Ballroom: A Novel

by Alice Simpson

  “Lying? About what? Please, Papi. Tell me what this is about.”

  “Your boyfriend Harry Korn is dead, and I found these in his apartment.”

  “Harry’s dead?” She is stunned. “Oh, God, no. What did you do? What happened?”

  “What did I do? What is this?” He takes out two tickets and shows them to her. Tickets to Buenos Aires in her name and Harry’s. “Maria Rodriguez? That’s you, isn’t it? Why is your name on a ticket to Buenos Aires? Were you running off with . . . that . . . that . . . pervert to Argentina? Behind my back? Were you going to tell me? Or simply disappear? And you lied about you and Angel?”

  She is terrified. Holding the tickets in her hand, she can’t believe that Harry actually bought them. And now he’s dead? It has always been her fear that her father would find out and kill Harry. Now it has come true.

  “I didn’t lie to you about Angel. We are getting married. I love him.” She wants to scream “I love him, I love him!” again and again. Instead she asks, “How did Harry die?”

  “A heart attack. I wish I had stabbed him. In the heart.” His face is twisted with hatred. “The cops said it happened a week ago. He was up there for a week, dead. This woman, she says he was shouting your name at the Ballroom. Why your name? What was he doing at the Ballroom with you, Maria?” He doesn’t even give her a chance to answer. “And these?” He is banging his fist on the kitchen table. “What are these? These pictures of you. Baby pictures, too.” The photographs are lined up like cards in a game of solitaire.

  “Oh, God, no.” Maria is shaking, overwhelmed. She is afraid that if she tries to speak, she will break into tears, and he has no patience for crying. She needs to find a way to calm him. Walking to the table, she gathers together all the photographs and puts them into the pocket of her jacket.

  “What has been going on behind my back? Dios mío.”

  She puts her arm around him, feels him pull away, leads him to a kitchen chair. “Sit, Papi. We must talk. He wasn’t my lover. I swear.” She sits across the table from him. “I love Angel.”

  “Carrying on with that cowboy every time I went out of the house.” He isn’t listening.

  There is too much happening at once. She is not sure which is the worst part. Harry dead. The tickets. The photos. Her father’s terrible accusations. She doesn’t know how to begin to tell him the truth. Once she reveals that she has lied to him for so long, she is sure he will never forgive her. Yet she has no choice. Taking his hands in hers, she takes a deep breath.

  “Listen to me, Papi. Harry gave me dance lessons,” she begins, as he struggles to be free from her grasp. “I never thought he’d ever buy those tickets.”

  “Dance lessons?”

  “Yes, for a very long time, Papi. Please listen to me, Papi. Shhhh.”

  “How long? And where? Was he taking you places to dance?”

  “No, Papi. He never took me anyplace.” She tries to keep her voice modulated and calm. “Papi, you’re not listening to me. It was just Harry’s dream. A crazy dream. To buy me those things. That I would be his partner. He gave me lessons in his kitchen. But I told him I wasn’t coming anymore.” She wants him to understand. “I never thought he would do it. I told him it was over. I knew it was wrong.”

  “Wrong? How long have you been . . . going up there? Behind my back? Sneaking around . . . like your mother? Deceiving me?” With each question he poses, his anger grows. Unable to sit, he stands, pushing his chair away, and begins pacing the room.

  “Like my mother?” She is confused by his rantings about some cowboy. “What are you talking about? What cowboy?”

  He ignores her question.

  Maria is caught off guard. In her dismay she momentarily forgets about Harry. “I thought my mother was dead.”

  “When she ran away with that cowboy, I said, ‘Never again.’ Never. Now you.” He is distraught. Rambling.

  “But you told me that my mother died.”

  “I don’t want to speak of her. Think of her.” His eyes are closed, and he shakes his head as if to toss away memories. “Are those clothes yours?” he demands. “That dress, that turquoise dress. The one in the suitcase. And the shoes, too? Tell me the truth, or get out of my house.”

  Maria can barely breathe. A rage begins to build as she realizes her father has been lying to her. She follows him into the living room, where he circles like a caged animal. “You told me she died. Tell me, Papi. Please. Where is she? My mother.”

