Dancing on the Edge of the Roof

by Sheila Williams

  And I hadn't been afraid. I had been so mad at Jess for making me work extra hours, so pissed off that Mary was going to cover for him, that I had stormed up this mountain on foot, by myself, without blinking an eye or giving myself time to get scared.

  And I wasn't scared now either.

  “I walked up,” I told Jess proudly as if it was something I did every day.

  He looked at me for a moment. Narrowed those eyes again. I narrowed mine back.

  “You know,” I said nonchalantly, “a friend told me once that everyone has demons riding their backs from time to time. You get over them or not.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I've heard that Montana is about as good a place as any to do that, though.”

  Jess was silent.

  That night, the Paper Moon Diner had a new entree on the menu. “Venison steak with sauce Juanita,” described by the chef as a delicate little basil-flavored cream sauce with strong character.

  It was good, too.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I gave Peaches Bradshaw a big hug and a kiss on the cheek when she came into the Paper Moon Diner one hot Wednesday morning almost ten weeks to the day after she had dropped me off. This caused a little excitement since everyone round here knows that Peaches is gay, and they've not really seen me with any men since I've been here. I let them think what they wanted. Jess's eyebrow raised a little but I ignored him, too. He should know better. Peaches is a friend, and besides, she practically saved my life by bringing me here.

  I fried her up some eggs and bacon, poured a tall glass of orange juice, and threw on some buttermilk biscuits. Gave the spatula to Jess, who was on the phone, while I sat down with Peaches, ignoring the veiled stares of Dr. Reid and Mr. Ohlson.

  “When I dropped you off in the parking lot, I thought you would come here to get something to eat, not to take over!” she exclaimed after I told her about my life in Paper Moon. “I can't believe Jess let you change the menu that way. He was determined to make this a gourmet's paradise!”

  Jess was looking at us, the phone still clapped against his ear. He waved. Peaches waved back.

  “The gourmetts weren't payin' the bills,” I told her, deliberately mispronouncing the word. “Besides, he can still whip up his Continental concoctions. He's even teaching me some of his recipes, although I think most of that stuff is just meat with a sauce and weeds on the side.”

  “You've done wonders for this place,” she said, looking around at the breakfast crowd. “Business looks good. Jess has gotta be happy about it.”

  I glanced over at him, flipping the pancakes the way I had taught him. But he was flipping them one-handed. The telephone receiver was still scrunched between his shoulder and his ear. I wondered who he was talking to.

  “Hard to tell. He is not the most excitable person in the world.”

  Peaches narrowed her eyes for a second but she didn't say anything. Then she stabbed at another piece of bacon and popped it into her mouth.

  She laughed when I told her about the good old boys, “Miss Juanita,” and Millie's cats. And she wanted to know all about my encounter with the ghost. Peaches is into the paranormal.

  “She actually spoke? You could hear her?” Peaches asked with her mouth full. “Was her voice full of echoes and static? Or was it clear and plain?”

  “As plain as I hear you. Well, a little plainer, really. She smiled at me. I even smelled her perfume. It was like roses.”

  “Amazing.”

  “She was as real as you are. I thought Millie was kidding when she told me that I had just spoke to … a ghost.” I shivered a little. Even now, the thought of Elma Van Roan wandering the halls of Millie's house gave me the chills.

  “Unbelievable.”

  “And did you know that Millie has a Siamese cat? One she talks to only in a foreign language? She won't tell me his name. He runs away whenever anyone else comes into the room. It's strange.”

  “Millie's strange. There's been a rumor round here for ages that she keeps a mentally disturbed child in one of her rooms. Wilma Ewings, the hairdresser over in Mason? She bleaches Millie's hair. She says Millie told her once that she had a child, but it was so scandalous at the time, she could never talk about it. I bet the child is hidden in the house somewhere. Wilma's grandfather told her that the old mansion has a false wall on the second floor.” Peaches's eyes were bright as she considered this mysterious possibility.

