Step-Ball-Change: A Novel

by Jeanne Ray

  “But you’re gorgeous. There isn’t a woman your age in the world who looks better than you,” I said.

  “But you’re including the key phrase, ‘your age.’ I look great for my age, but that doesn’t make any difference. Men aren’t interested in women my age. They’re interested in women Holden’s age. Hell, her father is out there right now doing the mambo with Miss Junior Executive on my birthday. For all I know, they’re talking about having kids, making a nice little second family, but this time, he swears, he’ll really be there. He’ll do it right.”

  “You can’t speak for all men,” Tom said.

  “That’s right,” Woodrow said.

  “It’s my birthday and I can speak for whomever I damn well please. You’re good guys. You stayed with your wives, but if you were single, who could say?”

  “I am single,” Woodrow said. “I can say I like women my own age.”

  “You never went out with a woman twenty years younger than you?”

  “Hell, I’ve got a daughter who’s twenty years younger than me. I wouldn’t be messing around with that.”

  “Well, that makes one. Neddy can date someone who’s younger than Holden, but when I say to that young lawyer, Jack, You can be my date tonight, he’s only too happy to help me out because to him it’s funny. It’s a joke. ‘I’m going to pretend I’m with this old woman here.’ He doesn’t think I still have sex. He doesn’t even think I think about it anymore. Women my age are out of the game. I just want to walk down the street one more time and have some guy turn around and look at my ass. It’s a kind of power. I never realized at the time. Maybe you don’t feel like you’ve got too much power in your life, but when somebody wants you, well, then you’re something.” The room had gone quiet. We all just sat there and looked at our drinks. “For God’s sake, this is not my imagination. Back me up here, Caroline.”

  I sighed. “It’s true,” I said. “I wish I still got seated at the front of a restaurant.”

  “And?” Taffy said.

  I hated this. I didn’t want to say it in front of Woodrow and I really didn’t want to say it in front of Tom, who was a good husband and always made me feel attractive. “Dammit. All right, you’re right, is that what you want me to say? I’m only going to admit it because it’s your birthday. I wish some guy on the street would check out my ass.” I put down my glass and hid my face in my hands. “How can I say that? The whole time I was young I was mortified when men stared at me, and once they stopped I started to miss it. What kind of feminist does that make me?”

  “The honest kind,” Taffy said, and finished her drink.

  After that we were all ready to call it a night. Woodrow stayed and helped us clean up the kitchen even though we all tried to send him home. “I want you to work in my house,” I said. “I just don’t want you to load the dishwasher.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ll be back.” He crouched down on the floor and Stamp came out from under the table and sat beside him. “Shake.” He held out his hand and Stamp gave him his paw with dog solemnity.

  “When did he learn how to do that?” Taffy said.

  “He’s always known how to do that. Hey, is it my imagination or is the dog getting fat?”

  “It’s nervous eating,” I said, handing a cluster of glasses to Tom. “He misses you.”

  Woodrow stood up and stretched. “Then I should go before I wear out my welcome.”

  Taffy went and got Woodrow’s jacket, which he had abandoned in the living room. “Happy birthday,” he said, and handed her the present.

  She looked at the package and touched the ribbon. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “It’s for both of you,” he said, looking at Stamp.

  Taffy sat down and carefully peeled off the paper. It was something that drove me crazy about her when we were kids. She never tore into anything. She always slid her nail under the tape and pulled it apart in such a way that you could use the paper again if you wanted to, which we never did. At Christmas I had completely finished opening all of my presents before Taffy was finished with her first one. You CAN Train Your Dog! She held up the book. “Thank you. We’ll read it together in bed.”

  “I’d like that.” He waved to us.

  “Come back soon,” Tom said. “If you don’t come back soon, my birthday is going to be moved to next week.”

  “I’ll be here.” Woodrow was slow to leave, and when he got out the door, he opened it again before it was all the way closed. “You want to have dinner with me next week?” he said to Taffy. “What?”

  “Don’t make me ask twice,” he said. “There are other people here.”

  She waved at him with her dish towel. “Get out of here. You’re just feeling sorry for me because I made such a scene in the living room.”

  “You can say no, but don’t say no for that reason.”

  She looked at him. Tom and I got busy at the sink and a plate slipped through my hands and shattered on the floor. I gave out a completely unnecessary yell. Taffy jumped about a foot.

  “Well, good night again,” Woodrow said.

  “No,” she said. “Wait a minute. Yes, I want to say yes, but I’ve got to ask you a question first.”

  “Shoot.”

  “You never call me by my name. When I met your daughter, she said you always called me Caroline’s sister.”

  I thought it was a ridiculous prerequisite question for a date, but Woodrow stopped and scratched the back of his head. He was stalling. “Honestly? I just have a hard time calling a grown woman Taffy.”

  “Everybody has always called me Taffy.”

  “But is it your name?”

  “Actually, no,” she said, trying to put a little dignity into her voice, “my name’s Henrietta, but I don’t have the slightest idea what your name is either, unless it’s Woodrow Woodrow.”

  “It’s Felix.”

