Not Exactly a Love Story

by Couloumbis, Audrey

  Stranger things had happened.

  I dialed again, standing just shy of the window.

  “Umberto?”

  “I’m happy to say I’m not afflicted with it,” I said. Then added, “I just want you to know, you’re safe with me.”

  “You called back to tell me that?” she asked in a voice that smiled. “You really are nice.”

  “That’s what you said about Biff.”

  “Not really,” she said.

  If I’d even breathed, I’d never have heard her hang up.

  A wave of nausea washed over me, knocking me back to the sandy beach of my bed. I didn’t try to get up again. Better to lie there with the water lapping at my sides.

  FORTY-SIX

  I told Mr. B I was going running, but I had bigger things to do, too. He had Saturday-morning practice, and we ate breakfast together.

  “You know your mom and I will be out late tonight?”

  “She told me.”

  “Don’t forget your house keys,” he said. “And have a good time at the dance.”

  Outside, Dad was parked at the curb. He got out of the taxi as I walked down the driveway.

  “Hey, Dad, is something wrong?”

  “Everything’s fine, Vinnie. Nothing to worry about.” I was already realizing that was true. He looked … happy. He held out a gallon-sized water-filled plastic bag. “I brought you a couple of fish. Canaries to your coal mine.”

  “I think the chemistry is good,” I said. There were two angelfish trying to maintain some stability in the quivering bag. “They’re beautiful.”

  “Go drop the bag in the tank. Their water temp has to adjust before you open the bag.”

  “I remember.” I tossed my backpack into the car.

  Dad took a closer look at me. “You got into another fight?”

  I pulled one shoulder up in half a shrug. “I was moving a filing cabinet and the drawer slid out.”

  “Nothing’s broken?”

  “It doesn’t look that bad, does it?”

  “Swellings are worse in the morning. I think. Same drawer that hit you before?”

  “Not a word to Mom. Mr. B covered for me.”

  This wasn’t quite enough to relieve Dad’s mind. “Is it over with now?”

  “I think so. I hit him back this time. Big surprise to both of us. Why are you here so early? You don’t usually drive at this hour, do you?”

  “I took a different shift. I’ve got a small part in a film. Three lines.”

  “Cool.”

  Mr. B was coming out as I took the fish in, on his way to a practice. He saw Dad, said good morning, and shook hands. From the bay window, I saw there was a little eyebrow action from Dad, probably questioning whether the trouble with Biff was really over, and Mr. B made a little punching motion and clapped him on the shoulder.

  “They look like they might get along,” Mom said as she came up behind me. I agreed, although I didn’t care to get all aren’t-we-all-one-big-happy-family about it.

  “Do me a favor? Open the bag and let them out in an hour or so, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  When I got back outside, Mr. B and Dad were laughing together, and then Mr. B was on his way. It was sort of a relief that he was. It was fine with me that Dad and Mr. B didn’t have to be enemies, but I wasn’t ready to stand around being the son and the stepson at the same time. Not yet.

  Dad saw me coming and said, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you, son. How’s about I join you for a turn around the track?”

  He drove me to the school, not talking much. When we got out, we avoided looking in the direction of Mr. B and the team. We walked around the track, partly because Dad hasn’t been becoming a runner, but more because I didn’t feel we were doing this so I could show my stuff. About the second time around, Dad got up his nerve.

  “I don’t know how you’re going to take this, Vinnie. But I’m seeing someone.”

  “You’re entitled. You don’t have to get my okay.”

  “I felt like I needed to.”

  “You don’t need to. Do I know her?”

  “It’s Mona.”

  “Mona the meddler?” I asked, to seem surprised.

  “She’s a nice woman.”

  “She is! I like her. I feel like we’ve always known her, right?”

  “Lately she started bringing over these posters to put on the wall,” Dad said. “I asked her to hang around, have a bite to eat. We got to know each other without all the noise.”

  “Other people looking on.”

  “I know this is hard on you. But I can’t wait until you’re too old to care what I’m doing with my life,” he said, with just a trace of impatience.

