Come Dancing (3 page)

The driver turned to look at us through the open partition.

“Where to?” Sammy asked.

“If you could drop us at Mott and Hester, that would be great.” I’d walk the few blocks home from Vicky’s.

“Mott and Hester, Rick.”

The driver maneuvered expertly through swerving cabs as we flew downtown.

“Do you two go dancin’ a lot?” Sammy drawled.

I glanced over; Jack was leaning forward, looking at me. I felt my face get hot.

Vicky smiled. “When I manage to drag Julia away from work.”

“Where do you do your woork?” Jack asked, drawing out the word.

“She’s an editor at a publishing house,” Vicky said.

“An assistant editor. Vicky’s in publishing too,” I added.

“Publicity. Not the brainy stuff,” Vicky said.

“So you’re a brainy gal,” Jack said to me.

“Only on days that end in ‘y’.” I managed to smile at him despite my butterflies. The driver stopped at Mott and I got out. The door on the other side opened and Jack emerged, trailed by Sammy.

“Thanks so much for the ride.” I waited for Vicky on the sidewalk.

“Hold on a tick,” Jack said in a low voice. He ambled over to me, stepping into the light from a storefront. His shirt was untucked and unbuttoned halfway to his waist, revealing a thin chain with a slash of lightning dangling from it. He ran his hand through his hair, making it stick out even more. “Why don’t I see you home? Make sure you get in safely.” He cocked his eyebrow and gave me a wolfish grin.

“Um, that’s okay. I’ll be fine.” I was way too nervous to bring Jack Kipling home with me, no matter how sexy he was.

Jack’s face took on a puzzled look. “But … “

If I waited any longer, I’d be tempted to take him up on it. “Thanks again!” I said brightly. I grabbed Vicky’s arm and drew her along, leaving them staring after us.

“Are you insane?” she asked as we rounded the corner. “You could be ripping off his clothes as we speak. And Sammy and I could be getting to know each other. In the Biblical sense.”

“If we’d gone for the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, do you think we’d have ever heard from them again?” I said as she groped in a pocket for her key. “We’d be just another notch on their guitar necks. Plus I haven’t shaved my legs in over a week.”

“So what? I hope you haven’t blown it.” She pushed the door open. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

I hurried down the block, swerving to avoid a man rummaging through a tipped-over garbage can. How bizarre to go out for a typical Friday night, and then meet not one but
two
members of the Floor. The four of them—Patrick, lead singer and bass player; Jack, guitarist and back-up vocals; Mark on drums; and Sammy, the lone American of the group, on keyboard—had started in Britain, and then exploded in the States. I’d pored over their album liner notes so many times, I knew them by heart. And it was amazing to have met Jack, who’d always been my favorite.

But that was in terms of their music. I’d read about the band’s excesses, particularly Jack’s; he was the epitome of the bad boy rock and roller. Even though at this very minute I could have been wrapping my fingers in that wild mane of hair, I knew I would have felt awful the morning after. Aside from my fling with Eric, I’d seen my mother mope around lots of times after sleeping with a guy and then never hearing from him again. Let’s just say I’d learned from her example.

Maybe I’m not really missing Art after all this time
, I thought as I clumped upstairs. I was probably just lonesome from the solitary weekends spent editing. But I wasn’t about to have a one-night stand with a rock star, no matter how much I liked his music. That would be the dumbest thing I could do.

Wrong Idea

“I just read in the paper about that rich New York bachelor who’s in real estate,” my mother announced when I picked up the phone the next morning. “Why couldn’t you go out with someone like that? He’s with a different girl every week.” Hearing the strike of a match, I pictured Dot, her hair dyed a brassy shade, lit cigarette in the ashtray at the Pennsylvania plumbing supply store where she worked.

“I don’t think he’d be interested in me, Mom. His taste runs to blonde bombshells.” I started to tell her I’d run into Jack Kipling, but I was too tired to answer a zillion questions about someone I’d never see again.

“Well, you have to get out more. You won’t meet anyone stuck in your apartment. Time goes by really quickly, believe me. When I was your age, I was married to your father, and you were three.”

