Dreams of Falling

by Karen White

  It was her only nod to the girl she’d been for those short months when Boyd was hers. The girl who let the wind blow through her hair and wore a two-piece bathing suit. The kind of girl who wore bright red lipstick. Without flinching, she met his gaze. “Do I? I don’t recall.”

  “That’s too bad. Because I do.” His voice carried with it defeat, and before she could stop herself, Ceecee lifted her hand to touch his cheek.

  There was a knock on the door, and she dropped her hand, her eyes meeting Boyd’s.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Doctor,” the nurse said, opening the door. “But your wife just called. She didn’t want to wait, but she asked that I pass on a message.” Her gaze shifted to Ceecee, then returned to Boyd. “She and Ivy are leaving now for Augusta. She’s closed up the house and let the nanny and maids go home to their families to prepare for the storm. There’s no need for you to go home first before heading to the hospital.” She clasped her hands primly in front of her. “I thought you should know, just in case you wanted to catch her before she left.”

  “Thank you. I’ll call her from this phone.”

  The nurse nodded. “If it’s all right with you, Doctor, I think I’m going to go home myself. I want to secure the shutters and bring in my flowerpots. My sister said the National Weather Bureau expects the hurricane to remain offshore, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.” She looked again at Ceecee. “Unless you’d like me to stay a little longer.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I’ll see Miss Purnell out and lock up the office. Remember that I’m at the hospital for the next two nights, maybe longer if the storm gets bad. I’ll call in for any messages.”

  The nurse nodded, then exited, leaving the door open behind her. Boyd picked up the phone on the desk and tried calling Margaret, but there was no answer. He hung up slowly. “I wanted you to go with her and Ivy. She could use your company.”

  Ceecee looked at him, alarmed. “Is Ivy all right with Margaret?”

  He shook his head. “She loves Ivy. She’d never do anything to compromise her daughter’s safety. It’s just that Margaret’s so sad all the time. It can affect her judgment.” He shrugged. “I’d feel better knowing you were with them.”

  Ceecee almost sighed with relief. She couldn’t imagine being forced to spend time with Margaret for the car trip and however many days the visit stretched out.

  Except she’d be with Ivy. The one good and beautiful thing to come out of this untenable situation. “It’s too late—she’s already gone. And I’d hate to get anyone else sick, especially the baby.” She forced a smile. “Bitty is supposed to be coming home today for a short visit. Imagine how annoyed she’d be to find out that both Margaret and I had deserted her.”

  Ceecee turned and headed back to the lobby, babbling now in her effort to keep her emotions intact. They were suspended from a weblike strand, susceptible to breaking from one more look from Boyd.

  The nurse had already gone, the desk empty, a cloth pulled over the typewriter. Ceecee reached the door and put her hand on the knob. She’d almost made it outside when Boyd spoke.

  “Margaret thinks we’re having an affair.”

  She stopped, keeping her gaze trained on the frosted glass of the door. “What did you tell her?”

  “The truth. That I would never dishonor her. Or you.” He paused, and she could feel his warm breath on her hair. “But I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t still love you. I’ve tried to stop, but I can’t.”

  She didn’t turn around, knowing if she did, all would be lost. “Good-bye, Boyd. Stay safe.” She twisted the knob and yanked the door open, then fought the wind to slam it shut behind her. Bullets of rain stung her face, reminding her that she’d left her umbrella in the office. She didn’t bother with her rain hat, and kept walking without any direction until her hair was plastered to her face, her skirt clinging to her legs.

  Eventually she stopped, out of breath, looked up at the darkening sky with its layers of billowing gray clouds, and felt her heart echoing the atmospheric turmoil of the hurricane brewing out in the Atlantic.

  thirty-two

  Larkin

  2010

  We stepped from the air-conditioned car and were slapped in the face with what felt like a wet towel. It was just after seven o’clock in the evening, but the temperature still hovered close to eighty, and the air dripped with moisture. A heavy cloud cover blanketed the sky, obliterating any possible stars and the moon and hugging the humidity close to the ground.

