Dance with Me

by Luanne Rice

  “That’s good,” she said.

  “My bike’s another story,” he said. Now that the coast was clear and her uncle had gone back to his house, they left their hiding place and approached his dirt bike. He righted it, tried to push it, realized the front rim was bent.

  “Do you live far away?”

  “In Twin Rivers,” he said—the next town.

  “I don’t have my license,” she said. “Or I’d drive you home.”

  He just gave her a devilish grin—where the left half of his mouth smiled and the right half stayed impassive—and took a cell phone from his pocket. He dialed a number, waited, then said, “Hey. I crashed. Come get me?” Another wait, then a laugh. “Yeah, wiped out—like you’ve never done it. The orchard. Ten minutes? I’ll be by the far end of the fence. See you.”

  Chloe’s mouth was dry. She wanted to ask him a million questions. She wondered who he could call, just like that, to come get him. And, as if she had asked, he answered.

  “My brother,” he said. “He’ll drive my father’s truck, so we can load the bike in back. Sorry about the oil spill.”

  Chloe nodded, feeling a yearning in her chest stronger than anything she had felt in a long time. She walked beside him as he pushed his bike out to the road. The feeling pulled at her heart. It stretched thin and tight, like an elastic. It reminded her of staring at the sky, looking at those two lone stars.

  “Where do you go to school?” he asked. “Crofton?”

  She nodded, momentarily unable to speak.

  “Do you have brothers or sisters?”

  “No,” she said.

  “You’re an only child,” he said.

  She thought that over. She thought of how much she had loved her cousin. She thought of how nice it must be to have siblings. She wondered whether her birth parents had other children, whether she did have brothers or sisters. Maybe they had a large family, but had been too poor to keep her. Or perhaps they had been young and in love, but unable to marry till they’d finished school, and now they had other kids of their own. Her heart stretched thinner, tighter. She shivered so hard, her whole body shook.

  “You’re cold,” he said.

  “No, I’m—” she began.

  But he had already taken off his leather jacket, slipped it over her shoulders. She had never worn an animal skin before. The feeling scared her, but it was warm from his body, and when he pulled it closed in front, she closed her eyes and felt all the stars come down from the sky. When she opened her eyes again, she saw him standing there in a torn and faded white T-shirt. He had a tattoo on his left bicep.

  “A dolphin,” she said, touching it.

  “They keep sharks away.”

  “Sharks?”

  “I surf,” he said.

  “You do?” she asked, picturing all that blond hair with a huge salty wave washing over him.

  “Yeah. First Beach. Ever go?”

  She shook her head.

  “Oh, the ecology,” he said, smiling. “Might run over some minnows, right?”

  “Something like that,” she said, not wanting to explain that her parents weren’t beach people. Rhode Island was called “the Ocean State,” and practically the only times she went to the beach had been when Isabel was still alive and they’d go stay with her other grandparents at their huge mansion in Newport.

  “Well, maybe you’ll give it a try some day,” he said.

  “Maybe.”

  “If you do,” he said, stopping still and looking so deeply into her eyes that she felt his gaze all the way down to her navel. “Remember that dolphins will always protect you from sharks.”

  She nodded, mouth slightly open. He leaned down, as if he was going to kiss her, and she saw lightning, stars, and thunderbolts, and then she heard her name.

  “Chloe!” The voice came from across the orchard.

  “That’s my mother,” she said.

  “You’d better go home, before she calls the marshal to come find you,” Zeke smiled, standing up straight again.

  “Yeah,” she said, backing away. Her heart felt tattered. She wanted him to kiss her, wanted him to take her surfing, wanted to meet his brother. Her body felt clamped, as if held between shark jaws. Her mother called again.

  “I’d better go . . .”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Her mother’s voice was getting closer, and Chloe didn’t want her to see Zeke. She felt something close to panic at the idea. She didn’t want her mother to see him, yell at him, threaten to call his parents or the police. So she wriggled out of his jacket and handed it to him, running into the moon-shadowed orchard, without saying good-bye.

