Last Dance Read online

  “Nah, I’ll just take you there. He’ll show up. Don’t worry. Just let me get my license and my car keys. You think I’m dressed up enough for a dance?”

  Christopher—asking if he was dressed up enough? Although he certainly did look good in a shirt and jeans, most of the boys would wear a jacket and tie. But he’ll only be dropping me off, she thought, so what difference does it make? She said, “Christopher, if I could just use your phone? And if you don’t mind, the bathroom, too—I—um—it’s been—”

  But Christopher did not head for the door to his house. He opened the car door instead. It was a beautiful scarlet sports car and even as he led her to it he smiled at the car, adoring it, and himself in it. Emily wanted to rip her arm free and race across the grass and—

  What is the matter with me? Emily thought. Am I such a jerk that the only solution I have to anything is racing around backyards? I cannot spend my whole life coping by running away!

  Her stomach hurt so much now she felt as if they should go to the clinic, not the dance.

  “I love to crash parties,” Christopher said, with the same smooth smile. “You’ll be my ticket, Emily.” And he linked his arm in hers, securely, like a chain.

  It was not that Anne needed anything, it was just the female habit of checking to be sure her purse was where she had left it.” What’s the matter? Con asked, watching her.

  “My purse. It’s gone.”

  “Got to be right there,” Con said.

  “It isn’t. Con, I know I set it on this chair.”

  “You must not have,” Con said tiredly. “Because the chair is empty.”

  “Which purse was it?” Beth Rose asked. “That big white straw one?”

  “No. The big pink leather bag.” Anne kept turning, as if the purse must be lying at an angle to her vision, and if she just found the right place to stand, she would spot it. Molly hid a grin.

  “What did you bring it for anyway?” Con asked irritably. “You never need any of that stuff you’re always hauling around.”

  Molly loved how everybody reacted on cue. Even Gary, who usually leaped to help any damsel in distress, didn’t leap this time. Beth Rose, if she carried a purse at all, carried tiny cloth ones on long shoulder straps so that the purse dangled, hardly noticed. Tonight Beth Rose had a tiny clutch bag in silver fabric with sparkles. Molly saw how Gary looked with satisfaction at his girlfriend, who didn’t lug suitcases around and then lose them and embarrass him.

  Beth Rose said, “Well, maybe you left it in the car, Anne. Con, why don’t you go look in the car for her?”

  Con glared at Beth Rose and then controlled himself and said, “I don’t think she—”

  “I didn’t leave it in the car. I distinctly remember putting it on the chair,” Anne said. “Somebody must have taken it.”

  Con heaved a sigh. An enormous sigh, out of all proportion to the problem. A sigh that implied that Peace in the Middle East rested upon Con’s shoulders. Now Beth Rose glared at Con, and Gary muttered to Beth Rose to take it easy, and Mike looked at the sunset and whispered to himself alone, “Girls.”

  Molly was happy.

  The pool was shaped in an L, with the smaller end very shallow for kids to wade in safely. Along one side were beds of flowers, mostly scarlet geraniums, with a very narrow strip of cement between them and the pool to prevent leaves and mulch from actually getting in the water.

  It was hot outdoors, but nothing really had started indoors. Nobody felt like dancing, mostly because nobody else had started dancing, and nobody felt like eating, because they weren’t hungry yet, and half the girls were on diets anyway. They held their questionnaires and didn’t ask anybody anything, because it just seemed dumb, and faked. So they wandered out of doors and made a few remarks about how lovely Mount Snow was, and then they wandered down near the pool and gazed at the water and wished they were in bathing suits instead of dancing clothes, so they could go swimming and cool off.

  Mr. Martin, who was an assistant manager of the resort, was a big bearded man with an enormous belly. He was wearing a very nice suit with a bright paisley vest and a solid color tie that picked up the gaudiest color in the paisley vest. Indoors, with the air-conditioning, he was very comfortable. Outdoors, in the heat, he began perspiring by the bucketful and became crabby.

  “Lee!” he yelled at one of his waiters.

