2 Dancing With Death

by Liz Marvin

  A few feet past the guard rail, the ground dropped away into what had to be a beautiful panoramic vista. But the clouds made everything different shades of grey, especially farther away. Try as she might, Betty couldn’t tell clouds from mountaintops.

  “Betty!” Bill yelled just as a horn began to blare. “Look out!” Betty jerked her attention back to the road, and stopped breathing. Right in front of their car was a sixteen-wheeler rig, rolling downhill at sixty miles an hour. Its headlights were blinding, even in the middle of the day. Betty couldn’t move, couldn’t think.

  The horn was so loud.

  Clarise screamed.

  Why wasn’t the truck getting back into its own lane? What was it doing in hers?

  Bill lurched over to her side of the car, grabbing the steering wheel and swerving the car to the right.

  Oh. She had been the one in the wrong lane.

  Betty attempted to breath normally. She couldn’t stop shaking.

  “Jesus!” Clarise swore. “That was close.”

  “Betty!” Bill demanded, keeping his hands on the steering wheel. “Betty listen to me. You need to pull over to the side of the road. There’s a shoulder up ahead you can use.” His voice was so calm… she had a strange desire to start laughing, just to see how Bill reacted. How could he be so calm? “Just start slowing down,” Bill coached. “Ease off the gas pedal.” Unthinking, Betty did as she was told. “That’s it. Now, see the shoulder?” Betty did. Just a little farther up the road. “Pull into that.”

  “Okay,” Betty replied. She blinked, and focused.

  They rolled onto the side of the road, dirt crackling under the tires. When they had stopped, Betty leaned forward, placing her forehead on the steering wheel and breathing deeply. In through her nose… out through her mouth… in through her nose… out through her mouth.

  They were okay.

  She sat up and opened her eyes, looking around at the other passengers. Clarise and Wes were both pale. Bill was looking at Betty with concern, his brow furrowed.

  “Is everyone okay?” Betty asked.

  “We’re fine,” Wes said from the back seat. “Just a little shaken. What about you? Are you okay? What happened?”

  Betty gave a self-depreciating laugh. “I got distracted by the scenery.” Now that the panic had ended, guilt was coming forward to swamp her. “I’m so sorry! Are you sure everyone is okay?”

  “Betty,” Bill said. “Everyone else is okay. What about you? Do you want someone else to drive? If you’re too shaken, it’s okay. I’d be happy to take over for you.”

  There it was. The perfect out. The perfect reason for her to get out from behind the wheel.

  But then he’ll think I’m some frilly girl in need of rescuing, thought Betty. She completely ignored the gut feeling that told her he’d think no such thing. This was about her self-sufficiency! She already felt like a thrice-damned damsel in distress, with the way she’d frozen up during the crash. If Bill hadn’t acted, they might all be dead or wounded, lying in the middle of the road while the freak snow fell on their still bleeding bodies.

  And besides, the best way to get over fear was to face it. No, she had to do this. She had to steel herself against her nerves, and get back to driving. She just couldn’t let herself get distracted again. No scenic views, no attempts to focus on anything other than driving and the road around her. It was only a few dozen more miles to the resort. She could do this. She could.

  Clarise’s color had returned. Wes had his arm around her and was murmuring in her ear. Bill still had his eyes steadily trained on Betty, waiting for her decision.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “Are you sure hun?” Clarise asked.

  Betty tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “Absolutely,” she said. “Nothing like a little near-death experience to make you a better driver!” she joked. “I’ll just have to avoid being distracted.”

  “Alright!” Wes exclaimed. “Then let’s get back on the road! It looks like the storm is picking up.”

  He was right. Since they’d stopped, the windshield had been dotted with melting flakes. Some were starting to stay frozen for a few seconds before they melted.

  Not good. If they were starting to stick on the windshield, they’d be starting to stick on the road.

  Betty had grown up in a part of North Carolina away from the mountains. Her college had been in L.A.. Her snow driving experience was rather pitiful.