  I said, “I’m glad you’re happier.”

  “I’m glad your mother’s happier,” Dad said. “Frankly, I think I’m happier. I want what’s best for all of us, and it may turn out, someday, that right now we’re in the painful process of getting just that.”

  That hung in the air between us for what seemed like a long time. And I can’t say it didn’t get to me. I finally formed a response to it. “I hope you know, I won’t be feeling sorry for you anymore.”

  Dad laughed and said, “God, that’ll be a relief.”

  I expected to find the locker room empty.

  “Hey, Gold, you joining the track team?”

  This from a wiry senior. He was already on the team, and even though the dean had introduced me to him, I was uncertain how good a reception I was going to get.

  “Better the track team than the buffalo boys,” I said, hoping he didn’t have a wider brother on the football team.

  “Good thinking,” he said. “My brother’s going to be the time to beat. Dancing made him strong. Fast. Not all those ballerinas are lightweights, you know.”

  “Daniel,” I said, grinning.

  “Yeah.” Some kind of big-brother protectiveness came into play. “You don’t think ballet is sissy, do you?”

  I laughed. “I won a quickstep competition a couple of years ago.”

  “Quickstep?”

  “Ballroom dancing. I hope there’s room for more than one of us on the team.”

  “Oh, yeah, but he’s going to be the star.”

  “We’ll see.” I slipped the bundled-up mask out of my backpack and into my gym locker. It started to unroll, but I yanked the sweater out of my backpack and covered it up. I left both items in the locker.

  When I was thirteen and fourteen, I went out trick-or-treating with a black satin cape Dad got from a bit part he did in a movie. I didn’t go so much for the candy as for the excuse to swoop around in a cape that made me feel a little wild. Bold.

  Juvenile stuff, I know, but between you and me, I keep that cape hanging in my closet. Sometimes I even put it on when I’m just in my room or something. Probably a touch of theatrical blood in my veins.

  That night, I pulled out those black leather pants that happened to be terrific now that seriously cold weather had set in, and matched them with a black silk shirt I wore for dance contests. The cape no longer brushed against my heels like the first time I’d worn it, but it hung below my knees. Good enough.

  I stood close to the mirror and slowly turned my face from side to side. Not too bad. A faint discoloration. The fat lip was only a little pouty. I cut eye holes in a strip of black T-shirt fabric and tied it over my face like a headband. I was slick. Symbolic.

  Zorro.

  I cut a few moves in front of the mirror. More than were strictly necessary to know if the cape worked, which it did—it shimmied, it swirled, it draped, like great hair.

  And then I headed out.

  Mr. B’s school keys were on his dresser. Although I would no doubt get home before he and Mom did, I just slipped the marked book room key off the ring, leaving the key ring lying there where he’d left it. I thought it over and removed the bar dogger that would open the gates that stretched across the ends of the corridors after hours. He wouldn’t miss the keys even if I
had to wait until tomorrow to return them. Mr. B wouldn’t bother with anything but his car keys until Monday. The man was regular as a prison guard.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  I left my coat in my gym locker. It covered the mask and sweater, still hidden inside. I put on the cape, tied on the strip of black mask. I got a few glances in the locker room, but no comments. There were a lot of white suits vying for the Saturday Night Fever look; there was a Lawrence of Arabia and a cowboy.

  “Butch Cassidy?” I asked the cowboy.

  “Sundance Kid,” he said. “That’s who got the girl.”

  I nodded.

  “Zorro?” he hesitated a moment. “I don’t remember him getting the girl.”

  “Maybe not on TV,” I said. “In the movies, he did.”

  “Cool.”

  The gym had been transformed. Everyone entered through double doors that had been framed with a big heart shape outfitted with red and pink balloons.

  Inside, disco lights flashed to the Bee Gees’ beat. There were balloons clinging to the ceiling and long streamers dangling, some with glittering paper hearts that reflected the lights, others with red glass beads sparkling.

