Moon Dance

by Mariah Stewart

  "This pig doesn't seem to know that she's a pig. My theory is that she's been spending too much time with Artie. I think he's been trying to teach her how to be a good dog. Maybe she should be hanging out with other little piggies once in a while so she learns proper pig behavior." Matt leaned down and scratched Spam's snout.

  "I think you're right. She does become awfully indignant when we let Artie come into the house and we make her stay out on the back porch."

  "Maybe you could just let her stay in the kitchen," Matt suggested. "Just give her a try. You're going to have to find a warm shelter for her come the winter anyway. She wouldn't survive the cold out there on the porch."

  "Okay, we'll give her a little try while we have breakfast." Georgia picked up the pig and carried her up the steps.

  Matt opened the back door, and they went into the kitchen. Georgia put the pig on the floor. Spam did not move. She sniffed at the vinyl tile floor, it's texture unfamiliar, before taking a few tentative steps. She craned what little neck she had this way and that, then, apparently not willing to stray too far from the familiar world on the other side of the screen door, backed up and sat down with a huff next to Artie and nuzzled him with her snout.

  "If she could wag that tail, she would," Matt laughed.

  "She does look quite pleased with herself, doesn't she?"

  "You know, I owe you an apology." Matt reached out and took Georgia into his arms.

  "That there are no pancakes for breakfast this morning?"

  "No. Remember when I said that I just couldn't see you having a pig for a pet? I have to eat my words. Oddly enough. Spam really does seem to be the perfect pet for you." He kissed her temple. "And there's another thing I was wrong about. You really do belong here at Pumpkin Hill. As a matter of fact, I was so wrong about everything about you…"

  "I was wondering when you'd 'fess up." She folded her arms across her chest. "It's about time."

  "I figured I should do some penance…"

  "Oooh! Do I get to choose?" Her eyes brightened at the prospect. "Anything I want?"

  "I guess it's only fitting." Matt shrugged.

  "Hmmm. I'll have to work on this one. It's important that I come up with just the right thing."

  "I understand. Take your time."

  "I have it." She snapped her fingers with glee. "Do you remember me telling you that my mother wrote a series of detective novels?"

  "Sure. The guy's name was Harry or something."

  "Harvey. Harvey Shellcroft."

  "Right."

  "Well, about six or so years ago, they were all made into TV movies."

  "They were?"

  "Yup. All twenty-three of them."

  "With an all-star cast, one can only hope, the best director, producer…"

  "Think of the worst B movie you've ever seen. Then cheese it up. Overwrite, overdirect… overact…"

  "No. You wouldn't… you couldn't be so cruel…"

  "Your penance is to watch every one of those movies over and over again. Of course, I'll have to watch them with you, just to make sure that you don't cheat."

  "Oh, of course. I can't be trusted when it comes to things like that."

  "Maybe we'll have to watch one this afternoon."

  "Well, that could prove a little embarrassing. You see, the architect will be here by one…" Matt reminded her.

  "It's only nine."

  "In that case, perhaps we should watch one now."

  "I think that's a really good idea. Yes, that will surely go a long way in teaching me not to make snap judgments."

  She pulled him toward the front hall, closing the kitchen door behind them to keep the animals from wandering around the house.

  "I should tell you… that is, it just occurred to me that I don't happen to have any of those movies with me at this particular time."

  Matt looked pensive. "We'll just have to do a practice run."

  "Good idea," Georgia grinned. "Upstairs or down?"

  "Oh, upstairs. Aunt Hope's old Eastlake sofa just wasn't built for what I have in mind…"

  The architect was, thankfully, forty minutes late. Matt and Georgia were just coming down the steps when the dark blue station wagon arrived.

  "I guess this means lunch will be a little late," Matt frowned.

  "I have to drive into town anyway," Georgia told him. "I haven't been food shopping in a week."

  She opened the kitchen door and Artie leaped through it and raced to the front door. Matt grabbed him by the collar on his way toward the front dining room and redirected the dog to the backyard. Spam, on the other hand, sat patiently by the back door.

