Ballroom: A Novel

by Alice Simpson

  Back at her apartment Sarah gets into bed and turns on the television to watch Norma Shearer in Marie Antoinette.

  Chapter 24

  Harry

  The courteous guest should find something to admire everywhere, and thus make the entertainers feel that their efforts to please are appreciated.

  —Thomas E. Hill, Evils of the Ball, 1883

  His stomach churns. What the hell is this about? Dinner? He doesn’t want any romance with Sarah.

  The rest of the week he feels stiff and achy, and a bad taste in his mouth doesn’t go away. Maybe he is coming down with something. His temperature is normal. His pulse, too. Pushy. She is goddamned pushy. To sit at his kitchen table in his underwear, alone on Sunday, to eat his chicken, that’s all he wants. Although he does like pot roast. Okay. He will eat, but say he has an early appointment, ask her to take him home. Early.

  At five thirty on Saturday, Sarah sits in her Honda, waiting for him. The radio is tuned to La Mega. She is in a cheerful mood, which annoys him more, because she keeps chattering about old movies all the way to Park Slope.

  “Stop talking so much.”

  “Oh, be quiet. You’re such an old grouch.” She parks the car in front of a brownstone with a red door. The front hall, unlike his own, is painted a cranberry color and blanketed with family photographs. There is an aroma of onions, garlic, and meat cooking, fleetingly familiar.

  “So how did you get this place?” He’s looking around. “How much is your rent?”

  “It was my parents’. They bought it when I was born. My father, he was a high school teacher. He died when I was twelve. My mother was a private secretary. Now she would be called an administrative assistant. She died in 1994. Cancer. And now it’s mine.”

  She points to a photograph of her family on the wall. Her mother, who he notices has a sweet smile, is holding a little girl on her lap. “Is that you?” he asks.

  “That’s me when I was three. Adorable, wasn’t I?”

  He decides not to comment. “You live here alone in this big place?”

  “I have a tenant. He lives in the apartment in the basement. He’s a jazz musician. Plays the saxophone.” She lights candles—on the table, fireplace, and coffee table.

  “How much rent does he pay?”

  “Why all these questions about rent? Sit down.” She gestures toward a chair and excuses herself to see to dinner. “Would you like some wine?” she calls from the kitchen.

  “I don’t drink.”

  The darkened room, lit only by candles, is filled with odds and ends of furniture and an abundance of books. The drapes are drawn; the room feels airless. Too much stuff. Why would anyone want all these tchotchkes? he wonders. Simple, that’s how he lives. Everything simple, in its place. Just the essentials. That’s all.

  A small round table draped with a crocheted tablecloth and glittering with an assortment of glasses is set with too many plates on top of other plates. He imagines slipping out the front door before she returns and running the entire distance from Brooklyn to the Lower East Side.

  “Can I fix you one?” She places a big chunk of cheese on a cracker.

  “I don’t eat cheese. Too rich.”

  She eats it in one bite.

  “Just tonight? It’s a party, Harry. My birthday.”

  He has never considered she has a birthday. Why does she want to spend it with him?

  “I didn’t know,” he says, glad he didn’t know. “I have nothing for you.”

  Carrying plates of food to the table, she says, “If you don’t want cheese, we’ll sit right down to dinner.”

  There are cloth napkins inside fancy rings. The silverware is ornate with roses and scrolls, a D inscribed on each piece. He’s not sure which fork he’s supposed to use. What a lot of trouble to go to. There’s tango music playing. She better not be getting any ideas.

  “Stop tapping your foot. You’re shaking the table.” She smiles, and he is certain that she is laughing at how clumsy he is. “Why are you acting so nervous?”

  “I’m not.” He is. He isn’t hungry. He just wants to go home.

  “Why did you invite me?” he asks.

  “I invited you to dinner because I didn’t want to spend my birthday alone. I know you don’t think we’re friends, but I think of you as my friend, Harry. We’ve been dancing together a long time. Besides, I thought you might enjoy a home-cooked meal.”