  Garlands were strung around the room to draw the eye to posters of famous movie romances. Gone with the Wind, Love Story, Annie Hall, and West Side Story were the ones that caught my eye. And the DJ was dressed in a white suit, his dark hair shiny and styled like Travolta’s.

  The floor was already filled with dancers.

  I didn’t see Patsy.

  I made the rounds of the room, checking out the dance floor. Most of the girls wore sequined cat’s-eye masks, but they were costumed in everything from frilly period gowns to slinky black dresses.

  The guys wore black eye masks or strips of black silk tied Zorro-style, like my own. With most of them, their pants and shirts were, on the whole, harder to figure. Open collars and rolled-up cuffs could have meant anyone from Humphrey Bogart to Ryan O’Neal. Some tried for more romantic silhouettes, wearing loose-sleeved shirts and tied-back hair. There were a surprising number of guys with capes, long and short.

  Biff walked in. He was not wearing Patsy on his arm. No mask, either. A sheepish look seemed to be all the costume he believed he needed.

  I’d just finished paying for a soda when Patsy came in with somebody I didn’t recognize. She was a surprise. Her hair was pulled up into ponytails over each ear. She wore Bermuda shorts and a little top. Her arms were bare. Alabaster and bare. I just love girls’ arms, so thin and straight.

  She turned to her friend, the boy next door to her Gidget, and grinned. He loped off, making a beeline for a girl wearing white tennis shoes and a wide pink skirt with a black poodle appliqué. I took a step in Patsy’s direction, but Brown Bunny got there first, with a couple of other girls in tow.

  So I made it my business to circulate, stopping to say hi to several people I recognized and to compliment a caped highwayman on his costume. Daniel nodded to me as he walked Melanie to the dance floor. I crossed paths with Biff on my rounds. We didn’t speak, and he didn’t pretend not to see me. We more or less pretended not to know each other.

  I lounged around with my soda in hand while Patsy danced a few, including one dance with Biff. She didn’t make a point of snubbing him, anyway. He didn’t hold her hand on the way to the floor. He didn’t look at her once they were dancing—he simply leaned from side to side like a wind-tossed palm tree—instead, he was looking around the gym, making sure everyone saw him with her. Sort of Biff enjoying being Biff. He made no connection with Patsy.

  As for Patsy, her heart wasn’t in it. I thought she definitely had her eye on me. Whenever I let my eyes drift in her direction, she looked away from my general vicinity.

  Biff stopped swaying long before “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” finished, said something to her, and left her standing on the floor. Patsy drifted in my direction. She stopped only a couple of steps away, and asked, “Errol Flynn?”

  I shook my head. “Tyrone Power.”

  I tried to think of something to follow this up. Zorro had gone all strong and silent on me. Patsy kept her eyes carefully trained on the dance floor.

  She asked, “Did you come with anybody?”

  “I didn’t know if I’d come. I don’t really have a group to hang around with. So I didn’t ask anybody.”

  This got a nod.

  I noticed her socks. They were these cute girl socks—the ankle section was a dog’s body; the folded-over part was a puppy’s face with a tongue hanging out. I wanted to laugh, but it felt wrong at just that moment.

  I said, “Dance?”

  “Sure, I’d like to,” she said.

  I stepped away to get rid of the untouched soda, my chest tight with anticipating the dance, the girl. I had hopes of getting something faster to dance to, something to burn off my nervous energy.

  She waited indifferently as I came back to her, now hardly acknowledging my invitation to dance. But this didn’t bother me—I had a feeling I knew this side of her from talking to her late at night, the hope that she wouldn’t seem too clueless, or in this case, too eager.

  I took her hand and led her to the edge of the dancers. I got lucky. An Eagles song, “Take It to the Limit.” Hardly anybody but a dancer knows that’s a waltz. I drew Patsy up against me like I didn’t think she could find her way, leading in true ballroom fashion. She looked at me in surprise.

  Her hand slipped beneath the cape up to my shoulder, I could feel the skin of her bare arm right through the silk shirt. I felt my belly tighten but let a smile play across my lips as I drew back to look at her. I saw the curiosity in Patsy’s eyes, highlighted by a twinge of apprehension.

