by Moondance
Jerry's jaw dropped. "You're letting me go? By myself?"
"Hell, no. This may be one of the stupidest things you've done in a long
time, Jerry Noonan, but if you're determined to make a fool of yourself,
I'm coming along to keep an eye on you."
Dana walked over to the other closet, opened it, and began making plans of
her own.
JERRY ORDERED an autocab, which took them up the highway, past places that
should have been familiar but weren't any longer. They just hadn't had a need
to go into Woodbridge in the past twenty-five years, and much had changed. On
the short ride, Jerry and Dana reminisced and pointed out to each other where
long-gone places had been. The cab left the highway and slid up in front of
the Candy Bar, which still looked vaguely familiar except for the gaudy new
3-D laser billboard in front. Jerry began to have second thoughts. He punched
some commands into the autocab's console, paying extra to keep the cab on
standby at the destination, just in case they wanted to make a hasty exit.
"Hey, look!" Jerry said, pointing. "They still have the old fountain out
front."
The decorative fountain was a small, round pool over which flew several
nude cherubs supported by water jets. The water was tinted a garish shade of
blue, and colored lights made the gushing water look even more unnatural.
"Bad taste never seems to fall out of fashion," Dana said.
"Lighten up ... McGraw," Jerry said. "It's still pretty much as I remember it,
although I don't recall either of us thinking it was so ugly years ago."
"What did we know back then? We were just kids."
"We had fun, though, didn't we?" Jerry asked.
Dana smiled at him. "Come on, let's get this over with."
Jerry opened the door, and the two of them entered the Candy Bar. The interior
was dark and crowded, and the sound system was pumping out the loud, fast "ozone"
music that was currently in fashion. On the dance floor, Jerry, saw a hundred
young people of both sexes moving about in various strange dance styles. He
got the idea that most of the people were dancing independently of partners,
but as he continued watching, he noticed certain points in the music when the
whole group seemed to move together in a few well-rehearsed steps.
"Seen enough?" Dana yelled in his ear to make herself heard over the din of
the music.
"Just give it a chance!"
Jerry led her around the dance floor to a quieter spot, where they grabbed
a free table. They ordered two glasses of wine from a waitress, and Jerry
paid the outrageous price without comment.
"Jerry, this is not our crowd," Dana said. "And who can dance to this ... noise?"
Jerry scanned the room carefully. It really wasn't their crowd, all right. The
dancers were mostly in their twenties, with maybe a few as old as their late
thirties. Nobody on the dance floor was within ten years of them, he figured.
At the far end of the bar, away, from the dance floor, several booths held a
few older people, couples and singles in their sixties perhaps. In another
corner, overlooking the dance floor, a deejay booth was manned by a pimple-faced
kid who couldn't have been any older than eighteen.
"Can we finish our drinks and just go home?" Dana asked. "I'm not very
comfortable here."
"Let me see if I can find someone to say hello to."
"Who?"
"Someone from work. The one who told me about this place."
"What does he look like?"
Jerry almost corrected Dana's "he" to a "she," but thought better of it.
"I don't know. We've only talked robot to robot."
"Then how will you recognize him?"
"I'll just know. A very distinctive way of walking."
"Well, go find him so we can get out of here."
"I'll see if I can spot him." Jerry looked over the group on the dance floor.
Audrey had to be one of the better dancers, if she was here. While he sipped
his wine, he watched them move sinuously about the floor. One woman in a
green jumpsuit was particularly skilled, but it wasn't Audrey's rhythm.
Several other women were also good at that style of dancing, but Jerry ruled
out each one of them. There was nothing of Audrey that he recognized. It was
hopeless, he finally decided.
"Do you want to try a dance?" Jerry said, to Dana before he gulped the last
of his wine.
"I don't think I can handle this music," she answered.
Jerry told Dana to sit tight. He went over to the deejay booth and talked to
the pimple-faced kid.. He returned smiling.
"The next song is ours," he told Dana
"Oh, no, you didn't pay that boy anything, did you?"
"Just a little," he said, chuckling. "What's a few dollars once ever, twenty
years or so?"
After a few minutes, the ozone song faded out and was replaced by a familiar
melody: Billy Joel singing "Just the Way You Are." Dana's face lit up with
recognition.
"Hey I remember this one!" she said.
"Care to dance to it?"
"All right, why not? " she said, rising from her seat.
Most of the young people were streaming off the dance floor, sitting out the
slow music, which left Jerry and Dana plenty of room. The remaining dancers,
unfamiliar with the old song but unwilling to give up the floor, continued
dancing the ozone steps, determined to wait out the strange music.
