Step-Ball-Change: A Novel

by Jeanne Ray

  When the doorbell rang, I briefly had the thought, Who now? I was sure that there was no one left to come to the party. It was probably the Christian missionaries of my imagination, come to see if I was still interested in being saved.

  When I opened the door, I knew what I should have gotten for Taffy for her birthday. I should have tracked down Holden and invited her to the party. The truth is, I’d never even considered it, and yet there she stood, with an armload of presents. She raised one finger to her lips and I stepped outside and shut the door behind me.

  “Holden!” I wrapped my arms around my niece, knocking a couple of the gifts to the ground, but who cared? I was thrilled that she was there, and at the same time I realized she should have been there weeks ago.

  “I wanted to surprise Mother,” she said.

  Had this woman come from any part of our family? Her hair was long and blond and stick straight. She was tall, and with her pale skin and red lipstick, her black T-shirt that looked like it cost three hundred dollars, I thought she should have been a movie star rather than wasting her time representing them. She had all of her mother’s beauty, all of her mother’s poise, but her look was glamorous whereas Taffy’s was soft. There was a black Porsche 911 parked in front of the house.

  “You drove?”

  Holden looked behind her shoulder. “That? No, I rented it at the airport.”

  “You can rent a Porsche?”

  “You can rent anything,” she said, smiling. “How’s Mom?”

  I reached up and touched her hair. It was cool and heavy. “She’s been awful and okay. She’s going to be a million times better now that you’re here.”

  “I should have come sooner. It’s just been crazy. We had a lot of luck at Cannes and then there were so many deals to close. I thought I’d get away last week, and then yesterday I looked at my schedule and I just thought, Get on a plane.”

  “She’s going to be so happy. We’re having a party for her.”

  “A surprise party?”

  “It’s certainly turning into one.” I picked up the presents and rearranged them in Holden’s arms. The gold foil paper from the packages reflected the light onto her face and made her shine. Holden had such a genius for details. She’d probably picked the paper with that in mind.

  We came inside and I closed the door behind us. “Who was it?” Tom said, walking into the entry hall. He broke out into a huge smile when he saw Holden there. Silently, he kissed her cheek and then stepped aside so she could be the first one in the room. She made a perfect entrance—the boxes, the pink from the cool night air still in her cheeks. The whole room turned and fell silent at the sight of her.

  “Happy Birthday, Mother.”

  Tom leaned over and took the boxes away just as Taffy stepped into Holden’s arms. A second later Stamp raced across the room, jumping up higher than he had for the liverwurst until Taffy and Holden were forced apart and Holden caught the dog in midair and held him. He was so ecstatic that he twisted and wrenched in her arms, as if he was trying to get even closer to her as she held him.

  Jack the D.A. leaned over and whispered in my ear, his voice stunned as if from a sharp blow. “Who’s the goddess?”

  “That’s my niece, Holden.”

  “Dear Lord,” he said.

  It had been good before, but now it was really a party. The champagne meant for toasts with the cake was broken out before dinner. Holden saw Kay’s engagement ring and threw her arms around her neck. “You’re getting married! That’s brilliant. Look at this ring! My God, Elizabeth Taylor must be sweating out her status as having the best engagement ring.” Holden looked at the group. “First she’s a lawyer and now she’s getting married. No wonder I never come home. I always feel like such an underachiever.”

  Everyone laughed as if she’d said something very funny. Holden put her hand on Jack’s arm and squeezed. “Are you the lucky one?”

  “I’m lucky,” he said, never giving Kay a look. “I’m not that lucky.”

  “Then who are you?” she asked.

  “Leftovers,” Jack said. “Jack Carroll.”

  “I’m Trey Bennett.” Trey held out his hand but Holden kissed him instead. “The groom! Then you’re the lucky man. You have to promise to give her everything she wants. This is my very favorite cousin. Forgive me, George. My favorite female cousin.” She leaned her head against Kay’s shoulder. “This man is gorgeous,” she said, sotto voce, fully intending to be heard by everyone. Trey blushed in gratitude. Holden immediately lifted the glass Tom handed her. “To my beautiful, lucky cousin. I drink to your engagement. And to my wonderful mother on her birthday. I am so happy to be with you!”

