Dancing With Velvet (3 page)

****

The young man came across the dance floor holding out his hand, but she couldn’t quite see his face. “May I have this dance?”

He moved with the grace of a willow tree blowing in the breeze, holding her at arms’ length as they danced and yet with an intimacy that both thrilled and frightened her. “You look like a princess,” he said.

“I am a princess in my blue velvet dress. I am a queen.”

“And I am a prince. I’ll take you away with me.”

“Are you really a prince?”

“I really am.”

“Then at midnight I’ll have to go, or everything will turn back the way it was.”

“Not if you go with me.”

“If I go with you?”

“Don’t you want to?”

“Yes, I want to. I want very much to go.”

He took her arm and led her toward an alcove hung with blue velvet like her dress. “If we go through that door, you’ll be safe.” He didn’t say safe from what.

Somewhere a clock began to strike the hour. “Hurry.”

Her feet, heavy like lead, refused to move.

“Hurry,” he said again.

She tried to move and couldn’t. When the last chime sounded, she stood alone, the blue velvet curtains billowing in front of her. And when she looked down, she was wearing her grey wool skirt and matching sweater, with her saddle shoes.

“My dress!” she called out, her voice echoing eerily in the fading light. “My blue velvet dress!”

****

Celeste woke with a start, yearning to be held and loved, aching with desire for even more than that, though she couldn’t put it into words. She’d never felt this way when she was with Pete or any other boy in her class. Sometimes a movie or a romance novel could stir vague feelings of longing, but not like these she struggled with now. They consumed her whole body, leaving her confused and ashamed. Without thinking, she stretched her arms into the darkness, wanting to embrace something. The words “warm flesh” came to mind, the same words that had made her return a library book unfinished because of its disquieting effect on her emotions.

You’re fourteen, Cece. You’re growing up
, Coralee said that summer day as they sat on the corral fence watching Ben break a new cutting horse.
You’re going to have lots of new thoughts and feelings, but remember—there’s nothing wrong with them. Just do what you know is right, even if someone else tries to change your mind.

Celeste had kept waiting for those feelings, but they’d only surfaced in the last year or so. And, somehow, she questioned Coralee’s explanation that there was nothing wrong with them.

Chapter Two

Celeste put the ledgers into the safe and closed it, spun the dial twice, then checked the handle.

“Think they’re going to run away over Sunday?” Mr. Thomas asked with a wink.

“No, sir, but you did say to make sure they were locked up before I left.”

“Mostly for fire,” he said. “Nobody’s going to steal them.”

“No, sir.”

“Well, have a nice weekend, Miss Riley. Got any plans?”

“Just the usual.”

The older man chuckled. “The usual. Washing out a few things.”

Celeste blushed.

“I beg your pardon if I embarrassed you, Miss Riley. I had three daughters, so I got used to frilly little things hanging all over the place. I used to tease my girls about embarrassing me.”

She couldn’t stifle the giggle that rose in her throat. “No, sir, that’s all right.”

He held the door for her. “See you on Monday.”

She waved to the girls still working the counters before she stepped through the door onto the sidewalk. Saturday afternoons were busy in town because of all the folks coming in from the surrounding farming communities and ranches. She felt at loose ends, not wanting to go home to what she knew was waiting for her there, but what else was there to do?

She found herself walking toward Cox-Rushing-Greer instead of the bus stop. From the store window, the blue velvet dress beckoned her, offering no respite, no refusal. She pressed her nose against the glass, trying to drink in every detail of the garment. For a moment, she had a fleeting feeling of being able to reach out and touch something from the past. Then it was gone.

“You look like a princess.”

“I am a queen in my blue velvet dress.”

Celeste squeezed her eyes shut as if to dispel her dream thoughts. When she opened them again, the same saleslady who had persuaded her to try on the dress waved through the window, motioning her to come in. Against her better judgment, but with a burgeoning feeling of anticipation, Celeste pushed open the glass door.

“It’s still the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen in my whole life, and I still can’t afford it.” She spoke the apology with a wistful sigh.

“It’s a lot of money, I’ll agree, but you looked wonderful in it. Sure you don’t want to put it on layaway?”