  I swear I could feel her heart beating as I whirled her onto the dance floor. She stayed right with me. I felt something—some pressure in my chest—let go all at once. Easing back. I was happy, the way dancing always made me happy. Patsy looked confident, and for a good reason—Patsy could dance.

  The magic came.

  Next, we drew “Devil with a Blue Dress.” I released her and started to move to the beat. She did too, and she was sassy, sexy. Fun. The waltz had warmed us up, left us with a calm, focused energy, a boost of creativity. When I moved in closer, she matched her moves to mine, as if she’d found a pattern in them, and she began to anticipate them with complementary moves of her own. We danced within inches of each other.

  A group of observers formed a roomy circle around us, but we hardly noticed except to make use of the extra floor space as we segued into the next piece of music, Grace Jones singing—no question of whether we’d stop dancing. The magic held. We were enjoying ourselves. We were having fun.

  On the last notes, I spun away from Patsy. Corny, but effective. A few kids actually clapped, the disjointed applause made us aware that we were still being watched. Made me aware of ol’ Biff standing there with two sodas in his hands.

  Patsy and I stared at each other over a distance of about six feet. I was giving her a chance to walk away. She didn’t. The music started again, something slower. I swooped in and dipped her, let the cape drape over us. Our faces were only a few inches apart.

  I held on to Patsy and led again. When Mom insisted I take dancing lessons with Dad and her, she said all the guys she’d ever slow-danced with were fumblers at worst and just adequate at best. Patsy was cool. Not too cool. Her heart was going at a pretty good clip. We were close, and we were wearing clothing thin enough to appreciate it.

  I shifted into a more complex step, punctuated with turns and stops. She was with me all the way. The cape swept around her at every turn, holding her enclosed with me for a moment before we moved again, whispering over the bare skin of her arm as it fell back again. I never took my eyes off her face, although much of the intensity on both of our faces must have had to do with the effort we put into dancing. The music ended.

  Patsy didn’t pull away. I spotted the clock over the double doors. Ten minutes to nine. I said, “Your boyfriend h
as your soda.” I let go of her and turned with a swish of cape before she could put on a polite face. It was worth the whole evening, the whole everything, to see that look in her eyes. She wanted to go on dancing. With me.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  It was hard to go. I felt like I was breaking a connection, like I was hanging up. But I continued out of the gym and headed for the boys’ locker room like I was going to the john. I went straight to my locker and grabbed the sweater with the mask balled up inside it. I fished in my pocket for the bar dogger to open the hallway. I raced up the stairs.

  The upstairs hallway was dim as I opened the metal gate, gratefully acknowledging the inspiration that made me take the dogger. I pulled the gate closed behind me and raced to the other end to open the one Patsy would need to pass through.

  Then back to the appointed meeting place. This door didn’t have a window like the classroom doors. And I’d stood on the table to loosen the lightbulb yesterday afternoon. There’d be no light in the room once the door was closed. I had trouble with the key. The lock was a little tight. I could swear I heard the scrape of shoes on the stairs. Shoes that were trying not to make too much noise.

  Finally the bolt shifted. I opened the door, flicked the light switch a couple of times to be sure no one had screwed the bulb back in, then dashed down the hall to the john. I glanced at the hall clock. Ten after. I slipped inside and stood still, listening.

  Not a sound.

  I closed the door silently. She would come. She had to. I tore off the cape and pulled the turtleneck over my shirt. Took off Zorro’s eye mask and stood behind the door of the john, peeping out.

  Where was she?

  I was just about to open the door to listen again when I saw her. Timid. Looking up and down the hallway before she tried the door, pushed it open while standing as far away from it as she could. I could just hear her voice, presumably calling out an Italian name. I grinned as I pulled the mask over my face.

  I didn’t move until she went in, then I tiptoed across the hall and stood there for a moment, trying to breathe normally. No good. I could stand there until midnight, but I wasn’t going to feel normal in any way. The rubbery smell of the mask made me feel faint.