Dancing Ladies

by Marilyn Gardiner

  After minimal negotiations, it was agreed that Max would go home with Big Lionel after ball practice and spend the night. Telephone numbers were exchanged, permissions granted all around, and she hung up.

  Kate had just pushed the button to close the garage door when the phone, right beside her on the kitchen wall, rang again. Startled, she jumped a foot, heart galloping.

  Her hand on her chest, she stood staring at the receiver. Behind her the refrigerator rumbled quietly, the TV blared from the other room and somewhere Babe's toenails clicked on the floor. None of it was important beside the incessant ring of the phone. For a second, her knees were weak. They—whoever they were—were calling again. She knew it, felt it in her chest. She'd pick up the phone and there would be no one there. Someone was playing tricks on her. Cruel tricks.

  Oh, come on, she thought, it's probably Bree. Or Spence. Maybe someone selling something. You're making too much of this. Just pick up the phone.

  Hand only a bit shaky, she reached for the receiver. Again no one there.

  "Hello,” she said, louder, pressing the phone harder to her ear. “Hello!"

  No answer.

  Her stomach clenched, and her brain felt numb. But she was positive she heard the barest whisper of sound, as if someone was breathing very softly.

  Leah? Can it be Leah making the phone ring? Do ghosts use telephones? And what would be the point? Leah's style was to scare people out of their wits and then laugh. And the first thing they knew, they'd be laughing right along with her. She'd always had a kind of “witchery” about her, but nothing evil. Not even mean. She was quick and magical, somehow. Almost everyone loved her.

  But ghosts! What Kate knew about ghosts would fit comfortably on the head of a pin with room left over. Maybe she ought to make a stop at the public library and do some research.

  Very carefully, she put the receiver into the drawer beneath the counter and pushed it closed. Let them sit on the other end and wonder what had happened. At least they couldn't call her again. Not for a little while anyway.

  She could be getting paranoid about this whole phone thing. Most likely she really was making too much of it. Just back off and relax. Practice deep breathing and think lovely thoughts. Right, except that it didn't work. Her brain seemed focused on the phone, silent now, hidden in the kitchen drawer. At least it was quiet.

  After BLTs and applesauce, Kate sat in the hammock chair on the back porch and tried to organize her thoughts. She ticked items off on her fingers. She had to do something about the mower, but what? The height of the grass was going to reach crisis proportions before long.

  She needed to call Maryland and order more paint; she was almost out of both magenta and resist. But not this minute.

  She still hadn't returned the call from Joe Kiniki in New York. That was top priority. He'd left a message day before yesterday. Maybe he had another commission for her. But she couldn't call him when she felt so frazzled. He'd pick up on it in a minute and never believe she was just sleep-starved.

  Max wouldn't be home tonight. Maybe she'd get a good night's sleep. She grunted. Yeah, right! Max wasn't the problem.

  She wished with all her heart for her Dad. He'd always been good with Leah. He'd know how to stop this whole thing. A hard lump lodged in her throat and she fought back tears. Dad wasn't here now. She'd have to handle Leah by herself.

  Wiping a trickling tear from her cheek with a thumb, she got up and wandered up the stairway. She'd work awhile and then attack the mower again. But for some reason, she walked right by the workroom and stopped in the doorway of the room she and Leah had shared for so many years. There were a lot of happy memories here, as well as sad ones.

  Idly she ran her hand over the glass-topped dresser on Leah's side of the room. Leah had sat here countless hours making up her face. She'd had enough cosmetics, Dad had teased, to start her own shop. Here was her jewelry box, twice the size of Kate's. Until her junior year, Kate had been more interested in softball and track than makeup and boys.

  She picked up a snow globe from the top of a bookcase and looked across the room to find the identical one on the matching bookcase against the other wall. Kate smiled at the snow swirling around a pirouetting ballerina. “Santa” had brought them the year they were eight. By that time, Leah had added tap to her ballet lessons. Leah excelled at dance. Kate had only been adequate, and far less interested.

