Come and Join the Dance

by Joyce Johnson

  “Come to my party. Don’t go to Paris. Conditions are bad all over.”

  “Is it any different at Harvard?”

  “That’s very good,” Peter said. “It’s too bad you’re always so quiet.”

  “I’m just well brought up.” She wished he’d stop looking at her.

  “She’s a poopsie,” said Anthony. “But I’m going to reform her. I’m going to make her wild and strange.”

  “And what will you do with her then?” Peter asked. He put his hand on her shoulder—anyone might have done that, she thought. Kay was frowning darkly over the menu.

  “I’ll make love to her. Listen, she’s nice. She bought me breakfast.”

  “I don’t like to be talked about,” Susan protested.

  “No?” said Peter. “I think you love it.”

  “It’s really very dull,” she said helplessly.

  “But you do love it.”

  “I wonder where the waitress is,” Kay said, carefully propping the menu between the salt and pepper shakers. She gave Susan and Peter a sad, dazed stare.

  “Kay,” Susan said, “Anthony and I are going to the Frick Museum.”

  “You’ll see my nun there.”

  “Why don’t you come with us?” Susan felt as if she were talking to a stranger.

  Kay shook her head. “I like to be alone when I go to a museum.”

  “What do you do when you’re alone?” Peter demanded. “What are your secrets, Kay?”

  “I won’t tell you my secrets,” she said quietly.

  “That’s right,” said Anthony. “Don’t tell Peter anything.”

  Peter laughed harshly. “You are all against me.”

  “That’s not true!” Kay cried. “That’s not true!” She almost stood up, as if she wanted to rush over to him and protect him from everything with the softness of her body, but she didn’t even touch his hand. Everyone was silent. Peter drummed absently on the table.

  The waitress came and said, “What’ll it be?”

  “Coffee! Coffee!” Peter sounded as if he were invoking a deity. Kay’s face was impenetrable again.

  “Peter,” Susan said coldly, “why must you know people’s secrets?” It was true that they were all against him, she thought. He was the enemy, with his reckless, disinterested probing.

  Peter didn’t answer her at first. He picked up a spoon and weighed it in the palm of his hand. “Because I have none of my own,” he said finally. For a moment she doubted him, but he wasn’t performing now; she almost wished he were. “I even keep a record of my dreams,” he added. “Typewritten. Very impressive. That’s my one great project. When I die, I’ll bequeath it to the university.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s true. Five black folders. You’re terribly curious, aren’t you? Would you like to see them?”

  “No,” she said, retreating uncomfortably, “I wouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well … I just think that dreams should be private.”

  “What else do you think, Susan?” Peter asked relentlessly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you think about me, for example?”

  She began to feel frightened, as if at any minute she were going to find herself standing naked in front of him, yet she wanted him to go on, wanted the pain of it.

  “The way you stare when you’re not talking is very mysterious. What are you looking at? Are you seeing everything? Digging everything? Or do you see nothing at all?”

  “Sometimes … nothing,” she whispered, her face burning.

  “Well, Susan, I got very drunk last night and called you. Kay knows.”

  Kay was a white blur across the table. Susan had to force herself to speak. “I’m glad I wasn’t in.”

  Peter laughed too quickly.

  “Say, Susan, we should go to the museum,” Anthony said.

  “I’ll drive you downtown,” said Peter.

  Anthony seemed puzzled. “Oh, we can get there… . And you have that fellowship thing… . ”

  “It’s late, Peter!” Kay cried.

  “I can’t get it done. It has to be in at five. There wouldn’t even be time to type it.”

  “I’ll type it for you,” Kay said wearily. “I won’t go to work.”

  “I don’t want any favors, Kay. I can’t get it done. I can’t just sit down and write it carelessly now.”

  “You’ve got three hours, Peter. You could try.”

