‘If there’s anything I can do . . .’ It was a cliché, but heartfelt. ‘I used to manage an office in Washington, DC. I can push papers with consummate skill.’
‘Thanks, Hannah, but Chance can handle the business end of things for me, at least for a while.’ She slipped her arm through mine, and drew me down the hallway alongside her while continuing our conversation. ‘He’s even expressed interest in buying into one of our franchise operations,’ she said, smiling.
I thought about Chance as I’d last seen him, heading back to the office computer: erect, graceful, confident. ‘I’m sure that’d work out great for everyone,’ I said, adding parenthetically (particularly for Chance).
Kay brightened. ‘And think of all the publicity we’ll get from Shall We Dance? when Hutch and Melanie move on to New York City!’ She froze in mid-step and turned to me. ‘When Hutch called yesterday afternoon with the good news, I thought Jay would hop off the gurney and do a happy dance right there in the Emergency Room.’
‘I wish you had seen their performance,’ I said as we moved past the nurses’ station. ‘Absolutely stunning.’
‘I know. I helped Jay with the choreography. I watched them practice.’
‘And Tom and Laurie will no doubt do you proud in DC this weekend.’
Kay froze. ‘Yikes! The Sweetheart Ball Championships!’ She flushed. ‘With all that’s happened since yesterday, I nearly forgot.’ She touched my arm. ‘Don’t tell Tom and Laurie.’
‘Tell them what?’ I grinned.
I left Kay at the door to her husband’s room with a promise to let her know the minute I heard the results from DC.
As it turned out, we’d have a whole lot to celebrate.
Twenty-One
‘First, first and first!’ It was late Sunday night, and Laurie was calling me from inside an elevator at the J.W. Marriott Hotel. ‘Stop that, now! Not you, Hannah, Tommy. Naughty boy is nibbling on my ear, messin’ with my chandeliers. Ooooh!’ she squealed.
‘What are you laughing at, Hannah?’ Paul closed his paperback novel and looked at me suspiciously.
‘Shhhh.’ I flapped my hand to quiet him, then used the same hand to cover the receiver. ‘Apparently Tom and Laurie have done well at the championships. Hold on.’
‘Tell you all about it when we see you,’ Laurie bubbled. ‘Oh, glory! We can show you the videos.’
‘Cause for celebration,’ I said, making a snap decision. ‘No classes on Monday and Tuesday, so how about tomorrow night. Dinner?’
‘Let me consult with my social secretary here.’ Much giggling and rustling of fabric followed before Laurie came back on the line. ‘He says we’ll be delighted. You’ve got a big TV screen over there? This girl’s so blazing no regular little twenty-four incher’s gonna handle it.’
‘Count on it,’ I laughed, and with a shriek of delight, Laurie broke the connection.
The following morning when I polled the usual suspects, so many said ‘yes’ that I had to call everyone back and move the dinner to Daddy’s.
I arrived at Daddy’s sprawling home in the Providence neighborhood north of Annapolis more than an hour early to help set up. Neelie was already in the dining room putting out glasses, plates and cutlery. ‘How many do I need?’ she asked, clutching a stack of my mother’s best china plates.
Mentally, I ticked off the guests. Three already there, Paul to come straight from an extra instruction session at the Academy, Hutch and Ruth, Melanie, Chance and Alicia, Tom and Laurie, and my friend, Eva. ‘Twelve,’ I told her, suddenly thankful that, much as I loved them, Emily and Dante had declined, citing Monday being a school night and too late for the children.
Neelie counted out the plates and set them in place on a white tablecloth decorated with baskets of flowers in delicate blue cross-stitch; my late mother’s handiwork. The large watercolor over the buffet, the pillows on the living-room sofa, the pottery vase holding a bouquet of fresh flowers, Mom’s work was all around me, never failing to remind me of how much I missed her.
‘Where’s Daddy?’
‘In the kitchen,’ Neelie grinned. ‘Says he’s cooking.’
I pressed a hand to my chest. ‘Words to strike fear into my heart.’
In point of fact, my father was the world’s worst cook. Not his fault, I suppose, because a succession of women – first his grandmother then his mother and finally his wife – had shooed little Georgie out of the kitchen.
