by Debra Dixon
Chapter 2
In Mossy Creek, we never say you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
The Wisteria Tango
Chapter 2
“Turn that music down! Do you hear me, Ms. Rodriguez? Turn it down! The Emersons can’t send their mama to Jesus with that infernal piano tinkling away!”
A fist punctuated each angry yell, thudding against my ballet studio’s plate glass window.
I ignored it and continued to count for my little ballerinas. “Un, deux, trois, quatre.”
“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” played on at the same reasonable volume.
The girls, knees bent in a second position plié, began their ascent, glancing nervously towards the window that dominated the front of the building.
“Turn it down!” my tormentor shouted. “Argelia Rodriguez, can you hear me?”
“My goodness,” one of the mothers said, loud enough for me to hear from across the room. “It’s so unlike him.”
The other mothers’ heads bobbed in agreement.
“He buried my granny,” another said.
I ignored the chatter, just as I ignored the Neanderthal banging on my window.
“Girls, pay attention.” I clapped out the beat, and the children’s eyes returned to the front. “Fourth position.”
Little pink leather-slippered feet slid on the polished wood of my lovely dance floor. I moved to the black stereo system that flanked the wall opposite the window and cranked the music up a notch.
An agonized howl rose outside. “Turn it down, dammit! Or I’m calling Chief Royden!”
The mothers filling the seats that lined the wall by the door looked at each other. Like me, they probably had thought to call the chief of police, too, but not now. No one made a move toward the phone. Besides, everyone knew my troublemaker wouldn’t dare come inside.
A wild-eyed face pressed closer to the glass. Ezekial Straley, my mortal enemy. His tightly knotted tie was askew, and his short, blond hair stood on end.
He finally noticed the mommies and smiled weakly, then glared at me. The little girls quit pretending to dance and clustered together.
“Don’t worry, kids. He won’t come in,” I said, putting my arms around them protectively.
With an extra-evil squint of his eyes, he stomped out of sight. Moments later, his car, a black-finned land yacht, raised a rooster tail of dust as he gunned the engine uphill, back to the funeral home.
I finished the class and sent the girls home, anxiously apologizing to each mother as she left, wringing my hands the entire time.
I needed them. Their daughters could choose from any number of ballet classes down in Bigelow, and if Zeke Straley continued his war, they would desert me.
They had Bigelow, but I was stuck. Committed to Mossy Creek by virtue of seventy-five thousand dollars, my entire life’s savings. I had renovated a former gas station into a charming and functional dance studio and home I called Wisteria Cottage. I’d named it the first moment I saw the old gas station, draped in fragrant, light purple blooms, like grape bunches all over. The name carried all my hopes for graceful, tranquil living.
Of course, later I conceded I was an ignorant Yankee as I cursed and hacked at that same wisteria with a machete after discovering it was hoisting my roof into the treetops.
Still, the new paint was dry, the piano was tuned, and the floors gleamed. My business was thriving. And Mossy Creek’s gentleman mortician was determined to end it.
I went out on the porch, a glass of water in hand, and stared up at the white-columned funeral home on the hill. A few autumn leaves drifted down on the long row of cars lining the sweeping driveway. The grieving Emerson family, no doubt.
Sandy Crane pulled her pick-up truck into one of my parking spaces. She came by for aerobics class every morning before work. “I wonder why he hasn’t called the chief on you again?” she called as she slammed her truck door closed and hoisted her workout bag.
Other ears in the parking lot turned to me like military radar. My aerobics class was arriving in force.
“Just a matter of time, I guess.” I didn’t share the window-pounding story. They’d all hear about it soon enough. Gossip traveled through Mossy Creek faster than a rhythmic tarantela.
“I wouldn’t worry. Amos thinks Zeke’s weird,” Jayne Reynolds said as she walked up the steps with Matthew bouncing on one leotard-clad hip. Her coffee shop, The Naked Bean, was our after-aerobics hang-out place.
That cheered me up. If the chief thought Zeke was strange, maybe he wouldn’t pay attention to his complaint when he made it.
