The Unexpected Waltz

by Kim Wright

  When I had finally sobbed myself out I said, “We will never talk of this, never,” and Elyse had said, “Of course not.” What would Jason and his father make of this little story? I may have told Tory too much today, more than I should have, but I will stop short of telling her the most wildly inappropriate thing of all: that when my grand love affair had finally ended, really and truly ended, she herself had been there.

  Tory and I are looking at each other in the mirror. “Don’t be offended,” I say. “But we might need to go back in with some lowlights. Tone it down a bit.”

  “It’s perfect,” she says, with that same irritating certainty her mother has, that same self-satisfied little toss of her head. “It’s like you’ve gone back in time.” She begins to gather up the towels, to throw all the little combs and bottles in her plastic bag.

  “The omelets are ready,” Elyse yells up the stairs. She’s put on “Santa Baby,” Madonna’s version, and it’s so loud I can barely make out her voice.

  I give myself one final glance in the mirror before I push to my feet. Like it or not, Tory’s right. I do look younger.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  IT IS THE Christmas of strange gifts. When she sees the size of the check I’ve tucked inside a card for Tory, Elyse literally throws her hands up in the air. “Kelly,” she says warningly, “you’re too generous.” But the truth is I can’t seem to spend the money fast enough. My checking account is like a bathtub always on the verge of overflowing. I paid Carolina’s mortgage in November and it was lower than my power bill, and I’d asked myself yet again why I have such a big house. Isabel had invited us all over to her apartment one night after group class for a Christmas party. We sat on the fireplace and stairs, balancing paper plates on our knees. And it had been fun, but I still didn’t have the guts to invite everyone to my house the next time and just let them see that okay, yeah, I’m one of those gated-community types.

  For Elyse I found a beaded clutch purse on a Hollywood auction site; they claimed it had once belonged to Elizabeth Taylor. She gives me a bowl. The latest theme of her pottery has been Native American gods, mostly Hopi ones based on kachinas, and my bowl shows this knobby little figure that she swears is the god of dance. She has modeled only his face, putting him down in the bowl and looking up, like he is at the bottom of some horribly deep well.

  “He looks like he’s screaming,” Tory says, which isn’t far from the truth. Elyse’s pottery has always scared me a little. It’s rough and wild and she often puts odd things together so that her figures come out deformed. Now she launches into one of her long and rambling explanations about how children were initiated into adulthood and this god, whose name is Tunwup, snaps at them with his whip until they dance, and the dance is their transition into adulthood. Or something like that. Elyse’s Native American legends never make any sense, but this one is especially odd and Tory and I sit on the couch passing the bowl back and forth while she talks.

  “Well, gee, Mom, that’s just a swell little story,” Tory says when she finishes.

  “It’s sort of like a Native American version of Santa Claus,” Elyse persists. “Because the god isn’t real, of course, it’s just some man from the village with the tribal mask on. And he jumps around and flicks at them with his whip and then when it’s over, and they’ve danced, it’s revealed that he’s only a man dressed to represent the god. You know, he takes off the mask and it’s Uncle Joe or somebody. Explain it to her, Kelly.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to start,” I say.

  “Mom,” Tory says, laughing until she wipes her eyes. “That’s nothing at all like Santa Claus. I can’t believe Aunt Kelly gave you a vintage purse and you gave her some fake uncle god who beats children. It’s not a fair swap.”

  “Of course it is,” Elyse says, leaning back against the couch, smiling. “She gave me something from a goddess and I gave her something from a god.”

  “No, I get it,” I say. “Dance isn’t easy. I like the part about the whips and the initiation.”

  “Precisely,” said Elyse. “You see, honey, your aunt Kelly and I understand each other.”

  “And another thing,” I say, smiling over Tory’s blond head at Elyse. “Each time I look at this bowl I’ll remember that the god of dance is really just a regular man in a mask.”

  “I still think it’s a weird-ass Christmas present,” Tory says.

  TWO DAYS AFTER CHRISTMAS, Isabel and I meet at the food court in the mall. “I’m worried about Nik,” she says, as we huddle over her Panda Express and my Jamba Juice. “I guess you heard his car got keyed.”

  “What?”

  “He didn’t tell you? Now see, I thought if he told anyone, it would be you. But maybe that’s not so weird because he was embarrassed about it. He wouldn’t let Quinn call the cops. And Builder Bob keeps showing up at the studio . . . I don’t think he’s going to rest until he gets our boy out of the country.”

  I feel like she’s kicked me. “Start at the top. I don’t know half of what you’re talking about.”

  “Okay,” she says. “Pamela’s husband is the guy who built the shopping center with the studio, right? Bob Hart. He owns half this side of town.”

  “Yeah, I know him,” I say, thinking back to the pasty-faced man leaning on the doorframe of his study, with all those guns lined up behind his head. “He used to be on the board of hospice.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. He’s big noise. Wants to be in the paper all the time and everybody says he’s not the type who’ll just stand there while his wife runs off with some immigrant kid.”

  “Bob Hart must be worth millions. I can’t see him keying somebody’s car.”

