A Little Learning

by Margot Early

  “You’re sure, then,” Rory cautioned, “that you’ll want to stay in Florida. I mean, what if…” She didn’t want to finish her question. What if Desert still didn’t get along with her family, as she hadn’t growing up?

  “If it doesn’t work out, I’m going to look for a place down in the Keys. There are some massage schools there I want to check out, and maybe I’ll look into learning acupuncture.”

  “You’re really a free spirit,” Samantha murmured.

  “You and Rory can keep performing together,” Desert pointed out. They were all in the living room of Desert’s house, using the big Victorian mirrors, with their ornate gilded frames, as they dressed and did their makeup. Rory and Samantha tied their hair back, severely adorning it with cowrie falls. They would soak their heads before the fire sets. All three young women pressed bindi, small false jewels, to their foreheads between their eyebrows in the position of the third eye. They applied eyeliner and dressed themselves with coin bras and heavy silver jewelry. The night’s performance would take place inside the Sultan Recreation Center—with firemen standing by.

  Rory planned to pick up her grandmother and give her a ride to and from the performance. So when she was dressed, she set out in her car.

  Rory loved to perform, loved the almost hypnotic pleasure of working with blazing poi, and loved the drama of tribal-fusion belly dance. She felt no nerves before these performances.

  Now she pulled up outside the two-storey Victorian where she’d grown up. Before she’d even parked, the front door of the house was open. Rory left the engine running while she went up the sweeping concrete steps to the hillside house.

  Sondra Nichols stepped out, dressed to the nines, all in white.

  “You’re beautiful,” Rory told her.

  “No. I’m old. You are beautiful. Your father told me you’re doing lovely things at the Sultan Mountain School.”

  Rory’s heart soared. “He did?”

  “Yes. I think his client’s very impressed by your way with his children.”

  In spite of herself, Rory rolled her eyes. “The client should spend some time with those children.”

  Sondra glanced at her once. “He doesn’t?”

  “For a while, he seemed to want to be with them. But he has obviously recovered from that impulse. He’s not quite as bad with the younger two, but he treats the older ones like they have the plague.” A bit like my father has always treated me, she thought grimly. Something she and her grandmother had discussed through the years. “And, of course, they long for his attention.”

  As if reading her mind, Sondra said, “I can imagine that wouldn’t win him any points with you. Any idea what the trouble is?”

  “Not really. I assume he prefers grown-ups.”

  “Do you think that’s how your father felt, Rory?”

  “I think my father is angry at my mother—or at least he was when I was growing up. I think he didn’t want anything to do with me because of it.”

  Sondra Nichols neither confirmed nor challenged this picture. In the car, she fastened her seat belt. “You look very like her, you know.”

  Rory lifted her eyebrows. “Not from any photograph I’ve seen.”

  “It’s subtle. It’s in your expressions and the way you laugh.”

  They arrived at the recreation center, where their drummers were carrying equipment inside. Three men would be providing live drumming for part of their performance.

  As Rory lugged her heaviest tote bag, she spotted Lauren and Beau approaching the rec center.

  They waved, and Rory waited at the deck railing for them to reach her. Her grandmother lingered beside her, intrigued by the children.

  “Can we watch you set up?” Lauren asked. “Hi, Mrs. Nichols,” she added.

  Rory was impressed. It was a week since Lauren had met her grandmother.

  “Hello, Lauren. It’s nice to see you again.”

  “Of course, you can watch.” Normally, Rory would have discouraged other people hanging around while the troupe set up, but she liked these children. Maybe it was that she, like they, knew what it was to wish for a father’s love and attention. Maybe it was that she, like they, had no mother. Maybe it was that she kept wanting to help Lauren—Lauren, who was so impressed with her dead mother, who clearly missed her and wanted to be like her.