  The food is delicious, and he eats very slowly, watching Sarah to be sure he doesn’t eat the wrong way, with the wrong utensil. The pot roast in its gravy is moist and tender, with depths of flavor he doesn’t understand. She has roasted small potatoes, brown and crusty, with onions that are golden and sweet. When Sarah passes him the homemade applesauce, he pushes her hand away. Without paying attention to his refusal she plops a spoonful on his plate. It is warm and tastes of cinnamon. He feels clumsy each time his napkin slides off his lap and he has to bend down to pick it up off the floor. Twice his fork drops on the plate. The clattering sound so startles him, he is certain the delicate dishes will shatter into pieces.

  “More pot roast? Potatoes? Anything?”

  “No.” He punches his hard, flat stomach. “Eat to live. Discipline.”

  “Oh, come on, it’s a party. Lighten up! I made it just for you.”

  He decides, for once, to allow himself second helpings of everything. Creamy yellow butter slides across the potatoes and bundles of string beans like melting sunlight. She’s made a salad with things he’s never tasted before, hearts of palm and baby artichokes, she explains. For dessert, chocolate mousse served in wineglasses. Rich and dark as mahogany. Better than chocolate pudding. She serves him a cup of coffee in a dainty white cup with a rosebud at the bottom.

  He is full, sleepy, with little to say, and Sarah keeps up her usual steady chatter.

  “Did you think of a dance partner for me yet?”

  “Are you starting that business again?”

  “You must have one student, one guy you could match me up with. You can coach us. I’ll pay you extra. I know you could use the money.”

  He isn’t about to tell her she is his only student. He reminds himself to be nicer to her. “I’ll think about it,” he adds.

  When she asks him to help her clear the table, he carefully carries plates and glasses into the kitchen, terrified that he’ll break something and have to pay to replace it.

  “Would you put the butter in the fridge?” she calls from the living room.

  Her refrigerator overflows with food—strawberry, apricot and peach preserves, cheeses, olives. There are fresh blackberries, marked $3.49. There are salad dressings, and he can see oranges, apples, and grapes in the drawers.

  Listening for her footsteps, he furtively opens the freezer, where he discovers waffles, ice cream, and neatly foil-wrapped packages in shapes he imagines to be steaks or chops. His heart is pounding. When she approaches, he quickly closes the door.

  “A little sherry?”

  “I’ve got to get home.” His head is beginning to throb.

  “Okay, we’ll go.” Holding him by the shoulders, she says, “God, you look terrible.”

  They drive the entire way in silence. She hands him a shopping bag as they stop in front of his building.

  “Some leftovers, and a little gift for you . . . to thank you for my lessons.” As she reaches over to kiss him on the cheek, he quickly gets out.

  “Don’t forget to think about my partner,” she calls out to him.

  He peers into the Rodriguez apartment. The lights are out except for the blue flicker of a television in the front room. Manuel must be home while Maria is out dancing with Angel.

  Relieved to be back in his own apartment, he opens the refrigerator. Staring for a long time into the emptiness, he realizes that he is letting out the cold. Opening the bag Sarah gave him, he finds a generous portion of leftovers, which he hungrily eats while standing at the sink. At the bottom of the bag is a box of Godiva chocolates, which h
e takes into the bedroom. Eager to be in his underwear, he hangs his shirt and pants in the closet that won’t quite close. For just a moment he lets his stomach sag.

  In bed, balancing the box on his belly, he removes the foil from the candies one by one, contemplating each before pushing it into his mouth with one finger. They melt between the roof of his mouth and tongue; the liquid milk chocolate oozes down his throat. Rounds. Squares. Ovals. Hearts.

  When he’s eaten them, pressing each gold wrapper on his thigh until it is smooth, he places the wrappers on the table next to his bed.

  The next evening, Harry, comfortable in his underwear and slippers, eats his usual dinner of boiled chicken, carrots, and potatoes at the kitchen table. He likes eating a late dinner after he comes home from the Ballroom. During the hour he spent there with Sarah he’d found her very annoying, but he needs the money. After washing the pot, fork, and knife, and wiping the white Formica tabletop, he puts everything away. He shuffles along the paper-bag path into his bedroom.