Or, it could be genetic. Paul’s sister, Connie, was a terrible cook, too. Eating at Connie’s house was always a nostalgic stroll through the 1960s. Noodle casseroles featuring Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup; salads thrown together out of boxes of Jello, fruit cocktail and miniature marshmallows.
Daddy’s problem was that he refused to follow directions, winging it through meal preparation with no knowledge base. No wonder he stayed thin. One time, not long after my mother’s death, I had arrived for a visit in the late afternoon to find my father in the kitchen, squinting at a faded and spotted recipe card, attempting to duplicate Mom’s lasagne. He abandoned the card and stubbornly refused my help, so I poured a glass of wine and watched while he put the noodles on to boil. Daddy went on to collect an assortment of canned tomato products from the cupboard, which he opened and dumped into a pot for the sauce. ‘Needs spices,’ he’d said (meaning herbs), and began rummaging through the spice rack.
After fifteen minutes, I’d said, ‘Daddy, I think the noodles might be done by now,’ to which he’d replied, ‘Oh! Is the water gone already?’
Needless to say, when I entered the kitchen, it wasn’t with any great sense of optimism.
I found my father leaning over the kitchen counter thumbing through a pile of carryout menus that he kept in a see-through plastic folder next to the telephone. A good omen. I walked up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist. ‘How are the eyes?’
He turned and kissed my cheek. ‘A little sensitive to light, but otherwise, it’s a verifiable miracle.’ He held a Curbside to Go menu at arm’s length and read, ‘Tomato bruschetta, mozzarella fritta, shrimp and artichoke dip . . .’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ I told him, snatching the menu from his fingers. ‘You get the ice out of the freezer and set up the bar. I’ll take care of ordering dinner.’
Daddy clucked my chin. ‘You just want to make sure I don’t forget the eggplant Parmesan.’
I slapped his face lightly with the menu. ‘Busted!’
After Daddy left with the ice, I made a quick call to Paul’s cell phone asking him to stop by the Macaroni’s on Jennifer Road to pick up our dinner, although it was more than a bit out of his way to do so, then called Macaroni’s and turned cooking our dinner over to them. In less than five minutes, I was back in the family room where I found Daddy presiding over the bar, as instructed. ‘A Bloody Mary for me, please, light on the vodka,’ I said, and lobbed him a pair of limes, which he caught one at a time with his left hand, like a juggler. His bad eyesight was, quite obviously, history.
When the doorbell rang, Bloody Mary in hand, I sang out, ‘I’ll get it!’
I found Hutch standing on the doorstep, carrying Ruth who was still encumbered by her ungainly cast. I had to laugh.
Hutch was beaming. Ruth, too. ‘Over the threshold,’ Hutch said, entering the house, being careful not to bang Ruth’s leg on the door frame.
Ruth giggled like a teenager and kissed him on the mouth. I hadn’t seen her so bubbly since her engagement was announced. ‘Honestly, Hannah,’ my sister said as Hutch swept past me, ‘I’m so proud of him I could just about burst.’
And I was proud of her, too. When Hutch entered the Shall We Dance? competition with Melanie, I’d expected jealousy from my sister, but there appeared to be none. Perhaps this was how a childless couple felt when they welcomed the birth of a child via a surrogate mother. Happy to have the child, and grateful to the person who made it all possible.
Hutch installed Ruth on Dad’s favorite red leather BarcaLounger
, waited until she got comfortable, then hustled off to fetch her a Martini.
‘Three olives!’ Ruth reminded his departing back, and then turned to smile at me. ‘We’re still pinching ourselves.’
I told her again how amazing I thought Hutch had been.
‘Hutch thinks there was a definite advantage to going on early. The judges didn’t have a lot to compare them to, so they stood out.’
‘Ha-ha! Like the belly dancer who partnered with the guy wrapped around a plush boa constrictor?’ I grinned. ‘Don’t know about you, but I thought that act showed promise.’
‘They were supposed to be Adam and Eve,’ Ruth informed me.
We were still dissecting the competition like bad-mannered judges when Melanie arrived with Chance and Alicia, followed almost immediately by Tom and Laurie, flushed with excitement, and by Eva, looking sophisticated in her brand new Judi-Dench-as-M-style hairdo.