  Watching the snow swirl, Kate remembered the summer Leah spent hours wearing a catcher's mitt, catching balls Kate fired to her. That was the summer Kate aspired to be a pitcher. Ultimately second base claimed her, and she no longer needed Leah to help her practice. Leah couldn't throw a ball across the backyard, let alone the distance Kate required to hone her skills. But for one entire summer, Leah uncomplainingly carried a permanent bruise in the palm of her left hand from catching the balls Kate threw.

  Her head came up, and she stared, unseeing, out the window. Was something else going on here, maybe? Could Leah possibly be trying to help her? Warning her about something, or ... No. No, that was silly. No one was threatening her. A year ago, maybe two years ago it could have been Huey, but not now. Now she had a dependable roof over her head and money in the bank. Not a lot, but still ... Now she had a great deal to be thankful for. Huey was out of the picture and Max was playing ball, and happy.

  Yet the thought persisted. Was it remotely thinkable that Leah had protection in mind rather than harm? The question remained, however—protection from what? From whom?

  Kate replaced the snow globe and went down the hall to her fabric and paints. It wasn't a puzzle she was going to solve right then. And work was waiting. And Max's ball practice.

  Before she drove Max to the practice field, she must remember to take the phone out of the drawer and replace it on the hook. Then what? She'd have a dozen blank messages on the answering machine, that's what. She'd had six day before yesterday, and seven the day they'd gone on their picnic. How many was too many before she could decide to do something about it? And what then?

  She could always call the police and have them thinking she was a nut case. Of course, she didn't have to tell them she thought the culprit was likely the ghost of her sister who had been dead for ten years. Maybe they could do something. But if not ... If not, it might somehow get back to Huey that his former wife, Max's mother, was imagining things. Wasn't stable. Oh God. She needed to avoid something like that at all costs.

  No. She couldn't call the police. Incoming calls could be blocked, but then she'd never know what was going on.

  Her head dropped forward on her chest. And she still couldn't start the mower.

  An alternative, however, might be to call a friend who had urged her to do so. She would put her pride in her pocket and dial the numbers she had committed to memory, and ask for help.

  "Hi, it's Kate."

  "Kate. Well, Kate. Hi,” Cass said. He didn't sound annoyed at the interruption. He sounded ... He sounded glad to hear her voice. “What can I do for you? Is there a problem? Is Leah—"

  "No. Nothing like that.” In the background she could hear the cacophony of building. Men calling to one another, hammering, the engine of some large piece of equipment grinding away.

  "I won't keep you, but I'm taking you up on your offer of help. I can't seem to figure out how to start this monster Dad mowed the lawn with. I'd really appreciate it if you could stop over some time when you have a few minutes and teach me how to get it going."

  "Sure. How about after ball practice this afternoon?"

  "Great. If you're sure it's not a problem."

  "No problem at all. Glad to help.” Pause. “How're you doing? Everything quiet?"

  "Yes. Everything is fine. I just didn't realize how fast grass grows. I used to help Dad before I left home, but what we used then was nothing like this thing. It galls me to admit defeat, but the lawn is going to be higher than the corn in the fields if I don't get it cut soon."

  "Consider it done. I'll take care of
it this evening."

  Sigh. “Thanks Cass."

  "Right. See you at the diamond."

  She slumped in relief. It was amazing how solving one problem helped the rest fall into place. Now, Maryland. She'd made the call often enough that she was on a first name basis with everyone there. Then Joe Kiniki. And that would be three problems down, leaving only Leah and the phone calls. And the strange car with darkened windows that often parked outside. She'd think about them later.

  * * * *

  Babe made a fuss, as usual, at being left at home but Kate hardened her heart and closed the door on the dog's pleading eyes. Ignoring Max's whining all the way to the ball park was something else.

  "But he gets lonely, all alone. Please, Mom."

  "Max, we are not taking Babe to the field with us and that is final. We'll not go through this every day. We will not! You will either shut up about it, now, or we'll turn around and go home. You can call Cass and tell him you are resigning from the team. One or the other. Is that clear?"

  He flopped back in his seat with his lower lip pouting.

  "Do you hear me?

