Nervous Dancer

by Carol Lee Lorenzo

  There was something already in her eyes but she tried anyway. “What’s wrong? What makes you keep snoring?” She was afraid to go any further. The slightest words stirred deep water; the bottom of things came up.

  “I’m still snoring. That’s the argument we’re squeezing at the moment. Can’t stop. Tried everything under my pillow—golf balls—balloons—eggs only once. I told Honey—go to bed drunk and then neither one of us will notice it.” He quaked with laughter, set his clothes spinning as if he were a juggler. He stopped, straightened up. She thought it was like he was hanging onto his clothes from the inside to keep standing. Somehow he was slipping as she watched him. The lens of his eyes were like a dropped camera, he was seeing her from the bottom of something.

  She asked him to tell her again—the way she always did, “Why don’t you like me?”

  He told her this time, too. His mouth dipped a low smile. “You can’t do anything.”

  “Like what?”

  “Gain weight,” he said. “Swim and stuff. Things I taught you. You make me nervous. Always have. That’s why I hit you. You can’t dance and I taught you how.” He came close. “Do you think I’m going to hit you? Whoops! Didn’t that time.”

  She stayed very still. Then she felt a tendril of her hair grow from the back.

  “What’s that behind you?” he asked as she whirled. He could scare her even when she knew the answer before the question.

  “It’s my hair following me.”

  “Ha! But you already jumped. You lose. Anyway,” he said, “your hair looks like a doorknob on your head. Should I turn it?” She drew her lips tight but he did nothing. “I’m too busy to tease anymore. I’ve got to get on with private things.”

  She didn’t want to stay, but didn’t want to go. She sat and pulled out one of his old broken paperbacks, wedged into a shelf. She stuck her fingers behind her glasses and pressed her eyes in place and began speed reading. She had a tough talent for concentrating.

  He was over her, scanned her as quickly as if she were tomorrow’s newspaper come too early. “I have to do something private in here. I warn you, you’re making me nervous. You’re too dramatic, you make me feel used up.”

  “It’s only my emotions,” she explained. “I don’t mean to be dramatic.” She was running a little ahead of her thoughts. She paused for her ideas in her head to catch up.

  “Well,” he said. “So watch.” She heard the whisper of the closet door, the tap of the closet light. A glimpse was all that was necessary. He pulled out a suitcase. She could smell the new leather. It had a strap like a leash and was on wheels.

  She’d come to protect her mother and father. She took off her glasses and put them back down in her pocket now. She felt they might get broken.

  “You’re sick.” Another voice. When had Honey stepped into the room? She would appear at the tiniest sound of a click to see who was using light for what.

  David, one hand on the leash, one on a glass beside his bed, clicked another light on over it and was drinking what he had started. “I’m taking my medicine now.” He was ingesting a little gold for his arthritis. Drewanne’s own breath made her claustrophobic.

  “Want a drink?” David said. “It’s medicine in bourbon.”

  “Nobody wants to drink after you.”

  He added another drop of gold. “It’s bitter and bright at the same time.” His lips changed to metallic, worn down as a weather vane.

  He let go of the leash and patted the valise’s side. It made Drewanne ask a funny question. “Why haven’t we ever had a pet as a family?”

  Her father smiled. “Those questions of yours. Well, here’s enough answers. I didn’t want to be preoccupied. Love ties you down, and it interrupts your mother’s schedules.”

  “Wait,” said Honey. “You’ve taken a double dose of gold. Why did you take the dose for tomorrow?”

  “Because I’m leaving,” he said.

  “But the boat’s coming tomorrow.”

  “I thought I’d go up into the mountains of Georgia. You know I don’t like it when things finally get here. They never work out the way I expected.”

  “The mountains? But that’s where you were born. You don’t like it there. And a boat’s coming. That’s a big thing.”

  “You’re listing to the side,” he said to Drewanne.

  “I took off my glasses and put them in my pocket. I’m trying not to sit on them and break them.” She’d had an incident with an old pair. She’d gotten cut on each cheek. It had been hard to conceal. Makeup over it in Florida heat had actually given it motion—made her look like she’d cracked before her own eyes.