  Lee was seventeen, and had graduated that very Saturday afternoon from Lynnwood High. All sensible Lynnwood High grads were off partying in Lynnwood this very minute, but Lee unfortunately had to work. Lee was not in a good mood, and all these happy Westerly kids made him very, very irritable. He didn’t think much of Westerly anyhow, especially since Westerly had beaten Lynnwood in every single sport Lee was in this year: wrestling, track, and tennis. It was Lee’s belief that Westerly boys paid off the referees. He had just learned, moreover, that his roommate for freshman year at Central State was going to be a Westerly person. He kept looking at this bunch, at their old “Last Dance” and wondering which of these dorks was going to live with him. He had read over their little quiz and seriously considered adding the question, “Which one of you will be Lee Hamilton’s roommate, and are you worthy of this honor?” but he knew Mr. Martin would kill him, which did not seem an auspicious way to begin his summer.

  “Yes, Mr. Martin?” he said.

  “Lee, go down to the swimming pool and tell those kids the pool is off limits for them tonight. They reserved the ballroom, the screened verandah, and the terrace and that’s that. The swimming pool is for overnight guests and anyway, we don’t have a lifeguard on tonight, so nobody can be down there. Keep those teenagers up here where they belong. That’s your job, Lee; don’t screw up.”

  Lee rather liked the idea of yelling at Westerly kids. He stomped down the gravel path and immediately recognized Gary Anthony, who had trounced him in every wrestling match they had ever had. Great, Lee thought. “Okay, everybody,” he said loudly, trying to sound like Authority, “the pool is off limits, and I’ve got to ask you to stay up on the terrace if you want to be outdoors.”

  The “everybody” he addressed did not even look his way.

  Lee raised his voice and repeated the order.

  The only thing that happened was that a girl in a very short purple dress asked him if he had been born on an ocean liner. Lee stared at her. She grinned right back, very flirty, and said, “Come on, now, cooperate, I want to win the VCR, don’t you? I don’t even recognize you! You must not be a junior, huh? Where’s your quiz? Have you gotten any answers yet?”

  Lee said, “I’m a waiter.”

  The girl laughed. “No, really, do you have any answers?”

  Lee said, “Just that you’re not supposed to be down at the pool. You want to help me round up all your friends and herd them toward the terrace?”

  The girl laughed again. She said, “No, really, tell me.”

  Lee hoped for the sake of Westerly High that this girl did not represent the typical I.Q. He walked around her and aimed for Gary. He figured if he could get Gary headed for the terrace, maybe he could get the rest of them.

  Molly was enraged.

  Her expertise was boys. She rarely winked at one who didn’t wink right back, and a smile from Molly always meant a smile from the boy. Who was this kid, anyway? Well, whoever he was, she didn’t like him. He was cute, too. Not very tall, which was too bad, because Molly preferred height in a boy, but very muscular. Like a wrestler. Of all the boys here, he was the one she would most like to see in bathing trunks.

  She thought briefly of shoving him in the pool. Being soaked would take away a little of his snobbery and reveal a little of his body, too. He’d have to peel off that jacket then, wouldn’t he?

  Beth Rose and Gary and Anne and Con were tiptoeing along the narrow stone strip between the geraniums and the deep end of the pool. Kip and Mike Robinson had taken off their shoes and were sitting on the edge, dangling their feet in the water. Two couples were dancing on the cemen
t, to the music from a radio one of them had brought. It was like a separate dance; the popular kids were having their own down there while the ordinary kids were up in the ballroom.

  Molly watched Con. Anne was in front of him, and his hand went to her waist, to guide or to caress, Molly could not tell.

  The purse thing had worked nicely. It took them fifteen minutes to find it, and Con didn’t believe Anne when she claimed she hadn’t put it there. Con was now making an effort to be nice to Anne: an effort which, if Molly knew Con, he could not keep up very long. Con liked things to go smoothly or not at all.

  I know how to handle Con! Molly thought. I deserve Con. He ought to be mine. It’s my waist his hand should be on!

  Anne turned slightly just as she got to the end of the geraniums and faced Con. She pursed her lips as if to kiss him, but Con didn’t lean forward to kiss Anne. He concentrated—or pretended to—on his balance.

  Balance? Molly Nelmes thought. Balance. Or lack of it?