I pictured myself walking into the office, dragging a screaming toddler attached to my leg. “I’m focusing on my career right now. Anyway, it’s hard to meet people here. Publishing isn’t exactly a hotbed of romance.”

“I don’t see how it can be that hard. New York is overrun with men. You’re going to be twenty-five next year, Julia. Around here there’s something wrong if you aren’t engaged by then.”

I twisted the phone cord around my finger. “It’s different in New York, Mom. Not everyone’s biggest goal in life is to get married.”

“You were dying to move up there, but I don’t see that it’s doing you much good. You could be spending weekends alone back here in Pikesville.”

“I’m not spending all weekend alone. I went to a club with Vicky last night,” I retorted.

“I still don’t get why you dance with girls. I think it sends the wrong signal.”

Our erotic grind would’ve given her heart failure
. “It’s not like that here. I can dance with whoever I want. People aren’t hung up over it like they are back home.” I heard cooing, and waved my hand to shoo a pigeon off my open windowsill.

“You’re not …
attracted
to Vicky, are you?”

I couldn’t resist. “Well … she
is
pretty cute. Those long legs of hers are kind of a turn-on.”

For a moment Dot was silent. “I was worried something like this would happen. I guess up there, anything goes. Now I’ll never have grandchildren,” she said glumly.

“But just think, you’ll never have to put up with a son-in-law who leaves his shavings in the sink.”

“What am I going to tell Paulette and Joan?” she wailed.

“Mom. I’m kidding. I still like guys. You don’t have to tell your friends anything.” I waved my arm again, and the pigeon flapped off.

“Well, that’s a relief. I mean, I’m pals with a bartender at Buck’s who swings the other way, but…”

“You can relax. No one of either gender has been beating down my door lately.”

“I’m going to have to pay you a visit soon,” she said, exhaling smoke. “Get you out of your rut.”

This proposed trip came up often, but I had mixed feelings about it. I knew she’d turn up her nose at my cramped living quarters, not to mention the way she tended to make loud comments about passersby.

“I’m really busy with work right now, but maybe later in the fall. My place is tiny, though; I don’t think you’d be comfortable,” I said.

“Oh, you know me. I can curl up and fall asleep anywhere.”

I certainly did. “What are you reading this week?” She kept up a steady stream of novels that she swapped with her friends.

“I just finished one of Joyce Sutter’s. This sea captain meets a young girl whose father owns a sheep farm. He doesn’t want her seeing the captain, but one day she goes for a ride on his big stallion …”

My mind wandered as she described the plot.

“… then in the end they get married on the poop deck,” she concluded. “I’ll have to loan it to Paulette; her husband was in the Marines.”

“That sounds like a good one. Have you had any interesting customers lately?” My eye fell on the piles of paper spread across my futon, awaiting my marking pen.

“There’s a guy who’s doing the plumbing for a mall in Uniontown. Turns out he was an engineer at Bethlehem Steel before he got laid off …”

My mother could strike up a conversation with anyone, and lack of knowledge about a topic never held her back. She was the least self-conscious person I’d ever met, which had mortified me as a teenager. I often thought I must have inherited my entire persona from my father. But when I tried to recall specifics, his memory seemed to fade faster the harder I tried to hold onto it.

“I bet you sold him more stuff than he even needed. Well, I guess I’d better get back to this manuscript.”

“All right, Julia. Talk to you tomorrow.”

I tried to call my mother several times a week since I knew she got lonely at night. She wasn’t drinking as much as she used to, but she still tended to have a few too many. She liked to sit on a stool nursing her rum, chatting up anyone within earshot. Buck’s Bar & Grill had been her hangout ever since my Dad moved out when I was in ninth grade.

As a teenager I’d saved what I could from my after-school job bagging groceries; my only splurge was those contact lenses right before I left for college. To my relief, I got a scholarship to a small in-state school and a job in the campus cafeteria. It was a delicious freedom to live where no one knew my mother, or that I’d been a four-eyed bookworm who never had a date in high school. I made good friends in my dorm and picked up some culture from my French professor, who took me under her wing and taught me which fork to use. I also managed to lose my virginity to a sweet guy who worked with me in the cafeteria. By that point I was just relieved to get it over with, even though no bells had gone off. I’d been so put off by Dot’s flopping around with various and sundry, I’d come to dread the whole process.

