Waltzing at Midnight

by Robbi McCoy

  I booked her flight and her hotel, rental car, you know. Not everybody does it all on the Internet yet, thank God.” Faye took a sip of her iced tea. “She made me promise never to get her involved in a city election again. She was so glad that was over with. I feel a little badly about all that, about how it turned out for her. But we had a nice visit and I guess she isn’t holding any grudges against me. No, I don’t think she spends much time on regrets.”

  “Did she say anything else about me?” I asked stupidly.

  Faye looked puzzled. “No, Jean, she didn’t. She was sort of preoccupied with getting ready for this trip. Apparently she normally has a neighbor boy take care of her place when she’s gone, feed the horses and cats, you know, watch the place, and he is not available. Gone off to college or something, so she’s gotta find somebody else.”

  “I could do that,” I said impulsively. “I’d be happy to do it.”

  “So call her and tell her,” Faye said matter-of-factly.

  By the time Faye and I said good-bye, I was obsessed with the idea that I could housesit for Rosie. It took me several hours, however, of agonizing over it to actually make the call.

  “Hi, Jean, good to hear from you,” she said when I announced my name. “What’s up?”

  “Rosie, Faye was telling me at lunch today that you need a housesitter for next weekend.”

  “Yes, that’s right. Mainly for the animals. Would your daughter like to do it?”

  “Well, I was thinking of me, actually. I could do it.”

  “Oh.” There was a long pause which I couldn’t interpret.

  “Well, I liked having the boy do it because he lived next door.

  I appreciate the offer, but I should probably get someone in the neighborhood. It would make me feel more secure. Also, the horses need to be fed first thing in the morning and again in the evening.”

  “I could stay overnight,” I said. “Not a problem. I could come over in the afternoon, stay over, and then tend to the horses in

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  the morning before going about my day. I’d do that. It would be like a vacation for me. I need a vacation, believe me.” I attempted a casual laugh, but it didn’t sound very casual, nor even much like a laugh.

  Another long pause before she said, “Great.”

  “Great,” I repeated.

  “You’ll need to come over before I leave so I can show you what to do. I’m leaving early Thursday morning, so how about some time on Wednesday, after I get home from work? Come over for dinner, then. How’s that?”

  After hanging up, I danced into the kitchen. I was excited, too excited. By the time Amy came home, I was calmer. When Jerry came home, I told him the plan. He didn’t look pleased.

  “So I guess this will take up your entire weekend, then?” he asked.

  “Yes, I guess it will. Did we have plans?” I realized that I’d forgotten to check the calendar.

  “Well, not really, no. I guess not. That woman sure does get a lot of free service from you.” I recognized the tinge of bitterness in his voice.

  “She’s got horses?” Amy asked. “Would she let me ride them?”

  “I’ll ask her.”

  “That would be cool.” Amy swaggered out of the kitchen, saying, “You’d better watch yer step, pardner, heh, heh, or my horse Polka Dot is gonna clobber you.”

  “How does she know Walter Brennan?” I asked Jerry.

  “She gets it off The Comedy Channel,” Jerry said. “It’s recycled through an older generation of impressionists. She’s probably never even seen Walter Brennan. Just like when she does Katherine Hepburn. I’m sure she’s never seen the real Hepburn in a movie or anything.”

  “Do you think she’s having an identity crisis?”

  “No, she’s just exuberant, Jeannie. And I think she’s very good at it.”

  I shrugged. “Yes, you’re right. It’s just healthy, youthful

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  exuberance.”

  I suddenly realized that when I was Amy’s age, I was married and had a newborn baby. Looking at her, I saw a child. I had been too young to have a clue, too young to know what choices there were, what life might offer if given the chance. I hoped for Amy’s sake that she would have more time to learn about herself than I did.Each day after Jerry and Amy had left the house, I sat with the jumble of paperwork sent to me by my new employers.

