Last Dance

by Caroline B. Cooney

  They came to a STOP sign and Christopher’s smile turned to face her.

  What an odd thought, Emily realized. She was thinking of the smile as something separate: as a thing. The thing looked at her.

  For maybe half a block Christopher drove without once looking at the road: that smile fixed on Emily like a trap.

  He’s crazy, Emily thought.

  Chapter 6

  CON, TOO, HAD PARENTS. Parents who had given him tremendous freedom very young, assuming he could handle it. Parents who had been very angry, disappointed, and heartsick to find the kind of freedom Con had chosen. Parents who said to him before the dance, “You haven’t been in public with Anne since she left Westerly six months ago. You’ve got to help her and not let anybody say a word. If they do, flatten them. Put Anne first, do you hear?”

  Gary transferred Anne to Con as if she were a package.

  Con kissed the package lightly. “Are you all right?” he asked. Anne looked perfect to him, but then she always did. She had a smooth elegance that nothing, even unwed motherhood, had ruffled. He had made the mistake of saying that once to his own mother, who yelled at him until the house shook.

  “Ruffled?” screamed his mother. “Ruffled, Conrad, is a ridiculous word! The girl is terrified, do you understand that? Terrified! So visit her! Make her feel better!” But it terrified Con, too. And he had visited Molly instead, “who made him feel better.

  “Dry now, thanks.” Anne managed a smile. She looked as if she belonged on the cover of Seventeen.

  He wanted to run. “I’m sorry that happened. I didn’t mean it to, really, Anne. I guess I must have knocked against you, but it wasn’t on purpose, okay? I never would have done that.” He had not been standing near Anne; it was not his fault she got wet; but this was the right thing—he had taken responsibility. Now they could get along. Con felt better.

  Anne looked across the room at nothing in particular. She ran her hand over her glossy hair, as if checking to see if it really was dry. The chandelier over her head caught the golden highlights. Shadows fell beneath her eyes and changed her cheekbones. She was inexpressibly lovely.

  “Con, you’re very angry with me, or you wouldn’t have shoved me in the pool. I wish we could talk it out, I wish you and I could resolve all this rage we’re feeling, but I don’t think it’s possible after all.”

  Anne stared into space, seeing something he could not. Is she seeing the baby? he thought.

  Con had never seen it…her. Con’s parents had. His mother had wept.

  Had Anne held the baby?

  Con had never asked. He thought, I’m ready to talk. We’ve got to talk. I can handle it now.

  But it was too late.

  In her soft mellow voice Anne Stephens said, “Maybe you should just drive me home, Con. We’ll stop pretending we can put it back together, and we’ll go our separate ways.”

  “All right!” Pammy shouted. “Who here has skied in six countries, and why didn’t you take me along?”

  The whole dance broke up laughing.

  Pammy yelled, “I am serious, guys. Somebody at Westerly High has skied in six countries. It says so right on this quiz. I demand to know why I was not aware of this, and why I was not offered a chance to go along.”

  Nobody admitted to being the person who had gone skiing in six countries. Nobody else knew who it was either. Gary said, “This VCR is going to be very, very hard to win if nobody admits doing anything.”

  “I can’t even imagine what the six countries are!” Pammy went on. “The United States and Canada, okay, that’s two. And I suppose this jet-setter has skied in Switzerland and Italy, that’s four. But where else do they even have mountains?”

  Beth Rose tried to see herself in a life where she not only went skiing, she flew to New Zealand or France to get there. Beth Rose had never even skied on Mount Snow. The thought of racing downhill made her ill. Beth Rose had a feeling she was the boutique shopping, hot chocolate drinking variety of skier.

  But who cared about quizzes and skis anyway? She wanted to dance. She wanted to be held by Gary, and feel his warmth, and hear his voice, and accept his kiss. She looked at Gary, hoping he would sense what she wanted. She hated begging for things. She felt about three years old, saying, Gary please can we dance, Gary, please can we do this, Gary, please can we do that?

  But Gary was not tuned in. He was laughing at Pammy. “I personally went skiing in the Ural Mountains in Russia last year, and this year I plan to ski Japan.”