Jayne looked great, glowing from the success of her business and motherhood.
Who would guess that a feud between her and Ingrid Beechum had almost wrecked the coffee shop less than two years ago? I need a dose of that serenity, I thought, trailing in after my students.
Conversation buzzed around us as Sandy, Jayne, and the other students speculated about the inevitable showdown between the mortician and the ballerina, as Zeke and I were now known. Scared as I was, I wasn’t as tense about it as I would have been six months ago. Moving to Mossy Creek had done wonders for my attitude. My New York state of mind had been mostly purged.
The transformation had taken some time. What I called aggressive self-preservation had been misunderstood by Creekites, at first, as pure crankiness. Rainey Cecil, at Goldilocks Salon, told me bluntly that I needed a perm and an enema. That had hurt, but it started my change into a real resident of Mossy Creek. I was still cranky, but at least I wasn’t a cranky Yankee. I wrapped my crankiness in a I’ll whup your ass kind of attitude that was pure Creekite. Now, I fit in.
“Ezekial hates noise,” Ingrid Beechum said. “Even the faintest sound of your music from across the street. It’s why he built the funeral home on two acres up on the hill off the square. No noise. Until you came along.” She was on the floor, stretching and touching her toes with her fingertips. She smiled at her ability to touch her toes and then at Jayne’s baby. Not bad for a fifty-five-year-old surrogate grandmother. Little Matthew smiled back.
“No noise,” the other women echoed, grinning.
“So I’ve heard,” I said dryly.
* * * *
Straley wasn’t exactly a stud. When he wasn’t screaming, mouth open so wide I could inspect his dental history, he looked a little like a blond-haired Mr. Bean, the British comedy character, only taller. As my aerobics class finished their cool-down I glanced out the window and saw him standing in the parking lot. I was glad he didn’t appear to have a gun. I strode to the door. “What now?”
“Ms. Rodriguez,” he said softly, his voice deep and a little raspy, probably from his screaming fit. “I’m sorry about the scene earlier. We were conducting a funeral, and I wanted to be sure you knew.”
I stepped off my stoop and stalked over to him. “You let me know, all right. Your clients are beyond being bothered by a few wisps of music that escape from my studio, Mr. Straley, but mine are only eight-years-old. You scared them.” I tried to keep my voice down, honest.
“The music needs to be lower, Ms. Rodriguez, for the sake of the grieving families.”
He didn’t see the New Yorker in me rising, but Jayne must have. She hurried outside, dabbing her face with a towel. “I never see you at The Naked Bean anymore, Zeke. You ought to drop by. Have a complimentary latte.”
“I’ll try to find the time,” he said politely. He turned back to me. “I have another matter I must discuss with you, Ms. Rodriguez.” The rest of my aerobics class wandered outside to lend moral support. He frowned at the cluster of stern faces that sidled up behind me. “In, er, private.”
A collective sigh of disappointment rose around us, the sound of my students’ deflated hopes, followed by the unsettled murmur of implacable curiosity. I wouldn’t put it past these tough Southern flowers to pump their fists and yell, “Fight, fight!” As little as I wanted to get personal with Mr. Bean, it would be better to have this discussion in private.
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“Sure,” I answered him. “Want to come inside?”
He seemed surprised. “Now?”
I nodded, staring him in the eye.
He looked at the posse of women behind me, and a panicky look crept over his face. “Alone?”
“Just give me a minute to shut down the studio. I’ll wait for you in my apartment, Mr. Straley.” I turned to my sweaty, beady-eyed back-up group. “I’ll be fine. See you later, ladies.”
Not a single, cheerful, positive thought went through my mind as I stepped inside my tiny suite off the studio. Truth was, I was scared to death that he’d ruin my business. I’d invested every penny I owned in the studio. I waited, sitting on the sofa, knees knocking, until I realized he wasn’t coming in. I walked back outside. The parking lot was empty.
Footsteps crunched on the pebble walkway from around the side. Mr. Straley appeared, staring curiously at the flowerbeds and window boxes, like a tourist in a museum.
“Appraising the property?” I leaned against my celery-green Beetle.
