Could I Have This Dance? (3 page)

That and everything else,
Claire thought. She couldn’t articulate the rising restlessness she’d been feeling. It was deeper than a desire to get her surgery training under way. It was more than wanting to put the stigma of being a student doctor behind her. John was right. She wanted to erase from her memory the feeling of being the town drunk’s daughter. She had wanted her graduation to feel like a victory. Instead, it felt like an old scab, picked open and oozing fresh pain.

She nodded slowly. “It feels smaller than I thought it would. For years, I wanted to show everyone in Stoney Creek that I could do what they thought was impossible.”

“You did, Claire. You’re a doctor!”

How could she tell him what she felt? She bit her lower lip and twisted her hopelessly tangled hair.

Here, on the pinnacle of her medical school education, she felt curiously defeated. The air rushed from the balloon, just as children come to realize that all those foot races with Father were won because he
let
them win, not because they were so fast after all. Here she was, a child again, with a medical diploma in her hand, feeling cheated of the elation she thought she’d earned. The degree meant a lot when it was obtained by others. For Claire, she couldn’t suppress the nagging feeling that they’d let her win. Someone somehow had turned the tables on her emotions. Instead of celebration, she felt mired again by the inescapable anchor of her smalltown identity as the daughter of Wally McCall.

She forced a smile, hoping her emotions would obey and follow.

John pulled to a stop in front of her apartment. “Want some help?”

“I just have a few things to pack yet.” She lifted the neck of her graduation gown. “It
would
have to be ninety degrees today.”

John nodded and leaned forward. Claire accepted his kiss as a perfunctory good-bye.

“Why don’t you bring some Chinese takeout later?” she offered. “I’ve packed away all my kitchen stuff.”

He smiled. “Sure. Our regular?”

General Tso’s chicken. Extra spicy. Small side of shrimp lo mein. Two egg rolls with hot mustard. “You know me.”

She watched him go, the Mustang convertible disappearing behind the corner Exxon.

She turned alone, diploma in hand, and trudged up the cracked sidewalk to her front door.

An hour later, Claire sat in the middle of the small living room struggling to fit her blow-dryer into an already full box. She pulled out the last three items, a small jewelry box, an anatomy textbook, and a photo album, and restacked them for the fourth time, creating an opening just large enough for … a hairbrush, but not the blow-dryer. “Ugh,” she gasped, lifting the blow-dryer by the cord. She stomped across the room and dangled the appliance over the open trash bag, which overflowed with the last few items she hadn’t been able to fit into the box.
I’m going to cut these curls soon anyway. Surgery residents don’t have time for this sort of vanity.
With the blow-dryer hanging precariously by its cord, Claire touched her thick blond hair and sighed. She paused, then grabbed a pillow that leaned against a box of dishes. She shoved the blow-dryer into the pillowcase against the soft foam.
There. Never know. I might chicken out about the haircut.

The front door opened after a quick knock. John appeared, arms laden with Chinese takeout and a small bouquet of cut spring flowers. He smiled. “Congratulations, Doctor.”

Claire smiled and planted a kiss on John’s mouth.

“Hey, let me put these down first,” he responded, putting the large white paper bag onto the kitchen counter. Then he gathered her into his arms.

There, for the first time in days, she felt herself begin to relax. He kissed her slowly, luxuriously, before pulling back. He met her eyes before asking, “Hungry?”

“Starved.” She felt him edging away, and she tightened her grip around his waist. “Just give me a minute, Cerelli. I haven’t felt this good in weeks.”

He smiled, and lowered his lips to hers. She kissed him again, then buried her face in his shirt, inhaling his cologne.
I’m going to miss this man.

After a minute, she released him and opened the bag of food. As she lifted out the containers, the wonderful aroma made her mouth water.

“Where’d you get all this stuff?” John asked, looking at the boxes. “You had all this hidden in here?”

“Four years of medical school accumulation.” She shrugged. “You should have seen the stuff I threw out.”

He pointed at a poster leaning against the kitchen trash can. “What’s that?”

