Ballroom: A Novel

by Alice Simpson

  She took off her jacket, revealing that she was not wearing anything underneath. Draping her legs over his lap, she began to unbutton his shirt, placing her arms around his neck the way she had in Mykonos. He ran his hands along the sleek silkiness of her legs. Wondered if he could. It had been more than a year since they last had sex. Early in the evening, he had watched Myra from a distance, dazzling his clients with her charm, and sexy in her fuchsia silk suit. The short skirt had brought every eye in the room to her long legs. It had turned him on.

  “I’ll be along soon,” he said, removing her legs from his lap. “I want to clean up.”

  “What’s to clean up? It’s all clean. Come on, darling. Don’t be such a hard-ass. You’ve become so uptight. You’re no fun anymore.”

  “You’ve had too much to drink, Myra. You stink of Scotch.”

  She gave him the finger as she got up and left the room, carrying the bottle with her.

  He remembers that party, in particular that pink suit, because after she went into the bedroom, he stepped out onto the balcony for a breath of air. From there he could see into their bedroom, watch her as she sat on the edge of their bed, dressed only in the skirt, with no idea that she was being observed. She filled her glass and drank it down, relishing it like a lover’s caress. Her mouth was slack. Her eyes were joyless.

  By the time he got into bed, she’d passed out. As usual, he turned his back to her, pretending she wasn’t there.

  She told him that she’d decided the time wasn’t right to look for a studio, that she wanted to wait. While she waited, she continued drinking. It seemed to Gabriel that she was ruining his life.

  Fortunately, his problems at home with Myra are easily forgotten when the door closes behind him. More and more often he finds himself headed for the city to dance. As his mother was, women are eager to dance with him, and he enjoys the attention. It is wonderful getting away from Myra, exhilarating to meet new women. He senses the possibilities, particularly among those that meet his criteria: beautiful, impeccably dressed, and able to follow his lead. He knows where the hot clubs are, and dances several nights a week, at the Copacabana, Latin Quarter, China Kim’s. On Sundays the Ballroom is an excellent hunting ground. The attractive women there yearn for a dance partner; they’ll do anything.

  He comes home later and later to avoid Myra, dreads getting into bed beside her. Afraid she will touch him, accidentally move toward him. Her dry skin. The dark raised moles that have begun to appear on her face, neck, and hands. The broken blue-black veins on her puckered thighs, like tributaries of rivers. How could he have ever found her beautiful? It’s been years since he’s wanted to touch her. He hates her aging body.

  Get out of bed, Myra,” Gabriel shouts. “Get dressed, for Christ’s sake. Do something with your life.”

  “What?” she asks.

  “Get a studio and paint. I thought that was all you ever wanted to do.”

  “There’s nothing I want to paint anymore. You’ve seen to that.”

  “Then go shopping. Get your nails done.”

  “Those things don’t interest me.” Myra gets out of bed, heads into the living room, and pours herself a drink. “You don’t even know who I am.”

  “You started drinking at nine this morning.”

  “You brought me to this suburban shithole, and I’m just drying up. There’s no inspiration here. If I stay here, I’ll never paint again.” She raises her glass. “It’s Saint Patrick’s Day. I’m forty-four, and I’m going to celebrate!”

  “And what’ll you do when you run out of Scotch and cigarettes?”

  “I’ll give Laurie a list tomorrow. On Mondays she goes to the market.”

  “What the hell is she, your slave? I don’t want her in my apartment.”

  “I live here too, don’t forget. I’ll have her over whenever I want.”

  “Well, not when I’m around,” he says. “God, she’s ugly.”

  “That’s all you care about, looks. Believe me, she doesn’t want to be around you, either.” Myra lights another cigarette.

  He waves away her smoke. “You’re home all day. Can’t you at least dust? Cigarette butts and ashes everywhere.”

  “I hate this place.” She throws her match toward an ashtray. When she misses, she shrugs. “I hate Forest Hills!”

  “I’m sick and tired of your complaints.” He picks up the match off the coffee table. “Get off your ass, open the goddamned door, and go somewhere. Anywhere.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You’re going out that door, if it’s the last thing you do.” Taking hold of her wrists, he picks her up and yanks her toward the door.