  “Hear! Hear!” called the crowd.

  Woodrow watched the scene with appreciation. “The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree,” he said to my sister.

  There was a strange muffled bleating sound, as if someone had left a sheep in the coat closet. Holden shrugged with mock embarrassment. “I’m sorry.” She slipped her hand inside her Tod’s bag. “That’s me.” She took out a phone the size of two credit cards sewn together and she flipped it open. “Holden,” she said. Her voice had the same clipped edge that her mother’s had when teaching a tap class. “Did you get the fax? We have the papers until the twenty-third. That’s right. Then get them signed.” She flipped the phone shut without saying good-bye. “When does it all end?” she said.

  “This is Erica Woodrow,” George said, presenting her to Holden. “And this is her father, Woodrow.”

  Holden shook their hands and expressed her real pleasure in meeting them. “George can dance,” she said to Erica. “Do you know how hard it is to find a man who can dance?”

  “I’m not much of a dancer myself,” Erica admitted.

  “It doesn’t matter. He’s like Fred Astaire. He can make anyone look good on a dance floor. Not that you need any help looking good.”

  Holden passed out compliments evenly and sincerely. We all felt amazed that someone so worldly seemed to enjoy our humble company. As she worked her way across the room, she managed to make every person there feel that he or she was the one she had most wanted to see.

  “Isn’t this all so divine?” she said.

  It was all we could do to make ourselves sit down and eat the lamb before it was well-done. Taffy sat on one side of her daughter, and with the aid of some simple diversion tactics, Jack managed to swing into the chair on Holden’s other side. I thought I detected a slight cloud of irritation cross Kay’s face but, like the rest of the party, I was too entranced with Holden to care. Holden made no attempt to dominate the conversation, but people kept asking her questions. She rewarded them with stories about movie stars and the South of France. She shamelessly ratted out her clients for our entertainment, and Taffy basked in the glow of her extended light.

  Holden let Stamp sit in her lap while she ate and Woodrow didn’t say a word about it. “I begged them to use Stamp for the lead in My Dog Skip,” she said. “In the book the dog is a fox terrier, not a Jack Russell. That other dog was all wrong for the part.”

  “So how did it fall through?” Woodrow asked.

  Holden crushed the dog against her breast and every man in the room sighed. “Stamp had too many scruples. He wasn’t willing to sleep with the right people.”

  “You never told me you had a cousin,” Trey said to Kay.

  “Doesn’t everyone have cousins? You probably have hundreds of cousins you haven’t told me about.”

  “She’s my cousin, too, you know,” George said. “Other boys used to have pictures of Heather Locklear in their lockers, but I always had one of Holden in mine.”

  “Isn’t that slightly creepy?” Erica asked.

  “It’s creepy when you’re thirty, but when you’re thirteen it’s pretty endearing.”

  Erica smiled and George took her hand and held it. It would take a lot more than a cousin to knock out Erica Woodrow’s self-esteem.

  Kay, on the other hand, had always
walked the fine line between adoring her only girl cousin, like the rest of the world did, and being jealous of her. Holden cast a longer shadow than any girl in Atlanta.

  The sheep in the closet let out another plaintive bleat. “Isn’t this awful? At the dinner table.” But even as she was saying it, she was reaching into her purse. “Holden.” Her face melted into a smile. “Darling. No, of course I don’t mind. Don’t be silly, that’s why I gave you the number.”

  No one could say a word. We couldn’t even pretend to be whispering about something else. There was nothing to do but sit there and take in every word of the conversation.

  “I saw the rushes and I thought they were gorgeous. No, I’m serious, you looked like an angel.” Holden put her hand over the tiny mouthpiece and whispered, “Jennifer.” The younger members of the table made a low, appreciative sound. Everyone over forty stared blankly. “Definitely the white. It’s perfect for you. Well, don’t let them talk you into it if it isn’t what you want. Do you want me to call them? I’ll do it. Perfect. Don’t even think about it. Much love.” She snapped the phone shut.