  Isabel took another bite of cashew chicken. “Me either. But he has a bunch of roughnecks working for him and somebody might try to suck up to the boss.” She looks at me archly through the wild tufts of her hair. “And don’t think because he’s always throwing money toward charities that makes him a good guy. He’s already threatened to raise the rent on Anatoly.”

  “I don’t think giving to charities automatically makes you a good guy. Are you saying he’s trying to get Anatoly to fire Nik?”

  “Well, of course he wouldn’t say that, he’d just announce that it’s time to raise the rent. But Anatoly isn’t stupid. He told Quinn he knew way too many men like that back in Russia and that Bob could just suck his cock. I was standing right there when he said it. I mean, these guys talk like Boris and Natasha chasing moose and squirrel half the time but the minute they cuss, they become completely American. The accent goes right down the drain. When Anatoly said ‘Suck my cock,’ I swear it sounded like he was from Kansas.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say. “You can’t have somebody deported because they’re sleeping with your wife. Not even Bob Hart can just call up the government and say ‘I don’t like this guy. Get rid of him.’ ”

  Isabel smiles, but there’s an edge to it, a bit of an eye roll. She’s dealt with this stuff a lot longer than I have. “Nik is on a student visa, but he isn’t a student. Ordinarily, things like that can slide, for months or even for years, but if anything happens that draws attention to the person. You know, they commit a crime or get even halfway involved in some sort of trouble . . .”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know. Anything. Anatoly got a stupid speeding ticket last year before he was legal and just about lost his mind. So Bob could inform the authorities that Nik’s student visa was a hoax or even just keep cranking up the rent on the ballroom until . . .”

  “You don’t think Anatoly would cave, do you?”

  Isabel violently shakes her head. “Builder Bob doesn’t know who he’s messing with. This is Anatoly’s business. His little world. He’s gone through hell and back twice to have his own studio and now he’s the king. And he’s not going to let some redneck, even a rich one, come through
his door and tell him who he can employ and who he can’t. No, I’m not worried about Anatoly selling Nik out or even the shit about the car. I’m worried that Nik is going to feel so guilty that he does something stupid.”

  “I can see that.” Nik knows how much the studio means to Anatoly. And when it comes to making a dramatic gesture for the sake of Pamela, yes, I can see that too. It’s not hard to imagine plenty of scenarios in which Nik’s fatalism would outrun his common sense.

  “He’s a romantic,” Isabel says, spooning up the last of her rice. “And you know what that means. There’s no telling what he might do.”

  "I GUESS YOU FEEL like you have to bail them all out,” Elyse says.

  “Bail who out?” I ask warily, although of course I know. I’ve just left the mall and her voice sounds kind of tinny and weird over the car speakerphone.

  “Carolina. Nik. All of them. Whenever people get into trouble, you rush in to fix it. It’s just what you do.”

  “Rich is the new pretty.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. But I couldn’t bail them out if I wanted to. It’s tied up.”

  “They told you that? Did you ever even ask?”

  The light has changed and the car behind me honks, startling me. “I’m not talking tied up in a legal sense. It’s just that I still think of it as Mark’s money.”

  “My grandmother always said that whenever a woman marries for money, she ends up earning it in the end.”

  “I didn’t marry him for his money.”

  “I know you didn’t. I’m just telling you what my grandmother said.”

  When I get home, I call my lawyer. I’m thinking he might say something about the way I ran out of the charity event. I’ve always wondered how they explained the clothes I abandoned in the ladies’ room.

  As it turns out, he doesn’t mention it at all. In fact, he comes on the line sounding jovial and a little hungover.

  “Let me guess, you overspent at Christmas,” he says.

  “Do you have an immigration attorney in your practice?”

  There’s a pause. “Not specifically. Why? Are you having some problem with your housekeeper?”

  I can’t believe I ever invited this ass to my house for dinner. “No, I need some advice for a friend.”

  “A friend,” he says doubtfully. “We do have someone on staff with a bit of experience. I think he did an internship in Texas.”

  “I need to make an appointment with him. And about the money . . . I can go into the principal if I want to, right?”

  Another pause. Longer. “Is there some kind of problem? Perhaps you and I should have a private talk.”

  “There’s no problem. My housekeeper is fine and I’m fine and I have a ridiculous balance in my checkbook. I’m just asking if I could go into the principal if I wanted to.”

  “It’s your money,” he says, a slight edge to his voice. “You can do anything you want to with it.”

  “Good,” I say. “That’s exactly what I thought.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  JANUARY IS TANGO month in Nik’s group class. After everyone assembles he says that in honor of the New Year, we’re going to try a harder routine and it will open with two pivots into a promenade and then a corte. I know the sequence he’s talking about—we worked on it just the day before in my private lesson. The same thought must have occurred to him because he pulls me out to demonstrate.

  Tango is my best dance, but I’ve never been the model before. Nik puts on the music we’d practiced with, the Bon Jovi song “You Give Love a Bad Name.” It’s surprisingly good for tango, the way lots of old rock music is. He whispers “Three times through” and then we’re off, ripping through the step sequence once, then again and again.

