Dances of the Heart

by Andrea Downing

  Carrie pulled away ever so slightly. She had a sense he was waiting for her to stop him.

  He drew back, his hands again resting lightly on her arms, his gaze most likely assessing the situation written on her face. “You know,” he continued hardly above a whisper, “if I didn’t know better, I coulda swore you were a virgin. But I think I do know better ’cause we got the proof downstairs, don’t we? Is there any chance of you relaxing, or do you just want me to stop?”

  Carrie could feel tears just below the surface, and she angled her head so that she didn’t look him in the eye. “It’s just… It’s…”

  The Texan released her and let out another long sigh. “Well, I’m not gonna force myself on you, Carrie. I can sleep out there on the sofa tonight, and no one will ever know.”

  “No!” There was sudden vehemence in her voice.

  Ray smiled, but it was more a bemused smile than a happy one.

  “I…I’m embarrassed about my body,” she finally blurted out.

  His mouth puckered in bafflement. At last, he countered, “Are you going to be in a bathing suit later or tomorrow?”

  “Ye-e-es” she let out, knowing exactly where he was going with this. “But…”

  His hands went back to her zipper as he leaned in once again to brush his lips along her neck, planting kisses under her ear and working slowly down until he had reached her décolleté and got the zipper down. “I promise you,” he whispered as she let her body yield to him at last, “I won’t look.”

  ****

  Carrie listened to the quiet snores of Ray’s post-coital sleep and glanced at the bedside clock.

  Oh, shit. 6.15 p.m.

  She dragged herself away from the comfort of his body and into her bathroom to shower and get ready, surprised no one had made any attempt to see where she was. Of course not; they would all know, wouldn’t they?

  They would know the fact of it, of course, that she and Ray had made love, hadn’t just been catching up with news the last two hours. But no one would ever know the feel of it, the reality of it, or what it had cost her.

  As his hands gently ran over her arms, slipped off her dress and then reached to unfasten her bra, she had practically screamed for him to stop. Yet somehow, she became aware he wasn’t looking after all—not assessing her, not judging her—and Ray was giving himself to her as tenderly as he was taking what she could give to him.

  Her plain black, silk sheath dress hung in the closet, and it suddenly struck her she had no idea what Ray had to wear. Should she care? She wanted him to be accepted among her friends, to make a good impression, yet, did it really matter? She wanted him; she wanted Ray like she had wanted no other man before him. And whether Diana and Tom Shawcross or the Burlinghams or the Statlers, or any of her other guests liked him, she wanted a future, some sort of damn future with this man who made her laugh, knew her faults, accepted her for what she was. Neuroses and all.

  As she fixed a final diamond stud in her ear and gave herself a once-over in the closet mirrors, she was aware of Ray opening his eyes and quietly making his own appraisal from the bed, his head resting back on his hands.

  “I never seen a finer looking woman than you, Carrie Bennett. Come here and give me a kiss, sweetheart.”

  She fixed on the earring stud and turned with a huge smile for the man in her bed. “I’m going to be late for my own party,” she told him, bending to give him the kiss. “What are you wearing?”

  “Well, therein lies the rub, as I think Shakespeare might say.” Ray shimmied up to a sitting position. “I was counting on New York City so the beach wear is a mite thin on the ground. I brought one Armani suit I happened to have, courtesy of business meetings in Dallas—”

  “Wow! Armani. That’s pretty classy,” Carrie broke in, unable to hide the hint of sarcasm and surprise in her tone.

  “Yup. But no beachwear. No Vilebrequin turtles crawling over me like I see in the Sunday glossies, no classy Lauren polo shirts pretending to be riding wear, nada. Couple of shirts, a black tee for daytime, pair of jeans, and the Armani suit. Whatcha think?”

  “Dig out the black tee, wear it with the Armani suit. Shower and come on down.” Carrie bent and kissed Ray on the lips as his hand brought her in closer, deeper. She sat for a moment on the edge of the bed, staring into his midnight eyes as she tenderly rubbed off a smudge of lipstick left at the corner of his mouth. “You’re pretty wonderful, you know that, don’t you?” she said, gazing at him.

