Dead Man Dancing

by Marcia Talley

  I’d seen only the early practice sessions, never a dress rehearsal, so when the couple appeared on stage, I was stunned by their costumes. Melanie had transformed herself into a beaded, glittery flapper, her hair hidden under a sparkling cloche, spit curls caressing her cheeks. Hutch wore a black and white striped three-piece suit, a black shirt with a white tie, and spats. When the dance began, he was sitting on a chair, his head bowed, a fedora tipped over his left eyebrow.

  A mobster and his moll.

  ‘And now, dancing the tango, I give you Gaylord Hutchinson and Melanie Fosher, from Annapolis, Maryland! Cue the music, Steve!’ ordered one of the judges. From the Down Under accent, I figured it was Neville.

  Immediately, the familiar tune of ‘Hernando’s Hideaway’ boomed out of the speaker banks.

  Strolling, strolling, strolling, eyes downcast, Melanie approached Hutch. He glanced up languidly, slid the hat to the back of his head, seized her hand, rose from his chair, pulled her to him . . . and from that moment they moved as one, connected cheek to cheek, chest to chest, thigh to thigh.

  I know a dark secluded place . . .

  Circling, circling they stalked left. Whirling, whirling, they slithered right, their footwork so intricate it was hard for the eye to follow.

  A flick of the foot here, a snap of the head there.

  I tore my eyes away long enough to glance down the row to Ruth, wondering how she might be taking it, and was surprised (and relieved!) to see her beaming with pride.

  You will be free, to gaze at me . . .

  Back on stage, Melanie paused as if her shoes were glued to the floor. When Hutch backed away ever so slowly, Melanie’s feet stayed where they were and she began a gentle slide into his arms. He turned, she bobbed up, they whirled and swiveled and spun until before anyone knew it, Hutch was back in the chair where he’d begun, with Melanie sitting on his lap. On the last olé of the song, Melanie snatched the fedora off Hutch’s head and plopped it down on her own.

  The audience sprang to its feet. They screamed, they hooted, they cheered.

  I jumped up and down, cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted ‘bravo’ so many times that I made my throat sore. I hadn’t yelled so long and so loud since the Orioles won the World Series back in 1983.

  We couldn’t see the judges’ faces, but they must have been smiling, too.

  A voice I recognized as Jonathan Job’s said, ‘Wow. I haven’t seen anything so well coordinated since Torvill and Dean electrified the world with Bolero back in the 80s! How long have you two been dancing together?’

  Melanie sprang from Hutch’s lap, and the two of them made their way over to the standing microphone where Melanie breathed into it, ‘Three months.’

  Samantha gushed, ‘You are just so amazing! Three months! You are blowing my mind. I am speechless!’

  Hutch and Melanie’s routine had blown Neville’s mind, too. ‘That, ladies and gentlemen, is what the tango is all about! A walking seduction. What can I say? Judges, this couple goes on to New York City. Am I right?’

  ‘Oh, yes, definitely,’ Samantha cooed.

  ‘Too right.’ This from Jonathan.

  I was in real danger of choking on the lump in my throat.

  As the audience erupted into applause all around us, Chloe squealed, ‘They won? Uncle Hutch won?’

  Eva patted her head. ‘Yes, indeed. Your Uncle Hutch won.’

  At the end of the row, I noticed Paul fanning Ruth with Chloe’s notebook. She’d slouched in her chair, broken leg half blocking the aisle. I recognized the symptoms; she was hyperventilating, but nothing a few minutes of in-with-the-good-air, out-with-the-bad-air couldn’t cure.

  Somehow we managed to sit through the next seven auditions, but the judges could have been watching dancing bears or boxing kangaroos or maypole dancing for all we cared. When Dave Carson came out at the end of the set to help us relax with ‘seated sun salutations’ – apparently the big man was into yoga, too – we half carried, half walked Ruth out of the auditorium, retrieved her wheelchair, and hurried out to the street.

  We’d agreed to meet Hutch and Melanie at the Cheesecake Factory for lunch, no matter what, so we walked, rolled (and some of us floated) down to the Pratt Street Pavilion on the waterfront, arriving just as the restaurant opened.

  A grilled eggplant sandwich was in my future, I knew, but when Hutch and Melanie showed up, I planned to treat everyone to a round of Godiva chocolate brownie sundaes. We would celebrate their triumph in style.