  He was so close to her now when she looked up he was headless.

  “You’re leaving me,” Honey screamed. “I have your laundry, so what’s in the new suitcase?”

  “New clothes.”

  “For what?”

  “Leaving.” He pulled the suitcase on its wheels after him. It made a tiny double ditch down the velvet carpet. Now he was in the living room.

  Drewanne left backwards to the balcony, the glass door sliding through the divided air—air-conditioned cool and warm salt-washed air. Outside she listened to the palms, their constant and exhausted brushing of themselves with sea air. She looked over her shoulder as if to wish on the moon, but looked down instead. The pool was way below. From here it looked like a platter of water. Moths flew like tiny soft flocks of gray birds, miniatures of birds on a trial basis. All she could do now was turn to the living room. The thing was still following her father; it had its own momentum. David had made it to the door and gotten it open. A slip of light hit him and it showed his face as if it were wired on. The balcony chair touched her and she jumped. Night had its mouth open—its tongue had been all over the furniture.

  He tried to turn back to them and walk out at the same time. “Ow,” he said.

  “Daddy, you can’t go two ways. You’ll hurt yourself.”

  David was gone. Honey was at the oven, setting the timer. “He’ll be back in twenty minutes,” she said. “Wait for the ding.”

  “I’ll never get to teach school tonight.” Drewanne slid the glass; the central air-conditioning clicked on and filled the room with wings.

  Honey had the entertainment center remote in her hand. They pretended to wait. The TV screen was bright and staring. “Nothing’s in that suitcase. It could have been empty,” she said. The mute was on.

  Static like a bad station came up in Drewanne’s head. It was a rush of uneven air and water—the roar of ocean and wind in a shell. That’s what she’d heard when he’d struck her. The smooth white living room wall made her eyes feel that they had rolled back under her lids. A piece of the wall came unglued and dropped. She hated waiting and hated silence like they were diseases. It gave her not the answer but the question. Was it something inside her father that got inside her that caused it? Her father would slap her face back and forth, in a volley, till she had to keep her eyes shut so she could focus them behind her lids in secret. It couldn’t have been anything inside her because there was nothing inside—she could hardly stand a big bite of anything. A bit of hard fruit felt as heavy as a whole dropped apple. “Soo-oo,” one of the shaved-head punks she’d hung around with had said. “What do you eat? Nectar?” And they’d called her Nectar Face after that.

  Her eyes felt very far away from her. The chair hurt under her. She wished she were teaching. She loved them watching her, listening and waiting for her to reach them and learn.

  While she waited she thought her way through her own room—stepping-stones of books, soft wavering walls of books, books as tables, armrests, footstools. Her lids were like blankets, her eyes grew hot under them and she fanned her lashes to cool them.

  Drewanne reset the air-conditioning—high for tops. “No, it was loaded; it pulled that way, the momentum.” Honey’s body looked strapped flat with nerves.

  Class; she imagined them. She’d disappointed them tonight. Would they disappoint her
later? If nobody showed up for her next class, she’d teach it to an empty room, ask questions, try to measure up herself, lecture to the electric light, pack and go only when the teaching hours were up, turn off the light and the air-conditioning, walk to the parking lot, empty except for her lone car, with her keys out for self-defense.

  The air-conditioned room was hotter; their emotions were burning.

  Before the timer went off there was a polite knock on the door. That was the break they were waiting for.

  “It’s him,” said Honey, turning the timer off even before she went to the door.

  But it was the one-armed man, come to retrieve them. He lurched and grabbed at the opening doorknob to hold on. He said, “I lose my balance from nothing. A piece of yourself gets gone and everything feels slick.”

  His five o’clock shadow looked crooked.

  “It’s seven o’clock,” he said. “I’ve come to report you have a problem. Your car lights are on. Have been for about twenty minutes. I try to stay off my balcony because of my balance, but I’ve been out there tonight. I thought I heard something break—a jar, no louder, maybe a pot, but you know how noisy trees and water can be. That’s when I started watching your car lights. Your car hasn’t moved.”