  I looked at him. “Felix?” I said.

  “Like the cat?” Taffy said.

  “Exactly. Like the cat.”

  “Not a great name. It might be worse than Henrietta, but it might be a toss-up—what do you think?”

  “I think I didn’t think this through very carefully when I brought it up in the first place and that I should call you whatever you want.”

  “Taffy,” Taffy said.

  “Woodrow,” Woodrow said.

  Taffy thought about it for a minute and then she nodded. “So, dinner next week.”

  Woodrow smiled. “We’ll figure out a time.”

  “You know where I live,” she said.

  “I know where you live,” he said, and he shut the door.

  chapter twelve

  THE NEXT MORNING TAFFY WAS THE FIRST ONE UP. When I came into the kitchen, she was sitting in her bathrobe with her feet up in the chair. “I have a date,” she said.

  “I know you do.”

  “I have a date with your black contractor.”

  “That’s what it’s looking like.”

  “You have to wonder what Neddy would say about that.”

  “Well, up until last night I would have wondered what you would have said about it. I hope you’re not going to go out with him to gall Neddy. Woodrow’s too good for that.”

  “We call him Felix.”

  “Don’t be mean, Henrietta.”

  “Felix the contractor, wedding planner, dog trainer.” She was laughing and then she stopped. “You know, I really do think he’s a nice man. I can’t say I’d marry him, but I want to have dinner with him.”

  “It’s important to take these things one step at a time.”

  “God, I haven’t been on a date in a really, really long time.”

  “You can borrow some of my clothes.”

  “Then he’ll never ask me out again.” Taffy looked at her watch. “I wonder what time Holden is going to get up. I wish I could call her now. She may be completely exhausted. Don’t you think she looked good?”

  “She’s gorgeous. Everybody love
d her.”

  “I never get to see Holden at all. Sometimes I feel like one more desperate actress trying to get her attention.”

  “Well, take the day off from work. I’ll teach your classes. You and Holden can go paint the town.”

  “Really? I’d love that.”

  “That’s the good thing about having your sister as a boss. You can always get the day off.”

  IT WAS STRANGE to teach Taffy’s classes. It had been less than two weeks and already the girls seemed to have improved by two levels. After I went through all the regular routines, they said they wanted their new steps and that the other Mrs. McSwan (because we were sisters, it only stood to reason to the eight-year-old mind that we would have the same name) always taught them at least one new step every class. I showed them running flap heels, but they already knew running flap heels. I showed them the six-riff walk, but they acted like it was something they’d picked up in preschool. Finally I relented and gave them the whole Shuffle Off to Buffalo. They were thrilled with that. Over and over they shuffled to one side of the room and then back to the other. I wondered if Taffy would be disappointed. She was probably saving Shuffle Off to Buffalo for Christmas.

  Taffy was disappointed, wildly so, and it had nothing to do with dancing. When I looked up, she was standing at the door waving an envelope in my direction. Her eyes were red from crying. At first I thought she must have been served with divorce papers, but the envelope looked awfully small.

  “Keeping shuffling, girls,” I said. “Back and forth.” I hurried over to my sister at the door.

  “I decided to go over to the hotel and see if she was up yet. The desk clerk gave me this.”

  She handed me a piece of hotel stationery and I took out the note and read it.

  Dear Mother,

  I’m sorry not to phone you, but it is so terribly early. I just got a call and I have to go to Rome to set up production on a picture. I have no life! I am so disappointed, but at least I got to be with you on your birthday. I know this may sound crazy, but Kay’s friend Jack has decided to come with me and borrow my place in Cap Ferrat. We stayed up late last night talking and we both thought it sounded like fun. I think he was due for a vacation. I will call you soon!

  Much love,

  Holden

  “That,” I said, but then really didn’t know what else to say. It was her daughter, after all. “That is really something.”

  Taffy snatched the note back and stuffed it into the envelope. “As if things weren’t bad enough before. It would have been better if she’d never come at all.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Of course I mean that. Before Holden came to town, I could at least comfort myself by thinking about how great she’d turned out.”

  “Holden is great.” I tried to make my voice sound convincing.

  Taffy raised the envelope. “This is not the work of a great person. Jesus, Minnie, where did I go so wrong? You have Tom and four perfect kids, and I wind up with Neddy and Holden. I must have done something really horrible at some point. I have a completely rotten family.”

  “Listen to me. First off, I am your family, and so are Tom and my children, so you’re fine on the family front. Second, my children are not perfect. Third, Holden is thirty-six years old. If she does something questionable, that is not a reflection on you as a mother. She’s all grown up now. She makes her own decisions.”

  “It certainly looks that way.” Taffy pressed the envelope to her forehead, and for a minute she looked like a clairvoyant trying to guess the contents of the letter even though she knew exactly what it said.

  “Mrs. McSwan?” A little blond pixie named Laney stood on her right foot and then rested her left foot on top of her right. “Mrs. McSwans?”

  “Yes,” Taffy and I said.

  “We’re tired of Shuffling to Buffalo.”

  I had blocked out the methodical drum of tap shoes going across the floor.