His smile was spare, as if he rationed them out. “You seem to have invested a lot in the place. I didn’t get a chance to look at it earlier.”
“Let’s get this over with, Mr. Straley. What did you need to speak to me about?”
“Noise, as usual,” he said softly, looking up the hill towards the red brick funeral home, with its white-columned portico, as if someone up there could hear him.
“I don’t play my music loudly,” I said, perplexed. “Why do you keep coming down here yelling like an excited frat boy?”
He seemed offended by my analogy. “I come down because there are hurt people up there, emotionally drained and facing more of the same. The least you could do is show a little respect for what they have to go through.”
“It’s not that loud,” I insisted. “I’ll prove it.” I dashed back in the studio and stood with my arms crossed until he followed me. Then I pushed the play button on the sound system. Throbbing techno music filled the room, the kind of kinetic throbbing that used to make my Aunt Flavia complain because she said her pacemaker tried to keep up with the beat.
I grabbed him by the sleeve of his suit and tugged him into my apartment, then closed the door. “See, no noise. Not even in my own apartment — ten feet from the studio.”
“Not here. But up there on the hill —” he signaled with his chin “ — up there it sounds like a discotheque.”
Like he’d ever been in one. Hah. “That’s impossible.”
“Really, it does. It must have to do with the bowl-shaped hollow your cottage sits in, and my property on the ridge. It’s a natural amphitheater.”
I crossed my arms again, looked bored, then went to my apartment’s front door and held it open. “Thank you, Mr. Straley.”
“If we can’t talk this out, Ms. Rodriguez, I’ll take the next step.” His fists were clenched.
I gulped. The next step was probably an attorney. “You do what you have to do.”
“I will. This conversation was a mistake.” He marched outside to his big, ugly car. I followed him to the front stoop. He halted and looked at me. “I’m sorry about scaring those children.”
I arched a brow. “Then leave me and them alone.”
He ducked into his car and left.
Coward.
* * * *
My afternoon ballet class brought a little good news, business-wise: Several of the mothers asked for a weekend adult class. I made up a flyer announcing the new class as soon as the kids left, printed three copies, and headed towards town to post it.
Sandy caught up with me as I came out of Mossy Creek Books and What-Nots. The owner, Pearl Quinlan, not only let me post a notice on her bulletin board, she signed up for the class. I was smiling.
Sandy hitched up the khaki pants of her officer’s uniform, hunched her compact little shoulders under a khaki windbreaker with Mossy Creek Police Department emblazoned on the back in big neon letters, and scrubbed a sturdy hand through her mop of curly blonde hair. She looked like Shirley Temple on patrol. But her frown said she was on official business.
“Hon, what did you do to Zeke Straley the other night? He’s filed a formal complaint against you.”
I froze. “What kind of complaint?” In my mind, I saw my lovely studio boarded up and covered in vines, weeds choking the garden, as a triumphant Ezekial Straley drove a funeral cortege past the sagging, empty, doorway. Something sharp twisted in my heart. I mourned my loss already.
“He says you’re breaking the noise ordinance. Says he’s not goin’ to back down this time. The chief confabbed with Mayor Walker but neither one of ’em can decide whether the ordinance applies to a dance studio, so the mayor’s gettin’ the city attorney to offer an opinion.”
“Who’s the city attorney?”
“Mac Campbell.” She frowned. “He’s Zeke’s personal lawyer, too.”
I was toast.
* * * *
Zeke’s black-finned Cadillac was parked in front of my studio when I returned. I jumped out of my Volkswagen, ready to give the mortician a black eye.
He held up his soft white hands, warding me off.
I glared at him. “Afraid of a little ballerina, Mr. Straley? I heard you went to Chief Royden. I heard you filed a complaint.” My fists clenched.
He smiled sourly. “I did, but that’s not why I came by.”
“Signing up for a class?”
He blushed. Red as Santa’s underwear, as Sandy would say.
“I need to learn to dance.” He cleared his throat and grimaced. He pulled a starched handkerchief from an inside pocket of his suit coat and dabbed at his pale brow.
