Pretending to Dance

by Diane Chamberlain

  “Right.” I’d printed out two copies, one for Russell and a second for me at my mother’s insistence. Mine was in my backpack.

  “Keep an eye on him, Molly,” she said. In the light from the kitchen window, the purplish skin beneath her eyes took on a translucent glow. She looked like a woman who could be blown away by the slightest breeze. “I’m not ready to lose him yet,” she said.

  She was being so overly dramatic. “It’s only a little book tour,” I said, wondering if I should be more worried than I was. I’d tossed my palm stone into my backpack almost as an afterthought. Maybe I didn’t have a good understanding of what a book tour entailed. How could it lead to losing him? “And he’s got Russell with him,” I said, then added, “I’m going to make it fun for him.”

  She smiled at me, but there was something I couldn’t read in the smile, as though she didn’t believe that “fun” was a real possibility on this trip. She drew me into a hug. “I love you,” she said. They were rare words from her, and all at once, I pictured her opening the door to a social worker and a beautiful young woman with honeysuckle-scented hair holding a little girl covered with a rash. Her husband’s child. Her husband’s former lover. Somehow, my mother’d found the strength not to slam the door in their faces.

  I hugged her hard. “I love you, too,” I said.

  * * *

  We drove out of Swannanoa and I felt a yearning as we passed the turn to Stacy’s house, which had become all tangled up with Chris in my mind, as though if I showed up there, he’d be sitting on the sofa, smoking a joint, waiting for me. I’d found that picture of Genevieve and me and cut it in half so Chris would only have me to look at. I’d addressed it to him and left it in our mailbox. I wondered how long it would take to get to him, and if I’d have one of him when I got back from the trip.

  “How about some music, Moll?” Daddy asked from his chair behind the driver’s seat.

  “Okay,” I said. I picked up the black case containing Daddy’s cassette tapes from the floor between Russell’s seat and my own. I turned to look at my father. “What do you want to hear?” I asked.

  “You pick,” he said.

  “I’ll pick one we can sing along to,” I said, knowing how much he loved it when we sang. I looked at Russell as I unzipped the case. “You have to sing, too.”

  A faint smile came over Russell’s lips. “Bossy,” he said.

  I looked through the tapes. Daddy’s collection was bigger than mine and very different. He had a bunch of jazz, which was useless for singing along with. I knew I wouldn’t find any New Kids on the Block, but I thought he might have some Bon Jovi, which would let me think about the next time I’d be with Chris. No luck, though. I put on one of his mix tapes and we sang along to the Temptations and the Beach Boys and the Beatles, who I’d just discovered and who I thought were very cool, and Eric Clapton and, of course, the Eagles. Russell actually knew a lot of the lyrics. He got into it, rocking in the driver’s seat, turning even the Beach Boys into soul music with the way he moved his upper body. He was usually so serious. Seeing his playful side made me laugh, and when I turned to look at my father, his eyes were crinkly with humor. I had the best feeling about this trip. It was going to be better for my father than any of those drugs on that list in my backpack.

  “How about a little classical now?” Daddy said after about an hour. “I’d like to rest for a while.” We were approaching Hickory, and Russell was watching for the turn that would take us to Charlotte, which was the first stop on the tour.

  “Okay,” I said. He had Rachmaninoff’s second concerto in the case, but I remembered what he’d said about “wrist-slitting music” and decided to stick with Beethoven. I put on his third symphony and leaned my head against the window, shutting my eyes. For some reason, I remembered Chris on the phone saying he’d never hurt me. They weren’t his exact words. I wished I could remember what he’d said exactly. But that was what he’d meant: he’d never hurt me. Those words played tenderly through my mind as we drove.

  “Graham?” Russell said after a while. I opened my eyes to see him looking in his rearview mirror.

  “Mm?” Daddy sounded only half awake.

  “We’re a few miles from the hotel,” Russell said, “and you wanted to stop at a mall, right? I think there’s one at the next turn.”

  I heard my father yawn. “Yeah,” he said. “Let’s stop. We can get something to eat.”