  Pammy pretended to beat upon Gary’s chest with her fists. “You meanie,” she said. “And I bet you’re going to go and take Beth Rose, too, aren’t you? When are you going to realize I’m your true love?”

  “Aaaah, you just want a free flight to Japan,” Gary said. “I’m onto your schemes, girl.”

  It was Gary they laughed with, Gary they flirted with—she, Beth Rose, was still the girl who probably couldn’t even knit a sweater.

  Beth Rose wanted to talk to a girlfriend. Anne and Emily would understand.

  Very softly Gary said, “Bethie?”

  He was behind her. He leaned over her shoulder, his slightly damp heavy cotton shirt pressing against her bare skin, and he whispered. She loved whispering. The privacy of it: knowing that Gary wanted to talk to her, and only her, and never mind Pammy and skiing abroad!

  He almost never called her Bethie, either. She leaned back against him, overdosing on romance. Chandeliers sparkling, Anne and Con together again, Gary murmuring her name, love songs playing….

  “I’m already bored,” Gary said. “You know what let’s do? Let’s walk up Two Cliffs Trail and see Mount Snow by night. Two Cliffs is my favorite picnic spot anyhow.”

  Beth Rose was crushed. She hated trails and outdoor things. She was always getting a blister or turning her ankle. And tonight she was wearing slippers, not sneakers. Plus, it was dark out! How did Gary expect to find his way through the woods at night? They were supposed to sit admiring a view? In the pitch dark? What if they missed the trail and fell off the cliff?

  She wanted to dance!

  She wanted to show off her dress, her style, and her figure. She wanted to lean on Gary and—

  “Come on,” Gary said. “Let’s ditch all these kids. This whole quiz thing is getting to me. Pammy and her crowd are getting to me, and I don’t want to get drawn into Con’s problems either.”

  Startled, Beth Rose looked back at Con and Anne.

  Oh, no, she groaned silently. A fight if I ever saw one.

  Con and Anne were talking, but with their backs to each other. Anne was studying the wall, Con the floor. Anne had the posture of a damp dishrag and Con was as rigid as a telephone pole.

  The Last Dance, Beth Rose thought ruefully. I’ve got to find out who named it. She’s got second sight, whoever she is.

  Lee swept.

  Mopped.

  Distributed potato chips and filled lemonade pitchers and added ice to the coolers.

  And thought about girls.

  He had not known how hard it could be to sweep, mop, and fill when you were thinking about girls.

  Especially when the girl you were thinking about was getting pushed around by her so-called boyfriend.

  And it was amazing how much work there was to be done out there in the ballroom where Kip was.

  Women! Matt thought.

  What am I following them for?

  What do I care?

  Let her do what she wants! Let her have eleven boyfriends! Let her dance with fifty-nine other boys. Let her—

  The red Corvette ahead of him only half stopped at the stop light before making a right turn on red. Arrest him, Matt thought grimly, there’s never a cop around when you—

  Emily stepped out of the car.

  The car was still moving, and she simply opened her door and stepped out, gracefully not getting caught in the door as it swung back, not falling on the pavement as the car kept going, and not looking back at the car either.

  Th
e Corvette screeched to a full stop, and Matt, who had forgotten he was driving while he was staring at Emily’s exit, nearly drove right through the sports car. The driver jumped out, equally furious at Emily and at Matt. “Hey! What’s your problem, Emily?” the guy bellowed, and then immediately turned to scream at Matt, “You practically stove in my rear end, buddy, watch where you’re going.”

  Emily walked swiftly down the sidewalk without looking back.

  Matt yelled, “I’ll stove in your face, never mind your rear end!” He jumped out of his car and shouted, “Emily!”

  Emily turned on the sidewalk, saw Matt in his old wagon about six inches away from Christopher in his shiny Corvette. How had this happened? Like someone watching a tennis match, Emily stared first at Matt and then at Christopher and back again. “Emily, don’t do that,” Matt said impatiently, “you look dorky. Come on, get in, what’s happening?”

  “Oh, Matt,” Emily whispered, as she raced into the street to fling herself on top of him. The force of this banged Matt backward into the door handle.