“Old undergrad genetics project on blood types and inheritance. I did all the blood-typing myself in the biochemistry lab.” She picked up the poster. “See? Here’s my father,” she added, pointing at the upper left. “He’s blood type B negative. Here’s my mom. She’s O negative.” She moved her arm down to the next line. “My sister Margo—B negative, just like Dad.” She looked at John. “What type are you?”

“Beats me. I’ve never been checked.”

“Come on. Haven’t you ever donated? They give you a card with your blood type.”

“Not me. I hate needles. You know that.”

She nodded. “Well, let’s just say you’re type A. That means you have either two A genes or an A gene and a second gene that doesn’t code for any blood type. If you have type A and I have type O, our kids could be—”

“Kids? Did you say ‘our kids’?”

“Stop interrupting. I’m trying to teach you something.”

“Our kid? You mean John Jr.? Or how about Clyde? I’ve always wanted a Clyde.”

“Ugh! Okay, Clyde. Little Clyde, could be Type A or Type O.”

John studied the poster. “What about Clay? I don’t see his name anywhere.”

“He was too chicken. He wouldn’t let me draw his blood.”

“Can’t say I blame him.”

“You’re chicken too.”

John yawned. “Okay, Doctor. Am I going to have to listen to you talk about medicine all my life?”

She picked up a fortune cookie. “Yes.”

“Let’s eat,” he whined. “And no talking about blood or guts while we eat.

“Get used to it.” She giggled. “Blood and guts are my life.”

John laughed and busied himself with setting out two paper plates and serving portions of General Tso’s chicken and shrimp lo mein. They ate, talking about anything, everything.

Anything except their upcoming separation. But the subject remained, unspoken, a smoldering threat, like thunderclouds on the horizon.

John Cerelli had whisked her into happiness during her first year of medical school. She was introduced to him by a friend at the Baptist Student Union. He was from a stable family in Charlottesville. The oldest of three boys, he was an athlete, a warm communicator, and a Christian. He worked for a small software company that sold patient record-keeping software to physician’s offices. She was driven, glad to be free from her family, but without an anchor in the high seas of graduate medical education. Soon, perhaps too soon, she found the stability she craved, the security that was lacking in her own family, in John.

Now, Claire found herself on the brink of an adventure that would carry her to her goal: a career in surgery. Why did she need to move so far away to pursue that career? That question had dominated many of their conversations. Claire was aiming high. The program at Lafayette offered prestige, cutting-edge research, and an opportunity to train with authorities recognized worldwide. It was a program that, if she survived it, would open any door in any surgical field she wanted.

John accused her of running from home.

Claire blamed it on the match—a computer program that places medical students in the proper internships based on program rankings chosen by the students and student rankings chosen by the programs. The computer matched her in Boston—which sounded to Claire as if it must be the Lord’s will.

John insisted that she should have listed only programs closer to home. He argued that she could find good surgical training outside the academic ivory tower she had chosen.

But to Claire, this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

John wanted to be near her all the time.

That’s what hurt the most.

Finally, after they had talked all around it for an hour, John broached the subject. Leave it to John to try to change her mind one last time. “Couldn’t you stay a few extra weeks? You don’t have to be on the job until July first. We could spend a few days on the shore.”

Claire rubbed the back of her neck, unwilling to simply articulate the same arguments again. Instead, with her eyes boring in on his, she began to hum. Softly at first, then louder, as John pushed back from the table, she hummed the theme from
Chariots of Fire,
drowning out John’s sigh.

“Come on, Claire, answer the question. I’m serious. I could take a few days off next week.”

She stopped humming long enough to ask, “Remember Eric Liddell?”

He rolled his eyes. Of course he remembered Eric Liddell. Claire knew that John’s favorite movie of all time was
Chariots of Fire.
Over the course of their relationship, they’d watched it no less than six times together.

“Remember his passion, his motivation?” Claire stood and resumed the theme song, directing a symphony with her arms and pacing around the boxes in her small apartment.

“What’s this got to do with us? With you leaving for Massachusetts?”

She shook her head, refusing to answer directly. “Liddell left his sister and the mission they had started. Why? Just to train for the Olympics? For glory?”

“Come on, Claire. Liddell
needed
to run. It was personal. Spiritual.”

