Dancing Hours

by Jennifer Browning

  12

  It was inevitable that Vanessa would have to speak with David. She had already meddled and set in motion events that would change his life and he didn’t even know it. She knew that she didn’t want to talk to him when Jessica was around or at Rosalie’s house. That left speaking with him at work, but she didn’t know where that was, exactly. She called the one person who did know.

  “Hi Andy! How have you been?”

  “Great Nan, how about you?”

  “Oh, you know me, just getting myself into trouble.”

  “I expected that much. Thanks for the packages. Ed seems like a really nice man. Some day you’ll have to tell me how you know his family.”

  “Ah yes, well you didn’t know I lived in Los Angeles did you?”

  “No. Did you go to school out here?”

  “Not exactly, sweet pea, although it was quite an education. But that’s not why I called. Tell me about your adventures.”

  Andy talked about school and work and asked how things were going at home. Somewhere in there Nan asked casually if she had talked to David recently.

  “Yeah, I talked to him last night. Why? What’s up? Is something going on?”

  “No, but you sound pretty worried.”

  “I’m not worried. You know, I care. He’s my friend.”

  “So you keep telling me. Anyway, I was headed to the mall and I thought I would stop in to say hello, but I couldn’t recall what store he worked at.”

  “Oh, it’s that shoe place, up on the second floor on the south side, but he’s not working today. He said he was going to be working on his resume at the senior center.”

  “Well, that’s a shame. I guess I’ll stop in to see him next time.”

  It wasn’t a shame at all. Nessa grabbed her pocketbook, touched up her lipstick and headed right over to the senior center so she could bump into him. Striking up a casual conversation with him was easier than she thought. Jessica was at daycare and he was scouring the classified ads in the computer room with his resume up on the screen.

  “It’s not easy finding a job with limited experience is it, Mr. Bastion?”

  “You’re right. Most companies don’t consider working at the Shoe Shop as desirable work history. How are you Ms. Nessa?”

  “I’m doing quite well, and yourself?”

  “I’m fair to middlin’”

  Nessa laughed at his attempt at the colloquialism. “You have to live here more than a few months to adopt the local jargon.”

  “Gotcha. In that case, I’m doing fine.”

  “Anything catch your eye?” she gestured to the paper in his hands.

  “A few things.” He showed her the large black circles.

  “Mmm.” She acknowledged thoughtfully. “I was hoping to run into you today.”

  “Oh yeah? What can I do for you?”

  “I don’t need you to do anything for me. I just wanted to talk to you about Jessica.”

  “Oh.” He sat up straighter in the chair.

  “Do you mind if we go somewhere a little more private? Will you take a walk with me?”

  He agreed and packed up his things into an old leather messenger bag. They left the senior center and started walking, but Nessa didn’t start talking.

  “So what about Jessica?” David prompted.

  Nessa sighed deeply. She had tossed around so many different ways to say this, but none of them were coming to her.

  “You may have heard that I was not very kind to your brother while he was here… and that may be why he left.”

  “Don’t blame yourself for that. Noah knows how to skip out all by himself.”

  “Yes, well, that’s part of my point. I don’t think you should be shouldering the entire burden of raising Jessica. Don’t you think that her father should help?”

  David kept walking at a measured pace. There was a long moment of silence as he considered how to respond. “So you know, then.” He finally said. Nessa gave a short nod of her head.

  “Is this public knowledge?”

  “No, David. Believe me when I say that I am the only person who figured it out and I have shared it with no one in town.”

  “What about out of town?”

  “You mean Andy? No, she doesn’t know. Although I don’t know why you haven’t told her. She cares a great deal for both of you.” Vanessa wondered if she was stepping too deeply into her granddaughter’s affairs, but decided that she was doing it out of love so Andy wouldn’t be too upset.

  “That wouldn’t be fair to Jessica. She needs to have a parent that hasn’t left her. People will look at her differently if they know I’m her uncle.”

  “You have a valid point, but Andy might look at you differently if she knew.”

  “That’s not fair to her either. Andy needs to see me exactly like she does because I have a lifetime commitment to Jessica and that’s not going to change anytime soon.”

  “What if you didn’t have to be the only one to take care of her?”

  David stopped and faced Nessa, staring at her for several moments. The tension in his voice was clear. “There is no one else that I would give this responsibility to.”

  Nessa startled with understanding at what he meant. “Oh no! I didn’t mean Andy; not that she wouldn’t make a wonderful mother to that little girl. I know very well that you’ve had a heap of your youth taken away and would never suggest that you do that to anyone else. I was talking about the girl’s mother.” They had arrived at the church. “Please come inside with me for a moment.”

  They walked in and sat among the pews.