  Matt had never been hugged so hard. He thought she might crack his ribs but didn’t say so. “What, were you kidnapping her or something?” he said to the handsome guy.

  “Women,” the guy muttered, who got into the red Corvette, stepped on the gas so hard the tires screamed on the pavement, and spun around the corner, going back the way he had come.

  “Oh, Matt!” Emily cried, her face buried against him. “Matt, I’ve been so dumb. First I got in the car with this kid who offered me a ride—it’s the boy Molly used to go with, Christopher Vann—and then I got all panic stricken. Over nothing, Matt! I’m so embarrassed. I don’t know what scared me. I was trying to be polite, it’s important to be polite, but I got more and more scared, and finally I just jumped out of the car. How did you find me? Were you following me? Oh, Matt, I adore you.”

  He stuffed Emily in the passenger side, hopped in the driver’s seat and pulled over into the parking lot of a little doughnut shop.

  Matt’s family solved a great many problems with food. Matt felt that with a few jelly-filled doughnuts and orange juice to wash them down, he’d have it all under control. Then a nice kiss to finish off the snack and they’d be off for Rushing River, happy as could be.

  But Emily’s family, alone among all the families he knew, did not use food to solve difficulties. In fact, the Edmundsons rarely tried to solve difficulties at all. Emily didn’t want a jelly-filled doughnut any more than she wanted Christopher Vann. She pushed it away, far enough that Matt was afraid it would fall behind the counter and nobody would get to eat it. That would never do. Matt rescued the doughnut and ate it himself. “Would you rather have a lemon-filled one?” he asked, trying to be sensitive.

  “Matt!” Emily’s whisper was a cry of pain. It frightened him, but he didn’t know what to do about it. “Don’t you understand?” she said desperately.

  “No, I don’t.” This seemed to require an apology, so Matt apologized. “I’m sorry. You’ll have to tell me, M&M.”

  “I was afraid of him.”

  “You said that. I just don’t know what you were afraid of.”

  “But Matt, I don’t know either! Maybe…maybe….

  Matt squashed lemon filling all over his hand. “He didn’t try…” Matt sputtered. “I’ll kill him. I’ll slice him into—”

  “No, Matt, he didn’t try a single thing. He didn’t do a single thing. He didn’t say a single thing. He was just there and scary.”

  Emily burst into tears.

  The waitress turned from her other customers, coffee pot in one hand, and a frosted cruller in the other. “Everything’s all right,” Matt said to the waitress.

  Emily cried harder. Matt patted her, but that was no more effective than a lemon-filled doughnut.

  Matt considered his own family to be the most sensible people on earth. If only one of them were here right now, to say the right thing to Emily! But he was the only available O’Connor representative. He said slowly, “If your instinct said to be scared, I’m sure you were right to be scared.”

  He would never tell her he had suspected her of dating Christopher on the side. Some things were best never said aloud.

  He wrapped the rest of the doughnut in its little square of waxed paper and convinced Emily to get back in the car with him. He thought briefly of driving the long distance back to his own house and having his mother take over on this one, but he decided the person Emily really needed was her very own mother. Surely a girl’s mother would come through in a situation like this. Even Mrs. Edmundson would come through once Matt explained what had happened.

  Matt went out the opposite entrance of the doughnut shop parking lot and drove the short distance back to the Edmundsons.

  Molly loved this ballroom.

  The chandeliers were breathtaking: seven of them altogether, with intricate crystal teardrops glistening like prisms in the sun. The floor was polished wood, the walls either glass—black now with the dark outdoors—or wallpapered in a pattern of pretend greenery: ferns and palms and ivies. But in several places, there was real greenery, identical to the paper, so that suddenly, there really was a fern frond in your face, and a big potted palm at your feet.

  The band was at the center back, and a grand piano they weren’t using was on the far side. Food was in another room, and kids drifted continuously from food to dance floor and back. As always, it was the girls who wanted to dance and the boys who wanted to eat.

  But what Molly liked best of all was that the ballroom was shadowy.

  Once, during a wild number that was all drum and screaming, they turned up the lights and added some flickering colors, and everybody loved that.

  Now it was dark again, and Molly slid from fern to piano and listened.