“I have some things there already.”

“Uh-huh, well, I understand.”

Celeste hesitated before moving to where the dress was on display inside the store. After a moment, as she touched the skirt with the tip of one finger, something stirred in her again. She tried to examine the thought, but it eluded her. She shook herself mentally.

“If I can figure out a way to do it, I’ll be back,” she said as she edged toward the door. “But don’t hold your breath.”

Waiting for the bus at the next corner, she was startled to hear, “Well, well, the apple lady.”

She looked up, then back at the sidewalk. “I’m so sorry. I hope you weren’t hurt.”

“I’m damaged for life since I looked up and saw you.”

She felt the color creeping into her face.

“Ah, she blushes like the apple—or maybe a rose. A rose is better.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“For blushing? Don’t be. I think it’s nice. Where are you headed?”

“Home.”

“I guess it wouldn’t be proper to ask you…”

The bus squealed to a stop, and Celeste jumped on, hoping he wouldn’t follow her. When he didn’t, she breathed a sigh of relief and dropped into the nearest seat and leaned her head against the window. The boy—no, he was a young man—was flirting with her. She didn’t know how to flirt and didn’t want to learn. But she had to admit, from the safety of the bus leaving him behind, that she liked it.

She turned her thoughts back to the dress. Fifty dollars! It was insane to even consider it when she made $22.50 a week. Besides, where would she wear it? It didn’t matter what she dreamed. Her prince wouldn’t be at the St. Angelus Hotel Roof Garden, not in a million years.

****

She washed her lingerie in the bathroom sink and hung it discreetly on a line in the back yard, hidden from view by the boxwoods that made a thick privacy fence between the house and the street. Inside, she ran the carpet sweeper in every room except her father’s where, she assumed, he was still sleeping—or drinking—or maybe a little of both, and dusted the unused living room. On her hands and knees, she scrubbed the cracked kitchen linoleum that needed replacing. The one time she’d suggested it, her father flew into a rage and yelled he wasn’t made of money. After that, when mopping didn’t get the dirt out of the cracks, she took to scrubbing the floor by hand.

The princess in the story Coralee used to read to me scrubbed floors and stairs on her hands and knees and met her prince anyway—or maybe because of her hard work. She earned the right to her happily-ever-after. Maybe I will, too.

In her own room, the one she’d shared so happily with Coralee, she cleaned and straightened her dressing table, wiping her mother’s picture with a piece of old dishtowel and then followed up with the collection of leprechauns Coralee had rescued from the mantel after their father’s angry outburst about Celeste moving to the ranch. They’d been a set of twelve, but he’d smashed one beyond repair. The other, broken in three pieces, was still missing the end of its pointed cap, but Celeste had glued the rest of it back together.

She spread a fresh dresser scarf and returned the picture and the figurines to their accustomed place.
I wonder why Mamma liked these little things. I keep them around because they were hers, but they’re really kind of ugly, especially the one with the long beard and the frown on his face. Did she believe in the luck of the Irish? Did she believe in fairy tales? Was Daddy her prince?

Later Celeste made a meatloaf and boiled some potatoes to mash in case her father decided he wanted supper. His door remained closed, so she ate alone in the kitchen. The telephone rang while she was rinsing her plate. It was Marilyn, inviting her to a movie.

“
Gaslight
is playing at the Royal. It’s Ingrid Bergman.”

“We’ve seen it, haven’t we? Wasn’t that the one where somebody was trying to drive her crazy?”

“Yeah, but it’s been awhile, and I’m bored. My parents are out of town, and I don’t like staying by myself. After the movie, you could come back with me and spend the night.”

Celeste heard her father stirring. “I might do that, Marilyn, but I have to get up in time for church.”

“I know. My parents would kill me if I missed mass, so we’ll get up.”

“All right. When does the movie start?”

“Seven-fifteen. Plenty of time.”

“I’ll meet you there at seven.” Celeste started for her room.

“Celeste!”

She stopped but didn’t turn around. “What is it, Daddy?”

“You fix any supper?”

