Enjoy the Dance

by Heidi Cullinan

  Annette, who had appeared beside them, gave Spenser a long look, then a wry smile. “Would you care to see the inside?”

  Spenser’s heart skipped a beat. “It’s open?”

  “Oh, heavens no. But we have the key. I imagine the kids forgot about that. I keep meaning to catch the real estate agent to give it to her, but you know how it goes.”

  She went to the house to fetch it, and then…then Spenser went inside and fell in love.

  It was very run-down, yes. Not only paint and wallpaper peeling, but in places the plaster and lath were exposed from water damage and who knew what else. The hardwood floors were damaged as well, their polish long gone, marks, scratches, and stains marring their surface. The stair treads were worn into divots, the edges splintered or broken. The dining room ceiling sagged alarmingly. The kitchen was ghastly, completely out of date, tiny, and utterly without windows.

  But the woodwork, even damaged, took Spenser’s breath away. The newel post, the lintels of doors and frames of every window were all carved with intricate roses and flowers. The built-in hutch in the dining room had leaded glass with not a single pane broken. Many of the outside windows were cracked or unable to open, but they were large and framed by breathtaking woodworking. The possibility in the place was huge. And for all the downsides, there were so many unique features. A butler’s pantry. A narrow back stairway. A former servant’s bedroom that begged to be made into an office. And a walk-up attic that could so easily become a fifth bedroom or a master suite.

  “It was the grandest house on the block, back in the day.” Annette stroked a doorway sadly. “It was a showplace when I was young. Even when the Davises first bought it. But they had six boys who wrecked the place, and Harold Davis developed a drinking habit that broke the family. Margaret did what she could with the house, but her spirit left her long ago, bless her. We all took care of her as best we could, but she was sour toward the end. Such a shame to see a family fall apart before your eyes. And such a fine house to go to ruin. I feared they’d have to condemn it, but the inspectors said no, it only needs some tender loving care.”

  “What does the backyard look like?” Spenser asked.

  Dick winced. “A mess, I’m afraid. But you’re welcome to see.”

  It was indeed a mess. But it was also achingly perfect. Long and wide, with a shed and collapsed garage in the back and what had obviously once been a garden. A shattered concrete patio had a crumbling brick grill beside it. Spenser had no trouble imagining a seven-foot fence around the property, herbs and flowers growing along its carefully manicured lines, a modern deck covering the wreckage of concrete. The lawn was neatly kept and full of children laughing and chasing a dog. Two dogs, both shelter adoptees. The garden grew tall and proud, tended by Renata, who admonished the children in Spanish to behave between affectionate smiles. Tomás and his father stood over a car peeking out from the repaired garage, and Duon lay in a hammock strung on posts beneath the great oak tree on the side, watching something on his phone and laughing at it.

  Annette smiled at Spenser, a glint in her eye. “Looking to buy a house, are you?”

  Spenser sighed. “Not when I’m about to lose my job, no. And not when I don’t know if I’m going to be able to keep the family I want to put in it.”

  She patted his arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Well, like I said. The house won’t be going anywhere. And we’ll keep doing whatever we can to make sure we can say the same for your family.”

  When Spenser finally went back to the hospital, his heart was lighter. Things improved further when he met Tomás coming out of the ICCU, grinning because apparently the lawyer really did have teeth. The hospital had reconsidered the repatriation, and the ICE was drowning in documentation about how Renata and José Jimenez were essential to the caretaking of their grandchildren.

  “The lawyer says there’s no way anything will happen right now,” Tomás said. “We can go home tonight. Laurie gave me the week off work, and Starbucks gave me until Friday. Ed’s parents will babysit all week if need be.”

  Spenser took his hand and kissed his cheek. “That’s wonderful. I’m so glad.”

