Fancy Dancer

by Fern Michaels

  “Okay, I’ll take it!”

  Jake’s voice was so jittery, Sophia put her arms around him and whispered, “Trust me, I’m right on this.” Jake nodded the moment he got past how nice it was to be hugged by a mother again.

  “Lunch, anyone?” Sophia asked cheerfully. “It’s on the house.”

  When the meal was over at Rosario’s Bistro, Zeke asked what the game plan was.

  “Well, we’re all moved into my mother’s old home. Brad, the vet assistant, promised to put the big tree up. He cut down the biggest tree on the property with the help of all the kids, and they’re probably decorating it as we speak. Fancy has been decorating for days, inside and out. The place looks like it did when I was a kid. Brings back a lot of memories. A lot,” Jake said sadly.

  Alex, on his way back from somewhere—probably the kitchen to snitch a cannoli—grabbed Jake by the arm and lifted him to his feet. “C’mere, I want to show you something,” he said, dragging Jake toward the front door, where a huge bulletin board held pictures of all the bistro’s different customers over the years. He pointed to one, and asked, “What’s that look like to you, Jake?”

  “An old lady with white hair on top... holy shit! A grandmother! Who is it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “What do you mean, you have no idea? Well, get an idea! Who would know?”

  “Mom!” Alex roared.

  “Is there a fire? What’s wrong with you, Alex? This is a place of business.”

  “Who is this?” Alex and Jake demanded at the same time, pointing to the grandmotherly person in the picture.

  “That’s Amy’s grandmother. Amy is our day cook. Why? Oh, good Lord. The little boy’s grandmother. Oh, oh, oh!”

  “Where is she, Mom? Do you think she’d agree to be Charlie’s stand-in grandmother?”

  “I’m sure she would. All her grandchildren are grown. Amy is the youngest. I’ll ask her. Be right back.”

  Ten minutes later, Sophia was back and giving them a thumbs-up. “Amy said she would bring her grandmother by for dinner this evening, and you guys can work it out. Do you plan on wrapping her up in a big red bow?”

  “That’s it, we now have a plan,” Jake said happily.

  They separated then, all of them to go their separate ways. “I’m happy for you, Jake. I mean that sincerely.”

  “I know you do, Alex. And I’m grateful as hell for your friendship.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Alex said gruffly. “Ah, Jake, I have a question. Look, you don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to.”

  “What?”

  “When are you going to open that steamer trunk?”

  Jake shrugged. “It’s in the garage. I think about it from time to time. Someday, I guess.”

  “Why are you putting it off?”

  “I don’t know, Alex. It doesn’t feel right for some reason. How about I open it on a Thursday night before you let me sit in to hear you and your band?”

  “You just put your foot into it, big guy. Today is Thursday. I’ll be out at your house at six thirty. Try weaseling out of that now.”

  “Ha! A deal’s a deal.”

  Promptly at six thirty, Jake ripped off the envelope stuck to the top of the old steamer trunk sitting in his garage. The key was as old and rusty as the lock. But it all still worked.

  He and Alex dropped to their knees. It took both of them to hold up the heavy lid. “Hold it, Alex, till I find something to prop it open. This old shovel should do it.”

  “This is your life, Jake St. Cloud Trousoux. Would you look at that! I think this pretty much covers the phrase father in absentia.”

  Jake’s eyes burned as he stared down at the paper trail of his life from the time he was about five years old. “I guess that a couple of years after he found out about me, he started to collect the things he could. How come I feel like a piece of crap right now, Alex?”

  “Maybe because you thought he was something he wasn’t. I think the man would have been a wonderful father if he’d been given the chance. Look, Jake, here on the bottom is your christening outfit and your baby shoes. Think about that. The only way he could have gotten those things was from your mother. I’m thinking that once she realized how much he cared about you, she wanted him to have them. After all, she had you, and her husband wanted no part of her or you, in any meaningful sense. Don’t ever try to figure out a mother’s thinking. Not ever. You can’t win. Trousoux told us that this trunk was the only thing he was leaving you. Which I take to mean, a part of himself. That’s how you have to think of it. Now, when you have kids, you can dude them out in that outfit and pass it on down the line.”