  “Do you remember when I brought you here as a boy that summer you were here?”

  “Yes, I do. And I remember why. You were very kind to us and I was ashamed of what my brother did.”

  “Well now, tsk tsk. That’s water under the bridge. But what impressed me that day was what a kind and responsible young man you were. Do you recall doing all that folding? You sat and talked with me and the other church ladies like a little grown up. You were so mature for your age. Do you remember all that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now I think you’ve been making up for your brother your whole life. He acts up too much and you don’t act up enough. He needs you and you’re comfortable with that. Now Jessica needs you and you’re comfortable with that too, because you’ve been taking care of people as long as you can remember. But what you’re really doing is giving Noah permission not to grow up – and it’ll land him in jail sooner or later. Or maybe something worse will happen. Meanwhile, Jessica is growing up and like it or not she needs her mother.”

  “Look, I’ve heard all the arguments about that. I’m prepared for the princess phase and liking boys and explaining her bodily functions to her. Girls grow up without a woman in the house all the time.”

  “I’ll give you that one and I think you’d be a great all-in-one dad. There’s just one little hitch. Jessica’s mother loves her and shouldn’t a child be around all the love she can get?”

  “How do you know she loves her? Holly hasn’t bothered to call or write once in the last year.”

  “Does she know where you live?”

  “Noah told her. I’m sure she knows.” Even as he said it, Vanessa saw the truth dawning on his face.

  “Are you sure about that? Is it possible that Noah lied?”

  “Why would he do that to Jessica? Why would he do that to me or to Holly?” He’s a jerk, but he’s not that mean.”

  “I think you should find out. Send her a letter. I can help you find her address if you want me to.”

  David sighed. This was a lot of information to take in. “I’ll have to think about it. But promise me that you won’t say anything to Andy.”

  “I promise, but I really think you should.”

  “When is she coming home this summer?”

  “She didn’t tell you? She’s not. She wants to stay in L.A. She’s got an apartment off campus with a friend and a summer internship with that
travel program on TV that she likes.”

  “Oh.”

  Vanessa could hear the disappointment in his voice. “I’m sorry. I know that you two are good friends and she’ll miss you. She spoke with her mother a few weeks ago about not coming home. Josephine was sad about it, but Andy asked if she could babysit for you this summer because Josie’s working from home and she was just over the moon about the idea. I think she misses having a little girl around to dress up and have tea parties with so I’m sure she’ll be calling you about it soon.”

  David tried to look excited about the idea, but it fell flat. “I’ve got to go pick up Jessica. It was nice talking to you.”

  “Think about what I said, okay? About telling Andy?”

  13

  Vanessa knew there was something not quite right going on with Andy during her second year at school. She was unusually quiet about boys and it sounded like she wasn’t talking so much to her old friends.

  A little part of her worried that Andy was growing up and just had so much going on at school that she didn’t have time to fill her grandmother in on every detail. It was only fair, though. Nessa wasn’t being completely honest with the family either. The damn doctors kept saying things like “cancer” and “aggressive treatment.” It made her madder than a mosquito in a mannequin factory. What did they know anyway? Nothing had killed her yet and she wasn’t about to start dying now.

  She looked for any reason she could find not to think about it. She worked every day at the coffee shop, volunteered to teach more classes at the senior center. And she couldn’t forget her young scholarship recipient. Holly was doing very well with her schoolwork and bought a reliable car using money from a part time office job she had held down for some time. She even rented a two bedroom apartment.

  Holly sent an effusive thank you note to the Foundation that funded her scholarship. She updated them periodically about her progress in school and suggested that she intended to have custody of her daughter soon.

  David had thanked her for getting Holly’s contact information and let her know that she had been talking with Jessica. He had decided that the chores he was doing at the Taylor household weren’t enough to pay for them watching Jessica, so he started doing things around Nessa’s house too. She was grateful for the help, with all the extra work she had been doing, she did feel very tired.

  Josephine noticed and began insisting on taking Vanessa to the doctor, but Nessa just said that she had been already and she just needed to rest a little more. Old age was catching up to her.

  When Andy didn’t come home again for Thanksgiving or Christmas break for the second year in a row, Vanessa became concerned. Then she got a call from Edward Wright – Andy had gotten mixed up with some small time thug in town. He was investigating the situation, but wanted to let her know. She thanked him and hung up the phone. David happened to be at her house cleaning out the gutters since the snow had melted and they were caked with leaves. Even if he hadn’t been there, she would have gone to see him.

  “David, could you come down please? I’ve made some tea; come on in for a few minutes.”

  “Thanks Ms. Nessa” he blew on the hot mug as he settled into an arm chair “I’ve almost got your gutters clean. When was the last time you had someone clean them out?”