  Though Rory had grown up motherless, she’d never felt a desire to be like her mother. Sometimes like her grandmother, yes, because her grandmother had such a love of life. But part of what troubled her about Lauren—and made her protective toward the girl—was her own certainty that the picture Lauren had of her mother was inaccurate. Rory’s own picture of the person described by Samantha and Seamus, as well as by Lauren and Beau, felt incomplete. Yet a part of that picture was of a type of woman—sort of brash, making “strength” a virtue, while true strength wasn’t necessarily the quality demonstrated. More like bravado.

  Of course, she could be wrong.

  She gave Beau the job of carrying the prepared fire staffs into the rec center. “Are Belle and Caleb going to be able to come and watch?” Rory asked.

  “Fiona’s bringing them,” Beau said, sounding unenthusiastic.

  Rory’s stomach dipped. Who was Fiona?

  A girlfriend of Seamus’s, no doubt.

  Which shouldn’t bother her at all. In fact, it should bother her so little that she definitely wouldn’t ask if Seamus himself would be coming to watch the performance.

  Lauren’s expression mirrored her brother’s.

  While Samantha cued a CD and Desert talked to the drummers and the firemen, double-checking safety procedures related to the fire performance, Rory watched her grandmother with Seamus’s two oldest children, both of whom seemed to enjoy talking with her. She was proud of Sondra, proud of the woman she was. Though she was older now, she remained attractive and fit and entirely capable of relating to teenagers. Never, in all Rory’s years of growing up with Sondra, had her grandmother embarrassed her.

  Fiona, Rory decided, would be blond and gorgeous and expensively dressed—very Telluride. Undoubtedly, she’d be staying in Sultan with Seamus’s family for the remainder of their stay here. Another excuse for him to ignore his own kids, Rory thought bitterly.

  Her father would be here tonight, but she didn’t kid herself that he would be coming to see her perform. This was a community event and he would be here to promote the interests of the town.

  All the pleasure and excitement she’d felt earlier had begun to fade. She didn’t have to think about why, didn’t want to think

  about why.

  Fiona.

  Fiona, who would be bringing Caleb and Belle.

  Seamus might not even bother to come, and if he came she might feel worse. Seeing him with Fiona.

  “Are you all right?” Samantha asked, as the three dancers waited in the kitchen of the community center.

  Rory nodded, checking again to make sure that her hair and Samantha’s was completely soaked with water and that no stray tendrils were hanging loose.

  Samantha cast her a penetrating look. “You like him, don’t you?”

  “Who?” Rory asked.

  Samantha smirked slightly, then turned away. Abruptly, she swung back. “I think he’s probably a pretty decent guy, Rory. Reading between the lines of the story Janine mapped out.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Rory hissed at her. “I just wish he liked spending time with his kids. And you didn’t hear me say that.” Then, she softened her tone. “But thank you for asking. Thanks for everything.” Impulsively, she hugged her friend.

  Then, they heard the director of the local public radio station welcoming everyone to the festival. At this cue, they filed out into the hall carrying their fire staffs, and their drummer, Woody, lit the wicks, setting the staffs ablaze. The lights had been turned off, and now the fire staffs and glowing exit signs provided the only light in the room.

  Rory no longer thought of Seamus Lee. There was no room for an
ything but the task at hand. Fire-dancing required complete concentration, and Caldera’s combinations of movement demanded perfect execution.

  The first number went flawlessly.

  While they doused the wicks in the back corridor and exchanged their staffs for poi, the percussionists beat a fast tattoo. The women filed back out, poi swinging in perfect time.

  Rory began to feel the sheer pleasure of the performance. This sort of art, for her, was not about showing others what she could do, as much as it was the joy of working in sync with the other two dancers. Sometimes it seemed as if a tide connected them; as if her arms were guided by a force that also guided Desert’s and Samantha’s, so that all of them moved in perfect harmony.

  This show marked the last time—at least the last time for a while—that Caldera would perform as a group.

  But Rory couldn’t and didn’t think of this, either. She gave herself up to the fun of spinning poi.