  We began to walk the block to King Street, which had been closed off for the festival, and where a large dance tent had been set up. I stuck by Mabry’s side, leaving Bennett to walk with Jonathan.

  You look as if you’re wearing moonlight. I couldn’t erase the words from my head, or the way he’d looked when he said them. Or the way they’d made me feel. He was Bennett, and he shouldn’t be saying things like that to me. It was as if we were in the second half of a football game and all of a sudden the rules had changed.

  “Don’t worry about your hair, Larkin,” Mabry said, interrupting my thoughts. “I used about a can of humidity-defying hair spray. It won’t budge, no matter how much you dance.”

  “Seriously? Because I already feel as if I’ve been swimming.” I placed my palm against the side of my head.

  “No worries,” she said, pulling a black elastic hair tie from her wrist and handing it to me. “I always have a plan B.”

  I slid it on my own wrist with a laugh and stopped, looking down at my heels. “And when did you say we could switch to our dancing shoes?”

  “After we make our grand entrance, remember?”

  “Do you really think it’s going to matter, Mabry?” Jonathan asked with a grin. “We’re probably going to be the youngest people there. I’m thinking you could walk in barefoot and wearing sackcloth and not many would be able to tell unless they got close enough to see better.”

  Mabry smacked him playfully on the arm. “Don’t be rude. Just because it’s organized by the Rotary Club and benefits Alzheimer’s doesn’t mean it excludes those under thirty. Besides, they say you have twenty-twenty vision after cataract surgery, so don’t you be challenging anyone to a duel.”

  “Have you been before?” I asked. The Shag Festival was new—at least to me. It didn’t exist when I lived in Georgetown. If it had, I’d have attended every year and danced until my feet bled, spurred by Ceecee’s confidence and my love of dancing. I would have danced with whoever asked me or by myself. I’d have worn an outrageous outfit and bad makeup, and I wouldn’t have thought to think I was making a spectacle of myself.

  “We’ve been a couple of times,” Mabry said. “This is the fifth Shag Festival, and it seems to get bigger every year. My parents usually come, but tonight they’re our designated babysitters.” She slipped her arm through Jonathan’s and squeezed it against her side. “There are advantages to living near your parents.”

  With Mabry and Jonathan walking together, Bennett fell into step beside me. Neither of us spoke.

  “Hey, Larkin,” Mabry called. “Did your coworker ever check your mail for those pictures your mama might have mailed to you?”

  “She did,” I said, remembering my half-hour conversation with Josephine. She’d told me in excruciating detail about a date she’d been on, and the dream she had the same night in which her date—same guy but with a different face—doused her with water. “She didn’t see anything that wasn’t a bill or junk mail.”

  “What were you looking for?” It was the first thing Bennett had said to me since we’d left the house.

  “The day she disappeared, Mama wrote me an e-mail,” I said briefly. “She never sent it, but Daddy found it on her computer. It mentioned some old photos she wanted me to have.”

  “And you haven’t found them?”

  I shook my head. “No. That’s why I was thinking she
might have mailed them before she . . . before the accident. But apparently not.”

  Eager to change the subject, I asked, “What band is playing tonight?”

  “It’s the Band of Oz. They’re real good,” Mabry said. “I think they know every song ever written in four-four time. Maybe even more songs than you do.”

  “Ha,” I said, accepting the challenge. As we approached the tent, we could hear the music playing inside, the sound carrying enough that more than a few people standing in line at the various food and drink vendors were tapping their toes.

  I turned to see all three faces looking at me expectantly. “‘What Kind of Fool (Do You Think I Am).’”

  They continued to stare at me.

  “Originally sung by the Tams.” I looked through the open sides of the tent, to where the band members, dressed in matching cream-colored tunics and black pants, were playing. Large paper lanterns were strung along the top of the tent like miniature moons against a canvas night sky.