  Taking a cardboard box from under his bed, he unties the frayed string around it, unfolds the yellowed tissue, and carefully lifts out a large brown book. Sitting on the side of the bed, he holds it on his lap. Its well-worn fake leather covers with gold Victorian scrollwork have separated, leaving the brittle pages barely attached. Flakes of aged paper fall like dandruff. The pages, once white, have turned the color of light coffee. There are spots where glue was once applied in circular motions, and shadows where pictures once were.

  On the first page, the sepia photo of the parents he barely remembers has come loose. It too has cracked at the edges. A new cluster of veins has appeared on the picture itself. Seated in a formal chair, with her gloved hands placed one over the other, dressed in a dark velvet suit with fur around the neck and wrists, his mother once looked out at him. Now little pieces of her face have flaked off, and he can no longer make out the details of her features. When he first glued the photo in place, she wore a tender smile. There is no definition left to her eyes at all. On crossed dainty feet, peeking out from a long skirt, her shoes are so clear he can see the buttons on the strap across her instep. Her mustachioed husband, who stands at her side with one hand on her shoulder, looks proud and stern. He is gazing directly into the lens. A jaunty boutonniere of lilies of the valley is tucked in the lapel of his tightly fitted Victorian three-piece suit. He appears to be about twenty, Harry thinks, and she looks even younger. “Wedding Day~1918” is written in perfect penmanship on the back.

  He remembers being carried in her arms. They had taken a train, a bus, and then she’d made him walk to the large house with dark rooms that smelled of kasha. A stout woman in an apron with untidy gray hair greeted them, showing them to an upstairs room with rows of ordered beds. She stood there with her hands on her hips for a few minutes before his mother said something to her he couldn’t understand.

  There were beds on both sides of the room, each with a small dresser next to it. He sat very close to his mother on the stiff bed with its hard green blanket, certain something terrible was about to happen. He could faintly remember how soft her hands felt as she smoothed his hair. She had held his chin in her hand, and he had noticed how blue her eyes were. When she spoke, he knew that her words were important.

  “Do as you are told. Promise?”

  He would have promised her anything. She took a brown paper bag from her suitcase and placed it on his lap. She held him too tight when she kissed him, and he recalls the lace that protruded from the neck of her blouse. Then she stood up rather quickly and left him. It was only after she had gone that he found on the floor one of the small tortoise-shell combs she always wore in her honey-colored hair. When he looked into the bag, there was a chocolate bar wrapped in gold foil, his harmonica, and the photo, over which he now ran his fingers. He can still taste the chocolate melting in his mouth in the dark that first night without her.

  It was in those dark rooms, in what he would later learn was an orphanage, that he would spend the war years, sleeping under a scratchy wool blanket, hungry, wearing other people’s clothes, waiting for his mother. The woman who had greeted them on that first day, Mrs. Leffler, always reassured him that his mother would come for him. She reassured all the boys that their parents would come for them after the war.

  Looking at the photo, he wondered if something terrible had happened to her, or if he had not behaved. “Be a good boy, Harold, until I come back for you,” she had said.

  Chapter 25

  Harry

  The lady may, at her own option, on meeting the gentleman afterwards, salute him or not. The exercise of which prerogative is of doubtful propriety. It is almost always better that she should not recognize the gentleman; except in cases where they both know each other’s standing, and only require an introduction to entitle them to speak, or some similar cases.

  —W. P. Hazard, The Ball-Room Companion, 1849

  Turning the scrapbook’s pages, he passes through years of the Simon Shoe Factory summer picnic photos. Almost forty of them, rows of employees, those in front sitting cross-legged, those in the back row standing on picnic benches. He sees himself at the outer corners, and in each photograph he observes the steady loss of his hair. He doesn’t take enough time to notice the loss of youth in his skin and eyes or the disappearance of his smile. He certainly doesn’t want to see the change from firm, vibrant flesh into rope and sinew. Early on he made several friends, but as the years passed and they left and he remained, he became less interested in making friends. He knows that even if he looks closely at the last fifteen photos, he won’t remember one name. Except Belle Fine, from accounting.