  Twenty

  But Jay was not all right. Far from it.

  He’d rallied in the ambulance, but by the time the EMTs rolled him into the Emergency Room, he felt nauseated and was complaining of pains in his abdomen. Before the staff could check him in, he began vomiting.

  This report came to me directly from Chance.

  Early on Saturday, when nobody answered my repeated calls to the Giannotti home, I’d stopped by J & K to see if anyone had news. It was before business hours, the studio was locked, but I could see Chance through the window, so I pounded on the glass until he looked up from whatever he was doing on the office computer and unlocked the door.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt your work,’ I apologized as Chance stepped aside to let me in.

  ‘Not a problem. When it comes to juggling Excel spreadsheets, I actually welcome interruption.’

  ‘Working on the books?’

  ‘For my sins. I’ve got an associate’s degree in accounting, so guess who gets tapped to send out the past dues?’ He slipped his hands into the rear pockets of his jeans, the denim stretched so tight over his adorable buns that I was amazed he could get a toothpick into the pockets, let alone his fingers.

  ‘I’ve got Jay’s gym bag in the car,’ I told Chance. ‘After the EMTs took Jay away, Hutch retrieved it from the dressing room at the Hippodrome. Hutch had a couple of meetings today, so I volunteered to take care of it.’ I waved in the general direction of the parking lot. ‘Should I leave the bag here, do you think, or take it to their home?’

  Chance shrugged his muscular shoulders. ‘Your call.’

  I shrugged my bony shoulders back. ‘There could be something valuable in the bag, I suppose. Don’t want Kay to worry about it.’

  Chance seemed uninterested. ‘Whatever.’

  In point of fact, I’d already searched Jay’s gym bag, and found nothing inside that I’d consider valuable, unless you count a pair of black denims, a white T-shirt, several pairs of socks, a can of talcum powder, a comb, and a jar of Dippity-Do hair gel. ‘I guess I’ll just take it up to Kay at the hospital, then. Is Jay still there, do you know?’

  ‘They kept him overnight for observation,’ Chance informed me. He checked his watch. ‘Kay called this morning to ask me to check Jay’s schedule and let his students know he won’t be coming in this week. She said the doctors would decide by noon whether to release Jay or not. It’s twelve thirty now and I haven’t heard, so I figure they’re still poking and prodding.’

  ‘Kay must be frantic with worry.’

  ‘I’d say so. She spent the night on a sofa. She sounded exhausted when we talked.’

  ‘You have to admire Jay, going on stage in front of all those people when he felt so sick. Their paso doble was stunning, even if it ended a bit prematurely.’

  ‘Jay’s a showman. It was a really big deal to be asked to perform for the Shall We Dance? audience. No way he’d miss the opportunity. He was nervous about it, for sure. Jay kept telling me he was afraid he’d screw it up, but you probably noticed how Kay kept stroking his ego, pushing him in practice.’

  Frankly, I hadn’t, but I didn’t say so. Before their exhibition at the Hippodrome, the only thing I’d seen Kay throw at Jay was drop-dead looks.

  ‘Kay’s quite the competitor. Always was.’ Chance looked thoughtful. ‘I think Kay and your friend Hutch would have been champions if Hutch hadn’t dropped out of dance to focus on law school. It took Kay three years to find another partner.’
r />   ‘Jay?’

  ‘Not Jay. She met Jay at the Internationals. They were both dancing with someone else. Have you ever seen a competition?’

  I shook my head. ‘I was hoping to attend the Sweetheart Ball tomorrow to see how it works, and to watch Tom and Laurie perform, but I already had a commitment to watch my grandkids.’

  ‘Well, between heats there’s general dancing. Jay asked Kay to tango, and the rest as they say, is history. Ironic that the partners they ditched hooked up and went on to beat Jay and Kay out of the US championships two years in a row. Ha ha ha.’

  ‘Is Kay bitter about that?’

  ‘Nah. They’re both too wrapped up in running the studio now to worry about competitions. I think Kay’s accepted the fact that Jay’s much more interested in the business end of things. Recently he’d been saying he plans to hang up his shoes, that he’s too old to compete.’

  ‘Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach,’ I quoted.

  ‘Yes, except Jay can and does. He’s an inspirational teacher.’

