Tiny Dancer

by Patricia Hickman

  “How thoughtful,” she said with much enthusiasm. “I don’t mind cooking for you all though, Flannery.”

  Claudia pinched me from behind. “Besides,” I said, “Claudia is prone to seasickness. That would be awful if she had to spend the week in bed.”

  “She is prone to nausea,” said Irene, casting her eyes at Claudia, woefully sympathetic. She gave me a bit of a wink, though. Claudia had grown up boating with her daddy. Irene was on to us and caving in all the way.

  Dottie was as much a sympathetic sort as Irene and did not want to ruin our first night in town. She acquiesced pretty as you please. Claudia and I were off to the guest room to doll up for the boys we hoped to meet soon at Neptune’s.

  Neptune’s was not quite filled up when we drove up to the little oceanside nightspot. I worried the women had gotten us here too early. The lanterns strung along the boardwalk lit up as a host seated us at an outdoor table. Dottie was ecstatic about the water view although Irene kept bringing a handkerchief to her nose unaccustomed as she was to fishy pier smells. Billy and his friends were nowhere in sight. Claudia and I made excuses and immediately headed for the women’s room and then took a turn around the entire restaurant.

  Irene had already ordered an appetizer when we returned and the ladies’ drinks were being served. She and Dottie were selecting a plate of steamed oysters to share, insisting we try them. Since it delayed our turn at choosing an entrée, I quickly agreed and Claudia followed my lead.

  Claudia hated the oysters even more than I did. But I kept trying them to keep the women talking about the food and to slow down their need to order entrees. Just as the waiter pressed us to make up our minds, I heard my name called from across the dock. I turned as casually as I could muster and had to hold back my elation upon seeing Billy grinning and waving. He led his group to the front door.

  “Would you look who just arrived?” I said to the ladies. I jumped up to cross the room but also to keep Billy from giving away the fact he had tipped me off to their plans. I greeted his friend Marcy who walked in behind him, her arm hooked inside his other friend Drake’s arm. Ashley, brought along by Marcy, shrieked upon sight, throwing her arms around me as if we were old friends. I barely remembered meeting her in the high school cafeteria seated with Billy’s friends. Irene and Dottie were smiling across the way at us and all my plans were coming together.

  “Isn’t this a surprise?” I asked Billy.

  A glimmer in his eyes, he did not give away my scheme. “Have you already eaten?” he asked.

  “Appetizers only,” I said, the residue of salt and slick seafood coating my tongue.

  “Good. Can you join us or would that be rude?”

  “I’ll ask,” said Claudia.

  I introduced Billy and the group to the women but insinuated myself between Jordan and Claudia whose attention lingered over the tanned youth, the one male not attached besides Billy. Claudia said to her mother, “You ladies must have so much to catch up on. Why don’t we join the young folks at their table and the two of you can go ahead and order your food?”

  The waiter was pleased and set to work taking Irene and Dottie’s orders.

  The boys led all of us to a double table that ran the length of the opposite side of the restaurant. Claudia prattled on about how much she and I had hoped beyond hope to meet up with someone we knew and here we finally did.

  “Where are you staying?” I asked, the name of the hotel escaping me as I looked into Billy’s eyes. I sat across from him but still next to Claudia. That placed Jordan across from Claudia who was soon lost in his amiable attention.

  “We’re staying at the Seashore Hotel, my first time,” said Marcy, nearly bursting with the freedom of being away from home. She had combed her straight hair back into a ponytail, but kept pushing her bangs out of her eyes as she talked. “It’s next to the Little Chapel on the Boardwalk. We’re not all eighteen yet, but Drake’s cousin runs the hotel desk and he let us slide tonight as long as we behave.”

  “No promises from me,” said Ashley, ecstatic to be out of town.

  “I wish we could stay at the hotel too,” said Claudia, the longing evident in her eyes. “We’re staying with my mother’s friend at her marina house on Cape Fear.”

  “That’s a rich side of town,” said Drake, impressed and familiar with the waterside neighborhood. “Better than a hotel.”