  “I don't think so, Peaches,” I said, thinking of places where Millie could hide someone. The guest rooms were usually full, and even the haunted Tower Suite was booked this weekend. Millie kept three rooms to herself at the back of the house, facing her garden, but I had been in those rooms, too, and there wasn't anybody else living there. And I hadn't noticed any doors leading to nowhere, or walls that looked like they didn't belong.

  “Well, it makes for a good story, anyway.” She sat back and patted her tummy. Belched and smiled like a contented cat. “Speaking of stories, how is your story coming?”

  “I've got almost two hundred pages,” I said proudly.

  Peaches smiled.

  “You gonna let me read them?”

  I shook my head.

  “Journey's not over yet.”

  “OK. So what's next on your to-do list? You've con quered a small town, turned around a restaurant business, gained some entrepreneurial skills, and absorbed some local folklore. I assume you are now well versed in indigenous American affairs, too.” She looked at Jess when she said this and cleared her throat.

  I shook my head as I lit a cigarette.

  “Don't go there.”

  Peaches shrugged, reached for one of my Kools. “OK. So where are you going next? I assume that you aren't going to stay here forever.”

  To tell the truth, I hadn't thought about it. I was happy and content right here in Paper Moon, even though it was totally different from everything I had ever known and I was working harder than I'd ever worked. I had found myself a place, a job, even some friends. But Peaches was right. I was on a journey. I was a heroine creating an adventure. Adventures didn't stand still. And romantic heroines didn't work in diners out in the middle of nowhere. Did they?

  Or did they?

  “I'm heading for California in a few weeks. I've got a new account and I'll be hauling electronics. Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego. And back again in October. Have you got the urge to see Hollywood?”

  “Yeah, I do,” I told her.

  But I wasn't sure.

  I wanted to see the ocean, and maybe even go down into Mexico. With the money I was earning at the diner, I could actually do that. I had been reading a book about Hawaii. I thought, maybe I'd work for a few months in Los Angeles, scrape together the money to go to Hawaii. After that, who knew?

  But something inside me kept saying, “Wait.” It said, “Look at the mountains a little longer. Walk along the lake and listen to the birds. Watch the deer, and hear the wind whistle in the pines.” Something was holding me back. As if part of my adventure was still here, hidden, in little Paper Moon.

  “When you goin'?” I asked Peaches, in an effort to clear my head.

  “End of September, early October. I'll call you. I should be back through here the week of the twenty-ninth. That oughta give you enough time to get your fill of small-town Montana life.”

  I told her I would think about it.

  Jess was still on the phone when Peaches left. Not that I really cared—those one-handed pancakes had turned out all right.

  It was just strange, though. Jess's phone conversations usually lasted one minute or less, and consisted of a few grunts, a “Yeah” or a “No,” and then he would hang up. He never talked to anyone (that I knew of) besides his family: Mary, her husband, Raymond, or the kids. Or me. Unless he was ordering for the diner, of course. And those conversations lasted two minutes instead of one.

  I came back to the counter and he turned toward th
e grill, his voice low.

  I started chopping up hard-boiled eggs for my tuna salad. Fish Reynolds and the boys just loved my tuna salad on wheat toast.

  “Yeah … OK … well, just keep your nose clean. I'll send you the money … I know … I got it….” Jess jot-ted something down on the pad next to the refrigerator. “OK, I'll take care of it … no … I won't …”

  “Juanita, you making chicken salad, too?” Mignon leaned over the counter watching me as I chopped up the eggs, celery, and onion.

  “Nope, it's Juanita-feel-like day,” I told her, wiping my eye with the back of my hand. I needed to get some Vidalia onions. They never made me cry.

  Mignon's pretty face twisted into a frown, then she giggled.

  “I think I know the answer to this, but I'm going to ask anyway. What is Juanita-feel-like day?”

  I grinned at her.

  “It means that we're having whatever Juanita feels like for lunch. And Juanita feels like tuna salad.”

  “You and Peaches are friends?” Jess asked me after she left.

  I watched her climb up into the big, purple cab of the Kenworth, and wave.

  “She was the one who brought me here. Recommended your place for breakfast as a matter of fact.” I looked at him sideways.