  ‘Does Jay have many private students?’ I asked, recalling how much time he’d taken with Ruth before she’d been sidelined by the parking lot attack.

  ‘Quite a few. Melanie and Don, of course, then when Don shipped out, the time he spent working with Melanie and with Hutch.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Then there’s always little Tessa Douglas and her dreadful mother.’

  ‘Preparing Tessa and little what’s-his-name for Tiny Ballroom?’

  Chance snorted. ‘Next thing you know it’ll be Dancing in Diapers.’ He shivered. ‘I don’t know about you, Hannah, but seeing manic grins pasted on orange-colored ten-year-old faces is pretty creepy.’

  I laughed out loud. ‘Wearing Ken and Barbie clothes from the 1960s? I agree. Unnerving.’

  I glanced around the empty studio. ‘It’s rather quiet today, isn’t it? This is the first time I’ve been here when Tessa and her mother weren’t. I was beginning to think they had an apartment out back or something.’

  ‘It’d be more convenient, that’s for sure. Tessa gets a lesson of some sort almost every day. Ballet, tap, ballroom.’

  I thought about the price list Ruth had showed me, did some quick multiplication in my head and said, ‘That must cost Shirley a fortune.’

  Chance’s eyes widened. ‘You kidding? Shirley gets a deep discount. Nudge-nudge-wink-wink.’

  ‘Are you implying . . .’ I began, thinking that if Jay and Shirley were having an affair, surely they wouldn’t have been as openly friendly around the studio as I’d recently observed.

  He arched an eyebrow. ‘And he was working with Ruth Gannon for free.’

  I froze. ‘Ruth is my sister. She’s not . . .’

  Chance stopped me with a raised hand. ‘Sorry. Forget I said anything.’ He managed a boyish grin. ‘Bit of a late night last night. Not functioning on all cylinders, I’m afraid.’

  I wondered if Chance meant to imply that Ruth was getting a nudge-nudge-wink-wink special rate from Jay. I’d just seen Chance tapping away on the office computer. He could have been whiling the time away playing Free Cell, of course, but since Chance had access to the studio’s computer files, including its financial records, he had to know how much students were paying and for what. I knew why Jay had been working with Ruth for free, and Chance should have known it, too: Ruth’s good showing on Shall We Dance? would have been a major coup for the studio, a bullet point on any franchise prospectus Jay might be mailing out. It still was, but the name Melanie Fosher would be getting set in Times New Roman font alongside of Gaylord Hutchinson instead of Ruth Gannon.

  Did Chance suspect Ruth of having an affair with Jay? And if so, had he mentioned his groundless suspicions to anyone else?

  ‘Things are not always what they seem,’ I said, both in defense of my sister and, in spite of how much the woman annoyed me, Tessa’s mother, Shirley.

  Chance shrugged his massive shoulders again, causing his neatly tucked T-shirt – ‘I Do All My Own Stunts’ – to inch upwards. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Look, Chance,’ I said, gladly changing the subject, ‘I’m going up to the hospital. Are there any messages for Kay?’

  Chance adjusted the belt that encircled his impossibly narrow waist. ‘Just tell her it’s all under control. We’re closing the studio on Monday and Tuesday, but starting Wednesday, I’m taking Jay’s students, and Melanie will be filling in with my classes, so we’re completely covered.’ He checked his watch again. ‘She should be here by now, in fact. Melanie, that is. We’ve got the Swing and Sway Seniors coming in on the van at two. Always a lively bunch, but Melanie can handle them.’

  I made a mental note to mention the Swing and Sway Seniors to my father and Neelie, bid goodbye to Chance, and pointed my car west on 665 and north on I-97.

  When I got to the hospital, a cheerful woman at reception informed me that Jay had been moved to a private room on the sixth floor. She pointed me in the direction of the elevator.

  I found the room, and entered it quietly. Kay was sitting on a chair pulled up close to Jay’s hospital bed. On the bed, Jay seemed to be resting peacefully. An oxygen tube was strapped to his nose and an IV snaked into his arm. ‘Kay,’ I whispered.

  Kay turned a worried, tear-streaked face to me. ‘Hello, Hannah.’

  ‘How’s he doing?’ I asked.

  ‘They’ve sedated him. He’s exhausted from throwing up.’ She got up from the chair, took my arm gently, and guided me into the hallway. ‘Let’s go somewhere where we can talk.’

