When You Dance With The Devil

by Gwynne Forster

  “You stay to yourself, do you?” Judd Walker observed when he entered the dining room the next morning and sat at a table with Richard, deliberately, with the intention of annoying him, for Richard always sat alone at the little table for two, unless Fannie joined him.

  “I’ve found that a man travels fastest when he travels alone,” Richard replied without moving his gaze from the front page of The Maryland Journal.

  “Where you in a hurry to get to? All I’ve seen you do is walk along the beach. You don’t have to hurry to get to that; it’s been there since the beginning of time, and it’ll probably be there till Judgment Day.”

  Richard put the paper aside and sipped his coffee. “I’m used to being busy.”

  “I suppose you are. Everybody here’s been busier than they are now. All except Lila Mae Henry, the fourth grade teacher. She’s still working. And there’s Percy Lucas. He still drives an eighteen wheeler, though he’s cut down to three days a week on the East Coast. You’re young. Why don’t you go back to work? You’re not sick, are you?”

  Richard leaned back and stared at the old man. “You don’t want my life history, do you?”

  A rumble came out of Judd’s throat in the form of a belly laugh. “I’ll bet it’s interesting. Not many men your age would try to give me my comeuppance. I’ll be eighty-five before this year is up.”

  Richard had thought the man at least ten years younger. “You don’t look it.”

  “That’s because a glass of wine or one bottle of beer is m’ limit, I never smoked, never caroused, and I haven’t made a fool of m’self over women.”

  “I can’t say the same.”

  “I know you can’t. What you running away from? Or should I ask who you running from? When I was your age, I owned and managed one of the biggest canneries in Cambridge, which is why I can do as I please now.”

  Richard suspected that his tolerance for the old man’s meddling was about to expire, but he didn’t want to be rude. Judd didn’t know who he really was and that he was accustomed to some deference. People didn’t sit at his table uninvited and didn’t ask him personal questions, either. He decided to get some answers himself, since the man wanted to talk.

  “Why don’t we get some more coffee and drink it in the lounge?” he asked Judd, “So Rodger and Marilyn can straighten up the dining room.”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  “How long have you been living here?” Richard asked after they settled in the lounge.

  “Thirteen years. I’ve been here longer than any of the present boarders. Fannie opened it a few months before I came. Most of the folks have been here over five years. I couldn’t ask for a better home because I don’t have to do a thing for m’self unless I want to. The place is comfortable, the food is great, and I’m not by m’self. I’m with people I like.”

  “You . . . uh . . . never married?” Richard wanted to know how it felt to live one’s life alone, and maybe lonely, as he was.

  “I’ve been a widower for thirty-one years. We didn’t have any children. I have a niece who keeps in touch with me and a nephew who comes by to see me at Christmas and calls from time to time. My family’s here in this house.”

  He drained his coffee cup. “You’re a remarkable man. I want to get some writing done this morning. See you at lunch.”

  “Looks like it’s gonna rain, so I’ll be down here if you get bored up there.”

  Richard lifted his hand in a slight wave and went up to his room. He had to admit that the conversation with Judd had been a satisfying one, even if it consisted mainly of Judd’s quizzing him. He didn’t have a single person with whom to discuss the situation in the Middle East, the reconstruction of Angola, pollution of the environment, or any of the other issues that had been a part of his daily concerns for the past dozen years. The people with whom he lived had no idea who he was or what he was capable of accomplishing and didn’t care. Why had his Swiss friend thought that he would be content in such a place and among people who didn’t think far beyond their next meal? A gust of wind sucked the curtain out of the window, and he hastened to close his room door. “You can’t look at a book and judge its contents,” Fannie had lectured, and he knew that, but these books seemed to have blank pages.

  I have to find something to do before I go insane. If I could just tell somebody how I feel! Maybe the old man plays chess.

  He closed his window and went back to the lounge where he found Judd reading a newspaper. “You don’t happen to play chess, do you?”