  “You know, for a lawyer, you’re pretty smart.”

  “Yeah. Okay, enough of this. We need to get going, or we’re going to be late. Just so you know, Jake, you are the only one—and I stress, the only one—who has ever been invited, okay, you blackmailed me into hearing me and my band play.”

  The practice session took place in the house of one of the band member’s cousins, which was empty because the cousin was deployed to Afghanistan. Jake suffered through the suspicious looks but held steady as he took his seat in a rickety, webbed lawn chair.

  Jake tried to smile when he wasn’t wincing. His stomach tied itself in knots as Alex sang lustily, accompanied by strange sounds on strange instruments. Jake came to understand why the band’s existence was the best-kept secret in the state of Louisiana, maybe the entire Gulf Coast region. He also knew with deep certainty that Alex and the Corn Stalks would never get a gig in this or any other lifetime. They made music that only a mother could love, and even that was probably stretching the truth some.

  Epilogue

  Jake cracked an eyelid and squinted at the bedside clock: seven twenty. He blinked and squeezed his eyes shut. He supposed he could go back to sleep for a half hour, but it was Christmas Eve. The day. That night, before midnight, he was going to offer Fancy the engagement ring and ask her to marry him.

  Jake bolted out of the bed, his eyes wild. He danced around in the cool air of the bedroom before he cranked up the heat and headed for the shower. Engaged. Married. A lifetime of commitment. Oh man, this is serious stuff. I hope I’m ready for it. I feel like I am. But am I?

  Christmas Eve. One of the nicest, the happiest days of his boyhood. As he brushed his teeth, Jake let his memory stroll back in time to other Christmas Eves with his mother, who, if he remembered correctly, had always been as excited as he was. Or maybe she just pretended to be excited for the benefit of a little boy. And yet, he remembered how sad her eyes always were on Christmas morning. He remembered the Christmas when he was ten years old—and he knew he was ten because he’d gotten a gift that said it was for ten-year-olds—and it was the year he stopped believing that the guy in the bright red suit could fit in their chimney. Still, for his mother’s benefit, he pretended to believe.

  He’d gotten a lot of presents, but his mother had only three: one of his homemade jobs, a jewelry box made with Popsicle sticks and glitter; a silk scarf from the household staff; and a beautiful calla lily from Mika, with a big red bow on the pot. There was nothing under the tree from Jonah St. Cloud for his wife. Nor were there any presents for Jonah under the tree, maybe because Jonah was in South America that year—which was a crock, anyway, because Jonah was always somewhere else during the holidays.

  Later, when they were cleaning up all the pretty paper, he’d asked his mother why she looked so sad and if she wished she had more presents to open. He’d asked point-blank why Jonah never left her a present under the tree. Her response had been, “Oh, honey, I have everything there is to have, and I don’t need anything. Don’t you think it’s better for someone else to get more presents? Besides, I have you. I don’t need anything else.” He’d accepted her explanation at the time, but he also realized that the explanation didn’t ring true.

  Today, he had to go out to the cemetery and pay his respects on the most joyous day of the year. Most people though
t of Christmas as the most joyous day, but for him, it had always been Christmas Eve. Yesterday, he had about cleaned out a local florist’s supply of poinsettias, his mother’s favorite Christmas flower.

  His plan for the day was to finish putting together all the bikes and wagons that generous shop owners had donated for Fancy’s kids, supplemented by those he had bought so that all the kids would get one. Zeke and Alex promised to come by at nine to help. Then, tonight, after dark, they would take them all out to the house and leave them on the veranda.

  Jake shaved, showered, dressed, and was downstairs in twenty minutes. He was surprised to see Alex and Zeke already in the kitchen. He really should think about locking his doors at night.

  “We brought breakfast,” Alex said, pointing to the egg-and-sausage sandwiches and the Big Boy cups of coffee. “I know we’re early, but you said you wanted to go out to the cemetery, and Mom warned us to be on time for our Christmas Eve brunch. She hates it when anyone is late. She’s closing down promptly at noon, the only day of the year that she closes early. And, of course, we’re closed tomorrow. Just as a reminder, Jake, Amy’s grandmother, whose name is Bertie, will be there for what Mom calls a dress rehearsal for tomorrow morning. Mom said she’s excited.”