  "Oh, aren't you a good little girl?" Georgia laughed. "Are you trying to prove your manners are better than You-Know-Who's? And that you should be permitted to sleep in the house and he should sleep on the back porch? Well, maybe just in the kitchen. We'll see how well you do tonight. But don't get any ideas about the rest of the house. Strictly off limits to pigs."

  Georgia gathered her handbag and her sunglasses, then carried Spam outside where she set her down on the grass. She waved to Matt, who was standing near the barn door with the architect, to let him know that she was leaving for Tanner's. She got into the Jeep and turned it around, pausing just for a moment to look at him. His back was to her, and he was pointing out something to the architect. Her heart swelled in her chest. She loved him so very much.

  How, she wondered, did anyone manage to contain so much happiness, so much joy, as that which filled her at that moment?

  I do believe that that's why music was invented in the first place, she thought as she turned the Jeep around and took off for town, as a celebration of the spirit. And so that we'd have something to dance to. Perhaps when she returned, she might have time to take a favorite Chopin piece up to the second floor of the barn, where she could set her joy to music.

  Sunday brought an early morning shower, but by ten the sun had burned the moisture from the ground. Georgia had waited for this day. Matt was tense, she could tell, though he denied it, and she tried to set him at ease by telling him blond jokes.

  "She was so blond, that where it said 'sign here' she wrote Gemini."

  He had given her only the weakest of smiles.

  "Did you hear the one about the blond who sent a fax with a stamp on it?"

  A slight nod of the head.

  "How 'bout the blond who spent twenty minutes staring at the orange juice carton because it said concentrate?"

  A mere twitch of the corner of one side of his mouth.

  Georgia gave up and settled back into her seat. Maybe he just needed to work through his apprehension by himself. Before they left the house, she had assured him that things wouldn't be as bad as he seemed to fear they might be, but he hadn't seemed convinced.

  After that, the drive to Riverview was mostly a quiet one. Instead of the raucous music he generally played on the radio, he had slipped a tape into the tape player in the dashboard.

  "Oh, I love this song," Georgia told him as Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" began to play. "It's one of my favorites."

  Matt merely nodded absently.

  He parked the pickup in the visitors' lot, and sat with his hands across the steering wheel for a long moment before turning off the engine.

  "Ready?" he asked, his voice raspy.

  "Yes." Georgia nodded.

  She reached for his hand as they walked up to the front door, and she gave it a squeeze. The squeeze she got in return was halfhearted.

  "Mom's room is down here to the right, but she's usually in the dayroom around this time."

  "Then let's just go there."

  "Georgia, I should tell you that my mother… well, she may say things that don't make a lot of sense. She…"

  "Matt, it's all right. You don't have to keep explaining."

  "But I wanted you to understand." He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration, and paced in front of the dayroom door. "She didn't used to be like this. She used to be funny and sm
art and clever…"

  She raised her fingers to his lips. "I know she was, Matt. I'm sorry I didn't know her then. But I can know her now."

  "Next time you come, she won't even remember meeting you. She doesn't even remember me."

  "Then we'll introduce ourselves." She stood on her tiptoes and took his face in her hands. "I'm not minimizing her condition, and I'm not trying to depreciate the extent of your loss. But we can't change what is. She's your mother, Matt. If we have to reintroduce ourselves every weekend for the next twenty years, then that's what we'll do. Let's just accept what is."

  He nodded, and opened the door, holding it for her. They stepped inside the brightly lit room and he looked around.

  "There she is. In the wheelchair. Near the windows…"

  Matt grabbed a chair in each hand and led the way to the back of the room where wide expanses of glass overlooked a broad lawn and beyond, swiftly flowing water.

  "Hello, Mrs. Bishop." Georgia took one of the chairs from Matt's hand and placed it in front of the wheel chair, and peered into the sweet face of the tiny white haired woman who sat there.

  "Hello." Charity nodded pleasantly.

  "My name is Georgia.''