  “We’re not out of the woods yet. We’re going to have a hearing in June. But it’s better than yesterday, when I thought I was about to lose them.” He drew Spenser close, hugging him tight before kissing his cheek. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

  Home. As Tomás drove them with MPR playing in the background, Spenser mused on the word. Home. The concept had been a spear for so much of his life. His homes were always borrowed, reminders that he had none of his own, that he never would. Even now he couldn’t shake the ache of loss at having the one he’d known, however broken it had been, ripped from his hands. He thought of his hope and terror of Clara’s promise to try to track down his blood family. Thought of the rush of longing he’d had in the Davis house, even with all its flaws. Maybe because of the flaws. Oh, but he ached to have a place like that he could put right. A house that deserved better. He could make it better. He could heal it, then fill it with his family. His family. The one he made with Tomás.

  They had pulled into the parking lot and were about to turn off the car when the newscast cut through the silence.

  Today the Minnesota House of Representatives voted seventy-five to fifty-nine to pass HF1054, which will officially sign marriage equality into law within the state. The Senate is scheduled to take up a vote early next week, where it is expected to pass, and Governor Dayton promises to sign the bill into law as soon as it arrives at his desk. This comes on the heels of growing anticipation of the US Supreme Court’s impending ruling in the case of United States vs. Windsor, which could strike down the Defense of Marriage Act.

  Spenser and Tomás looked at one another, not saying a word. The space inside the car was charged with emotion, with joy and fear. So much dangerous hope. Spenser couldn’t help but think of the Davis house again. Of being legally married to Tomás. Of being legally the parent of Duon. Of the Jimenez family legally remaining in the United States.

  Then he thought of how easily it all could be taken away, and tears he hadn’t known had been brewing spilled over.

  “It’s not right.” He swallowed the thickness in his throat. “It’s not right that all our happiness is in other people’s hands. That people who don’t know us, who don’t know your family or Duon or me will decide whether or not we get to be together. All my life, people have taken my family away. I hate how I have to call it a victory when people stop doing things to tear us apart. I hate that I have to dare to hope to have what everyone else takes for granted.”

  Tomás took his hand. He didn’t cry, but when he spoke, his voice was rough, almost broken. “They will never take me away. I will never go away. I am your family, Spenser Harris. Forever. No matter what any law says, now or in the future.”

  Spenser’s reply was barely a whisper. “But I want all of them in my family.”

  A tear rolled down Tomás’s cheek as he reached across the seat to wipe away Spenser’s own. “Me too, baby. Me too.”

  On May 13, 2013, Minnesota signed marriage equality into law.

  Though new same-sex marriages weren’t possible until August, the same time marriages from other states would also be legally recognized in Minnesota, Laurie and Ed threw a spontaneous party at the studio, in the not-yet-remodeled space next door. The place where Tomás had proposed to Spenser. In the span of a few hours, it was turned into a shabby-chic paradise, with twinkling lights, a makeshift bar, spotlights, and of course, ample dance floor space.

  Tomás had helped set up for the party, but once it began, Laurie dragged him away from the tables and insisted he get out and have fun. “You’re off the clock tonight. Dance with your fiancé and your son-to-be. Oh, and there’s Oliver. I’ll introduce you to him and his husband.”

  The casualness with which Laurie said this rattled Tomás. Meet the man who had done so much to change his life? He didn’t know what he would say, and when
the white-haired, bespeckled, smiling white man took his hand, Tomás was barely able to stammer out that it was a pleasure to meet him.

  Oliver Thompson ignored Tomás’s nerves, winking and shaking his hand as if they’d gone to an expensive college together. “Such a joy to finally meet you. I hope your father is recovering well?”

  Tomás nodded, scrambling to marshal his composure. “He is, sir. Thank you.” The word freed him, and Tomás let the rest of it tumble out. “Thank you for all you’ve done for my parents. We owe you so much. Thank you from me, and from every member of my family.”

  “You’re entirely welcome. But you owe me nothing. And call me Oliver, not sir.”

