“How was your book?” she asked.
I told her it was all right.
She nodded.
“What happened to his parents?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s an interesting question,” Aunt Carrie said. “One of the other Pan books, Peter and Wendy, if I’m correct, tells of how he flew away when he was a baby. When he was older, he tried to come home but found the window locked. When he looked in through the glass he saw a new baby in his place. He left again, believing they’d replaced him, that they no longer wanted him.”
“But did they?” I asked. “Did they want him?”
“What do you think?” She licked her lips.
“I think they wanted him back.”
“I do too,” she said.
“Then why did they let him fly away?”
“I don’t know that they could have stopped him if they’d tried,” she answered. “He wanted to go.”
“That must’ve been real sad for them,” I said.
Aunt Carrie nodded. “I believe it was.”
I decided right then and in that chair that if ever I had a baby, I’d watch him close and love him deep so he’d never even have a thought of leaving.
Aunt Carrie insisted we stay for a light supper before going home for the night. I helped her put out sliced bread and leftover ham for sandwiches. She’d even let me put out a jar of her spicy pickles that she’d put up last fall. She said we should eat in the kitchen and she pulled out the table and lifted the drop leaves so there’d be room for all of us to sit.
“You fellows bring in a chair each, please,” she called to Uncle Gus, Daddy, and Ray. “I hope you don’t mind eating in the kitchen.”
I didn’t mind at all. There was just something about Aunt Carrie’s kitchen that made me sit more comfortably and laugh a little easier. Besides, Uncle Gus and Daddy were more inclined to tell stories while sitting in the warm kitchen, their bellies full of food.
They didn’t disappoint me that day, either.
“Y’all goin’ to that Valentine’s Day dance?” Uncle Gus asked, slathering mustard on his bread.
“There’s a dance?” I asked, leaning forward so my chest rested against the edge of the table.
“Sure is,” Uncle Gus answered. “Legion’s gettin’ everythin’ ready for it. Don’t got a band yet, but we’ll make do anyhow.”
“Who’s invited to the dance?” I asked, trying not to sound too eager, but feeling like my heart was about to thump all the way out of my chest.
“Everyone,” Aunt Carrie answered.
“Even Opal?”
She nodded. “Especially Opal.”
“So, Tom, what d’ya think?” Uncle Gus asked, giving me a wink. “Y’all gonna come?”
I looked to Daddy, hoping he’d say that we were. He nodded and gave me his crooked smile.
“I suppose we can,” Daddy answered, piling a couple slices of meat on his bread.
“Tom, you remember that dance we had back in Red River?” Uncle Gus asked. “Lord, you and me must’ve been fifteen or so.”
“You might’ve been fifteen,” Daddy said. “I’d have been thirteen.”
“Always gotta remind me I’m older, huh?” Uncle Gus grinned. “You remember?”
“Sure I do.”
“There was a dance in Red River?” I asked, knowing full well how my mouth hung open. All my life I’d been taught that dancing was as much a sin as drinking liquor, fornicating, and spitting on the sidewalk. Those were things faithful Baptists didn’t do if they wanted to stay in God’s good graces. Sometimes I wondered about the spitting part. Seemed to me that might’ve been something Mama’d made up to keep me from embarrassing her when we walked out in public.
“We didn’t have more than the one,” Uncle Gus said. “Only reason our mamas allowed it was Jed Bozell was the one running it.”
If ever I could listen to stories about one man for the rest of my life, I’d have picked the ones about Jed Bozell. Daddy’d told me stories about old Jed and his traveling sideshow all my life. I never did find out if any of those stories were true. Didn’t matter to me much if they weren’t. Stories about Jed Bozell just plain old made me smile.
“Had to call that dance a square step, though,” Daddy said. “If any of us called it a dance our mothers’d come after us with their wooden spoons.”
“Everybody got gussied up,” Uncle Gus said. “Don’t recall what I wore but I do know I took a bath that day.”