  “Let’s see… who’s the President these days?”

  David laughed. “Well, you really should do it every year.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Listen, I’ve just gotten a call from an old friend in California and I may need to travel out there on short notice to attend to something. Would you be able to get away and accompany me if Josephine could watch Jessica?”

  “Sure, I can take a few days off of work whenever I need to. I hope there’s nothing wrong.”

  “No, I don’t think so. Nothing that can’t be taken care of, anyway.”

  “Are you going to see Andy?”

  “Yes, but please don’t mention it to her if you should talk to her. And if we do go, I think we should stop in Phoenix to see Holly, don’t you think?”

  David narrowed his eyes “I guess that would be a good thing to do.”

  Vanessa thought it might be time to come clean with David about her meddling in affairs with Holly. She knew that Holly was doing well and she had been communicating with Jessica often. She also knew that Holly was planning to come visit and hopefully take Jessica back with her. It was a sensitive subject and she worried that David might be angry, but surprisingly he wasn’t. He seemed quite glad that she had done the thing that David’s mother should have done or even he should have done.

  When Andy’s call came, Nessa’s bags were already packed – as well as a few bags with things for Andy to have as well. David didn’t need to pack much, but he did have to do a fair amount of explaining to his grandmother and to Jessica. When Jessica heard that he was going on a trip and would see her mommy, she was happy. She wanted to go with him, but he explained that it was a grownup trip for now. He reminded her that her mother was coming to see her soon. She retorted like any petulant child “You ALWAYS say that.” It was true, he had been saying that for a long time.

  David felt like he’d barely made it to the airport by the time the flight left. Apparently, with enough money, you really could get on the next plane out. He was anxious and excited and he’d never flown in first class before. Nessa confided that it was her first time too, but that it was about time she did.

  Part III – David

  1

  Maybe what Vanessa had said about Andy not coming back for the summer made David realize that trying to take sole responsibility for Jessica meant life would pass him by.

  When Jessica was first born, he knew that he would never be the same, but he had no idea what he would be getting himself into. The first time Holly handed him the baby so she could take a shower because no one else was home, David thought he might break her. She was bundled up tight and fit neatly between his inner elbow and wrist. Her little eyes peeped open from being jostled into another pair of arms and she stared at David silently. He stared back in awe at someone so small, so perfect coming from his idiot brother.

  In a way, trying to help Holly out after her parents died was the most grown up thing Noah had ever done. David doubted Noah had ever spent an entire day in school, but he seemed to care about Holly and, for a while anyway, they seemed to help each other. Even when she found out she was pregnant, Noah tried to go back to school and get a job. David suspected he was trying to be a different kind of dad than they had.

  By the time Jessica was born, Noah had saved some money and was studying for the high school equivalency exam. Things seemed to be going pretty well for him and for Holly. Together, they made a very young and highly dysfunctional, but loving family.

  That’s what David left behind when he went to college. He lived in the dorm on campus, started dating a pretty girl and forgot to call home most of the time. There were parties and just life. At the end of the year, his English professor recommended him for an internship with a local historian doing research for a book. It took most of his time and all of his money that summer to get an apartment and do all that work for “the experience” which meant free. But he came back his sophomore year and knew that he wanted to be an English major. That was worth something, even if his girlfriend came back from summer break with a different boyfriend.

  When he went home that Thanksgiving, things were so different. His mother was pouring wine from a box at breakfast. Jessica had grown into a tiny little person, who didn’t remember him at all. He felt guilty about that. She was walking and talking – mostly saying “no” and pointing her finger a lot, but it was cute even to him. Everyone else in the house just seemed to be strung out, tired and cranky. Nobody even seemed to notice that the kid was walking around in a saggy diaper until he pointed it out.

  Noah and Holly looked at each other in what appeared to be a well-rehearsed “Your Turn” stare down. After a minute, David just took the girl in
to change the diaper himself. The room was a stinky mess. He laid Jessica down gently on the changing table. She smiled up at him and said “Jessica poop.” with sincerity. He had to laugh.

  “Yes, I can tell that Jessica poop. David” he pointed at himself “will clean up.”

  Jessica giggled. “Clean up, clean up, clean up!” she cheered and clapped.

  The diaper pail was overflowing, there was one diaper left in the bin and no wipes that he could find. David took a deep breath, this felt wrong. He didn’t know how to change a diaper. This wasn’t even his kid. Why did he volunteer for this?

  After what he was sure was the worst diaper change in history, he dug out some clean clothes for her and carried her out to the living room where Noah had parked himself playing a video game. His mother was absent-mindedly staring at a turkey in the oven and Holly was the only one who noticed he had come back. She came over right away and thanked him for changing Jessica’s diaper, pulling her from his arms.