  “It’s just that my mother and her college professor friend, this Dottie, have their own ideas about what we’re supposed to do while we’re here.”

  “I think the girls are saying we rescued them, if I understand correctly,” said Billy, using a scholarly voice.

  “Yes. You did,” I said, wanting Billy to keep talking, to take up the night saying one funny thing after another. Whenever Marcy would talk too long or Drake would get caught up in telling about one of his drunken binges, I was fast to direct another question at Billy. I was careful not to show too much attention or else Claudia might suspect wrongly that I was interested in Billy, or even worse, Billy might wrongly think the same thing. I was careful to come off as nothing more than Billy’s little student.

  I sat back enjoying the attention of the wait staff that ran back and forth keeping our courses coming and filling our water glasses. I closed my eyes and imagined that this was my real life, this place near the ocean, lost in the music of this sociable company of friends. I was not the girl in the accident whose little sister had died. For four days I could disappear from Bitterwood Park and be a different Flannery entirely.

  * * * * *

  Dottie loaned Claudia and me two bikes to ride down the cobblestone lanes into the shopping district for a morning get-away. Billy had given me specific directions to find our way to the hotel. The houses warming in morning light gave way to little flower shops and cafes, strung together by bricked roads. We laughed and rode holding out our legs, jostled by the uneven brick lanes. I led nearly-giddy Claudia down through the neighborhoods to the business district, finally arriving at the trolley stop where we locked the bikes to a post and climbed aboard. The trolley circled through Wilmington and then straight over the bridge onto Wrightsville Beach.

  We got off the trolley and passed through a group of foreign students who eyed us with interest, but I kept leading Claudia on, past the cottages and the chapel until we stood in the center of the island looking up at the Seashore Hotel.

  Marcy met us down in the lobby to let the clerk know we were invited guests. While the two of us followed her down the long corridor leading to their rented room, Claudia was still gushing over our first day of independence. “I love you for this,” she said, walking beside me convivially. “I dread to think of what Dottie would be cooking up for us otherwise. She’s boring as hell. And there you kept it from me all the way from Bitterwood Park. You’re too good at keeping secrets.”

  We found them all sitting down to a breakfast of Cheerios and coffee in the girl’s room. Billy invited Claudia and me to join them. I got the usual side-embrace from him while he poured me coffee and offered me his chair. A song played from the radio, “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”. Drake said they had to turn up the radio to drown out the neighbors next door, a group of college students over from Spain.

  “Oh we saw them,” said Claudia, nudging me from behind.

  Ashley came out with her hair in a towel. “Look, you’re here! Glad you could find us. Now look, y’all! I’ve got a new do,” she said. “When I dry it out, I should be as red-haired as you, Flannery.”

  “I don’t know why anyone would go red on purpose,” I said, stirring another sugar cube into my coffee.

  “Why, my darling? I love your hair,” Drake said to me. “It’s like a poem.”

  I was taken with his attention although Marcy did not look altogether pleased. She managed a smile, all the while clinching her teeth. “Don’t let him charm you, Flannery,” she said. “He’s only interested in one thing.”

  “Love,” said Drake. “What’s wrong with t
hat?”

  “If you don’t like your hair, you can change it, you know.” Ashley pulled the towel off her head.

  Marcy squealed about the new color. “I’m coloring mine next!”

  “Me too!” said Billy, feigning female overtures. Billy was different when he was away from the dance studio. He was bobbing around the little hotel table parroting us girls, although Marcy did not appreciate his fairly accurate mimicry of her. I could not stop snorting.

  “Why don’t you change your hair color?” Claudia asked me. “You’ve always said you hated your red hair.

  “No,” said Billy as firmly as he could without sounding overbearing. “Vesta would kill us all if you came home altered.”

  “She would get over it,” I said. Billy could be too parental at times.

  Ashley was smiling wickedly. “Do you mean it?”

  By the afternoon, the girls gathered in a circle around me who they had seated in the middle of the room, my shoulders and clothing covered in towels. From the drugstore in town, Ashley selected an auburn color that might more easily cover over my natural red, or so she thought. Billy finally stopped complaining since nothing he could do or say could stop us women in our new pursuit.