  “I’m excited just thinking about it. I can’t get over how generous all the stores were this year, what with the economy being so bad and all,” Jake said, gulping at the hot coffee.

  “Mom says Christmas brings out the best in people. You know she’s always right.” Alex laughed as he reached for a doughnut.

  “Jake, if you want to head out to the cemetery now, it’s okay with us,” Zeke said. “We can do the bikes and wagons. I saw when we came through the garage that you assembled quite a few of them last night. We can handle it.”

  “You sure you don’t mind?”

  “Nah. And we put all those poinsettias in the back of your truck and put a tarp over them. All you have to do is get in the truck and head on out. Dress warm—it’s cold, and it’s gonna rain before long. Sleet more than likely.”

  “You guys sure?”

  “What? Something’s wrong with your hearing, Jake ? Go already.”

  Jake grabbed his jacket from the coatrack by the door and left. He was stunned at the amount of traffic on the road as he maneuvered his truck down the busy highway. It took him almost an hour to get to the cemetery, when it should have taken him, at most, twenty minutes.

  At the cemetery, he parked his truck, amazed at how many people were there visiting their loved ones. He was shocked when he saw Jonah St. Cloud sitting on the bench Jake and Mika had built so many years ago. But it was not the day to rail at the man sitting there shivering in the cold.

  “Need a hand with those flowers, Jake?”

  “Yeah, Jonah, I could use a hand.”

  “You buy out the flower shop?”

  “I did. Did you bring anything?”

  “No. Be kind of hypocritical of me if I did, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, guess so. Why change your stripes now?”

  “That’s what I thought, so I didn’t do it. Sure is a lot of flowers.”

  “Some of them are for Clement Trousoux.”

  “Kind of figured that out on my own, Jake.”

  “Why are you here, Jonah?”

  “The truth is, Jake, I don’t know. I woke up this morning and knew I had to come here. That’s the best answer I can come up with. I’ve always wondered if the dead know when someone comes to visit. I was never religious, so I thought I’d come out here and see if there was a sign for me. I’ve been here since six o’clock, and there hasn’t been any kind of sign, so I guess I answered my own question.”

  “You’re wrong, you know.” Jake told him about the yellow butterfly he’d seen the last time he’d been there and how he’d also seen the butterfly when he found Alex. He half expected his father to laugh out loud, but he didn’t.

  Jonah got up. “Thanks for telling me that, Jake. Well, I’ll leave you now as I’m sure you have a few things you want to say in private to your mother. Merry Christmas, Jake.”

  “Jonah, hold on a minute. Would it kill you to go and see Alex? Are you man enough to try to make amends?”

  “I’ve thought about it, I really have. The kid would probably kick my ass six ways to Sunday if I showed up at his door.”

  “Then why don’t you try my door. He’s in the garage, assembling some stuff for the kids for Christmas. If he does deck you, which you most assuredly deserve, he’s the kind of guy who will hold out his hand to pull you to your feet. ’Tis the season of miracles, you know. It’s never too late, Jonah.”

  Jonah nodded and walked away.

  “Well, Mom, I think that went rather well. I’ll be back to let you know if he follows through.”

  Jake leaned back on the old bench and talked and talked, then talked some more. He was breathless when he finally wound down. He looked down to see if the poinsettias were placed just right. He almost missed the yellow butterfly nestled in the colorful leaves. He grinned then from ear to ear, his fist shooting high in the air.

  Still grinning, Jake picked up the three pots of flowers he’d set aside and carried them across the cemetery to the Trousoux plot and set them down. “Merry Christmas, Mr. Trousoux.”

  Jake sprinted for his truck. Inside, he cranked up the heater and waited for the truck to warm up before leaving. He felt so good, he started singing “Jingle Bells” at the top of his lungs. He was so off-key it was laughable. At that moment, he’d qualify as a singer for Alex and the Corn Stalks.

