Last Dance Page 4

  Beth Rose muttered, “You had to mention mice. I hate mice.” She ran her hands through her hair searching for mice, until they all laughed and began telling her the mice were hiding out a little to the left, and down—yes—there they were! Quick, grab them!

  And Molly watched, and heard, and hated.

  Chapter 3

  EMILY’S FEET WERE NARROW and already tan from the first weekends at the beach. Her beach sandals had two wide straps, but the dancing sandals she was wearing this Saturday night had one thin silver strap. Her tan lines were like pale shadows of the silver strap. She was wearing pink polish on her toes, darker than the pink on her fingernails, and now she had grass stains on her sandals.

  If I run much more, she thought, I’ll tear the straps. These shoes aren’t strong. She had bought the shoes very inexpensively, thinking of them as shoes for a single night. Now she wondered if these were going to be her only shoes for a long time to come.

  She was shaking all over.

  They screamed at me, she thought. They felt like killing me. How can I live with either one of them? What am I going to do now?

  She came out through a backyard, crossed another set of gardens, and emerged on Maplewood Lane. Going through people’s yards, she was still pretty close to her own house. By car, however, this would take a half mile of maneuvering. It would never occur to her parents to look for her on Maplewood.

  Fighting tears, she thought it would never occur to her parents to look for her at all. They didn’t really want her. She stood next to a lilac bush, its blooms spent, its thicketlike growth protecting her from half the street. She thought, That scene in my bedroom—it worked out the way they wanted it to! Now they can blame me instead of each other. Now it’s my fault that I don’t have a parent or a home. After all, I’m the one who ran off instead of being reasonable and choosing one of them.

  She stared at the houses on Maplewood. Colonial in style, they had all been built about twenty years before, and now the trees and shrubs were thick and full. There were no sidewalks, because nobody expected to walk anywhere. She felt very obvious and very stupid, strolling along Maplewood in her silver sandals. And now that I’m here, Emily thought, what do I do?

  Someday I will live in a real city. Chicago or New York. And when I walk, I will walk with a million other walkers, and I will not feel dumb because sidewalks will be my life. I will blend in with crowds, not hunch around pretending to be a maple tree.

  Her dress was pastel green and rather long, only four or five inches above her ankles. It was dotted with silver knots and a silver rope was loosely tied a little below her waist. She didn’t normally care for pastels, because to Emily they looked faded-pale rather than on-purpose-pale, and she felt the dull colors faded her, too. But Matt had gone with her to buy the dress, and he loved the tiny silver knots all over the fabric and didn’t appear to notice the dull green beneath them. She bought the dress for him.

  She walked to the end of Maplewood, forgetting there was no outlet. At the turnaround, there was nothing to do but walk in a circle around the circle and head toward the other end of Maplewood.

  Who on Maplewood did she know well enough to ask if she could use their phone and call Matt to come get her?

  I could just go up to a stranger’s house, she thought, telling herself to be brave and poised. Tell them my predicament. Ask to use the phone. But it was a toll call. And she had not stopped for her purse. There’d be so many explanations. And how many people, after all, did Emily want to tell this to? “Pardon me, may I use your phone, my parents threw me out, and I need a ride to a dance.” It sounded at best as if Emily was not playing with a full deck.

  Somebody peered at her from a side window.

  How stupid she must look! A summer dancing dress, silver slippers, no purse, no companion, no destination. Everybody on Maplewood would know everybody else. They would know she wasn’t a burglar; not the type. But they would wonder what a high school girl was doing wandering up and down a dead-end street. A dead-end person, no doubt?

  All the old familiar feelings of worthless-ness swept back over Emily Edmundson. Back before Matt: back when feeling faceless and personality-free were everyday feelings for her. It was remarkable what confidence could do for you. She got the same grades, she spoke in the same voice, she had the same hair; but the girl she had been six months ago was a zero. Matt gave her confidence, shoring her up like dikes around Holland. Only the week before, Emily had thought that if anything happened between her and Matt, she would still be the new Emily: the confident strong Emily.

