Dancing Ladies

by Marilyn Gardiner

  His face suffused with anger. She'd seen the look often enough when Huey had been discovered red-handed while trying to put something over on her.

  Cass leaned forward. “You are a spineless shyster. A real son-of-a-bitch. First you tried to swindle Kate's dad, and when he died you went after her mother. Now, you've fixed on Kate. You've been working on this for a long time. There's a nasty word for what you are trying to do, Mr. Blandings."

  Kate watched while the man struggled with emotions almost too strong to tame. Finally, the red began to recede from his face and he straightened in his chair.

  He spoke to Kate. “Your mother was a pretty girl, and she grew into a beautiful woman, but unfortunately she didn't have the sense God gave a goose or she'd have taken my offer a year ago. I cared a lot for her once. But this is strictly business,” he said. “My low profile was necessary, surely you can understand that. If you hope to acquire land, the price shoots up fast when people know you're buying. Just business."

  Cass gave a short bark of disgust. “And what did you have in mind? When Kate's dad turned you down, and then her mother, and finally Kate herself, did you try intimidation? The telephone? Stalking by way of watching her every move from your car. Making sure she saw you often enough to keep her on edge? Scared. Wondering. You slime! What was plan B, when she kept refusing?"

  Blandings turned angry eyes on Cass. “She has no business sense whatever. Just like her mother. Prettiest girl in town, but no brains. Doesn't usually matter to me if the woman is a good enough looker, but when it comes to business..."

  He went on, his voice deprecating. “Trying to make a living by painting on yard goods! What kind of money does she expect to make from that? She's totally ignorant of land speculation, and in the long run would have let this opportunity slip through her hands. It was business on my part. Just business."

  "Right. A business that would turn you a tasty profit if the State bought from you instead of her."

  His voice hardened and his eyes narrowed. “I'd get top money. She'd let it go for a fraction of what it was worth."

  "Wasn't that her choice to make?"

  "Hell no! What kind of business man would I have been not to take the bull by the horns?"

  "Maybe honest?"

  He spat. “Bah! That house would make a top of the line B&B with the right management. Or we could level it off and put in a major service station with an attached convenience store. Either would be a big money-maker in a few years when the highway comes. Is she—” he gestured toward Kate, “is she going to capitalize on this opportunity? No! She hasn't got the guts!"

  Kate sat frozen in her chair. A bed and breakfast? Her parents’ home? A service station? When he'd just sworn to keep the house in good repair. Honor her mother's rose gardens. So much for preserving the past. For respecting antiquity. Anger began to build behind the stunned feeling.

  Cass turned away, expelling breath in total disgust, then swung back around. “So you set about trying to scare her into getting rid of the house."

  "Just tried to make her uncomfortable. I meant her no harm."

  "No harm? Do you call ghostly phenomenon no harm? My God man! What about a child? You terrorized a kid into believing in ghosts! No harm?"

  "Ghosts? I don't know anything about ghosts. All I did was call her on the phone once in awhile and watch the house. Followed her. If she saw ghosts, she did it on her own."

  Kate sat shocked into silence. He was the one in the black car following her! And he was definitely the man at the ball field who had watched her so closely. The same man, with dyed hair and a beard. Of course, he couldn't have conjured up Leah and placed her in Kate's own mind. She would have been foolish to cling to the ridiculous hope that this would solve all her problems.

  It made no sense. No sense at all. From the beginning there had been no rhyme or reason. Who was behind the ghostly manifestations? He wanted her house, yes, but apparently Leah wasn't part of the scheme.

  She was still mulling it over, anger simmering, when they left Spence's office. Cass's hand rode lightly on the small of her back. In the bank lobby, Pearly June called from a teller's window where she waited in line.

  "Good to see you up and about, Kate. You going by to get that sweet little guy? He's waiting. Oh. Afternoon, T. Roy. It's been an age since I've seen you. When did you grow all that bushy stuff on your face? Look like you met a bear and came off second best. And, I'll swan. You've gone and dyed your hair. You entering your second childhood or what?"

