Dancing Hours

by Jennifer Browning

  I ran into your mom the other day, she misses you. She asked how I was managing without my favorite babysitter and offered to help out. I think she’s a little lonely with you gone.

  We never really talked about what happened the night before you left. I meant what I said. I wanted to say a lot more things, but you have your life now and I have mine. I thought that after you left I’d forget about you or at least not think about you so much, but it’s really the opposite. I hope that you’re happy, but don’t forget about us back here.

  He signed it with just his name – no “love” or “sincerely”. I felt conflicted reading it. I folded it neatly and tucked it away, then read it again so often that the paper wore thin on the fold lines and it started to fall apart.

  I turned 19 that year and my new college friends took me to a karaoke bar where I mangled several popular tunes to a friendly, supportive crowd in a Mexican restaurant.

  I received a hand drawn card from Jessica. She had drawn a big heart inside in crayon and painstakingly written her name. Below it David wrote Happy Birthday Andy! drew his own heart and signed his name. I found myself obsessing over that heart and what it meant. Was he just copying Jessica’s heart? Did he mean to draw a heart? Did it mean love? Did Jessica make him draw a heart? There were too many questions.

  In spite of my new lax schedule, I learned a lot that year and made excellent friends. I didn’t want to go home, perhaps ever again. I felt like Los Angeles, college, they changed me. I wasn’t the same Andy who left Palmetto. When summer came, I lined up a roommate, not a girl I knew very well, but she could afford half the rent and also didn’t want to go home yet. Our apartment was off-campus, but not very far.

  David heard the news from my mom, who wasn’t happy with the decision. She and my dad flew out to see me and check out the new apartment. I dutifully gave them a tour of campus, showed them the few sights that I’d seen and promised to come home for the holidays.

  When I talked to David after the end of the semester, he sounded hurt. It was another long conversation that felt too honest, but not like we said anything. He said that he hoped I would come back, that he had plans for the summer. I apologized, but wasn’t sure I needed to. He said he missed me and I said the same and it was true. Kate had moved on with her life and hardly called anymore. He felt like my last remaining friend from home. He said that maybe he should come out to see me, but the thought made my heart leap into my throat. If he came to L.A., if I saw him here, things would be different. I couldn’t just talk about missing him, I would have to show him that I missed him. And what if things weren’t as easy between us as they had been when I left home? What if things were suddenly awkward between us and we had nothing to talk about? I didn’t know if David and I were meant to be together, but I knew I wasn’t ready to give up the possibility. And so I told him I would be home for the holidays too and that he’d get to see me then. He sounded like he didn’t believe me. I didn’t believe me either.

  My friendly courier continued delivering Nan’s packages – sometimes flowers or chocolate. Once she sent a teddy bear. Those boxes always seemed like the perfect thing. Of course Nan and I talked on the phone all the time so she always seemed to know exactly what I needed.

  Most of the tenants in our apartment complex were students or former students. And that is where I met Phil. Phil said he was a junior, but looked to be well into his 20s. He flirted shamelessly with me and every other girl at the party that night and I deemed him harmless. He gave me his phone number when he left. “Use it any time, for any reason.” With that and a good natured wink, he was gone. I didn’t take him seriously and I didn’t think much about him after that night, but as luck would have it I later ran into Phil again.

  I had moved back on campus the Fall of my sophomore year to be closer to my classes. This time I was rooming with Sunday, an excellent friend whose hippie parents had named all their children after seasons or days of the week. She invited me to her home in New Mexico for the holiday break between semesters when virtually everything on campus would be closed, but something kept me from going. I couldn’t insult my family by spending Christmas with another family, but I wasn’t ready to go home.

  Most everyone but the international students had gone home, but I ran into Phil on campus. Happy to see a familiar face, I agreed to go to a party at his apartment. The only thing is, it was a party of just guys who were sitting around drinking, watching TV and playing video games. I immediately began calculating the appropriate amount of time to stay before I could leave without seeming rude.

  Periodically, someone else would show up and Phil and the person would go to the bedroom to talk. I noticed some of the guys appeared to be stoned. They all seemed to enjoy having me there and most of them attempted some form of conversation. At one point a guy showed up and greeted Phil with “Hey! Pharmacy Phil!” When Phil returned, I asked him about that. He laughed.

  “I thought you knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “That I’m the source.”

  “The source of what?” the room laughed.

  “I sell drugs, Andy.” he said flatly.

  I was shocked and felt naïve. I’d never known anyone who sold drugs before, but Phil seemed like a nice guy. Suddenly I realized that I was so naïve that I didn’t even know what a drug dealer looked like when I saw him. I was embarrassed.

  “I thought you were hanging out trying to score some free product.” He added.