  For the third time the unknown wrestler/waiter ordered everybody away from the pool.

  Molly slid between the two dancing couples and up behind Gary and Beth Rose, Kip and Mike, and Anne and Con.

  Chapter 4

  MATT SLOWED DOWN SLIGHTLY. He didn’t come this way often and he was afraid of missing the turn to Emily’s house. His heart was beating harder, and he was laughing at himself. “What are you, a knight in shining armor?” he teased himself. “You think M&M’s going to be standing in the driveway in her green dress with the silver knots, her arms held out, so you can sweep her away to safety?”

  It was exactly what he was thinking.

  He loved the whole idea.

  He and Emily had saved a life six months before and the afterglow of doing that had stayed with them both a long time. Now the idea of protecting Emily, of being the one she waited for to give her a better life, was another glow. Matt was grinning, alone in the car, happy about the whole idea.

  He adored Emily.

  Plus, he was slightly superstitious. They had met by such an accident—both of them showing up at a student convention neither of them much wanted to attend—both sitting down with a sigh where there happened to be empty seats. Then finding each other there, and never even knowing what the convention was about afterward: just talking, talking, talking, as if there would never be enough time to share all the thoughts they wanted to share. Matt truly loved Emily.

  He slowed down, squinting into the glare of the sunset, trying to read the street signs.

  Out of Maplewood shot a bright red Corvette. A beautiful, very expensive car. Normally Matt checked out cars very carefully, because he loved them, and his happiest days were when his latest car magazines arrived in the mail. But this time his eye happened to fall upon the driver and the passenger.

  At the same time the driver accelerated right into Matt’s path, he leaned over to kiss his girl.

  And the girl was Emily.

  The dark was soft and comfortable. Anne felt safe. If only the whole evening could stay like this: dusk, where you could still see each other, but not clearly. She didn’t want to go back to the strong harsh lights of the terrace, and she didn’t want to take her questionnaire and be forced to walk from person to person, grinning like an idiot and demanding to know who had been born on an ocean liner.

  The whole thing with the purse upset her.

  Con’s mouth had been tense with annoyance, but Anne couldn’t rest until she had that pocketbook back, and she couldn’t help it. She just hated it that life handed out these nothing little predicaments that proceeded to ruin the important things.

  And so when Con’s hand went around her waist, she loved it: she wanted it to happen again. That touch was a whisper of what had once been between them. And what could surely be again! The reality of the last several months faded. The softness of dusk made her romantic again.

  The pressure on her waist increased. She followed the pressure as if this were a dance and Con wanted to move in a different direction across the floor. But she was still on the pool edge, and she said nervously, “Con?”

  His hand gave her a tremendous shove.

  “Con!” Anne screamed. There was nothing to clutch but air. Anne catapulted right into the water.

  There wasn’t much time to think, but if she was going to get soaked, so was Con! Oh, that traitor, that manipulator! Letting her think in the dusk that they loved each other after all! That skunk! He couldn’t even come right out and say he didn’t want to be there with her! The coward! He had to knock her purposely into the pool! What had she done to deserve this? One misplaced purse? Well, she had had a baby! Did he think the last nine months had been exactly a bed of roses for her? How dare he? How—

  Anne’s fingers closed around his jacket.

  She yanked him right along with her. She heard him yelp, like a puppy, and then she hit the water. My hair! she thought, underwater. My dress! My makeup!

  Oh, she would kill him! Here he was in the water right next to her. Well, she would just drown him, since the location was so convenient. “Con,” she sputtered, coming up first, “Con Winters, you’re dead.”

  Lee Hamilton could not believe the girl was pulling him into the water with her. He tried to hang onto something, but there weren’t any handy rails or posts, and he went right over. What a way to celebrate his high school graduation: all these Westerly High kids would laugh at him, and then he’d lose his job, and then his parents would kill him, and….

  Lee took a deep breath full of chlorined water, choked, surfaced, spit water like a whale spouting—and the girl proceeded to try to drown him. Lee rarely opened his eyes underwater because the chlorine gave him eyeburn, but this was obviously not the time to be blind, so he glared at her underwater and tried to shake his fist. Underwater it was slow motion. Her yellow hair swirled around like a mermaid’s. Even underwater with a crazy person trying to drown him, he was struck with how beautiful the girl was.