  Kay led me down the corridor to an upholstered settee in front of a picture window that let in the bright winter sunshine. Her eyes looked tired, the lashes still heavy with dark clumps of the make-up she’d worn for the previous day’s performance.

  ‘He seems better today, Hannah. At least the vomiting has stopped. But he’s really sick.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘They don’t know.’ She twisted her hands in her lap. ‘They’re testing him for everything under the sun.’

  ‘So it’s not flu?’

  Kay looked away from me, and stared out the window. ‘No.’

  After a long moment she said, ‘Isn’t it amazing how life goes on?’ She pointed. ‘Those people down there in the street; those cars. My world’s tumbling down, and I feel like they should stop and share my pain. But, no. They go on and on as if nothing’s happened.’

  ‘I know how you feel,’ I said to Kay, confident that being familiar with my medical history because of Dance for the Cure, she’d realize that I wasn’t mouthing empty platitudes. After my cancer diagnosis, I remember being surprised to see the flowers still blooming in the planters outside the doctor’s office, people still driving along busy Bestgate Road, rushing to the mall on important errands. Later at the 7/11, someone had been arguing with the Vietnamese clerk because he’d had the bad judgment to run out of copies of the New York Times. ‘This is not a crisis,’ I remember telling the loudmouth jerk as I waited in line behind him to pay for my half and half. ‘You could be diagnosed with cancer. That would be a crisis.’ He’d given me a drop-dead look and stalked out, while the rest of the people in the line applauded. Maybe I’d given him something to think about.

  Kay turned her attention from the activity on the streets of downtown Baltimore, blinking rapidly, saying nothing.

  ‘So, if it’s not the flu, what? Food poisoning?’ I prompted.

  ‘They’re not sure. He’s been complaining for weeks that his legs felt funny, like rubber, you know? But he danced through it, focusing on the routine. We almost made it, didn’t we, Hannah?’

  I laid my hand over hers. ‘Your paso doble was brilliant. You’ll be back on the dance floor in no time.’

  She arched a single darkly-penciled eyebrow. ‘Do you think they’re going to put that on television?’

  From Kay’s expression, I couldn’t determine whether she hoped they would televise a clip of their performance, or prayed that they wouldn’t. I could pictur
e it now, news at five, six and eleven – Kay’s leap, Jay’s catch and their fall – in slo-mo, over and over. I squeezed her hand reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry, Kay. There wasn’t anything on the evening news last night.’

  Cameras hadn’t been allowed in the theater, but I wondered how many people had sneaked them in anyway, and how many views of Jay and Kay’s routine had been posted to YouTube by day’s end. I decided not to mention it.

  Kay’s brows drew together as if I’d asked her a particularly difficult question, then just as suddenly, the look of concentration vanished. ‘I’m expecting the doctor in a few minutes. Guess I better get back to the room.’

  I’d been dismissed. ‘Perhaps he’ll have good news for you, Kay.’

  She rose from the chair and said, ‘It’s not botulism, at least. And since he’s not eaten any fish, they can pretty much eliminate ciguatera poisoning. But it could be lupus, Hannah, or porphyria,’ she rattled on, her voice rising. ‘Or Guillaine-Barré syndrome? My friend Ellen’s husband had Guillaine-Barré years ago and he still has to walk with a cane!’

  I stared at Kay for a moment, taking it all in. I knew from sailing charter boats in the Virgin Islands that ciguatera was a nerve poison one got from eating large, tropical reef-feeding fish. Lupus was an autoimmune disorder. Porphyria rang a bell, too. ‘Porphyria? Isn’t that what King George III was supposed to have had?’

  ‘Did you see the movie?’ she asked, her eyes wide. ‘I’m scared, Hannah.’

  She was referring to The Madness of George III, where Helen Mirren had to watch while her husband, Nigel Hawthorne, descended into madness. ‘Kay, that was in the eighteenth century! They have treatment for porphyria these days.’

  ‘I know, but it’s just so scary, not knowing.’

  I urged her along the hall gently. ‘Go back to the room and wait for the doctor. I’m sure he’ll have good news for you soon. And don’t worry about a thing.’ I delivered the message from Chance.

  ‘I don’t know what I’d do without Chance and Alicia,’ she said, tearing up again. She gave me a hug, catching me slightly off guard. ‘And my friends.’