Last Dance

by Caroline B. Cooney

  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.

  Chapter 8

  CON, 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.

  Gary was dark haired, fair skinned, mysterious, sexy, and distant.

  They formed an impenetrable trio.

  Anne walked back into the ballroom and stared at them. What was that military word for a groups of soldiers? A phalanx. Mike, Gary, and her Con were a phalanx.

  How scary a group of one sex is to the opposite sex!

  Anne grew uncertain.

  In the dim light, with the rock music of the band pounding in her ears, she stood waiting for a signal from Con that he really did want her with him.

  But she had waited too long.

  “Let’s go!” Gary said impatiently, and Mike nodded. Gary took a solid grip on Beth Rose, and Gary, Mike, and Beth Rose walked out into the night. Con took two steps after them, looked back, saw Anne, gestured sharply for her to follow him.

  It was an order, that wave.

  Come on, woman, you’ve kept me waiting long enough.

  I’ve had it, Anne Stephens thought. He is a little boy. I am a woman. Enough already.

  She shook her head. If Con wanted to be a grown-up, why then he’d come over and ask what she, Anne, wanted to do. If Con wanted to be a little boy, he’d run along after his pack of friends and toddle up the mountain.

  Anne did not look back.

  She did not see Molly laughing ecstatically, and then hiding her triumphant laughter. Molly slid out from behind the potted ferns and said softly, “I’m dying to see the cliffs by moonlight, Con. Come on. I’ll go with you. We’ll kept it a secret. You go out by yourself, and I’ll wait a minute and come after you and nobody will see.”

  Matt knew he was supposed to think of something now, but he didn’t know what. Emily was not getting out of the car nor even looking up at him, in spite of the fact that he was holding her door open and had even unsnapped her seatbelt for her. “M&M, all your girlfriends are here,” he coaxed. “People to talk to.”

  “Oh, Matt, where am I going to sleep tonight? And the rest of my life?”

  It was probably not the time for a raunchy joke. Matt said carefully, “You can stay with us. That’s what my mother thinks you should do.”


  Emily read between the lines on that one. “What do your father and grandfather think?” she asked.

  “They think you have to make up with your family and keep the peace.” Although after that little scene in the driveway, Matt didn’t see much hope for peace any time soon in the Edmundson family. “Let’s stop worrying for a few hours now and just dance,” he suggested, bending down into the enormous old station wagon like a contortionist. He jiggled her hand and made their two arms dance together, hoping Emily would laugh.

  She didn’t. But at least she got out of the car, and Matt was relieved. It would all be okay. They’d dance, and Emily would talk with her girlfriends and feel better. They’d work something out; he knew they would. Matt had the kind of life where everything always worked out.

  But Emily got out because she realized Matt could never understand. That was the thing with happy families. Good people came out of happy families, people who cared and wanted to help, but what could happy families really grasp about rotten miserable families?

  Emily’s mother did not like her. Period.

  Emily’s father preferred the television. Period.

  I’m sixteen, Emily thought. Almost seventeen. Could I live on my own? People did in the olden days. Laura Ingalls had married Almanzo by now, hadn’t she? Didn’t they already have their first homestead by now? So what’s the matter with me that I’m afraid to start my own home, instead of pretending that getting my father a beer is a home?

  Emily and the boy she loved walked up the gravel path from the parking lot to the ballroom. Through the great glass walls they could see everybody dancing. It was like a film: sparkling, gaudy, whirling, and bright.

  A film of happiness and rhythm.

  A film of laughter and love.

  Emily thought, Will I be the only one out of step?

  She looked at Matt’s watch. It was nine thirty. Sometime in the next three or four hours, she had to decide what she was going to do.

  She could not go home with Matt.

  She loved Matt. He loved her. She loved Matt’s family. They loved her right back. But to move in with her boyfriend’s family—well, that was a step Emily was not ready to take. That was much more than shelter for a night. That was proclaiming to the world, and to Matt, and to herself, that she and Matt were hand in hand for good.

  Emily didn’t know that.

  She couldn’t even begin to think like that.

  Living together? Marriage? Children?

  Emily had one plan only: to get through the summer and have a good senior year. That was as far as Emily could think.

  So Matt was out.

  She held his hand. Hers was cool, and he suspected nothing of her turmoil because to him she seemed calm and poised. They arrived in the ballroom just as Con was following Mike, Beth Rose, and Gary out. “Hey Con!” Matt yelled and they slapped palms and backs.

  Con told Matt to come up the mountainside to Two Cliffs in the dark.

  Matt shook his head, grinning. “If I came alone,” he said, “definitely. But right now I gotta dance with M&M.”

  Emily wondered whether she was just a good excuse or whether he really felt that way—“I gotta dance with M&M.”

  Another difference between boys and girls: girls always thought about every sentence, thought about it to death. Boys never thought at all.

  “Dance later,” Con said. “The dance will last forever anyhow. Come on up the trail with us. It isn’t pitch dark. There’s almost a full moon. Practically as much light outside as there is in here.”

  Matt just grinned and shook his head again.

  Matt had had two jelly doughnuts and a lemon-filled doughnut not half an hour earlier, but he was starved, completely starved. What he really wanted was a quart of chocolate milk, but he would have to settle for Coke. He coaxed Emily to go with him across the dance floor to get something decent to eat, something cold to drink.

  Emily thought, I don’t have my purse!

  How do I survive without my purse?

  What’s in my purse anyway? I can’t remember. I only know that I never travel without my purse, and now my purse is gone forever in my father’s house, and I don’t have it.