  But now with her home vanished like dishwater down the drain—without even a purse full of identification to prove who she was, and what she did—Emily felt worthless.

  She could not seem to get enough air into her lungs.

  The only word that seemed to move around in her head was Matt, Matt, and it spun like clothes in the dryer of her mind, flipping, rotating, dashing itself against the spinning metal sides of her skull, until she had a terrible headache.

  Two houses from the end of Maplewood, she stopped walking. If she came out on North Street, she would be walking on the street her mother would take driving to Lynnwood. Could she bear seeing her mother? Emily’s mother had not been kidding when she said come now, or don’t come. Don’t come? Could any mother really mean that? Yes, Emily Edmundson thought, mine meant it.

  Emily wanted to be at the dance, where the kids she knew were laughing and being silly and hugging hello and kissing good-bye. She wanted to be with Matt, whose family style was loud constant talk and advice and half crazy companionship of all ages.

  Someone came out of the house next to her and said, “Is it—Emily Edmundson? Emily? Are you all right?”

  The girls giggled on the terrace and the boys talked sports. Mike and Con stood as close together as dates, and Kip and Anne exchanged glances and decided not to comment on how eagerly, how quickly, their boys moved into a safety zone of other boys. They studied the questionnaires, laughing. Kip started to tell them that she was the one born on an ocean liner, but decided not to. She wanted them to ask her! And then she would tell them the long crazy ridiculous story, with all the details her mother always put in. She knew the story by heart.

  Anne said, “There’s nothing here about the L word.”

  Beth Rose laughed. “That’s because not a single boy in all Westerly High has ever used the L word.”

  Kip said, “We should give away VCRs. That’s our whole problem. We aren’t offering a big enough prize! If we said to our dates, use the L word and you get a VCR, then we’d have a chance!”

  They managed to laugh at everything they said, an impenetrable trio. They did not know that it made the boys nervous, the way they became a solid unit, and they did not know that Molly was aching to be a fourth in their group. They would never have asked Molly to be with them. Anne because of her new knowledge; Beth Rose because she had seen Molly at her worst many times; and Kip because she had always despised Molly.

  Molly didn’t buy candy bars when the school band was raising money for new uniforms. Molly wouldn’t take an hour to sell school pins when the basketball team was raising money for summer basketball camp scholarships. Molly wouldn’t sign the petition to get the student parking lot resurfaced. She wouldn’t even raise her hand to vote during student government meetings because she skipped them and went shopping instead.

  Neither Kip nor Beth Rose knew that Con had spent many an evening with Molly, because Con at least had enough brain to sneak through that relationship, and Molly at least had enough brain not to demand more from Con. So the only person who knew, incredibly, was the last person Con wanted to have know: Anne, herself.

  Behind the girls, Molly stood burning.

  She had never really had a female friend. She had never really been able to stand in a huddle like that and giggle with girls. They’re just jealous of me because I always have boys, she thought. They make a wall of their pretty expensive dresses to keep me o
ut because they’re jealous of me.

  Molly decided to start the problems between Anne and Con by seeing to it that Anne was a nuisance to Con. When Anne set her purse down on a chair, Molly waited a few minutes until everybody was distracted and then she simply took the purse and moved it across the ballroom and slid another girl’s lacy white sweater over it. Anne was the kind of girl who traveled with everything she owned: from little Kleenex packs to extra pens; from two lipstick shades to an out-of-date school ID. Anne’s purse was something she turned to constantly the way Molly herself turned to a boy: oh, dear me, Molly would cry, I forgot to bring any money! Oh, Jimmy, can you buy me a soda? And Jimmy always would. Or Roddy, or Paul, or Jared, or whoever Molly was seeing at the time. Anne had never seen anybody except Con; she knew nothing. She was a fool.