  I was offended and I had no idea how to respond to that statement, but I no longer cared about not seeming rude. My mind struggled to form the right words to say to Phil, but it was taking me a few moments. In my agitation, I didn’t notice the mood in the room shift from very casual to much more formal. A man had come in and approached Phil, who sat up straight and shook his hand.

  “Hello, Phillip, who is this?” the man asked turning his attention and smile to me.

  Introductions were made. His name was X. What kind of name is that? I decided it was better not to ask.

  “Are you Phillip’s girlfriend?” he asked.

  “Ha! No.”

  “Well, please don’t let me interrupt the conversation. Phillip was suggesting that you were here because he handles a certain product and you looked like you might have something to say about that.”

  I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t like me to be confrontational, but people didn’t usually question my character like that.

  “Look, you all seem like nice guys, but that’s not my thing. I mean, I don’t care if you do it but I’m not here to ‘score’ anything and I think I’ll just be on my way.”

  “Wait. You can’t go out there alone at night. Let me escort you home.” Said X

  “I don’t need an escort. I know the campus pretty well and security is out.”

  “Indeed.” X seemed to consider this. “Well, I’m headed out anyway; I’ll walk you downstairs."

  In the stairwell X apologized for his rudeness. He explained that he often sees women in Phil’s company, but never one as pretty as me. I blushed, but it was too dark for him to see, I hoped. I muttered some sort of thanks. He asked me about my life and kept walking with me and before I knew it we were sitting at the fountain in the middle of my school and I knew more about X than I’d ever known about any guy. He was a very poor child who’d grown up “the hard way.” He’d accidentally killed a man in self-defense once and owned several bars and restaurants in town. He confessed that he wasn’t perfect, he did have a few seedy dealings with drugs and sometimes stolen cars, but it was his goal to be a successful businessman without those things and it was the minority of his income. He stopped talking for a moment and appeared to wait. I guessed he was waiting for me to say something, so I gave him encouragement for trying to do things the right way. It was getting late and I was very tired, but his story was a bit fascinating to me. I’d never met anyone with such a colorful past.

  “Aren’t you curious?” he asked.

 
“Curious about what?”

  “My income. Surely it’s crossed your mind.”

  “It’s none of my business. I don’t ask people about stuff like that.”

  “I see. You are an interesting girl, Andrea.” He touched my hand.

  “I can’t imagine that I’m anywhere near as interesting as some of the people you know.”

  “Oh, you have no idea. Those people are predictable in their unpredictability. I do know some interesting people, not the good kind. They are the kind of people who know how to accomplish a goal, but it’s hard to know who your friends are.”

  I was oddly punch drunk at the late hour by the time the conversation started to lull. I felt a little sorry for X and although I knew he was bad news, I wasn’t afraid of him. It seemed to me he was lost, but trying to find his way again. When I finally said I had to go to bed, he gave me a kiss on the cheek and a long hug. He smiled and told me that he was very happy to have met me. He smelled like cigarettes and leather. As I walked away, I had a hard time shaking the feeling that he was watching me go.

  The next morning, Phil caught up with me in the courtyard as I was headed to work. He said he wanted to apologize for making assumptions and I accepted. It wasn’t the first time my naiveté had gotten me into a mess.

  “You made quite an impression on the boss.” He said.

  “Who’s the boss?”

  “X”

  “Oh. It was an interesting experience for me too.”

  “Yeah, life is full of interesting experiences. Sometimes boring is the way to go.” He trailed off thinking as he reached into his jacket to pull out a pack of cigarettes.

  Sensing that he had more to say, I asked if he had something on his mind.

  “I do, but I’ve got a lot to lose so I’m just going to tell you this: You seem like a smart girl, a good girl. You stay out of trouble’s way, okay?”

  I was late for work, so I excused myself and wondered whether he’d been drinking this morning. Phil’s remark clung to the back of my mind like chewing gum on the bottom of my shoe, though. I tried to scrape it off. I guess I already knew what he was trying to say, but in the end I chose to ignore it. Besides, I had no intention of going over to Phil’s place again and so the odds of me running into X were pretty slim.

  I didn’t realize that in a huge town where everyone could be anonymous, I would find a way to run into X again.

  11

  As it happens, my birthday that year fell on the same night as ladies night at a local strip club. My friends absolutely refused to take no for an answer. I’d already learned that young girls with too much freedom and not enough supervision were bound to do anything and everything their parents would frown about.

  It felt a little gross and dangerous to be there. They had borrowed some older girls’ driver’s licenses, which also felt wrong but I didn’t feel like I was in a position to argue. When people are trying to do something nice for you, it seems rude to say no. I used my own license and the bartender looked at mine the longest. You’d have thought he’d never seen an out of state license before. I got marked as underage, which was a little embarrassing, but I had no plans to drink anyway. Sunday was there with me and having her there made me feel safer. We hadn’t known each other very long, but she’d never stranded me at a party and I knew she’d look out for me, as I would do for her.