  Slowly Kate turned to look at “Mr. Blandings.” He was T. Roy Blankenship. Her mother's old beau. The one her mother's diary had commented on by saying that he was as easy to reason with as it was to put socks on a chicken. This ... this excuse for a man couldn't possibly be the poet, as she'd thought. Not in a million years! Her eyes followed him.

  "It's you! You put the flowers on my mother's grave."

  "I already said she was the prettiest girl in town. I've been wanting to send her flowers for forty years and she'd have none of it. She's got nothing to say about it now."

  "Would she have accepted them today, after your attempt to cheat me?"

  The man seemed to shrink inside his suit. He walked on without answering and went out the door. Definitely not the poet.

  * * * *

  Kate had gone over and over in her mind how to approach Max about his father's behavior the night before. Fortunately, she had no visible bruises to remind him of the violent scene, but she was anxious to know Max's reaction. It was important that he not link his personality with Huey in any way that would assume Huey's behavior predetermined his. As it turned out, on the surface at least, the conversation wasn't as difficult as she feared.

  Ruby June had thoughtfully left them together in her living room while she showed Cass where she wanted him to build a storage shed out back. Max was subdued.

  "Is Dad a bad man, Mommy?” Mommy. Well, she'd known he would be upset.

  She took both his hands in hers and strove for a matter-of-fact tone. “Actually, people aren't bad, Max. Sometimes what they do is bad, but the people themselves aren't necessarily bad down in their hearts."

  "But he hurt you. That's bad."

  Kate nodded. “Yes. You are absolutely right. Hurting people is bad."

  He thought about that for a minute. “But Cass stopped him. That was good. Right?"

  "That was very good. And the fact that you called Cass the first thing was smart. Very, very good. I'm proud of you. So is Cass. He told me how proud he was that you remembered his cell phone number in a crisis. That's pretty high praise."

  She ran one hand over the back of his head and pulled him to her. She closed her eyes for a moment and sent a quick prayer of thanks heaven-ward.

  His voice was muffled in her shirt and he pulled away. “Why did Dad do that? Why did he come here and hurt you?” His eyes were squinched up tight with trying to understand.

  She looked at him soberly. He was too little for her to expect him to make sense of adult behavior, but she had to try.

  "We all make choices, Max. Life is about learning to make the right ones. Every morning we get up to a whole new day of making choices. There are times when we want something so bad that we think we just can't live without it, and occasionally we make the wrong decision about how to get whatever it is."

  "What did Dad want?"

  Kate sighed. “He wanted ... He wanted us all to live together again. He wanted...” Max's eyes widened in alarm and Kate hurried on.

  "...he wanted more money than he has and he thought the way to get it was to sell this house."

  Max's eyes went round. “Our house? Will he ... Are we...? Do we have to move again?"

  "No.” She shook her head firmly. “This is our house, yours and mine. Your dad's name is not on the paper at the bank, it's called a deed, and we are definitely not going to all live together again. I don't want you to think that for one single minute. Grandma's house is our home now. Yours and mine alon
e."

  Max looked down at his lap and mumbled so softly Kate could barely hear him. “Will he come back again?"

  "I don't think so. Not any time soon anyway. You know, Max, whenever you do something unacceptable, when you break the rules, you get punished. Right?"

  He nodded, again looking at her.

  "Well, what your dad did was something unacceptable. We called the police because we were afraid he would keep on doing it, and Dad is in jail right now. He is being punished."

  "He won't like that."

  "You're right. He won't like it at all. We hope he won't like it enough that he'll never do anything like it again."

  He hesitated. “Why is he my dad? Why couldn't somebody else be my dad, instead?"

  Here it was, she thought, and took a big breath. “We're all different, Max. Every single person on the earth is the only one just exactly like that. You are different than me. You are different from Big Lionel. You are different from Cass and your dad. The nice thing is that, no matter who our parents are, we get to choose what we want to be like on the inside. And then we make decisions that shape how that happens. You, and nobody else, decides how you are going to be on the inside when you grow up. Is that clear? It's up to you to make that choice. No one else can do it for you."