  “I don’t know, Maria.” Defeated, he collapses into his chair. “I don’t know.”

  “I promise I will tell you everything, Papi. But you need to tell me the truth.”

  Chapter 43

  Sarah

  Should there not be as many gentlemen as ladies present, two ladies may be permitted to dance together.

  —Elias Howe, The Pocket Ballroom Prompter, 1858

  It’s been, what, five or six months? You never come dancing anymore.” It’s Tina Ostrov, with flaming red hair, carrying a huge bag of greens in her arms. “Sarah, how are you?”

  It’s late autumn, and Union Square Park is ablaze. The air is crisp and smells of apples, and at the outdoor farmer’s market across from the Ballroom the pumpkin-lined paths are crowded.

  “Jimmy J called me this week. The Ballroom’s closing,” Tina says. “After all these years. They don’t want to renew their lease. He said that beside that awful incident with Harry, the inspection didn’t go well. The ceiling is leaking, the floor’s a mess, and repairs will cost a fortune. The place is falling apart.”

  “I never even noticed.”

  “I’m not certain where everyone will go. Maybe Roseland will resurrect itself.”

  “I kind of miss Harry, oddly enough. I had no idea he knew Maria Rodriguez. Did you?” says Sarah.

  “I don’t know if you heard. He died.”

  “Who?”

  “Harry. Yeah, the old guy had a heart attack. In May, right after that horrible night.”

  Sarah feels disbelief, then guilt. “I called three or four times, but he never answered. I called the cops, but I never heard anything more. That night just about did it for me. I haven’t been dancing since.”

  It was like a nightmare when Harry ran onto the dance floor, reaching out to grab Maria as she danced with Angel, shouting Maria’s name over and over like a madman. Dancers scattered in every direction, and Maria and Angel disappeared.

  Harry was left alone in the center of the floor, spinning around and around, his arms lifted toward the light. When he began grabbing his chest, in what looked to Sarah a heart attack, she ran to help him.

  “Get away from me,” he shouted, and pushed her. Staggering up the stairs, he vanished into the night.

  “I gave up after he didn’t answer the phone,” she says. “God, I wish I’d gone to his place to see if he was all right. I thought maybe he’d moved or something,”

  “No. You shouldn’t have gone to his place. You can’t get involved in these things. People like Harry who go to the Ballroom, they don’t want people messing in their lives. They come to dance. They come, they dance, and they go home. That’s all. Harry was a private kind of person.”

  “I felt as though I abandoned him. Forgot about him altogether, wrapping myself up in classes. How did you find out?”

  “From Angel. Harry lived in Maria’s building. Her father’s the super, and he found Harry. Poor guy had no family.” Tina continued, “I saw your buddy, Tony DiFranza, dancing at Tavern on the Green. He says he’s thinking of moving down to Miami permanently. He’s got an enormous condo there. Three bedrooms! There’s great dancing there, you know? I’m thinking of moving there myself one of these days. I went down last month to look for a place. Found a great two-bedroom. It’s time for me to retire.”

  “Retire? You’re kind of young for that.” It astounds Sarah that Tina knows all the details of everyone’s lives.

  “I’m past sixty. It’s time.”

  Sarah looks more
closely at Tina.

  “Fooled you, didn’t I? Nothing like a great surgeon.” She laughs. “How come you’re not dancing, Sarah? You spent all that time and money. Where’ve you been lately?”

  “I really love my work, Tina. I finished my classes, and I’m with a large senior facility near Borough Hall. It’s a great job. You know? Sometimes I bring dance tapes, and they sing along to the music while they work. I think I make a difference in their lives. They’re like family.”

  “That’s great, Sarah. Still, you should be dancing. You’re good. Graceful. Besides, I know you love it. Nothing could stop me. I keep going. You always got too emotionally involved. That was always your problem. Looking for love—in all the wrong places!”

  “I guess I was always thinking I’d find romance. What an illusion that was. Seeing you makes me want to dance again. Maybe finally take your advice. Just dance. Where’s everyone going dancing?”