  “You taught my class to Shuffle Off to Buffalo?” Taffy said.

  “You had already taught them everything else.”

  “Dammit,” Taffy said. “You shouldn’t have done that. I had an order planned.”

  “You shouldn’t say that word,” Laney said, her voice so quiet it could barely be heard above the pulsing shoes. I had a deep suspicion that Laney had been cutting her own bangs.

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “I’ll finish out the class,” Taffy said.

  “Forget about it. Just go home and try to relax. You don’t need to deal with this.”

  When she turned to me, her neck was long and her shoulders were back. Everything about her looked ready for a fight. “If they’re going to Shuffle Off to Buffalo today, I might as well get some pleasure out of it.” Taffy reached down and pulled her sweater over her head. She had come dressed for class. She must have stopped by the house after she got the letter and put her leotard on. That was how I knew she was really a dancer.

  It was just as well that Taffy showed up to teach because when I went home I checked my calendar and there was a note that said: “Lunch with Kay, Mrs. Bennett, Mrs. Carlson, 1 o’clock.” There was no part of me that believed I was capable of forgetting such a thing, but somehow I had, like people who don’t remember certain horrific events of their childhood until thirty years later when a therapist pries it out of them under hypnosis. This lunch constituted my first suppressed memory. I tried to talk about my anxieties with Stamp, but he would have none of me. I think he must have gotten the news about Holden. The dog was in a terrible funk. The love of his life was off in the Eternal City with a D.A. who had no clean shirts. Which reminded me, I would have to break the news to Kay.

  I really had to wonder about Jack. After all, Kay was a hometown girl. They had studied together in school. If they had developed some sort of long-term, lightweight attachment to each other that she was finding it difficult to give up, well, maybe that was understandable. Stupid, but understandable. But Holden was a player. She’d dated men who had been on the cover of Rolling Stone, she’d dated a guy who wrote for Rolling Stone, and once, for five days that the entire family would just as soon forget about, she dated one of the Rolling Stones. This girl—and in saying this I by no means cast aspersions on her sexual purity—had been around. Why would she fall for some rumpled-up county employee with a good smile and a mediocre French accent? Wouldn’t she be impervious to that by now? Wouldn’t she be impervious to just about everything? Was this guy so fantastic that it would be worth devastating her mother at the time of her divorce? The question, when all was said and done, was this: Was Holden that bad or was Jack that good?

  When I went into my closet, I remembered that I wasn’t supposed to wear my own clothes to these things, but honestly, since I would soon be revealed as a total fraud, I might as well break the truth out in stages. Better that they would hear my story of middle-class poverty while I was wearing the pair of nice slacks and the loose top that I had worn to nearly every symphony and dance recital for the last five years, than to hear me tell the tale in one of my sister’s Chanel suits. And I was bound and determined to tell it, to all of them together, today. But first there was the issue of Jack. I called Kay at the office and asked if she would pick me up. “And come early. I want to talk about something before the lunch.”

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  “Sure. Everything’s fine.” I headed off for a shower, hoping this would be the case.

  WHEN KAY ARRIVED she was clutching two pieces of moss-green fabric, one satin, one chiffon. “I keep going over this,” she said. “And I think the blue is so gorgeous, but I think the green really says more about me. Don’t you think it’s a more individualistic color?”

  I looked at it. Not so individualistic if you were moss. “Sure.”

  “You like it?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you love it?”

  Kay, I wanted to scream at her, baby, it’s fabric, open your eyes, but I tried t
o bear in mind the whole Big Day element of this that had escaped me. “Love it.”

  “I love it,” she said.

  “And Trey?”

  “What about him?”

  “Do you love him?”

  “Oh, Mother, if this is about me bringing Jack to the party last night, you just have to forget about it. Jack is a friend. I guess I’ve enjoyed his company a lot over the years, and we both feel bad thinking that we won’t be spending as much time together in the future. Even once the wedding plans really get going, there won’t be any time left over for Jack, so I think it’s only natural we’d want to do some things together now. I mean, we’ll still be good friends after the wedding. Trey doesn’t mind me having friends who are men. But I’m not going to kid myself. I know it will be different.”

  I sat down and patted the place on the sofa next to me. “Sit down.”

  Kay sat down, the fabric still in her hand.

  “Holden left the country this morning. She had to go to Rome.”

  Kay rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that just like her? I mean, she’s fabulousness itself and everything, but don’t you think that’s awfully selfish? First she doesn’t come to see Taffy after the split, and then she shows up unannounced, dominates the entire party, and then blows out of town without spending any time with her mother. I bet she didn’t even call. I bet she just left her a note.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Poor Taffy, that’s all I can say. She deserves better than that.”

  I touched Kay’s engagement ring and automatically she smiled. It was like scratching Stamp in that spot that made his back leg kick uncontrollably. Any attention that was paid to her ring delighted her, and I wanted to delight her. I wanted her to focus on happiness and Trey and the fact that they were getting married. There was a chance that this other piece of news was going to mean nothing to her at all. “There’s one more thing.”