Dancing Hours

by Jennifer Browning

  Miss Celia came over and gave me a warm, but formal hug and let go quickly. “How are you Andy? We miss you around here. You were always one of my favorite students.”

  “Thanks, Miss Celia, that’s kind of what I was coming to talk to you about. I’m trying to save up some money for going to college this fall and you always said you’d love for me to help you teach a class, so I thought I’d see if you were still interested.”

  “Oh, yes. I could use the help, sugar. Sometimes youth has the advantage over experience.” She said wistfully. “If you’re here, we could do the hip hop class for the young kids. I haven’t had the energy for years, but the parents would be thrilled. I can pitch it to them as a special summer class and I bet enrollment would double.” She sounded excited and turned to the kids for confirmation “What do you think, class, would you like to learn some hip hop dance?”

  One little girl squealed, but the others looked like they could care less and were only there because their mothers made them come. Tough crowd.

  “Do you still know the routines?” Miss Celia asked me hopefully. She had been a backup dancer for a short lived pop group in the 80s before moving to Palmetto and setting up shop. Compared to the videos I watched online, her technique was pretty sloppy, but it was never really my place to say anything about that.

  “Of course I do.” I reassured her, knowing that if I suggested any changes to the dry and straightforward routines she taught me 10 years ago, she would balk.

  So we decided that I would teach a limited edition hip hop class and substitute in on a few ballet classes a week in exchange for a little bit of pay and all the studio time I wanted. I hadn’t danced recently, except at the senior center with Nan, and I missed it.

  3

  Noah wasn’t there when I went to Mrs. Merchant’s house for a cooking lesson, which was fine by me since my mother had come along to see Mrs. Merchant’s daughter. It turned out they had been in school together, but Theresa had left town and forgotten to keep in touch.

  Theresa immediately hugged my mother in what appeared to be unexpected affection. She introduced herself to me as Trixie. Mrs. Merchant grunted disapprovingly. Trixie seemed a little loose for an early afternoon and I guessed the open bottle of liquor on the counter had something to do with it. She took my mother by the hand and led her to another room, right past Jessica without the care I expected a grandmother to bestow upon a little girl, much less her own granddaughter. Jessica didn’t seem to notice. Her face brightened when she saw me, but she checked Mrs. Merchant’s face before she came over to say hello. When she saw that I was alright in Mrs. Merchant’s book, she took my hand and jumped up and down. “Hi Andy! Wanna play tag you’re it?” she asked excitedly.

  The girl looked starved for playtime, but I was there for cooking lessons. “Sorry, Jessica. I’m here to play with your great-grandma today. She’s going to teach me how to cook some things.” I apologized.

  Jessica seemed disappointed but not surprised. I promised we’d play tag after the cooking, but she looked like she didn’t believe me. It made me a little sad and I wondered how many grownups had broken their promises to her.

  David came along after a minute to say hello and tried to distract Jessica, but he looked tired. I guessed he could use a break and asked him if Jessica could help us in the kitchen. Jessica’s smile lit up again and David was powerless to refuse. He quietly read a book on the porch just outside the kitchen door while Jessica and I got our first lesson.

  Thankfully Mrs. Merchant assumed I knew how to boil water, which was true. So our first lesson was a little more advanced: how to make mashed potatoes. Sure, it seems like a simple concept, but even that was a culinary challenge for me. For Jessica’s part, she wanted to do the peeling and cutting, but was relegated to adding salt to the water and milk and butter to the mash. I found the whole process fascinating. When we were almost done, my mother came in to see how we were coming. She was ready to leave, but I’d promised to play with Jessica. David spoke up for the first time from the porch through the screen door. I could bring her home Mrs….?”

  “Taylor, but please call me Jospehine.”

  “Josephine, then. It’s really no trouble. I need to go to the laundry place again anyway.”

  Mrs. Merchant scowled. “There’s nothing wrong with a line dry. Clothes last longer that way.” She said gruffly.

  David didn’t respond. This was clearly not the first time they’d had that discussion. My mother asked if that would be okay with me and walked out to the porch to give David a look over as if she might use her mom-radar to see if he was a rapist or serial killer. Apparently the mom-dar stayed silent so she agreed.

  Jessica and I spent an hour playing Tag and hide and seek in the backyard. We even convinced David to play a few rounds, but he acted a lot like an old man in young skin. When Jessica started to get cranky, David decided to take me home. It wasn’t a long drive, but Jessica fell asleep in the back of the car before we got there.

  David thanked me for playing with Jessica and admitted she doesn’t get enough time with kids her own age. I told him about an indoor park at the mall in Greenville. He wasn’t very talkative and I guessed that he was tired. I didn’t want to pry about his mother seeming distant with Jessica, or to seem too eager to know about Noah so we left it at that.