  “They closed down the Latin Quarter. They were getting a rough crowd, and the neighbors were complaining. I’ve seen Gabe Katz at the Copa and China Kim’s a couple of times. I saw Dr. Rebecca at the Lafayette Grill Saturday night with her hunky messenger friend. They really look like an item. . . . There’s one last dance at the Ballroom in December, though. I do know that much. Imagine—the last night at the Ballroom. Like the end of an era. And it’s the end of a millennium. Why don’t you come for old time’s sake?”

  “Maybe. It won’t be the same, will it?” Sarah says. “I can’t believe Harry is dead.”

  “Angel and Maria are opening a dance center, Club Paradiso. Great name. Mostly salsa and tango. She agreed to be his partner in the business, and . . . they got married.”

  “That’s wonderful. At least someone had a happy ending!”

  “Tell me, Sarah, have you found a guy?”

  “No. I thought I wanted to be Gabriel Katz’s partner.” She laughs.

  “Did he give you his old line about looking for a partner?” Tina asks. “He doesn’t want a partner. Says he does, but don’t believe it. He’s always looking for someone new.” She pauses and then adds, “Someone to screw.”

  Someone to screw. If she’d known that, would she have been so eager, desperate, for him? She feels the color rising in her cheeks.

  “He took you home, didn’t he?”

  “No,” Sarah lies. “Really.”

  “He’s probably taken every woman at the Ballroom home, but you, Rebecca, and me. We’re too smart. He knows I know too much about him, and Rebecca, well, she wouldn’t go home with him. Yeah, everyone thinks they want Gabriel. Handsome, elegant, just the right looks, all the accouterments. The dancer with diamonds. But, you know, he’s got absolutely nothin’ to give.”

  “I noticed,” Sarah says. She will never tell anyone, not even Tina, what happened that night. No one ever spoke about what happened when Gabriel drove them home. Just another secret of the Ballroom.

  “Angel and Maria are planning to open the club in Chelsea for New Year’s Eve. If anyone can open a classy place, they will.” Tina pauses. “Jeez, I’ll miss Korn. I knew him from way back. He was something.”

  “Way back when?” Sarah asks.

  “Just a long time. What a dancer he was then. Handsome, too.”

  I used to dance at the Cotton Club, you know?” says Sam Freeman, as he works on his drawing at the center. “I was somethin’ else in my day. All the gals wanted to dance with Dancin’ Super Sam. I was taller, then . . . better lookin’, too,” he adds. “Even did the Wildwood Marathon in Jersey in ’thirty-three. Almost made it to the end too. Eighty-one days. Never stopped. Except those five-minute breaks every hour. Would you believe I could dance that long?” Always laughing about something, Sam is her favorite student at the center.

  “How old are you, Sam?” Sarah asks.

  “Eighty-seven, and I can still move my legs, thank the Lord.” He takes the wire-rimmed glasses off his ears with care and sets them on the table next to the colored pencil drawing he is working on, a picture of his mother. She picked cotton in Alabama and worked hard to get her eight children, including Sam, an education. He retired after fifty years working for the railroads, and now he’s making progress in Sarah’s art classes. He is developing a series of family portraits from memory and old photographs.

  He pushes back his chair and holds out his hand to her. Usually Sam uses a cane; his knees need replacement. But as he stands and puts his arm around her, he leaves the cane hooked on his chair. “Come on, sweetheart, we’ll cut a rug. When I hear the music, I just got to dance.”

  Aretha Franklin is singing “I Will Survive,” and Sam leads her into a smooth fox-trot. If he has any pain, it is all forgotten in the music, the beat, and the dance.

  “You sure can dance, Sam,” she says.

  “You’re not bad yourself, girl!” With his strong lead, they glide around the room, and he adds some fancy steps.

  She can tell from the light in his eyes that Sam is impressed.

  “Where’d you learn yourself to dance so good, darlin’?” he asks. “You make me feel twenty, girl.”

  “Want to go to the Ballroom with me Sunday night?”

  Everyone is laughing and clapping, and soon they are all dancing. The women dance together, because there are so few men.

  Chapter 44

  Joseph

  After dancing, a gentleman should conduct the lady to a seat, unless she otherwise desires; he should thank her for the pleasure she has conferred, but he should not tarry too long in intimate conversation with her.

