Dancing Hours

by Jennifer Browning

  “Who’s Holly?” was the natural question. I’d completely forgotten her name.

  “Jessica’s mother. She’s living in Arizona with her sister now, trying to get her act together. She said she’s got a job and going to school.” He said.

  “Those sound like good things to do.” I offered, feeling a little pang of jealousy.

  “She wants to see Jessica too. She’s saved up enough money to fly out here. We got into a fight, though. I told her she’d better not show up here making promises and then disappear again. ”

  “Wow. Do you think she would do that?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. She seemed really upset that I was questioning her commitment, but she doesn’t exactly have a good track record. Part of me is worried that she’s coming and she’s going to want to take Jessica away. The other part of me is worried that she won’t come.” He confessed.

  “You want her to come?” There was that jealousy again.

  “I think I do. Even if Holly’s completely immature and hasn’t grown up at all, even if she can’t really be a mother, she’s the only mother Jessica’s got. Jessica deserves to know her mom. And I would love it if she could be a part of Jessica’s life, maybe even take care of her sometimes. ” He said.

  Thinking about David spending time with a girl he had such a permanent and intimate connection with gave me an unmistakable negative feeling. I imagined that they would get together with their daughter and reminisce about old times and one thing would lead to another. It felt inevitable and it hurt.

  “I hope it all works out.” I lied.

  “Me too.” He said quietly.

  I changed the subject to avoid more discomfort and told him I had run into Noah. I left out where and mentioned that it was just in passing. David said he’d been trying to get ahold of Noah, but Noah wasn’t returning his calls lately. I promised that if I saw him again, I’d tell him to call.

  “I’d rather you just don’t see Noah again.” He said matter-of-factly.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because where Noah goes, trouble follows.” He said.

  “I think you’re exaggerating that. Your brother is not a bad guy.”

  “Most of the time he’s not, but his moral compass is off. He needs to get his act together too and be a man. And I can’t stand the thought of him getting you into trouble.”

  “Nobody’s going to get me into any trouble besides me.” I said morosely

  “You’re not getting into any trouble, are you?” he asked.

  “I don’t know yet. I might have.”

  “What? What’s going on? Was it Noah? Did he? Did you? I’m going to kill him. You’re not… you know…” He spat out his questions in a rush of thoughts and emotions.

  I knew exactly where he was going with that line of questioning. If that wasn’t the pot calling the kettle black. He gets some girl pregnant and thinks his brother is going to be irresponsible and do the same thing with me? Why did everyone think I was so easily persuaded?

  “No! And that’s none of your business! Good grief David, you don’t need to be all high and mighty. I think it was a mistake to call tonight. I’m just feeling really overwhelmed right now and I’m going to go.”

  “Wait, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t make any assumptions and I don’t want to hurt your feelings. I just know my brother better than you do and he can’t be trusted.”

  “Okay, fine. I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later.” I said in clipped words.

  “Please don’t be mad at me Andy.”

  “Whatever. Have a good night.”

  “Good night.” He sounded sad.

  I was in a worse mood after that phone call than I had been before. Now, not only did I have to worry about freaky X and his obsession, but David’s ex was going to see him and he accused me of sleeping with his brother, not that I hadn’t thought about it when I first met him, but time changes things and it had changed the way I saw Noah … and David.

  I checked the yoga studio schedule and found that they’d be open for another hour with a class going on in only one of their rooms. I grabbed my dance bag and jogged the whole way there.

  15

  The next night seemed just right for a girls’ night out and my girlfriends wanted to go dancing. I didn’t protest; a loud beat was just what I needed to clear my head. When we got to the club that my friend Rebecca suggested I could hear the club thrumming from across the parking lot. The line was long, but we caught a break. As I walked past the entrance to head for the back of the line, I heard my name and turned to see a familiar face talking to the bouncer. It was Pharmacy Phil. I smiled with cautious optimism. He opened the velvet rope, came over and hugged me then stepped back and gave a playful growl as he looked me over.

  “De-licious” he proclaimed and I couldn’t help but smile. He glanced appreciatively at my friends and said “Don’t worry, ladies. This line isn’t for you.”

  He leaned in to speak to the bouncer and we were instantly inside. The fact that Phil and X knew each other crossed my mind, but I dismissed it just as quickly. It would be arrogant of me to think that they would talk about me at all and hadn’t Phil been the one who tried to warn me off?

  A steady din of music and talking in the club made it impossible to hear much of anything. The minimal lighting made it too dark to see clearly in there, but the strobe lights periodically lit up different areas of the club. An old fashioned disco ball was mounted over the dance floor and it cast a relatively steady menagerie of lights on those dancing. Sunday immediately grabbed my arm and dragged me on the floor. It felt like a real party. Rebecca was a local girl who occasionally hung out with us on the weekends if she didn’t have a date lined up, which was pretty rare. She had already turned 21 and drinking was one of her favorite pastimes. She immediately found her way to the bar and found a way to get us a reserved table and drinks. Being tall, thin and blonde probably didn’t hurt her at all. That table became our home base that we came back to between dancing. After a while, most of my girlfriends were danced out and I came back to the table with them. There were drinks on the table waiting for us and I was thirsty, but my favorite song came on and I wanted to get back out and dance. I downed my drink in one long gulp. Sunday looked at me, eyes wide and screamed “That’s not yours!” I realized what I had done just as the taste hit the back of my throat.