  “They can call you any time?” George asked.

  “It’s relentless. That’s why I had to find a place that I could really get away to, a place where no one can find me. Mother, I bought a little place in Cap Ferret while I was in Cannes, and you have to come there with me and we’ll relax. It’s very small, but it’s right on the water, and when you open the windows in the bedroom, there is nothing in the world to want, rien du tout.”

  “Comment puis-je m’y rendre?” Jack said.

  The group stared at him as if he’d spoken perfect Cantonese instead of decent high-school French. Every bone in his body, every muscle and cell, seemed to lean in her direction. He looked at her like Stamp looked at her, like he was willing to jump and jump until he landed in her arms.

  “Since when do you speak French?” Kay said.

  “C’est très facile,” Holden said to Jack.

  I served the cake and we sang an accelerated version of the birthday song over the lit candles before the phone rang again. Taffy waited and made a wish.

  “Have you been to Atlanta yet?” Taffy said, touching her napkin to her lips.

  “It’s not on my itinerary.” Holden smiled at Jack, who refilled her glass of champagne.

  “Have you spoken to your father?”

  “Not in a couple of weeks. There’s nothing I need to talk to him about.”

  Taffy looked relieved. It was perhaps the nicest gift that Holden could have given her. For now, at least, she was taking sides. She was standing firmly in her mother’s court even if she had been a little late in getting there.

  “How long can you stay?” Taffy asked.

  “I was going to ask that,” Jack said.

  Kay stabbed a potato with her fork a little too hard and we all heard the tines hit the plate.

  “Just a couple of days. I’m here illegally. My secretary has strict orders not to tell anyone where I am, but I can only hold things off for so long. This is such a busy season. Everyone wants to get their deals wrapped up before the whole world vanishes for summer.”

  “Well, there’s plenty of room,” I said. “Henry and Charlie’s room is free. No one in Hollywood will be looking for you there.”

  “I got a hotel room,” Holden said. She pushed her hair back and I saw the bright diamond sitting on the perfect curve of her earlobe. “I’m already checked in. I didn’t want to just show up and expect to have a place to stay.”

  “Then you’ll just check out,” Taffy said. “You have a place to stay.”

  Holden stretched and put her arm around her mother’s shoulder. “I’m such an awful hotel rat. You can be perfectly demanding in hotels the way you can never be at home. I have to have the Times and my coffee in the morning, and they have a good gym downstairs. Sometimes when I’ve been traveling a lot, I’ll check into a hotel for a few days in L.A. I get so used to being taken care of.”

  “I can’t imagine you’d have a hard time finding someone to take care of you,” Trey said. Kay looked at him and for a minute I thought he might be the next victim of her fork.

  “What a sweet bunch of people you are,” Holden said.

  “Really,” Taffy said. “I want you to stay here. I haven’t seen you in so long. If you don’t want to, then I’ll get a room with you.”

  “They’re all booked up,” Holden said. “I made these reservations weeks ago.” She leaned over and kissed Taffy. “I wouldn’t miss your birthday.”

  Taffy looked a little disappointed, but she kept it to herself. It would be hard to have a daughter like Holden, one who was so successful and self-contained that she couldn’t possibly give the slightest indication of needing you at all.

  Holden hugged her mother. “We’ll have so much time together. I’ll be over first thing in the morning.”

  “Your mother has a job now. She might be busy,” I said.

  “You have a job? Are you going to stay here?”

  “I’m here for a little while,” Taffy said. “Until things get settled. Caroline is letting me teach at her dance studio.”

  “She’s wonderful,” I said. “All the students love her.”

  Holden, who was perfectly polished, was stopped by this information. For an instant everything that was Hollywood about her fell away and she touched her mother’s cheek with the back of her hand. “You were always a wonderful dancer. Isn’t she wonderful? I’m so proud of you.”

  “I’m hardly doing anything.”

  “You’re doing everything,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry about all of this. I want to go to Atlanta and kill Daddy.”

  “He may already be dead,” Taffy said. “I haven’t been able to get him on the phone all week.”