  “I’ll try again in the fall,” he said brusquely. “It comes up again in the fall.” He got up from the table and turned to Anthony. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll drive you. Maybe we’ll all just go for a drive and have a beer somewhere. It’s a good day for that.”

  “Well … all right,” Anthony said dubiously. “You’ll come?” he asked Susan.

  Susan avoided Peter’s eyes. She knew if she said she wouldn’t come, he might go back to his apartment, he might even fill out the application. They were all waiting for her to answer.

  It was a good day for a drive, she thought. Broadway was full of sun and cars and racing children. She wanted to be set in motion too, to run mindlessly and not feel too much. She couldn’t do what Kay would have done. She was herself. She wanted to be saved from boredom even for a few hours. “I guess I’ll come,” she said.

  “Let’s go and find the car,” Peter said to Anthony.

  She watched them go up Broadway. A sprinkler truck groaned by, spraying the streets, and she saw them step back on the sidewalk a moment too late to escape the wave of wet mist. Peter wiped his face. It seemed very funny. “Peter got wet,” she said to Kay. When she looked out of the window again, she had lost them. “I wonder if he remembers where he parked the car. He seems terribly inefficient.” Kay still had said nothing. “You’re coming with us, Kay, aren’t you?”

  “I have to go to work.”

  “Oh … I always forget that you’re not in school.” She watched Kay stub out her cigarette and take another one from the pack. “What’s the matter, Kay? What’s happened?” she asked, even though she knew, they both knew. Kay’s face was blank. “I mean, are you angry with me?”

  “Angry? No. I’m not angry.” Kay’s dark eyes narrowed, trying to focus. “I think I will go on the drive,” she said abruptly. “I don’t feel much like working. Sometimes it’s like being buried alive surrounded by all those books. It’s stupid, though—I need the money.” Her face was very tired, as if she knew too much. Perhaps she would look that way all the time when she was forty. “I’ve had a hundred afternoons like this,” she said. “No one doing anything—me, Anthony … I knew Peter wouldn’t try for the fellowship, you know.”

  “Kay!” Susan cried. “Do you think I use people?” She had been rehearsing those words for a long time. “Jerry said so last night. Do you think I do?”

  “We all use each other,” Kay said.

  “But I did use Jerry.”

  “And Jerry used you. Everybody uses everybody. That’s the way it is.” Kay’s voice was flat.

  “But there has to be more than that, doesn’t there? There has to be love. Maybe I’ve never really loved anyone.” Her confession terrified her. She had only half thought of it before, had never meant to say it.

  “I think you’re worried about words,” Kay said. There was no absolution.

  “But I don’t want to go on using people!”

  “It’s just the way you look at it,” Kay said.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IN AN ODD WAY, Peter’s car was the place where he really lived—he only inhabited his apartment. It was true that, like most of the things Peter owned, the ramshackle black Packard should have been allowed to die quietly ten years ago, but a curious desperate joy possessed Peter at the wheel as long as everything went fast, an
d he always kept the back seat littered with the fragmentary preparations for a journey: blankets, an old raincoat, books, aspirins, a box of crackers, can openers, socks—as though the chaos of his living room had simply been extended. Peter didn’t seem to care that the car shook every time it hit a bump and that its insides were ticking so loudly that everything had to be shouted. “This car is going to shake itself to pieces one of these days!” he called out cheerfully.

  “Why don’t you get it checked?” Anthony asked.

  “Because I’d find out too much was wrong with it. I’d never be able to bail it out again.”

  They were all in his power that afternoon; he had made the car their only reality. “Sing,” he’d command them, and they’d sing. No unfinished work existed in their world. He was golden and they were golden. They drank a lot of beer. Is it because of the beer? Susan wondered. Even Kay was smiling. She sang all the choruses low-voiced, but anyway she sang. They drove twice through Central Park, then all the way down to the Battery, passing gray office buildings, processions of gray people down avenues—“You’re too serious!” Anthony shouted at them through the window. By four o’clock, they were uptown again, passing 116th Street, the red buildings of the college somewhere behind the apartment houses. “Are we going to New Jersey?” Susan asked, but she knew it didn’t matter. They had destroyed logic three hours ago, made the afternoon their midnight. “I’m drunk!” she laughed, letting her head fall against Anthony’s shoulder. “I’m so drunk. I feel like everything is twenty miles away.”