  The bar had a thin film of somewhat sticky grime on everything. The place was filled with women and a few men, mostly older than my group by 20 years or so. When the show was about to begin, the bawdy mood of the room escalated to a fevered pitch and the crowd collectively gathered around the low stage so that I could hardly see around the backs and heads of the people in front of me. There was a separate runway area where most of my friends gathered because they’d be closer to the action.

  The first group of dancers came out as a group looking like members of the Village People – a cop, cowboy, construction worker. One guy was sporting a fantastic moustache, which I realized was making quite a comeback. As the men danced and shed their clothes, the general cat-calling and debauchery in the room increased. I couldn’t see it all, but I was sure at least some of the guys were down to their thongs. As I worked my way to the edge of the stage, I was a little fascinated by this scene: men dancing for money, women salivating over them. It was a role reversal and an interesting one. The men’s bodies were spectacular – tanned and groomed, like nothing I’d seen before… not that I’d ever seen a nearly naked man up close before. I also studied their faces. It was clear that most of them were straight up exhibitionists who reveled in the attention and the profitability of their profession, but ladies night was a rare occurrence and I wondered what their day jobs were.

  Overall, I wasn’t really sure what the fuss was about, but my friends were screaming their heads off waving dollar bills in the air. Sunday hung back with me a little bit. She knew it wasn’t my scene. The next group came out to thunderous screams. They didn’t really have a theme so much as the first group, but they had a fairly well orchestrated dance routine. Some of the women had satisfied their curiosity and fallen back so Sunday and I were able to see a little more easily through the crowd. My friends pulled out a birthday girl tiara and thrust me toward the stage. The heat of my cheeks could have easily lit a wildfire.

  Scanning them all, I noticed that one of the guys was looking directly at me… and I knew his face. He was still dancing, but he seemed distracted by me just as I was surprised to see him. It was Noah.

  He worked his way to my side of the stage and pulled me onstage to the roar of my friends behind me and then took me immediately offstage to the back. I heard Sunday yell some sort of encouraging remark behind me.

  “I don’t think I brought enough money for this kind of special treatment” I said dryly. Apparently I had not completely forgiven him for leaving town without a goodbye. Noah was not amused.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “What am I doing here? What are you doing here? No, I mean, I see what you’re doing here, but why are you doing it? I thought you had a job at a garage.” I stumbled over my words and didn’t quite know where to look.

  “Good question.” He said half to himself. He looked embarrassed by his lack of clothing. “Look, the money can be really good. I can do this once a month; it doesn’t interfere with my other job and it helps me live in this town.” He explained.

  I felt myself getting warm and my face was burning again. This was not the way I expected any reunion between us to go. Noah asked me to leave, but I scoffed at the idea. My friends were there, it was my birthday and I came to have a good time. I suppose that he was asking for a little dignity and I’m sure he’d rather I not share his extracurricular activities with his family. When the stage manager called out to Noah, he got frustrated. He demanded loudly that if I wasn’t going to leave, I should stay there.

  It got the attention of a nearby man, who turned out of curiosity. Lo and behold, it was X. Tonight was getting way too interesting. He approached me quickly and as he did, so did the stage manager and a nearby bouncer. I had a feeling I was about to be ejected from my birthday party. I watched Noah as the others descended upon me, but X reached me first and waved off the other two, smiling.

  He made startlingly direct eye contact. “Hi.”

  “Hey” I replied, still not quite able to shake my southernisms. At least he was a familiar face, but it was a little awkward seeing him after the night we’d spent talking and then not seeing him again.

  Turning to Noah, he said “You may finish your set. I’ll see to it that Andrea is taken care of.”

  Noah paused for a fraction of a second and then turned to go back onstage. X watched him go and once he’d left the immediate area, faced me.

  “I thought I’d never see you again.” He said.

  “Well, here I am.” I said as casually as I could.

  “Kismet. I’m surprised to see you, but pleasantly so. Did you come to enjoy the sh
ow?” He was looking toward the stage.

  I explained that it was my birthday and I’d come with my friends and about running into Noah, but he didn’t want me to stay. X was built very differently than Noah. He was thinner and quite fair skinned. His eyes were more tired looking and he was definitely older. He took my hand.

  “I can understand why he wouldn’t want you to see him that way. Perhaps you’d be willing to keep me company. I’ll be a perfect gentleman.”

  I believed he would, but didn’t want to leave my friends. X took care of that. He hardly had to look away from me before someone was there to fulfill his command. And that command was to pull the most popular dancer and give my friends a private show. It was dramatic and the power dripping from X was heady, intoxicating. I felt my social status improving among my friends even as X made it so. As an afterthought, he made all their drinks on the house.