Step-Ball-Change: A Novel

by Jeanne Ray

  “He went because Stamp bit him.”

  “But Stamp really doesn’t bite.”

  At the mention of his name, Stamp came over and sat on Taffy’s feet with endearing loyalty. He looked like he wouldn’t have bitten a squirrel if it was handed to him on a plate. The dog was more convincing than Brando. “The dog bites. The dog has bitten. You need to be more careful with the dog.”

  “Then it’s just our husbands he bites. Nobody else.”

  “It isn’t a decision you can make.”

  “You said yourself Stamp was a good dog for biting Neddy. How can he be good for biting my husband and bad for biting yours?”

  “Because I love my husband.” I didn’t know if it was cruel of me to say, but it was true. “You may feel comforted by the fact that Stamp bit Neddy, but I don’t want him biting Tom or anybody else around here. We’ve got the workmen to think of, and George will be home later.”

  “Stamp would never bite George.”

  George was a great favorite of Taffy’s, even if she perceived him as teetering on the brink of homosexuality. “Listen, Taffy. I have a class to teach at three. I should get back over to the school pretty soon. Can we talk about this later?”

  “What kind of class is it?”

  “Mother-daughter tap.”

  Taffy looked wistful for a minute. “I should have taken tap with Holden.”

  “Were you ever able to find her?”

  Taffy nodded. “I got her at four o’clock this morning. I forget what time it was in Cannes. Her secretary found her for me. She said she’d come home, but I told her not to. What could she do, really?”

  “Maybe she could make you feel better.”

  “That’s what you’re doing. Or that’s what you’re supposed to be doing.” She slapped her hands down flat on the table. “I’m going to come and take your class. I need to move around.” As soon as she mentioned leaving, Stamp jumped into her lap and started to shiver like he’d been dropped into an ice bucket.

  “My tap class?”

  “Why not? I take Pilates and step aerobics. I should be able to tap.”

  Taffy in my classroom, taking my instructions? Taffy in a line of thirty-year-old mothers with their six-year-old daughters? “That wouldn’t be any fun for you.”

  Taffy smiled. It was the first time she had smiled since she arrived. “What would be fun for me, exactly?”

  Stamp began to whine and lick Taffy’s neck. In truth, it would be good for her to come. There was nothing like concentrating on complicated footwork to take one’s mind off of one’s problems. Physical exhaustion was a good thing, and the thunder of tap shoes made it impossible to think. “Do you want to borrow something to wear?”

  Taffy, whose combined suitcases contained more cubic feet of space than my entire closet, said she had everything she needed with her.

  “You don’t have tap shoes. Please, tell me you didn’t pack a pair of tap shoes.”

  “Those I forgot.”

  “I’ll get you a pair.”

  “Your feet are bigger than mine.”

  “Our feet are exactly the same size, you just wear smaller shoes than I do.”

  “You always stretched out my shoes.”

  “What? Forty-five years ago I stretched out a pair of your shoes? I’m going to get you some of my tap shoes. You’ll see. They’ll be fine.”

  “I can wear an extra pair of socks.”

  It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if my feet were bigger or our feet were the same size and she needed to believe that my feet were bigger. It made no difference in the world, and still I had to swallow my overwhelming desire to tell her to take off her shoes, right here, right now, we were going to have a look. My sister’s husband had left her. She was so lost that she was forced to turn up on my doorstep. I could find it within myself to keep my mouth shut. “I’ll bring you an extra pair of socks.”

  “That would help.” Taffy put Stamp on the floor and got up to go to her room to change. The dog kept leaping up and throwing himself against her as if he were still trying to sit in her lap even though the lap was no longer available.

  “What about Stamp?” I said finally.

  “I thought we could take him with us to the dance school.” At the mention of this plan the little stub where I imagine there had once been a tail began to wag madly. There were certain concepts of language the dog had down cold.

  “There is no way Stamp can come. The place is going to be full of children.”

