Dancing Ladies

by Marilyn Gardiner

  Backing out of the drive, she began her standard speech. “I might be late. It's just dinner with Mr. Kinicki so I can pick up silk for another job, but it's all the way over in Springfield. I'll have my cell on, though, so you can get me if you need me. You and Babe be good."

  "Yeah. Do you think we'll have practice tomorrow?"

  "Why don't you call Cass and see? He'll make a better guess than I can. You know his cell number."

  Kate scanned the streets for Huey as they drove through town. Very few pedestrians were out, but the grass was green and flowers bloomed in every yard. The result of all the rain, she thought. The possibility that Huey might not be in it at the moment made the town even more lovely than ever.

  Winsom wasn't more than a tiny speck on any map, but to Kate it represented more than capricious mid-west winters, mile after mile of soldier-like precision rows of green corn sprouts and soy beans, and an arching, endless sky. There was either too much rain or too little, corn bore or a blight on the beans, or a mine shutting down throwing hundreds out of work. Those who knew said all the money in the county was controlled by three families, and politics were debated with more heat and heritage than common sense. But whatever it was, driving rain or simmering sunsets, Winsom was home. The bakery, the bank, the chiming clock on the corner. All were dear to her.

  She made a quick stop at Snooky's to see if he could mend the portrait. The man was in his woodworking shop at the back of the house and, after looking at the frame, he waved an airy hand.

  "No problem. It isn't that bad. I can have it fixed in a jiffy. Want to pick it up in an hour?"

  "Wonderful. I'll stop on my way home from Springfield. Is ten o'clock too late?"

  "Nope. I don't go to bed until after Letterman. You drive careful now, Missy. There's a storm coming, I hear."

  "I will, and thanks."

  Coming out of the One Hour Photo shop after having dropped off the film, she felt the first few drops of rain.

  She couldn't help wondering, again, where Huey was. Would she see him walking along the street? Would he even be in town? Was he apt to step up on the porch and ring the doorbell? Or maybe he'd call on the phone and then sit silently while her stress soared. Her stomach was already in a knot and now it did a slow roll. One problem of the magnitude of Leah and/or Huey at a time was more than enough. Even though she tried not to, she watched the streets for him all the way across town.

  With one ear, she listened to Max warning Babe of an entire litany of things not to do. Even as she peered into passing cars and around corners, Kate hid a smile because it sounded almost word-for-word like some conversations she'd had with Max.

  "First of all, you're a guest in their house and you have to behave yourself or you'll never get asked back again. That means no accidents on the rug. When you need to go out, you gotta ask."

  Fine. Except that Babe rarely had accidents. Ruby June and Pearly June had trained him themselves before he ever came to live with Max.

  "And you can't beg at the table. Just get it out of your head. That's real bad manners."

  Amen and amen.

  "Most of all, you can't bark loud like you did last night. We'll ask if you can sleep in my room with me, but if you can't you'll have to sleep with your mother and be real quiet."

  Kate parked at the curb and opened the door. “Everything you said goes for you, too, buddy. Behave yourself, don't beg for anything, and don't be too loud. Got it?"

  "Got it!” Max was already halfway up the sidewalk, Lambie in hand, with Babe at his heels. “Hey, Ruby June and Pearly June. I'm here!"

  Kate grimaced. He was already too loud.

  Ruby June met Max on the porch her arms wide. “My two best boyfriends are here for the night. How lucky can I get?"

  When Babe had been scratched behind the ears and Max had been hugged to his heart's content, the two of them went on in the house to see Roxy, Babe's mother. Ruby June sat down in a wicker chair and motioned for Kate to do the same.

  "Pearly June not here?” Kate asked.

  "She's down at the bakery,” Ruby June said with an impish smile. “And, of course, she took her mouth with her, so she's likely to be gone a while. Why? You need her for something?"

  "No, I just wanted to talk to you both about the twin-thing. It can wait."