  4

  Trixie had been perfectly polite to my mother – complimented her dress and acted like any normal person seeing an old friend. My mom acted strangely, though, and I could tell there was some subtext under the exchange when they saw each other. Exactly what, I couldn’t tell. I had always imagined I knew my mother pretty well. She told me almost everything in her life and, while I knew her life didn’t begin when I was born, I thought she’d told me the important things. Maybe this wasn’t very important, but I would ask later.

  I waited until she had settled down into her favorite chair when I thought she’d have trouble avoiding the question.

  “So, what was going on between you and Mrs. Bastion?”

  She looked uncomfortable at the question. “What do you mean?” So she wanted to play hard to get. I wasn’t going to let her evade me.

  “I mean you were acting really strange. You don’t like her do you?” My mom sighed deeply, opened her mouth to say something then stopped and started again. “We knew each other a long time ago. We were different people then. It’s just… sometimes it’s hard to forget the way people treated you when you’re young.” She explained.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is that it’s between me and Trixie and it’s over and done with.”

  It was hard to imagine my mother as a young girl – my age. I’d seen pictures, of course, but they hardly looked like the woman who sat next to me, who made me breakfast, checked my homework and slept in a chair next to my bed when I was sick as a kid. She was a mom. I never really thought about what she was before being a mom. She was a nice person and I had a good idea she wouldn’t tell me anything else about Trixie. I’d ask my dad.

  Being an only child had it’s down sides. It meant there were no other kids in the house taking the parental attention away from me. I couldn’t blame a brother or sister for breaking my mother’s favorite vase or for putting dish soap in the washing machine to see what would happen. It also made navigating family politics a one man job. I found a quiet moment when my mom was busy in the laundry room and my dad was in a good mood because his basketball team won their game the night before. He was reading the paper, drinking coffee and nibbling at some pastries mom had brought home.

  “Dad?” I started.

  “Hmm.” He muttered absentmindedly.

  “How come mom doesn’t like that lady Trixie that just got into town?” I asked as innocently as I could.

  He folded down the corner of his paper and looked at me over the rim of his glasses with an amused look. “Sounds like a question you should ask your mother.” He said.

  I pretended to scratch at a mos
quito bite on my leg so he wouldn’t think I was too interested in the response, but felt like he could read me as easily as that newspaper. “I did.” I said as casually as I could. “She said something about them being different people, but it didn’t make sense.”

  He laughed easily. “So you thought you might squeeze it out of dear old dad?” he asked, pretending to be surprised.

  I flashed him my best ‘daddy’s little girl’ grin and walked around wrapping my arms around his neck like I’d done when I was little. Manipulating dad was so much easier than mom. He patted my arm.

  “Not this time, kiddo. That’s between Ms Bastion and your mom. It’s not my story to tell.” He said.

  I jumped on his admission. “So there’s a story?” Did I sound too excited? Probably. So much for my cool façade.

  “I didn’t say that, but if there is one, it’s not for me to share. Go ask your mother.” He said. Damn. That was always the final word on any subject from my dad. Go ask your mother. I’d just have to find out some other way.

  The attic was full of old treasures: VHS tapes, books, my baby clothes and in one dusty box: yearbooks. My mother’s old yearbooks, to be specific. I thought the pictures inside might yield some clues. They clearly hadn’t gone to the same elementary school, but it looked like they had the same 7th grade class. There were no extracurricular activity pictures with both my mom and Theresa, though. Then in high school, it looked like they had homeroom together one year. Trixie hadn’t ever signed my mother’s yearbook and then in 11th grade Trixie disappeared from the yearbook altogether. Where did she go? I know Mrs. Merchant didn’t move. There were only two high schools in the immediate area and you only got transferred if you moved or got kicked out of one. Maybe she’d been kicked out.

  I shared my theory with Kate who was more than happy to share her dad’s yearbooks. He was a year older than my mom and Trixie, so his senior yearbook would have had her picture in it if she’d gone to the other school. But it didn’t, and he couldn’t recall her by name. I thought I might have hit a dead end, but then I had a stroke of genius. The place to go when you needed to know anything – Nan.

  I knew Nan was volunteering at the senior center that day and it was on my way to the Meals on Wheels office, so I figured I could log an hour helping her out. She looked audacious in a bold flower print dress with a trim 50s cut and large buttons on her wide belt. The dress flared and twirled around her knees as she taught a simple dance to a small group of women. Her legs were enviable for a woman of any age. I knew the dance and stepped in beside her easily picking up where she was. She shot me a mischievous smile and I knew she was about to show off a few moves. All the other women and I could do was watch as she ended the dance with a flair that was all her own. A round of applause naturally followed. Nan curtsied gracefully and motioned to another woman to take over for the last dance of the session, a “cool down” dance of sorts.

  I followed her as she strutted to the exterior of the room then plopped onto a bench and began to fan herself. “Never let them see the effort, sweet pea, it ruins the performance.” She explained breathing heavily.