  “Let’s hurry,” said Marcy, impatient we were losing the day in our frivolous makeover. She stared out the window at the lapping waves.

  “You know you might as well go all the way if you’re going for a dramatic change,” said Ashley.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, pretending I was as sophisticated Ashley.

  Claudia could not stop giggling.

  Ashley stood in front of me, pulling out the ends of my hair on both sides, demonstrating the long length when my curls were fully extended.“Bangs, right? Don’t you think, Marcy?” The two of them studied my features.

  “I agree,” said Marcy.

  “You’re not a hair stylist though are you?” I asked, my concern rising about putting myself entirely in their hands.

  “Why not? She cuts mine,” said Marcy. “And I cut hers.”

  “Do it! Do it!” said Claudia. “Then me next.”

  “Claudia, no. Irene would kill us both,” I said, sensing my little experiment getting out of hand.

  “But your hair is beautiful, Flannery,” said Billy.

  “Oh go on then and cut it,” I finally said, snickering and clinching my fists at my sides. Drake brought in sandwiches while the girls wiled away the afternoon fussing over me like I was their pet. Marcy pulled out some of her own clothes and even her jewelry. When I stepped out of the bathroom, the guys were taken aback.

  “You look amazing,” said Drake. “I had my doubts but look at you. You’re nineteen.” He stood next to me in front of the small bureau mirror, pulling me close to him. His fingertips brushed my breast.

  I flounced away from him so as not to look nervous to the older girls, all but sliding across the floor, trying not to trip in Marcy’s heeled pumps. But I gasped when I looked into the full-length mirror hanging on the closet door. “It’s black!” I said, shocked at my new hair color.

  Marcy and Ashley came behind me, each taking one of her arms. “You look like Liz Taylor,” said Ashley, looking jealous. “Exotic.”

  I had once heard someone remark my mother looked exotic.

  Then somewhat apologetically, Ashley said, “I chose black because it’s so hard to change red hair to dark, or so I’m told. Do you like it?”

  My curls were gone, smoothed into perfectly straight hair, trimmed just below my ears. But Billy was looking at me with a look I had seen only once when he would ogle one of the svelte older dancers. I had a picture etched in memory of Siobhan and I in our curly hair—Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Siobhan had called us that. “You’re Dum, though,” she liked to remind me. This new hairstyle erased all traces of Tweedle Dum, to say the least. I twirled and faced Ashley. “I love it.”

  By nightfall, Claudia had succumbed to a new hairstyle too, a short cut that took the weight off her natural curls, tumbling in soft waves around her round face. She pushed the hair away from her forehead with a red headband.

  “If I say so myself, you ladies look amazing,” said Billy.

  “And there you were trying to stop us,” said Ashley.

  I enjoyed all of their praise. The way Billy seemed to ogle me made me feel as if I was the one casting a spell.

  * * * * *

  Claudia had to arrange another night away from Irene and Dottie. She called her mother, saying that Billy wanted to give us a tour of downtown and then we were taking in a movie. After several begs, it was evident Irene was not wanting to release us into the company of older upperclassmen. Finally, as had always been the case, Irene caved.

  “We have to be back at Dottie’s by eleven, but we’re free,” said Claudia.

  “First, we’ll swing by Wits End,” said Drake.

  “Then we’ll end the night at the Pavilion,” said Marcy. “We have to, it’s custom.”

  “Shrimparoos, right?” asked Ashley. “I can’t believe I’m here.

  Billy acted unhappy, though, as usual treating me like I was forever six. “We can’t take them to Wits End. It’s a college bar. And the Lumina Pavilion is a dance club.”

  “Oh, yes, we are going,” I said. I had never lied to Billy and wasn’t about to start. But I didn’t want him using Claudia and me as the group’s wet blanket. “We won’t drink,” I told him, promising.

  “Not much,” said Claudia, only so I would hear.

  Marcy held open the door and we filed out. Billy slipped one arm into mine and the other into Claudia’s. “I’m keeping my eye on you two.”

  Claudia sighed and rolled her eyes, mouthing, “I told you so,” to me.