  “It’s not my car,” Honey said. “You’re mistaken.” Her eyelids looked webbed. “My car’s gone. David has taken it.” Honey never liked people with something wrong with them, and she didn’t like to get their messages.

  To prove his own story, he let go of the knob, backed out, and started trying to run straight, scraping the walls.

  Then they were all running for the little elevator. I must have gotten sick, Drewanne thought, because the sound is off everywhere.

  The elevator fell fast, it dropped them. She rode it, her knees bent because she couldn’t straighten them.

  “Something bad. Did he have a gun?” asked the one-armed neighbor.

  “Yes, in the car. For self-defense, of course,” said Honey.

  They ran into the thick night, the neighbor paddling with one arm, trying to stay ahead. “Hard,” he said. “One-armed is like wearing one shoe with the heel worn down; you’re always at the edge.”

  The car had its broad slick back to them. The ground-level light of Daytona made low cold stars. Sand seemed to be in the air, rattling as Drewanne ran through it. She thought of her father standing in his bedroom, a loner who got married. The rattling got stronger. Her lungs took flight like wings of the heaviest bird. Too close now, she stopped. She had spooked a mockingbird out of its tree. It walked in hops in front of her, confused, holding its tail up like someone carrying a feather train.

  The air was flung around her. There was a misshapen shadow or maybe a thing in the driver’s side of the car, thrown back and leaning terribly. She knew now through her pores, now through her ears. She hoped and felt the bottom drop out at the same time. She stopped, a piece of sight fell from her eyes; she spat on her shoe. Still she couldn’t catch what she’d understood, what was before her. Her body tried to balance by swinging between her legs. Apprehension was everywhere. She looked at her watch, but she had a habit of mistaking time—she was always reading her watch wrong.

  Lopsided, the neighbor outran them with a half a whoosh. “Back,” he yelled. “Ooh, my missing arm hurts on heel vibrations.” He slammed into the side of the car; he couldn’t stop easily. “No, no, you don’t want to see. Look, run away, call Emergency, but there’s no hurry.”

  Drewanne opened her mouth wide to ask a question. But the whole answer came up out of her, and all the nothings she’d eaten spilled down the front of her, even on her shoes. She was right about the weight of it inside her, rocks of apples, nuts of bread, string beans like thorns.

  She didn’t know where Honey was. There was no room in her vision, except stuck against a tiny corner. Honey stayed. Drewanne walked herself back where she thought the elevator might still be. She went to clean up.

  A moth, a bow of membranes against the glass, face down, looked in on her from the balcony. The moth fell and then her eyes lifted the moth back up again. “What does it want?” she wondered. Then wondered if she were crying or wet from the bathroom.

  Then Honey came back in, so stunned she said, “I’ve lost all feeling. It was loaded. Gone. I didn’t look. There’s no repair possible. No self to see. Too apart to be put back together. No need to look. He cannot be faced and he cannot see.” She lay herself down on the all-white sofa, something she’d never allowed herself to do. Her hair, undone, fell to one side only and looked like it had been ripped, removed and placed beside her like a henna baby newborn. She was asymmetrical. “I gave him my hand,” she said simply. “He took his life.”

  The one-armed neighbor was in the room; nobody bothered to lock the door. “If I can ever. . .” he offered.

  “Oh, no,” said Honey. “No. I don’t want another. One David was enough.”

  “I didn’t quite mean that,” the one-armed man said.

  The carpet was covered with white footfalls. Drewanne for the first time took her mother home with her. But Honey couldn’t stay and couldn’t lie down. She went back as soon as she could see the next morning’s light seeping around the air conditioner. She drove back alone, Drewanne’s car limping. “Do I have a flat already?” Honey asked, pulling out, slow as a beginner. “No, that’s how my car drives.”

  Later, Drewanne walked over. Neighborhood cats and dogs followed her for a while.