  "Are you missing Leah? It's natural you know. You shared your mother's womb, a bassinet, toys—your whole lives. She's been gone now for what, ten years or so?"

  "Yes. Ten years.” Kate leaned back in a chair and stretched out her legs. She focused on her toenails, bright pink in her open, sling-backed, black sandals. “We didn't always get along, but there's still a big hole in my life where she used to be."

  The older woman nodded. “And that's probably been made worse because of the nature of the separation. The accident and the way she died. Must have left you feeling abandoned. Half gone."

  And guilty, Kate thought, in spite of everything the counselor had tried to drum into her. Tears were right behind her eyes and ready to fall. She clamped down hard on her back teeth.

  Ruby June put her hand on Kate's knee. “You have questions, honey? Can I help?"

  "I don't know. How can we be close when she's dead? How can we not be close even though she's dead? Her life, even in death, is still impacting mine.” Kate bit off the questions she'd really like to ask. She didn't dare tell Ruby June about Leah's nocturnal visits and the strange activity going on in the house. She couldn't share the real reason she didn't want to hire a teenage girl to baby-sit for Max while she was out.

  Ruby June patted Kate's knee and leaned back in the rocker. “There are all kinds of things that make twins different than single births. Have you ever heard of synesthesia? It's a very interesting form of joined sensations sometimes shared by twins. The technical definition is something about the real information of one sense being accompanied by the perception in another sense. It doesn't happen always with only twins, but it often does. Just because one of you dies, doesn't mean the other stops feeling those shared feelings. We've talked of it at twin conventions. After one twin dies, this phenomenon seems to be stronger than ever. Maybe you are experiencing that."

  "I don't know that Leah and I shared synesthesia. My problem is that, in a funny way, I still feel as if she were here. Beside me. Talking to me, sometimes. Arguing."

  Surely that wasn't stretching the truth too far. She didn't dare tell the woman that she'd stopped on the stairs and taken a shot with Max's camera of the window where Leah's image was engraved on the pane. Or that the roll of film already partially exposed contained something that Leah didn't want her to see.

  Ruby June folded her hands across her stomach and assumed her retired school teacher look. She spoke thoughtfully. “Pearly June and I've studied the twin-thing as you call it, extensively. Almost every fall we go to a twin convention and over the years have talked to hundreds of other twins. Human beings are primarily energy, and energy, once released, cannot be destroyed. If there has been a trauma, it's possible that energy could find expression in violence. Aggression. I've read about it, and it makes sense."

  "But would I be sensitive to all that activity?"

  "My guess is no, only to this particular spirit. She was very close to you, close as only twins can be, and you have a vested interest in what would have been her happiness and well being. In this particular case, your sensitivities are heightened. It would be like looking at the stars through a telescope rather than with the bare eye. Ordinarily, we see each other as through a microscope, a limited view, but right now it sounds like you are seeing Leah and her life through expanded vision."

  "I guess I want to know if that is unnatural. The feelings are getting stronger rather than diminishing with time. The counselor I went to after she died said I'd eventually be able to put the whole thing in a place where it wasn't consuming my life, and I thought I was getting there until I moved back here. Now, it's as if she's part of my every thought, almost. It's getting worse."
>
  "You've come back to live at the scene of the trauma. Maybe she is talking to you. The power of suggestion is very strong, you know,” she said quietly, and continued...

  "There is also the problem of the brain selecting what sensory input to accept and what to turn away. You know we are impacted twenty-four-seven by sensory stimulation of all kinds. If the brain didn't practice a high degree of selectivity we would all go mad from the bombardment of chaos. Right now you seem to be acutely attuned to Leah awareness. She is taking priority."

  Kate nodded. “And I dream of her. Not always happy dreams.” She was actually talking about a visitation that was far more than a dream. “Sometimes those dreams are ... Disturbing to say the least."

  "And there is the problem of forgiveness. The hardest person to forgive, always, is ourselves. And we know, in our hearts, that the lovely Leah hadn't forgiven herself when she died. She knew she was guilty of the accident and that's the reason she was being so unreasonable afterward. I've thought, for years, that she died still angry at herself."

