Tiny Dancer

by Patricia Hickman

“Your daddy’s been calling your name for a bit.” He kept whatever levity he had practiced in the privacy of the garden in check, or so it seemed, for he was not smiling.

  “I’m Flannery,” I said, moving slowly onto my hands, preparing for a fast get-away.

  “Reverend Theo Miller,” he said, yet still no hint of warmth. He opened the child-size door and out I came, hands first in the mud. Then he helped me to my feet, not a care for my muddy fingers gripping his clean black skin.

  Reverend, I thought. I brushed small dirt clods from my hands. “I live there,” I told him, pointing to our house. “We’re the Currys.”

  There was a quiet pause between us.

  “You heard about my little sister, I guess,” I said awkwardly. Just saying it like that made me feel as if I had stood up in church and yelled it. But I was interested in knowing how he might react if he did know her.

  “I heard,” he said, and then, “You’d best go on now,” he cautioned me, no hint of recognition, and no implication that he knew Siobhan.

  It was then I heard Daddy yelling from the back porch. I excused myself to the preacher and made my way back out through the garden.

  Daddy looked relieved but surprised to see his girl appearing from out of the neighbor’s sunflowers. He shook his head and laughed.

  “Don’t tell Vesta,” I said breathlessly while running inside our screened in porch, smacking mud off my kneecaps.

  “Don’t you tell her,” he said, conspiring like usual. “She’s already in a foul humor, as you well know.”

  * * * * *

  Come Tuesday, I could hardly believe that I was finally packed and approved to leave for the beach with Claudia and Irene Johnson. Vesta had not had a good night Sunday evening and woke up making a terrible commotion, yelling for Daddy to do something. She was out of sleeping pills again. I took it upon myself to hound the physician’s phone service until Doctor Hayes responded. He had been our doctor before Mama packed up and left and was a good friend to us even before the accident, discounting the bill the winters when I had fallen sick with croup.

  Vesta was relieved to send Daddy and me out in the middle of the night to the only pharmacy in the county that obliged emergencies after hours. I rode shotgun and that seemed to please her. She had said as we left after midnight, “Flannery, you’re such a comfort.”

  When Daddy and I rushed back with the pills that eased Vesta back into her rest, she agreeably sent me off Tuesday with Claudia and five dollars, “For essentials,” she said sensibly but added, “Don’t you be a burden to Mrs. Johnson.”

  I thanked her cordially and said, “I’ll call as soon as we get into Wilmington.” I was already packed though.

  Daddy got up before sunup and was gone to work by four-thirty to drive into town in Pinehurst where he worked his second job for Happy Stan the TV Man as Stan Harkey’s Customer Consultant. That was a round about way of saying repo man. He still worked full time at his bank guard job in Bitterwood. It paid the mortgage, he said often to Vesta who seemed to linger over the tall suited banking men passing him by and stepping onto the elevator.

  I was up early following him onto the front porch to bid him good-bye since I would be gone an entire week. I watched his taillights disappear into a fog rolling in. Instead of rushing back inside, I leaned against the porch railing. Something about the fog made the silence all the more quiet as if our street was caught under a big airtight pocket of deadness.

  I saw a movement but no place had more squirrels than Bitterwood Park. I turned to find the big hulking man I now knew to be Reverend Miller walking blithely out of the easement, like he had passed ghost-like through Vesta’s barricade. I hid behind the porch post but watched the preacher turn and head up the street toward Jimmy Banks store. Jimmy would open up soon. Like I told Vesta, the man could not be stopped from his duties. I turned to go inside. I would nap another hour and then eat before Irene and Claudia arrived. Before I moved from behind the big porch post, another figure passed through the fog just as ghostlike. One figure followed another and both ethereal as specters for they were dressed in white gowns. I was not one to lay claim to seeing angelic beings. Nor did I believe those who had, although Artie Gill, our postman who swore he had spotted an alien ship hovering over Farmer Macy’s cow pasture, convinced the local newspaper editor to print his wild tale. I was sure it was a tin pie he had tossed in the air and photographed.

