Tiny Dancer

by Patricia Hickman

  “Theo, you and Dorothea own Periwinkle House.”

  “I guess you’re right about that,” he said

  “Did you sign Winston Grooms real estate contract?”

  “I did not. Wait on the Lord and He will give you strength,” he said. “I felt as if I should ponder it for a day or two, so I waited.”

  We sat planning Alice Curry’s funeral for the rest of the afternoon. It would be a beautiful ceremony, Theo said. A day of celebrating a woman who finally found peace and got everything she wanted. Like Theo said, Alice always got her way.

  Chapter 16

  Claudia nagged me enough until I went for my driving permit.

  She said we should celebrate. She had invited some classmates and even some of the graduates down to the lake for one more day of swimming before school started. That meant Billy, she said. I tried not to react.

  When he came padding down toward the dock with Drake in tow, I said, “One last swim, before everyone disappears.”

  “Look, do you see that boat?” asked Billy who pointed to a small motorless craft turned upside-down.

  “No,” said Claudia. “Where?”

  “It’s abandoned,” I said.

  “Then it’s ours for the taking,” said Drake. He immediately set off, swimming toward the overturned boat. Billy followed close behind, so I dove in behind him. I aimed for the deep water beneath Billy, bubbles effervescing from my nose and rising until I was sure I had engulfed Billy in my froth. I started rising through the swirling water, opaque as underwater caverns, leaf droppings floating and sticking to me like discarded shells from Theo’s sunflower seeds. Then brushing against my back were sinewy thighs, bristly hair like wires, and then higher, a boy’s bare chest. I wanted to stay cupped next to him but needed to come up for air. By the time I plowed through the water’s surface sucking in air, Billy yelled, “What in the world? I thought I was being swallowed by a big catfish.”

  I bobbed around, facing him. “Just me,” I said. I took off swimming, but Drake was too fast to catch. Billy caught up with me, though I was determined not to let him reach the boat ahead of me. Our hands slapped the hull at the same time.

  Drake had disappeared under the bow, but came out the other side. “I found a rope attached, the tie rope.” He used it to bring the small craft around and then frog-stroked toward shore. Billy and I each held a side of the boat, helping with the tow.

  We raked the craft onto the rock-littered shore south of the private dock. Drake and Billy flipped it.

  “Where did it come from?” asked Billy.

  “Probably someone wanting to try and sink it for the insurance,” said Claudia. “Daddy says it happens a lot.”

  “Or it just broke its mooring,” I said, examining the tie rope that showed much wear, but not as much as the boat, all the paint worn off. The craft was worthless so Claudia’s theory was out of the question.

  “Let’s see if it’s seaworthy,” said Billy and he immediately began pushing her back into the water.

  Claudia ran to fetch two oars off her father’s boat, “Wait and check for leaks,” she said.

  None of us seemed to consider we could go boating in a perfectly good ski boat not thirty yards from us. A new adventure presented itself and we had no choice but to follow it.

  I waded alongside Billy until shoulder deep again in the lake. I told Billy, “Give me a hand.” He did and pushed me into the boat. I took an oar while Claudia held the other one. Marcy climbed in followed by the three other girls who had to come along too.

  I sat next to Billy basking in the laughter and even Drake’s crude stories.

  “Give me that paddle, Peaches, you’re such a weakling,” he said, taking the paddle from me. He was never going to stop calling me that.

  Marcy sat next to him on the middle seat. I gave my paddle to her and they both paddled slowly toward the first white buoy in the lagoon.

  I sat shivering so Billy put his arm around me. Claudia sat in the front seat next to the two girls but she kept her eye on Billy and me. She took great pains to watch aft and yell whenever she suspected we were nearing a rock. She knew the lagoon well. “Slow down,” she warned the paddlers.

  Minnows twirled, tiny noctilucent lozenges spinning near the surface reflecting sunlight like mirrors.