Jerry took Dana's hand and began to dance. Fearing that he'd steer into a
collision with the gyrating dancers, he kept them moving about a small patch
of the floor, away from the others. Jerry was careful not to step on Dana's
toes, and they quickly fell into the rhythm. The young dancers gave them
plenty of room, and several of them stopped moving long enough to watch the
two of them dance in the old style.
"I'm beginning to feel really self-conscious," Dana said. "People are looking
at us."
"Let 'em look," Jerry said, giddv with the wine and the moment. "Let's show
them how civilized adults dance."
Dana and Jerry looked into each other's eyes, their feet moved, and the rest
of the dancers in the room faded away.
The song was over too soon, and the pumping ozone beat took up again, but
Jerry and Dana continued dancing at their own pace for a few seconds longer,
ignoring the different tempo.
"Pretty good for an old-timer," Dana said.
"You're not too shabby yourself," Jerry responded.
The floor rapidly filled up with young people returning for the loud music.
Jerry looked around the room as the crowd surrounded them. In the distance,
he saw one of the older ladies in the shadows get up from her booth and begin
making her way to the dance floor. Despite her obvious years, she walked with
the gait of a much younger person, almost bouncing with each step. The young
people all around her greeted her with obvious affection, slowing her progress.
Still dancing, Jerry watched the older woman cross the room. Was she looking
his way? Yes, she was. The woman stopped at the edge of the dance floor,
looked him straight in the eye, and lightly began clapping her frail hands.
A few of the young people standing around her also looked at Jerry and Dana
admiringly and began adding to the applause. The woman broke eye contact with
Jerry and cast her gaze on Dana, the corners of her mouth curling up in a
barely detectable smile. Jerry steered Dana around so that she was facing
away from the woman and began to raise his hand to wave, but just then a man
stepped out from behind her and she looked back toward him. He appeared to be
in his late sixties, slightly stooped and with a poorly fitting jacket, but he
moved spryly. When he spoke to the old woman, her slight smile broadened, and
the pair of them stepped on the floor and began dancing. Not old-fashioned
dancing, but the same slippery moves the young crowd was performing.
The applause got louder.
"Are those people clapping for us?" Dana said, noticing the group of young
people at the edge of the floor. "Now I'm really feeling self-conscious."
"Nah, it's for the old couple," Jerry said, pointing.
"The old couple? I thought we were the old couple."
Dana looked over to where Jerry was pointing and saw the older couple for
the first time.
"Oh," she said.
Dana and Jerry worked their way off the floor and watched the two older
dancers mix it up with the young crowd, obviously enjoying themselves.
"Had enough now?" Dana asked.
"Yeah, I suppose," he said. "Let's go home, Dana."
A WEEK LATER, on the Moon, Jerry saw the plummeting tool kit in plenty of
time to move his robot out of the way, but he stayed where he was, letting
the falling metal box take out one of his purposely outstretched manipulator
arms.
"Noonan, whassa matter with you?" the unit chief growled in his earpiece.
"I guess I wasn't paying attention," he responded.
"Get yourself over to the repair shop and get it fixed. Now!"
Jerry's robot didn't just walk across the crater -- it danced.
"So, it's number 60148 again, is it?" Audrey said when he shuffled into the
shop. Jerry?"
"Yeah, it's me," Jerry said.
Audrey worked over the arm perfunctorily, quickly popping a new one in its
place.
"You know," Jerry said, "I went to that club of yours last week and I was
wondering if I might have seen you. You weren't ... the lady in the green
jumpsuit, were you?"
"Sorry, no. I, um, didn't make it out to the club last week. Something
came up."
"Well, I had a pretty good time anyway"
"See, I told you so. Like I said, you're only as young as you feel. Who did
you dance with?"
"Just somebody. Some pretty young thing I met at the bar."
"Hmmm. Any interest there?"
"Yeah, I think so. She's a great little dancer and I think we might make a
good couple. Don't know if I'll be back at the Candy Bar though. Too noisy."
"Too bad for me," Audrey said, sighing. "But I hope it works out for you.
I guess I won't get that dance you promised me now, huh?"
"We could dance here, if you'd like."
"Sure. Hold on while I put on some music."
Audrey's robot went dead for a minute, then came back online. As a saxophone
played the introduction to the old familiar tune, the big steel barrel and
the inverted titanium funnel came together and moved around the room in time.
* * * * *