  “We can do this,” he responded, suddenly very serious. “We can do this, Carrie. Part-time here, part-time there. Jake’ll eventually take over the ranch, you know. I can—”

  Carrie got up suddenly. “I have to go downstairs. We can discuss it…tomorrow. Or sometime before you leave. But not tonight. Not tonight. Okay?”

  “Yeah.” He lay there watching her as she slipped into a pair of very high heels, spritzed some perfume around her neck and arms, and proceeded to the door.

  “Actually,” she said, sticking her head back in, “Jeans’ll do. Wear your jeans and the black tee. That’ll be fine.”

  “You sure?” he asked.

  “Absolutely,” she said. “You’ll look great.” She stopped a moment. “Don’t rush. You have plenty of time.”

  “You want me fashionably late?”

  Carrie laughed. “I want you…period.”

  ****

  Ray stood at the upstairs window with a good view of the garden and observed the long stream of cars in the distant driveway spewing out occupants as the vehicles were whisked away by valets. Beyond, he caught a glimpse of the blue-flashing lights of police cars giving a festive air to the proceedings as one or two officers directed traffic.

  Dear Lord, what have I got myself into?

  Coming down to the landing, he stopped for a second as the hum of cocktail conversation greeted him along with a few inquisitive stares. He could have killed for a drink, and a flash of need hit him so strong, for a moment he started to weaken. But then, he wouldn’t embarrass Carrie—if that was what might happen—so, as a waiter passed with a tray, he grabbed a glass of sparkling water. He spotted her mingling with her guests across the expanse of pool mosaic. The need for alcohol passed; like sand running through a timer, it slipped away. And then it wasn’t long before a tall, elegant blonde came up to him, cocktail in hand, husband in tow.

  “Diana Shawcross,” she said. “And this is my husband, Tom.”

  He extended his hand. “Ray Ryder.”

  “I’m Carrie’s long time best friend,” she explained, shoving a crystal-encrusted clutch under one armpit in order to shake Ray’s hand. “Or at least I was her best friend until you came along. I think.”

  “Why don’t you just say, ‘her best girlfriend,’ and we can leave it at that?” he suggested.

  Diana flashed a luminously white smile. “How proprietary of you.”

  “Well,” he mused, studying a proffered tray of hors d’oeuvres and selecting one, “I like to think I’m her best male friend. You don’t happen to know of another one, do you? Well, one that is, shall I say, romantically proprietary?”

  “What do you do for a living, Ray? If you don’t mind my asking,” Tom interjected before the conversation went into deep water.

  “I’ve got a small spread in Texas and run a hunting operation along with Arab horse-breeding.” He popped the canapé into his mouth.

  “And by small you mean, what? Ten thousand acres?”

  Ray’s face puckered for a moment as he stopped chewing and bit his lip. “You know, Tom, back down in Texas, you ask a man how many acres he’s got, it’s sorta like asking the balance of his bank account.”

  “I love Arabs,” Diana put in. “Best horses. You and Carrie will have to come up to our farm in the Berkshires some time.”

  “Well, I’d like that, I’m sure.” Ray caught Carrie’s eye. “If you’ll excuse me; I think I’m being summoned.”

  He moved through the crowd, but got stuck with another
couple, and then another, and then lost Carrie altogether somewhere in the melee.

  A buffet spread was laid out in the side garden, and by ten p.m. most guests were heading that way. Ray spotted Paige looking particularly beautiful in a backless red dress, but only got a nod of acknowledgment as she continued a conversation, drink in hand.

  He put down his empty water glass just as the chill of an icy tumbler hit his neck.

  “Are you all right?” Carrie asked.

  Ray turned to face her. “Well, I could use a little nourishment. Of both the emotional and nutritional variety.”

  “I think I can help you with that.” She leaned in to give him a quick kiss and then looped her arm through his to lead him to the buffet.

  “You sure you want to kiss me in front of all these people?”

  “I just have, and I don’t see the world coming to an end.” She stood with him in the buffet line.