  "That's a pretty name."

  "Thank you." Georgia dropped her handbag on the floor. "Charity is a pretty name, too."

  "I think I used to know someone named Charity, once." The old woman's face skewed into a frown.

  "That's your name," Matt told her. "You are Charity."

  "I am?" She looked puzzled for a long moment, then shook her head slightly as if to clear it and said, "Are you certain?"

  "Yes. I'm certain." Matt positioned his chair next to hers and sat down.

  "It seems like such a silly thing to forget…" Charity still appeared unconvinced.

  They visited for almost an hour, Matt bringing his mother up to date on the family, avoiding, of course, the events of the past week, even though it was clear that she had no idea what, or whom, he was talking about. But he was never quite sure that maybe something—a word, a name—wouldn't spark her memory, so he always told her all the news from Bishop's Cove, all the news from O'Hearn.

  "Mom, do you remember the book lady?" he asked as they prepared to leave.

  "The book lady?" Charity thought for a moment. "Yes. The book lady."

  "Georgia is the book lady's daughter." Matt told her.

  "Oh. That's nice." Charity nodded agreeably.

  "We're going to get married, Mom."

  Charity seemed to ponder this. "You're going to marry the book lady? Will she still come and read to us?"

  "No, Mom, I'm marrying the book lady's daughter. Georgia." He pointed to her.

  "Will she still come to read to us?" Charity redirected her concern to Georgia.

  "Yes, I'm certain that she will."

  "Oh, that's good," Charity smiled. "I like it when the book lady comes to read.''

  "I'll tell her you said so." Georgia bent down and hugged the frail woman in the wheelchair. For one long moment, Charity's expression changed completely, the lines in her face seeming to ease and a faint twinkle lighting her eyes.

  "Oh," she exclaimed, "a hug! I haven't had a hug in a very long time."

  "Then you should have another one," Georgia hugged Charity again, suspecting that the old woman had had plenty of hugs, and saddened that she'd forgotten. "We'll be back next weekend. At least, Matt will be. I'm going to New York. To dance."

  "I used to know how to dance." Charity's face took on a faraway look. "I used to dance with a very tall man. He had black hair, and wore Old Spice…"

  She fell silent then, perhaps trying to recall nights when she had been young and beautiful and had danced with a very tall, dark-haired man.

  Matt and Georgia walked in silence to the pickup, Matt opening both doors as soon as they reached it, letting out the worst of the hot air that had built up inside the cab.

  "I love you very much," he said right before he closed the passenger side door.

  "Well," Georgia told him when he got into the driver's seat, "I love you very much, too."

  He started the engine and backed out of the parking space.

  "Matt, are you really going to marry the book lady's daughter?" she asked.

  He stepped on the brake, bringing the pickup to a stop. "Yes, I am. If she'll have me."

  "Oh, she'll have you," Georgia unbuckled her seat belt and slid across the seat, "if you ask her properly."

  "Georgia…"

  "Book lady's daughter," she reminded him.

  "Yes. Book lady's daughter. Will you marry me?"

  "Will we live at Pumpkin Hill?"

  "Yes."

  "We'll need a new mattress. The old one is a killer."

  "I take it that's a yes.''

  She nodded. "That's a yes."

  "You'll never be sorry," he took her hands in his. "I promise you, Georgia. You'll never be sorry that you loved me. No matter what else happens over the years, I'll never give you cause to regret loving me."

  Georgia tried to recall if she had ever heard words more beautiful. Deciding that she had not, and being unable to come up with what she considered to be an equally beautiful reply, she leaned forward to kiss him soundly on the mouth.

  "Drive," she whispered softly. "Home to Pumpkin Hill. We have a life to plan…"

  The following Sunday, Matt drove Georgia to Baltimore where she would take the train to New York for her first workshop as a prospective owner of a dance studio. She was excited by this new venture and chattered nonstop all the way, speculating on everything from the number of other dance instructors who might attend to the music they might dance to, what techniques she might learn, if she'd see anyone she had met over the years. Matt's head was spinning by the time they finally arrived at the train station, and the ringing didn't stop until she'd gotten on the train and the train had pulled out of the station.