  CHAPTER 13

  Opening day at the stand was a brave and wonderful thing. The stand itself gleamed blue, like a scrap of sky, in the sunlight. The fragrance of just-baked pies rose alluringly from the shelves. Chloe had made banners announcing the grand opening. One depicted a golden-crusted apple pie. One inexplicably featured a dolphin. She and Mona sat on the bench, just as Dylan and Eli used to do, waiting for customers.

  Dylan oversaw the operation from the edge of the orchard. He had done his best to clean up spilled oil left behind by one of those idiot bikers, and now he was applying commercial tree wound paint to the roots, battered by heavy tires. He had a pair of lopping shears, and he used them to remove some broken branches, low on the tree, where the biker had crashed through.

  He worked carefully, as his grandfather had taught him, making his cuts flush with the collar of the tree, the slight swelling where the branch met the main trunk. He knew that branch stubs took longer to heal than flush cuts, leaving a larger area for disease and rot to enter the tree.

  He glanced over at Chloe. She stared expectantly at the road, as if she could will customers to appear. Dylan remembered feeling that way. This was a lonely country road, and till the word got out, customers would be few and far between.

  A few minutes later, he heard a car engine. As he watched, Chloe craned her neck. Mona stood up from the bench and walked out to the roadside, as if to wave the traffic down. Dylan turned back to the tree. The roots were scraped bare, split open in places; a great place for fungus to enter. Living things were so vulnerable. Isabel should be working at the stand with Chloe, he thought.

  The car pulled closer, and as he glanced at the road, it came into sight. He recognized it instantly, and he lowered the shears and watched Jane park on the roadside along the split-rail fence, get out of the driver’s seat. He saw Chloe jump up from the bench, he heard Jane’s shoes crunch on the gravel. She was thin, athletic-looking, a tomboy in jeans and a black sweater, her hair as dark and glossy as Chloe’s.

  “You’re our first customer!” Mona said.

  “Yay,” Jane said. “You can frame my dollar!”

  “You can’t buy anything,” Chloe said, laughing. “You baked all the pies!”

  “That’s okay,” Jane said, taking out her wallet, picking up a tart, handing the girls some money. “This is a symbolic gesture, because I believe this is the best apple stand in the whole northeast—”

  “The whole northeast,” Mona whooped, jabbing Chloe with her elbow. “Wish your mother felt that way!”

  Jane didn’t say anything, but Dylan could see her eyes widen as she waited to hear more.

  “Her parents are in mourning,” Mona explained, giggling. “They wanted more for her than a career at the family apple stand . . . they wanted her to be . . .”

  “A checkout girl!” Chloe said, breaking into laughter.

  Jane smiled, as if she got the joke, but as if she was too polite to laugh at the expense of someone’s parents. Dylan liked that. She just stood there diplomatically, waiting for the girls’ laughter to subside.

  “What’s the dolphin for?” Jane asked, pointing at the banner.

  Chloe stopped laughing, but a smile came over her face, and the harder she tried to hold it in, the bigger it got. Dylan edged forward; he’d been w
anting to know about the dolphin, too.

  “Tell her, Chloe,” Mona said.

  “It’s to protect against sharks,” Chloe said.

  “Sharks? In an orchard?” Jane asked.

  “Surfer boy says it works,” Mona said.

  The girls began to giggle, and it struck them as so funny, Mona let out a shriek. Dylan knew that it was all over now. Chloe and Isabel used to laugh so hard, they’d bend double. Jane just smiled, enjoying the girls’ laughter. Seeing her there made him want to go join the party, so he propped the shears against the trunk, and started through the trees.

  Jane felt so happy. She loved everything about the moment. Standing there with Chloe and her friend, enjoying the private joke. The sun was warm and bright, making Chloe’s black hair gleam like onyx. The dolphin banner rippled in the breeze. The girls looked up at it, collapsing in gales of laughter.

  “What’s so funny?” Dylan asked, coming through a break in the fence.

  “Dolphins in the orchard,” Mona squealed. “Cowabunga!”

  “Ah, I get it,” Dylan said, arching an eyebrow at Jane. “Do you?”

  “Totally,” she smiled.

  “Hi, Jane,” he said.