  "Herself?” All of Kate's emotions seemed lodged in her chest. “She didn't appear to be mad at herself. She was furious at me."

  "Her anger was directed at you because it was safe to do so. You weren't going to stop loving her no matter how nasty she was, and she knew it. There was too much danger in admitting to herself, aloud, that it had all been her fault. She kept up the pretense to the end, even though she knew better."

  Kate wished she could believe Ruby June. Life would be so much easier if only she understood and believed Leah had absolved her of guilt.

  "You'll get through this hard part, in time,” Ruby June said gently, “and things will revert to the usual. Be patient. I can't imagine my life without Pearly June. I think—I strongly think—that her presence would be as real to me in death as it has been for all these years, alive. The twin-thing, as you say, is very powerful. I imagine we'll still be arguing politics when we're shaking hands with St. Peter."

  Kate sighed and stood up. “Okay. Thanks. You've given me something to think about, but I need to get on the road. I have a feeling it's going to storm again and I'll be an hour away from home when it does."

  Ruby June stood, too. “Come back when Pearly June is here. She may have some different insights that would interest you. And,” she added as Kate went down the walk toward the car, “drive carefully. We'll take good care of Max and Babe."

  Before heading the car west out Route 29, she wanted to stop at the photo shop for the pictures, but while negotiating her way through town, she called Cass on the cell phone. He was not pleased to hear she wouldn't be going to Luke's. He was even less pleased when he found out where she was going.

  "So. Okay. You have a date in Springfield.” She wasn't deaf to the tension in his voice.

  "No. I do not have a date. Not in the way you mean. This is a business dinner. Joe is bringing the silk for a rush job and I'm meeting him there to pick it up."

  "And having a steak with him while you're at it."

  "Well, yes. But it isn't what you think."

  "First you go for Mexican with Spence and now you're hopping off to Springfield to the best steak house in the state with Joe. I gotta say that's not doing too bad. Where's Max?"

  "He's with Ruby June, but I..."

  "You have your cell phone? The weather could be rocky tonight. I don't like the idea of your driving an hour over there and then an hour home late at night. Alone, I hope."

  "Cass! Of course, I'll be alone. Joe has to be in St. Louis tomorrow morning for a meeting. This is silly."

  "Silly. That isn't the word I'd choose, but suit yourself.” On the strength of two kisses, the man was jealous! She swallowed the urge to laugh. And then, suddenly, the situation lost its humor. Cass was pushing. He'd never done that before.

  "I'm not sure I like your tone. I'll have dinner with whomever I please, Cass Reynolds. It's none of your business."

  There was a disgusted grunt and then, “You're right. It's none of my business. Just make sure your cell phone is turned on, and drive carefully. The forecast is possibly bad."

  "Cass...” But the line was dead. He had hung up. And she had wanted to tell him about Huey's note.

  She wasn't in any mood to tell him about it now. The insult still smarted that he thought he had the right to tell her what she could and couldn't do. Not that he'd actually told her, but she'd gotten the picture with no problem. He didn't want her seeing other men.

  Still fuming, she made a brief stop at the photo shop and, unable to quell her curiosity any longer, opened the envelope in the car with the windows steaming over and the engine running.

  Her anger evaporated as she thumbed through the photos. The hair on the back of her neck stiffened. The third picture had obviously been taken from Max's room. In the door to the hallway was an oddly shaped, gray form that looked exactly the same as the ballooning and shrinking apparition that had confronted Kate in the night. The figure was semi-solid. Kate could see the shadow of the bureau beyond it—through it actually—but not clearly. A double exposure? No, not that. She went cold. It was sort of human, and yet not human. A caricature of a Halloween ghost.

  Hurriedly looking through the rest of the pictures, she found a half dozen of Big Lionel clowning for the camera, standing on his head in a corner of his room, and one of Max pulling a horrid face so close to the lens it was distorted. And then the last picture on the roll.

