Dancing Hours

by Jennifer Browning

  Thankfully, Grandma had taken Jessica outside and tried to keep her busy. She was clearly agitated by this turn of events as well.

  “You be the father now, give Jess the kind of life I could never give her in a million years.” Noah spat.

  “She doesn’t need any special kind of life. She needs you, here, loving her and just being there for her.”

  “I don’t know how. It hurts too much being here. It feels like I’m suffocating. You’re better at this than I am, you’ve always been better at this.”

  “What the hell happened today? Where is this coming from?”

  “Nowhere! Nothing happened! I just need to get out of here, go back home.”

  “This is your home now… wherever that little girl is, is your home. You can’t do this to her. You can’t do this to us. Are you being serious right now? Were you even going to say goodbye to me?”

  “Yes, of course. I wanted you to have a fun day on your own. I just… it’s time for me to go.”

  “Dammit Noah! If you walk out that door you had better not come back. This is about the most messed up thing you’ve ever done.”

  “Whatever. Take care of Jessica for me. I’m going to miss you guys.”

  Noah seemed to know better than to approach David for a hug. He threw whatever else he could fit into a backpack and went outside to say goodbye to Jessica who was upset and confused. David spent the rest of the night calming her down and lay next to her until she fell asleep. When he was sure she was out, he asked his grandmother what had caused this. She took him outside to the porch and spoke barely over a whisper.

  “You know, Jessica gets cranky in the afternoons sometimes if she hasn’t had a nap. We’d been out all morning shopping, she was tired. We didn’t eat a proper lunch. She just got fussy is all. And Noah was trying so hard to cheer her up, but she just started screaming and Noah snapped at her something awful. Told her to shut up and stop crying. As you can imagine, that didn’t go over too well.”

  David sighed. He knew those tantrums all too well. There were days he wished he could yell at her to shut up, too. But he hadn’t snapped at her like that yet. Noah still had a lot of growing up to do. He loved Jessica, but maybe he really couldn’t be a father yet. Maybe this was for the best.

  3

  Keeping a routine is what kept David sane. He tried to keep the same schedule at work, but it was always up to the whims and faulty memory of his manager. When it was slow there, he restocked shelves, straightened the counter around the register and repositioned shoes.

  He often wondered about Jessica in those quiet moments. Was she adjusting okay? It was hard to tell. He had no reference point for how other 5 year old girls who were abandoned by their parents and moved to a small town on the other side of the world behaved.

  Taking Andy and Tony’s advice, he enrolled Jessica in dance class twice a week so she could make friends and get out. And he always worked out across the street, glad to be able to watch from a distance and see her smile, dance and play. Andy taught one class and Miss Celia taught the other. He couldn’t help thinking Jessica seemed happier in Andy’s class.

  Two other nights a week, he worked out after work. Some nights he closed the store so he didn’t feel guilty taking a little extra time alone knowing that Jessica was already in bed. It surprised him when Tony gave him a key to the gym instead of staying there with him one night. “Small towns have big eyes and ears” Tony said “Plus, I know where you live.”

  Trust was something unfamiliar to David, but definitely not in short supply in Palmetto. People left their cars and homes unlocked. Children were watched by everyone. It was the kind of town where if you needed to borrow a cup of sugar from your neighbor and they weren’t home, you could go in to get it and leave a note behind. David guessed that partly had to do with the fact that everyone pretty much knew everyone else and they all were pretty much in the same place at the same time every week.

  Andy was a creature of habit too and their habits often intersected. Doing laundry, drinking coffee, going to church – Andy was everywhere and she usually had Kate in tow.

  She even came to the mall on occasion to have lunch with him. He wished he had a cooler job for her to come visit him at. He felt like he was wasting his degree, but a steady paycheck was more important than finding a writing job.

  In spite of the many times they saw each other, there was never really time when the two of them were alone. Andy was always surrounded by friends, family or an entire class of 5 year olds. In a way, he envied the life she had- surrounded by stable adults and loyal friends.

  There were evenings that he sat on the porch breathing in the thick scent of pine and watching lightning bugs meander through the yard and he felt very alone. Noah checked in every once in a while. His bike had broken down just a few hundred miles away and he needed money. David sent it and made sure Noah talked to Jessica.

  A couple weeks later, Noah made it to California and was crashing with his friends. Then came news of a job and school. David was cautiously optimistic that Noah might pull it together one day soon.

  He tried to Google Holly several times. She wasn’t online anywhere that he could find her. He wasn’t sure what he’d say if he did find her, but it probably wouldn’t be very nice.

  Toward the end of July, he knew Andy and Kate were fighting about something unimportant, but it meant Andy spending time alone with David for a little while. He had promised to proofread Andy’s papers in exchange for babysitting just because he wanted to keep in touch after she left and she didn’t seem like she cared much for people helping her out gratuitously. It was ironic considering how she volunteered pretty much everywhere there was to volunteer in Palmetto.