  “Hi, Dylan.”

  “That’s right, you two know each other,” Chloe said. “Uncle Dyl—Jane’s our first customer.”

  Jane tried to keep her features neutral. Hearing Chloe call her “Jane” came with a slew of intense emotions. She felt something like fever chills running across her skin.

  “Something not quite right about the woman who baked the pies having to buy one back.”

  “That’s what I said,” Chloe smiled. “But I am going to frame her dollar. I like that it’s from Jane.”

  Again the name, again a ripple of feeling.

  “You’ve done such a wonderful job with the stand,” Jane said, staring into her eyes.

  “You think so?” Chloe asked, tilting her head and blushing slightly.

  “Yes, I do. Right, Dylan? Isn’t it great?”

  “Hard for me to be objective,” he said. “It’s considered the family eyesore.”

  “He’s right,” Chloe said. “My parents hate it.”

  Jane tried not to react to “my parents.” Instead, she gazed at the stand, at Chloe’s paint job—the bright blue wood, the sunny yellow shelves—and the banners and signs. “I really can’t believe you did this all yourself,” she said. “It’s a work of art.”

  Chloe laughed. “Really?”

  “Really. It’s so sweet and pretty, just like candy. If a shop this cute opened in New York, it would be an instant hit. The banners are great.”

  “An instant hit,” Mona said, nodding.

  “The banners were a last-minute thing,” Chloe explained. “I was thinking, how can I get people to stop? The old sign is nice . . .”

  Everyone glanced over: Chloe had touched it up, so “Chadwick Orchards” was clearly painted dark blue, with shiny red apples for decoration.

  “She has to say that,” Dylan explained. “Because her father and I made it when we were her age.”

  Chloe laughed. “I can’t picture that.”

  “Why not?” Dylan asked.

  “Because, no offense, but I don’t think of you two as the artistic types . . . especially Dad. Mr. Where’s-my-calculator, everyone-needs-more-insurance.”

  “She’s saying we’re geeks,” Dylan said.

  “You’re not,” Chloe smiled. “But he is.”

  “Anyway, Jane’s right,” Dylan said, squinting at the banners. “Yours are much better than the old sign. Let’s see, apples and rainbows on one—very good. Dolphins on another . . . Hmm.”

  The girls laughed.

  “It’s a great idea,” Jane said. “You’ll get people to stop, just because they have to find out what the dolphins are all about.”

  “Zeke and sharks,” Mona said mysteriously.

  “Mone—” Chloe warned.

  A car came down the road; it slowed down when it approached the stand. Everyone—Chloe, Mona, Jane, and Dylan—pretended not to be too interested. The girls bowed their heads, giggling.

  “That’s right,” Chloe said under her breath as if casting a spell. “You know you want a pie; you know you have to have one . . .”

  “Come on, come on,” Mona said. “Stop right now. Pull over, pull over.”

  “Calamity Jane pies here,” Dylan said. “Only place you can get them outside New York City . . .”

  The car came to a complete stop. Jane took an appraising glance. The couple was elderly; they were pointing at the banners. The woman, especially, appeared charmed and delighted. Jane looked at Dylan, who seemed to be staring at her.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He started to shake his head, then smiled. “Can’t really say too much right now . . .”

  She nodded, realizing that he was referring to the girls. The funny thing was, there was a lot she wanted to ask him, too.

  “We could have dinner,” he said.

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Friday night?” he asked.

  Jane nodded. The older couple had gotten out of their car and were walking toward the stand. The man had a cane. The woman had short-cropped gray hair and wore a navy blue dress with white polka dots. Chloe and Mona sat up straighter on the bench. They smiled winningly, and Chloe gestured at the shelf full of Jane’s pies.

  “Would you care to buy a delicious apple pie or tart?” she asked.

  “Well, I think we would,” the woman said. “But first, we have to ask—why do you have a flag with a dolphin on it, flying in the middle of an orchard?”

  Jane began grinning even before the girls did.

  After the old couple drove away, and Uncle Dylan went back to work, and Jane drove away, Chloe was left with the strangest feeling.