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

  You saved me a dance,” Sarah says.

  Joseph takes her arm, leading her onto the dance floor. He wonders if she’s forgotten all about the night she came to the apartment. He hopes so; it was almost a year ago. She’s so comfortable and familiar in his arms. He’s pleased that she’s come early for this closing night, and still remembers all his fox-trot steps.

  “Wish you hadn’t shaved your mustache. You looked like Adolphe Menjou.”

  “Really? Adolphe Menjou?” He doesn’t mind the movie-star references now. He’s almost forgotten how easy it is to talk to her. He wishes he could tell her he’s missed her.

  “It definitely added to your elegance.”

  “Well, then, I’ll grow another.” He’ll ask her to go to Roseland again. This time he’ll take her to dinner and buy that new suit.

  After their third fox-trot, she excuses herself. When the DJ plays a rumba, he looks everywhere for her.

  Chapter 45

  Sarah

  Every lady should desist from dancing the moment she feels fatigued, or any difficulty in breathing, for it no longer affords either charm or pleasure, the steps and attitudes lose that easy elegance, that natural grace, which bestows upon dancers the most enchanting appearance.

  —Elias Howe, The Pocket Ballroom Prompter, 1858

  Sarah sees Harry’s brown ghost everywhere. Wishing she’d been a better friend, she remembers his words. “I don’t have no friends. I’m just your teacher. Our relationship is purely professional.”

  She believed that Harry had nothing in his life other than the simple, uncomplicated world of teaching dance, and that he thought he was in complete control of everything. As if it was like a dance. This step, that step. Quick-quick-slow, just that simple. Always moving counterclockwise around the floor. But it isn’t like that. Life has no simple steps you can follow.

  No, she didn’t know him at all. For that matter, did she know any of her partners at the Ballroom? They dress up on Sunday nights for a masquerade; private, no commitments, some not even willing to tell their last names; just one quick dance after another with different partners.

  Music beckons like a siren’s call, and you respond. That feeling of moving to the rhythm and believing, somehow, that the song is meant for you.

  It’s enough for now to be at the Ballroom for its closing, and certainly better than spending another night alone. Sarah look
s at the place and for the first time notices how shabby it is. The leather banquettes in the waiting area are torn; paint is flaking off the Corinthian columns; the dance floor has lost its luster. Worst of all is the stew of smells from the free buffet of baked ziti, slaw, and hot dogs. Other than these first few fox-trots with Joseph, it is a dreadful night. Nothing is right. Jimmy J doesn’t show up. There is an awful DJ, and the music is off—too many mambos.

  As she looks out across the room, it is as if each person has been cut out of black paper with a small scissors and placed on a background of fireworks. She recognizes the familiar contours, the distinctive postures and movements: Gabriel, Joseph, Angel, Tony, and Hernan. The women, too: Tina, Rebecca, Maria, dreary Andrea, who introduced her to Harry, and those she’s never met, who are still waiting to dance.

  As the songs play, one after the other, she prefers to watch the evening unfold in the dark, like a film. To occasionally notice someone with whom she’s danced only once, the blur of silhouettes and the changing of partners. To try to understand all that has happened.

  Dance after dance, song after song: the dazzling blur of Viennese waltz, the provocative pulse of mambo and salsa, the frenzy of a hustle, exhausting its dancers like contestants in a marathon, the heartbeat rhythms of fox-trot and tango, the giddy Peabody and quirky quickstep, each creates a different pattern of motion.

  Then, just before midnight, the DJ announces the last waltz, and the mirrored ball begins to spin again. It seems as though she is the only person in the glittering room—in the world—not dancing. Without a partner.

  Joseph waltzes adequately by with Andrea, both dusted with a spatter of light. Tony D is here, moving smoothly along the outside edges of the floor, his round belly and Tina’s dress capturing polka dots of light. As he whispers in her ear, she smiles with pleasure. Between them, they probably know everyone’s secrets. Rebecca Douglas, looking more animated than Sarah has ever seen her before, is dancing with Hernan.

  Maria and Angel have returned to the Ballroom for its closing night, and hold their position in the center of the room, shimmering like stars, like bride and groom.