  "Yes!"

  "Which is it to be?"

  A flash of angry eyes. “Ball!"

  "Are we clear on that? No more whining?"

  "Yes! No!"

  "I'm glad to hear it. The team needs you."

  There was silence all the way across town to the ball field.

  It was the usual practice, Cass working with several kids at a time on base running, another dad off in a corner of the field teaching other kids hold the bat properly, and Kate turned from the fence finally to look for a place to sit in the bleachers. As she turned, she noticed an older man in a straw hat and white shirt looking at her. She realized, suddenly, that she had surprised him looking at her before. This wasn't the first time. He was at most practices and all of the games.

  She took a seat a row behind him, put on her sunglasses, slathered sun shade all over, and tried to pretend he wasn't there. He looked vaguely familiar. A head full of white hair and a nice tan for a man of his age.

  He turned several times, his gaze scanning over her anonymously, and she was aware that his attention seemed to be more on her than the game. She glanced down to see what she was wearing: white clam diggers, a pink striped tank top and woven, mahogany brown slides on her feet. Certainly not a fashion figure. All the other mothers looked much the same. Why was he watching her?

  She'd always assumed he was here to watch a favorite grandson practice. Maybe he had another agenda. Uncomfortable, she kept a wary eye on him while watching the kids on the field.

  At the end of the practice, while she was waiting for Max to come off the field, he passed her on his way to the parking lot and tipped his hat in an old fashioned gesture. She nodded in return and watched him walk carefully across the pitted field, scrubby with struggling patches of grass growing between the holes. He did not turn around, but got behind the wheel of an ancient Lincoln and drove away.

  Somehow, she had the feeling she ought to know him. She recognized most of the people in town. He was vaguely familiar.

  She forgot all about him then, for Max hit her like an avalanche, demanding his back pack containing everything required to survive the night away from her. He was so excited he could hardly talk.

  "My Game Boy?"

  "It's in there."

  "The Black and White game?"

  "Nope."

  "Okay, we'll play his Play Station game. Bye Mom. I'll see you."

  "Be good now. Mind Lionel's mother and—"

  "Sure. Bye."

  She spoke briefly with Lionel's mother, said to call if there was any problem, and waved them off.

  Driving home, she felt the least bit lonely, but spending the night with a friend was a rite of passage so to speak. One step up the ladder to maturity. And then she had to swallow hard. When Max grew up, she'd have nobody. She might have had Leah, if only ... If only.

  The public library was on the way home and she stopped, briefly, to check out three books on ghostly phenomenon. She finally found what she was looking for under “parapsychology: the study of the paranormal. Psychic phenomenon.” One book looked almost too spooky to read, with a photo on the front of a so-called haunted graveyard and an unexplained blob that could possibly have been a human figure hovering overhead. She wasn't sure she'd ever open the cover on any of them. To do so would somehow be to admit she half-way believed in Leah's nocturnal mischief.

  Just as she pulled in the driveway, another car screeched to a stop at the curb. There was no mistaking Ruby June's vanity license plate reading WUPEDO. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat with a huge, floppy artificial rose attached, and was waving something shiny in the air.

  "Is Max here?"

  "No, I'm sorry. He went home for the night with a friend.” Kate walked down to the curb and leaned over to look in the window.

  "Oh. Well, I'll give it to you. Actually it's for the puppy. He was our favorite and Pearly June and I thought we'd just get it for him. See it has his name on it."

  "It” was a small heart-shaped name tag with “Babe” printed on it, with Max as the owner and his telephone number.

  "You attach it to his collar, and then he'll never get lost. See?"

  "Oh Ruby June. This is very sweet of you. Max will be so pleased. Won't you come in for a minute?"

  The sky was a big, inverted bowl of stunning light and heat. Kate felt as if she were frying on a griddle, standing in the full glare of the sun.

  "No, I got to get on home. We're going to the Whistle Stop tonight.” The ragtime piano-playing joint south of town really jumped on weekends. Kate had heard about it, but never been there.

  "Sounds like fun."