  Judd rested the paper on his right knee, fingered his chin and angled his face toward Richard. “We never did meet properly. M’name’s Judd Walker. Chess? Don’t know the first rule, but I’ll go a few games of blackjack with you.”

  Richard walked up to Judd and extended his right hand. “I’m Richard Peterson, and I’m not very good at blackjack, but I expect you can give me some pointers.”

  “If I wasn’t busy cooking your lunch, I’d take both of you to the cleaners in some cutthroat pinochle.” Richard looked up to see Marilyn standing over him with a glass of lemonade. “It’s pretty hot, Richard, and I figured you could use a little help cooling off.”

  “The air conditioning works fine for me,” he said. “Maybe Judd needs it.”

  “I wouldn’t mind some lemonade,” Judd said, “but that’s not the kind of cooling off Marilyn has in mind.” He leaned back and fixed his gaze on her. “I’m old, but I ain’t deaf or dumb, and m’memory’s fine, so don’t think your insinuations will pass over m’ head. And another thing. M’daddy fathered his last child when he was eighty-seven.”

  “Yeah? I’ll bet you scored a few in your day,” she said to Judd, then turned and left without looking at Richard.

  Nearly a minute passed before Richard absorbed the import of Judd’s words. “You’re a cagey one. I thought she was actually talking about the climate.”

  Judd shrugged. “She’s one you have to watch. If you’re not careful, you’ll be looking for another boardinghouse, though I don’t think there’s another good one anywhere around here.”

  “What’s Fannie’s reaction to having her boarders move because her cook crowds them a bit too closely?”

  Judd’s laugh did not reassure Richard. “Fannie’s practical. A room never stays vacant more than a week or ten days, but where’s she going to find another cook like Marilyn? The woman’s cooking is legend in these parts, and she’s completely dependable.”

  Richard didn’t like what he was hearing. Estelle was the last woman he’d wanted, and a fire for her still burned hotly within him, but he knew himself well. If he got the itch, he’d let any woman who appealed to him scratch it, and Marilyn’s age didn’t detract from her blatant sexiness.

  “She’s too old to play games,” he said to Judd.

  “Don’t fool yourself. She’ll play, and so will you.”

  “Time was, but those days are behind me.”

  Judd reached down to the bottom shelf of the coffee table, picked up a pack of cards and shuffled them. “You can be certain of that when they lay you in a box.” He shuffled the cards again. “Cut.”

  That afternoon, just before five o’clock, Jolene telephoned Gregory as he left his office. “I just wanted to try out my new phone on you. Where are you?”

  He had expected her to call earlier, but it pleased him that she used discretion about contacting him while he was at work. “I’ve just left the office. If you’re not busy, I could drive by your place, and we could spend a couple of hours together.”

  “I’d like that. I got two phone calls today about possible job opportunities, and I’m thinking about taking the job in Salisbury. How would I get there?”

  “We’ll talk about that when I see you, which should be in about twenty minutes.”

  To his surprise, she didn’t wait for him to ring the doorbell but stepped out of the door as he parked in front of the house. He didn’t know what to think of that and wasn’t sure he liked it. However, he had
no reason for suspicion, so he dismissed it, supposing that she was eager to be outside in the near-perfect weather.

  He got out of the car and went to meet her, bent down and kissed her quickly on her lips. Her eyes widened, and she looked back toward the front door, leading him into a moment of self-examination. He asked himself why he’d kissed her on the mouth and didn’t have an answer. Surely, he knew better than to be impulsive when it came to women. He also wanted to know who she thought might have seen the innocent kiss and whether that person had a special interest in it. He opened the passenger door for her, went around and seated himself.

  “There’s a bus going to Salisbury every hour on the hour daily, and from seven to nine in the morning, it leaves on the half hour as well. You get it on the corner of Bay Avenue and Ocean Road right by Joe’s Watering Hole.”

  “That’s only two blocks from the boarding house.”