  Max didn't answer, but she could almost see the wheels cranking around in his brain as he tried to process this information.

  "And,” she went on, “as far as another dad is concerned, there is a possib-i-lity,” she dragged out the word, “that some day I could find you another dad. Would you like that?"

  He nodded vigorously. “Yeah. Could we get Cass? Can we ask him? I think he likes us okay."

  Kate smothered a smile. “I'll give it some thought."

  Max heaved a big sigh and moved to get up. He turned and gave her the ghost of a conspiratorial grin. “Pearly June cheated again last night at double solitaire, but like you said I didn't get mad. I let her win one game and she was happy."

  She gave him a quick hug. “I'm proud of you, Max. You're growing into a nice person. And a good friend."

  He wriggled free, the smile gone. “Okay. Can me and Babe go outside now and play?"

  Kate wasn't completely satisfied with the doubtful look on his face, but she released his hands and sat back. “It's going to be all right, Max. I don't want you to worry about your dad coming back. We'll be fine.” She patted his bottom as he got up to leave. “Go outside now, but don't go far. We're going to ride with Cass over to Springfield and pick up a door."

  "Awesome! Hey Babe! Let's go out.” And he was gone with a clattering rush, Babe's excited yips echoing and his toenails scrabbling on the floor, through the house to the front door.

  Kate sat back and closed her eyes. It had been too easy. There was surely lots of anxiety hidden beneath what Max was willing to reveal, but she'd work on it one day at a time.

  One day at a time.

  Seventeen

  Sharry Baby: Sweet Fragrance

  Dark green leaves with tiny yellow or deep red and/or lavender blossoms in clusters of sprays—50-100 to a spray. Smells delightfully of chocolate! Grammaphyllum Scriptum.

  Over Max's protests, Babe was left at home, safely crated in the orchid room.

  "He'll be lonesome,” Max wailed.

  "He has lots of windows to look out and I cracked one open so he can even smell all the lovely odors from outside."

  "I'll be lonesome,” Max counterattacked.

  "With all three of us?"

  "But—"

  "Max,” Cass said quietly. “Babe can't go into a restaurant with us, you know that, and it's too hot to leave him in the car alone. He'd die of heat stroke. And I thought maybe, after we pick up the door, we'd stop at Monical's and get a pizza."

  Silence. Then, “He played real hard with his sisters at Ruby June's. I guess he might be tired."

  A bare hint of a smile appeared around Cass's mouth. “Good thinking."

  Finally, on the road to Springfield, Max settled back with his Game Boy and the only sounds from the back seat were the faint bleeps from the hand-held electronic game.

  Cass glanced at Kate. “Feel better? Part of it at least is behind us. Can you believe old T. Roy was the guy at the wheel of the mystery car?"

  Kate shook her head. “I'm still trying to assimilate it all, I think. He was Mom's old beau. You wouldn't think he'd want to do her financial harm. Not the way he acted at the funeral home."

  "Are you sure it was him?"

  "Ruby June thinks it was, and she was there. I don't know. He seemed so fond of Mom. And he turned out to be a crook!"

  "Ruby June wasn't surprised. When we went out back to see where she wants a utility shed, she said he's been dabbling in local and state politics for years. Never ran for any office, but always wanted to be in the know. Where the action was. There've been a few suspicions, she said, of slick deals, shady stuff, but nothing was ever proven. He's a good ole’ boy and a wheeler-dealer. Maybe your mom knew, or sensed, even back then, that he wasn't the honest, open guy he pretended to be. After all, she dumped him for your dad."

  Kate shook her head. “Maybe. She surely scoped Huey out. She tried to tell me the kind of man he was, but I thought I knew him better. Shows what a good judge of men I am."

  "Ruby June had something to say about him too. Actually, it was more about you."

  "Me? What about me?"

  He slanted a glance at her. “She said she wanted to make sure you knew that you couldn't go around drowning all cats because one of them had fleas."

  Kate swung around in the seat to look at him. “She said that, huh? Why?"