  Anthony kissed her. “Am I twenty miles away?”

  “Oh … maybe fifteen.” She liked having him kiss her. It was all part of the ride. Everything fitted. “You smell of soap,” she said, “like a little boy.”

  “How come you know so much about little boys?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Susan, why don’t you adopt me?” Anthony said. “I’m young, I’m hungry, I’m broke, I’m miserable. We’d have a ball.”

  “I can’t adopt anyone,” she said, enjoying the game. “I’m going to Paris in a week.”

  “We’d have a whole week,” he said.

  “No. I have too much ironing to do.” She expected him to laugh, but he only looked unhappy. It occurred to her that he might be serious.

  “Oh, adopt him!” Peter had turned around to look at them. “Why don’t you adopt him? Just walk hand in hand into the Southwick Arms Hotel, have breakfast in Bickford’s. It would be awfully good experience, Susan.”

  Her anger surprised her. “Why don’t you watch the road!” she cried.

  “Perhaps I should.” With an infuriating smile, Peter turned away again.

  They left the West Side Highway and began to drive through Washington Heights, through endless streets of blond brick apartment houses and stores with names like “Foam Rubber City” and “Food-O-Thon” and women wheeling baby carriages home from the supermarkets. Edgecombe Avenue, Fort Washington Avenue—“There are too goddamn many avenues here,” Peter said. “Too goddamn many living rooms. You be a good girl, Susan, and they might let you live up here. You could have a living room with wall-to-wall carpeting and a dishwashing machine.”

  “I don’t want to be a good girl!”

  “Too bad. That’s your particular fate.”

  Peter was looking for a way to get down to a little dirt road he remembered that ran by the river—there was a mad Puerto Rican bar there, he told them, and a dilapidated yacht club. Once he had found the road by accident and looked at the water all night. “It’s the greatest place in New York, if we can just get there.” But all the streets led back to the highway. He began to drive too fast; the car was shaking and ticking. Kay sat rigid in the front seat, clutching her pocketbook. “It’s getting late,” she said.

  “It’s four-thirty,” Peter said icily. “Why is that late?” He was forcing the car up a hill. “Why doesn’t someone sing, ‘In the evening, by the moonlight, you can hear the darkies singing … ’? Kay, how does that one go?”

  “I don’t like that song.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t sing it.” He laughed and put one arm around her. “Kay, Kay … don’t be dull. Don’t be a self-conscious liberal.”

  “I am what I am,” Kay said sadly.

  “Christ! If I thought that, I’d kill myself.” The car screeched around a corner.

  “Peter! Don’t!” Kay cried.

  “Wow—take it easy, man!” said Anthony.

  “What’s the matter with all of you? Don’t you want to fly? It’s the slow people who have accidents—you should know that. You want to fly, Susan, don’t you?”

  “I don’t want to get killed,” she said, but she almost shouted “Drive faster!” She wanted to ride in the front seat with Peter into night and emptiness, to a place where all the clocks had stopped and no one cared. She would sing for him if he asked her to… .

  Anthony had moved close to her again. Now he reached out and took her hand, which became an object, something someone else was holding. “We both have dirty hands,” he whispered. She pretended not to hear him. She was tired of the game. Maybe she would never say “Drive faster” to anyone, but only the frightened words she didn’t mean. But it must be beautiful to fly, even if it killed you. “Peter!” she called out desperately, “Peter!”

  “Do you want me to slow down?” he said. “All right, I’ll slow down.”