  “She tells me she's going to California and that you're going with her.”

  I shrugged my shoulders, stamped out the eighth cigarette I'd smoked in an hour and reached for my apron. I really needed to quit smoking.

  “I might. I might not.”

  Jess's eyes flickered for a moment.

  “You know that you can stay here as long as you want.”

  “I know.”

  “Mignon says I oughta make you a partner.”

  I smiled, thinking of Mignon's efforts to match up her uncle and me. On the surface we were like oil and water— Jess was silent, I was talkative. I was stubborn and moving on; Jess was easygoing and staying put. We didn't seem to have much in common. But looks were deceiving. Mignon said I didn't really know Jess. I told her I didn't have half a century to do that. But to tell you the truth, I knew almost as much as I needed to know. Jess's quiet eyes told quite a story.

  “Mignon just likes my barbecued ribs, that's all.”

  Jess grunted. That was his way of laughing.

  “Well, think about it.”

  I threw two steaks on the grill.

  “Think about what?”

  “About what I said.”

  With that, I snapped. I turned on Jess, hands on hips, my head bobbing.

  “Jess Gardiner, I am sick and tired of these damn three-word-sentence conversations we always seem to have. You want to ask me this, and ask me that. But you ain't asked me shit! You don't say ‘Juanita, let's sit down and talk about so and so.’ You don't say ‘I'd like for you to think about this, or think about that.’ You just grunt and glare, and spit out four words, and leave. Really pisses me off.”

  The yuppie couple from Denver turned red, and pretended to be studying their menus. Carl was grinning as he bussed the dishes.

  Jess didn't say anything.

  And I couldn't tell you why I was jumping on him that way. He had given me a job. And the job had given me a sense of my own value. I was doing something I was really good at. And I was appreciated for it. In many ways, he had given me my place. And here I was, yelling at him like he'd stolen something. It must have been seeing Peaches again. Made me think too much. About things I hadn't done.

  The ringing of the telephone kept me from saying something else stupid that I would regret.

  Jess answered the phone. I stabbed at the steaks searing on the grill. Mad at Peaches for making me remember that it was probably time to move on. Mad at Jess for making me want to stay here. Mad at myself for not being able to make up my mind. I was lost in my thoughts and the smoke coming up from the grill when I heard Jess's voice.

  “Yes, she's here, but she's busy. Yes. I'll give her the message, but no, she ain't gonna call you back, Rashawn. Naw, brother man, I'm her boss and her friend. What's that? Yeah, well, you do what you gotta do. Your mother's busy, and she doesn't have time for this. Looks like you might have to solve that problem yourself, huh. Later.”

  “That was Rashawn?” I felt my jaws getting tight.

  He was the last person I'd want to hear from. So, he'd be the first to call. It made me mad. Some weeks ago, in a moment of weakness, I gave Bertie the number at the diner “for emergencies only.” Needless to say, Rashawn's definition of “emergency” and mine don't match.

  Jess hung up the phone and shrugged.

  “Yep. And before you do a neutron dance on my head, woman, he was calling collect to get five hundred dollars from you for bail money. I don't suppose that's how you want to spend your hard-earned cash.”

  “It ain't none of your damn business how I want to spend my money,” I snapped back at him, angry because he had meddled in my business, angrier because that fool son of mine was finally in jail, and had the nerve to track me down and squeeze me for cash again. Just like old times.

  “Maybe, maybe not. But I do know that you don't need this aggravation. He's grown, Juanita. He can take care of himself.”

  “Look, you just stay out of my life, OK? I'll take my own telephone calls from now on, you don't have to run interference for me. I can handle these things. I don't need you, of all people, to tell me how to run my life!”

  I saw Jess's jaw tighten, and he glared at me for a second then shook his head.

  “Juanita, what you need is …”

  The screen door opened and a dozen campers came through, talking and laughing loudly. I went to the refrigerator and pulled out two cartons of eggs. Jess got them seated. As he passed me on his way to the back, he stopped at the counter, and said very softly, “Look, Juanita, whatever you want to do is fine with me as long as it makes you happy. I don't really care. I just don't want to lose you.”