  “Stamp likes children.”

  “I don’t have insurance that covers dog-based liability. Don’t you leave him alone in Atlanta?”

  “We’re not in Atlanta.”

  “Stamp can’t come.”

  Taffy crouched down on the floor and took the dog’s wiry muzzle between her hands. “She says you can’t come, baby.”

  And with that devastating piece of information the dog slunk off and went under the bed.

  “By the way, did you get your suitcases in?” It had just occurred to me that there was no longer a hulking piece of baggage in the front hallway.

  “I asked the men outside. They said if I’d lock Stamp in the bathroom, they’d bring in all of the luggage for me. The tall one, Mr. Woodrow? He said not to put all the bags on the same side of the room. He said your foundation is caving in.”

  GEORGE HAD HELD down the fort at the dance school all afternoon, but I didn’t want him to miss criminal law. George loved criminal law. For someone who had never even thought of going to law school herself, what I knew about law school was not insignificant. Over the course of four children I had proofread papers, typed papers (but only in a real pinch—I wasn’t much for typing), helped choose classes, and was endlessly asked to ask questions. “San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez,” I said while making pancakes. “Charlie, get out the syrup. I’ll get you started here, Supreme Court, 1973.” And off they went. “Kansas v. Hendricks. Come on, this is such an easy one. Five-to-four vote upholding what lower-court decision? Think Kansas.” I prepped them, drilled them, and along the way I memorized a good part of it myself. And it wasn’t just classroom experience I had, there were all the closing arguments I went through with Tom, too, all the heartfelt pleas for justice that I choreographed. For the thirty-odd years he’d been a public defender, Tom had stood at the foot of our bed in his pajamas, practicing what he would say the next morning. I told him when to look at the defendant and when to make an abrupt turn toward the jury box. Whenever I could manage it, I would go down to the courthouse to watch him. I loved to watch Tom in court. I always said he could have been a dancer. He said I could have been a lawyer.

  Of all of my children, George seemed to be having the least problem with law school. I was never sure if he was smarter than the rest of us or if it was just that he had spent his entire childhood in an advanced prep class, always in the backseat of the car while the people in the front seat spoke in legalese. Other first-year law students complained of having to learn another language, but George was born fluent. He didn’t ask me to drill him the way the others had, though from time to time we had conversations about cases. I think that they were more for my benefit than they were for his. I think that he just wanted to keep me up to speed.

  When Taffy and I came into the studio, George was teaching three girls who had a private lesson on Wednesdays. In the wake of everything else that had happened, I had forgotten about them completely.

  “Listen to the floor, ladies!” he called out. “It sounds like the elephants are landing! You could hear that landing in the six-dollar seats. I want this light, light, light.” I was touched. It was the same speech I had been giving for years. George jumped straight up, did a brilliant full rotation in the air, and landed on the floor like a leaf on the lawn.

  “Do you want to tell me it’s completely normal for a boy to be able to do that?” Taffy said.

  “I don’t think it’s normal,” I said. “I think it’s exceptional.”


  “Port de bras, ladies. You have arms and I want to see you use them. A little grace, please, a little extension.” George stretched out his arm, turned his head, and saw us. He smiled, his face flushed and damp. He left the girls in arabesque and came over with his arms stretched out to Taffy. “My favorite aunt.”

  “Your only aunt,” Taffy reminded him. It was true. Tom had no sisters.

  “I’m sorry,” George said before going in for the hug. “I smell like a sheep. But you, you look wonderful. You always look wonderful.”

  Taffy wore a black long-sleeved leotard, black tights, and my tap shoes with a pair of socks she didn’t need. She had tied a jewel blue sarong around her waist that made the whole thing look smart, like maybe she was going to a dance class and maybe she was going out to dinner. “Now I know why I came here. All the McSwains know how to lie.”