  After the cake we all went into the living room and squeezed in two to a chair or sat on the floor.

  “That was divine,” Holden said. “Better than Campanile’s.”

  “Erica’s never seen Tap,” George announced.

  “What’s Tap?” Trey said.

  “You haven’t seen Tap? Where have you people been? It’s like saying you’ve never seen An American in Paris.”

  “I’ve never seen An American in Paris,” Erica confessed.

  “That makes two again,” Trey said.

  “Oh God,” Kay said. “I feel an evening of tap dancing coming on.”

  “Everybody in my room,” George announced. “I’ve got the tapes.”

  “Let’s go over to my house,” Trey said. “I’ve got a great television. What do you say, Jack? Feel like a little tap dancing?”

  Jack rocked his head back and forth like he was trying to make up his mind. “Hmm, tough call, but no, no thank you. I’ve already seen them both. Still, if you and Erica plan to bond with the McSwains, you’ll have a lot of tap-dancing films to work your way through, so you might as well get started now.”

  “It could be a late night,” Erica said to her father.

  “You have a key,” Woodrow said. He kissed his lovely daughter and let her go off with my son.

  While everyone said their good nights, Jack came and stood next to Holden. “Tap-dancing films?” he said.

  “I’ve seen them all.”

  “Puis-je vous inviter à prendre un verre ce soir?”

  “Vous?” She laughed.

  He shrugged. “Tu.”

  “That’s much more inviting.”

  Kay stood and stared while Trey went to get Holden’s purse. “I don’t even know what he asked her.”

  “He asked her for a drink,” I said. I knew a little more than ballet French, and this wasn’t exactly a complicated exchange. A person could more or less figure out what was going on without speaking any language at all.

  “A drink!” she said. “Is he insane?”

  “No,” I said, kissing her forehead good night, “but I think you might be. Go watch tap-dancing films with your fiancé. Have a good time.”

  Holden and Jac
k were halfway to the car. I heard the sheep bleat again, but I did not hear her answer the call.

  When they were gone, it was just the grown-ups left—Taffy and Woodrow, Tom and me. We picked up glasses and plates for a while and then abandoned them to sit in the living room.

  “That’s some daughter you have,” Woodrow said to Taffy.

  “Look who’s talking,” she said, refilling her glass. There was a slug of room-temperature champagne left in the bottle on the coffee table. “There was a time in my life when I was Holden.”

  “You looked a lot like Holden at that age,” Tom said.

  “That’s not even what I’m talking about,” Taffy said. “I was like Holden. What’s really so awful about being fifty-eight—” She stopped and looked at me, pointing a finger. “And you, keep your mouth shut. What’s really so awful about being fifty-eight is that you don’t ever have that experience again. Holden’s got it and she probably doesn’t even know it. No, I take that back: She knows it, but she doesn’t understand that she isn’t always going to have it.”

  “Excuse me,” Tom said. “But what are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about men, the attention of men, the feeling you get when you walk in the room and you know that everybody has his eyes on you, bottom line, that everybody wants to sleep with you.”

  I slipped off my shoes and tucked my feet beneath me on the sofa. I didn’t exactly feel comfortable talking about it, but I knew what she meant.

  “And you feel like you don’t have that anymore?” Woodrow said.

  “I know I don’t. Holden and I go to a restaurant now and I might as well be the coat she’s carrying. The maître d’ gives us the best table, the waiter comps her wine, all eyes are on our table, and no one is looking at me. And I’m not saying I blame her. She’s my own daughter, I’m proud of her, I think everyone should be looking at her, but it reminds me of the way people used to look at me. Or it reminds me that they don’t look at me that way anymore.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tom said.

  “Oh, I do, too. There was a time women wouldn’t leave their husbands alone with me. I may have been a flirt, but I was never a cheat, and still they wouldn’t have let their husbands follow me out to the kitchen to get a drink. Now that’s all changed. When I left Atlanta my friend Patty said, ‘I’ll have Richard drive you up to Raleigh. That’s too far for you to drive by yourself. Ten hours in a car!’ It’s like being an old rottweiler with no teeth.”