  “What was that?” I screamed over the music, my face contorting with the strength of the drink burning my tongue and throat.

  “Bartender special!” Rebecca said, shrugging her shoulders with a half-apology.

  My stomach churned and I figured there was nothing I could do now but dance it off. I asked her to get me a glass of water and she left to do it without a word. I asked Sunday to dance, but she wasn’t interested. A guy on the floor eyed me dancing at the table trying to get someone in my group on the floor and came to offer his hand. I gladly took it.

  We started dancing and the guy could definitely move. His style was reminiscent of an East Coast Swing and I wondered if he had any training. To his credit, he mostly maintained a respectable distance while we danced. He knew how to lead and I was happy to follow. I could tell by the way he was looking at me that he found me attractive, if only for right now. The dance floor became our grownup playground. It felt good to let loose, but the alcohol settled in and I went straight past tipsy. When the music slowed down, I closed my eyes and got lost in the music trying not to get sick. I imagined that I was in some club in Barcelona or Paris, maybe even Moscow or Hong Kong.

  When I got bumped by someone and opened my eyes, I saw the Dancing Guy smiling at me, then Rebecca trying to get my attention with a glass of water and then I could have sworn I saw X sitting at a table staring at me. The lights flashed across him so briefly, my heart started. As my eyes adjusted I searched again, wondering if I had actually seen him, but Rebecca got to me first and dragged me away looking laughingly at Dancing Guy who blew me a kiss and put his ha
nds on his heart as I was escorted off the floor.

  “What was that?” she asked while I gulped down the water she got me.

  “I was just dancing.” I explained.

  “Right. Next time find me a guy to dance with too. By the way” she added “You’ve got a fan.”

  “What?”

  “The dude in the suit over there came in and sat down to watch you.” she gestured in the general direction of where I thought I’d seen X. “What kind of special sauce is in your burrito tonight?” she asked playfully.

  “What guy in a suit?” I was alarmed, but Rebecca ignored me as she searched the room for a dance partner.

  Not being able to see X again, we found guys for both of us to dance with and carried on with our evening. I kept imagining X sitting and watching me. It scared me a little and, oddly, thrilled me a little too. I think the alcohol was clouding my judgment, but I started to not care who was watching. Then something really weird happened. In a town of many thousands, if not millions more people than my hometown, Noah showed up.

  He was walking straight for me on the dance floor when I saw him. I smiled and opened up my arms for a hug. The part of me that would have felt self-conscious about it had officially left the building. He did hug me but pulled away too quickly. He stood there and we were looking at each other, the only two people standing still on the dance floor.

  “What did you do?” he hissed into my ear.

  “What are you talking about? Dance with me!” I smiled and shook his arms.

  “Are you dating X?” he demanded.

  I was about to defend myself, two dates doesn’t exactly constitute dating and I had broken it off with him anyway, but then I got angry at Noah

  “What business is it of yours anyway? Are you jealous? You took off out of town with a ‘See ya’, you ditched me at that strip club and you think you’ve got the right to say who I date?”

  He looked resolved not to be baited into an argument. “I did not ditch you at the club.” He spat. “Dance with me.”

  “Seriously?” I asked, incredulous that he now wanted to dance.

  “Yes, seriously. I’ll explain everything.” He said glancing over his shoulder.

  It was loud in there, but Noah explained that he owed X a lot of money for some gambling losses. He’d been trying to get together enough money to pay it off and get back in school, but he was in deep. Now X had taken an interest in me and knew that I know Noah.

  “He’s here now, somewhere, I’m sure. I was told he’s not happy about you dancing with some other guy, so he wanted me to stand in. He thinks I’m your cousin.” He said.

  “Why would he think that?”

  “Because that’s what I told him. I don’t want to be in the way of anything that X wants. Otherwise, I think he’d have the crap beaten out of me again.” He half-joked and I looked at him curiously.

  When Noah explained what happened at the strip club, I was shocked. It didn’t fit with the person I thought X was, but then again I didn’t really know X at all. And he did warn me that he had a dark side. I guess I should have listened.

  “Look, I don’t know what you’ve got going on with him, but you need to be careful.” He said. “You’re playing with a psycho and now I think you might be dragging me down too.” He looked away, lost in anxiety that clearly had nothing to do with me.

  What? Did he just say that? He thinks I’m dragging him down. What a peach. He went on to ask if I could finagle some debt forgiveness or get X to ease up on his strenuous collection efforts. He didn’t even look the slightest bit ashamed to ask. After that conversation, it was official. I was no longer even the slightest bit attracted to Noah.

