The Unexpected Waltz

by Kim Wright

  “Did she get to the end of it?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “The movie she was watching? Did she make it all the way to the end before she died?”

  The nurse hesitates. She must think it is a strange thing to ask, and I guess in the overall scheme of things it is. “I don’t know,” she says.

  “Because Suddenly, Last Summer is a very dark movie,” I say. “It has cannibalism and lobotomies and all sorts of awful things and I’d hate to think she died before Montgomery Clift saves Elizabeth Taylor. I’d hate to think she never knew it was okay, because some of the most unlikely stories end happily, you know, some of the ones that seem the most hopeless turn out just fine, and I’m not sure she ever knew that. I’m not sure I told her.”

  “I don’t know when she passed,” the nurse says cautiously. “But I think I heard someone say they cut the movie off.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I see . . . not a rest area, but one of those places where they weigh trucks. I pull off and roll to a stop, the car bumping as the wheels struggle through the unmown grass. I manage to say the right things to the girl on the phone. The things she expects me to say, the things that will reassure her I haven’t lost my mind and get her to hang up and leave me in peace. Then I roll down the windows and cut off my car and lean back, popping the seat belt loose with one hand and turning the visor against the sun with the other. And I begin to cry.

  Sobbing is a relief after the last forty-eight hours and I give into it, until I am not sure anymore exactly why I am crying, for what or for whom. My little car, so vulnerable and so badly parked, trembles anew at each semi that rumbles by it, and each tremor sets off another small hiccup of grief. And then, when the weeping fit finally subsides, I just sit for a moment, smelling the diesel fuel fumes from the trucks out the open window, my eyes fixed on one tiny daffodil standing alone in the clumps of grass. Premature and probably destined to freeze, but focusing on it calms me and I take a sequence of deep breaths until I’m sure I’m not going to faint or throw up or anything.

  I start the car again. Roll up the window and turn on the radio and fasten my seat belt and ease back onto the exit ramp, and then the truck lane, and then the general highway. I point the car toward Charlotte and let it drive me home. There’s nothing else to do.

  THE HOSPICE CHAPEL SEES a lot of use. People who die alone have their services here, like Miss Eula, whose memorial was only attended by the staff. And people like Carolina, who, despite the plaque I saw that day on her wall, apparently had no particular religious affiliation.

  So she gets the boilerplate service, but at least she does have a crowd. Her sisters are in the front row, flanking her sons. The boys appear to have new suits for the funeral. They don’t cry, but then again, maybe boys that age can’t cry. There’s at least a dozen middle-aged ladies sitting behind them, who I guess came from the hair salon where Carolina used to work, and they’re grieving hard enough to make up for everybody.

  In this sea of wailing women, the thin, bushy-haired man stands out. I suppose he is the ex-husband, or at least the father of her sons. They look just like him. I noticed that he greeted the boys when he came in but then stood back obligingly while Virginia put a hand on each nephew’s shoulder, pulling them away from their father, as if he were the edge of a canyon.

  Is this the man Carolina loved but did not forgive?

  The hospice chaplain claims that he can do any kind of religious ceremony, but it’s closer to the truth to say he does the same service for every client, be they Catholic, atheist, Baptist, or Jew. He has a gentle, abstracted quality. He certainly knows his Bible verses and prayers by heart, but he checks his notes as he rises to greet the congregation, presumably to confirm the name and a few particulars of the deceased. When I came in, I noticed that someone else was already moving into Carolina’s room. Boxes and a scruffy recliner waited in the hall while they rearranged the furniture, along with the man himself, who sat in a wheelchair and stared down at the floor in front of him.

  One slides out and another slides in, I think, as I watch the bushy-haired man take a seat in the last guilty row of the chapel. We are all replaceable.

  CAROLINA REQUESTED CREMATION. MOST of the ashes go to her boys, and the rest come to me, in a smaller urn along with a note in Carolina’s handwriting, instructing me to take her to places she hadn’t yet visited. “Which should not be hard,” she had written, “considering I never went anywhere.”