“I remember.” Daddy crossed his arms. “You had on a shirt all buttoned up wrong and pants that were a good inch too short for your legs.”
“Well, I was tryin’ to start a new way of dressin’.” Uncle Gus nodded. “Besides, who wants to trip up on your pant legs when you’re tryin’ to square step?”
“You got a point,” Daddy said. “As for me, it was lucky I got out of the house at all for how Meemaw’d made me scrub behind my ears and scour under my nails. That was one thing she’d never abide, a dirty child.”
“I do recall you being so scrubbed you’d shine on a bright day,” Uncle Gus said.
“That I did.” Daddy nodded and took a sip of his milk. “Wonder if that was how old Jed saw me through the crowd that day to call me up on stage.”
“What’d he want you to do?” I asked.
“I’m getting to that. Hold your horses.” He leaned back in his chair, tipping it up on two legs. “Old Jed was calling out the usual steps, hollering along with the music for the folks to swing-their-partner and circle left. He kept time with the fiddle.”
“Who played the fiddle?” Ray asked.
“I do believe it was Millard’s wife,” Daddy said.
“That’s right.” Uncle Gus smiled. “She sure was somethin’ else. First woman I ever loved.”
Aunt Carrie cleared her throat and gave him a look like she was about to smack him. But I knew she was teasing him by the way her face broke into a smile like she just couldn’t help it.
“Didn’t matter none anyhow,” Uncle Gus said. “Her heart was for Millard. Besides, she was old enough to be my mother.”
“Anyhow,” Daddy said, going on with the story. “I was a little bit shy about girls. There wasn’t a way in the world I was about to go up to one and ask her to dance. I stayed clear to the side of the room.”
“Why would you ever be scared of girls?” I asked. “Ray’s not scared of girls.”
“I was scared one of them was gonna bite me.”
“Son,” Uncle Gus said to Ray, “there’s a bit o’ wisdom to that. Be careful of some ladies. They’d be more like to bite you than say howdy.”
Ray blushed and smiled.
“Jed, he looked out over the crowd and saw me, back against the wall and skin glowing fit to light up the whole night.” Daddy shook his head. “He waved me over to him and whispered in my ear between calls.”
“What’d he say?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t know that it’s nice to say in front of mixed company,” Daddy said, nodding his head at Aunt Carrie.
“Tom, I’m married to Gus Seegert,” she said. “Anything you have to say, I promise I’ve heard it before.”
“All right then,” Daddy said. “Poor Jed had to use the outhouse. Said he’d eaten too many of Meemaw’s apple dumplings and had himself the skitters.”
I wrinkled up my nose and tried not to laugh too loud. I didn’t want to miss out on one word of Daddy’s story.
“He told me to just have the folks do-si-do round and round until he got back. Said he wouldn’t be a minute.”
Uncle Gus had a wide smile on his face and he rubbed at his chin, watching Daddy as he went on.
“So I did as he said and hollered out for everybody to keep do-si-doing. Over and over I called it.” He shook his head. “They couldn’t help but obey me. That’s the first rule of square stepping—you gotta obey the man calling the steps.”
“I was partnered up with some girl,” Uncle Gus said. “Can’t remember her name off the top of my head.�
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“It was Mable,” Daddy said. “Remember? That was before she’d married Ezra.”
“That’s right.” He put his hands up like he was dancing. “We went round and round, Mable and me gettin’ dizzier by the minute.”
“Jed didn’t come back,” Daddy said. “I didn’t know any of the other calls and I didn’t know what to do. So I kept telling them to go on with their do-si-do. Seemed like a whole hour’d passed and Jed was still gone.”
“One hour?” Uncle Gus said. “More like three. I started worrying that I wouldn’t get home to milk the cow.”
“Why didn’t y’all just stop?” Ray asked, his eyebrows pushed down low.
“Son, you can’t just stop a square dance like that,” Uncle Gus said, his voice serious. “You gotta wait until the ending’s called. Then you gotta bow. Them’s the rules.”
Ray snickered and Uncle Gus winked at him.