  Matt had decided to make a stop at the Aquarium, and it was while he was there that the idea came to him. The spark had been lit by a comment the architect had made, but Matt figured that being in Baltimore, where Georgia had danced for so many years, must have acted as a sort of catalyst. He bolted from the building and searched for the nearest phone book. He stood in the doorway of the phone booth, tapping his fingers on the thick book, trying to remember.

  " 'T' something," he muttered, turning to the listing of restaurants. "Thomas's… Trinity… Tuscany… yes! That's it! Tuscany!"

  Matt dialed the number, then counted the rings until a young male answered.

  "Is Lee Banyon there?" Matt asked.

  "He's here, but he's busy."

  "Ah, are there any tables free for lunch?"

  "Just a minute, let me look… we'll have one in about ten minutes."

  "Wonderful! I'd like to reserve it. The name is Bishop. Matt Bishop. And please ask Mr. Banyon if he'd have about ten minutes to speak with me. Tell him I need his help with something…"

  The two weeks in New York had totally rejuvenated Georgia and had, if nothing else, convinced her once and for all that her decision to retire from professional dancing to open her own studio was exactly the right move for her. She met dance instructors from all over the country and learned as much from them over meals and social times as she had from the more formal workshops. She sat in on all the discussions where the business aspects had been covered, and made contact with several suppliers of dance equipment and costumes. She found a wholesaler who would sell her students ballet shoes and leotards at a discount, and would guarantee delivery in three days. All in all, by the time she boarded the train to Philadelphia, where Delia would meet her, she was exuberant and determined.

  "Belize!" Georgia exclaimed when Delia told her where her mystery trip had taken her. "Oh, Mother, Gordon took you to Belize?"

  Delia laughed as she eased the Mercedes into the exit lane coming out of Thirtieth Street Station and tried to recall the fastest way to 195. "He did indeed."

  "Was it wonder
ful?" Georgia sighed.

  "Totally," Delia nodded.

  "Tell me what it was like. Every detail. Then I'll tell you my news…"

  Delia glanced at her daughter's face. "Umm, maybe your news first…"

  "Nope. I want to hear about every glorious minute of your wonderful two weeks with the wonderful Gordon Chandler first."

  "Well, perhaps not every minute," Delia grinned. "But it was heaven. We went on a trip into the jungle…"

  "And I'll bet you took notes every inch of the way."

  "Not this time," Delia told her. "This time, I just simply enjoyed."

  "Mother, I do believe this is a first for you. A trip where you simply enjoyed yourself."

  "Oh, I did, darling. It was… heaven." Delia sighed, momentarily recalling a singularly perfect evening on a deserted stretch of exquisite beach.

  "But now your news," Delia insisted, forcing herself back to the here and now.

  "Matt asked me to marry him."

  "Oh! And you said…"

  "I said yes, of course. I'm crazy in love with him, Mom."

  Delia looked in her rearview mirror before slowing the big sedan and stopping along the side of the road where she could hug her daughter. "Oh, Georgia… are you sure?"

  "I'm sure," Georgia sniffed, her eyes puddling with tears. "I couldn't be surer."

  "Tissues, sweetie," Delia pointed to the glove box, and Georgia opened it. "When will the big day be?"

  "Actually, we're thinking about maybe having a double wedding with Zoey and Ben."

  "Oh, a double wedding! How wonderful!'' Delia dabbed at her eyes. She accepted the box of tissues Georgia handed to her, pulled a few out, then gave the box back. "What do Matt and Ben think of that?"

  "They think it's a wonderful idea."

  "Oh, both of my girls getting married on the same day!" Delia sighed. "Oh, it could be so romantic…"

  "It will be, Mother."

  "And you're happy, sweetie? You're really happy?"

  "Totally. Truly."

  "That's all I ask, Georgia. That's all I want, is for my children to be happy."