  My girlfriends were another story. When I grudgingly brought Noah back to introduce him to them, sparks flew between he and Rebecca. He turned on his bad boy charm and disappeared into the night with her on his motorcycle when the other girls and I went home. I forgot to tell him to call David.

  My robo-phone rang as soon as I walked in the door to my apartment.

  “Did you have a nice night?” The cartoon-villain voice on the other end of the line asked.

  “Yes, I did. Thank you. It was nice to see my cousin. You shouldn’t have.” I said curtly.

  “It looked like you needed a new dance partner.” He mused.

  “Why were you stalking me?”

  “I wasn’t stalking. Come outside and let’s talk about it.”

  “Outside?” I opened the door and he was standing there in front of it. “Did you follow me home?” I hung up the phone.

  “Only to ensure your safety.”

  “You can’t do this sort of thing. It’s weird and it does not count as giving me space.”

  “You’re right. I’m so sorry. I only want you to come back to me. I can’t think without you.” He reached for my hands, but I pulled them away.

  He was starting to scare me a little bit. This was going too far. He started crying uncontrollably. I had definitely never seen a grown man cry. I didn’t know what to do. I offered him a glass of water.

  He apologized for following me, for asking his friends to keep an eye on me, for interfering with my night. He said he just couldn’t bear the thought of me being with someone else and it was making him crazy. He promised to give me some space if I would just kiss him. It seemed easier than refusing and I wasn’t really sure what he would do if I said no. He kissed me like a man getting his first taste of water after hiking a desert mountain. I could tell that he was feeling very passionately, but the feeling wasn’t mutual and I felt a little weird and cheap for letting him do it, so I backed out as quickly as I could.

  “Feel better?” I asked, hopefully.

  He held my face and looked at me with desperation “I want to spend every minute with you, but if you need time to realize that we were meant to be together, I’ll have to give it to you. Just please, don’t make me do anything horrible.”

  With that remark, he was gone in a flourish. I was left standing in the doorway, wiping off my lips and feeling a foreboding sense of dread about what might lead him to do something horrible... and what that horrible thing might be. I realized that I might be in over my head here. It was time to call for help.

  The next morning, first thing, I called Nan. The phone rang twice and I worried that I wasn’t going to reach her, but she picked up on the third ring. She sounded so happy to hear from me. I almost couldn’t bear to tell her what I’d been up to, but I could never hide anything from Nan. I sobbed into the phone that there was a guy and he was crazy and he wouldn’t leave me alone.

  “I think I’m in some trouble, Nan.”

  There was just a moment of silence, then I heard her say “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m on my way.” The line went dead.

  Part II - Vanessa

  1

  Vanessa was born into the Great Depression and raised in the rural South – exactly where she’d rather not say - which was her way of saying that no force on heaven or earth would drag it out of her. They were poor and her family had nearly nothing. She did have one thing that meant a lot to her, a radio that her uncle Ben had given her for her eighth birthday after he’d had a good bet on the horses pay off. Nessa, as her family called her, could hardly get any stations on the thing, but that didn’t stop her from trying. She got snippets of news and information here and there. Every once in a while, on a clear and calm night, she could hear music. It was a lifeline to her and she danced those nights away alone in her room.

  Her mother disapproved – it was the devil’s music if they didn’t sing it in church, but that didn’t stop Nessa. Most of the time, if Nessa’s mother caught her listening to the radio, she’d get the Bible thrown at her and told to read a few passages.

  School was neither valued nor encouraged in her family. People were drinking themselves to oblivion and drugs were everywhere. People got hurt, even disappeared, over simple arguments and there were never any witnesses. Law enforcement was more of a city concept to t
he folks around her than a reality. But through it all, Nessa’s mother believed the Bible held all the answers.

  Nessa’s father was what some people might refer to as a hobo. He couldn’t find decent work at home, so he left to work wherever he could find it. For a while he sent home what money he could, but then that stopped coming and so did the sporadic letters. He’d either taken up with someone else or died. Those were the harsh realities of life. Without a father around, her older brother George had become responsible for a lot of the duties of the house. He was ill-suited for it and being much older than Nessa, he treated her like a non-person.

  Aside from the radio, Nessa’s best friend Joyce kept her sane. They had secret meeting spots and knew everything that was going on in town. Joyce was a pretty girl and an early bloomer, so she managed to attract the attention of a number of eligible young prospects in town. Nessa didn’t mind letting Joyce be the butterfly. Boys were overrated in her humble opinion. Nessa’s mother described Joyce as “boy crazy.” On nights when Joyce was having a date with some boy, Nessa would cling to her radio again, hoping to hear some lovely sound. Joyce always came over afterward to talk about the details of her forays into the dating world. Nessa would share any new music she heard – recreating it from memory and dancing along as if it were playing right then.