Step-Ball-Change: A Novel

by Jeanne Ray

Erica Woodrow and George McSwain

  ~

  Saturday evening at 7 P.M.

  Casual

  She had elegant, sloping handwriting. The diamond ring sparkled on her hand as it moved across the paper. When she finished with one invitation, she would lay it out on the dining-room table and start the next.

  “But that’s all of us,” Taffy whispered to me. “There’s no one coming who isn’t on the invitation.”

  “I like doing them,” Erica said, keeping her eyes on the work at hand.

  Holden and Jack waltzed in as if they had only just been to the corner to pick up a carton of milk. They were both casual and golden. Jack had shaved and was wearing a new suit. Holden wore a short suede skirt and kept her legs bare. Holden and Taffy fell into each other’s arms as if nothing had happened at all. “Mother, I only wish you could have been there,” Holden said. “We were on the beach at sunset, barefoot. It was the most beautiful wedding.”

  “I wish I could have been there, too,” Taffy said.

  We took everyone in to see the Florida room. We didn’t have the furniture in there yet, but it was finished, beautiful, and perfectly clean.

  “Daddy’s a genius,” Erica said. Taffy took Woodrow’s arm.

  “And speaking of genius, you,” Holden said to Kay. “Now you really are my favorite cousin.”

  “I was just glad to help,” Kay said. She kissed Jack on the cheek as if he were a distant, little-remembered relative, which, I suppose, he was.

  “When are you getting married?” Jack asked George.

  I don’t think George had quite forgiven Jack. He put his arm around Erica and pulled her close to him. “We’re going to wait at least two years. It’s so great to be engaged, there isn’t any point in rushing it.”

  Jack smiled and tapped George on the chest. “You think it’s great being engaged, you should try getting married.”

  “With the new engagement averaging law between family members, it will mean that we were both engaged a year,” Holden said to George.

  “When are you getting married?” Jack asked Kay. “It seems like you’ve been engaged forever.”

  “That’s because you’ve been so busy lately,” Kay said. “Remember Einstein’s Theory of Relativity? Time moves at different rates of speed depending on what you’re doing.”

  “A little less than a year.”

  “Eight months from now,” Trey said, answering the question. He turned to Erica. “Maybe we should have a double wedding. I understand that’s the kind of thing they do in musicals.”

  “Are we living a musical now?”

  Woodrow put his hands on his daughter’s shoulders. “With all due respect to your generous offer, I don’t think we could afford to take on half of your wedding.”

  “No, really, the whole thing’s paid for. The more the merrier.”

  Tom and I both heard the sentence and we stepped in the direction of that particularly interesting conversation.

  “Your wedding is already paid for?” Taffy said. God bless Taffy, she’d jump right in there.

  “Well, we’re paying for it. I certainly would be happy to have Erica and George share it with us.”

  “You’re paying for it?” Tom said, trying to keep the incredulity out of his voice.

  “Okay, let’s be honest here,” Kay said. “Trey’s paying for it. I’ll buy the Jordan almonds or something. Daddy, why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Mrs. Bennett told your parents that they would be paying for half the wedding,” Taffy said. I was grateful. I don’t think I would have been able to explain it quite so succinctly.

  “That’s insane!” Kay laughed and took a sip of champagne. “You would have been completely wiped off the map even paying half. Do you have any idea what this thing is going to cost?”

  “Some idea,” Tom said weakly.

  “This is awful,” Trey said. “I guess my mother and I have never talked about it. I always planned to pay for the wedding. She doesn’t talk to me about wedding details. She never should have talked to you about money, though.”

  “And you never even told me?” Kay put her arm around my shoulder. “Why didn’t you talk to me about this? You must have been going out of your mind.”

  “It seems funny now,” I said. “Or it will seem funny soon.”

  “Maybe you should think about this generous offer,” Woodrow said to Erica.

  “Every girl wants her own wedding,” Erica said. “Unless she’s in a musical.”

  “Where do we even start the toasts?” Tom said, raising his glass.

  “To my daughter and her husband on a day several days after their wedding day,” Taffy said. “I wish you every happiness in the world.”

  “To my daughter and her husband-to-be on their engagement,” Woodrow said. “I could not be more proud or more pleased.”

  “To our daughter and her husband-to-be,” I said. “May tonight be the beginning of the happiest time of your life.”

  grand finale

  ON THE MORNING OF THE BIGGEST WEDDING THAT Raleigh had ever seen, I got out of bed at six o’clock. I had been awake since two, the endless list of Mrs. Carlson’s instructions playing over in my head to the tune of “My Favorite Things.” Tom, bless his soul, was sound asleep. I had been watching him for hours in the little bit of light thrown out by our electric clock, thinking of how glad I was to be married to him and how smart we had been for starting our life together the way we did. I don’t think I could have stood up to all that Kay would have to face today, everyone she had ever known and everyone she didn’t know coming to see her looking beautiful. But Kay was a different sort of person than I was. For all her sentimentality, she had proven herself to be someone who knew how to stand up under pressure. She would be wonderful. The day would be wonderful. Too many ironclad plans had been laid down for me to have any doubts about that.