  So I leave the memorial service with her last shy joke and a small, surprisingly heavy urn. It’s in the trunk of my car as I drive to the dance studio. There’s less than a week before the Star Ball, and I’ve booked a double lesson. I don’t know how much Nik may have heard about Carolina, or where I’ve been for the last five days, but he greets me with a hug and says I should come and talk to him while he puts on his shoes. I follow him over to his desk where he sits down and rather ostentatiously leaves the top drawer open while he bends to tie his laces, giving me plenty of time to see that the manila envelope is there. I suppose it’s his way of showing me that my words did not fall on utterly deaf ears.

  “What song do you want to dance to?” he asks.

  “Norwegian Wood,” I say. It’s my favorite for Viennese waltz. I sing out loud as we walk to the center of the floor. “I once had a girl . . . or should I say, she once had me.” He looks at me with the sweet, patient, serious expression that I will always associate with him, and I start trying to explain what it all means. How sometimes the people we think are under our control actually have us under theirs and that sex, even when seemingly casual, has the power to change our whole life. And how some people think it’s about drugs, or how others think that there’s no meaning at all beyond the surface and people will always read things into things, won’t we? It’s what people do.

  He listens to me for a few seconds and then he pulls me into hold.

  “Darling,” he says. “Shut up and dance.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THE STAR BALL is on a Saturday in the middle of March. We agree to meet at the studio early, around three in the afternoon. I drive in my bathrobe, with my armor-suit of underwear on beneath, and my ball gown strapped into the passenger seat like some sort of headless queen. My fancy Italian competition shoes arrived via UPS last week and, remembering the girl who was bleeding through hers at the Holiday Classic, I’ve worn them around the house every day in an attempt to break them in. But now they are in their silk drawstring bag, waiting, along with the jeweled headband I will wear in my hair, my long drop earrings, and a sparkling butterfly-shaped ring I ordered from the same Italian catalog. Nik helped me pick these things out, both of us peering through the pages and debating the advisability of one accessory over another. He especially liked the ring, which he said would catch a judge’s eye even in motion, even from across the room. I protested it was ridiculously big, the jewelry equivalent of a Cadbury egg, but he said the size would accentuate the fact that I have very nice hand position, that I rest my fingertips on his shoulder at just the right angle, with my ring finger and pinky well lifted. Nice to know, after all this time, that he thinks at least one thing about me is graceful.

  So for the first time in twenty years I am in public without my wedding ring. And, even stranger to contemplate, I have taken it off because it’s too small.

  Anatoly has hired a stretch limo to drive us all to the competition—a huge white monstrosity that’s already parked in the back when I arrive, with a scary-looking driver leaning against the hood. I struggle through the door with my dress and see that Quinn has begun lining people up for hair and makeup. I want a simple chignon, and she decides to take me first, saying this is a style that will stay up for hours while the more elaborate ones, like the high stiff waves that Isabel has requested, need to be done at the last minute. Considering how much hair spray Quinn uses, it doesn’t seem like it would really matter what order she
takes us in. Jane told me that, after the Holiday Classic, she’d gotten into the shower and the water had literally planed off the side of her head, splashing the wall like rain coming off a tin roof. She’d had to put an entire bottle of conditioner in her hair and then sit on the bed for an hour, watching TV, and try it again. Even then the texture of her hair felt odd for a week. “Don’t let Quinn fool you,” she said, “once that shit goes up, it takes an act of God to get it back down.”

  I find a place at Quinn’s makeshift table. Valentina, Jane, and Isabel are already in their dresses, taking turns warming up with Anatoly and Nik, who are both still in practicewear. Harry and Steve are sitting over by the bar. Quinn is making my hair so tight that my eyes are watering, but I don’t complain. Or maybe my eyes are watering because I remember the last three times a person has touched my head: Carolina’s gentle hands anchoring that single rose at Christmas, the quick palms of Tory blonding me a few days later, and finally Daniel, stroking my hair as we fell asleep on the tall white bed. Stop it, I tell myself. Don’t think of any of that. If you let yourself start crying, you’ll never stop, and this isn’t the time or place. Quinn sticks a hairpin into my scalp with special emphasis and I jump.