  Betty sighed. No time like the present to jump head in and hope for the best. She started the car, and they were off again.

  After a few moments of silence, Clarise blurted out, “Oh, this is ridiculous. We’re on a road trip people! Lighten up!” She grinned. “I have just the thing.” She rifled through her purse, coming out with a CD case that she handed to Bill.

  “If you would, Monsieur Police Chief? We need some levity in this car.”

  Betty refused to look at what the CD was. Her eyes were now fixed firmly on the road, and she would not remove them for any reason. But looking didn’t have to stop her from singing, and as the first notes resounded through the car Betty couldn’t help but grin.

  She knew every word to every song on this CD. For that matter, so did Clarise.

  The poor, poor boys had no idea what they were in for. Betty started to relax. The snow was coming down harder, but it hadn’t started sticking to the pavement long enough to accumulate yet. She was on a road trip with her friends. She should enjoy herself.

  Two CDs later, Bill finally refused to take another CD from Clarise’s hands. “No!” he said. “I like musicals as much as the next person, but I refuse to put another one in the player. Please!” he begged, turning back to look at Clarise with widened eyes. “Don’t you have anything else in your bag of tricks? Rock, pop, rap, country… anything?” Wes started to laugh. “And you!” Bill said. “You traitor! You sang with them!”

  Wes shrugged. “I’m a drama geek.”

  Clarise laughed. “And I’m a drama director. What did you expect? There’s always the radio if you want a change.”

  “Betty?” Bill asked, pleading in his voice.

  Betty looked over at him quickly, just long enough to take in his puppy dog expression. She grinned. “Aaaaw, poor Bill. You can put on the radio if you want. Just don’t ask me to fiddle with any of the buttons. You DJ.”

  “Thank you!” Bill exclaimed.

  As he fiddled with the radio, the car started down a decline. With a tiny bit of snow coating the ground, the wheels felt as though they were slipping. Betty tried to slow down and felt the car skid ever so slightly.

  No one else seemed to have noticed, but it was enough to rattle Betty’s nerves again. The day was growing later. The light was dimming, there were no street lights, and the snow was starting to get heavier. It was getting hard to see, even without her distance issues.

  Betty took a deep breath and slowed down further. There was no one else on the road to be annoyed by her slow speed, and even if there was she wouldn’t want to go any faster. She didn’t have a death wish.

  By the time Bill found a radio station, Betty felt as though she had the car under better control. She wasn’t slipping on the snow any more.

  When she got home, Betty promised herself that she’d buy snow tires.

  “I think the exit is coming up,” Bill said.

  Betty saw it up ahead: an off-ramp sloping down. She squinted, trying to decipher the difference between the snow-covered road and the snow-covered grass.

  She couldn’t tell.

  Betty felt a fluttering of panic. There was no way she was taking a exit when she couldn’t see the ramp. She tried to focus, but it felt as though the road was swimming before her eyes.

  That was it. The final straw. She couldn’t do this anymore. It was one thing to drive when she could see blurs. It was another to take an off ramp down the side of a mountain unable to tell where the road was. Self-sufficiency had become self-endangerment, and she wasn’t going
to kid herself any longer.

  After checking to make sure that there wasn’t anyone else on their side of the road, Betty pulled over to the side and stopped a few dozen yards before the exit. She unbuckled.

  “Bill,” she said. “I need you to drive.”

  Bill looked at her, confused. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” Betty said irritably. “I’m just tired.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m fine!” she said. The she sighed. She was acting like a jerk. Bill was concerned. It wasn’t his fault that she was helpless in the face of a disease. He didn’t even know she had diabetes! “Please drive?”

  “Sure thing,” Bill said.

  After they were on the road again, he looked over at her. “Why don’t you close your eyes and get some sleep. I’ll wake you when we get there.”