  When their fire-dancing segments were over, the applause was thunderous. Most of the audience was standing, anyhow, to watch, although some, including Rory’s grandmother, sat at tables along the walls and windows. Rory could see no one in the dark as she left the stage. The dancers doused the poi balls, and Rory and Samantha hurried to let down their hair.

  When they returned to the stage, lights had been turned on and Rory saw Seamus. He stood against one wall beside her father, and both men had their eyes on the stage.

  Rory allowed herself a small smile of greeting—to her father—and quickly looked for Caleb and Belle. She might as well see what Fiona looked like. But Caleb and Belle sat at a table on the opposite side of the room from Seamus. With them was an elderly woman with long gray-and-white hair in a single braid. She wore a flannel shirt and jeans and looked like a mountain woman.

  So, Fiona was not a girlfriend.

  But why wasn’t Seamus with his kids?

  Lauren stood in the back of the room talking to the lift operator from the Sultan ski area. Bobby Briggs was about twenty-two, Rory thought. He’d served in the military and then returned to Sultan, where he’d grown up. He was very handsome, with the bones of a GQ model, and she was unsurprised that Lauren had been keen to talk with him.

  Bobby was no fool. He wasn’t going to mess around with a girl Lauren’s age—supposing he’d wanted to, which was unlikely. But he did enjoy having a harem of admirers at the ski slope.

  Where was Beau?

  By himself. Standing near the windows with a black expression.

  Oh, Seamus.

  It was the last thought Rory could afford to give any of them. At the moment, she needed to focus on Desert. Rory echoed her friend’s movements, following through backward figure eights, taxim and clock floreos, and then Samantha followed Rory’s movements, and again Rory became connected to the tide of movement, in rhythm with her partners. Goddess arms behind veils, then the twirling aside of veils, a giant pinwheel of silk.

  She would not look at Seamus Lee again.

  *

  “DOES IT BOTHER YOU, seeing your daughter doing that?” Seamus asked Kurt Gorenzi during a break.

  Kurt’s stern expression didn’t change. “Which part?”

  “Any of it. The fire. The costumes. Sensual dance.”

  “It’s belly dance, not stripping,” Kurt answered tersely. “It’s an ancient art form and Rory says it’s a celebration of femininity. It’s people with their minds on one thing, who insist on interpreting it as something different. Rory and her friends are professional dancers.” He was silent. “Anyhow, I’ve not exactly set myself up to have a say in what she does with her life.”

  “Do you regret that?”

  Kurt slid his eyes sideways to look at Seamus but didn’t answer.

  The music turned fast, and Seamus stood spellbound at the skill of the dancers, who could isolate each muscle, each bone. They were beautiful, all of them, and their skill at this tempo left him feeling like an idiot for suggesting to Kurt Gorenzi that the other man ought to have a problem with his daughter’s appearing on stage in a coin bra and flared black pants, her hair trailing beads and feathers and cowrie shells.

  Seamus knew he was in trouble. It had happened without his awareness. He was captivated by Rory Gorenzi, spellbound and enchanted. He thought about her dozens of times every day.

  His feelings were involved to an extent he’d not have believed possible. He couldn’t remember ever feeling this way about a woman.

  Quite simply, he was certain that he wanted her to be a permanent part of his life, a permanent part of his children’s days and nights. He had found someone precious and already he knew that he didn’t want to lose her.

  Yet she wasn’t his to lose, and she showed no sign of becoming so. In the past several days, she’d become more aloof, though she treated his kids as thoughtfully as ever. The fact that she cared about them couldn’t be plainer.

  Nor could the fact that she had no time for him.

  When Caldera’s performance ended, he wandered back into the lobby, to make sure she didn’t leave before he’d had a chance to speak with her.

  “Dad!”

  It was a strangely unfamiliar cry, and he turned to see Caleb running through the corridor toward him.

  “Are you leaving?” Caleb said. “I want to ride with you.”