As I was showing everyone to the bedroom where they could put their coats, Laurie pressed a DVD into my hands, introduced herself to Eva and said, ‘Girl, you’re smokin’! Love the hair.’
Even in the darkened hallway, I could see Eva blush. ‘You look pretty hot yourself, Laurie.’
‘Oh, do you like the scarf?’ Laurie fluffed up the bow. ‘It’s Thai silk. Tom had business in Bangkok last year and brought it back for me.’ Laurie ran her hands down her narrow hips, smoothing the peacock blue fabric. ‘And aren’t we glad that Capri pants are back? Thank you, Mary Tyler Moore!’
Underneath her short lambswool jacket Laurie wore a white silk shirt with a plunging V. The toes sticking out of her strappy black heels were painted the same bright blue as her pants. She peeled off her jacket, tossed it on the bed and tripped down the hallway trilling, ‘Tommy! A vodka Martini!’
How she managed to totter up the icy drive from her car to the house in those heels, I’ll never know. And surely Laurie was too young to remember Mary Tyler Moore, but maybe she caught the reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show on Nick at Night.
I heard Paul’s deep baritone announce, ‘Hello, everyone! Where do you want the food?’ and moved to go out and meet him, but was waylaid by Melanie just entering the bedroom, removing her hat.
Eva, bless her, said, ‘I’ll go help Paul,’ and bustled past.
‘Hi, Hannah. Nice to see you.’ Melanie handed me her coat, so I laid it carefully on the bed. As she stood in front of the mirror repairing the ravages of winter hat hair with her fingers, I congratulated her once again on Friday’s stunning performance, and her footwork in particular. ‘That was all Jay,’ she sniffed. In the mirror, her face crumpled.
‘I called the hospital this morning,’ I told her, ‘but they wouldn’t tell me anything. Is there any word on his condition?’
Looking at me through the mirror, Melanie sucked in her lips, and shook her head. ‘He’s out of intensive care, but they’re still trying to figure out what’s wrong with him.’ She turned around. ‘Kay texted it could be something called GBS. I was afraid to ask. What the hell is that?’
Since talking with Kay on Saturday, I’d done some research on the Internet, so I explained about Guillaine-Barré Syndrome, its symptoms – weakness and tingling in the legs, muscle pain, respiratory difficulties, dizziness – and its possible side effects. If Jay was suffering from GBS, there was a chance he’d never dance again. But I didn’t tell Melanie that. ‘Is Jay still allowed visitors?’ I asked, hoping to sail into less treacherous waters.
‘I guess so,’ Melanie said, tearing up again.
I grabbed a tissue from the box on the bedside table and handed it to her.
‘But not me,’ she sniffed. ‘I just can’t bear to see him that way.’ She pressed the tissue into the corner of each eye. ‘You know, sick.’
‘I’m sure he’ll be back on his feet very soon,’ I said with more confidence than I felt. I had one-hundred percent faith in the UMMC doctors, nurses and support staff, but they didn’t know everything, and sometimes, as with my mother, even the best isn’t enough.
Melanie looked around the bedroom, spotted the wastepaper basket, and tossed her used tissue into it. ‘Jay is going to choreograph our routines for Shall We Dance? you know.’
‘Hold that thought, Melanie.’
As we walked down the hall to join the party, I was surprised by Eva coming back the other way. She grabbed my arm, pulled me toward the guest bedroom on the street side of the house. ‘You need to see this.’
Thinking my friend had lost her mind, I followed her into the room, instinctively reaching for the light switch.
‘No!’ Eva gently batted my hand away. ‘Keep the light off.’
‘Eva,’ I whispered. ‘What’s gotten into you?’
She dragged me over to the window, and pulled aside one of the linen drapes. ‘Look. There. Across the street.’
Following her instructions, but wishing she’d be more specific, I said, ‘A bunch of parked cars?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘The silver Prius by the corner. There’s a guy in it.’
I squinted into the dark. Sitting behind the wheel was a man with a square head, square chin and no neck, like he’d grown up in a box.
‘That’s Jeremy Dunstan,’ she said.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Positive. A Prius Hybrid. You know, the answer to the question, What would Jesus drive?’
‘He followed you here?’