  “Why do we need a mall?” I turned to look at him.

  He gave me a tired-looking wink. “You’ll see,” he said. “Just be patient.”

  * * *

  We found a handicapped parking space and Russell got Daddy out of the van, then pushed the wheelchair into the mall while I walked alongside them. This mall was a lot bigger than the one I knew in Asheville, and even though it was a completely different place, all I could think about was where I would meet Chris if he asked to meet me at this mall. That bench? Or maybe in front of the music store? I knew I was being ridiculous, imagining something that could never happen, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I was obsessed.

  We stopped to look at the map of the mall. “Are we looking for a restaurant?” I asked.

  “I see it,” Russell said to my father. Clearly, they knew where they wanted to go and saw no need to let me in on it, so as Russell turned the chair down one long branch of the mall, I tagged along, thinking, Maybe we could meet over there, by the chocolate shop. Maybe he’d buy me one of those little boxes of chocolates.

  Russell stopped pushing the chair and I saw we were in front of a shoe store.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked.

  “Somebody I know wants purple Doc Martens,” Daddy said. “Let’s go get them.”

  I let out a scream. “You’re kidding!” I said. “But I haven’t saved enough yet.”

  “This is an ‘accompanying me on the book tour’ gift,” Daddy said.

  I bent over to hug him. “Thank you!” I said, and I ran ahead of them into the store.

  * * *

  I wore the purple Doc Martens out of the store, my sandals tucked inside the shoebox. I felt like everyone in the mall was looking at me, the cool girl, in her pink T-shirt, white shorts, and purple Doc Martens.

  We found a restaurant and Russell rearranged the chairs at our table so Daddy’s chair would fit. They both ordered burgers, but I had a chicken salad sandwich on a croissant that was delicious but a mess to eat, the salad falling out of the bread and onto my plate.

  “Bet you five bucks you can’t eat that sandwich without licking your lips at least once,” Daddy said. He could be such a dork, but I would humor him.

  “You might as well hand the money over to me now.” I grinned.

  “You gotta earn it,” Daddy said.

  Russell rolled his eyes. “You two,” he said.

  He fed Daddy, who was keeping an eagle eye on me while I carefully worked my way through my messy sandwich.

  Daddy swallowed a bite of his burger. “You nervous about tonight?” he asked me.

  I shook my head. “Nope,” I said around a mouthful of chicken salad. I was concentrating hard on not licking my lips, so after every bite of the sloppy sandwich I had to wipe my mouth with my napkin. “Are you?”

  “Well,” he said, “I’m not nervous about speaking, but I am a little nervous no one will show up.”

  “They’ll show up,” Russell said, like he had some insider knowledge.

  “You almost blew it,” Daddy said to me.

  “What?”

  “Your tongue. It was getting ready to lick.”

  “Was not,” I said, though he was right. I was too old for his lame bets, but I would play along if that’s what he wanted. Anything to make him happy. I finished the sandwich and Russell handed me a five-dollar bill from his wallet.

  * * *

  We were headed back to the mall exit when my father suddenly asked Russell to stop pushing the chair. “Buy that for Molly,” he said, looking in the window of
a cosmetics shop.

  “Buy what?” Russell and I asked at the same time. Daddy once told me he missed being able to point to things more than anything else.

  “That glittery blue nail polish.”

  I saw the bottle he was talking about. The polish was the color of a night sky filled with stars. “Yes!” I said.

  Russell pulled another five-dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to me. I ran inside the store, bought the polish, and came out again.

  “Tonight,” Daddy said, as we started toward the exit again, “you are going to sparkle.”

  * * *

  Russell found the radio station where Daddy was supposed to be interviewed and we parked in a handicapped spot outside. We were early, but only by fifteen minutes. Inside, I sat in a small waiting area while Russell wheeled Daddy down the hall to the room where they’d do the interview. I felt nervous for my father. I pulled my palm stone from my backpack and held it in my hand. It soothed me, that old stone. I rubbed my thumb over the smooth indentation in its surface.