  The three girls from the class slumped against the barre as soon as George turned his back on them. “On the floor, stretch it out,” I said. “We’ve got another group coming in.” The three of them sank down to the floor in full splits and pressed their bony chests toward the wood. Little ballerinas can be sullen, but they are endlessly obedient.

  “That Katrina is a real swayback. You could set a cup of tea down on that girl’s ass. You have to watch her every minute.”

  “I’ll watch her,” I said.

  “Do you want me to do the tap?” George asked. “You don’t have to stay.”

  “No,” Taffy said.

  “I’m sorry I left you here all afternoon. Taffy came in and then Stamp bit your father and we had to go to the hospital.”

  “Stamp doesn’t bite,” Taffy said, seeming to imply that perhaps I had bitten Tom and was trying to pin it on the dog.

  “The hospital?”

  “He’s fine. He just needed a tetanus shot.”

  “Never a dull moment.” George looked at the clock.

  “Go to class,” I said.

  “Change clothes,” Taffy said.

  “There isn’t time. If I run now I’ll just make it.” George gave us both a quick kiss and went flying for the door.

  “You can’t go to law school dressed like that!” Taffy said.

  “They’ve already seen it all! We’ll talk tonight,” he called back to Taffy. “I want to hear everything.”

  But Taffy only waved. I don’t think she particularly felt like telling everything to any of us.

  chapter six

  I AM SIXTY-TWO YEARS OLD AND ONE OF THESE DAYS I’m going to have to buy myself a new left hip. Maybe, a couple of years after that, I’ll need a right one, too. I will buy myself a set of dazzling plastic joints to replace the ones I’ve ground down over the years. I will reward my body with state-of-the-art technology, the very best that money can buy. It still surprises me that some mornings this body, which has been so strong and flexible that I could make a living off of it, lies in bed and doesn’t want to go anywhere. But then it does. I stretch over one leg and then the other while I brush my teeth in the morning. I roll up onto the balls of my feet and stay there while I floss. It still works, it just takes a little longer to get it going. Tom will watch me down a couple of ibuprofen and suggest that maybe it’s time to sell the school to Peggy, one of the teachers who works for me, who is saving up her money to buy it, but I’m not quite ready to let it go. And when the cars start driving up and the wave of little girls pours through the front door all decked out in their pink leotards and white tights, I know that I’ll do this for as long as I possibly can. I never get tired of seeing them. Sometimes a few of the older ones will wear me out, but the little ones are my joy. Not every girl is going to grow up to be a dancer, and God, let us be thankful for that, but even the ones who will grow up to be physicists and heart-transplant surgeons are better off for having danced. Dancing puts you squarely inside your own skin. It teaches you that your body is yours, yours to move and bend and stretch. Dancing makes you listen to music with more than your ears and know that the music can be felt and applied. All of the little confidences of balance and grace, the pleasure of watching your own hand arc above your head in the mirror, the camaraderie of moving in a perfect line with others—I teach those things, and I like to think that somewhere the lesson lodges in the subconscious. I believe these girls are made better for having danced, even if it’s only for a year. I believe that boys are made better for it, too, but in the forty years I’ve taught, I’ve probably had only two dozen boys come through my school. Maybe somewhere there’s a football coach lamenting the lack of girls who signed up for practice in the fall.

  Mother-daughter tap was started several years ago by a woman who would wait in the car and read while her daughter took class. When the weather turned cold, she brought her book inside, and when she found she couldn’t concentrate on her reading with all of those clattering shoes, she bought herself a pair of taps and took up a spot in the back of the room.

  “They’re six,” I said at the time. “I think it’s going to be a little slow for you.”

  She shrugged, a pretty young mother with brown hair and blue eyes. “I don’t know a thing about dancing,” she said. “I would never try to take a class with adults.”

  And so she danced. She danced pretty well but no better than her daughter. Soon the other girls told their mothers and the other mothers started coming with tap shoes of their own. It was all such a big success that I had to move the girls whose mothers didn’t come into another class because they felt so horrible about the whole thing.