  I feel good. When I drive my thigh between Nik’s for the pivot I am more solidly on my feet than I have ever been. He has me demonstrate again, both the right way and the wrong way, and afterward he says “Thank you,” two words I do not believe I have ever heard come out of his mouth.

  But it isn’t just the pivot. I’m strong in everything tonight. Just strangely on, and it all feels effortless, a runner’s high. People dance weeks and months and years hoping to hit a night like this and for some reason I’m given one. When I go down the line of men, every single one of them is able to do the pivot with me, even though they struggle through the move when they’re with the other women. They struggle so badly that we don’t even get to the promenade and the corte. We spend the entire forty-five-minute class just trying to pivot.

  “Once again, see how Kelly pushes her leg,” Nik is telling the class. He has started adding pronouns and conjunctions more often now, I’ve noticed. Sounding just a bit more American every day. “A pivot depends on the woman and how she places her leg forward and into floor.” He steps back and I stand solid, unwavering, in a pose that looks a bit like a fencer’s lunge.

  “And when we turn, we keep our bodies very connected”—and here he illustrates by pulling me closer, until our hips are almost fused—“and the spin is much faster.” He releases me, stands back. “Spinning is about pulling in lower body, being very tight to partner because this reduces mass. It helps your—”

  And here he looks at me. He knows the word but has trouble pronouncing it. He doesn’t want to risk saying “Moo-mentum” in front of the class.

  “Momentum,” I say. “The closer you are to your partner in the spin, the more you create momentum.”

  “Yes,” Nik says, with a professorial little nod. “Very good.”

  And in that exact second I’m aware that something has changed. Nik now treats me as an equal—more like a partner than a student. At some point something clicked in my head and I guess he must have heard it too.

  We all clomp down to the restaurant after class and of course I end up again in the seat beside Steve. He was especially tough to dance with tonight. I’d had to practically muscle him through the steps. He smiles and moves over a bit as I sit down. He’s been leaning across the table to talk to Valentina. Sometimes he treats the studio like his own little international buffet, making his way down the line of girls with an empty plate, having a little of this and a little of that. Valentina pulls back with a giggle, happy I’m there and she isn’t stuck all alone listening to Steve. She has been trained to be polite—being nice to older men is pretty much her livelihood—and besides she’s sweet by nature. But Steve’s weird combination of arrogance and neediness can wear anyone out. He’s like the male equivalent of Pamela.

  “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you ever since that night with Mary Tyler Moore,” I say, when he finally settles back in his seat with his drink.

  He gives me a look out of the corner of his eye. “What?”

  “Exactly why does your ex-wife have it in for you so bad?” I ask. “What did you do to her?”

  “She’s a dancer,” he says.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No, she’s as good as . . . what’s her name, Pamela? That woman whose picture they keep in the window? Lucy was like that and she always wanted me to dance with her but she was a star. How was I going to catch up?”

  “She didn’t want you to go to competitions with her,” I say, exasperated on behalf of this long-ago wife. “She was just trying to get you to do the social stuff.”

  “Maybe so,” he says, “but what was in it for me? I was just going to be one of those guys stumbling along behind his more talented, better coordinated wife. She gave me lessons for birthdays and anniversaries on more than one occasion, but I never found the time to go. Okay, save your breath. I know I was passive-aggressive or whatever you women call it. I told her I was too busy with my medical practice.”

  “God,” I say, “you were such a husband.”

  Isabel’s voice suddenly rises. She’s having an argument w
ith her end of the table. “Why can’t a woman pay for it?” she’s asking. “If a woman gets to a certain age and is of a certain means, why can’t she put her money on the table and buy it just as good as a man?” Harry is laughing but Valentina has gone silent. I’m not sure if Isabel has noticed.

  Steve nods, drains his drink. “I admit it. I was acting like a husband. So we split up—it wasn’t just that, it was lots of things—and you’ll never guess what I did the day the divorce papers were signed.”

  “You signed up for dance lessons.”

  He grins guiltily. “I’ve taken two hundred eighty-nine lessons in the past three hundred sixty-five days.”

  “Damn. You really are a male whale. We need to start calling you Moby Dick.”

  “Call me every kind of dick you can,” he said. “I know it’s insane. But the minute she stopped nagging me to dance, that was all I wanted to do.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I'VE ALWAYS THOUGHT that the saddest thing on earth is taking down Christmas decorations. Hospice House has stalled until Epiphany, January 6, technically the last of the twelve days of Christmas and thus the absolute dead end by all accounts of the holiday season. But it still gives me a little pang when I pull up in the parking lot and see the maintenance guys pulling the wreaths off the front door. The tree has already been dragged out and is lying by the curb, waiting for recycling like some sort of wounded soldier. I walk over to it, swap off a twig, and smell the pine. Stronger now, the sap higher in it. That final surge of life that trees often get when they’re dying.

  I dread going in. Carolina has been sinking all week. The cold has dragged on and her lungs have gotten worse. It’s obvious to everyone that her immune system has given up. Now she’s unpacked for the last time and put the family pictures back on the bed stand. She’s been sleeping a lot lately, requesting higher doses of medication. I don’t think it’s as much about masking the pain as about masking the disappointment, but I don’t know that for sure and it’s wrong of me to guess.