  I blinked and the beings evaporated into the fog. I went inside, laughing at my own silly notions. I decided it best to say nothing to Vesta of all I had just witnessed.

  The Johnsons picked me up right after sun up. The mist had cleared and so had my mind of thoughts of fog-borne specters.

  Irene Johnson instructed me to take the whole middle seat inside her new station wagon. Claudia got carsick on occasion so she sat up front looking straight ahead. The leather seats were soft against my legs I stretched across the width of the seat. I was a passenger in the Johnson’s car, finally, and we were all women in high spirits driving to the ocean. The Johnson’s were the richest family I knew, an envy that had caused Vesta to ramp up her comparisons of us to families like the Johnsons to Daddy. When Vesta woefully anguished over the state of our poverty, the pain in Daddy’s eyes was unbearable. He did believe that things would turn around after JFK was put in the White House. But so far he had gotten no pay raise, a fact that demoted him in Vesta’s estimation. I never knew him to care about a person’s opinion as much as he did his second wife’s.

  When Irene took off on one of her trips, she nearly always invited me along. We often drove into nearby Pinehurst where Irene played golf, or off riding horses with their well-to-do friends in Vineland. My riding skills were never up to par, but I could out race Claudia or any of her riding companions. Even though they were better riders, having grown up attending the trials, I risked certain death when it came to racing one of them.

  Claudia and I often swam in the clubhouse pool most of the time, though with the well-heeled families’ children while Irene rode horseback. Irene took us shopping in Charlotte and Raleigh for school clothes and gifts for Irene’s poor relations. Irene never spent money on Claudia that she didn’t buy something for me, always with an excuse for Daddy in the event he felt she was offering his girl charity. Claudia’s Daddy owned so many businesses I could never tell exactly what he did for a living. Mr. Johnson worked late most nights so Irene kept busy traveling and gadding about—oh, and that was another thing. Vesta once, in a moment of jealousy, called Irene a gad-about adding that I was just like her. I considered the comparison a high compliment as I had grown to believe that I was born into the wrong family anyway and now fate was correcting the mistake. I was as grafted into the Johnson family now as if my name was Johnson.

  “Did Claudia tell you her good news?” asked Irene in so gentle a tone it was evident she was simply conversing and not boasting.

  I could not imagine Claudia withholding anything good for any amount of time since she was notorious for keeping no secrets at all. “Not to me,” I said, glancing up at Claudia.

  “It’s nothing, Mother,” said Claudia, subduing her voice, her cheeks pinking. Even when she feigned a bit of humility she did not hide her pride. She glowed under her mother’s approval.

  “Her essay was selected to be published in the city’s newspaper contest for rising sophomores,” said Irene gushing a little too proudly, sending a sigh out of Claudia.

  “It’s not a big award,” said Claudia turning completely around to speak to me. “I told you my essay paper was submitted by my English teacher, didn’t I?” she asked off-handedly.

  “Yes,” I said. “I do remember you saying that.” If Claudia detected my jealousy, she did not let on in Irene’s presence. I hid the fact that I was jealous of anything good that happened to Claudia starting with being born to two perfect people who did not cause their daughter any trouble, and even worse, paved the way for her complete happiness. While grief shook out its awful piles of
sadness on my family, it passed on by the Johnsons..

  “When school starts, Claudia will intern with the newspaper. Flannery, you should intern,” she interjected and, as usual, mothered me.

  I ate up her attention like a new puppy.

  “It’s not a paying job, but it all helps when you girls apply for a college scholarship.” Irene did not say these things to assume me into their plans or even to brag, because she was too humble to boast. I got the impression she wanted to elevate me. I, for one, allowed Irene any indulgences she chose on my behalf.

  Young women in her day went off to college to marry fine young men. She had been married off young in Texas by both her parents and Claudia’s daddy’s, both sets of parents fixing them up as if they had matched them together from birth. For what little I knew, that may have been the case. But Irene Mattingly Johnson from Tyler,Texas lived out her dreams through her husband’s successes and Claudia’s accomplishments. She talked about them both as if she watched Claudia and her husband Dwayne from a box seat, waving them on to victory, never neglecting to include me in her campaigns.