  Tomás could not call this man by his given name, no. “You stopped them from deporting my father. If this works, if the lawyer you brought us can get them citizenship, you have saved my family. It will mean I can take the job I want, not have three jobs just to be able to get us by. It will mean I don’t have to wake up every morning worrying I’ll come home that night and find them gone. It will mean I won’t have to worry about my nieces and nephew. It will mean my life, sir. I do owe you. So much.”

  Oliver shook his head, his expression serious. “This is the problem with the world today. Hell, the problem with it since we started forming societies. Every emphasis is on ourselves or abstract ideals. Perfect economies. Perfect behavior and perfect societies. Idealism.” He wrinkled his nose in derision. “What does any of that matter, when there are real people right in front of us in need? Usually telling us exactly what they require. Food. Shelter. Help climbing out of addiction and debt. Legal aid. You say I owe you, and I say I’m grateful for you, for being someone I can help. Thank you for allowing me to take a swipe at the injustice and selfishness in the world, for introducing me to good people I could help to stay here so they can do more good things.”

  “But you did all that. Without you, my parents would already be gone, and there would be no hope for them ever coming back. It’s like a fairy tale. No one ever gets help like that. No one.”

  Oliver waved this away almost in annoyance. “I didn’t do anything extraordinary. I played politics. I pulled strings and called in favors. And you wisely took advantage of what I offered. Don’t feel guilty for doing so.” He gestured across the room at Vicky, who was talking animatedly with a gentleman in a tie who looked as if he desperately longed to get out of the conversation. “She has a difficult time with that lesson. She longs for the ideal. For the world where good wins and people do the right thing. Her idealism serves her well in that it keeps her at her desk, digging for another miracle, but she worships the perfect vision so much she can decline help because she fears it’s not pure enough. She doesn’t care for the strings. She’s loosened up in the past couple of years, but it’s still hard for her.” Oliver turned back to Tomás. “You, and Spenser too—you know differently. You know you have to take what you can when it’s offered.”

  “Yes, but why do you offer? Why do you help so much?”

  Oliver’s cool facade cracked. “Because while I’ve had money all my life, I know what loss is. I know what injustice tastes like.” He glanced around, then as if making a decision, lowered his voice and plowed ahead, all his pompous rich-man tone gone. “When I was nineteen, I went to a party that got raided. We were on Fire Island, a year before the Stonewall riots. They treated us all terribly, calling us every ugly name they could think of, hauling us out like cattle. But they knew who among us came from money and who did not. I was arrested and taken away in relative quiet, my father summoned to pay my fees and more under the table to keep the charges at public drunkenness and a few other misdemeanors, none of which included the crime of sodomy. My lover, however, was a shy, quiet young man of no money from Brooklyn. In addition to being subjected to brutality and humiliation by the arresting officers, he was ruined, publicly, personally, and emotionally. Shortly after the riots at the Stonewall Inn, he shot himself.”

  Tomás didn’t know what to say. All he could manage was, “I’m so sorry.”

  “It was a dark time. But while I’d rather no one would have had to endure such treatment, I’m grateful for the lesson it taught me. Money and influence mattered, and I had both. I vowed that in the same way my father had used it for me, I would use it for others.” Oliver laughed, rolling his eyes. “Oh, at first I was a fool. Ran around showing my bleeding heart to everyone, naively thinking it would be enough to turn the tides. Eventually I learned I needed to be a cuckoo in the nest. I went back to school, knuckled down, took my place beside my father in the family business. Made myself a great big pile of money and built myself the thickest net of influence and connection I could. I never married a woman, but by the time I met Christopher and introduced him as my partner, no one blinked. They don’t, when you have money and your finger in every pie.” He raised his glass to Tomás. “I can’t go back to Fire Island and stop the injustice my friend and others endured. But every time I help someone like you and your family, I take away some of their pain. Every bit of joy I put back in the world fights the ugliness leading to that night. And so no, Mr. Jimenez. You owe me nothing. Thank you for showing me another place to light a candle.”

  Tomás smiled, clinking his glass to Oliver’s. “Call me Tomás, Oliver.”