  The funny feeling I'd gotten in my stomach the first time I met him had come back. And it wasn't hunger.

  Suddenly I realized how much I really had to lose.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I found Millie on the porch one evening when I got back from shopping in Missoula. It was mean of me, I know, but I sneaked up on her when I saw she was sitting in the porch swing with that mysterious Siamese cat. This was the first time I'd actually seen her holding that cat, although I'd seen her talk to it many times, especially at night. Come to think of it, you hardly ever saw that cat in the day.

  I came 'round the back way, stood behind the rosebushes. Held my breath because roses make me sneeze. Listened to the wind kicking up in the pine trees. Listened to Millie croon to that cat in a funny-sounding language.

  Didn't hide long, though. Those roses got the best of me, and I sneezed and coughed at the same time. Millie laughed at me.

  “Goodness, Juanita, why are you hiding in the bushes? You'd think you'd stole something! Come, sit down with me and Asim. It's a lovely night even though Antonio says it's going to rain soon.” She looked up and squinted. “I can still see the stars.”

  “Asim?” I said, sniffling and sneezing as I came out of the bush and walked up the steps.

  Millie smiled and stroked the purring cat, who was now lying in her lap.

  “Asim. You've seen him before, of course.”

  I patted the Siamese, who studied me carefully with icy-blue eyes.

  “Of course,” I repeated. I sat down in the rocking chair and pulled out a tissue. “Just set me straight, though. Is he an ex-husband, too?”

  Millie smiled and stared off into space. Asim looked at me as if I had stolen something. She did not answer my question.

  “I'm taking a creative writing course at UM Extension,” Millie said, not answering the question. “We've been doing character studies, poetry, essays for weeks. Now the instructor has assigned our first real, nitty-gri
tty writing project. A short story, a few thousand words. To be developed later into a novella. How exciting!”

  Asim blinked at me. I blinked back.

  “What are you going to write about?”

  Millie adjusted Asim on her lap.

  “Well, it's a good thing you sneaked by when you did. I've been turning this idea around in my head for a couple of days now, and I think it's time I tried it out on a real, live person. I asked Inez to be my guinea pig, but she says she only likes mysteries. And Elma Van Roan is partial to tragedies.” Asim purred loudly. Millie lifted him up and gave him a kiss. “And this is a romance.

  “It's 1935, Kenya, a little north of Nairobi. Oh, Juanita, it's such beautiful country with clear, ethereal lakes; majestic, mysterious mountains with snowcapped peaks. Like Montana, but not like Montana. There's a huge British population there with the usual, boring regulars, their wives and underlings. And the native people, who begrudgingly tolerate them, even as they plot to overthrow them.

  “There's an American entertainer visiting a friend for a few months. She's recovering from her last love affair. She entertains at a party, given by the commanding officer of the regiment stationed in Nairobi. And she falls in love with a wealthy coffee planter.”

  Asim's purring got louder. I wondered if he was all right. Looked up to find him looking up at Millie. She was still talking, a wistful smile on her face, her eyes unseeing and distant.

  “They began a passionate affair. It really was scandalous! You see, he was married, but his wife lived in Pretoria.” She giggled. “The singer moved into the planter's huge plantation, had her own suite of rooms, servants, elephants, everything! It was like living in a dream.” Millie sighed.

  “Of course, everyone was against this liaison. The British socialites were humiliated, but didn't know what to do. The singer was wild, and gay, totally uninhibited. Very different from the prim and proper English matrons who made up the white population there.

  “Their affair went on for over a year, but then things in Kenya got bad. Really bad. The Mau Mau were everywhere, and the white people were afraid. The planter had reconciled himself to black rule, and even worked with the revolutionaries to plan a peaceful change of power. But the times were dangerous … and soon it became very clear that the planter was committed to his land, and its people, and the singer … well … life in the outback of Kenya was tolerable for a short period of time, but she soon yearned for the bright lights of New York and Paris and London. And besides, there were war clouds forming over Germany …” Millie paused for a moment.