  “No … I just—wondered where we were.” She couldn’t quite remember now what it was she had wanted to say, and she would drown if she thought about it. She laughed helplessly and leaned back against Anthony’s arm. “Peter, perhaps I will adopt Anthony,” she said brightly, trying to pick up the lost pieces of the game—it was safer, safer.

  “Yes, go ahead—adopt him,” said Peter. “Every young girl should adopt someone.”

  “Shall I take you on?” she asked Anthony.

  “If you do, you’ll have to sleep with me.”

  “But I’ve never slept with anyone.”

  “No!” he said incredulously. “Well, I think you should start.”

  “Oh I agree.” The game was spinning itself out thinner and thinner. “Do you think I should, Peter?”

  “Do whatever you want,” he said with an odd impatience. “I give no advice.” Kay had turned a locked, mute face to her.

  Suddenly she thought, Why not? Why not? “Yes,” she said. “Okay, Anthony. I’ll meet you tomorrow.”

  “What about immediately!” he cried, acting his part. “This afternoon! Now! Now!”

  “All right,” she said. The car had stopped for a red light. She opened the door and got out.

  “Susan! Where are you going?” How funny it was that Anthony was still playing the game—if she got back into the car again nothing would be changed; she would simply have made a rather elaborate joke. Peter and Kay were staring.

  “Let’s go downtown.” Even then Anthony didn’t believe her. No one believed her.

  “The light’s going to change,” Peter said very patiently.

  “Aren’t you coming downtown, Anthony?” She walked carefully to the sidewalk. Everything was racing now. The air was full of eyes. She stood on the curb and waited for something to happen.

  “Listen! Just a minute!” Anthony was scrambling out of the car at last. He leaned through the rolled-down window and whispered something to Peter, who nodded, his face expressionless. Then she saw Peter hand Anthony something—a key. They seemed very businesslike, almost formal. But why didn’t Peter cry out, “Susan, don’t go! What are you doing!” although she might have known he wouldn’t do that—perhaps not even if he cared. Kay would be alone with him now; they might even find the road by the river. Susan smiled at her, wishing that Kay wouldn’t look so concerned; you could tell she was thinking, “Susan’s flipping.” That made it all so dreary, and this was her moment. She had never h
ad a moment.

  The car started forward as soon as the light turned green. Anthony stepped toward her, tall and solemn. “Shall we take the IRT?” he asked awkwardly.

  “Fine.” She hooked her arm through his and they began the march to the subway. I’m doing it, she thought. I’m doing it. I’m doing it.

  For a long time she thought she heard the car just behind them, the machine-gun tick of its innards. Once she looked back, which was silly, because she knew the car had gone in the opposite direction.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “I DIDN’T THINK you’d do it,” Anthony said.

  “What?”

  “Come back with me, I mean.”

  “I said I would.” Susan laughed. For half an hour everything had made her laugh.

  “I kept thinking you’d escape in the subway.”

  “I almost did.”

  “You’re mad,” Anthony said approvingly.

  “All right. I’ll leave right now.” She brushed a lock of hair off her forehead and began to walk sedately, heels clicking, down the hall, but that was only part of the game. She felt fine, like someone in a movie.

  Anthony grabbed her wrist at exactly the right moment. “Sure. Go on. Leave.” They smiled at each other; then they both looked at Peter’s door, which they hadn’t opened yet. “I’ll find the key,” Anthony whispered. He was still holding her hand, as if he didn’t quite know what to do with it. She realized they had been standing in the hallway for a long time, whispering at each other like two children about to do something dangerous. He opened the door and then stepped back and waited for a moment as if he were reluctant to go in, but at last she followed him into the courtyard dreariness of the apartment. “I’ll turn on a light,” he said.

  “Not the overhead light! I hate that.”

  “Okay. The lamp.” He walked to the door, which she had left standing open, shut it, and she heard him fumbling with the chain and for the first time felt frightened.

  “Oh don’t lock it!” she cried.

  “What’s the matter?”