

What on earth had happened to those crazily joyous first weeks? When he spent the whole day after school at her house? And had dinner with them? Did homework with her and practically had to be chased out with a broom by Kip’s mother? And then the instant he got home had to telephone to tell her all the things he had thought about during the drive back?