  “Stop.” She slips out of his grasp, her bathrobe falling off. “I can’t. I can’t go out.”

  Grabbing one arm, he drags her, naked, across the floor.

  “Please stop. Please,” she cries as he struggles to touch her hand to the knob.

  “Go see a doctor, for Christ sake.” He feels a pulse in his temples, rage filling his head with blood. “You’ve turned into a mental case. Open the fucking door and walk out.” As he pulls at her hand, she jerks out of his grip and scratches him across the face.

  “I hate you!” she sobs as she lies on the floor, curled into a ball. “I hate you!”

  In the mirror he notices that the scratches are bleeding. His life has become a nightmare. He has let too many years pass. He has to get away.

  Later that evening, in his Cadillac, listening to salsa, Gabriel leaves Forest Hills and Myra behind him. By nine he’s crossed the Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge into New York City. There isn’t much traffic for a Sunday night. His body keeps time to the Latin beat. The music lifts his spirits. Looking in the mirror, he detects only a small remnant of Myra’s scratches; they could easily pass for a shaving accident. When he smiles, they all but disappear. As he parks near the Ballroom, Gabriel pauses and thinks of his father. He wonders if he is becoming just like him. At least he has no child to belittle. Only Myra.

  Well, Tina, will you introduce us?” Gabriel asks.

  “Gabriel, meet Sarah Dreyfus,” Tina says, grabbing Tony D’s arm and dancing off, leaving them to stare at one another.

  Gabriel gives Sarah his you’re-the-only-woman-in-the-room look.

  “Gabriel?”

  “Yes, Gabriel Katz,” he repeats slowly, certain she’s only pretending not to have heard his name. He moves closer, circling her ever so slightly to keep her off balance. “Are you Irish?”

  Moving toward the center of the dance floor, he notices the slow grace of her undulating hips as she walks ahead of him, turning her head to answer him over one shoulder.

  “Right, it’s Saint Patrick’s Day.” She laughs. “And I’m a redhead. Try Jewish.”

  He likes her laugh and easy smile. Late thirties, he guesses. Sexy, though. Alabaster skin. Theatrical in her tight black tank top, with no bra and a short leopard-print sarong. An actress, maybe. He’s had plenty of models, but never an actress. Great lace shoes on dynamite legs. He noticed her months ago dancing with Tony. Much as he detests Tony, he has to admit, the man knows how to pick them.

  He likes the way her auburn curls peek out of a leopard-print scarf. She carries the animal print off with a certain style.

  “You used to go dancing with Tony. Did he drop you the way he does all the girls? He’s got something of a commitment problem, they say.” He sees her bristle. “You’re good.” He feels her relax. “I wouldn’t have let you get away.”

  He enjoys watching the way her nostrils flare when he derides Tony. There is a faint shine of sweat on her temples, which he finds erotic.

  “I happen to think he’s sweet,” she insists.

  It is a tango. Her hips and belly insinuate a slightly different rhythm than his own, which he finds seductive and exciting. They dance silently, and she follows his most complicated steps.

  Tony, dancing with Soo Young, bumps into him. If Tony looked where he was going, that wouldn’t happen. She is whisper
ing in Tony’s ear, he’s laughing. It infuriates Gabriel when men touch him on the dance floor. He slows down his steps to avoid a confrontation. Why do women want to dance with Tony? He wonders if they sleep with him too. The slob. Thinks he is so funny.

  While he dances with Sarah, Gabriel can’t stop thinking about Tony and his big, fat, smelly feet in cheap shoes, remembering when years ago they shared a room, all expenses paid, at a Neville Dance Weekend as dance hosts. Tony was already dancing in the hotel’s ballroom when Gabriel arrived at the Catskill Mountains resort at lunchtime. Gabriel was flabbergasted when he got to the room, began to unpack his suit bag, and opened the closet. The guy had brought one lousy polyester suit and one pair of shoes to wear for the whole three-day weekend. All his belongings were cheap; even his dopp kit was plastic and he wore Canoe aftershave. Gabriel left the room whenever Tony began to arrange the rug on his head. They never had any conversation the entire weekend. “Hey,” and “Did ya have a good time?” were all Tony D seemed to be able to manage to say, along with slaps on the back, which Gabriel couldn’t stand. The guy never stopped eating, and he probably never washed his hands. He had no class. No savoir-faire. Yet despite his personal habits, so many of the women still wanted to dance with Tony. It drove Gabriel crazy that weekend, and it still did now.

