Dance, Gladys, Dance

by Cassie Stocks

  “Now you look like you’re about to rob a bank.”

  We made our way inside, to the elevator, and all the way to Ginny’s apartment without anyone seeing us. She opened the door and we were in.

  “I need a glass of wine,” she said, taking off the toque and sunglasses. Her hair stood up in a static halo around her head. “You want one?”

  “No thanks.” I sat down on the couch and waited.

  Ginny came and sat down with her glass of wine. “Thanks for coming. I didn’t know who else to call. I’m beat, how about I give you a call tomorrow? Maybe we can go for a coffee or something.”

  “Ginny, you were just arrested.”

  “I wasn’t arrested. Henri wanted to press charges, but the cops decided not to. The female cop wanted to book me but the other guy said, ‘Do you actually want to bring a stolen fork charge up in front of Judge Williams?’ So they just gave me a stern talking-to about shoplifting, like I was twelve or something. What a laugh.”

  “Ginny?”

  “What?”

  “What is up with the fucking forks?”

  “Oh,” she said, “I don’t know. I had a bad day at the office a couple of months ago. I was having lunch at The Zone, I took a fork somehow, when I went back to the office, I felt better. So then the next week, I took another one, and then it sort of got to be like a habit, I suppose, and well, there you go. I’m not a kleptomaniac or anything.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “It’s a stressful job,” she said. “I have a ton of responsibility.”

  “When will you be finished drawing the shoes?”

  Ginny stared at me.

  “Like Andy Warhol,” I said. “He drew shoes for fashion magazines before he started doing his own art. How many years are you going to draw shoes?”

  “Who are you to ask me that?”

  “I never went commercial. I’m not drawing shoes.”

  “You’re not drawing anything.” Ginny stood. “I want to show you something.”

  I followed her down the hallway into the spare bedroom. She opened the closet and where my piles of boxes and clothes had been there was now a narrow white desk with an office chair pushed off to the side. On the desk was a board and on the board was a sculpture much like Ginny’s steel sculptures in art school, but this one was entirely constructed of forks, spoons, and knives. To the side sat a box of untransformed utensils.

  “It’s great,” I said. The sculpture had a wonderful though slightly jarring rhythm. The mundane transformed. The utensils were perfectly recognizable, but the mind almost refused to believe that the form could have been composed with such ordinary materials. “When did you start this?”

  “After you left, the utensils were sort of piling up and you pissed me off asking about my work.” Ginny sat on the bed. “What do you think is up with Whitman? Do you think he likes me? Has he said anything at all?”

  I smote my brow. “You have more important things to think about than Whitman right now. This is brilliant,” I pointed at the sculpture. “You should be selling these. But you should buy the forks.”

  Ginny waved her hand dismissively. “Easy for you to say, with Norman hanging on your apron strings.” She stood and left the room.

  I followed her down the hallway. “Norman has nothing to do with anything. If you’re so unhappy at your job, why don’t you get a new one instead of stealing forks?”

  “At least I didn’t sleep with a man to get ahead.” She went into the bathroom and turned on the light. “Christ, look at my hair. Why didn’t you tell me it looked like that?”

  I went and stood in the doorway. “Are you talking about Gimlet? That’s just mean.”

  “Not Gimlet, Norman.” She unpinned what was left of her updo, wet a brush, and began running it through her hair.

  “I didn’t sleep with Norman to get ahead, you idiot.”

  She picked up a black hair band and put it on, pushing her hair off her face. “Well, it got you somewhere, didn’t it? Excuse me.” She closed the door.

  “We’re way off topic here,” I said through the closed door. “You work twice as hard as the rest of those fuckers in your office and it only gets you half as far. No wonder you’re frustrated.”

  “Well, at least I’m getting somewhere,” Ginny yelled. “You’ve never had to work at anything in your whole life.”

  “Whoa, Ginny.”

  She opened the door, now wearing her fluffy white bathrobe, then turned to the sink. I watched in fascination as she squirted some sort of foamy stuff into the palm of her hand. She rubbed her hands together, then applied the foam to her face, her fingertips moving in perfect little circular motions.