  “ I think my lips are blue,” I said, hunched over, shivering and burrowing against Billy’s bare stomach. Something about the levity of the simple presence of friends made me feel less nervous about my skin touching his. The girls were giggling and Drake was entertaining them, trying to sing, although off key. I looked up and Billy was staring off.

  “What are you thinking about?” I asked.

  “Like you said, soon all of us will be gone,” he said.

  “Not us,” said Marcy, laughing and leaning toward Drake’s bare shoulder. She kissed him affectionately and he turned and gently pushed her hair out of her eyes.

  Drake was going off to school in Boston. We all knew they would not last as a couple, but why spoil the day with such somber realities. We’d had enough of those over the summer.

  “Since you’ve turned down your big break at show business, I guess you’ll be back in school in a couple of weeks,” said Billy.

  “I’m going to give Claudia a run for her money,” I said, loud enough so she might hear.

  She ignored me.

  He did not act surprised at all. “I’m proud of you.”

  Claudia yelled the boat was taking on water.

  “Then you and Claudia will go off and live in a dorm,” he said.

  I lowered my voice. “Claudia and I would kill each other.”

  We were rounding the buoy and heading back to shore.

  Claudia squealed, “I said, we’re taking on water, hurry!”

  I felt the first wet seepage of water hit my bare feet in the bottom of the boat. “Oh dear, we might get wet,” I said, laughing.

  Billy laughed too. I liked making him laugh.

  “I’m going to miss you,” I said, but then I got up rocking the boat, causing the boat to list.

  “Sit down, Peaches! You’ll send us all overboard,” said Drake.

  “Get down, get down!” Claudia yelled, snorting.

  I was in a hysteria by now. I placed one bare foot on the side of the boat and leaned forward. The old skiff took on water as I suspected it might. I jumped back into the lake while all of them were yelling after me I had abandoned ship. I wanted to be the first back to shore. I climbed the ladder onto the dock, running for a dry towel.

  I hated the melancholy rhapsody playing over the speakers now. Seemed like one I had heard sung on Theo’s porch. At any rate, it brought back the memory of Vesta sending the cops down on Theo.

  “Let’s go inside with Flannery,” Marcy squealed, referring to the grocery and bait shop on the dock. “I’m freezing.” They were each diving in one at a time and finally abandoning the old boat.

  First Drake and Marcy plunked stones into the black water. Billy, Claudia and the other girls followed, swimming toward shore like madness had consumed them all. Then they spilled onto the beach, clambering uphill and onto the deck fighting for towels.

  “We could drop a concrete block in it and sink it for good,” said Claudia.

  I liked her idea. The old skiff would turn to rot and the fish would feed around it and create a first-rate fishing spot. “Such a good use for it,” I said, since it never works out to hold onto something that did not belong to you in the first place.

  * * * * *

  I got home and found the house empty. I went to the back porch and that was when I

  nearly swallowed my gum. The sheer numbers, thirty or more men, milled around in Theo’s yard, some in business suits.

  I panicked. But Winston Grooms and his investors were long out of the picture, at least I thought so.

  I calmed down when I saw HuiLin the middle of the group giving a speech.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “C
ome help,” said HuiLin. She welcomed me and introduced me as the great friend of Minister Theo Miller.”

  I could not muster a single intelligent thought. “Who are these people?” I asked.

  “They all from my church,” said HuiLin.

  “We are from Singapore,” said one woman who, like the men, had come from work, it seemed. For she wore an expensive dark suit over a crisp white blouse. “But our business is here in America.”

  “This is Mrs. Huang, she got a dry cleaning business outside Raleigh. Mr. Jin, he work at a bank.”

  “I know your dear father,” Mr. Jin said to me. “He do very honorable work guarding the services of the bank.”

  One after another introduced himself or herself to me.

  “We are here for the Honor Garden,” said Hui Lin. “I think you will break ground first, yes?”

  “Me?” I asked, for she surprised me.

  Hui Lin kept glancing toward the Miller’s house. She said something to one of her colleagues but I couldn’t understand her. There was a lot of talk that followed, but finally Mr. Jin agreed to fetch Theo.