  Matt thought, oh good, they have real food. Roast beef and turkey slices and hard rolls and lettuce and sliced tomatoes. I won’t starve.

  Matt was always worried about starving. He didn’t care about the weather, or the condition of his shoes or clothing, or whether he’d done his homework or anything like that. He just wanted to be absolutely sure there would be plenty to eat.

  Matt chose a hard roll without seeds, slathered it with mustard and mayonnaise and put together a sandwich so thick nobody else in the room could ever have gotten a mouth around it.

  Emily began to giggle. “I may have to start calling you Jaws. Look at that mouth open up for that food.”

  “What can I say? I’m a shark. All appetite.” He grinned, pulling back his lips to show every one of his teeth. His goofy, all-American look was the least sharklike in the United States. Emily laughed and kissed his mayonnaisy lips.

  For herself she took a single carrot stick.

  Across the room she saw Anne. Oh, Anne! she thought. If there was one person in this room who would know pain, it was Anne. Emily handed Matt her half-bitten carrot stick and ran over to Anne.

  Matt ate the carrot, not being a picky sort when it came to food, and fixed himself a second sandwich to carry around, because once M&M and Anne started talking, hours could pass. A person didn’t want to starve all those hours.

  They slipped between two enormous hemlocks: black instead of green in the night. The boys laughed when the feathery tips brushed their faces and sleeves, but all Beth Rose could think was that she was going to get tree sap on her beautiful dress and in her hair. I already lost a hunk of hair to the door hinge! she thought. Now I have to get sap in it? Gary, why can’t you be romantic? Now if you’d suggested that just the two of us should go drift off behind the hemlocks…but no, we have to take Mike and Con with us.

  Actually, it was Mike and Con taking them.

  Con was upset about Anne going to Emily instead of to him. Well, if you’re upset, you two-year-old, Beth Rose thought, there’s a very simple solution. You go back to Anne.

  She staggered after the boys. Had she been a swearing person, she would certainly have chosen this moment. Sworn at her boyfriend, her shoes, and herself for being a wimp and submitting to this.

  Mike was whispering so loudly that any hotel employee could have heard him a mile off. However, all hotel employees, being in their right minds, were indoors. Nobody knew that Mike was telling them all to run fast over the open space to the start of the trail.

  Open space, Beth Rose thought irritably.

  It was a croquet court. How civilized that sounded, how British. If it were a slow Sunday afternoon, she in her flowery frock and Gary in his suit—no, Gary would never play croquet. Gary might rotate tires or go fishing, but play croquet, forget it.

  Gary grabbed her hand to make her go faster. Her shoes were almost flat, but not quite: the heels were an inch or so in diameter, shaped rather like squashed horseshoes. It was half the reason Beth bought them: those nutty little heels. Now they caught in the turf of the croquet court. She could just imagine the way the grass would look by day, with holes stabbed all through the pretty green surface.

  She was not running fast enough for the boys, so Mike grabbed her other hand and they hauled her along.

  “Pick up your feet, will ya?” Mike said.

  Beth Rose was actually an acceptably good athlete and had played junior varsity field hockey. But then she had worn proper shoes and could see where she was going.

  In spite of the fact that she wanted the manager to catch them, she was afraid that he would, and so when they reached the safety of the trail, her heart felt more safe instead of less.

  “Awright,” Con muttered. He punched Mike, and Mike punched Gary, and Gary squeezed Beth’s hand.

>   Boys, Beth Rose thought. She wanted to find out what Emily was saying to Anne instead.

  “I’ll lead the way,” Con said eagerly and off he went, becoming a shadow among shadows.

  Beth Rose was disgusted to find the trail went up.

  “What did you think?” Mike demanded. “This is a mountain. Of course the trail goes up.”

  “It also comes down,” she pointed out. “It depends on which way you’re headed.”

  Mike neglected to hold the narrow branch of a tree. He ducked under it, but Beth didn’t see it, and it snapped back against her arm. Her arms were bare and it hurt. She said nothing. The trail was not exactly a croquet court. It was rocky and roots poked up out of it, and it tilted unexpectedly, and it was impossible to get a grip on the surface when her shoes were slick for dancing.

  Gary said, “I feel as if I’m carrying you.”

  “You practically are,” Beth said. “I don’t have the right shoes on. I thought we were going to the Last Dance, not the last mountain expedition.”

  “Look out,” Con warned, “the trail dips.”

  Beth Rose prepared herself for a slant.

  There was not a slant.

  There was a drop-off.

  The boys shouted happily, pretending to be diving into deep cold water.

  “This is ridiculous,” Beth Rose said. “I’m going back.”

  “Aw come on,” Gary said. “Where’s your spirit of adventure?” He took her waist in both hands, said, “Now!” and she half jumped and he half lifted, and she was down with the boys.

  It was the last part of the trail to go downhill. Now it was not simply up, it was practically vertical. Beth Rose was panting.

  “We’re at the edge!” Mike cried.

  The moon was ahead of them, partly hidden by the trees that grew twisted by wind that whipped around the two cliffs. Moonlight shone on the first cliff, still way above them, and silhouetted the far-off second cliff.

  All was black, silver, and grey: like pearls and ice.

  Rushing River Inn lay directly below them, casting enormous rectangles of light out of its windows and over the trees and shrubs, making spooky deep shadows that led into the woods. The music from the dance band rose faintly. She could not see the ballroom, but in the dining room that was off limits to the teenagers she could see a group of party-goers all leaning toward the middle of the table, the way people do when a joke hits the punch line and they laugh together.