  The constant introductions and repetitive need for small talk were beginning to wear him down. Happy to have Carrie at last by his side, he took her hand and caressed it. “We gettin’ fireworks tonight?”

  “Only in the bedroom. Piping plovers nesting nearby.”

  “Is that a tongue-twister?” He gave her a lopsided smile.

  Carmen suddenly appeared by her side. “One of the servers just spilt a cranberry spritzer on Mrs. Bateman’s dress. I think you better come, Ms. Carrie.”

  “Go on,” Ray told her. “I’ll be fine.” And I’ll see you around three in the morning I guess.

  Carrie leaned in once more and kissed his cheek. “Later,” she repeated, lifting her brows.

  “Oh, what have I unleashed?” And grinning, he wiggled his own right back at her.

  ****

  Music drifted out into the night air with a counterpoint of the waves drumming the shore. Brave couples had started dancing on a small floor set up beyond the pool. Carrie stood contentedly watching her guests before starting to do another round, contemplating her good fortune a damp mist had not rolled in from the sea and the air was calm.

  “He looks like that cowboy in the Viagra ad on TV,” her best friend was saying to a small group.

  “I can guarantee, Diana,” assured Carrie coming up to them, “Ray in no way needs Viagra.”

  Her elegant friend gave her a starchy smile. “Darling, you really did take a rather long time dressing this afternoon.”

  There were knowing smiles in the little group and the jangle of ice in glasses and jewelry on wrists.

  With a sudden sense of empowerment by what she saw as a strong relationship with Ray, Carrie threw back, “Wrong again, Di. I wasn’t dressing.” It felt good; it satisfied her. After all, why shouldn’t she have an adult relationship? She nodded to the group and moved on.

  Ray was in a discussion with the Statlers and she headed toward them. Ben Statler was getting a bit anxious about something and her body tensed in response.

  “Well,” Ray was saying as she approached and stood just behind him, “it’s our sons and now daughters who go off to serve while the eastern Ivy League always finds a way out. You’re about the same age as me, Ben. Did you serve in Viet Nam?”

  The New Yorker stared awkwardly into his drink, then up at Carrie. “I was in university and then law school while the draft was on, Ray. I admit, I got out of it. I don’t think you can blame anyone for not wanting their sons to go off to war.”

  “Well, see, that’s where you’re wrong, Ben,” Ray went on. “Some of us like to think we can, in some way, give back to our country.”

  Paige suddenly appeared. She held a drink in one hand and her shoes in the other. “Do you not think there are other ways to give back to your country, Ray? I mean, do you have to go someplace where you’re likely to be killed just to prove a point? Can you not represent your country, volunteer, do Peace Corps?” She stood, waiting for an answer.

  Carrie put a soothing hand on his shoulder. She could feel him breathing heavily, feel his frustration and anger. She also realized this could drive him to start drinking, understood that he wanted to respond, but wouldn’t embarrass her. Then she sensed his body relax as he got hold of himself.

  “Well, there are two sides to every story, and I think you’re all right,” she finished the conversation, while Ray calmed down. “Are you going to dance with me, mister? I have been waiting all night.”

  “All night, huh?” He put up a peace sign at Ben, then clasped Carrie by the hand. “Well, at least I found out I have one thing in common with your friends,” he noted as she led him away.

  “Oh, really.” She tightened her hand in his. “What’s that?”

  “We’re all Republicans.”

  Carrie had to stop where she stood for a little giggle. Before she was able to move on near the dance floor, the head of catering approached her with a request to try the Irish coffee shots the staff were about to circulate with petit fours.

  Exasperated, she tilted her head at Ray. “We will get to dance tonight. I promise. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

  He just laughed. “It’s fine. I’m just gonna go help myself to the last of that fruit pudding before someone else steals it. I’ll meet y’all later.”

  “Y’all,” she drawled in return, pecking him on the cheek. “Y’all,” she mimicked again as she went off smirking with a little bounce in her step.