‘Evidently. He certainly doesn’t live in the Providence community.’
‘So where does he live?’
‘Admiral Heights, near the stadium. I had Therese look it up in the church records.’
‘I thought you said he was leaving you alone, Eva.’
‘I did, too. Even when I thought I caught sight of him outside of Graul’s Market the other day, I decided it was my imagination.’
We sat down together on the foot of the bed, in the dark, the light from the hallway just illuminating her face. ‘What am I going to do, Hannah?’
‘Do you want me to go out there and talk to him?’ Then thinking better of it, I added, ‘Or Paul? The Midshipmen say Paul can be pretty intimidating.’
If I hadn’t known Eva so well, I might even have questioned the existence of this shadowy man; yet there he was, just as Eva had described him. I couldn’t tell about his height, of course, but the body shape was right, and as he turned his head toward my father’s front door, light glanced off his glasses.
‘You need to call the police,’ I said.
‘That’s what the bishop told me when I sent him copies of Jeremy’s emails.’
‘Well?’
‘I said I had to think about it.’
‘Eva!’
‘The man thinks he’s in love with me, Hannah. I’m afraid of what he might do if they slap him with a restraining order.’
I was going to say that the man wasn’t likely to make a scene during a church service, what with all the congregation there as witnesses, and then I remembered that nut job who went postal at two churches out in Colorado. I took a deep breath. ‘You can’t be responsible for every troubled soul in the world, Eva!’
‘You sound like the bish. He reminded me that Jeremy Dunstan’s spiritual health doesn’t depend on me, and that I can’t help everybody.’
‘The bish is right.’
We sat in silence for a moment, until my father’s high, clear tenor sang down the hallway, ‘Suppertime, suppertime, suppertime, suppertime!’
I took Eva’s hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘C’mon. If Jeremy’s still out there when the party breaks up, we’ll call the cops. In the meantime, I believe your services will be required at the table, Rev Haberman.’
Although a lush Cabernet Sauvignon would have been nice with the penne rustica, Daddy had opened two bottles of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, and was walking around the table, filling wine glasses before taking his place at the head of the table opposite Neelie.
Before he could say anything, Alicia raised her glass. ‘Here’s to Melan
ie and Hutch, Shall We Dance? finalists!’ She turned to her left, where Tom sat next to Laurie. ‘And to Tom and Laurie! Three firsts! Deserving champions all.’
As we clinked glasses all around, I thought I heard Melanie mutter, ‘Some more deserving than others.’
I nudged Melanie gently with my elbow to get her attention. ‘I beg your pardon?’ I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly.
Melanie sipped her wine and smiled. ‘Oh, nothing. I was just talking to Chance.’
Daddy scowled at me and cleared his throat. ‘Eva. Will you say grace?’
It was our custom to hold hands around the table for grace. Daddy gathered up mine, I took Melanie’s. At the far end of the table, Paul winked at me, and I smiled as Eva blessed our food.
Give us grateful hearts, our Father, for all your mercies, and make us ever mindful of the needs of others. We ask you to bless those whom we love, now absent from us, and we especially remember your servant, Jay. Be present with him that his weakness may be banished and his strength restored, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
‘Amen to that,’ said my father, hardly pausing to take a second breath before spearing a shrimp with his fork.
All the time I was crunching my tomato bruschetta, I wondered about Melanie’s remark. Was she implying there was something wrong with Tom and Laurie’s win, some rule that they’d unwittingly broken that might disqualify them from competition? As I ate, I kept one eye on Melanie; with everyone talking at once, her eyes were getting a workout. I don’t know how she kept it sorted.
After the last morsel of tiramisu disappeared, I helped clear the table. I was rinsing the dishes and stacking them in the dishwasher when Chance came in to thank us for dinner, and say his goodbyes. Sensing an opportunity to ask him about Melanie’s remark, I followed him to the bedroom where we’d put the coats. ‘Say, Chance. What do you think Melanie meant at dinner when she said that some are more deserving than others?’
Chance slipped his arms into his jacket, and zipped up the front. He shrugged. ‘I think you’d better ask her.’
By the time we got out to the living room, though, I couldn’t find Melanie anywhere.
Dead Man Dancing Page 15