  Sorting it all out was a massive chore. It was easy to see that the partners hadn’t had a handle on these things for months. Among the papers sent to me by the Partnership was a Xeroxed copy of a letter from a man looking for a permanent site for his Dolls of the World Museum, a remarkable collection of eight thousand dolls, some of them centuries old. The letter was addressed to the Weberstown Chamber of Commerce asking about available redevelopment property. It was dated October 4.

  “He wants to turn his collection into a tourist attraction,” I told Jerry.

  “Sounds interesting. Bring in some tourist business, something we could desperately use.”

  “I wonder if the city answered his letter. I haven’t found a reply.”

  “Isn’t it your job to follow up on such things?” Jerry asked.

  I liked the sound of that. “Yes,” I said.

  The next morning I made some phone calls, eventually getting someone who told me, sounding embarrassed, that the letter had not been answered. It had been overlooked.

  “It’s been nearly two months,” I said. “Don’t you think this is important enough to deserve top priority?”

  “Yes,” said the young man on the other end of the phone.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Davis. I’ll get on it right away.”

  “I hope he hasn’t gotten an answer from some other town,”

  I said, “while we’ve been sitting around picking our noses.” Amy, who sat at the kitchen table listening, giggled. I frowned at her, anxious to maintain the dignity of my side of the conversation.

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  After all, the city worker I was talking to couldn’t know he was making excuses to a mom in her bathrobe at the kitchen phone.

  “I think I’d better take care of this myself,” I said. “Have all of the information faxed to me first thing tomorrow morning.

  I’ll call Mr. Madison and see if I can persuade him to bring his museum to our town after all.”

  “Okay, Mrs. Davis. I’ll make sure we get you what you need.

  We’ll need a transcript of your call for the record, also.”

  “Fine. Thank you.” I hung up, grinning at Amy. “Well,” I said,

  “I’ve got him running scared.”

  “He doesn’t have any idea who you are, does he?”

  “No. It’s a good thing, right?”

  Amy nodded. “My mother the business executive. Do you want me to show you how to set up the computer to receive a fax?”

  “I was hoping you would.”

  The next day, Wednesday, at eight o’clock, Amy stood by while the faxed documents came through as promised. I called Mr. Madison, who seemed surprised but pleased to hear from me. “I was wondering if they ever got my letter,” he said.

  “I’m very sorry about that, but we’ve just gone through a city election and city government is a little confused. That’s why I’ve gotten involved in your project. Believe me, Mr. Madison, the city is very interested in your fascinating collection.” I talked to him for a half hour, at the end of which I felt secure about his interest. I told him I was sending him the information he requested and would be in touch with him again in a few days after he’d had a chance to look it over.

  “I’ve got to go to school now, Mom,” Amy said, slipping on her backpack. “Have a good time at Rosie’s tonight. Dad and I are going to watch a movie.”

  “Oh? What movie?”

  “Dad’s choice. A classic from back in the day. Casablanca.”

  I nodded. “That’s perfect. You’ll enjoy that, especially since I’ve heard you quoting lines from it on several occasions.”

/>   “Really?” She looked smug, as though it was a superior

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  accomplishment to be able to quote from a movie she had never seen.“What about dinner? I can give you a couple of suggestions if you want to try.”

  “Mother, why can’t you just admit that I’m a failure as a domestic? I’m a modern woman. I don’t cook. I shove frozen things into the microwave and, presto, dinner. Just like on Star Trek. None of this tending to a fire with a hunk of raw meat on a spit. We have evolved!”

  I kissed her good-bye, prepared a package for Mr. Madison, which I went out and mailed, and then changed my clothes several times until finally settling on jeans, a long-sleeved cotton shirt and leather jacket. Casual, simple, uncontrived. I looked good, I thought. Would Rosie agree? As I fussed with my hair, I felt my anxiety level soaring. I hadn’t seen Rosie in a month, but I had thought of her every day, savoring memories of the campaign, the excitement and tension that had made me feel more alive than I ever had. I wanted desperately to recapture that feeling and I felt that it wasn’t possible except in her presence. She was the catalyst to my newfound vitality. I couldn’t wait to see her.