  “She’s not dancing, you know,” she says through gritted teeth. “We just found out.”

  “Who’s not dancing?”

  “Pamela.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Quinn turns me toward her, as if to check the symmetry of my part, but really so that I can read her lips.

  “Anatoly is about to go crazy,” she whispers. “She was signed up for eighty heats so there goes our shot at Studio of the Year. And we found out today that on top of everything else . . .” and here she whips me back around as Nik foxtrots by with Isabel and we stare at each other in the mirror.

  “She’s disappeared,” she continues when the coast is clear.

  “Disappeared?”

  Quinn nods and reaches for my hair band. “There was some big blowup at the lawyer’s office between her and Builder Bob. He’s got documentation of her various, you know, activities, and he’s threatening to tell her boys everything, and show them the pictures. Yeah. He’s got pictures. He says she’s not going to get a damn cent of his money and she stands up and runs out and nobody knows where she’s gone. Well, I guess maybe Nik does.”

  “Wherever she is, he’ll go there too. Oh God, he’s getting ready to blow everything.” Nik and Isabel weave by us again and Quinn finishes anchoring my head band.

  “That okay?”

  “Great,” I say without looking, and then I am engulfed in a cloud of hair spray. I watch Nik in the mirror. He is pale, but no paler than usual, and his hair is already slicked back in a thin, low ponytail, a style that makes him look a bit like a Revolutionary War soldier.

  “Looks good,” Quinn says, and she puts her hands around my throat to unhook the towel. “Don’t worry,” she adds as she bends over, “Nik won’t go to her unless they have a plan.”

  “Yes he will. He thinks it’s his fate,” I say miserably. “Is he even going to be able to dance tonight?”

  “Of course. He’s Russian and they can dance through anything. Nik has this great ability to . . . compartmentalize. When the two of you step on the floor, you’ll have his full attention and you would even if Pamela was dangling from a noose in the center of the ballroom.”

  Somehow I doubt that. Quinn slides me in my roller chair right down to the desk where they’ve spread out all the makeup. I tell her I can do my own, and she nods, clearly overwhelmed by the task at hand. All the teenagers are there, reaching over each other for blush and eyeliner, and she has Valentina half-finished and Jane waiting behind her and I keep staring at Nik while I’m dabbing on the foundation. If Quinn had not told me about Pamela, I wouldn’t have noticed any change in his behavior. Anatoly is the one who looks like a wreck. He keeps going over to the computer at Quinn’s desk by the front door and staring at the screen.

  I try to send Nik a message in my mind. Don’t do it, I think as hard as I can. You’re just in love with the idea of each other. Within a year she’ll be bored sick with you and start wondering what on earth she’s done, sacrificing her home and her family to watch you sit on the couch and play video games. Don’t go. But he doesn’t look at me. He has not acknowledged I’m even in the room.

  Valentina’s done and standing near the bar, talking to Harry. I ask her to help me into my dress, along with a couple of the teenagers. We move into the back room, where clever Quinn has set up the dress racks like the walls of little dressing rooms. I pull off my robe and put on my shoes, while Valentina holds the dress. “This was Pamela’s, wasn’t it?” one of the teenage girls says, and Valentina adds, “She’s going to be sorry she sold it when she sees how good you look in it.” Apparently not everyone has noticed that Pamela isn’t here yet, or maybe they didn’t expect her to come to the studio at all. She’s never been one to hang out with the gang, and I can’t imagine her piling into a long, white limo driven by a thug. It’s not her style. So everyone seems quite unconcerned that she isn’t here, and besides, they’re all too busy to dwell on anything for long.