I was too astounded to even hoot with disbelief.
“The National Funeral Directors’ conference is in Orlando this year,” he went on, “and the theme is Caribbean. I just found out there’s going to be a tango contest.” His voice lowered, as if he were saying a dirty word.
“The tango is from Argentina, not the islands.”
He shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter. I have to tango.” He surveyed the road behind me, his eyes swiveling back and forth like a creepy ventriloquist’s dummy. He didn’t want to be seen with me. “Morticians can be very competitive, Ms. Rodriguez. You can be sure when we sponsor a contest, it’s a fierce battle for supremacy.”
“I had no idea,” I murmured, my head swimming with visions of super-hero funeral directors. Straley in spandex. I closed my eyes at that one. When I opened them, he was gazing at me grimly. I arched a brow. “You need a partner for the competition?”
“No. The convention organizers will provide professional dancers for the attendees to dance with. Don’t worry, Ms. Rodriquez. I’m not asking you to risk your virtue by going on a road trip with me. Just teach me to tango.”
I chewed my tongue. So what if he was weirder than your average Elvis sighter? I’m from New York. I can handle weird, especially now that I knew he was in a bind. I had him at my mercy. “So you’ll drop the complaint against me?”
He sighed. “Yes.”
“All right. Let’s go inside and talk.”
His remaining blush drained away. “No. Not alone. Not now.” He stared at Wisteria Cottage as if it were a massage parlor and he couldn’t be caught there. “I have only three weeks, Ms. Rodriguez. Can you teach me in your spare time?”
Three weeks to learn the tango for a competition? I stifled a laugh and started to tell him no, but when I opened my mouth, the little word got stuck in my teeth. “Sure,” I heard myself say. “I can teach you.”
“I keep odd hours. Do you think you can fit me in at unusual times? It depends on my, er, workload.”
I glanced up at the funeral home. Workload? Yuck. “Of course. Not a problem. Can you start next week?”
“Why not tonight?”
I thought fast. “Because I have to work out a lesson plan.”
He bought it. “Of course. Thank you. You’re a sport, Ms. Rodriguez. I’ll go
by the police station right now and withdraw my complaint.”
My heart filled with hope. “Call me Argie.”
“Thank you, Argie. Call me Zeke. I’ll do my best to be a good student.” He shook my hand firmly. “This means a lot to me.”
I smiled. “I assume you want these lessons to be kept a secret?”
“Absolutely.”
“All right.”
He exhaled and looked relieved. Then he climbed into his big, black shark-finned car and rolled smoothly up his driveway and around to the back of the funeral home.
My business was saved.
Except I only had one week to learn how to tango.
* * * *
Three days later, Jamie Green, postman extraordinaire, dropped a box off at my door, along with the usual bills and junk mail.
“Pearl Quinlan could have ordered this for you, you know,” he said, tapping the box’s Internet bookstore logo.
And have the entire town know I had ordered A Beginner’s Guide to the Tango? Not in this lifetime. “Thanks, Jamie, I’ll call her about the next one.”
I used a kitchen knife to tear the package open, then eagerly tipped it to allow the DVD box to fall into my waiting hand.
It caught, then slid slowly out. I screamed. Lurid pink and yellow letters spelled out, Secrets of the Polka Masters. My scream brought Jamie Green running back onto the porch.
“What’s wrong, Argie?”
I stared at the horror nestled in brown paper wrapping on my breakfast table. “Nothing, Jamie. Just a bug.”
“Want me to kill it for you? It’s the wisteria. Bugs love it, even in the fall when it’s not blooming.”
Great. “Thanks, Jamie. I’ll handle it. Just startled me, that’s all.”
He left, and I shelved the tape. Maybe I could offer polka classes. Jamie was right. I should have called Pearl. I picked up the cell phone and punched her number, the imagined taste of crow filling my mouth.
* * * *
Weird Zeke had opened the door to a part of me I didn’t know, and wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I wanted to learn to tango, but who could teach the teacher? With a name like Rodriquez, I was expected to know the dance instinctively.