  Each of them held a bright new garden tool. Some held spades, other hoes, but all of them had come to plant.

  “On this burned out lot?” I asked.

  “We bring good soil,” said HuiLin.

  “I order the dirt,” said Mrs. Huang, obviously proud of her role. The dump truck came backing down the side of our yard not two minutes later.

  “You know how to do it,” said HuiLin. “I watch you work alongside Minister Miller. You work good, he tell me. You give us what to do, yes?”

  “Let me fetch Dorothea first,” I said, confusion rattling my thoughts for HuiLin had awful timing.

  Just yesterday morning, Theo had signed a lease permitting Vesta and Daddy to live in Periwinkle House until my eighteenth birthday. Then he declared the property would fall into my hands. I could do whatever I wanted with it, he said.

  I felt it would be one birthday that would not be forgotten. Considering the circumstances, I had reminded Vesta that Theo Miller was showing her the grace she had never shown to him. He could have evicted her or charged her with trespassing. But he didn’t.

  “Sorry we’re late,” said Theo. Behind him, trailing down the hill from his hothouse, came a stream of people pushing wheelbarrows full of the resuscitated potted plants. I recognized each person for there was Aunt Rosetta and all of the aunts. Every man, woman, and child that had come to a Miller pig picking got rounded up to get those plants down the hill. “We ready?” he asked Hui Lin.

  She handed the spade to me. I shoveled the first hole from the burned out surface. Right underneath that charred spot, the soil was black and rich.

  Rosetta started up a song.

  Dorothea let her finish, rolling her eyes. “Let’s get to planting.”

  Everybody was talking and laughing. Men were getting their polished shoes all covered in dirt, but did not seem to care. Then a big hush fell over everyone.

  I looked at Theo who was looking over my head.

  Vesta had come home. She stood with her arms akimbo, staring like we were bugs crawling around on the soil. She saw the dump truck and the tracks in the lawn.

  The Asian driver stopped when he saw Vesta yelling and waving her arms. “You’re in the wrong yard,” said Vesta.

  “He’s not,” I said. “He’s in the right place.”

  “You know about this?” asked Vesta.

  The driver proceeded after I motioned him to carry on.

  The church members stood encircling the entire garden holding up the plants. HuiLin held a finger to her mouth, “Excuse us, Mrs. and Miss Curry. We offer a prayer of blessing now.”

  A hush fell over the faces of the men and women as they held the potted plants over their heads. One pleasant-faced man I could only assume was their minister said a prayer in what might have been Malay or Mandarin. I could not understand the words, but I felt the same something much like when Dorothea prayed or the aunts. When we opened our eyes, HuiLin ordered the truck to back up and pour the ton of dirt onto the burned soil.

  “Now hold on here, you can’t do this,” said Vesta. “Flannery, you tell them to stop, you talk to HuiLin and let her know I said they can’t do this.”

  “She understands you, you tell her,” I said.

  Vesta marched out into the dead center of the circle of friends. She turned one way and then the other. Then she walked up to one of the men. That was when she noticed the first plant and then another. “Wait, where did you get these plants? Flannery?“

  “They’re from your trash barrel, aren’t they, Mrs. Curry?” said a booming voice. Reverend Theo walked up beside me. “I rescued them for you, ma’am.”

  Vesta was getting choked up, seeing each plant covered in new blooms

  “They were dead, now made alive,” said Theo quietly. “Like your daughter, Siobhan. Like my Anton. They’re gone from here but on the other side, they’re blooming again.”

  Vesta fell onto her knees, sobbing while still cradling the potted daisies. “But why save the funeral flowers?”

  “For her,” he said, holding up the red sash. He took a big wooden stake and tied the sash to it, and stood holding it where the garden touched both his property and the Curry’s. He spoke so all of those gathered could hear. “One day a year ago in June I looked up and saw a little girl standing just inside my garden. I think she was hiding out. I came to see about her, but I found her crying. She didn’t want to dance, she told me. She wasn’t as good as the others, she said. So I invited her to show me, Let me be the judge. She was not what I would call shy. She just lifted right up onto her toes, humming, dancing, spinning. She seemed to bring nature to life for my garden had not come into itself, the seeds were only sprouting.”