  “God,” Taffy whispered. “You forget how cute they are. And how little. Was Holden ever that size?”

  “Probably so.”

  “I never wanted more than one child. I think that’s because I always wanted to be an only child.” She said it without any consideration of what that might have meant for me. “Now I think I should have had ten. Except not with Neddy. I should have had ten children born from illicit affairs.”

  I clapped my hands and the room went silent, all the mothers and daughters waiting and watching. It was better than being a lawyer. I was jury and judge, it was all my show. I put a record on and we started. “Has everyone been practicing?”

  “Yes, Mrs. McSwan.”

  Taffy found an inconspicuous spot on the side of the room away from the mirror. She reminded me of that first mother who came to tap-dance. She was respectful but unself-conscious. Twelve little girls put their right foot out and tapped. Twelve mothers put their right foot out and tapped. Taffy put her right foot out and showed them all how it was done. They did a brush right forward, striking the pads of their big toes, and then a brush right back, brush right forward, brush right back. I called out the time but it looked for all the world like Taffy was leading them. They raised their rounded arms into third position a half beat behind her. Her steps were fluid, her tapping was impeccable.

  Taffy could dance.

  Had I known this before? She followed every step. She turned in the right direction every time we turned. She did not watch her feet. Not that it was hard, it was a kids’ class, but it could be hard to do anything for the first time. This class had been going on for a while, and even the most uncoordinated children had memorized the routines. Taffy got them instantly. Her ankles were loose, her feet were quick. She knew how to work the top and bottom halves of her body together at the same time, a concept that some people are never able to grasp at all. It made me want to send the rest of the class home and throw routines at her all afternoon, real dance routines. I had a suspicion that she would be able to keep up.

  “Let’s do it slow the first time,” I said to the class. “Shuffle ball change, shuffle ball change, then step ball change, step ball change. Good, perfect. Now speed it up, double time.”

  Taffy blinked her eyes and her feet started to fly. I could separate out her taps from all the other tap sounds because they were balanced, perfectly timed. Some of the children and mothers who had noticed a woman coming to class without a six-year-old were stari
ng at her now, but they never would have put it together that we were sisters, Taffy with her chic blond hair in a swept-back cut, me with my brown hair gone impossibly gray and pinned to the back of my head like every other aging dance teacher I knew. Taffy in her careful makeup and me with a little Vaseline smeared over my lips. I was taller than my sister. She had a straighter nose, though that hadn’t always been the case. I had taken good care of myself all my life, but I looked like what I was: a very fit sixty-two-year-old. Taffy, on the other hand, would soon be sixty and looked more like she would soon be fifty. It could be said that the only way anyone would have known we were related is that we were the two best dancers in the room.

  “When did you learn how to dance?” I asked her as I waved good-bye at the window. The last of the little girls had come over to hug me, the last of the mothers had dropped off their checks for next month, we had the place to ourselves.

  Taffy shrugged. “I always danced, I guess. Neddy was a terrible dancer. You couldn’t get him out on the floor. I was always dancing with somebody else’s husband at weddings.”

  “I’m not talking about that kind of dancing. I’m talking about this kind of dancing.” I picked a little pink pullover up off the floor. There was always one left behind, no matter how many times I reminded them to take their things with them.

  “I danced some.”

  “When? You hated to dance when we were kids.”

  Taffy leaned back against the barre and stretched her arms out to either side. “No, I didn’t hate to dance, you loved to dance. There’s a difference.”

  “You refused to go to dance class. Mother used to beg you.”

  “My refusing had nothing to do with my not liking it. I didn’t go because dance was your thing.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It was always a competition with us.”

  “How could it have been a competition if you didn’t even dance?”

  “We were so competitive that we wouldn’t even try to do the same things. I took some dance classes, but you were too far ahead of me. You were already too good at it and I couldn’t win, so I quit.”