  The waiting area consisted of six green upholstered chairs with wooden arms, a small table with a coffeemaker and a pitcher of water, and a large speaker hanging near the ceiling in one corner of the room. Classical music played from the speaker, but after a moment a woman announced that “Dr. Graham Arnette, the pretend therapist, will be joining us after this newsbreak.” I rubbed my stone harder but I was smiling. How could anyone turn off their radio after an introduction like that? Wouldn’t they want to know what on earth a pretend therapist was?

  Russell returned to the waiting area and poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “Too cramped in there for me,” he said, sitting down next to the table.

  “He can manage alone?” I asked, worried.

  “I put the headphones on him and the microphone is in the right place, so he’s all set.”

  “Is he nervous?” I asked. “I’d be nervous.”

  “He’s pretending not to be.” Russell smiled, and I had the strongest desire to give him a hug and thank him for everything he did for us—and especially for never again mentioning anything about what happened at Stacy’s house—but I stayed in my seat and let the gratitude quietly fill me up.

  We didn’t speak as the woman interviewed my father. He talked about his Pretend Therapy book for kids and how parents could help their children use it to cope with their fears or their various misbehaviors. Daddy’s voice was strong, and I heard his smile even though I couldn’t see it. You would never guess he was sitting immobilized in a wheelchair.

  “You’d never know he’s helpless,” I said.

  Russell raised his eyebrows at me. “Your father is anything but helpless, Molly,” he said, lifting his coffee cup toward his mouth. “You can trust me on that.”

  * * *

  We had a handicapped-accessible room at the hotel for Daddy and Russell to share and it was connected by a door to a room for me. They had two double beds and I had a giant king-sized bed all to myself. I flopped spread-eagled onto the bed the moment I got into the room, enjoying the space that was mine-all-mine. I stared at the ceiling, trying to remember the last time I’d stayed in a hotel. It was before Russell came to live with us, so it must have been three years ago when we drove to Pennsylvania to visit my mother’s mother. I’d had a connecting room then as well. I remembered Daddy using a mobility scooter in the hotel, so he must have still had some use of his hands. I distinctly remembered getting in the elevator with him, just the two of us. He’d tried to push the button for the lobby, but his hand wouldn’t cooperate. I’d felt his frustration as I reached in front of him to push it myself.

  “Will you ever get better, Daddy?” I’d asked, once the elevator started its descent.

  He didn’t answer right away. He was staring at the buttons as though he wished he could push them with his eyes instead of his uncooperative fingers. “I’m afraid not, darling,” he’d said finally, turning his head to look at me. “I will only get worse, so I have to make the most of the time I have now.”

  I remembered crying myself to sleep that night. I couldn’t imagine him getting any worse than he already was. But, of course, he did.

  * * *

  The three of us rested before the event at the bookstore, which was scheduled for seven o’clock. I stared at the phone on the nightstand next to my bed. I had Chris’s number written down in the little notepad in my backpack and I wanted to call him so much, but there would be a bill, wouldn’t there? I read the instructions written on the phone. Local calls were free, but long distance calls would be charged to the room. I didn’t dare, yet my fingers itched to dial his number.

  I painted my nails with the night-sky polish, then lay down on the bed to let the polish dry. Staring at the ceiling, I slowly became aware of an ache low in my belly. It took me a few minutes to place the feeling. Was I getting my period? I’d only had four of them, the first coming a year ago when I was thirteen. I’d been the last of my friends and had begun to think I’d be the one girl in the world who never got her period. It “sputtered”—that was the word Mom used to describe its irregularity. “It will get regular eventually,” she’d assured me, and I wished she’d thought to tell me to be ready for it on this trip. It had been so long since the last time, though—three months at least—that she and I had sort of forgotten all about it.

  I jumped off the bed and raced into the bathroom, and sure enough, there was a spot of red on my underpants. I tucked folded sheets of toilet paper into my underpants and tried to figure out what to do. This hotel was in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t remember seeing anyplace nearby where I could get supplies.