  Damn, he felt good.

  As in really good.

  Jake pulled out his cell phone and called Fancy. “I just wanted to call you and wish you a Merry Christmas and to tell you that I love you with all my heart.”

  “I love you with all my heart, too, Jake.”

  Jake ended the call and turned off his phone. There was nothing more to say. Other than, “Thank you, God.”

  When Jake pulled into his driveway, he was surprised to see that Alex’s car was gone. Zeke’s truck was still parked in the driveway. The garage was full of bikes, wagons, and all the things that had been assembled. It looked to him like everything was ready to go. He called out to Zeke.

  “In the kitchen,” came the response. “Guess you want to know where Alex is, huh?”

  “I already know. He went off with his father someplace, probably for coffee. Did he punch out Jonah’s lights?”

  “Oh yeah,” Zeke drawled. “Then, son of a gun, if he didn’t reach out to pull that man to his feet. I gotta tell you, Jake, that boy is not shy. I learned a whole new language in five minutes. I didn’t know anyone could talk that fast and say so much in so short a time. I’m not sure about this, but I think we need not mention it unless Alex brings it up.”

  “No problem.”

  “How’d you know, Jake?”

  “Jonah was at the cemetery. One thing led to another, then another. Just a wild guess on my part. So, we’re good to go here?”

  “Son, we are good to go. You need to get dressed.”

  “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing? It’s cold out there.”

  “Sophia likes people to be spruced up. Spruced up means white shirt, tie, suit, polished shoes. I’m going home now to dude up. Don’t you go shaming me now, Jake. You look your best for this little party. You hear me?”

  “No one told me it was dress-up.”

  “I just did. Sophia said you can bring Lucy Red.”

  “I would, but she’s out at the farm. Charlie wanted her to stay, so I left her. With all the stuff we have to do and the back-and-forth, I thought it was a good idea.”

  “See ya, son.”

  “Hey, wait a minute, Zeke. How’d you feel when Jonah showed up?”

  “You know what, Jake? He’s just someone I used to know. I’ll tell Sophia about it later on. Make sure you smell good when you get to the restaurant, because today is beyond special.”

  Jake ran u
pstairs to change into a suit. He was dressed in fifteen minutes and, as per Zeke’s instructions, smelling good. All the while he was getting dressed he wondered how Alex and Jonah were doing. Were they making peace? Was it even possible to make peace with all that had gone down over the years? He simply didn’t know. Well, he couldn’t worry about that any longer. He’d done what he could, and for all he knew, Alex would punch out his lights for interfering in his life.

  Jake parked his car in the restaurant parking lot, which was almost empty. The CLOSED sign hung on the front door, and the bamboo shades were down over all the windows. It might as well have screamed private party. Jake felt honored to be included in the private luncheon, or whatever it turned out to be. Fancy had been invited but had to decline, and Sophia said she understood.

  Jake scanned the parked cars. He didn’t see Alex’s car anywhere. Oh shit. The party was due to start in approximately ten minutes. He did see Zeke’s truck and the Saturn that Sophia drove.

  Amy, Sophia’s day cook, opened the door to admit Jake, then quickly closed and locked it behind him. “Everyone is in the dining room, Jake. Go on in.”

  “Is Alex here?”

  “Yes, he’s in the back with his mother.”

  Jake frowned as he trotted through the restaurant to what Sophia and Alex called the special party room. He could see at a glance that a lot of time and effort had gone into decorating the room for the holidays. A live Christmas tree stood in the corner and gave off the heady aroma all Christmas trees did. There were real balsam wreaths, with red satin bows, on all the windows. The tablecloths were red, and there were silver-colored napkins. Piles of presents, all exquisitely wrapped, were under the tree.

  Jake was greeted with warm hugs and kisses to both his cheeks. Everyone chattered and smiled and welcomed him into the very private circle. The only word Jake could come up with was blessed. He was blessed.

  The menu was simple. Lasagna, summer salad, and garlic twists. And for dessert, eggnog and cannoli, all served buffet style. He could hardly wait to dig in.