“There’s meatloaf and mashed potatoes in the warming oven.”

When he lurched toward the kitchen, she wondered again how he managed to be sober enough to go to work every Monday.

“Put everything in the icebox when you’re finished, please. I’m going to meet Marilyn at the movies and spend the night with her.”

“This place not good enough for your friends?”

“She invited me, Daddy.”

“Always going some place, aren’t you?”

“Just to work.”

“You meeting some boy?”

“No, Daddy, I told you. I’m meeting Marilyn from work.”

“Staying out all night!”

“At her house.”

He muttered something under his breath, then loosed a stream of profanity she’d heard before but which always made her feel dirty and slightly sick. “You stay home tonight,” he finished.

“No, Daddy, I’m nineteen. I can do what I want to.”

“Not and live in this house.”

“I take care of the house for you.”

“You go out tonight, I don’t want you back.”

She walked on into her room and closed the door. He wouldn’t remember what he’d said, of course, but the point was, he’d said it. She didn’t know why it still hurt after so long. She could barely remember when he’d spoken kindly to her, taken her in his lap and pretended to make a mustache for himself out of one of her braids. All of that stopped when Mamma died. Thank goodness she’d had Coralee.

She had her pajamas and Sunday clothes packed in a small bag and was on her way out when the telephone rang.

“What are you doing tonight, Cece?” Coralee’s cheery voice made Celeste ache to see her.

“You just called last night. Is anything wrong?”

“No, I was just thinking about you.”

“I’m going to meet Marilyn at the movies and spend the night with her.”

“Oh, good. I worry about you being there by yourself on weekends.”

“Why?”

“It’s not good for you, being alone so much.”

“I’m all right, Sister.”

“Did you think anymore about that dress?”

“I went back to look at it, but it’s ridiculous to spend so much money on something I don’t have any use for.”

“You never know.”

“Sister, when I was looking at it today, I got the oddest feeling, like I’d seen it before or something.”

“We had matching blue velvet dresses when you were about three and I was ten, but I guess you don’t remember.”

“No. Did Mamma make them?”

“She bought them downtown. At Fine’s, I think.”

“Where did we wear them?”

“To a Christmas party at the bank. Daddy took all of us.”

“Oh.”

“He said we were the prettiest girls there.”

“He did?”

“Then he took us for hot chocolate at a little café across the street. It’s not there anymore, but I remember the wife of the man who ran it happened to be making pies when we came in, and she fried some crust for us. You loved it. Got cinnamon and sugar all over your face. Mamma had to wet the corner of a napkin in her water glass to clean you up.”

“I guess we had a really good time.”

Coralee sighed. “It was one of the last ones, too. Mamma got sick right after that.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Well, you were only three.”

“Coralee, why did Mamma like that set of leprechauns?”

“I don’t know. I remember when she bought them at Woolworth, though.”

“She bought them at Woolworth? I’ve never seen them there.”

“That was a long time ago, Cece. You weren’t even born yet.”

“But she liked them.”

“Well, she bought them. Listen, you go on to your movie, and have a good time, you hear?”

“Thanks, Sister, I will.”

“Love you, Cece.”

“Love you, too.”

****

She’d just paid for her ticket when she heard, “It must be fate.”

“Are you following me?” She lifted her chin and made herself look at him. She knew, when her heart turned over, it was the wrong thing to do.

“Nope, just lonesome on a Saturday night and decided to take in a movie. Are you by yourself?”

“My friend is meeting me.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Is there room for one more?”

Celeste dropped her eyes. “I don’t think so. Excuse me.”

She shared a box of popcorn with Marilyn, and they sat through the previews a second time before they left the theatre. The young man was nowhere in sight. She wondered if she’d hurt his feelings and made him leave without seeing the movie, but it did seem like he was trying to pick her up. On the way to Marilyn’s house, they passed Cox-Rushing-Greer.

“I tried on that dress,” Celeste said, stopping in front of the window with the blue velvet dress.

“I’ll bet you were a knockout in it. You’re really pretty, Cece, but you still dress like you were in school. My father says I should dress professionally even if I do only work a counter at Woolworth.”