  Chapter 30

  Sarah

  A proper and genteel deportment is quiet and unobtrusive, moving with a subdued gracefulness; let your arms hang easy by your side.

  —W. P. Hazard, The Ball-Room Companion, 1849

  The tempo of “Libertango” is slow and deliberate; the music waits for the dancers to catch their breath. Gabriel wears no cologne that Sarah can identify. It is a masculine fragrance she’s noticed before, and can never capture or place.

  Sarah is aware of the heat of Gabriel’s palm against the small of her back as he confidently slides his warm, open hand down and then around her waist. She senses each finger and the pressure he exerts, letting her know that he will lead. Feel the movement, she reminds herself. Listen to the music. Connect. Breathe.

  They sway imperceptibly until they find their center as a couple. His cheek touches hers. Bending her knees slightly, she becomes familiar with the sense of her body against his and turns herself over to him.

  The bandonion plays its song, a yearning rhythm building harder and stronger. Sounds shifting from darkness to light, minor to major key. When the beat begins to quicken, there is no question of where to go. With stalwart certainty Gabriel steps into an assertive lead, and they move smoothly across the Ballroom floor in low, lithe strides. Wherever their bodies touch, breath and blood flow between them: fingers, palms, arms, shoulders, chest, and thighs. Torsos connected; fierce concentrated tension. As she runs her fingers along the back of his head and drapes her hand familiarly around his neck, she is aware of the silkiness of his hair. Responsive to his lead, she answers to the persuasive thrust of his thigh between hers by lacing her leg slowly around his, slides her thigh up the outside of his leg in a gancho.

  Gabriel embodies confidence. Sarah listens, waits for each command. She closes her eyes, so that she is part of him, and weightless. The room, the other dancers, have vanished. She is lost and loved. It is as though they have always danced. Her mouth is wet; her vision is blurred. She has no heartbeat of her own. Her breaths are sustained and steady.

  Everything she has learned was intended for this dance with Gabriel. The pain, the hunger, the emptiness, the fear of being alone—all are silenced. No one has ever loved her with such perfection.

  Chapter 31

  Gabriel

  You can be introduced by your friend . . . to any lady you wish, and ask her to dance with you. Mention your name distinctly or hand your card.

  —W. P. Hazard, The Ball-Room Companion, 1849

  Jimmy J is playing “Where or When.”

  “Wonderful.” Sarah’s big blue-green eyes are dewy. “I feel as though I’ve danced with you in another life. Did you know you look a lot like Robert Taylor?”

  “Who’s Robert Taylor?” He hates to be compared to other men at the Ballroom. Lost in his thoughts about Tony D, he’s hardly been paying attention to the dance with Sarah. She is too short for a dance partner; they don’t make a good silhouette. Yet he finds her deliciously sexy. He recognizes her perfume, L’Heure Bleue, with its powdery jasmine on a base of vanilla. The dampness of her body and the red blotches on her pale skin reveal how nervous she is. Even her nose is pink with excitement, like a rabbit’s.

  “Save me a dance,” he says, turns, and walks away. He’ll drive her home.

  At ten thirty, when he passes her sitting on the banquette, changing into her street shoes, she beckons him down next to her. He prefers to stand.

  “Going so early?” he asks. “I was hoping for another dance.”

  “Catch me sooner, next time. I’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”

  “Would you like a ride home?”

  “To Brooklyn?” She laughs.

  “Well—” He pauses to think of an excuse. “Maybe next time.” She would live in Brooklyn. “I have a rather important shipment of diamonds arriving from Belgium. Give me a call if you want to go dancing sometime.” He hands her one of his embossed ivory Tiffany calling cards.

  “‘Gabriel Katz. Diamonds,’” she reads.