  “Aren’t you supposed to put that in your hair?”

  “What?”

  “Mousse.”

  “It’s foaming facial cleanser. It removes dirt and makeup without stripping the natural, beneficial oils.”

  “Operators are standing by.”

  Ginny rolled her eyes. “That’s exactly what I mean. I spent seventy-nine dollars on this stuff and you don’t even know what it is. You do nothing to yourself and you look fucking fabulous.

  I spend hundreds on haircuts and clothes and I end up looking like every other career woman sitting in the piano bar, done to the nuts, tossing our hair around, and beaming our extra-white teeth. We’re all hoping to meet someone half as nice and stinking filthy rich as Norman and we never do.”

  She turned on the taps, leaned over the sink and splashed her face with water, then reached for a white towel and dried off. “You, you meet Norman working in a sex shop wearing a cheap satin bustier backwards. Then what do you do? You dump him.”

  She took a cotton pad, opened a bottle of some blue oily looking stuff, tipped some onto the pad and began to rub her eyes. An astonishing amount of black smeared around her eyelids.

  “What’s that stuff?” I asked.

  “Are you listening to me?”

  “Yes, but it’s just silly.”

  “It’s not silly, it’s my life.” She repeated the rubbing process with fresh cotton pads until the black disappeared.

  She looked fifteen years old with no makeup and her Alice in Wonderland hair band. “You look good like that,” I said and gestured to her reflection in the mirror. She glared at me.

  “Anyhow, look what you’ve done.” I pointed down the hallway. “Your couch cost more than I’ve ever made in a year.”

  She walked past me. “You think I’m so ambitious. I have to work hard; some of us weren’t born talented. I studied my ass off in school to get the grades I did. You never did a damn thing and got higher marks than me, and what do you do? You drop out. Oh, it makes perfect sense.”

  I followed her into the living room. She walked over to the coffee table, picked up her wineglass, and took a long swallow. “Maybe if you’d concentrated on improving your art instead of screwing Gimlet you’d be making money as an artist now. And you whine and mope around like the world has done you an injustice. Well, tough shit, cookie. I don’t feel sorry for you anymore.”

  “I never asked you to feel sorry for me.”

  “Well that’s good, because I don’t.”

  “I’m going now,” I said. I got my jacket and walked out the door. I left it open to give her a chance to apologize.

  I was halfway to the elevator when Ginny called from her doorway. “Frieda, please don’t say anything to Whitman about all of this.”

  I nodded silently and pushed the elevator button. Ginny closed her door. I was flabbergasted. I was the loser. Ginny was the winner. It never occurred to me that she might be paying a price for all that winning. I also felt a tiny wavering of hope. Maybe, despite Gimlet’s pronouncement, I did have talent. If Ginny, potentate of all good taste, thought so, it just might be true.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  She Twitches Too

  By the time I got back home, everyone had gone to bed. I locked the door and went upstairs. I crawled under the covers and
was about to escape for a few minutes into a mystery novel when Gladys cleared her throat from the armchair. I didn’t put the book down. “Yes?” I said.

  “I don’t want to bother you, I know it’s been a long night.”

  “A long night is right. What I want to know is how I’m supposed to develop a normal, boring life when everyone around me is acting like a lunatic?” I put the book down on the comforter.

  “Umm, I don’t know,” said Gladys, “but have you thought about going to the Palace Theatre yet?”

  “I haven’t had a chance. I have no idea how we’d get in there. I don’t want to get arrested. Ginny would think I was trying to show her up.”

  “Oh,” said Gladys.

  “I’ll think about it, okay, tomorrow, I promise.”

  “All right,” she said and disappeared.

  I picked the book back up.

  The next morning, Whitman sat at the kitchen table eating waffles. He wore a Venetian red silk paisley housecoat with a black undershirt showing at the collar. His curly hair stood up in fifteen different directions.