  "I ... She ... That is...” Cass's ears turned a curious shade of bright pink and Kate felt her own eyebrows go up. Cass was blushing. Cass was blushing! A quick look showed Max deeply into his game.

  "Cass. Tell me just why Ruby June imparted that bit of homespun philosophy right out of the blue."

  He cleared his throat. “She, uh, she said she hoped my intentions toward you were honorable. She said it with fire in her eye, and I assured her they were but that I wasn't sure you felt the same way.” He said it all in a rush as if he wasn't sure he could get it out any other way.

  Intentions ... Honorable ... Oh Cass. There were too many other issues hanging. Life was fragmented. She was fragmented. She'd allowed her guard to relax a little and then Huey appeared. Just look what had happened. And there was still Leah lurking around the edges of everything. She couldn't hurt Cass, because she did care. Too much maybe.

  "Oh Cass. You're such a dear man. And I do have feelings for you.” She whipped her head around to peek at Max. She half whispered, pleading, “If I were looking for another man, it would be you. But—"

  He answered softly but firmly. “Too late. I'm in your face and you can't ignore me."

  "I'm not a real good bet, right now. You must see that."

  "Nope. Now that I'm old enough to know what I want, I see the girl of my dreams. You're it."

  "Hey! Are we almost there?” Max surfaced from the Game Boy to look around.

  "Won't be long, buddy,” Cass answered, his voice falsely enthusiastic.

  "Why didn't we bring Stacey? She likes pizza, too."

  "This is the night she tumbles and she can't miss a practice. She has a meet coming up next week."

  "Oh yeah. I forgot.” And Max's head bent to the game.

  Cass went back to whispering. “Talk about G-rated romances. This one is grand champion."

  Kate laughed. “You know better than to whisper. His ears are probably stretched out to here. My guess is that he's heard every word."

  Cass made an inarticulate sound. “I need to talk to you. P-r-i-v-a-t-e-l-y,” he spelled. “However,” and he gave her a long look full of portent, “first we'll get the door, and then we'll go to Monical's and tie on a couple of diet colas, and...” He sighed. “And everything else will have to wait. In the meantime, are you thinking of what you intend to do with little buddy
back there, tonight? Is he going to Bree's?"

  "I think so. I'll call her now.” She dug in her purse for her cell phone.

  Two minutes later it was settled. Max was delighted with the prospect of popcorn and a scary movie on Bree's sofa bed, just the two of them, and Cass and Kate were both relieved that Max would be out of possible harm's way if the levee didn't prove to be as dependable as Kate thought it was.

  * * * *

  The door was, indeed, beautiful. A fan-shaped, stained glass window arched across the top of inlaid wood paneling. It was, as Cass had said, a special door. Kate watched the workmen wrap it carefully in layer after layer of padding and then tie it securely. The door was placed, with great attention to safety, on even more padding in the back of the pickup and covered in case of rain.

  At Monicals, Cass and Max declared the pizza to be fantastic, exactly the way pizza ought to taste and seldom did, and Kate was pleased with a huge salad and breadsticks. The room was bright and cheerfully noisy, and somewhere over their heads country music played. They didn't tarry long because, from the booth where they sat, they saw the southwestern sky worsening rapidly as twilight settled over the city.

  "We're traveling east, ahead of whatever is coming, so let's get going.” Cass's eyes were anxious as he hurried them out the door.

  They stopped at a convenience store only long enough for Kate to run in and get flashlight batteries, bread and milk, and a toothbrush for Max.

  "Aw, Mom. I don't need a toothbrush."

  "Yes, you do. You can get by with what you're wearing until I pick you up tomorrow. But you do need a toothbrush."

  "Oh,” Max sat up in alarm. “What about my pillow? And Lambie?"

  Ah. The pillow could be a problem. He hadn't slept without it for years. It was his security blanket.

  "I'll bet Bree has a pillow you could substitute. You may have to pretend. But you're good at that. And Lambie will just have to suck it up and do without you for one night. He can manage if you can. All right?"