  Mona was dancing around, holding up the money they’d collected. The sun grew warmer as the day passed, and the two girls took off their shirts; they had bathing suits on underneath. Mona kept pushing her to tell about meeting Zeke, teasing her about needing a tan so she’d look good when he took her surfing, but Chloe just felt tongue-tied.

  Something about everyone driving away—the old couple in their car, Uncle Dylan on his tractor, and, for some reason especially, Jane in her station wagon—had left Chloe feeling bereft.

  She liked that word: bereft. Well, she didn’t actually like it, but it seemed to fit.

  She had learned it in seventh grade; it had been one of her spelling words, and when she’d looked it up and read the definition (“deprived of the possession or use of something; lacking something needed, wanted, or expected”) she had identified completely.

  “What’s wrong?” Mona asked as she applied suntan lotion to her arms. “You’re mighty quiet.”

  “I’m lacking something needed, wanted, or expected,” Chloe said.

  “Huh?” Mona asked in an exaggerated attempt to sound dumb.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong. I liked having Jane stop by.”

  “Yeah, she’s nice.”

  “Why do you think she came back to buy a pie? Considering she baked them . . .”

  Mona gave an evil chuckle.

  Chloe took the suntan lotion and gestured for Mona to spread it on her back. She gave Mona a questioning look. “What?”

  “Two words: Uncle Dylan.”

  “You think she likes him?”

  Mona nodded, swirling the lotion across Chloe’s shoulder blades. “A girl knows a rival when she sees one. It deranges me, to see the way he looks at her.”

  Chloe frowned. This was disturbing information on two levels. One, she wasn’t sure how she felt about her uncle looking any special way at another woman. Not that Chloe had liked Aunt Amanda very much—she had found her snobby and cold, if she had to be truthful, and everyone knew about her having the affair with the polo player from Palm Beach, betraying Uncle Dylan and totally breaking Isabel’s heart. But Chloe didn’t like change, and she didn’t know wha
t it might be like if her uncle suddenly got all close and romantic with someone.

  But the other reason had to do with Jane. Chloe had had the feeling Jane was coming to the stand to see her, Chloe. She really liked the way Jane smiled at her—as if Jane was looking for and seeing the very best in Chloe. Not like teachers, always correcting you, trying to improve you, and not like parents, just waiting for you to do the next wrong thing, so they could shake their heads and let you know how disappointed they were in you. . . .

  No, Jane seemed to just like her. She liked her without wanting anything in return: didn’t want her to do her homework, didn’t want her to start eating meat, didn’t want her to get into a good college, didn’t want her to clean up her room. It was nice. Jane was obviously too old to be a real friend; it was a little like befriending a coach, or the mother of the kids you baby-sat for. Friendship, or whatever you wanted to call it, without any conditions.

  It was a rare thing, Chloe thought, glancing at Mona. Even her best friend had expectations. Chloe was supposed to call her with any news, was supposed to tell her all her secrets, was supposed to save both Friday and Saturday nights to hang out or go to the movies. It was enough to wear a person out.

  Just then, they heard the sound: Chloe’s heart began to thump, and she felt her stomach drop as the engine got louder.

  “Sounds like a motorcycle,” Mona said.

  “A dirt bike,” Chloe said, adjusting her bathing suit strap.

  He came around the bend. His blond hair was streaked with sun; his eyes were warm golden-green. The day was so warm, he’d left his black leather jacket at home; his T-shirt advertised Purgatory Chasm Surf Shop. The dolphin was right there on his bicep. He had a small bandage on his wrist. His dirt bike didn’t have a kickstand, so he leaned it against the split-rail fence.

  “Good-bye Gilbert Albert,” Mona said under her breath, invoking and banishing the boy Chloe had thought she’d loved till now.

  “Hey,” Zeke said.

  “Hi,” Chloe said. She couldn’t stop smiling. She saw him checking out her bathing suit. It was the faded pink top of an old bikini, but it fit her really well, showing that she actually had breasts. She wore hip-hugger shorts that dropped below her hip bones. She’d managed to get tan, as much as the April-in-Rhode-Island sun would allow, since their only meeting.