  Norman and Mr. H. had gone to the Centre. According to Whitman, Norman wanted to talk with the board members about some strategies for saving the Centre. Everybody had a strategy except me. I sat at the table and quickly ate a waffle and then I stood to do the dishes. If Whitman and Norman stayed any longer, I was going to put their names on the duty roster.

  Whitman had another cup of coffee while I stacked the plates in the sink. As I washed and rinsed, I had an idea. It wasn’t exactly “strategy” caliber, but it might work, and I’d promised Gladys.

  I sat down across from Whitman. “I need to ask you a favour. Do you know anyone who works at the Palace?”

  He looked at me. “No, why?”

  “I need to get in there alone at night. Maybe you could say you were scouting a location for a movie and needed to check out the light or the atmosphere. Like maybe you’d get the keys for me.”

  “Why do you need to get into the building at night?” He picked up his fork and tapped the tines on the table.

  “I can’t tell you. Well, I could tell you but you’d never believe me. I won’t touch anything. I just need to get in there.”

  He put the fork down, took a last swallow of his coffee, stood, and put the cup in the sink. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks. So, how goes Jesus and the Punk Rockers?”

  “Who? Oh, doesn’t look like the pilot is going to go.” He turned from the sink. “No matter, there’s plenty more ideas where that one came from.”

  I remembered that, the endless well of creativity. The more you used, the more you were provided with. Now, I could likely throw a coin down my well and hear echoes of it clinking against bone-dry bedrock. “What happened? Did the funding fall through?”

  “Yes. No. Actually, there never was a Jesus and the Punk Rockers. Well, there was a Jesus, maybe, and there were definitely punk rockers, in the seventies, in New York, but there was no sitcom pilot. I came to see Dad. I wanted to try to — you know.”

  “I do know,” I said.

  “Well, anyway, I’m off,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do about the keys.”

  I finished the dishes, went up to my room, and brought my mystery book into the living room to read. Whitman passed down the hallway and out the front door without looking in. I crossed my fingers. Shortly after Whitman left, the phone rang. I sighed, put the book down, and went into the kitchen to answer it. At this rate, not only was I never going to find out who did it, I’d never even find out what they did.

  It was Ginny and she was in tears. “They fired me,” she sobbed. “I had to clean out my desk and carry out the boxes in front of everyone.”

  “Are you at home? Do you want me to come over?”

  “Yeah, but no, I’m going to have a bath and then sleep for three days.” She sniffed. “Sorry I was such a bitch yesterday.”

  “It’s going to be okay, I promise. You’ll be back up and swinging in no time. Phone me later.”

  Whitman walked into the living room in the early afternoon. I’d read far enough into the book by then to find out what they did, and it was nasty, whoever they were. He dropped a set of keys on the coffee table.

  “That was fast,” I said.

  “No use messing around when there’s something to be done, but you owe me big,” he said. “I had to take the manager for lunch and sweet-talk him until I was blue in the face. Told him all sorts of bullshit about needing to see the place alone so my artistic sensibilities wouldn’t be disturbed. It was excruciating. I took him to The Zone and I think I saw Ginny walking into the building, but she looked like a Sophia Loren impersonator, scarf wrapped around her head and giant sunglasses on.”

  “That was probably her. She’s gone incognito for a bit. Did you talk to her?”

  “I didn’t want to interrupt my shameless pandering to the manager.”

  “Why don’t you give her a call? She’s kinda going through a tough time. It would cheer her up.”

  He held up his hands. “I don’t think I’m what Ginny’s looking for. And I don’t do tough times. I’m a fair-weather fellow.”

  I looked at the keys, bit my tongue, then scooped up the key ring, and put it in the pocket of my hoodie. “Well,” I said, “at least you’re honest. I know it’s none of my business.” I hesitated, not wanting to start another argument. God knows I’d had it up to my unplucked eyebrows with people being “helpful.” “But I don’t think Mr. H. blames you for not coming home when your mom was sick. If anything, he blames himself for not making sure you knew how bad things were.”

  Whitman stared at me then nodded his head. “Thanks.”