  Police had talked with them quietly and privately and out of uniform. A mechanic came over, his face set as if he had swallowed gelatin. Tragedy was of course compelling. Suicide is always interesting. The one-armed neighbor said, “He’s come to give us a hand.” The mechanic put a glove on.

  “Sell it,” said Honey. “I don’t want the car fixed and cleaned. I want a new one that nobody’s ever been in. Only display miles showing.”

  The boat was cancelled, though it came anyway and had to be returned.

  “He left no notes, no words, no gesture,” said Honey.

  “A will is a note,” the one-armed man said.

  They read the will in the lawyer’s office. He wanted to be turned to ashes. “And spilled out upon the water. Taken to sea, ten miles to get into the current.”

  “I’m scared of water,” said Honey. “And I’m scared of ashes.”

  Drewanne knew that whole persons turned to ashes are not soft and fine but the ashes have bits of bones in them. “But the urns he requested will be sealed,” she told her mother. “He wanted to be in two.”

  “I don’t want him divided. I don’t want to keep one,” Honey said. “Cause I don’t believe in suicide.” And she offered the urn to Drewanne. She too said, “No, thank you.” She was embarrassed that her father fit into a pitcher.

  On the boat, rented, with two urns, Honey complained, “The sky and the water are the same color. And I have nothing to stand on that’s not moving.” Ten miles out she cast him upon the water. When the boat swung to start back, she said, “We’re going the wrong way, Drewanne. We’ll never get back to land. We’re going out farther.” But they did get back.

  At the memorial service Honey put her rings on backwards. “It’s like learning to eat left-handed,” she said. And then she needed something just as the minister was exploring his mouth with his tongue to get going. “Drewanne, my eyelids are quivering. I need my sunglasses to hide my eyes; that stained glass is so loud.”

  Drewanne hurried out with the one-armed neighbor. She got confused. Which car was their new one? Out of confusion she grabbed the sunglasses from just somebody’s dashboard and started running. She fell on the wrong side of the one-armed man so he couldn’t help her. They heard the pop through her clothes. Bone of my bone, surely broken. Her stocking hung like shed skin. The congregation came out like everything was over, and scared her with their gentleness. Emergency was called; they came quickly.

  They went with her, followed her to ER in a motorcade. Attention had always terrified he
r. Who knew who was driving her car for her? They set her leg in Emergency and the ER doctor gave her pain pills for now and later.

  She wanted to go back to her room on the side of the house of the big family who were strangers. “I live on the ground floor. I drive with my right leg. Nothing’s stopped me,” she said. And to show them she was okay, she took a pair of pills from her pocket, swallowed them dry. “See what I can do?” and she smiled.

  The medication made room inside her now, curled tickly little tails around, and the pills broke open a purr. Her lids lifted. Her eyes emerged.

  Honey’s eyelids had swollen, two stuck doors, protected till they could heal. The congregation held onto her and she moved as if her eyes would never open.

  They fed Drewanne water and mints from the bottoms of their pockets. She felt as fresh as if she’d been reinvented. She handed them back her funny little words, little jokes for thank-you’s and question-stoppers. To Honey, she said, “My father will never know whatever became of me. But you’ll see me soon.”

  She drove herself home, right before them. She knew she was in for much worse and much better. Her father had taken her and left her at the threshold of memory.

  unconfirmed invitations

  Most of the day, Sophie MacEvoy had been taking a nap with the dog in her dead grandmother’s bed. Her grandmother had given her the bed and then died last year; the bed was one hundred years old. The burl in the wood looked like her grandmother’s huge fingerprints. With her arms around her dog, Sophie hung half in sleep, her heart feeling loose. The afternoon heat made her feel too heavy to stand up and be awake.

  All summer, she’d stayed home doing nothing except falling in love with somebody in the newspaper. She had collected the newspapers under her grandmother’s bed in a disgusting wad so anybody finding it would not notice she cared for it; the wad was as big as a volleyball. It felt good to love somebody imaginary. But her fascination hadn’t lasted. In two days, she would no longer be here. She was going to leave home forever. All she had to do now was tell someone she was going.