  Kate planned a going away party at Andy’s house before she left for school. She called David and made him promise to come, which flattered him. The idea had his stomach in knots, though. He was about to lose his best friend and he didn’t want to say goodbye.

  That night was the first time he touched her in any meaningful way. He didn’t care that he didn’t really know how to dance. The music, the people, everything melted away and he could have stood there holding her all night long.

  As much as he wanted to kiss her, that night wasn’t about him or them, it was about her. His gut told him there was something going on between them, but long distance relationships never work and he wanted her to go be happy. She didn’t look happy, though. Her eyes were sad and every time a friend left, she pulled in a corner of her lip and bit it as though she was trying to fight off tears. All he could do was be there and try to make her laugh. That night was over too fast.

  4

  When he woke up the next morning, David felt a little hollow. He hoped that her leaving had been a bad dream, but she just wasn’t there anymore. Not at the coffee shop or the Laundromat or the dance studio. He had a hole in his life where an Andy should be. Jessica felt it too. Miss Celia was teaching both dance lessons to her after school. The cooking lessons with Grandma continued, but just weren’t the same without Andy.

  For weeks, they both seemed to be looking for her everywhere they went. Signs of her were still all over the place. Her Jeep still sat in her parents’ driveway. The Laundromat signs were still there. And every time David helped Jessica with one of Andy’s barrettes, he felt a little longing.

  They talked on the phone sometimes. With the comfortable distance a phone can offer, their conversations were more intimate and meaningful. She was excited about her new school. She checked into the semester abroad programs on his recommendation right away, but she sounded a little afraid to go through with them. David knew that she’d never been very far from home. The idea of major cities can be far more thrilling than the reality. He wanted to hug her and say that everything would be okay.

  When he ran into Andy’s mother, Josephine, they shared their mutual loss. It was almost a serendipitous meeting because David needed a spare sitter and Jospehine needed a little girl to spoil.

&n
bsp; It happened gradually that Jospehine and Andrew Taylor became their surrogate family. David and Jessica started eating dinner over there at least once a week, which Ms. Nessa usually brought from some local restaurant. David housesat for them when they had trips out of town and relished the small slice of privacy it gave him. On all of his visits to their home, he never went into Andy’s room. She had left behind a bulletin board filled with news clippings, notes, photos and ribbons. A large poster of the Eiffel Tower hung prominently over her bed and a framed print marked Musei Vaticani took up another wall. On inspection from the doorway, it was definitely the room of a girl with big dreams.

  David began to love the Taylors for how attentive they were to Jessica. They were like the grandparents she deserved to have, but hadn’t gotten.

  David never asked Andy or her parents about Andy’s romantic life. Although they had never been together, being apart was lonely for him and he didn’t want to know what kind of company she kept as long as it wasn’t with Noah.

  He hoped every phone call was not going to be the one that crushed his heart forever – her saying she was in love, engaged. He hoped that some day she would find her way home.

  The women at Jessica’s school were surprisingly friendly. In the case of a couple of divorced ones, aggressively friendly. David tried to be polite, but there was no way to lie about a wife or a girlfriend or being gay. Tony was right, the eyes and ears of the small town were very big. They knew all about him –or at least they thought they did.

  He saw Kate every once in a while. She lived at home and went to school in a neighboring town. They were friendly with each other, like neighbors. With Andy gone, they didn’t have much in common anymore, but they shared news of their friend together and so David was usually happy to see her.

  The day that Nessa told David she knew the truth about Jessica, he felt like he’d been punched hard in the stomach. Was it even possible that he had basically kidnapped Jessica from her mother? Was it possible that his mother and brother were so despicable that they hid everything from him and then abandoned him to raise her?

  It was June again when he finally wrote to Holly. He couldn’t bring himself to call, he might say something terrible and Vanessa was right, he didn’t know whether Holly knew where they were. An email seemed too close and personal. David knew he would be constantly checking for a response. He wasn’t sure he could handle the immediacy and finality of it if she rejected Jessica that way. Ultimately, he decided to pull out a piece of paper and write.

  Dear Holly,

  That was a good start, right? Why did letters always have to start with “Dear” he wondered. It must be an old custom from a time when you wrote letters to people who meant a lot to you – your dear ones. Holly wasn’t that. She was just a girl – Jessica’s mother – who had the power to crush him by taking Jessica away or maybe not taking her away. Still, he kept the formality.

  A year ago, when we moved out here, my brother told me that he gave you our address and phone numbers. So I’ve been surprised that you haven’t called Jessica at all. She missed you a lot in the beginning and I was pretty mad at you. But I realize that Noah sometimes stretches the truth.

  He went back to California last summer and I haven’t heard from him much. I’ve been taking care of Jessica. Enclosed is a recent picture of her. As you can see, she’s grown a lot in the last two years. She started Kindergarten here and she still talks about you. I tell her that you’ll visit as soon as you can, but I don’t know if I’m lying to her. She deserves better than that.