Then in my senior year, at the urging of my English advisor, I applied to grad school and got a full ride at NYU. The month before moving to Manhattan sight-unseen, in my anxiety I ran so many miles I got shin splints. I mused over out-of-date issues of the one NYC magazine our tiny library carried, absorbing the ads and articles. I didn’t understand half of it, but I couldn’t wait to start my brand new life.

I took a Greyhound to the city in August, my belongings crammed into a used duffel from the Army-Navy store. Seeing the sooty skyline across the Hudson for the first time, I’d had a moment of panic. I didn’t know a soul in this intimidating place—what was I doing here?

Wide-eyed, I got out at Port Authority and took the wrong express train, winding up at 125th Street. A sympathetic woman walked me over to the downtown side. After asking six strangers for directions, I finally found my dorm and collapsed on the single bed. Once I’d caught my breath, I waded into the moving-in chaos to meet my hall mates.

I had thought I’d go for a Ph.D., but when I learned about publishing, my plans changed. I knew the entry level was low-paying, but working with novelists and Pulitzer winners seemed much more exciting than academia.

My mother didn’t understand why I wanted to live in one of the most dangerous cities in the world. She’d thought I was going to teach English in our local high school after college. At times, when it hit me how slim my chances were for moving up at work, I worried about winding up back there. I was terrified of proving her right by flunking out of my budding career; New York could rip you open like a wind-blasted flower.

But anything would be better than moving back to Pikesville. That seemed like being buried alive. The thought of returning with my tail between my legs sent ice water through my veins. Back home, I would have been teaching participles to bored high school seniors who’d rather be scoring touchdowns, or pot. Braving the cockroaches and graffitied subways won, hands-down.

Stormy Monday

Vicky called me Sunday afternoon. I was standing in front of my open fridge, trying to get some relief from the sweltering heat. “I still can’t believe you didn’t let Jack come home with you,” she said. “Just think, right now you could be licking whipped cream off every inch of his body.”

I laughed. “Right now I could be wondering if I caught VD. And wishing he’d stayed in bed at least fifteen minutes before he dashed out to his next conquest.”

“But Jules, you have to admit, he’s the coolest… I mean, what a sexy guy. And you’re so into their music … Anyway, you’re going to be a little mad at me.”

“Why, did you give them my number? That’s fine with me.” I waved the fridge door back and forth, rattling an empty catsup container.

“No, but I might have mentioned your address. And Sammy has my number.”

“I imagine they’ve already forgotten about us. So I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for Sammy-boy to call.” I gave up and shut the door, unwilling to melt my one stick of butter.

“Well guess what, he just did. He asked me out for a drink with him next week. He said you could come too, so maybe Jack will show up. Oh, and by the way, Sammy said you’re the first woman who’s ever—he emphasized
ever
—turned Jack down. So maybe you really did make an impression on him. All this is great timing; I’ve been in a slump lately.”

For Vicky, a slump was six days without a date. “Don’t worry, I won’t barge in on your big night out. I do think it kind of intrigued them that we didn’t fall all over them.”

“You could be right. Why don’t you come with me, though? Maybe Jack will be there.”

“That’s okay.” It would be humiliating to tag along hoping Jack would show, and then sit around like a third wheel while Vicky and Sammy flirted.

“All right. But let me know if you change your mind.”

After we hung up, I thought of what Sammy said. It would be amazing if Jack got in touch—but what were the chances of that? I plopped down on the couch and peeled up my tank top to wipe my sweating face. Maybe I should have let him come home with me. But if he’d accompanied me to my lumpy futon, wouldn’t there be a horrible letdown when I never saw him again?

With an effort, I forced myself to stop thinking about Jack Kipling and focus on the manuscript I’d brought home. This one was by Timothy Collins, a novelist Harvey had signed up. I hoped that if I worked on enough of my boss’s projects, he’d eventually let me acquire some books and I’d get what I dreamed of: being an editor instead of an assistant, and having my own stable of bestselling authors.