  I leaned into him, placing myself entirely in his care.

  Wits End was packed with college students, the line to get in extending out the front door. “Let’s make our own party,” said Billy, to which Drake and Marcy readily agreed. Ashley followed on their heels. They left in the car for food and drinks. Billy led Claudia and me down to the shore where we sat on the sand watching the sun go down.

  “This is Flannery’s first beach trip,” said Claudia, a bit of superiority in her tone.

  “I haven’t been here with Daddy and Vesta, is what I meant. My mother brought me here,” I said, correcting her. “I was three.” She wore a strappy sundress bordered in red. I wasn’t sure Daddy came along, but I remember sitting in her lap on a pier, our feet dangling far above the crashing waves. I was afraid but she kept telling me to close my eyes and pretend we were flying.

  “She was a pretty lady,” said Billy.

  I took my eyes off the sunset, surprised since he had never mentioned my mother. “You knew her?”

  “I was a student at the dance studio back then. But everyone noticed her leading you into the studio your first day. She was the prettiest lady in the room.”

  “And there I always thought Vesta was the stage mom in your life,” said Claudia.

  “She was,” I said. “My mother liked to dance too though. I guess she wanted me to be as good a dancer as she was.”

  “Runs in the family, then,” said Billy. “You were a natural.”

  He had never said that before either. He was a surprise a minute when away from his work at the studio. I wondered what else he knew about my mother. Daddy had made a pact with me never to discuss her leaving so I never had. When you’re age four, you just go along with what’s asked of you.

  Drake and the girls returned, hauling six packs of Pabst and Coke and grocery bags. Billy questioned Drake nervously about how he came about getting the beer. Drake said, “Friends in high places, old man.”

  Billy put Claudia and me to work shucking corn. He borrowed a shovel from a nearby cottage owner and dug the pit while Ashley and Marcy gathered stones. Drake walked down the shore and returned several times with driftwood.

  An hour later, the rocks were red hot. Billy and Drake tossed in sausages, potatoes, corn, a pile of l
obsters, garlic, two hefty flounders, and emptied a sack of clams.

  Our fire pit drew a group of students from the university. One student with a set of bongo drums joined a guitar player. The duet played some tunes while the guys tended the pit with seaweed. The six packs were quickly emptied and three fraternity brothers came whistling over a dune, hauling two kegs.

  Claudia struck up a conversation with two of the university girls, asking them what they knew about the campus journalism department. She accepted a beer but nursed it quietly. She was soon introduced to a good looking writing student much to Billy’s chagrin. He eyed the boys nervously as they gathered around Claudia and me. I was offered a beer but turned it down, quickly drawn into a conversation between two women who were law students. The only attorneys back home were men, so I was energized by their eagerness to waltz around the men only signs.

  By ten o’clock we were finishing up the clambake. I organized a clean up and we cleared the beach of any debris while Billy cleaned the pit area. He stretched out on one of the blankets the college girls had brought with them. He had drunk a bit too much and his eyes were half-mast.

  Claudia took advantage of our constant chaperone’s nap and joined her new university friends for a walk barefoot along the incoming tide. The moon sat in the black sky keeping its light all to itself contrasting the ocean that appeared ominous and dark. Drake drew another draft of cold beer from the nearly empty keg and invited me to join him and the beach walkers.

  “Maybe in a while,” I told him, seating myself on the blanket by Billy.

  Two girls ran toward the incoming tide, squealing when the water splashed around them. The smallest girl sounded exactly like Siobhan. I could not take my eyes off her until she disappeared up the shore into the dark. It was strange how I saw my sister all over again, and so often, even a year later. It was as if memory took hold of my reality, keeping her alive through everyday scenes that would never have the chance to happen. Was she in a place where she saw me everywhere she looked?

  It never occurred to me until now that we had never stopped being sisters. Even death could not separate our sisterly bond. But living attached to a relationship that was more suspended animation than a life of happy conjured memories was yet another painful obligation attached to my role as the survivor. I willed my phantom attachment to Siobhan from me as the tide receded. But, unlike my stupid hair, I could not cut it away or change its color.