  The teenagers get the dress over my head, both commenting on how heavy it is, and begin to fasten the hooks. With the exception of the family dinner after Carolina’s service and too much champagne back in Charleston, I’ve had practically nothing but protein shakes for the last two weeks. The scale today went below 140 for the first time in months, but I’m still anxious as Valentina begins pulling up the zipper, stuffing in rolls of flesh as she goes. I’ve tried the red dress on before, but this is the first time I’ve seen it with the floats, and the hair, and the jewels. I’m suddenly shy and I wish there was some way I could slip back into the ballroom without a fuss.

  But no, of course not. Valentina even claps her hands and makes an announcement as I enter and there are all these oohs and aahs. Nik can’t avoid looking at me now. I’m blushing as I come in, still fastening the left earring, but probably no one can see it underneath the mask of my makeup and Nik says to hurry, we need to warm up next. Everyone in the studio goes back to their business within ten seconds of my grand entrance and I’m not terribly nervous as we begin to waltz. I make a couple of stumbles, nothing major, and I often do this at first. It takes me a while to get into the rhythm of the dance. So I’m surprised when Nik speaks to me sternly, telling me not to fight him, and to relax.

  You can’t order someone to relax. Besides, he’s the one who’s off. I don’t say anything and we start again. But then there is another slight miscue and he snaps, “Do we need to get the blindfold?” and it hits me why he’s so upset. In the red dress with my hair lightened and slicked back, I look far too much like Pamela. We are the same size now, at least almost, and my emergence from the back room has been a shock to him. Forced him to remember that she’s out there somewhere, scared and angry and alone.

  “Yes,” I say. “You should blindfold me.” If he doesn’t see my face, perhaps he can pretend I am Pamela. I don’t know if that will make things better or worse, but the present situation isn’t working, that’s for sure. He goes to the desk when Anatoly is still staring gloomily at the computer, perhaps trying to figure if we have a chance of ranking at all now that he’s lost his ultimate whale. Nik pulls out the Hermès and brings it to me. I tie it lightly. I don’t want to mess up my hair and makeup—hard to say if that even would be possible—and I don’t really need to obscure my vision. Because for once, I’m not fighting him. He’s fighting me.

  Once the scarf is in place I stand still, listening. I can hear the clink of glasses at the bar, Jane saying something and Steve laughing. Quinn telling Isabel to hold still, she’s almost done, and the young girls fussing with their jars and the clatter of tubes of makeup against the desk. I don’t think anyone else is on the dance floor. Nik chooses “Fly Me to the Moon.” At least he remembers that I’m
the one who likes it.

  The music starts and, just beneath the melody, I hear something crack. Nik must have stumbled against a chair. He’s more nervous than I’ve ever seen him. It’s my first competition, I think, in a wave of petulance. It’s unfair that I have to be worried about him and how like Pamela it is, to trump tonight, just as she has trumped all the others, to somehow manage to be the most important thing going on even when she’s isn’t here. There’s another thud, the dull drag of a chair.

  Come on, Nik, I think. Get it together.

  I hold up my right hand and wait. The song is already to the part about what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars and I wonder what’s keeping him. He should be here, taking my hand, pulling me forward and beginning the dance. Instead I feel him moving behind me, slipping his hand around my waist and inviting me to step backward, into shadow hold. We do not begin our foxtrot in shadow hold. He’s even got our routine mixed up with someone else’s, I think irritably, but then it occurs to me he’s just testing me. He’s always saying that no dancer should get too dependent upon her routine. That in competition there are so many couples on the floor that you rarely get through anything the way you rehearsed it, and that I should be ready, at any moment, for him to do an unexpected step.

  I laugh and say, “Are you trying to trick me?”

  And then I feel the cold circular imprint of something pressed against my temple. The arm around my waist tightens. And someone screams.

  Another scream, another thud, and out of nowhere my grandfather’s voice comes to me, something he used to say, what was the phrase? The business end of a gun. The business end, the barrel, and there are noises coming from all around me. “Fly Me to the Moon” and a door opening and slamming, something else crashing to the floor. The arm around my waist is trembling, vibrating so fiercely that it makes both of us shake, hard enough that I can feel my earrings flick against my cheeks.