  They came up together and he bellowed, “You tried to drown me!” and she yelled “I thought you were somebody else!” and Lee screamed, “What’s the matter with you, are you insane?” and the kids who were safe and dry up on the pool edge laughed like hyenas, which he might have expected anybody from Westerly to do, and she said, “Con pushed me in!”

  “I did not,” Con said, “I wasn’t even next to you. You fell in.”

  Oh, the treachery of him! Anne tread water. The boy she had pulled in with her swam away from her. Anne, furious, humiliated, and soaked, swam out to the middle of the pool and kept right on yelling at Con. “You cockroach!” she screamed. “All I’ve been through because of you, and the first thing you do is push me in the water! Conrad Winters, I hate you! You are the scum on the pond!”

  “There’s no scum in there,” Molly said gleefully. “In fact, you’re turning blue from the chlorine, Anne. Your hair is a weird color.”

  Lee swam to the edge of the pool to climb out. Gary, grinning, knelt in a puddle of water at the pool rim and was reaching out a hand to help Lee out. Lee took it gratefully. Anything was better than being in the same body of water with this crazy beauty queen. But Lee was to learn that this was not a reliable crowd. Gary, being Gary, didn’t pull Lee out, but let himself be pulled in instead. Gary’s full weight landed right on Lee and they both sank like stones in the water.

  Gary came up laughing, which was his style.

  Lee came up homicidal, which was a new one for him.

  The rest of the girls, screaming and giggling, ran back toward the bushes so they wouldn’t get shoved or yanked in.

  Beth Rose hated wet hair. When she got married, she would never wash her hair when her husband was home, because she didn’t want anybody to see what she looked like with wet hair. So far she had managed never to go swimming with Gary, just sit on the sand. She was certainly not going to start swimming with him at this dance either. Poor Anne, soaked like that. Of course, Anne still looked perfect. Beth Rose backed into the flower garden, wh
ere lovely teak benches sat in convenient corners. Not only would she be safely dry here, she would be forgotten. There were times when wallflower status was best of all.

  “I hate you, Con,” Anne said in a grim, teeth-gritting whisper.

  Con was trying not to laugh. “Now, Anne, let’s not get excited. You just lost your balance. Swim over, I’ll give you a hand up.” He knelt by the pool.

  “Better not,” advised all the boys. “She’s gonna drown you for sure, Con.”

  They laughed hysterically. The kids indoors, hearing gales of laughter from down at the pool, came pouring out of the ballroom and running down the path to join the fun.

  Mr. Martin ran after them, his stomach jiggling like a summer Santa, shouting, “No, no, no, no, no!” Dozens of teenagers converged around the pool, and two boys immediately kicked their shoes off, preparing to jump feet first on top of Lee and Gary. The three in the pool were treading water. Gary was laughing, Lee was trying to laugh, and Anne thought she might never laugh again.

  “I hope you realize I’ve just lost my job,” Lee said wearily.

  “I’m sorry,” Anne said. “I was trying to be sure that Con lost his life.” She still thought it would be nice if something long-term and painful happened to Con at that moment.

  “She isn’t usually like this,” Gary told Lee. Gary was having a fine time. He had been hot anyway, and now he was nice and cool. Not so good for his shoes, but there was a price to pleasure. “Anne’s usually a very nice person, Lee,” Gary explained. “I think she probably doesn’t care to go swimming in a dress, that’s all.”

  Several of the newest arrivals suggested the possibility of simply removing dresses all around.

  Molly said, “Gary, where did you buy those red pants from? The whole pool is turning red around you.”

  Gary floated, lifting each leg like scissors, sending little pink waves out over the pool.

  Mr. Martin barely managed to stay upright as he catapulted down the gravel path, stomach first. It really was time to go on a diet. Next week. Right now he needed strength to cope with the kids. The resort should have a policy of refusing admission to anyone older than fourteen and younger than twenty. Mr. Martin yelled, “Lee! You started this! You are finished I You are dead!”