  “Right.” That settled, he had some questions for her. “Where did you go to school, Jolene?” He pulled away from the curb and headed toward Ocean Pines.

  “In Hagerstown where I grew up. I only finished high school. Mama said I didn’t need to waste money on college. She wouldn’t even buy me a prom dress.”

  He reached across her and flipped on the radio. “Something tells me I didn’t miss anything important by not meeting her. She sounds like a hard woman.” He noticed that Jolene played with her hands, lacing her fingers, buffing her nails on her thigh, and resting her hands intermittently on her knees, her belly, and in her lap. Yet, she hadn’t spoken as if she were nervous.

  “I’ve been blessed,” he said, musing aloud. “As a child, my parents doted on me. They still do. We’re a loving family. Very close and always there for each other. I doubt anybody had less money than we had. I wore shoes to school that had holes in them, and you could see all ten of my toes, but I was a happy child.”

  “Didn’t your feet get cold?”

  “What do you think? Sometimes I thought that they had frozen. But I didn’t complain, because I knew that whenever my parents got a few cents to spare, they spent it on me. As long as I’m living, they won’t want for anything. I’m building them a retirement home.”

  “Before you build a home for yourself?”

  His head snapped around. “Why do you ask that?”

  She moved from her slouched position and sat erect. “I think it means you’re unusual.”

  “Maybe I am.” He didn’t like the turn of conversation, but he had to give her the benefit of the doubt. From what she’d told him, she hadn’t had much experience with give and take, except that she gave, and her mother and grandmother took.

  She seemed thoughtful, and he waited until she spoke. “I hope you don’t mind my asking why you haven’t married.”

  It was a fair question. “I borrowed every penny of my college tuition and, with the low-paying jobs I was able to get until recently, it took me ten years to repay the money. I got engaged a while after that, and it proved to be the biggest mistake of my life; she wasn’t what I’d thought. I saw all the signs and ignored them, so you could say it was my fault I got mired in that relationship. Since then, I haven’t allowed myself to step into the trough of romance. You might say I’ve been wary. The moral of the story is, never lower your standards.” She didn’t like that, but she didn’t know why.

  In Ocean Pines, he turned off Route 90 into Harpoon Road and stopped. “Want some ice cream?” he asked Jolene. “I can’t resist an ice cream truck. When I was little, there wasn’t any money for ice cream.”

  “Thanks. I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

  He bought them each a cone of butter pecan ice cream and, with the driver’s door open, sat with one foot on the pavement and the other in the car while he ate his.

  I’ve spent two afternoons with her, he thought, but I haven’t learned much more about her than I knew when I met her. I want her, but if she wants me, she’s damned clever at hiding it.

  He put his left foot into the car, closed the door, started the engine and headed back to Pike Hill and the Thank the Lord Boarding House. Surely, a feeling as strong as his couldn’t be one-sided. Inside the foyer, he pressed his lips to her cheek.

  “See you at church Sunday?” She nodded, but her gaze unsettled him. He didn’t try to decipher it. In due course, he’d know what he needed to know. One thing was certain: He didn’t plan to come out of it the loser.

  A glance at the big clock in the foyer told Jolene that she had nearly an hour before supper, time to relax and wash up. Gregory thought a lot of her, she was sure of it. Ambling upstairs, she hummed, “In the Sweet Bye and Bye,” one of her mama’s favorite songs.

  She stopped humming and turned around when Arnetha Farrell, a retired nurse’s aide, called to her. “Girl, you sure are a fast worker,” Arnetha said, a big grin exposing the gold that framed her two upper front teeth. “I never would a thought it of you. So quiet and all. But they say still waters run deep.” A tall woman with dark, ashy skin and in the habit of wearing more makeup than would suit a teenager, Arnetha was both imposing and comical.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jolene said.

  “Come on, now.” Arnetha’s voice dripped with honey and warmth. “I saw Gregory Hicks kiss you right there in the foyer. Half the young women at church are after him, but you been here three weeks or so, and he’s already kissing you. Girl, you go get ’em.”