  Bennett reached into his wallet for the tickets and handed them to a white-haired woman wearing capris, large red-framed glasses, and a wide smile. “Y’all have fun now.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Bennett said, sounding determined enough to mean it.

  “You want to get something to eat and drink, or dance first?” Mabry asked.

  “Give me my dancing shoes,” I said, eager to step out onto the red-tiled floor in front of the stage.

  We changed quickly, and I began heading for the dance floor, but a hand on my arm pulled me back.

  “Where are you going?” Bennett’s expression was stuck somewhere between amused and annoyed.

  “I want to dance.” I followed his glance over my shoulder to the packed dance floor filled with dancing couples.

  “I think it would be more fun if you had a partner,” he said, extending his hand.

  I stared at it, remembering the spark I’d felt when we’d touched at Ceecee’s house. Then, not entirely reluctantly, I accepted it, anticipating the jolt of electricity that seemed to flow between us. You look as if you’re wearing moonlight.

  Trying to find familiar ground, I said, “Sorry—old habits die hard.”

  Mabry stashed our shoe bag under a folding chair along the periphery; then Bennett and I followed her and Jonathan out onto the dance floor just as the opening notes to “Sixty Second Man” began.

  We faced each other on the dance floor, my right hand in his, our opposite hands loose by our sides. Stay relaxed. Let the lower body do all the work. Don’t sway with the upper body. I knew all of that, of course, but I needed something to distract me from the feel of my hand in Bennett’s. We’d danced together too many times to count, but somehow, tonight was different. As if the stars that remained hidden behind the clouds had aligned in a new pattern, shining their light in unexpected places.

  He stepped forward, and I moved with him in the familiar pattern, our bodies perfectly in sync. “One and two, three and four, five-six,” I said aloud as we moved into the first song.

  “It’s like riding a bicycle, remember?” Bennett said. “You don’t need to do that.”

  “Do what?” I said, feeling the music in my feet and the warmth of Bennett’s hand.

  “Count out loud,” he said, a smile behind his eyes. “Although I’m sure I could think of a fun way to make you stop.”

  His gaze settled on my lips, and I stumbled. He didn’t miss a beat but kept dancing, dragging me through a couple of steps until I caught up. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Let’s go back to pretending we’re at a school dance. Just do me the favor of not looking over my shoulder for Jackson like you used to.”

  I startled at the mention of Jackson. I’d forgotten all about him. And after what Bennett had said, I refused to look around, not only because I didn’t want to justify his conviction that I couldn’t resist, but also because I didn’t think that Jackson would actually show up. I’d spent most of my adolescent years with the bitter taste of disappointment in my mouth. It was one of the reasons why I’d found it so easy to settle into a life of low expectations. Writing ad copy was a lot less risky than attempting a novel. And loneliness was a lot easier than handling the vagaries and eventual disappointments of friendship.

  “Sure,” I said. “Let’s pretend we’re fifteen. I’ll get a hot dog and get ketchup all over my dress and not realize it’s there until I get home and look in a mirror, and you can roll up your pants so that they’re too short, because you’re growing so fast your mother can’t keep you in clothes that fit.”

  He threw back his head and laughed, not missing a step, and we were teenagers again, two friends who loved to dance, who knew each other better than they knew themselves. Everything was the same—except for the way it felt where our hands were clasped together, skin to skin.

  We stopped when we got hungry and had a couple of beers and hot dogs—mine without any condiments. I danced twice with Jonathan, who was almost as good a dancer as Bennett, and true to Mabry’s prediction, with several other men who cut in. Despite being gray-haired and moving slightly more stiffly than Bennett, they were wonderful dancers and fun partners, and I found myself laughing freely and enjoying myself thoroughly.

  The sun had long set behind the clouds, the light beginning to fade from the sky, when a familiar voice came from behind us. “May I cut in?”