  I knocked on the door between our rooms, hoping they weren’t both asleep.

  “Come in,” Daddy said.

  I found him propped up in bed, a book on the automatic page turner in his lap, while Russell was ironing a blue shirt on the ironing board next to the window.

  “I need to talk to Daddy alone for a minute,” I said to Russell.

  Russell looked only mildly surprised. “No problem.” He turned off the iron. “I need to make a quick call from the lobby, anyhow,” he said.

  I climbed onto Daddy’s bed, waiting for the door to close behind Russell. Daddy looked at me with an expectant frown on his face.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “This is embarrassing,” I said.

  “You don’t have to say anything tonight if you don’t want to.”

  “What?” I was momentarily confused. “Oh no. That’s not it.” My cheeks felt hot. “I got my period and don’t have any … I didn’t bring anything to use because I didn’t expect it.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Well, Russell can take you to the store.”

  I scrunched up my face. “It’s so embarrassing.”

  “Nah.” Daddy shook his head like I was making a big deal out of nothing. “We’ll just tell him you need to pick up some personal items.”

  “That’s so obvious.”

  “All right.” Daddy chuckled. “A few things then. You need to pick up a few things.” His gaze fell to my nails. “Hey! I love it,” he said.

  I held up my right hand to admire the sparkly dark polish. “Thanks,” I said. “Me, too.” I wished Russell would get back, but he was probably giving us lots of time to talk. Daddy told me about the book he was reading, while I felt that miserable ache get a grip on my stomach and worried the blood would seep through the toilet paper.

  I finally heard Russell’s key in the lock and he poked his head into the room. “Can I get back to ironing?” he asked.

  “Molly needs to make a run to the store,” Daddy said. “A convenience store will be fine. She just needs to pick up a few things.”

  I couldn’t look directly at Russell. My gaze was somewhere off to his left.

  “Sure,” he said. “Now?”

  I nodded and he walked across the room and picked up his keys from the dresser. “Are you okay, Graham?” he asked my father. “Do
you need anything yourself?”

  “Not a thing,” Daddy said. I felt bad leaving him with his finicky page turner. If it got stuck as it usually did, he would have absolutely nothing to do except sit and think until we returned.

  Russell and I didn’t speak as we rode the elevator to the lobby, then walked out to the van. He turned the key in the ignition. “Let’s see if we can find a store for you,” he said. We drove a short distance and I spotted a gas station with a little store attached to it. He pulled up in front of it, then took his wallet from his pocket and handed me a ten.

  “That enough?” he asked.

  I nodded. My cheeks were burning again, and he gave me a sympathetic smile.

  “I came up in a house full of women, Molly,” he said. “No daddy. One mama. One auntie. And five sisters. This ain’t no big thing.” I’d never heard him use the word ain’t before. Except for his colloquialisms, Russell spoke the same language I did. But the way he said it—lightly, kindly—eased the color from my cheeks and I gave him a grateful smile. “I’ll be right back,” I said.

  I bought a package of sanitary napkins, eyeing the boxes of tampons wistfully. I’d tried to use one of my mother’s when I got my first period, but there was no way that thing was going in.

  Back in the van, I tried to hold the thin plastic bag so Russell couldn’t see the box inside it. I didn’t know why I still felt so embarrassed.

  “All set?” he asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  We were halfway back to the hotel when he spoke again. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Tuesday—the day we’re heading home—my family’s having a pig pickin’ at our homeplace outside Hendersonville. Think it’d be fun to stop there for a couple hours?”

  I thought I’d rather get home so I could talk to Chris, but a pig pickin’ sounded like the kind of thing Daddy would love. He was crazy about barbecue. “Would it be okay for Daddy?” I asked. “I mean, would everything be accessible for him?”

  “Well, it’ll all be outside, unless it’s pouring rain, so shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “I think it’s a good idea then,” I said. “He’d like it.” I felt proud of myself for putting my father’s wants ahead of my own, even though my heart sank a little as the words left my mouth.