  “We’re only friends,” Jolene said, exasperation giving a sharpness to her voice, and headed up the stairs.

  “Only friends! Did you hear that? Only friends don’t kiss,” she heard Arnetha say to someone.

  “You have to watch ’em nowadays,” a female voice replied. “I hope Fannie knows what she’s doing letting everybody in here. This has been a decent, peaceful place, but before you know it, the house will be crawling with every Tom, Dick, and Harry who’s after a roll in the hay.”

  “You said it,” Arnetha replied. “I don’t know what these young people are coming to.”

  Jolene turned and walked back down the stairs. “How are you, Miss Arnetha? Miss Louvenia? After listening to you two, I’ve just decided not to go to church tomorrow. I always thought my mother was a big hypocrite, but the two of you make her seem saintly.”

  Without waiting for a reaction, she went to her room and called Gregory on her new cellular phone. “I’ve decided not to go to church tomorrow,” she said after greeting him. “I’ll explain it when we meet.”

  “I see. Well, there isn’t much to do around here on Sundays except see a movie, and we’ve seen the one that’s playing.”

  If he was trying to avoid seeing her, he could forget it. “Then let’s drive over to Ocean City or maybe Salisbury.”

  His silence lasted too long for her comfort. “I’ll be over right after church,” he finally said, but she detected a change in his tone.

  Maybe I should have gone to church, but I didn’t feel like watching those two old biddies shouting and praising. They’re as mean as my mama was.

  “We’ve got company for supper tonight,” Fannie announced that evening before saying the grace. “Joe Tucker’s kid brother, Bob, is with us. Welcome, Bob. Let’s bow our heads.”

  Bob Tucker, sitting between Jolene and his brother, Joe, fidgeted throughout the prayer. “You seem out of place in this bunch,” he said to Jolene. “What’re you doing here?”

  She focused on the plate of soup in front of her. “Telling will take too long.”

  “In that case, how about going down to Joe’s Watering Hole with me after we eat?”

  “Not tonight, Bob.”

  “You got a date?”

  “I have something to do.” She wanted to go with him, but couldn’t bring herself to risk it, and she knew he could read the eagerness on her face.

  He put his spoon down and let his gaze roam over her face. “All right. How about next weekend and we go over to Baltimore and check out the scene? This place is dullsville.”

>   Excitement coursed through her. “I’ll let you know.”

  “All right. What’s your name?”

  “Jolene Tilman. You live around here?”

  “Naah. I live just outside of Ocean Pines. We’ll get together next Saturday or Sunday.”

  “Bob’s not overloaded with compassion for people,” Joe Tucker told Jolene the next morning at breakfast. “He’s not going to do anything wrong; too much pride for that. But he looks out for himself, and anybody else, male or female, can catch as catch can.” She suspected that he’d rushed to breakfast early in order to warn her about Bob, for he hadn’t buttoned the cuffs of his red shirt.

  His stern expression gave her the willies, but only momentarily. If Bob would take her to Baltimore a few times, maybe she could find a job there instead of in Salisbury. She had money from the funds her mother left her and from the sale of the house, but she didn’t intend to spend a penny more of it than was absolutely necessary.

  “So what was your reason for not coming to church this morning?” Gregory asked her as soon as he drove away from the boarding house that Sunday afternoon.

  He listened to her tale of Arnetha’s comment and Louvenia’s speculations about her with barely any interest. But when she added, “I couldn’t appreciate a church service with those two women amening and shouting all around me,” his head snapped around, and she thought he braked abruptly.

  His stare held anything but the warmth and compassion she had associated with him. Indeed, it seemed hostile. “I hope you’re kidding,” he said.

  Realizing that she had dropped a few notches in his estimation, she hastened to redeem herself by playing upon his sympathy. “I hope I’m going to see you on my birthday, since you’re my only good friend.”

  He rubbed his chin slowly and, she didn’t doubt, thoughtfully. “Your birthday is when?”