  Claudia had been groomed by two successful parents who helped her plan accordingly.

  “You should be proud, Mrs. Johnson,” I said, not quite releasing my entire approval Claudia’s way but transferring it entirely onto Irene. Unlike her mother, Claudia could be insufferably proud when the two of us were alone and away from the adults.

  Tuesday morning the highway traffic backed up thirty-minutes outside of Wilmington. A circle of cops gathered near an intersection directing traffic, red faced and blowing whistles like the town was on fire. Irene gasped, saying how they were pulling colored men out of cars for questioning. “Best we move on past. Claudia, no staring.”

  But we girls couldn’t help but stare. One of the youths was really no older than Claudia or me, a boy dressed in a red checkered shirt now rumpled, the tail hanging out the top of his trousers as if it had been yanked out. He was made to lean against the hood of the car, arms spread out like he was about to fly. I believed he must have robbed a gas station or held up a liquor store, what with all of the cops called down on him and his car full of friends. My eyes locked with his, making me wish I’d listened to Irene. His guileless brown eyes followed me all the way to Wrightsville Beach.

  Travel was faster after passing the city, motoring through the fringes of Wilmington, all three of us talking nonstop. I was especially relieved to leave behind the emotion and trauma of Vesta’s state of mind. I would have sat squat in the middle of non-stop traffic if only for the opportunity to be anywhere but back home. Most of the back roads of the Carolinas were open, the only nuisance present being the dust raised along the lesser traveled roads. Still, Mrs. Johnson asked us if we minded veering off down some side roads, as it was much nicer for stopping along the way at local farmer’s shops.

  “We should do it,” I said, interrupting Claudia before she could complain. My suggestion pleased Claudia less since she hated waiting while her mother poked through the roadside stores for local honey and jugs of fruit cider. That and we were within a couple of miles of the shore.

  “We can do it later,” said Irene, noticing Claudia’s long sigh. Never one to argue in front of outsiders, Irene said to me, “Listen to our plan. I thought we would dine at a seaside restaurant, take in some local color.”

  Her suggestion brought me out of my book, concerned that Irene might plan out the entire week unless I took action. “What a good idea. I’ve heard of a small grill along the beach.” I avoided the use of the word “bar” altogether. “Could we go there?” I asked.

  “Oh, Claudia, I’m glad we brought Flannery! She knows the area already,” said Irene.

  Claudia was surprised. She turned around from the front passenger seat and looked suspiciously at me. “I thought you said your family had never been to the beach?”

  “We haven’t. I’ve just heard of this one place is all,” I said, deciding to enlighten Irene, finally confessing, “It’s called Blankhead’s Neptune Restaurant. The locals call it Neptune’s.” When Irene did not flinch, I continued. “You can invite your college professor friend to come along. We’ll all go.” Irene could catch up with her friend at a private table leaving us two girls to join any other friends we might chance to meet.

  * * * * *

  Dottie Willoughby squealed when she laid eyes on her old college roommate. She led us into her house, a waterfront home that was certainly much bigger than the cottage that Irene had made it out to be. The green shag carpet was soft as Reverend Theo’s endless lawn.

  Dottie taught English at the local college. She explained in a long discourse how she had worked slavishly taking on teaching summer classes at UNC Wilmington to pay off her first house on the Southend and then, using its equity, bought this second home in the posh Marina neighborhood.

  “We should stay in your cottage then,” Irene offered. “I hate piling in on you like this.”

  “I forbid! Besides,” said Dottie, grinning, “it’s rented out for the entire summer. How do you think I’m getting this house practically for nothing?” She laughed. She was the type woman who could not stop giggling between sentences. “And finally enjoying a summer off,” she said. “Anyway, I want you all here where we can get into some trouble. Tonight I thought we’d grill off the back deck. Then my friend Mitch has a yacht not thirty yards from here. He said he could take us on a night cruise.” There was something in her voice that said she had a thing for Mitch.