  "Got in the habit years ago when we were all kids and we'd go to the Whistle Stop on Friday night, and somebody's house, the whole gang of us, on Saturday night and watch television and eat popcorn. Your mom's folks had the first TV in town. Did you know that? We went to her house, more often than not."

  "Really? I hadn't heard that story."

  "Your mom and her boyfriend. They were the most popular couple in town."

  "My mom and dad?"

  "Well, not your dad. He wasn't around yet."

  "Mom had a boyfriend other than Dad?"

  "Well, surely you didn't think he was the only one wanted her, did you? Your mom was the belle of the town back then. I thought old T. Roy was going to die of heartbreak when she dumped him for your dad. He'd had a clear field until then and he wasn't used to being thwarted."

  Kate was almost bug-eyed. “How could I never have heard of him? What happened to him?"

  "T. Roy? He's around. He farms big-time. Raised a lot of Cain and a couple of kids who are not doing him proud I'm sorry to say. He's dabbled in local and state politics for years but never ran for office for some reason. Made a bunch of money on the stock market, I hear, and hires his farm work done now. He's probably the wealthiest man in the county.” She rolled her eyes.

  "I've heard of him, but I wonder why I never met him"

  "You did meet him. He came to the funeral home when your mother died. I saw him talking to you."

  And all of sudden she remembered.

  Was he the poet? She did remember now, years ago, her dad teasing her mom about the poet she used to date. The one who could recite Shakespeare by the ream. She'd never connected him to a name, however, and certainly never to the steady-sounding kind of boyfriend Ruby June made him out to be.

  She said, “He's the man who came up to me at the viewing with tears in his eyes. He looked at Mother's picture on the coffin and said, ‘She was always such a pretty girl'."

  "Yes, and then he said, ‘And you look a lot like her.’ I heard him. That was T. Roy."

  "T. Roy what?"

  "T. Roy Blankenship. Has a huge farm out north of town. Been known to pop a cork once in awhile, but a fairly decent man, I think."

  Into the silence, while Kate thought about this,
Cass's Jeep pulled up behind Ruby June.

  "I'm off,” Ruby June said, gunning the engine. “Got a cake at home waiting to be iced.” With a wave she was gone.

  Cass unfolded himself out of the vehicle. “Let's take a look at that monster you were talking about.” He grinned. “Can't be all that bad."

  "Worse. It's a brontosaurus. A wicked one. With teeth. It's in the garage."

  There was something satisfying in watching a man work with his hands. Something safe and secure and take-charge. A tight little ball of anxiety inside Kate seemed to loosen in the time it took him to coax the engine to gurgling life. In three minutes Cass had the mower running and drove it out into the sunlight. “Let me take a turn around the yard to make sure it's cutting smooth,” he called, and took off cutting a wide swath along the sidewalk, beneath the maple and around the rose bed.

  Kate stood on the driveway and watched for a few minutes, but when he didn't stop she went inside to make a pitcher of iced tea and set out a plate of chocolate cherry drop cookies on the back porch. When he still didn't stop, she went out and stood once more on the driveway, watching.

  He called, “I'll just finish the front.” And, not waiting for an answer, he mowed on, up one strip and down the next, around the white painted rocks surrounding the ornamental pear tree and skirting the front steps. He disappeared around the corner of the house and didn't return. Kate realized he was mowing the back and moved in that direction so she could see him.

  She admired her mother's lily bed as he wheeled around it. The colors were alternately stunningly vivid and softly muted. Right in the middle is where the statue used to stand. Unbidden the thought rose, and just as quickly her mind shied away from the hurtful memory. I won't think of the statue. Not today. Today was a day for smiles. The sun was shining. At least she hadn't needed to run the seeper hose in weeks. Not with all the rain. The ground was nearing the saturation point. Any rain that fell now would just run off.

  Cass mowed at an angle across the yard, just like her dad. What difference could it make which direction the lawn was mowed? Somehow it seemed to be important to men. She shrugged.

  When Cass finally cut the engine and stepped off, she said, “I didn't mean for you to do my mowing. I only wanted you to show me how to start it. I can do it myself."