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  Chapter Nine

  Late in the afternoon I drove off into a downpour of cold rain feeling like someone else. I thought of Bradley’s description.

  Yes, I felt like a woman waltzing carefree along the bank of the Seine at midnight. Just driving by myself, anonymously, felt good. I felt free and happy and I didn’t understand it. I passed familiar landmarks—the Pak ‘n’ Save, the waterslides, Costco, Wal-Mart—and felt like I was exploring a new world. I turned onto the highway and drove a couple of miles north to Rosie’s exit. By the time I drove through the shaded seclusion of her neighborhood, I felt I had gone a long distance, though it had been a mere twenty-minute drive. I wasn’t familiar with this area, knew it only as an upscale section of town, almost out in the country, where the lots were several acres apiece. Obviously, this area had all been farmland once before the city expanded to engulf it. I drove slowly, checking road signs and my map. I remembered when Faye had told me that she’d never been to Rosie’s house. I felt like I was driving into the inner sanctum,

  a magical kingdom that few mortals had ever glimpsed. I was feeling silly, giddy.

  A couple of miles from the highway, I turned into a long gravel driveway lined by old walnut trees left over from an orchard.

  Some of the walnuts had fallen and were lying along the edges of the roadway, crunching under my tires. The house came into view, a sprawling ranch house, white with forest green shutters.

  Rosie’s hybrid sedan was parked in front. I pulled in behind it.

  The rain had turned into a light drizzle. The air smelled musty, sort of green like torn leaves.

  Rosie greeted me on the front doorstep wearing jeans and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. I’d never seen her dressed informally before, and the difference was a little shocking, especially since the last time I saw her, she was wearing a low-cut evening gown and dripping in diamonds. She looks good in jeans, I thought, comfortable and approachable. She hugged me warmly, a friend’s greeting, and then gave me rubber boots to wear out back. We sloshed out to the barn where her two horses stood, both of them walking toward us expectantly.

  “Jean,” she said, “meet Violet and Vita.” Rosie showed me how to give them water and food. She went to the corner of the barn and pulled a bale of hay off of a stack, then cut the wires holding it together. I stood in place, astonished. I had never touched a bale of hay, but I had a feeling they were heavy.

  “This one bale will be enough while I’m gone,” she said, “to supplement the feed.”

  She showed me how to operate the gates and the security system on the house. She showed me what and where to feed the two cats and how a cranky kitchen faucet could be made to behave. She showed me where the keys were to the doors and the pickup. She gave me the relevant phone numbers and the name of her hotel in Phoenix.

  “I’ll be leaving Phoenix Saturday morning,” she said, “and flying to Sacramento. I’ll stay with a friend overnight and drive back Sunday. Here’s her phone number if you need to get in touch with me, if there’s a problem with my cell phone. I’m notorious

  for letting the battery run down.”

  I read the name and number on the note. Grace Carpenter.

  Who is she? I wondered. Another lover? But I didn’t ask any questions. I just said, “Okay.”

  At last my training was complete. Rosie made dinner. I sat at the kitchen table observing, feeling comfortable in this old-fashioned kitchen, seated at the simple square oak table on a hard wooden chair. The house was appointed in rustic country fashion except that it wasn’t decorated. It came that way. It was authentic, an old farmhouse. There weren’t antiques on the walls, but some of the implements in the kitchen looked like antiques, still in use as functional items, like a metal colander that reminded me vaguely of something from my childhood.

  I told Rosie about the doll museum.

  “Jean, I’m so glad you noticed that. So you’ve already earned your keep and we haven’t even gotten you a desk yet. Good job!

  Oh, that reminds me, I have some paperwork for you to fill out.

  Basically, your employment contract.” She took a sheaf of papers from the edge of the kitchen counter and brought it to me at the table. “Look this over and let me know if you have any questions.

  You can drop it off at the office or mail it when you’re ready.”