  Betty leaned back into the seat, letting her eyes flutter closed. In the passenger’s seat, she didn’t have to constantly look at the blurry world. Without having to focus on the road, Betty’s mind started to drift. With time to think, she began to kick herself. Hard.

  How could she have been so stupid? She should never have gotten behind the wheel of the car with her sight like this! She should’ve stopped driving after that first almost-crash. More and more the fact that they’d made it this far without a major accident was starting to feel like luck. Incredible, miraculous, once-in-a-lifetime luck. She was only glad that she’d turned over the wheel.

  Luck had to run out at some point.

  CHAPTER 4

  It was after dark when they pulled into the Hale Falls Resort. The snow was still falling. It now coated the roads an inch thick, so that when they rolled into the circular drive in front of the main building the snow crunched and popped under the tires. A valet took their car, while another staff member put all their baggage on a cart and wheeled it up a ramp.

  The main building was surprisingly tall. For a resort in the mountains, Betty had expected something a little more… quaint. She hadn’t been expecting a log cabin with horse drawn carriages and a roaring fireplace, but this five-story hotel with its glaring electric lights seemed somehow out of place.

  Out of place of not, it was beautiful. The front of the building was practically the definition of classical architecture, with huge white Parthenon-esque columns supporting a third story balcony. The columns formed a large archway over white steps leading up to ornate gilded doors.

  Upon entering the hotel, Betty was inundated with warmth. Not only did the hotel have blessed heat, but all the furnishings and décor were laid out in the most beautiful warm colors. The floors were a deep, almost dark brown wood, polished to gleaming. The walls were made from lighter, reddish wood, and decorated with gold-framed paintings and long mirrors.

  After giving their names, Betty and her friends were led to the elevator. Then down a hallway, which turned into another hallway, around a corner, then another, until Betty was completely lost. Thankfully, they didn’t have to cart their luggage all that way. A hotel bellhop pushing a cart with their luggage arrived at the same time they did, and Betty found herself fishing in her pocket for small bills with which to tip the expectant staff members while the other three rushed in to inspect the room.

  Once she got a look at the room they’d be staying in, Betty’s bemusement changed to glee.

  It was the room of dreams. The beds were huge, with layers of plush pillows at the heads and deep, soft comforters. Betty could spend the weekend lying on those beds and feel perfectly content. When she looked closely, Betty saw that they even came with a chocolate-covered mint on two of the pillows per bed. Not that she would eat them, but it was the fanciness of the idea that mattered.

  Just like the décor in the rest of the hotel, the colors scheme in the room was warm. However, instead of the richness she’d observed below, the room sported creams and rich yellows. The dressers were a natural yellow-brown wood, with only the tops polished. The edges of the dressers still had bark. In all, the room had a plush, homey feel.

  Betty immediately dropped her bag, oblivious to the actions of her friends, and went to the bed furthest from the wall. She flopped backwards, feeling the blankets and mattress swallow her. She sighed and stretched, squirming deeper into bliss.

  This was the life.

  The sound of a man clearing his throat pulled Betty from her pleasant reverie. She opened her eyes to see Bill standing above her with his arms crossed.

  “Yes?” she asked.

  “Comfortable?” he asked.

  “Actually,” Betty said, “yes.” She scooted over on the bed, closer to the wall. “Care to join me?”

  Bill shrugged out of his jacket, tossing it on the foot of the bed. “I don’t mind if I do.”

  He lay down with much more grace than Betty had managed and stretched out, closing his eyes. “Okay,” he said. “I get it. I’ll just stay here this weekend, if you don’t mind.”

  “Well, I mind!” said Clarise from the foot of the bed. “Come on you two, we need to get ready.”

  Betty groaned. “I don’t wanna!”

  “Elizabeth Crawford,” Clarise snapped, placing her hand on her hip and glaring, “We didn’t drive all this way so you could sleep. Now get up and put on something sexy! There’s dancing!”