  Vesta could not speak upon sight of the red sash.

  “I never forgot that tiny dancer giving me the best gift she could have ever given me, the beauty of her dancing soul. But then when I heard what had happened later on that day, I drove straight to the hospital and there found her surviving sister, Flannery, in good shape. But the news about the younger child was grievous,” he said.

  “I knew that was you,” I said.

  “I went home and knelt right where Siobhan had danced, where she had sown tears into my garden. I realized then that I was living in a state of grace. He who sows in tears will reap joy.”

  I felt Dorothea’s fingers slip into mine.

  “When I saw the dead plants in your trash barrel, Mrs. Curry, something said to me, save them. Now I know why.”

  Vesta got up, backing somberly out of the garden. She approached Reverend Theo and said, “Please forgive me, I’m a sinful woman.” He held her for a good long while, her face in his shoulder. She sobbed, comforted by Dorothea’s hand on her back. Good thing they had experience holding people up.

  HuiLin’s friends joined hands, bowed their heads and did not move the whole time Vesta cried. They said she was sowing tears into the garden.

  * * * * *

  It took two whole days to plant every potted plant. Some of them, Theo said, were cuttings, but there were nearly five hundred plantings in all.

  I got up each morning to water one side. Theo watered the other and we met in the middle.

  Saturday morning Daddy sat on the back porch and watched Dorothea and I. We wove the water hoses in and around the stakes exercising care, for they were sacred in a sense.

  HuiLin’s friends had argued over the staking of the garden, but finally everyone had a say. There were a collection of garden stakes marking each row the entire width of the garden, some for ancestors, but in the middle of the garden’s edge, not far from the drooping cherry trees that forever preached of a time when both properties were joined, one stake went into the ground wrapped in the red sash. Next, Anton Miller’s stake held equal prominence, painted sunflower yellow and wrapped in blue hair ribbons that fluttered merrily in the wind—his daughters said he would have liked it
.

  While the garden did not feed peoples’ bellies, it was said it fed their souls, and that was just as good.

  I joined Daddy in the shade of the porch where he poured my coffee and gave me a donut.

  Fall turned to winter and then came spring. The garden had wintered over, but as each plant pushed its way back through the surface, past the stratum of scorched earth, pressing through the new gift of dirt to lift leaves to the sun, I breathed a sigh of jubilation. I should have faith, Reverend Theo told me on the cold days when it seemed the garden had died. A garden takes on a life all its own when many hands have laid aside differences to bind its wounds.

  By May, I tied with Claudia for top class rank. Claudia pretended she did not care. “Doesn’t matter,” she said and she was right. It did not matter to her, but I was exceedingly relieved to hear announced over the school’s public address system senior year—Flannery Curry will speak at graduation, class Valedictorian.

  Following our graduation ceremony that seemed to come as swift as lightning, I walked away from Claudia and the girls giggling and excited for the all-night parties that lay ahead. For I wanted to thank the Millers who waited out in the corridor.

  Dorothea made me promise, “Send me letters, tell me how you’re doing in college. Or when you meet, you know, the one.”

  I resolved I had yet to meet “the one.” Even the hope of Billy Thornton seemed far off. He left for Europe, like he said he would. We had not seen him since.

  Then there was one more summer stretching before us and a return to Lake Sequoia. It would be our last summer as girls, it was said of us. Claudia had once asked me if we would look back on that summer as the worst tragedy ever. But now both Claudia and I knew the truth—our womanhood had been shaped by that long, hot sunflower summer.

  “Full scholarship,” I said the day the letter arrived. I showed the letter to Daddy who had settled happily back into his job as bank guard. Vesta was happy to know that I had decided not to evict her. She and Daddy could live in Periwinkle House as long as they lived—and kept up the mortgage payments. After all, the house was their obligation.