  I shrugged. “’Salright. Thanks for the keys.”

  At ten o’clock that evening, I told everyone I was going out on the town. Mr. H. looked dubious, Norman envious, and Whitman amused. I stood at the bus stop in the indigo evening with Gladys floating dimly beside me.

  “Are you sure no one else can see you?” I asked. “I’d hate to start mass panic on the transit system.”

  “Just you.”

  The bus stopped and we boarded. I sat on the outer seat so Gladys could sit by the window. The bus was mostly empty when we started out, but as we neared our destination, it began to fill up. I stared straight ahead. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a lady in a green lumpy sweater with a big black purse standing beside me in the aisle. I glanced up at her briefly and was met with a grumpy stare. I looked away and hummed a little.

  “Would you please push over?” she said.

  “Uh,” I glanced at Gladys who was absorbed with the sights out the window. “I can’t really.”

  The woman gave an exasperated sigh and heaved herself over my knees and into the “empty” seat. I got a mouthful of hairy sweater. Gladys disappeared from view.

  “Ahhhh,” I said, “you just sat on —”

  “Your imaginary friend?”

  “Where’d she go?” I said looking around the bus.

  “Day pass, honey?” asked the woman. “Always take all the medication you’re prescribed.”

  “Oh, be quiet.” I stood up and turned, holding onto the bar of the seat. Gladys floated in the back of the bus beside three teenagers in dark sunglasses and baseball caps. They listened to rap on a portable CD player. Gladys bobbed up and down. I walked unsteadily down the aisle and stood beside her.

  “What is this music?” she asked.

  “It’s rap,” I said aloud.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” said one of the teens.

  “Let’s move to the front,” I said to Gladys.

  “I ain’t moving,” said the boy holding the CD player. “Are you a cop?”

  “No, I’m out on a day pass.” I looked at Gladys and jerked my head towards the front of the bus. She ignored me. I jerked my head again, twice.

  “She twitches too,” said the teen closest to me to the dread-locked white boy beside him.

  “
Hey!” I said to Gladys. She moved up and down in time to the music with her eyes closed. “It’s almost our stop. Come on.” One of the fellows turned and scanned the empty spot I addressed. “You’re totally in code, lady. Who the fuck you talking to?”

  “Jesus,” I said. “He’s always wanted to take a bus ride.”

  “Riiiiight,” he said. “Going to the grocery store to get you some tinfoil for a hat?” The other boys snickered.

  I nodded and headed for the front of the bus. Gladys drifted along behind me. We disembarked on the sidewalk in front of the Palace. It was a Tuesday night and the street was mostly deserted. “You need to listen to me when we’re out,” I told Gladys. “You could have got me in big trouble on the bus. Whitman said the keys were for the back entrance. Let’s go around here.”

  “I couldn’t get over that music. Rap.” Her head started to jerk up and down again, “I’m Gladys. I got no body. It’s cruddy. I’m Gladys.”

  I stared at her for a second and then burst into laughter. “You go, girl.”

  Around the back was a large green steel door. There were two keys, one for the doorknob lock and one for a deadbolt. I opened the door onto a long hallway, dimly lit with emergency lights. I felt around the wall, but I couldn’t find a switch. It was kinda spooky, but what was I worried about — I’d see a ghost?

  About halfway down the hallway was a door marked “Stage Right.” I opened it and we were in another hallway, this one shorter. There was a switch to the left of the door. I flicked it and a dim row of lights near the floor came on.

  “Backstage lights,” I whispered to Gladys.

  “We used to have small oil lamps backstage in Toronto,” said Gladys. “You had to be careful not to upset them when making your entrances and exits.” She was whispering too.

  We went down the little hallway and onto the stage. It was almost completely dark.

  “I’m going to try and find some lights,” I said. Gladys stood on the stage, looking out at the seats. I made my way across the stage and down the stairs into the aisle beside the orchestra pit. Near the door, I found a panel of light switches and a large bar switch. I held my breath and flipped the large switch. The first row of stage lights came on. Gladys was nowhere to be seen.