  “Come on, let’s kiss and make up,” Con said. “Let’s dance, okay?”

  Anne shook her head. Just once, just slightly.

  Con’s chin tipped up—just once, just slightly. He was getting mad. He said, “I’m sorry it happened. Let’s not dwell on it.”

  “I have to know why you did it, Con.”

  “I didn’t do it, Anne. I’m sick of this discussion. Let’s dance, huh?”

  “You did,” she argued. “And I need to understand why. Do you hate me? Do you hate our baby? You haven’t asked about her.”

  “Anne, she isn’t ours any more. She got adopted. Let them worry about her.”

  Molly was tickled. She had taken quite a risk, shoving Anne into the water. If Con had realized she was doing it, she’d have dug her grave with him. But Anne didn’t, and Con didn’t, and nobody else did either.

  Molly gave Con and Anne about another fifteen minutes to break up forever. Of course, he’d have to drive Anne home. Anne might be able to work him over going home. But Molly didn’t think Anne would bother this time.

  And then something happened to make Molly totally happy.

  Kip—good old, organizing old, charitable old Kip—came across the room to rescue Anne. Well, Kip and Anne might not figure out what was going to happen next, but Molly sure knew, and she sure loved it. Con might hang in there with one girl he used to love, but Con would never stay when two girls were both trying to make him say he was sorry.

  Lee Hamilton cleaned up a mess of spilled soda somebody had just reported over by the piano. He took a long time mopping. Some of the girls were really lovely, and he liked watching them dance.

  Kip was standing with her so-called boyfriend. Why weren’t they dancing? If he, Lee, were here with Kip, he would be dancing.

  Her boyfriend said, “Listen, Kip. I’m not going to get involved. They want to run around the cliffs in the dark, that’s their problem, not ours.”

  “Mike, you’ve got to stop them. Come on, you’re a boy, make them stop.”

  Mike groaned and rolled his eyes. “Kip, nobody is going to make Con or Gary do anything, least of all me. You can make your little brothers obey you, and no doubt you can make your gi
rlfriends obey you, and you can make your yearbook staff obey you. But you can’t push Con and Gary around tonight, do you hear me? This is their dance, they bought tickets, and if they want to dance up on Two Cliffs with Anne and Beth Rose, so be it.”

  “But they could fall,” Kip protested.

  Mike said, “Kip, they don’t want to die at seventeen. They don’t want to get their bones broken and their lungs punctured. They’ll be careful, okay? They’ll watch what they’re doing. So just leave it, okay?”

  Kip glared at him. And then she whirled. If her boyfriend wouldn’t stop Gary and Con, she would give it another try herself. Lee hadn’t noticed the skirt before, but now he saw how full it was, and how it swished like a ballet dance when she spun around so angrily.

  Mike caught Kip’s arm and held it hard. Mike wasn’t interested in dancing. He was just furious. “I am so sick of the way you interfere with everybody, Kip. It just so happens that I’d kind of like to walk up to Two Cliffs at night myself, and don’t interfere with me, and don’t come along. Got it?”

  Kip flinched as if Mike had hit her. She actually turned her face away from those words and bit her lips. “Mike, please—”

  Mike said, “Kip. Get lost.”

  He walked away.

  Kip stood still.

  Lee seriously considered taking his mop up on the cliff and giving Mike a little shove over the rockiest, highest part.

  He might have, too, except that Mr. Martin appeared by his side. “Lee, we got more spilled food all over the verandah. Go sweep that up. Then we need more soda on the bar out on the terrace, and we’re out of hot hors d’oeuvres at the snack bar there. Be sure to put out more chips while you’re at it. Potato chips are cheap. Check the dip. Come on, Lee, move along.”

  Should he tell Mr. Martin what the boys were planning?

  It didn’t sound dangerous to Lee.

  Besides, Lee wasn’t at all sure that Two Cliffs was really the destination. Hadn’t he dried Anne’s hair himself? Hadn’t he watched that beautiful redhead Beth Rose dance with his wrestling opponent Gary? Those were two gorgeous girls. If he, Lee, were wandering around in the dark with girls that lovely, it wouldn’t be to see the profile of Two Cliffs in the dark.