  Molly slid near the group again. Any time now Anne would have to have her purse for something, and it would be gone, and she would make Con search for it, and Con hated things like that. While Con poked hopelessly, trying to locate it, going back to the car for it, hearing Anne whine about it, she, Molly, would look at Con in sympathy.

  And he would look back, and wish he was with her instead of Anne.

  From the large assortment of cars in the O’Connor driveway and yard, Matt chose the old station wagon. It went through gas like fire through a forest, but it had a great radio, and it was the only car with air-conditioning. He put on his seat belt, turned the radio up nice and loud, and set off. One good thing about old station wagons: they were built for power. Touch that accelerator, and you’re in the next state. Emily liked the wagon because of the radio and because she was always getting exhausted on one of Matt’s drives (he liked to say they were going for a “little drive” and come back four hours later) and she could sleep in the back. He loved driving a car with her asleep. It made him feel trusted.

  Matt took the turnpike to Emily’s, which he didn’t usually do: too many state police around. Plus it was boring. Straight roads, nothing happening. Matt liked narrow curving roads, on cliff edges, with steep inclines, because Emily always screamed, “Matt! Don’t drive off the edge!” and then Matt could always answer, “Oh, M&M, you spoil all the fun. I was really looking forward to an air drive.”

  He decided he would just cruise slowly past the Edmundson home, first, see if any bodies were in the yard, if moving vans were pulling away, that kind of thing.

  He had forgotten to put snacks in the car after all. Well, he had the extra ten from his father; he would stop off with M&M at the Dairy Queen and—oh, no! he’d forgotten—they were’ actually on their way to a dance. He looked nervously down to see if he’d dressed properly, and he had, so that was all right. He glanced in the mirror to see if he’d run a brush through his straight dark hair, and he had, so that was all right, too.

  He decided not to take exit 67, which would take him through four traffic lights on the way to her house, but exit 66, so that he could cut through the industrial park and on up to her house the other way.

  Matt swung left, then right, and thought about Emily living with them. He really could not imagine such a thing. The whole idea of a girl in his house—other than his mother—was something he could not even get a grip on. On the other hand—Emily living with her mother was impossible, because Mrs. Edmundson didn’t even like Emily. Matt always felt that Mrs. Edmundson had had someone else in mind entirely when she gave birth to that baby girl and felt cheated that the girl was Emily.

  Matt didn’t feel cheated.

  He adored Emily.

  He thought once Mr. Edmundson calmed down, Emily should live with him. Emily’s dad was an okay person as long as Emily’s mother wasn’t around. He could be funny and affectionate. It was just that the last several months had been such hell for them that the funniness and love were submerged in the separation fights.

  Matt thought he would convince Emily to go back to her father’s place after the dance, and he was pretty sure he could talk Mr. Edmundson into this, too.

  Now the problem was to locate her.

  Matt turned down North Street. Only a few blocks to go.

  It was Christopher Vann.

  Few people had made bigger fools of themselves than Christopher had at last autumn’s big dance when he went with Molly. He’d gotten so drunk he got into a fight with the band and had to be forcibly removed by the police. Emily and Matt had gotten to the dance very late and missed the entire scene, but of course they had heard every detail over and over from Kip and Mike, Beth Rose and Gary. Everybody thought it served Molly right, but not many people stopped to wonder about Christopher.

  Christopher had been a shining star when he graduated and went on to an Ivy League school, but something happened between Westerly and college. Nobody really knew what, because Christopher confided in nobody and went out with girls who wouldn’t care what his problems might be as long as he paid for the evening and the evening was fun.

  Emily barely knew him: he was two years older than she, and when he was a junior, she was a freshman and definitely in her prime wallflower years. When she was in ninth grade, had she spoken aloud even once to a boy? Ninth grade had been a little like having her jaw wired: when she saw boys, Emily’s mouth clamped shut and neither words nor smiles came out.