  In 1957 Harry had a pompadour, and the determined look of someone with a future; at twenty-three, he believed he had one. There was a fierce glint in his eyes, his jaw was set hard, and he rarely allowed himself a smile. The army had taught him how to wear a uniform, to tuck his shirt in neatly, and he hadn’t forgotten. His plan was that the GI Bill would get him to City College, where he would study law. Until then he had a good job at the Simon Shoe Factory as manager.

  There she was in the front row of the photo of the June 1957 Simon Shoe Factory picnic at Brighton Beach, her bleached blond Marilyn Monroe hair in her eyes, dressed in robin’s-egg blue and politely holding her plastic handbag by the handle in front of her. Belle Fine. Though he couldn’t see the piece of beach glass at the bottom of her bag, he knew it was there. She was still twenty-nine.

  Harsh skies were looming in the distance that day as Harry swam along the shore. Even though there was a volleyball game, he preferred to swim. A strong swimmer, he loved catching the waves at their peak, feeling the power of his upper body in the pull of each arm against the current. When his arms and legs were counterbalanced, it reminded him of dancing a fox-trot. He could hear music as he propelled himself through the water, measuring the distance from shore and keeping the jetty as his goal. At Jack LaLanne he had mastered all the strokes and built up endurance.

  In the ocean calm he floated, noticing a dark mass of charcoal clouds moving toward shore. The air was becoming oppressive, and without sun he felt a chill on his chest. Almost to the farther jetty, he decided he’d best keep closer to shore. A lifeguard’s shrill whistle was calling the swimmers in. Not wishing to be caught by lightning, Harry permitted a huge whitecap to carry him toward the beach. Its unexpected force sent him tumbling, caught in the wave’s tumult, unable to correct his balance. Under water for too long, caught in a whirl of submerged darkness, not knowing where air was, he tried to inhale. His nostrils and mouth filled with brackish water and sand. Feeling a moment of panic, he searched for light, but there was only the turbulence of the water, the swirl of seaweed, and the bottom of the ocean. The gritty, shell-filled underlayer of the wave rasped his palms, shins, and knees, and when he was finally washed ashore, he hated having to crawl out of the surf. He spit out seawater and tried to regain his equilibrium. Running fingers through his sticky hair, he felt the unfamiliar
texture of salt, sand, and pomade.

  The storm was rolling in fast, the light on the beach theatrical. One puzzle piece of sky was a brilliant azure, another slate gray. Occasional shafts of sun broke through like searchlights. Taking in the panorama, he was amazed at its enormity. From somewhere on the horizon he heard a roll of thunder. Turning toward the boardwalk, he had difficulty getting his bearings. He was about a half mile from the Simon picnic. Familiar markers were gone. The wind tumbled beach chairs. Umbrellas cartwheeled across the sand. Parents shouted commands as children shrieked. There was a chaotic commotion, towels flapping, as people grabbed belongings, ran for cover. The lifeguards blew their whistles again, waving everyone out of the water and off the beach. Harry ran toward the boardwalk, sliding under a section. He had to crawl, keeping his shoulders and head close to his chest to fit. He liked the stale, briny smell.

  A woman he recognized from the office crawled in beside him. “This is something,” she breathlessly exclaimed. “You don’t recognize me, do you? I’m Belle. Belle Fine. You interviewed me for accounting a year and a half ago.”

  “Right.” Diagonal stripes, from the intermittent light forcing its way through the boardwalk, fell across her flushed cheeks, her shoulders, her blue bathing suit and pale thighs.

  “You’re Harry Korn?” she asked. “I see you around work. Mr. Simon told Patty Kelley, you know, she’s in shipping. He thinks you’ve got a good future.”

  He sat up straighter. “Yeah, I don’t want to stay at Simon’s much longer. Going to enroll at City College in the fall—to be a lawyer. That’s between the two of us.” He didn’t like that she’d been observing him at work, talking about him with Patty Kelley, while he’d hardly known she existed. He noticed a small mole above her right breast.