  “I’m looking for a new dance partner.”

  “You? I’ll bet. You mean to say you can’t find a partner?”

  He bristles at her insinuation. “The woman who’s been my dance partner for five years has a job offer in Hollywood.” He notices a slight flicker in her expression, and knows she is intrigued. It always works. “It might be a couple of weeks.”

  “Well, when you’re ready, why don’t you call me? Sarah Dreyfus,” she banters, to his surprise. “I’m in the Brooklyn directory,” she adds mockingly.

  She is still laughing when she stands and walks away from him. He feels anger rise in his throat, as though he’s lost a chess match. He’s already forgotten her name.

  Chapter 32

  Angel

  Do not make a display of secrecy, mystery, or undue lover-like affection with your companion.

  —Thomas E. Hill, Evils of the Ball, 1883

  One Friday in mid-March, two weeks after he and Gino waited in vain for Maria, Angel returns to Maria’s apartment building alone, determined to figure out where she goes. He looks up from the street at the fourth-floor windows, where the only light on is in what he figures must be Korn’s bedroom. A few minutes pass, the window turns dark, and then the light goes on in the kitchen. Occasionally Korn passes by the window, but Angel can’t see much more than the top of his head. At seven Manuel Rodriguez leaves for his domino game.

  Something in the pit of Angel’s stomach drives him forward. In a building facing Maria’s he randomly rings the bell of an apartment labeled “Wozzek.” He would have called out, “Delivery,” but the intercom is broken, and they buzz him in.

  The building stinks of urine, beer, and roach spray. Obscenities are scrawled across the cracked and yellowed stucco walls. The higher Angel climbs, the larger the words become. The top floor is spray-painted in red and yellow graffiti. Crushed beer cans and cigarette butts are strewn everywhere. It isn’t difficult for him to get onto the roof; a brick is wedged in the doorjamb. The wind is stronger there. Pulling his shoulders up against the cold, he pushes his fists down into the pockets of his parka.

  He gazes north, past the Con Edison tower, past his place in Stuyvesant Town, the Chrysler Building, and across town, west, toward Chelsea. Somewhere between, his future waits. The night sky hovers like a raven, its wings spread over the city. He imagines it swooping down, lifting him, and carrying him over the city to the location of Club Paradiso; a klieg light announces the perfect place, as if on a Hollywood opening night. A flurry of indigo clouds passes over the starlit sky. The March winds pick up. He wishes he’d worn gloves.

  Angel remembers when he was eighteen, just moved in to
his own place on East Twenty-Second Street. Alexis had been staying with him every weekend since the beginning of November, and they had decided to live together. She worked as the hostess at a restaurant in the evenings, so his dancing and practicing wasn’t a problem for her.

  One night in late December, he awakened with a start. It was after midnight. Alexis hadn’t returned from work yet. He couldn’t get back to sleep, as though something in a dream had disturbed him. He would never understand what drew him to Alexis’s closet. Opening one of her shoe boxes, he found eight love letters, tied with a ribbon. Sitting on the floor, with only streetlight, he read each one, and discovered that she and her boss had been having a relationship for the past month.

  What troubled him most was how unaware he’d been, without suspicion, certain she loved him. He believed they had a life together. They had friends together, with whom they went out to dinners, movies, and parties. They made love. He could never explain how he knew those letters were there. It was as though they had called his name.

  After she’d moved out of his apartment, she begged to come back, swearing she loved only him. Late one night, just before New Year’s Eve, when he thought she was finally out of his thoughts, she called to tell him how much she missed him, swore that her relationship with her boss was over. Her voice on the phone was silky; she spoke of their good times, their loving nights, how they moved together, touched one another. She soothed the hurt he had endured. He could hear her slow breath as she lulled him into phone sex.

  Alexis stayed with him to celebrate the New Year, but he couldn’t stop asking her questions. Why? Why? Why? At eighteen, love had seemed very black and white to him. He couldn’t understand or forget her betrayal. On Monday she left again, forever. He missed the warmth of her close to him at night, yet not enough to forgive her. In March, friends told him that she’d run off with her boss to New Mexico.