  Oliver winked. “Cheers, Tomás.” He drank, then made shooing motions at him. “Now go find your man and dance. I need to collect my husband and do the same.”

  They did dance. Laurie, Ed, and all their friends and family filled the floor, hands up and hips moving to the beat all night long. Several times Laurie and Ed stole the show with their ballroom dancing, and Duon garnered quite a crowd with his bold moves, drawing Tomás in to dance with him. At one point Duon disappeared and came back with their toe shoes, Laurie’s too, and the three of them ended up giving an impromptu recital en pointe. But they couldn’t get Spenser to show off his budding tap moves. He did, though, dance often with Tomás, cutting loose whenever a MIKA song came on.

  “I asked Laurie to play several songs,” Spenser confessed when they were dancing to “Celebrate,” the third of the artist’s songs to play inside of ninety minutes. “I like MIKA.”

  “I like you.” Tomás spun Spenser out, then into his embrace, where he pressed a long kiss on his lips. “I love you, in fact.”

  “I love you too.” Spenser touched Tomás’s cheek. “Maybe the Supreme Court will decide in our favor. Maybe when we get married, it’ll be really married.”

  Tomás kissed him again. “We will be really married. No matter what.”

  Ed’s parents had come to the party too, with the kids. Tomás took them home with him, and they bounced on the backseat all the way because they’d found out they got to sleep over at Spenser’s apartment in the living room in their sleeping bags. It took forever to get them to sleep, but Tomás felt good going to bed knowing they were all under the same roof, that they were all safe, at least for now.

  After a call to the hospital to check on his parents, Tomás made love to Spenser quietly, one ear tuned the whole time for the kids. While Spenser fell asleep almost immediately after, Tomás lay awake, thinking about what Oliver had said about pulling levers on the world. Using what you had. Seeing the world as it was, unblinking, and making it a better place.

  He didn’t think he had it in him to bully hospitals and marshal lawyers, even with all the money and connection in the world. But he absolutely was committed to his parents, to Spenser, to Duon and the kids. Was that enough candle lighting?

  He thought of Richard, the organizer of the car wraps. Of Ed and Laurie and their decision to expand the studio, not buy a house. Of Spenser, taking in Duon, who he didn’t know, without blinking. Of Ryan of Avenues. Of Marcus, helping Tomás and his family begin this journey to citizenship. Of Vicky, idealism and all.

  So many candles. So many ways to pierce the darkness.

  I’m going to keep trying to light candles, Tomás vowed. Until the day I die, I’m going to do all I can
to bring light and love into the world. He didn’t know how, just yet. But with so many wonderful examples around him, surely he could find a way.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  José spent a little over a week in the hospital after his surgery, but when he came home, he was still clearly quite ill. Renata fussed over him, whispering admonishments in Spanish—Spenser assumed they were admonishments from her tone—but she also kissed him constantly on the forehead and prayed over him several times a day. Spenser had grown accustomed to the saint candles in the Jimenez household, but now there was an actual altar. Beside the photo of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini was a sea-green card with a drawing of a man holding a cross. A medal was pinned to it.

  “Saint John of God,” Tomás explained. “Patron saint of heart disease. Dad has another card at his bedside and a medal on a necklace. He keeps arranging it over his incision, over the bandages.”

  Spenser could hardly blame him. “I did some research, trying to find ways to modify some of the dishes your father loves to be heart healthier but familiar. It’s rough, but I’m still digging. I mean, there’s plenty of Latin-like dishes. But there’s not a super-great substitute for lard that still tastes the same as lard.”

  Tomás kissed him. “Thank you. That’s so sweet.”

  Tomás’s sister had come to the hospital, but not to the apartment. Spenser hadn’t spoken with her, but he’d seen her arrive, standing off to the side with her hand over her mouth until Tomás approached her and pulled her into another room. Spenser had wanted to ask Tomás if everything was okay with Alisa, but the look on his fiancé’s face when he returned had told him that wasn’t the moment. Now it felt like the matter was better off left alone.