  “You didn’t drive at all,” muttered Betty. Beside her, Bill chuckled. Betty closed her eyes, letting the luxury of the bed soak into her bones. It was so soft… Betty felt the bed shift as Bill moved.

  “Betty…” Clarise sang in a sweet voice that immediately set Betty on alert. Innocent voices were never truly innocent. “Betty… time to get up!”

  Betty cracked open her eyes. Clarise was standing over her with a grin on her face, arms crossed across her chest.

  THWAPP! A pillow thudded into Betty’s stomach from the side. She snapped upright, tugging the pillow away from her attacker and holding it in readiness for retaliation before her brain had even registered that she had gotten up. Next to her, Bill grinned like a madman.

  “You—you--” Betty sputtered. She expected shenanigans like that from Clarise, but from Bill?

  “I what?” Bill teased.

  “You took her side!”

  Bill nodded while attempting to school his face into a serious expression. His lips twitched. Betty glared at him, ticked at being jerked so rudely from the nirvana of her hotel bed.

  “I did,” Bill agreed. Betty glared and lifted the pillow, ready to retaliate with all the strength she could muster. Unfortunately for Bill, given that she’d been a regular attendant at the gym in the past few months, that strength was considerable. Bill held out his hands and rushed to add, “But I have a good reason, I promise!”

  Betty paused, poised to strike. “Well?” No reason would be satisfactory, but she was getting a wicked sort of glee from watching him try and wiggle his way out of this one.

  “Yes, well.” Bill grinned, his eyes sparkling. “I wanted to see you put on something sexy.”

  Blood rushed to Betty’s cheeks. She felt torn between belting him in the face with the pillow and finding a hole to hide in. She should’ve known she couldn’t win this. She flicked her gaze between a smug-looking Clarise and an unrepentant Bill, and suddenly wondered exactly what she had gotten herself into on this road trip.

  I think I’ll go find the nearest Chia Pet convention, she thought in despair.

  “Fine,” Betty said, instead of following her instincts and fleeing helter-skelter into the night. “Then you be a good boy and go find somewhere else to be while we girls work our magic.”

  Betty showered first, claiming that she had the right of first call because of cruel and unusual wakeup methods. When she came out, Wes and Bill had changed and gone off in search of a schedule for the competition, so it was just Betty and Clarise in the suite. Once she’d dried off, it took only a few minutes for Betty to throw on her deep pink dress and makeup. Betty eyed herself in the mirror, straightening a few minor details. The pi
nk color complimented her complexion and dark hair wonderfully, and her light makeup was just enough to bring color to her lips and accent her eyes. She looked… sultry, which felt a bit odd. Odd, but wonderful. The dress had a broad neckline, so that the tops of her shoulders were left bare while fabric draped over her upper arm. It was her favorite type of dress: stretchy material for comfort, with a skirt that flared when she spun without flying too far up. Marilyn Monroe eat your heart out, she thought, twirling and watching the fabric swish around her legs.

  A knock at the door pulled her out of her girly moment. She backed up across the room to make sure the dress fell properly, and grimaced as she faded into a pink blurry blob.

  “Just a moment!” Betty called. It was probably the boys. She pulled on her black, two-inch heels, unwilling to open the door without the full impact of her outfit. She took a breath before opening the door, willing the fluttering in her stomach to fade away. Bill had been joking when he said that he wanted to see her in a sexy outfit. He probably hadn’t meant anything by it. Steeling herself, Betty pulled open the door.

  A hotel staff member in a suit looked back at her. His nametag read “Hello! My name is Gregory. How can I help you?” He was a couple of inches shorter than her, with dirty blonde hair, a handlebar moustache, and a rather large belly for such a small man. Betty blushed as she watched his eyes flick up and down over her outfit. She cleared her throat.

  “Yes?”

  Gregory smiled at her. “I just wanted to inform you that the weather is picking up Miss. We’re suggesting that guests stay in the hotel for the remainder of the night, and in case the lights go out there are flashlights with extra batteries underneath every television station in the rooms.”