  “So you’re still teaching at UNC?” asked Irene, accepting her offer of a cold drink.

  “I still do, yes. I keep a small house across the street from campus in Chapel Hill.” Dottie led Irene away from the girls into her dining room.

  Claudia and I unpacked in the guest room Dottie had prepared for us. Pink sheets and rosy quilts made the bedroom appear to blush the color of Pepto Bismol. I shared a bureau with Claudia, the top covered entirely with Dottie’s grandchildren’s framed photographs.

  “We’ve got to talk your mother’s friend out of the boat ride,” I said.

  Claudia laughed. “She is a gabby woman. She driving you crazy already?”

  “I made plans for us.”

  “Like what?”

  “Billy Thornton and some of his classmates are staying not far from here in a hostel.”

  “Billy Thornton’s friends? Your dance teacher? How could they be any fun?”

  “He’s fun to me. And you’d like him too. He’s not uptight like some of the other seniors,” I said, defending Billy. “I talked to him late last night on the phone. He told me right where they would be tonight and said we should look them up.”

  “Is he the reason you aimed my mother at the oyster bar?”

  “Yes.”

  Claudia laughed. “If you’d let me in on a few things, I could help out, you know. My mother’s not hard to turn around. But she can’t think I’m trying to meet boys or we’re done for.” She opened a closet and spied a record player. She squealed and pulled it down, plugging it in between the twin beds.

  I riffled through Dottie’s collection of records. Nothing before 1960 caught my attention but one. I put on a record by Billie Holiday. Daddy liked her, that I knew. I’d heard him playing her songs after Vesta had gone to bed. He danced with Mama to Billie Holiday. She always said I got my dance moves from Daddy, but she was being modest. Everyone said Alice Curry was the best dancer in Moore County and beyond.

  The last time he sat listening to the record, I heard him cry softly in the privacy of his bedroom. He played records that I knew he had taken from our closet. Those were the albums that made him think of Siobhan. He played Billy Holiday for my mother.

  A feeling of melancholy swept over me. “I think I’ve done something bad.”

  “You? Never,” she said, joining me, poking through the albums.

  “Tomorrow is the anniversary of the accident. I should have stayed, at least for Daddy’s sake.”

  “We can’
t have any fun if you’re going to be like that.” She made a silly face, trying to make me laugh.

  I knew she was right. Here I was oceanside, inviting along a funeral. “I’ll do better.”

  “You like your dance teacher, don’t you?” Claudia was smiling as if she knew everything about me, which she seldom did. She stretched across the bed she claimed for herself. “Don’t look at me like that. I figured it out a long time ago. He’s all you talk about.”

  “You know he’s a friend. My dance teacher is all and nothing more.” She and I had argued about a good many things. This was the first time she stuck her nose in matters pertaining to Billy though in such a way as to imply I had a thing for him. In spite of the dance competitions I had won and the long hours Siobhan and I had spent in training, Claudia scarcely acknowledged my dancer’s life away from our small circle of school friends. “You know Billy’s like a member of the family. Besides, he’s too old for me.” I changed the subject. “Let’s ask Dottie if we can boat tomorrow night. You’re prone to seasickness and don’t want to ruin the first day.”

  Claudia rolled onto her back, a smile forming.

  * * * * *

  I struggled with whether or not to call Billy’s hotel room from the telephone in our bedroom. He had not told me what time exactly he would show up at Neptune’s. Still, I wanted the evening to feel like a surprise and calling Billy again might cause him to give away my plan in a manner that might be all too evident to Irene. The afternoon was slipping away and the chances were that he was only just arriving at Wrightsville Beach. Claudia could wind her way around her mother but I was not as adept at manipulating a woman I admired. Then it took a lot of shameless begging on Claudia’s part to coax Dottie away from her grilling endeavors. She had already marinated half a dozen chicken breasts.

  “Ms. Willoughby, you shouldn’t spend the first night in the kitchen,” I finally said. “You and Irene need some time to catch up on things.”