  I folded the papers and put them away to take home with me. Rosie had stuffed Cornish game hens with wild rice and mushrooms. They were baking. “Living alone,” Rosie said, “I seldom cook real meals. That’s why I especially enjoy company at dinnertime. Do you like to cook, Jean?”

  “More so now than in the past, now that the children are grown. Cooking for kids is a thankless job. If you try to serve them real food, they just make faces and say ‘ycchh!’, and so you pretty much go with fish sticks and tater tots. Fighting over vegetables is such a drag.”

  “I can imagine.” Rosie poured me a glass of chardonnay and then turned back to her kitchen counter. “Your husband didn’t mind your staying here?” she asked. I shook my head. “He seems like a nice guy. Nice-looking too. How long have you been married?”

  “Twenty-two years.”

  Rosie turned to me and raised an eyebrow. “That’s a long time. I guess you’re older than I thought.”

  She could have estimated me as young as thirty-four without knowing about Bradley, I realized. “I’m forty, actually.”

  Rosie sliced radishes without regard for uniformity. “Married very young, weren’t you? Would you say you were happily married?”

  “Yes. Jerry and I have never had any serious problems.” And that was true. Ours was an ideal marriage in many respects, an ideal family. “We’ve been lucky.”

  “So it’s one of those, then,” she said. “In it for the long haul?”

  “I suppose so.” She glanced at me with a wistful smile. Was she envying me my conventional life, I wondered. Or was there something else? “Tell me about your marriage, Rosie.”

  “Oh, my marriage. That was a long time ago.” She opened the oven to check the Cornish hens, the door springs squeaking, then came over to the table, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “I got married when I was in college to David Lamont. He had big, waggly ears and impossible hair, but I thought he was perfect.

  For a while. It was one of those relationships, you know, founded on nothing. You get all googly over somebody and it gradually wears off and there’s nothing there, underneath. Except, perhaps, cordiality, if you’re lucky.”

  “How long did it last?”

  “Just two years, the last one of which we were like brother and sister. I’d fallen in love with someone else by then.”

  “A woman?”

  Rosie nodded, looking slightly embarrassed. She returned to the stove. I decided against pursuing the
subject, though I wanted to. I also wanted to ask her about Grace Carpenter. But Rosie had made it emphatically clear that her romantic life was private. And I had learned, from people like Ginny and Aura, that I was not welcome into the confidences of these women and their loves. They had a closed society. I didn’t blame them for that.

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  Theirs was a much-maligned lifestyle. It was natural for them to be insular.

  The music drifting in from the front room had an appealing Latin sound.

  “What kind of music is that?” I asked.

  “Brazilian jazz,” Rosie said, suddenly doing a quick-quick-slow step on the kitchen tile in time to the music. “This is a samba.”

  “Oh, right. That’s what it reminds me of. We did samba when I took ballroom dance classes years ago.”

  She delivered the food to the table and sat across from me.

  “Ballroom dancing? Did you enjoy that?”

  “Oh, yes, I did. My favorite was the waltz. Old-fashioned, I know, but so elegant.”

  “Yes, extremely. I’m partial to it as well. The ultimate romantic dance, don’t you think?”

  “Absolutely. Jazz is your specialty, though, isn’t it?”

  Rosie nodded, filling my wineglass. “I guess my main style to play is cool jazz. Like Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck.”

  “I’ve only heard you play that one time, but I thought you were fantastic. Faye mentioned something about a band?”

  “Yes, just a few friends. We’ve played the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee a couple of times and a few gigs around the area. Just for fun. Actually, one of the women is someone you know, Ginny.”

  “UPS Ginny?”

  Rosie nodded. “She plays string bass.”

  The meal was elegant but simple, the Cornish hens, wild rice stuffing and a green salad. Simple seemed to be Rosie’s style in many respects. Her house was simply furnished, uncluttered and unpretentious. She didn’t have doodads, and the art which hung on her walls was tasteful and modern, lots of artistic photographs, the occasional museum poster.