  “Fiona has the car keys. I walked.”

  “Then, can I walk with you?”

  “Not now. I want to talk to Rory.”

  Something slipped over his son’s face, a mask that said Caleb understood nothing, except that he was being brushed off by his father. That his father didn’t want his company.

  Seamus felt the rejection bounce back and strike him, as if he somehow felt the same pain Caleb had just experienced. Yet he couldn’t speak, didn’t know what to say.

  “Where’s Fiona?” Seamus managed to ask his son.

  Caleb said, “In there. Are you coming back in?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll see you at home.” He turned, then, and saw her. She’d emerged from the kitchen with two carryalls, in the pants she’d worn for her performance, her parka covering her top. Her hair was still adorned with feathers and shells, and she was wearing snow boots and her down jacket. “Rory.”

  But she was already hugging Caleb.

  “You have to meet Fiona!” Caleb said.

  “I want to very much. Can I do that tomorrow, Caleb?”

  “Okay,” Caleb said happily, in contrast to the way he’d reacted to Seamus not walking home with him.

  As Caleb ran back to the room where the others waited, Seamus gestured toward

  Rory’s burdens. “May I help you carry things out to your car?”

  She seemed to consider briefly. “Yes.”

  He relieved her of the heavier tote bag and held open the door, to let her lead the way. She started the car and let it idle while she loaded it.

  “Your troupe is amazing,” Seamus said. “You were great—I had no idea, even after seeing you practice.”

  “Thank you.”

  She closed the back door. “Well, that’s everything. Thanks. I need to get home and get some sleep.”

  “I heard Desert’s moving away.”

  “Yes. Her father needs her help.”

  “It surprises me that she’s going. She doesn’t seem…”

  “People often aren’t what they seem.” Rory cut him off.

  “Rory, do we have a problem? You seem—a bit cool lately.”

  He noted that she didn’t answer at once, that she seemed to be thinking over how to respond.

  But actually, Rory was trying to keep from responding. Trying to keep from saying exactly what she thought. Partly this was prompted by the suspicion that she wanted to talk with him because she was attracted to him; because she couldn’t keep from thinking about him. She felt vulnerable, afraid of her own impulses. If she began telling Seamus what she thought…

  If only she could keep her own counsel, for once.

  Her grandmother had o
pted to ride home with her friend Malcolm, the town judge, and Rory longed to get home and take a hot shower. She wished she could drop into bed without worrying about the still-missing python. Tonight, she was going to take her chances, in any case. “Actually,” she said, “I’m downright cold. Desert said it’s five below right now. And I don’t think it’s going to get warmer tonight.” She climbed into the driver’s seat of her car.

  “Why don’t you run me home with you and we’ll talk on the way?”

  “Get in,” she said, wondering how she was going to stay out of trouble in this conversation.

  Seamus walked around the vehicle and slid into the passenger seat.

  As they fastened their seat belts, Rory said, “Your children want your attention. That’s all. If I sound cool, that’s probably what it’s about. You have a great family. I really like your kids.”

  “They like you.”

  Rory looked at him, perplexed. Did he simply not care about his children? She hadn’t believed that earlier. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to believe it. She said, “Look, it’s a little personal for me. My own father has never exactly been an integral part of my life. And I never had a chance to know my mother—she died when I was little. I know her only from the picture my grandmother paints of her. I feel for your kids, because I know what it is to want the attention of the only parent you have.”

  Seamus understood.

  And maybe she thought he was more interested in chasing her than in taking care of his kids, than in giving them the love they needed.

  But how could he explain the facts?

  He couldn’t. He didn’t want to talk about Janine to anyone.

  He didn’t want to speak of her death. There was no way to describe the experience of finding his wife like that; the terror of what might have happened if one of the children had found her instead, had seen what he’d seen, had picked up the handgun. Just out of curiosity. Beau, for instance, at nine, fascinated by all things, wanting to know how everything worked. Or Caleb, who had been four.