  ****

  Paige watched her mother and Ray from a distance. She sat by the edge of the pool and dangled her feet in the water, the color of which transformed through a rainbow from alternating, below-surface lighting. She chatted briefly with one of her friends who now excused himself and left her to finish the champagne in her hand. She put it down beside her and rested back on spread fingers, kicking up a shower of bright water and watching clouds race across the moon like an old-fashioned moving picture show. Ornamental torch lights, strategically placed around the grounds, were beginning to send curls of black into the air like smoke signals that the party might be winding down, nearing its conclusion, but Paige figured it had at least a couple of hours to run. No one would complain about the band playing on past local ordinance times because all the immediate neighbors were here enjoying themselves.

  Thoughts tumbled through her intoxicated brain like papers on the wind she might try to grasp. First there was Jake and his telephone call. As if she had swallowed the worm at the bottom of a bottle of Mezcal, it gnawed at her. She surprised herself, admitting she had been happy to hear from him, hadn’t completely written him off. She rationalized he wasn’t erased from her memory due to Ray’s numerous telephone calls to her mother. The other basis for being happy to receive his call was...well, was there another reason? He’d fulfilled a need, a temporary need. But then, that need might arise again.

  And then there was her mother who had somehow morphed into another person since Ray had come on the scene. Paige tried to debate with herself, think logically. Was she jealous? Did she resent Ray because now her mother wasn’t fawning over her every five minutes, making sure she was all right? Or did it just seem unfair for her mother to be so damn happy while she was unable to move on with her own life?

  Which led her to think of school. It was July now, and she hadn’t confirmed with Penn her intentions to return in September. Admissions wouldn’t like that. What was she doing, living at home, moping? What did she really want to do with her life?

  She watched as Ray, plate in hand, stopped to chat again with Diana and then nodded to Paige through the crowd. He gave her a wave, and Paige started to reach for her shoes with the idea she might like to take a walk on the beach when he was suddenly standing over her.

  “Don’t go, Paige. Mind if I join you?” he got out between mouthfuls.

  “Of course not. Anyway, I meant to tell you Jake called while you were still traveling. He said for you not to worry.”

  He accepted this bit of information, then groaned into a sitting position next to her. He put the plate down on the stone deck and removed his own boo
ts and socks, before rolling up his jeans to dangle his feet in the water beside her.

  “You really don’t give a hoot what people think of you, do you, Ray?”

  He helped himself to another bite of the pudding. She watched as his gaze obviously scanned the show of wealth, of what money, serious money, could buy. “Well. Let me think. The only person whose opinion I really value here—aside from yours of course,” he put in with a smile, “is your mama’s. And I don’t think she would mind me wetting my feet one bit. Fact is, I think she’d just laugh if she saw me. What do you think, Paige?”

  “I think you’re probably right.” She sat with him in silence for a moment, taking no notice of the people moving behind them. “She doesn’t really care about any of this, you know,” she continued. “It was all just to get back at my father, to show him she didn’t need him or his money. Then, of course, she was so successful it just went on. But I don’t think she really cares. Though she does love this house. She’ll come out in the dead of winter sometimes, and I think she really likes it best then, without the people.”

  Ray nodded in agreement. “Well. I think you’re right.”

  He sat for a moment, watching the moon suddenly make a full appearance from behind clouds and cast a wavering reflection out on the ocean. With the fluctuations in the water, the silver disc changed shapes like an amoeba. Paige understood Ray’s fascination with this, but she admitted to herself that was about all she understood about him. Her mother and him. A rancher. A Texan. She made a move once more for her shoes.

  Ray finished the pudding before pushing the plate aside. “You know, I sorta get the feeling, Paige, you don’t like me much, and I have to wonder why? Can you tell me, do you think?”

  She was suddenly alert, assessing her opponent as if in court, then leaned back and grimaced. “I don’t like anyone these days, Ray. It’s not just you. I’m afraid I’m not what you’d call a people-person.”

  “Yeah. I guess I understand. It’s not easy at your age, losing someone you love. Fact is, it’s damn early for that. But I’m afraid that’s what life is, just one long series of losses along the way, but with a whole lot more gains I’m glad to tell you.”