  I smelled his cologne before I turned, the scent reminding me of Jackson Porter the football star I’d cheered from the stands, and whom I’d loved from afar for too many years to count. I pushed back Mabry’s words about him still being a pompous jerk and me having blinders on. It was easy when I looked at him, with his broad shoulders and cleft chin, his casual confidence as he faced Bennett, not expecting him to argue.

  Instead of letting go of my hand when I moved to pull away, Bennett held tight. Ignoring Jackson, he turned to me. “Are you sure, Larkin?”

  I stared back at him, wrestling with his meaning, and with what I really wanted now as an adult and not a teenaged girl.

  “Dude, come on—we’re all friends here,” Jackson protested.

  “Are we, though?” Bennett asked, still gripping my hand.

  I pulled my hand away, keeping my eyes on Bennett. “I’m really hot. I think some fresh air and a cold beer are what I need.” I turned to Jackson and smiled. “Is that all right with you?”

  His return grin hit all the familiar notes in my insides. “Absolutely.” He put his hand on the small of my back and began leading me away. “See you around, Bennett. And don’t worry. I’ll take good care of her.”

  I didn’t turn to look, but I felt Bennett’s eyes on us until Jackson and I had left the tent.

  I was so thirsty, I drank my first beer too fast. Jackson had a second plastic cup in my hand before I could ask for another. We hadn’t brought chairs from home, so we walked slowly down the street, people watching and breathing in the cool night air.

  “Are you enjoying your visit back home?” he asked.

  “Except for my mother being in the hospital, yes. It’s been good seeing old friends. And family.” I laughed. “Even the humidity’s okay.” I handed him my beer. “Here—hold this for a sec.” I pulled the hair tie off my wrist and made a ponytail, trying not to notice how his gaze moved to my chest when I put my arms up. I quickly lowered them and took my beer back.

  “You look real sexy in that dress.”

  I almost choked on my beer. “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry—I meant it as a compliment. I guess it didn’t come out the right way. I meant that you look really gorgeous tonight. You should be real proud of yourself.”

  I didn’t say anything, waiting for him to mention my job in New York, and how I’d started a new life from scratch.

  “Losing all that weight . . . man. I can’t stand being hungry. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to starve yourself for so lon
g.”

  I took another sip of my beer, appreciating the dulling effect it had on what might otherwise have been interpreted as an insult. “I didn’t starve myself. I just started eating better and exercising. My therapist called it ‘being mindful.’”

  “Well, however you did it, congratulations. You did good.” He raised his cup to mine, and we knocked them together gently, managing not to spill a single drop.

  “Yes, well, thank you.” I always thought you were beautiful. Bennett’s words came back to me, and I suddenly wished he were there so I could tell him thanks for saying that. Thanks for believing it, and meaning it, because I had no doubt that he really had.

  A cold, fat raindrop landed on my shoulder; more drops began dotting the street in front of us. I glanced back at the tent, trying to judge whether we could make it before the deluge.

  As if reading my mind, Jackson said, “My car is right around the corner. Come on.” He grabbed my hand, and we began running just as a rumble of thunder vibrated in the sky and the clouds opened up, drenching the world beneath. Jackson closed the passenger door behind me before racing to the driver’s side and jumping in. We looked at each other in the dim light of a streetlamp and laughed at our dripping hair and soaked clothing. I turned to peer out through the windshield.

  “I hope it doesn’t last long. I wasn’t done dancing.”

  Jackson reached over and pushed a damp strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m sure we could come up with a few things to keep us busy while we wait for it to stop.” His hand slipped behind my head and cupped it gently as he brought my face to his.

  He was an expert kisser, his lips surprisingly soft. Yet for all the years I’d spent fantasizing about this very moment, there was no spark between us. No bright flash of light behind my eyelids. No moment of surrender, and no part in the proceedings where I melted into him and the world disappeared. Instead, I was aware of the pressure of his lips against mine, and the taste of beer on his tongue, and the sound of rain pattering against the car’s roof. I opened my eyes, my memory shining a spotlight on the truth. This was the first time he’d kissed me, but it wasn’t the first time he’d touched me.