  As Martha Sutton, 94, emerged from the room first to go home, Nan stood up and brightened again like someone had turned on a light switch. She kept up the bright smile and easy banter while the usual niceties were exchanged with all the ladies as they left class, then Nan and I were left alone.

  “It’s so nice to see you here, my dear.” She said as she gave me a squeeze. “I thought you were doing that meal delivery thing today.”

  “I am. I mean, I do have to go over there in a few minutes.” I stumbled on my words.

  “Well, then, to what do I owe the honor?” She asked.

  “Oh, I just wanted to come see you” I fibbed. She eyed me suspiciously. I’m not a good liar, I realized.

  “Don’t try to con a con man.” She quipped “Spill.”

  “Okay, I was with mom at Mrs. Merchant’s the other day and we ran into Trixie Bastion and she and mom were being weird with each other and…” I continued explaining the interaction and about looking them up in the yearbooks. I told Nan that I was curious about her.

  “Does this have anything to do with those gorgeous sons of hers?” Nan asked.

  I flushed. Was it that obvious? Yes!

  “No, of course not.” I lied again, badly.

  To my surprise, she grabbed and hugged me. “I think you’re going to be late for your shift.” She said. I looked reflexively at my watch. Damn. I was going to be late.

  “That’s a story that would take a few minutes to tell, but I’ll tell you what I know, provided you do me a little favor.” She said.

  “Anything.” I accepted.

  “I’ve got some dirty laundry in my car. You bring it around to my house later tonight clean and folded and you’ve got yourself a deal.” She said, clearly thinking she was getting the better end of this bargain.

  I’ve made worse deals with Nan. At least she wasn’t going to keep me in the dark.

  5

  Handing me a mug of hot cocoa later that night like I was 8 instead of 18, Nan wrapped up in a blanket on the couch. She was wearing a bright kimono type robe and ran her fingers through her short, dark curly hair. It was the end of the day and her carefully coifed curls had begun to loosen. The roots of some gray hairs were beginning to show.

  “Theresa and your mother were never really friends, and that might be partly my fault. Years ago, we all went to the same church and I thought that since the girls were the same age, maybe they’d like to play together. Rosalie felt differently. You see, back then she was one of those people who thought that she had a monopoly on God. In her book, which she believed was the only right one, I was a bit too flashy. She thought that I would be a bad influence on her daughter and therefore your mom might be bad news too.”

  She sipped from her mug and continued. “Now, I’m not debating that I’ve done some colorful things, but your mama’s been a perfect peach her whole life and it hurt me that she might suffer because I was being judged. So, when the girls were old enough to choose their own friends, I told your mom what Mrs. Merchant had said. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t done that. I treated her more like a friend than a daughter in those days.” Nan looked away wistfully as if remembering some old regrets that she could never repair for just a moment then returned to her story.

  “I hear tell that Mrs. Merchant wasn’t just a sour puss to me. She was very strict with Theresa going so far as telling her what to wear, who to talk to and where she could hang out - which was mostly at church. When Rosalie’s husband died in … well, must have been their 10th grade year… I imagine things got pretty bad around there. I heard once that Theresa still had an 8 o’clock bedtime. Can you imagine? Not just home, but in bed by 8 pm at 16 years old?” Nan still seemed shocked by the indignity of it.

  I shook my head silently, not wanting to interrupt the story.

  “Anyway, I think Theresa called your mother a few choice words that would never apply to Josephine and they just did not ever get on friendly terms.” She continued “It’s not really her fault, you know. It’s the dogs that don’t get loved enough that bark the loudest.”

  “Well, what happened to her after high school?” I asked.

  “Oh, she never did graduate. The poor girl ran away from home. I don’t know where she went off to, but she came home a couple years later, when your mom was off at college, with a young husband who needed work and a beautiful baby boy – that was David. She must have been pretty desperate to come back here.” Nan said.

  “Rosalie was just despondent when Theresa took off as a girl. She stopped going to church and left her house only to work and go to the store. When Theresa came back with her family, they stayed for a couple of years and then must have saved up enough money to move out once and for all because that’s when I heard they moved to California. They came back again maybe ten years later for a summer when Theresa’s marriage went south, but from all accounts
it wasn’t a happy reunion. Rosalie was basically a shut-in after that. Once in a while, one of you kids would go visit and convince her to come to a church picnic, but not very often.”

  “How sad.” I thought out loud.

  “Don’t go feeling too sad for her. She decided how to treat people, how to live her life. Anyone who tells you about all the bad things that keep happening to them is ignoring their part in it.” She said.

  “I guess so…” I trailed off. It didn’t really make sense to me. I felt sorry for Mrs. Merchant, Trixie, her gorgeous sons, the whole lot of them. Life was so much easier in a family filled with love and acceptance. I was pretty sure I could have dyed my hair blue, pierced my tongue and gotten a tattoo on my forehead and my mother would still love me. She’d be pretty darn mad, but she’d love me anyway.