“All the skipping round and round each other caused a powerful wind on account the women’s skirts were working like wings, stirring up the dirt in Red River. It lifted up all the topsoil in town, swirling into one big roller that twisted and spun its way across the plain,” Daddy nodded. “You ever wonder why the dust got started?”
“That ain’t why,” Ray said. “Is it?”
“Might be,” Uncle Gus said. “Just might be. And we all got Tom to thank for it.”
“Finally, after five hours of folks circling their partners, Jed came back. He got big in the eyes and hollered out for the folks to allemande, promenade, and bow to their partners so they could stop.” Daddy shook his head.
“Millard made them swing their partners the other way for a couple hours, just to get them unwound,” Uncle Gus said.
“Still, for a couple years after, nobody walked in a straight line.”
I imagined the upright citizens of Red River weaving down Main Street like they were all tipsy from moonshine and it made me giggle.
“You know, Meemaw always warned of the dangers of dancing, but I never believed her,” Daddy said. “Not until that night.”
“You dance,” I said. “I’ve seen you.”
I thought of the times when he stood close to Mama, her humming a tune, and the two of them swaying together like they were one person. Any smile I’d had on my face fell just then.
“Guess I didn’t learn my lesson,” Daddy said. He looked me in the eye and gave me a smile like he knew what I was thinking.
I didn’t doubt he did.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
All that week and into the next, the only thing anybody in town could talk about was the Valentine’s Day dance. At school, the girls went round and round about what they were going to wear and the boys went on and on about how their mothers were making them go.
I’d sit to the side of them, listening to their chirping and chattering, thinking how their jaws would drop when they saw me lindy-hopping across the dance floor. I didn’t think it would matter if I had on a nice dress or if Opal let me brush a little color on my cheeks. The only thing they’d remember from that dance was how jealous they were of my swinging and swaying. I wasn’t one for bragging or thinking more of myself than I ought, but I was getting pretty good at dancing.
I didn’t say one word to them about it, either. I wanted them to be surprised.
Opal had helped me pick out a dress for the occasion. It was one that’d gotten just a little too small on her. Eating at our table once or twice a day had done her some good. All she had to do to that dress was hem it up an inch or two. I only had to twirl to make it swoop up away from my knees. It was pink with white polka dots and a pretty white collar she’d bleached fresh just for me.
“I’ll do your hair if you want,” she’d said. “I could put it in curlers.”
“Yes, please,” I’d said, hoping I’d end up looking just like Shirley Temple.
As for Ray, the only reason he was coming was because he’d heard there was going to be a cakewalk. For a nickel he’d get to walk around until the music stopped. Depending on where he ended up, he could win a cake. I knew for a fact that most the ladies in town had gone without sugar in their coffee to be able to make those cakes.
When I’d asked Aunt Carrie why they’d do something like that, she’d said sometimes all it took was baking a pretty cake to make a woman feel like times were normal again.
“It reminds us of how things were,” she’d said. “Back when times weren’t so hard and baking a cake was the most normal thing in the world to do. I think it helps us have hope—even a little bit—that times can be like that again.”
“Do you think they ever will?” I asked.
“No. Not completely.” She’d smiled at me. “But they might just be better. We’ll have to wait and see.”
I thought I understood because whenever I imagined what it might be like to dance in the American Legion, I felt that maybe things weren’t so bad as I sometimes thought they were. When I visited those daydreams I forgot about Mama being gone and about the way Hazel sneered at me from across the classroom or even how Delores stared like a scared little deer whenever I said a word to her. The only thing I thought of was how good it felt to dance. Every bad feeling shuffled back into a dark corner of my mind.
If only I could’ve swept them all the way out I’d have been a whole lot better off.
Every once in a while Daddy’d drive me home from school. On the coldest days it didn’t matter how many layers of scarf I held over my nose and mouth or how I worked at breathing nice and easy like Doctor Barnett had told me to, the freezing air still got to me, making my lungs tighten up and causing me to struggle for breath.