  In a hotel across town my two oldest boys, Henry and Charlie, were sleeping with their wives, while their children slept around them in foldaway cots. Every cousin and uncle and aunt, every college roommate and childhood confidant was assembled. The wedding wasn’t until six o’clock but, of course, there was a brunch at noon and then meticulously organized trips to the hairdresser. Whatever time I was going to have to myself I was going to have right now, and so quietly, quietly, I sneaked out of the room and went to the kitchen.

  Taffy was there.

  “God, you scared me to death,” I said.

  “I still have a key,” she said. Taffy had bought a condominium six months ago and had moved her furniture up from Atlanta.

  “What are you doing here so early?”

  “I knew you’d be up. I’ve only been here for half an hour.”

  “I’ve been up since two,” I said.

  She handed me a cup of coffee. “Drink this and go get dressed. There’s something I want us to do.”

  “This morning? At six A.M.?”

  “Go get dressed,” she said.

  Taffy was wearing a leotard and a loose skirt, so I went and put on the same thing. When I came out again, we left the house like a couple of thieves who had changed their minds about taking anything and we snuck off to her car.

  “Are we going to the studio?”

  “Just try to go along with this, okay?”

  “Okay, but I’m not up for a surprise party.”

  “Neither am I.”

  “Did you have a good time at the rehearsal dinner?”

  “It certainly was, what’s the word? Enormous?”

  “Your date looked nice.”

  “You can take Woodrow anywhere. He’s looking forward to the wedding,” Taffy said. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “Are you nervous?”

  “Am I supposed to be nervous?”

  “It’s a big day.” The streets around our house were empty and just turning pink in the early May light. Everywhere I looked there were flowers and tender leaves. The whole city was dressed for a wedding.

 
“I’d be nervous if I thought Kay wasn’t doing the right thing, but she is. The rest of it, the party, that will all be fine.”

  “I thought I was going to envy you, your daughter having the huge wedding. But now that it’s here, I’m glad it’s you and not me.” Taffy pulled the car up in front of McSwan’s. It had been a long time since I’d been there so early in the morning. Somehow the place looked smaller without all the cars. We got out of the car and Taffy unlocked the door and flipped on the lights. I looked at the pale, scuffed floors. I looked at our reflection in the mirror. It was too early for such big mirrors.

  “So,” I said. “Are you going to give me a pep talk?”

  “Nope.” She went over and put a tape in the player. A big-band version of “Putting on the Ritz” came through the speakers. “We’re going to dance.”

  She sat down on the floor and took out two pairs of shoes. With a little red screwdriver that said McSwan’s on the side, she tightened up our taps, tight but not too tight, so they’d have just the right amount of resonance. I had given her the screwdriver as a present when she bought me out of half the dance school. She had needed to invest part of the avalanche of money that came with getting divorced. She slid me my shoes.

  I started to tell her that this wasn’t the time to dance, that there was too much to do, but as soon as I heard the music, I knew she was exactly right.

  “If you’re blue and you don’t know where to go to, why don’t you go where fashion sits?”—beat, beat—“Putting on the Ritz!” Taffy sang. She was up and dancing before I had my shoes all the way buckled, and then a minute later I was with her. She led the routine and I followed, at first one step behind and then catching up. Syncopated pullbacks, wings, and shuffles, Maxi Fords and step ball change, and running flaps so fast it made us laugh. We cut wide circles around the room, our arms sailing out to the side. There was nothing in the world like hearing the music your own feet made, nothing like feeling that your body was the instrument. I had been dancing since I was six years old, and whenever I was dancing, really dancing, I felt as good as I had felt about it when I was a child. There would be dancing at the end of this day, a big band and a thousand people crowded on a floor. But it wasn’t anything like this. Now I was flying, now I was completely, happily lost inside my own feet.

  We danced for nearly an hour. Taffy had brought every song I loved. When finally it was time to go, we took off our shoes and stretched out on the barre.

  “We could have been Fred and Adele Astaire,” she said.

  “We could have been the Nicholas Brothers,” I said.

  “We should have been doing this all along,” Taffy said, her hair slicked back with sweat. “We would have made a great team.”

  It was true. It would have been great if Taffy and I had been dancing together from the beginning. “But isn’t it something that we’re doing it now?” I said.

  acknowledgments

  THANKS TO my family: They are ever-patient, loving, and supportive. I learn from them daily.

  Thanks to my friends: They offer me their endless grace.

  Thanks to Shaye Areheart and Lisa Bankoff: They have become both family and friends, and they do it all.

  about the author

  JEANNE RAY works as a registered nurse at the Frist Clinic in Nashville, Tennessee. She is married and has two daughters. Together, she and her husband have ten grandchildren. She is the best-selling author of Julie and Romeo.