  I really don’t want to force you to be her mother if that’s not what you want. Noah has formally made me her guardian and I love her as much as anyone could possibly love her – father or not. So, if you’ve stayed away for a reason you should know that I’m taking good care of her.

  BUT, she would like to know her mother and if you have it in you to call or write or something, it would mean the world to her.

  David included his cellphone number and address. He put the letter in an envelope, addressed it to Holly at the Arizona address Ms. Nessa gave him, put a stamp on it and then tucked it into his desk drawer. He wasn’t ready for this.

  Since Andy had left for school last year, her emails came less and less often. David had gone on a few dates – one with a girl from the food court at the mall, another from Jessica’s old daycare and a blind date that his grandmother had insisted on. He didn’t go on any second dates. They all seemed so awkward and forced. When the girl from the mall found out about Jessica, she couldn’t find the door fast enough. The daycare girl loved children, but she was really limited in adult conversation skills. The last girl really, really wanted to be married soon.

  David gutted through each date more horrible than the last and found himself thinking about the flecks of gold in Andy’s eyes and the way she could easily make him laugh. Part of him wished he had kissed her the night of her going away party, but that would have been a game changer. No, he decided that it was better he could be her friend. She was too young to date a single father anyway.

  Still, he was disappointed that she stayed in L.A. for the summer. Mrs. Taylor was happy to watch Jessica while he worked and, in exchange, he did their yard work and maintenance that Mr. Taylor complained he was getting too old for. David was pretty sure it wasn’t a fair deal, but he wasn’t in a position to reject their kindness.

  He took Jessica to Mr. and Mrs. Taylor’s for the 4th of July again. This year she invited some school friends. The Taylors seemed really excited to host a group of 5 year old girls and their parents. When it got dark, they walked to the town square. David put Jessica on his shoulders to watch the fireworks.

  When they got home that night, he put Jessica to bed still covered in sticky red, white and blue snow cone juice. He could hear his grandmother in her bedroom, she had probably waited up for them. He watched Jessica sleeping with her mouth hanging slightly open and his heart was swollen with love for her, but he thought that maybe he deserved a little independence too. He put Holly’s letter in the mail the next morning.

  The call on his cell came at midnight a couple of days later. He didn’t answer it because he didn’t recognize the number and it was too late to talk to strangers. Holly left a message rambling about the time difference, apologizing for calling so late, saying that she wanted to find Jessica but that David’s mother wouldn’t tell her where they were. She really wanted to talk to Jessica and thanked him for his letter.

  They exchanged calls and emails for weeks before David brought it up to Jessica. Holly understood that she couldn’t just walk back into her life, but she sounded good, much more mature than she had when he last saw her. She really wanted to talk to Jessica and David finally gave in.

  Holly had a scholarship and was studying graphic design. She sent David her own creation of a graphic design using the letters in Jessica’s name. Jessica began talking about her mother constantly and David knew that they would eventually have to meet. The thought gave him mixed emotions, but the more they talked about her absence from Jessica’s life, the angrier he was at Noah and his mother for keeping Jessica apart from Holly. What was clear was that Holly was trying.

  Part IV - Andy

  1

  Nan must have defied the laws of physics to get to me as quickly as she did. By dinner the next day, Nan was at my apartment door in a perfectly tailored black and white dress and red shoes. Carrying the luggage was David. My heart jumped. He had grown a little older in the last year or so, but it looked really good on him.

  “What are you doing here?” I laughed and nervously asked. Seeing them both out of context felt strange.

  “Nice to see you too.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Oh, I’m just a mess.”

  Nan piped up “Andy, a lady should never travel alone and David was kind enough to offer his assistance. Your parents are watching Jessica. It’s a great favor to me that he’s here.”

  “Of course, of course and I’m so
happy to see you both.” I hugged Nan who smelled faintly of roses and baby powder. Then David gave me a long embrace and my pulse quickened. Nan pretended to be looking at my apartment.

  “Now, sweet pea, tell me what the trouble is.”

  I looked anxiously at David. I didn’t really want to air my dirty laundry in front of him, but he was here and I had no choice. X was a problem and I didn’t know how to fix it myself. Nan remained calm while I told her about him and our dates and what he’d done to Noah. She even admired my new dress. When I was finished, David excused himself to make a phone call. I heard him yelling something about ruining another girl’s life and supposed he was talking to Noah. I no longer cared.

  Nan looked a little fragile that night, but a proud peacock as always. I finished up with “Nan, I’m so sorry. I don’t know how I got into this mess.” I threw myself into her arms.

  “I do, sweet pea. You’re a nice girl and you think nice things about everybody. It’s just in your nature to think the best of people. This (she gestured grandly to the world) is not Kansas, Dorothy.”