  So turning to see who was speaking to her, she was amazed to see Christopher at all and terribly pleased that he knew her name and had recognized her. Christopher had lost that extra weight he’d been carrying the fall before and was looking very tan and fit again. “Why, Christopher,” she said, “you look great! How are you? I’m so glad to see you.”

  “What are you doing wandering around Maplewood?” Christopher asked, laughing a little. He had a sophisticated smile—not at all like Matt’s goofy grin.

  “Just taking a walk,” she said. She could not decide what to tell Christopher, if anything. “You’re so tan for mid-June, Christopher! What are you doing these days?” she managed to say.

  “I’m the lifeguard at the pool at Rushing River Inn. It’s a great job. I just sit there and soak up the sun. Every now and then I teach a little swimming to some kids. Nothing ever happens. I listen to a lot of radio.” Emily did not know that her breathless tension looked to Christopher like a girl panting to be in his arms. She did not understand the grin that was sliding over his lips and the thoughts that he was having.

  “And next fall?” said Emily.

  “Next fall, I’m going to Central State,” he said. Emily was glad that somebody’s life was working out after all. It did not occur to her that Christopher might be bitter about going to an ordinary school or about having lost a year.

  His smile was so smooth. It reassured her. Maplewood Lane was a road for happy families: you could tell by the shady trees and the neat trim around the white houses and the wonderful smell of steak being barbecued a few houses away. Emily didn’t stop to think that her own street looked and smelled exactly the same.

  Maplewood Lane seemed to Emily a sign that all would be well before long. The sun had not yet set, the air was warm, her parents would calm down, and Matt would show up.

  Resting on these hopes, Emily said, “Actually, I’m halfway running away from home.”

  Emily tended to believe that other people were trustworthy. She tended to think that a nice smile meant a nice person, and that someone who had problems of his own would understand and care about hers. She said, “Oh, Christopher, it’s my parents. I love my father, but he’s been so awful lately because he’s so mad at my mother, and now she’s moving out, which is a blessing, but she says I have to live with her or she’ll never speak to me again, and my father said if I even go with her for a minute I can’t live with him either, and I…I just ran off.” At the last minute she did not confide that her mother and father both had been ready to smack her. The vision came back, horrifying her all over again, and she thought, Matt, oh, Matt, come for me! The sick feeling hit her stomach again, and Emily put a hand over her mouth, feeling nauseated.

&nbs
p; “Great dress to run in,” Christopher observed, taking a fold of the material between his fingers. “I love these little silver knots!” He released the skirt, with its excess fabric, and ran his fingers very lightly over the knots of silver thread. He followed the seam of the dress up the sides and over to the silver heart necklace with its short silver chain. “You planning to camp out here on Maplewood in this dress?”

  Emily stepped back. She could not deal with this on top of all her other problems. She wanted to step farther back, but it seemed rude.

  Christopher’s smile stayed just the same, as if he were a photograph and not a person.” And practical running shoes, too, Emily. I admire your choice.”

  Imagine being nervous of somebody I know perfectly well when we’re standing in the front yard on Maplewood Lane, and ten other houses are watching us. I just don’t have enough experience, she thought. “I’m on my way to a dance,” she explained, forgetting that she did not know Christopher perfectly well—she did not know him at all.

  Christopher tilted his head. “Without a man in your life? Allow me.”

  Emily struggled to paste a smile on her face to show him it was nice of him to be gallant. “Well, my boyfriend was coming for me, but my mother hung up on him, and if he does drive down, here, he won’t know where to find me, and I’m not really sure what to do.” She took a breath before asking if she could make a toll call on his phone, and Christopher said, “So where’s the dance? At the high school again?” Christopher shook his head slightly. “I was a little out of it that time, but as I recall the theme was pumpkins. I laughed so hard.”

  Emily said uncomfortably, “Actually the dance is at Rushing River Inn.”

  “No kidding?” Christopher took her arm and guided her toward his front door.

  “If I could use your phone and call the O’Connors,” Emily said hesitantly, “then I could probably straighten this out.”