  The picture she had taken that afternoon of the stair well and window was beautifully clear and in vivid color, except ... The window frame was there but the entire portion where the glass should have been was smudged in an irregular, oblong shape, and blank. Fuzzy around the edges. There was a faint suggestion of ... something. Almost, but not quite, like the one in Max's doorway. Not a double exposure, but too blurred to make out.

  What was odd was how well defined everything else was around the window. The photographs on the wall, a dried flower arrangement on the pedestal table below, the pattern in the wallpaper. Everything stood out in stark relief, except the glass in the window.

  Everything except Leah's image.

  Twelve

  Starr Bean ‘Dark Twin'

  Dark, velvet-like flame colors. Vini-color Paphiopedilum Hybrid.

  By the time Kate hit the highway, an early dusk had settled over the evening. A heavy, moist wind blew from the southwest and she turned the air conditioning on high. Her skin was still crawling with the image of the strange shape in the photograph of the window. The same shape in another form that Max had apparently captured in his bedroom. The whole thing gave her the creepy-crawlies. Kate shoved the envelope that contained the negatives and prints beneath her jacket in the passenger seat. Out of sight, out of mind, she thought. Yeah. Right.

  Crossing over a bridge, she saw to her surprise that the creek was out of its banks and spreading into the adjoining fields. Entire sections of farmland were being swallowed by the rising water. Only the tender green tips of corn were visible, extending in precise rows through the flooded fields. The water came up to the very edge of the road on both sides making the highway a narrow strip of relatively dry pavement for as far as the eye could see. The sight was surreal. Like having an ocean on both sides of the highway stretching for miles across the flat prairie. Too much rain in too short a time. The ground could absorb no more, and there was nowhere for the water to drain. Much more rain and the road would be under water and closed. It had happened in other years, and to Kate, given her fear of water, the thought was frightening.

  She forced her eyes back to the road. It was impossible to cross a body of water without responding in a spasm of reflex-clenching anxiety. The counselor to whom she'd gone for so many years thought that eventually the reaction would diminish. So far, it had not.

  The memory was as vivid as if it had happened last week. Bridges were an on-going nightmare with which she lived. Her stomach reacted the same as it had the afternoon she and Leah went off the road,
into the rain-swollen river during a torrential downpour, and sank into the water. The gut-wrenching feeling usually subsided within minutes, leaving her slightly nauseated. She'd gone to great pains over the years to make sure that Max did not pick up how she felt about bridges and rushing water. It was important he not absorb her irrational fear.

  Huey had never understood. Huey had never cared. Never cared about much of anything that concerned her, much less her terror of water and bridges. Past the bridge now, her stomach settling, Kate let her mind wander.

  From the beginning she'd done it all alone. Even—especially—since Max. Middle of the night feedings, diapers, nursing, day care, teething, chicken pox. She'd done it willingly, of course, Max was worth every minute of it, but still it was hard to see other young families coping together and know that she would never have that luxury.

  There were moments when she regretted with all her heart giving Max such a self-centered wuss for a father, but she schooled herself not to complain. And, of course, without Huey she wouldn't have had Max to begin with. Baby sitters, first grade, new shoes and macaroni and cheese. Her decisions, all of them, and she'd not often looked back.

  She smiled. For a seven-year-old, he'd taken in stride being dumped into small town life very well. He loved his new friends, T-ball, Babe, and Ruby June. Loved living in his grandparents’ home and swinging in the backyard in the same place his mom and Aunt Leah had played. Loved sitting in the hanging chair on the screened porch and looking at the lake. He really loved having his own room. Most of all, he loved Cass. The acclimation process had been nearly seamless ... and then she frowned. He was attaching himself firmly to Cass. Maybe too firmly.

  One of these days, if and when it would be possible to separate herself from the chaos Leah was creating, she had to stop and consider where her relationship with Cass was going. How was she to know how much of what she felt was real, and how much she could attribute to sentimental memories? He had become so dear. So caring of little things. She was touched.