It was a Tuesday and Daddy’d not only dropped me off at school, but he’d told me to wait inside for him to get me that afternoon. He didn’t want me sitting out in the schoolyard for fear I’d catch my death from how the wind whipped. Those days were hardest for breathing, like the rushing wind would’ve liked nothing more than to steal the air right out of me.
“And I’ll see you after I get done at work, okay?” he said after driving me all the way up in front of the house on Magnolia Street. “Go right inside, hear?”
I nodded, putting my hand on the latch to open my side of the truck.
“Pearlie?” he said, reaching over and squeezing my hand that was closest to him. “I love you, darlin’.”
“Love you, too, Daddy,” I said, smiling at him over my shoulder before pushing open the door and stepping out.
The wind smacked me right in the face and I tried not to gasp at how freezing cold the air was. Rushing toward the porch, I tried my very best not to slip and fall on any hidden patch of ice. Turning, I waved at Daddy just before opening the front door and stepping inside.
On the other side of the door, I untied my boots so they wouldn’t get snow on the living room floor. In my stocking feet, I padded my way to the closet to hang up my coat.
Opal came from the kitchen, wiping her hands dry on a towel.
“Have a good day?” she asked.
“Sure I did,” I answered. “How about you?”
“Just the normal.” She smiled. “Just a couple more days until the dance.”
“I know.”
“You think you’re ready?”
“Might be.”
“How about we work on those triple steps today?” she asked. “Maybe try doing a few underarm spins?”
She didn’t have to ask me twice.
That night I dreamed of dancing. Trumpets blasted and drums boomed. My shoes tapped on the dance floor as I made my way to the center. I swung my arms at my sides, making circles with my hands in the air and shimmying for all I was worth. Kicking my feet, I caused my skirt to swish from one side to the other.
And that skirt was of the deepest purple, so deep it almost looked black.
I stomped and spun and hopped. All the folks standing around me in a circle cheered out, hollering my name, whistling and clapping and moving their shoulders to the beat.
But then the music changed. The clarinets held out one long sour note. The trombones groaned and the trumpets sighed. All the dancers in the circle went on with their clapping like nothing had changed.
Then the floor dropped out from under me and I fell, the skirt of deepest purple flew up so it covered over all of me except my legs and underthings. I tried pushing it down, tried getting free from it, but the fabric tangled me as I fell, fell, fell.
Down, down, down.
All of the sudden I was on the floor of the living room. Mama stood in front of the davenport, carpetbag in hand. Without looking at me she walked to the door and opened it, then stepped out to the porch.
Then she was back, standing in front of the davenport again, same carpetbag hanging from her fist. She walked to the door, opened it, stepped out.
Back to the davenport. Leaving. Back. Leaving. Over and again and over and again. It must’ve been a hundred times I watched her walk away from me just to come right back to that same spot, her feet firm on the living room floor.
And from somewhere above me the music went on and on.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The last couple days leading up to Valentine’s Day were full of whispers about who’d get a heart-shaped card from one of the boys. Hazel was sure she’d get at least three of them and the other girls looked like they’d about melt into a puddle if she did.
When I’d asked Ray if he’d thought of making a card for a girl, he’d looked at me like I’d lost my ever-loving mind.
“Why would I do a thing like that?” he’d asked.
I was half glad he’d not thought to get a Valentine for any of the other girls, and half sore he hadn’t thought to get one for me. But I wasn’t about to tell him so.
Opal taught me more steps to the dance, teaching me to shuffle and spin on the toes of my shoes. She showed me how to move my arms when I wasn’t holding hands with my partner and what to do if I missed a step. She’d even turned on the radio so we could put the steps with music.
When she told me I was getting it, I’d smile. When she said I was a good dancer, I’d believe her.
All that week the ladies in town went to see if Mr. Wheeler had sugar and flour for them to buy and they took home just enough to bake for the cakewalk. They went without other things on their lists so they could spend five cents for a little sugar and another five cents for flour.
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