Claire tried to imitate Liddell’s accent. “When I run I, feel his pleasure.” She studied her fiancé. His lips were pursed, his brow wrinkled. He wasn’t getting it.

She went on. “That’s how it is with me and surgery. Whenever the residents let me participate in a case, throw a stitch, use the scissors or the knife—that’s when I feel God’s pleasure in me … when I’m operating.”

John’s expression was blank. Perhaps he had never felt something so deep. Maybe he would never get it. For Claire, it
was
personal. It
was
spiritual. Surgery felt more like a calling than anything else she’d known.

John sighed.

“I just want to be ready,” Claire said. “I feel like I’m moving to a new level. I’ve been called up to the big leagues, and I’m up to bat, John. I’m facing Greg Maddux and he’s about to throw me his best stuff. I don’t want to strike out.”

“You
are
ready, Claire. You’ve done nothing but study for four years.”

“John, I can’t lounge at the beach right now. I want to get settled in and find my way around.” She started clearing the paper plates. “You could come and visit me. Spend a few days checking out the history around Lafayette.”

He nodded slowly. “So that’s it. End of discussion. Straight to Lafayette. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.” “Right.”

He lowered his voice. “What about Stoney Creek? Your mother wanted you to come home.”

Claire clenched her teeth. Not after today. Not after how her father had been at graduation. When she hesitated, John spoke again.

“Your father looks like a sick man, Claire. He was so restless during the ceremony today that I thought he might fall off the bench.”

“He was drunk, John. He embarrassed me.”

“No one knew he was your father.”

“Good thing, too.”

John put his foot into the overflowing trash can, smashing the contents together. “What if your mother’s right? What if it’s more than alcohol?”

“My mom’s in denial. My father’s an alcoholic.”

“What about your grandmother? You should apologize. And what about Margo? You should see her.”

Claire paused, leaned over the kitchen sink, and stared out the window into the gathering darkness. “What is it, John? Why the sudden interest in me going back home?”

John put his hands on her shoulders and placed his lips against the back of her neck. “I don’t want to lose you, Claire. I want you to stay connected to Virginia, to Brighton, to Stoney Creek. Don’t forget your home, Claire.”

She let her shoulders sag. John always did this to her. He knew just how to probe the recesses of her heart, to pierce the protective shield she wanted so desperately to keep intact. She thought about her home, her family, and the events of the afternoon. She knew John was right. But after today’s fiasco, she didn’t want to see her father regardless. “I spoke too harshly to my grandma. I’ll write an apology.”

“Go back and talk to her in person. It’s not that much of a detour. I can go with you. I’d like to get to know your family better. Your grandmother seems like a character.”

A smile escaped her lips. “She is. She’s a bright spot in Stoney Creek, that’s for sure.” She felt John’s hands withdraw, and she turned to see him opening up another fortune cookie, his third.

“What was she talking about—the Stoney Creek curse?”

Claire smirked. “Grandma takes old legends too seriously.”

“Well, she believes what she was telling you—she had fire in her eyes.” He pointed at Claire and raised his voice to a high-pitched screech. “‘I just hope your generation is spared!’” He chuckled. “What’d she call your father? A marked man?”

Claire waved her hand dismissively. “Who knows? Grandma’s been in Stoney Creek all her life. I think it’s finally getting to her.”

“Tell me the legend.”

Claire sighed, then reluctantly began. “It’s about a Pentecostal evangelist who got riled up and led a group of men up to an old moonshine hideout and smashed a still owned by two brothers. One brother, Gregory Morris, had come to the Pentecostal camp meeting and got religion—or at least, he got Eleazor Potts’ version of it. Mr. Morris confessed his sins with a multitude of tears and told the preacher about the secret still.” She sat down opposite John, who was quietly stroking his chin.

“The story goes,” Claire continued, “Gregory’s brother Harold knew nothing of Gregory’s new religion, or his betrayal of the still’s location. The next night, after the revival meeting, the self-proclaimed prophet Eleazor Potts led a band of fervent followers up the hollow and into the mountains, where they smashed the devil’s still and righteously pronounced a curse on anyone drinking from the still should it ever be built again.”